Focused - 167: 2022 Year in Review

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

David & Mike reflect on the last year and share what went well, what could have gone better, and their lessons learned.

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How about you? You know, it always feels good being towards the end of the year. I don't know. You get to see family a lot, exchange some gifts, tell some people you love them. It's all good stuff.

But it also makes me a little reminiscent about the past year. And I thought it'd be a good time for us to talk about the last year and the changes and our focus journey in the last year. So we're looking back this week. Absolutely. This is always fun. I like doing this. I do it on a quarterly basis as well, but I like thinking back throughout the entire year. I think there's value in a quarterly basis as well, but I like thinking back throughout the entire year. I think there's value in that larger timeframe as well. Before we get there, one last call for the 2023 focused New Year calendar. Speaking of the year timeframe, this is the calendar. This is really the single thing that we make for the show.

So it's a great way to support the podcast. You can also sign up for the Deep Focus. For members only, that's the ad-free extended versions of the show as well, where we go down the rabbit hole. Today, I think we might be talking about something Obsidian-related. So if you want access to that, you can click on the link in the show notes. But the calendar is, we've talked about it a lot. It's the new year calendar dry erase. We both got one hanging on our walls. My 2023 one is supposed to be delivered today. And it's just a great product. I bought it for several years before we made one and really happy with this. So if you want

something to help you plan for next year, or if you want to be able to look back at it, like I did when I was preparing for this episode, I used my New Year calendar to look back at a lot of the significant things that had happened because they're all on that calendar. You can get one. And this will be the last time I think we mentioned it on the podcast, but they'll continue to be for sale.

You don't have to get it before the podcast, but they'll continue to be for sale. You know, you don't have to get it before the, before the beginning of 2023, although it's kind of the perfect timing for it. So, yeah, I mean, it really is a great product that has evolved over the years. Mike has done more work on it than I have, but I have benefited from it. Like one of the nice things is you've got the little like habit tracking dots on it where you can attach specific habits to it. And I didn't do that most of the year, but I've hung it now with the new studio in a way I can easily access it. I used to have it higher on the wall.

And lately I've been just tracking my daily shutdown and planning and my comms review. The trouble with email for me is if I let two or three days go and I don't check it, which as weird as that sounds, I do that sometimes. And so I'm fixing those habits with the little dots on it. I love it. My new one is here. I just brought it in yesterday to the FedEx place and they're putting it on foam for me. I'll be picking it up later today. And I'm at that weird point where I kind of want to just hang next year's calendar, but I still have a few days left with the old one and I don't know what I'm

going to do. What a crisis, what a crisis. We heard from some people that have really been successful with these calendars. I heard from one listener who wrote a book using the calendar and she tracked all the book progress with it. It's a beautiful picture of this calendar and how it led to her creating something. There's just a lot of

people using these calendars in great ways and I'd recommend you get one yourself. Absolutely. Another brilliant hack for the calendar that I saw in the forum was someone had taken the calendar and put it on their closet doors, which are these bifold doors. So typically these are like four panels and they open from the middle and they fold in half, right? So if you just put a calendar over the fold, that wouldn't necessarily work. So what they did is they cut the calendar right down the middle because it's two big columns if you do the portrait orientation. And the halves of the calendar are almost the exact size of the panels for the bifold doors. So when the closet is closed, it looks like a single calendar, but being cut down the middle, that allows the doors to open. And I thought that was pretty brilliant. Yeah. Ned, you get yours mounted too, right?

Yep. I put mine on foam core just like you and it's hanging off to the side right behind me as we record. Do you do portrait or landscape? I do portrait. That's just the way I grew up using it, I guess. That's ingrained in my brain. I like the landscape view, but because it's shaded for the quarters, I feel it's a little bit more aesthetically pleasing with the two columns instead of the three. Well, either way, you can get yours too. We've got a link in the show notes. Please go check it out. It does help support us, and it does give you some help as you're working your way through the year. So we're very proud of the product, and we'd love you to go check it out. working your way through the year. So we're very proud of the product and we'd love you to go check it out. Absolutely. So let's jump in and look back at 2022. How did we do? Yeah, that's the question,

right? You know, and this isn't a how did we do in terms of what did what boxes did we check off? I really think of it more in the how did I do in terms of staying focused and intentional through the year. I continue to believe that's the goal. Like if I can do that, then the other stuff takes care of itself. And this past year for both of us was quite exciting. To say the least, yeah. So you want me to go first as we kind of just talk through what happened in 2022? Maybe some of the things that we learned along the way?

Yeah, sure. Why don't you go first? Okay. Well, the big thing for me this year was a job transition that happened right at the beginning of the year. beginning of the year. Previously, I had been full-time with the Blanc Media team and felt like it was time to pursue a new challenge, which was definitely a challenge. I accepted a director of operations role at a local digital marketing agency, which has been a lot of fun. I've learned a lot through this process, but I've also had to do a bunch of things that I have never done before.

