Focused - 194: I'd Like to Take a Mulligan

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Welcome to Focused, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks and joined by Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hello, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? Good. Thanks for asking. You know, we're at the end of the year. It's always kind of a nice, you know, we're recording this the week between Christmas and New Year. It's always kind of a nice week to reflect and kind of think forward. And this one's going to hit the airwaves right at the new year. So I'm looking forward to making this episode for the focused audience.

Yeah, I know there's this concept of like the episodes recorded in time. And it never really hits me except for this one when we record it before the end of the year and it releases after the beginning of the next year. Yeah. But, you know, I really kind of feel like, um, the best time to do new year plan is probably after new year anyway. Um, and I guess it just depends on your schedule. Right. But the, um, but there's always so many things going on with the holidays. I feel like you can't really focus in on, on the hard work of planning, uh, while, you know, you've got relatives visiting and parties to go to and all that stuff.

Yep, I agree. So the weird timing of this recording slash release actually fits perfect for the approach that I think we're going to take to this episode where we are going to first kind of look back at 2023 and think about what happened and what kind of lessons can we learn from the last 12 months. And then the second half of this, we're going to be looking forward to 2024. So those things are kind of bookends. They go hand in hand. Last time, I think we did this in separate episodes, but this time we're going to combine them into one. Yeah. And boy, 2023, what a year for you, huh? That's an understatement. Yeah. I guess I could, I could kick it off there if you want to jump in right away. Nothing else we want to cover in the beginning here, but

2023 was supposed to be the year of stabilization for me. the year of stabilization for me. And I think I'd like to call a mulligan on that. I was going into 2023 with a day job that I really believed this was going to be a long-term thing for me and was looking forward to how I was going to fit in the creative side stuff around that full-time day job. And I was trying to find a new rhythm for things. And instead, what happened was as I got further along in that first quarter of the year, I kind of realized that long-term it was not a great fit for me and felt the itch to go independent. I think I shared this before, but kind of the thing that kind of sealed the deal was my kids are getting older and I tell them, you can do anything. And I wanted to, it became evident to me that I really needed to model that.

Like I needed to take my shot. And if it didn't work out, I could figure things out. I could go get another job. Still not out of the woods, but we're making progress. So yeah, I decided to do that in the middle of my year of stabilization, which made it anything but stable. That's funny. That played a role for me when I left the firm, because I went independent as a lawyer for several years.

But when I left the firm, I found myself cause I, I went independent as a lawyer for several years, but when I left the firm, I was, I found myself increasingly unhappy with kind of my work situation. And that really weighed on me cause I knew I brought that home with me to a certain extent. And I didn't really want to put that on my kids. I didn't want them to have to deal with me like that. And, um, that really was a big motivator for me as well at the time. And that really was a big motivator for me as well at the time. Yeah. Looking back, is there anything that I would have changed about the way that I did it? I think I probably, in the sense of a productivity sense, I left a little bit too early.

I probably should have built up more of a runway. Just the way I'm wired, though, the minute that I knew I couldn't put everything into that day job, I felt like I couldn't show up and pretend that I was going to fulfill that role for any length of time. So I probably made it a little bit harder on myself than I needed to, but I was still happy that I made the decision. I feel like it was the right decision. As I mentioned, there's some progress there. So I feel like in a year from now, it's going to be a very different situation. It's still a struggle. And I appreciate the support that you've given me and kind of sharing the stuff that you went through when you made the decision. Kind of makes me feel like what I'm going through isn't abnormal.

It's just part of the process. But all in all, I'm pretty proud of what I was able to accomplish even in the middle of a pivoted year. even in the middle of a pivoted year. I did make the switch from a day job as an integrator to a full-time content creator. And when I did that, I really didn't know what I was going to do. I had a whole bunch of side things, like I've done the video courses for the personal retreat course and had the life theme idea for a while. I decided to turn that into a cohort. Obsidian University was something that I created from scratch. I started a YouTube channel. I mean, there were a lot of things that weren't part of the plan when I initially made that decision. And so I felt like last year was really more of a year of exploration,

which is in direct contrast to the stated theme or words for the year. Stability wasn't the only one. But there were several others around that idea where it's just, okay, now that we've got the key pieces, let's just figure out how to make them fit together. And then in the middle, you know, I blew it all up. I'm glad that I did that, though, because I learned a lot of things. The YouTube channel in particular, YouTube was never something that I was, I mean, I kind of saw the potential of YouTube, but it was always intimidating to me. So when I was kind of forced to try that, it was really uncomfortable. But also I discovered that it was actually very rewarding as well. And that's going well.