And I was a little bit hesitant about that. It was actually the support from my mastermind group, a couple individuals who, yourself included, told me, you know what, you can do this because I was nervous about never actually fulfilling this role before. But that vote of confidence was what I needed to make the leap. Since I took that new job, I've continued to do the side creative pursuits like this podcast. And that's been good. It's been fun to compartmentalize things that way. I shared with you prior to the year that I kind of had this moment of revelation as I was reading through an essay by Derek Sivers about allowing the job to be the job and the art to make the art. And there's a lot to

be said for the people who, like yourself, you made a transition and went all in with Max Sparky. And I'm happy for you, but I realized that that wasn't the path for me. I tried to do that a couple different times, and I realized that I didn't really want the pressure to make the art be the thing that was sustaining my lifestyle. make the art be the thing that was sustaining my lifestyle. And that's not to say that that's wrong, but it just wasn't the thing for me, at least not for that season in my life. So by disconnecting the creative stuff from the day job stuff, I found that I was able to let the art be the art and there wasn't the pressure to make it pay the bills.

And that kind of changed my relationship with it. It made some of the things that I did, honestly, more fun. It relieved the pressure of, I've got to do this thing on a schedule. I mean, we've continued to do this podcast every couple of weeks, so I have no problem following through with some of those commitments because I want to do them. It's no longer because I have to do them. Does that make any sense whatsoever? You know, I think the fundamental rule of the universe is impermanence. And, you know, you're at a point where it doesn't make sense. You've got five growing kids. You know, the, you know, the idea of insurance and like a regular paycheck is a great idea at this point in your life.

And I think you just kind of leaned into it. And it seems to me that as your friend, I've noticed that with you making that change, that your art got better. That you felt less pressure maybe to make what you thought people wanted and you're just doing what you want. I'm not sure what the whole story is there, but one of the things I have observed in you the past year is I feel like your art got better. That is exactly it. Yeah, I believe that that is the the case the art got better because i uh didn't feel the pressure to make the thing that's x amount of people would click the button to buy um which it comes with the comes with some of the the creative territory if if that's the the thing and it just wasn't wasn't for me. Now with the day job, I knew signing up

for the day job, there was going to be some craziness that came with the day-to-day of an organization and managing people and things like that. I was not prepared for the level of craziness that I encountered. I feel at this point, getting through 2022, that that alone is a pretty significant accomplishment because it's been a pretty tumultuous year. There've been a lot of changes. A lot of people who have been at the company for a long time chose to leave.

And that's okay. It's just a season of change. And it means that there's got to reinvent things, essentially, which honestly, I'm finding that that's really what I'm good at. So it's been fun to be part of that process. But it wasn't something that I had predicted. Okay. So on the theme of jobs, it was a job transition year for me too. You know, I started the year announcing that I decided to stop being a lawyer. And that really started for me in October of the prior year. But this is when it all kind of became real. And that was a big point that informed the whole year for me as well.

You know, as you're leaning into turning it into more of a side hustle, I'm actually leaning into turning more of my thing. And of course, that is a focus challenge whenever you have a transition. And so that was something that I dealt with all year. And I was very conscious of it as I was going through of saying, okay, well, if this is my thing, then I need to do this right. And I need to be focused on this. And like, one of the things I noticed in terms of that kind of job thing is it like, it freed up so much mental energy. And like, there were so many little things, like on the back end of Mac Sparky, like fixing RSS feeds and just like all sorts of little

things like that, that I just never could find time for. But once I made it my thing, I was able to make so many improvements in, you know, quote unquote, the product that I never seemed to have time for before then. Absolutely. I mean, there are things with some of the projects that I'm doing that I just have to be okay with not being able to do them. that I just have to be okay with not being able to do them. One of the examples, one of the highlights actually for me this year was the faith-based productivity community that I spun up using Circle. We've been talking about that a lot in our mastermind, and I got curious and I started playing with it. And the primary use for a lot of people with Circle is to do these cohort-based courses.

And I've had a lot of people in that community ask me about doing a faith-based productivity cohort. And I don't have the bandwidth to pull that off. Maybe at some point I could train up a team to help facilitate that. But it's just not even an option for me. And there are other things that I wish I could that like, I wish I could do this. I wish I could do that. And I've just had to be okay with some of those trade-offs, not being able to do everything that I have in my brain to do

for all of the different projects that I have going on. And for some reason, that has been okay with me. I don't know. I think part of the way that you're wired really determines what the right path is for you. And I don't know, I guess I have so many of those ideas, it's actually somewhat freeing for me to have an out basically to say like, well, I can't do them all. Whereas before, if I were to make this my full-time thing, I would feel constant pressure to do this thing and this thing and this thing. I don't know why that is. That's just the way my brain works. But being able to be like, you know what? We've got

limited time. So I'm just going to do this one thing and then I'm going to move on. That is what has really clicked for me this year. And the funny thing is, I feel like as you nail down the day job and you figure out these things, you will start to get bandwidth and eventually you will grow that course. And then like 10 years from now, you'll be doing what I did. I mean, I just, I just feel like, you know, we're all kind of going through this process. The other thing that I think is interesting for transitions, because looking back, both you and I had a year of transition with respect to our jobs,

but I feel like we both also had a lot of transitions family-wise. I mean, in my family, my oldest got her master's and now has started her big girl job. My youngest is an upperclassman now in college and starting to think about what's next. My wife has, you know, re kind of entered her career. Um, now that, you know, COVID is over, she was able to get back to work again, you know, and, and like all of these family changes are going on where you've got, you know, you're your first high schooler and your kids are growing up. And, and it really was an interesting year transition, not only with the way we pay for

our shoes, but the people that we live with. Yeah. The, the high school transition just in isolation was not, wasn't a huge deal, but, uh, when taken in to consideration with everything else that we have going on, that was definitely a little bit more tricky than we had anticipated. As an example, in the fall, three of my boys play soccer. And previously, one of them was elementary age. So the commitment for that type of soccer really isn't much. I think it's like five weeks and it's once a week on a Thursday or something like that. And then the other two played middle school soccer and I was the middle school coach. So that wasn't a big deal. I was there and brought them to the practices and the games. But this year we had someone on the high school team

and high school sports are a whole nother level of commitment. And now we've got to be in multiple places at the same time. So that was a little bit tricky and it was pretty disruptive. However, everything is figureoutable and we were able to make it work. But looking back, I didn't do a real good job anticipating the complexity that that was going to add. Yeah, for me and Daisy, the transition period is also the first time we've really spent significant time as an empty nest couple. Right. You know, the number two is away at college. Number one is away at college. Number one is, is moved out. Now this isn't

necessarily a permanent situation for us because just, you know, the nature of things like if number one gets a job closer to the house, you know, I've recommended she, she come back home for a couple of years and save money to buy her own place. Or if number two goes to grad school or whatever, there's a chance we could have children living with us again. That's what I'm saying. But for now we are experiencing that emptiness thing. And that is a transition as well. And, uh, I've tried to focus on that as well, making sure I do stuff to help her when she's all the way at her job. She comes home. She doesn't feel like she's a maid when she comes home, you know, have things nice and tidy for her and do some house chores so she doesn't feel, you know.

It's just been an interesting year for me. And I didn't realize it going in. I mean, I knew I was making this career change and that was going to be an adjustment. But you know how Mike and Gray do the yearly things. I definitely had a year of transition. But I didn't really notice it going in. Yeah, that's fair. Did you stick with the words or whatever your theme was for the year? Or just looking back, you realize it's the year of transition. My words for the year were recalibration and renewal. And I feel like that definitely played out in my life because I did a

lot of new things. I went through the Part-Time YouTuber Academy. I went through Ship 30 for 30. I'm doing a lot more in terms of YouTube. I've experimented with some different things in terms of writing. I realized that this kind of was the year for me to get divergent, try a bunch of new things and reestablish what do I want normal to look like in terms of my work and creative life. But I'm curious if you found that those themes carried out throughout your entire year or just retrospectively or you can see oh this is how it changed you know it's funny Mike I don't remember the exact phrase I used for that because I've never been a big fan of year of and I Mike and Gray I really respect them and love the way that has helped so many people but i really think in terms of quarters and the the theme that i each quarter renewed throughout the year really was you know

keeping an open mind with a transition going on of not just immediately figuring out well this is the way i'm going to do things now that i've changed you know i i wanted to be very open to new ways of running my day, doing my work, you know, using people to help me and all this stuff. I wanted to, to not like, it's very easy for me to like say, okay, I figured out the way to do this. That's just the way I'm going to do it for now on. and not really like look at the other options and kind of, you know, kind of paint myself into a corner with procedures and methods that, that don't really scale or don't actually make sense when you consider other options. And whenever I'm in a transition, it's very easy for me to want to grab onto the first thing that shows up as opposed to being open to other options. And that was really a focus of the whole year for me.

And I largely stuck to it. I didn't know if after six months I would move on to something else, but that's really not what's happened. It's been a lot of year about developing process and ideas. Interesting. Yeah, I think the options, that kind of resonates with me. That's sort of what I leaned into this year. Prior to this, I feel like I had gone the other way and kept looking for things to cut and tried to protect

the margin and was saying no to a lot of things. And just going into it, those words actually were pretty helpful for me because I feel that they allowed me and even encouraged me to try a bunch of new things that I wouldn't have necessarily done. The YouTube thing being one of them, I mentioned the job thing, but there were lots of things that pushed me outside of my comfort zone this year. And I'm glad that I did. Now it's time to dial it back and go the other way. But I'm glad I had those experiences because it kind of revealed some things that i feel are going to be important going into the next year yeah well it really has been that really informed my year as i was developing you know process for the for for next year going in

and and this year for me was a brand new thing i did was made the Mac Sparky Labs, which, you know, I knew how to make field guides and I make podcasts. I've been doing it for 15 years, but the, but a member site with member, regular member content and member interactions, that is something new. And so that took a tremendous amount of work this year to figure out the best ways to do that and what people want and, you know, figuring out an effective way to do it. So that idea of being open to process throughout the year really helped me. Do you feel like with the labs you are at a point now where you've kind of got it dialed in or do you still have your antenna up? You still asking what do people want? I really think that i'm close you

know i mean it's an evolution but you know i just did a survey to the members and got great you know now they've been getting it for a while i got great feedback so there's some things i'm going to change based on that but overall the process and the content to me are like maybe like 85 percent settled and i'm not sure they'll ever be more than that because i'm always going to be open to changes but the right as i enter next year that is going to take a lot less time and i think actually be a lot better yeah that makes sense but that's you know part of the transition it just it was just quite a year for me you know the other thing that was a focus challenge for me in the past year was this crazy idea to add a room onto my house.

I've always been pretty conservative financially. I don't like to spend the money if I don't have to. And we had a way for it to work, but it really wasn't ideal. And my wife was the one who kind of encouraged me. You should just do this, you know. And man, it really, from about July, maybe June to October, it was rough. You know, because, you know, you think it's like, well, it's just a room, right? And you hire a contractor and they're going to do it.

But no, every day they want you to help them make decisions. And every day there are nail guns and jackhammers and things going off. It is what you expect in terms of someone who wants to stay focused, especially with a job where you produce content. You need to have a quiet room. Yeah, I felt bad for you frequently this year when something was happening and you had to roll with the punches and adjust because something that was outside of your control because you didn't have the space. But I'm glad that you're through it. And it looks from the pictures that you've shared like an amazing space. I feel like this is going to pay dividends for years to come. I assume you're happy that you decided to do this and you would do it again if you had the opportunity.

Yeah, I am. I'm really happy I did it. It is kind of a Cortez moment, you know, making this transition and investing in the future of this new business only kind of a year into it or less than six months into it really but it feels like the right decision and um you know we're gonna you know today's show is called looking back well guess what the next show is gonna be called looking forward and in this room is going to play a huge role in my future and uh i you know we've talked in the past about building a space that you are comfortable in. In this room, I was thinking about this morning,

except for maybe my childhood bedroom, this is the room I'm the most comfortable in my entire life. Every inch of this is designed around making me feel comfortable and giving me the stuff I need to do the stuff I love. And I just love coming in here and coming here and read books. And, you know, I know you're supposed to just work in your workspace, but I love being in here, you know, so. Well, actually, I, I don't know. I mean, I maybe historically I would have agreed with that statement as well. But my studio is in the basement and I don't think nearly as nice as what I've seen of yours, but I've made some changes to mine as well. And one of the big changes I made was I have a, it's called a stressless chair,

which is essentially a reading chair at the moment. So I get it. You know, I find myself wanting to come down here and read as well. And I don't think that has negatively impacted the work. So maybe that's just one of those ideas that we've heard from a bunch of people and just assumed was was true but it's not been my experience that that's had any sort of negative ramifications for what actually gets done here yeah but i mean overall i mean i'm going to give myself good marks for staying focused on a um on a year of transition because it was uh you know there was a lot going on a year of transition. Because it was, you know, there was a lot going on this year. And family changes, job changes, construction and home changes.

And overall, I think I did a pretty good job of staying focused. I got, the labs are doing great. I got a field guide shipped. The podcast, I think the quality is better than ever. We've been really fortunate to be able to get some good guests and deliver some good content on all the shows I make. And I feel like in looking back, I'm going to give myself a little pat on the back, a little push forward. I was going to say, you mentioned you'd give yourself good marks. So

on a scale of one to 10, you got a score you'd be willing to give yourself? How about on a scale of 1 to 5? Okay. I'll give myself a 4. And that's not based on what I produced. I mean, in honesty, I would have preferred to get another field guide out and had a little more free time. guide out and had a little more free time. But in terms of what I needed to do and the focus I needed to bring to the table, I think I did a good job this year. Nice. I would give myself a three and a half. Yeah, that's the thing. You guys and you want your halves. I know. Well, if I had to pick a number,

it's probably closer to four than it is to three. However, I feel like one of the things I need to do a better job of is a regular writing rhythm. That's been a theme for me this year and I haven't really dialed it in yet. So I guess a little bit of a sneak peek or spoiler for the next episode,

but that's the opportunity for me. Other than that, because I don't want to base it off of, like you said, the actual output. I want to focus it on how did I do in terms of maintaining the focus and controlling the input. And definitely drifted a little bit. But this was also a year of exploration for me. So part of that is to be expected, which is trying a bunch of new things. But for the last several months, I've known that writing is the thing that needs to be a little bit more regular and consistent, and I've had trouble developing that. So that's the focus

going forward. Yeah, I think for me, maybe one of the struggles was just the general daily intentionality thing. I have all these systems I use with time tracking and journaling and the things I do to keep me rolling and in the right space that I need to be at this moment. And over the course of the year, I had varying degrees of success with that. over the course of the year, I had varying degrees of success, success with that. Like lately I've been doing pretty good, but it wasn't as, um, it wasn't an everyday habit that I'd like it to be, but you know, there's room for all of us to grow. by ExpressVPN. If you're looking for something new to watch during your holiday downtime, then this ad is for you. Maybe you've already watched Home Alone too many times this year. Maybe you just want a change from the usual movies that are available in your region. ExpressVPN is an app that lets you change your online location. So if you use a service like

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You can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free to try it out for yourself. That's expressvpn.com slash focused. Expressvpn.com slash focused to learn more. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. Another angle of this would probably be the ability to maintain focus with the technology that we use both of us are a bit nerdy and a lot of people out there listening are technology a lot of times can be a cause of loss of focus but as two people who make this podcast i know both of us are really mindful of this and try to to use the tech in a good positive positive way. How'd you do this year in terms of your technology and holding on to focus?

Well, like I said, this was a year of experimentation. So if I had to rate myself in this area, probably not super great because I was trying a bunch of new things. One of the big things that I experimented with was task management in Obsidian. And I don't know, I just don't have a whole lot of use for a task manager outside of the tools that we use for the different things that I'm involved in. So I could create separate tasks for all the individual steps of recording the

podcast and things like that. But it's enough for me just to have the documents in Google Docs or Notion, which is what we use for Bookworm now. And the day job, we've got ClickUp that we use in terms of all the individual things that need to happen there. And I found myself just not going back to Obsidian for task management. I tried a whole bunch of other things. I went back and tried OmniFocus again, tried things, tried Todoist, and still feel like this is a little bit up in the air. And that sounds terrible. I feel like there is an expectation, someone who talks about productivity, you must have a task manager. And I believe in the value of a task manager, but practically speaking, I use it very limited. I'm currently in Todoist and I think that that's ultimately the thing for me because I can

integrate the tasks with some of the notes and things inside of Obsidian, but it doesn't have to be the place for all of that stuff. I still have the reminders and things like that for the things that absolutely need to be done at a specific time, like actually publishing the episodes. But I kind of feel like I was all over the place with this and ended up back where I started. Well, you know, I think it's funny, Mike, it seems like you have really not needed a task manager, like a big boy task manager for a while, but you keep trying to find a way to make one fit because you think you need one, like you're supposed to have one or something. That's exactly it. Yep. I do think that there's a possibility if I just completely stopped using one, there are a few things that would fall

potentially through the cracks. So that makes me nervous. But I am at the point now where I really don't care if I'm using it the way everybody thinks I should be using it. I remember when I was using OmniFocus, talking to somebody about my use of it, and they were like blown away at how simple it was. They're like, that's it? That's all you do? I'm like, yeah, I guess, you know, it's all I need. So I don't know. I think I'm making my peace with that. However, I do think that I need to solidify some of this stuff. Really, I just need to figure out exactly where the boundaries are and what belongs in what buckets.

Part of that has just been a little bit of the craziness that goes along with all the changes that we talked about in the previous segment. So I need to spend some time over this next personal retreat and over the holidays when I've got some time off of work, just really looking at all these things, mapping it all out. Now this goes here, that goes there. And I feel like that alone is going to relieve a lot of the, the mental stress that's, that's there from the ambiguity.

Yeah, I get it. I mean, I went through a similar thing in that once I started this, I'm like, I don't need to track 100 corporate clients anymore. Maybe I can, you know, throw off OmniFocus and, and use something simpler. And I went through this whole nerdy thing where I tested so many apps. I tried Obsidian, I tried things, I tried some of the web services that are out there and Apple reminders and all this stuff. And ultimately I ended up back in OmniFocus just because it has the review process. It has really great URL linking. It has the world's greatest automation. So there's just a bunch of stuff about OmniFocus that I prefer. And I've set it up over the years in ways that allow me to see all my active projects and just, it's very clever the way I run it. Right. But I understand the call to simplicity.

And that was actually not a loss of focus for me. That was actually a hunt for the right tool and eventual acceptance of what the right tool was, which was fortunately something I had a lot of expertise in. For you, I would think that if you're thinking about, well, I want to make sure I don't forget to pay the taxes and stuff like that, I think Apple Reminders is where you should be personally. Because it's a very good app at this point. You're in the Apple ecosystem.

It's free. It's got some advantages that no other apps have in terms of Siri integration and some of the shortcut stuff. But use whatever you like. But that was a struggle for me too this year, just kind of auditing what's out there, trying to choose. I did a similar experience with Mail. I was looking at all the Mail tools.

But that's part of what you do as a Mac Sparky, right? You're looking at the options that are out there and reporting on it for the folks that are interested. But I felt like in terms of tools this year, one of the things that, that I tried to resolve this year is some classic internal struggles for me. Like the whole, like, you know, the analog versus digital battle i mean so much over the last few

years i have journaled with a paper and pen then on paint then you know then on an ipad then in a you know like a tool like day one and i've been trying all these different tools going back and forth and ultimately i tried to settle that this year and just say, okay, just pick one and stop goofing around. And so on the question of journaling, I just decided I'm just going to be a digital journaler. And that's that, you know, and I do occasionally write on paper. But when I do, I always scan it and add it to day one. So there's kind of like one source of truth for journaling. And I've kind of thrown the switch in my brain to say, stop, stop trying to figure out this, you know, stop jumping platforms on this, just, you know,

use this as a tool and stop experimenting on this so much. So that was a focus, I think, success for me this year of stopping that. And then, uh, inspired by you, I did something similar with books where, you know, it's like all of my friends,

especially my younger friends, all love paper books. And, you know, and I immediately jumped to eBooks because I grew up when you used to carry around 50 pounds of books in law school, probably more than 50 pounds of books. So the advantage of a kindle where you put your

entire library i have 500 books on my kindle just so we're clear and and that's also on my iphone and my ipad and everything else so the advantage of that plus just my sincere love of the readwise service um you know i thought well i'm just going to do digital but everybody kept talking about the paper books so i got a couple and read them. And I understand where it's coming from. But rather than fight over the same word, I'm like, no, you know what? I'm just a Kindle guy. I'm just going to read the books on Kindle.

And I understand that I guess when I die, they disappear. And I can't loan them to friends and all that. But for me, there's counterpoints. I don't have a lot of extra space to put all the books and just all this other stuff. And I've stopped doing that as well. So one of the focus successes for me this year is picking a few areas where I was torn and just making a decision and moving forward. I don't know. I think a bookcase might look great in Endor studios. There's no room in here for one. It really isn't. I mean, when, when you talked me into putting a glass board in here, that was the last place I could have put the bookcase. So sorry.

Nice. Did you get that yet? Yeah. In fact, that is an analog thing that seems to be an interesting experiment for me. I am, this is not really a year in review thing, but it's only been up a couple of weeks. And what I've found with it is even though I do all this stuff in OmniFocus, I, this week, what I did is I put Monday through Saturday across the board, top of the board. And then on each day, I just wrote down what the appointments were and then what the key deliverables were that day and this is all duplication of stuff i have in omni focus

but seeing it up there on the board and occasionally during the day going up and checking something off or just taking a look at what what's coming up on thursday in that visual format i actually kind of like that. So I'm going to do that for a few weeks and see if that sticks with me. It's not really using it to map out ideas, but more of just kind of a weekly status board of projects and appointments. I don't know what you'd call it, but it's kind of fun. I don't know what to call it, but I definitely like it. You mentioned the duplication of effort. And I think that is true. And that's always been the thing that maybe keeps people from the whole idea of time blocking and writing out your plan for the day because it already exists somewhere.

But 100% believe that the five to 10 minutes that you would spend doing that provides exponential return in terms of intentionality. So I guess to summarize a lot of what you just shared, balancing the analog versus the digital, this is kind of the struggle for everybody in the productivity space right now, but I would encourage everyone to shift your default from being, well, it already exists in a digital place to do it analog, even if it's going to take more effort. You can identify for yourself with specific use cases. Like you mentioned journaling, and I am 100% a digital

journaler, even though I've embraced analog in a lot of other ways. Journaling just clicks for me inside of Obsidian in a way that it never has before. So absolutely going to keep doing that there. But I have gone and embraced more analog in other areas. One of those is with the Remarkable. Yeah. I use this a lot now. This is like the perfect thing for the day job.

I think that if you're in a lot of meetings, there's a lot of intentionality benefits of using something like this, even over something like an iPad. I don't know how to articulate why, but just having been in rooms with these, the people who use the Remarkables are more engaged. I don't know what it is. If they just feel like there's not even the option to go into the other apps to check their email, whatever, but I don't know. If you walk into a meeting with 10 people and some of them have notebooks, some of them have laptops, some of them have Remarkables, you can tell that people that are not even tempted to look at the other things are the ones that are more engaged. And also I've noticed that for myself, by walking in with that device instead of a laptop, for example, it communicates something to the other people that

are there. And so that has been something that I've absolutely loved. And I'm excited to see more and more devices in this ilk, I guess, becoming popular. I know Kindle's got a Scribe now, and I think that there's going to be a lot of other e-ink style tablets here. And I don't know, I see the benefit of these. I'm experimenting with even planning my day on the Remarkable. That is a little bit different for me. I'm used to doing that in the fancy notebook, but I've also kind of shifted from the five things that I'm going to try to get done today, not putting that in the notebook,

but instead putting that on the Yugg Monk analog. I've got fancy note cards, which I have ordered from France, which are fountain pen friendly. But I have that on my desk and I write down my list of things there and I check them off as we go. And that's been very beneficial. I like the fact that it's up in my face all day as opposed to the analog notebook. I found that with a lot of the stuff that I have to do for the day job, a lot of meetings specifically,

that I wasn't going to take notes using a fountain pen in that fancy notebook. It just doesn't work for something like meeting notes. So I was using it less and less. And then when we came out with the calendars and I was experimenting with that remarkable tablet, which actually comes with the focus calendar, we've got the action pad basically. So you can time block your day and list the things that you're trying to get done. That has really worked well. of trying to get done, that has really worked well. And so that combination of planning that on a device where I don't have any of the other distractions of the web and the social media and

things like that the night before, and then writing down the five things I'm going to do today on the note card as I begin my workday, that's been really great. And it kind of leads into something I wanted to point out here. Maybe this is worth a discussion. I recently read this book, Mind Management, Not Time Management by David Kadavy for the Bookworm podcast. And in there, he talks about these sticky versus slippery tools. And I feel like this is the big thing that people need to understand when they're trying to figure out where is the balance for you between analog and digital. So a sticky tool is something that helps you do the thing that you intended to do, whereas a slippery tool, it's easy to get distracted and to do something else. And that doesn't necessarily mean that all digital tools are slippery, but it's something to

consider. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, just to kind of rewind a little bit and catch up, I feel like the last year, you really did find kind of a resolution and focus with your Remarkable Pad. I mean, just talking to you, you're constantly using it. It seems like it really landed for you. I don't think it works for me. I've just never been successful with it. But for me, it's like the way it renders text and the text formatting in something like GoodNote compared to Remarkable, it's like night and day. And I did try the Kindle Scribe. I kept it for a few days and sent it back.

It's worse than Remarkable in um uh a note-taking tool it's great because i'm a kindle fan and all my kindle books were on it but it's not worth the 400 or so dollars just to have a bigger kindle that that writes poorly you know so i didn't keep i didn't keep it i mean i'm happy with my kindle i don't't need to throw $400 down the toilet. But maybe someday one of these e-ink notebooks will come out that lands. I've kind of resolved that good notes on an iPad to me is where it's at. And I understand that the remarkable class of e-ink notebooks is a big thing a lot of people like. And it's just you know not for me but i get that you know but kind of getting to your main point of sticky versus slippery tools

that is a good source of focus is paying attention to that and finding out you know where mike the remarkable really lands for me it's the ipad and we're all good you know it okay. Well, that's the thing is the remarkable for me is a sticky device. But the fact that you, when you export it, can't stand the text and the way it renders, that makes it a slippery device. It actually increases the resistance to using the tool for the way that you want to use it. So you have to identify this for yourself. But I thought this was a pretty brilliant explanation of why you might choose to use a tool for a specific purpose. And there are some examples that the author shared in that book that I just, there is no way I'm going to do that. Like, for example, he uses one of those, what are they called? Mike Vard already showed us one the like the the keyboard

with the with the text display but literally all you can do is type on it yeah yeah free right free right that's what hemingway i think they call it or something like that yeah they've got a they've got a version of it called the the heming right but there's an even older version of it uh a similar product called the alpha Smart Neo that the author uses. And I found a blog post published this year about how he still uses this thing. There's no way I'm touching this with a 10-foot pole. But it's what's allowed the author to write several books.

He's got a whole bunch that are part of the series that Mind Management, not Time Management, came from, which overall I think is a pretty good book, by the way. And the whole conversation of the sticky versus slippery tools has really got me thinking about what really is the job to be done. And then once you understand that, you can pick the right tool for the job. I guess one of the mistakes I've made in the past is, oh, well, this person who does something that I want to do, they use this tool. So I'm just going to try this and assume that that is going to be the thing that allows you to get similar results. Nope, not the case. I am just very fortunate in that I am able to work on a device that's also connected to the internet and has a Twitter app and an email app. And I'm actually able to work on a device that's also connected to the internet and has a twitter app and an email

app and i'm actually able to sit on that device and spend two and a half hours writing i don't need the forced constraint of an of a device that's where it's physically impossible to get on the internet to get work done and i don't consider that um you know i don't i'm not trying to say like i'm special, right? You know what I mean? But it's just for whatever reason, I'm good at that. And, and that is something that it's hard for me to understand when people feel like they have to physically disconnect their device from the internet. And it makes me sound like I'm holier than thou, and I don't really want to convey that, but I just feel like I'm lucky and

that that's really not a big problem with me and you know in this past year one of the things we got is improved focus modes from Apple so if you're using Apple hardware and if you take the time to set up those focus modes I mean when I like right now I'm in podcasting mode and the only people that can get a hold of me are mike schmitz and daisy sparks and the rest of the world is getting rejected when they try to get through to me at this moment so so that's good right and um that you know if you use that stuff you can still have a device you don't need the unit tasker device necessarily and now if you're listening you're like no no no i love the unit tasker device and i i i want things that are not connected to the internet i just can't convey enough that's great do that you know but i've been lucky enough that

i don't need that then in my life well let's step back a bit from the unit tasker idea because this whole segment here on Focus in Tech in 2022, I think this is definitely a trend, is those unitasker type tools. But I do think that the principle still applies here for you, even if the way it manifests is a little bit different. You probably have your own version of something that is slippery, right? Versus something that is

sticky and you have to figure out where the traps are and then you can set up boundaries to help you avoid them. Yep. I mean, that's the whole reason I keep talking about contextual computing. The traps for me are the email inbox or the omni-focus global view, you know, falling into apps that are giving me data not related to the task at hand and figuring out how to shortcut that, you know, and I spend a lot of time working on that. Exactly. Overall, sounds like we both have made some progress and we had some questions going in that we're able to uh use our tech with a little more focus at this point uh i know that you're looking at just from our personal conversation you're looking at a lot of these e-ink devices now the e-ink notebooks and i think

a year from now that's going to be really further developed i think you know it's like it's got some momentum and uh we'll have a lot of options. So if you're listening, you're interested in that stuff and you can wait, I would almost recommend waiting a few more months just to see how this all shakes out. considering as they go into the next year is how can you set up your technology to facilitate intentional use? Really just figure out how you can assume control of the default behaviors. For example, one of the things we've done in our family, we've got this mantra, create, not consume. I have it on the wallpaper of my iPhone when I open it up. So every time I go to use my iPhone, I see that create, not consume as a last ditch effort to prevent me from just mindlessly going into something like email or Twitter. And actually email is not even on my phone. So Twitter is the one that I end up going to. And if I want to go there, that's fine. It's the moments where I don't intend to do that. I pull out the device and I get sucked in there.

That's what I want to prevent. And there are lots of things that you can do and a lot of different ways to do them that can help you follow through on what you actually intend to use your technology to do. And that's the real benefit, I think, is we've got these really powerful tools which allow us to create a lot of awesome things. The barrier to entry for creating a podcast, making a video, all that kind of stuff. It's never been easier for people to do that, but it's also never been easier to never, ever get to that point because you go in there to make something and you end up just scrolling the endless feeds instead. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, just in general, the question is, how do you make tech serve the purpose of focus and not distraction? Because the whole goal of silicon valley at this point is distraction they make so much money off you off you clicking and scrolling and this tech can serve you but you have to figure it out mike it's the end of the year i think it's time for one last shiny new object segment on the Focus podcast in 2022. All right. Yeah, we just talked about avoiding distractions.

Now we're going to give you some shiny stuff. No, but actually I'm going to use mine to try and reinforce this glimmer of possibility of you embracing analog books here. My shiny new object is the Glockuscent. I don't know how to pronounce that brand name. It's an LED neck reading light. We have one of these, and they're pretty great. It's a flexible little light that you wrap around your neck, and then there's two lights that shine down down and the light diffuses at an angle and there's a couple different settings for this so there's like a bluer brighter light and you can change the color temperature so it's more of a warmer light and this is the perfect thing

if you want to read physical books let's say you're in bed you want to read before you you go to bed and you have a partner who you don't want to keep up you don't want to read physical books, let's say you're in bed, you want to read before you go to bed, and you have a partner who you don't want to keep up, you don't want to turn the lights on in the bedroom, turn the lamp on full blast, this has a very concentrated beam of light that shines at the book that you're reading. It isn't going to keep anybody else up. And the battery on this thing, they say, lasts up to 80 hours. We got one several months ago at this point and have not had to charge it yet. It's a pretty cool little thing that is perfect for the analog reader.

So if you've got a coming up on Christmas here as we record this, if you've got a bookworm in your life, this might be a good gift idea. But yeah, this allows you to read physical books in the dark. It's a very simple little thing, but it's been a pretty big quality of life upgrade for us. You know, and it's much more elegant than it sounds. You know what I mean? When you hear it, you're like, it is like something that straps to your forehead and, you know, makes you look like you're going to go spelunking. But it's actually very nice. And I can see it's very subtle.

And I can see exactly why you would like something like that. For me, a shiny new object right now is an old object. It's the Apple extended keyboard. We've talked about keyboards. It's really fun to go down the rabbit hole of clicky keyboards. My kids keep taking possession of my clicky keyboards because they like them. I have one right now that I'm using, but I also really like the touch ID feature of the Apple keyboard. And because I do so much stuff in front of a microphone, this Apple keyboard is so quiet, right? It's just makes it really easy to you know to use a keyboard

uh quietly but then i also um have always the apple one i've always bought has been the extended one because usually that's the only one they had or it's the one that ships with the mac and just recently i bought the the non-extended version so it's imagine a keyboard where they cut off you know the extra function keys the page up and page down and the number keys on the right so it's it's smaller footprint on your desk and um i tried it and i just could not get my arms around it you know what i mean it's like the i'm so used to the key layout of this one that i've used for years that i just could not do it you know i like the big arrow keys and the extra function keys i can use for some automation stuff but but i uh my shiny new

thing is pulling the old thing out of the closet and just using that do you use the the number pad frequently uh occasionally i i could get by without it for sure um okay it's more just the layout of the rest of the keys like one of the things that really hung me up is they put the function key under where the control key is on the left. And I use that control key many times a day and I could just not get my brain rewired for it, but I don't know. It's just,

it's just kind of funny. Sometimes you think you're going to make an improvement and you don't. Yeah. you think you're going to make an improvement and you don't. Yeah. So the reason I ask is my mom has a counting background. And I remember as a kid seeing her fly on that number pad. Yeah. And she probably couldn't use a keyboard that didn't have one. Yeah. Yeah. But what you're describing really is because I'm a keyboard snob you're describing kind of like a 10 keyless uh layout is really the part that that you use the number pad occasionally but it's everything to the left of the number pad that is the the thing that you really rely on

now do you use your your uh your physical key keyboard like are you using it right now? Yeah, I have a Keychron Q1 with very clicky switches and keycaps which resemble the old Apple II keyboards. Yeah. I don't remember exactly what they're called, but it's pretty clicky. So the way I get around this is I don't type when I'm talking. Sure.

And I have a physical mute button actually on my desk. Yeah. So when I'm not talking, I'll turn that on and type. But it would definitely be simpler for me to get a quieter keyboard like you were talking about. But I just absolutely love the feel of this one. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I get it. Well, uh, I'd love to hear from the folks, uh, listening to this, what your focus challenges

were and successes were in the past year. Uh, and our next episode, we're going to be talking about focus going forward and how we want to make changes going forward. And, uh, that would be a great episode to reflect on some of the listener feedback. So if you've got some, please send it in to us. There is a forum at talk.macpoweruser.com. If you open a thread there, we do read those. You can also send an email. There's an email link at the page at relay.fm slash focus. Send, uh, we are going to definitely include some, some listener feedback on the next episode as we kind of look forward and look backward together. Uh, we are the focus podcast. You can find us at relay.fm slash focus, you know, get those

calendars. There's, there's still shipping. They'll be shipping in January too, but you should get it up on your wall before the new year. Uh, we've got a link in the show notes for that. And we would love for you to check one out. I know Mike and I are going to both dig ours. Thank you to our sponsor for this episode, express VPN. And we'll see you next time.