I'm in the YouTube Partner Program after a couple months now. So that's great. And it's contributing to the email signups, which are going to fuel the Obsidian University cohorts and all that kind of stuff. But it's just kind of, as I look back on 2023, it's kind of shocking to me how many things I'm doing right now that were not even on the radar at the beginning of the year. Makes you wonder what's going to be like in a year, doesn't it? Well, I hope that this is enough of the drastic changes for a while. We'll talk about that when we get to words for 2024, but I kind of maybe gave it away a little bit already by asking for a mulligan. I feel like there's this natural rhythm to, I'm going to say life, but I think

especially for creators where you have this divergence where you're just collecting a whole bunch of data points, trying a whole bunch of things. And then eventually you figure out this is the thing that I should be focusing on right now. And so then there's the convergence. We kind of talked about this a little bit with Justin Kanna in the last episode. So I feel like it's time to focus on the convergence instead of the divergence. And yeah, that was the goal at the beginning of 2023 too, but the full-time creator was a force changed into the divergence mode. However, I don't want to add a whole bunch of new projects. I want to do the projects that I've got going a little bit better. And we'll

talk more about that in a little bit. But 2023 was definitely not according to plan. I mean, even the stuff that I am continuing to do was not necessarily according to plan. For listeners of Bookworm, the last episode that got published, Joe left the show. So I got to figure out what to do with that. The one thing I do know is that I do want to keep the show going. So I don't know, I'm rethinking about how all these different pieces fit together, which sounds a lot like the conversation we were having last year. But it's a little bit more exciting to me this year because all of the things that I am going to be considering are things that I really want to be doing. It's not because there's a financial reward attached to these things.

These are things like the podcast that I do and the cohorts. I mean, if money was no issue, this is what I would be doing. So now it's just solving the money equation. And like I said, we're making progress there, but still some work to be done. It really is quite a transformation for you this year. I, I mean, when you were saying earlier, it would have been better if you'd waited a little longer before making the leap. I remember talking to you at the time, there was no option for that. You were 100% in and you needed, you know, the, the boat was leaving the Harbor, whether or not you'd like that. And, uh, I felt like that was leaving the harbor, whether or not you like that.

And I felt like that was just the way it was going to be for you. So I have full faith that a year from now you'll be in even better shape financially, but also just creatively. I think you're going to have a much better idea of the things that you want to focus on. Yep, I agree. And I like that analogy that you shared about the boat leaving the station, because that is exactly what it felt like. The boat was leaving and was I going to jump on it or not? So I felt like I just, I needed to make the leap. And the more I read about this kind of stuff and I hear other people's stories, I feel like that's the picture a lot of peopleance for if I really messed this up. But maybe in some sense, that was good for me. Maybe I needed to just burn the boats and give myself no other option in order to really make it work. Well, I mean, I did that first

approach. I took a long time in making a decision and really didn't resisted it for a long time internally as well as externally. And then as a result, I lost years of trying to do both things at the same time. So we all kind of choose our poison. For me, I had chosen the word last year of intentionality. But to tell you the truth, I'm not a big fan of this word of the year approach and I know it works great for a lot of people Mike and Gray are really into it and but it just for some reason doesn't work with me it it seems like a fun exercise but it doesn't it's not like the thing I think about when I wake up every day I already have something

I think about when I wake up every day you know already have something I think about when I wake up every day, you know, as my foundation, and it's not a word for the year. To the best extent, I like these kinds of word things. It's more of a quarterly thing of like, okay, what's the big thing I want to work on in the next 90 days? But intentionality to me at the same time is always the challenge and the goal. I feel like thinking about intentionality as a method in your life is something that can really help you be more intentional and get more out of it and work on the right things. I think it solves a lot of problems if you can become more intentional. So, you know, to the extent I had a word that was it last year, and I feel like I did a pretty good job with it. The challenge I was facing last year as we talked was I was tired of transition.

I had given up being a lawyer a year earlier. But it wasn't like throwing a switch. There was still lawyer stuff that kind of pulled over into the following year that needed to be taken care of. And just getting my life kind of turned around the idea that now I'm a full-time teacher, creator, whatever. And then I decided to add a room onto the house to do a better job of it. So it felt very much like a transitionary year. And last year about this time, I was tired of transition. I felt like enough, right? Just make stuff, stop doing all this transition stuff, stop using that as an excuse. And I would say that

I got past that. I mean, I don't feel like I'm in transition at all anymore now. It's just a question of making things, you know, kind of the big goal when I left the law practice was to be more focused on making better things as Max Parkey and I feel like I'm largely doing that so to that extent it's it's been a successful year for me I don't know if intentionality is the right word for me but it's I'm definitely in a production mode at this point and I'm making stuff Well, I like the word intentionality. I think you can definitely apply that to what you've done this year, but maybe you could apply that to what you do every year too. I think it's one of those generalizable things. Yeah, exactly. I agree with

you. Just a small diversion here around, you mentioned that you don't really like the words for the year. I think I agree with you where I'm not necessarily picking this is one word for the year and everything has to fit in here as evidenced by I completely blew mine up in the middle of last year. But what they do is they if you are able to pick some words or some boundaries, some themes and full credit to Mike and Gray with the theme system journal. If you really want to go all in with a single theme, that's a great resource in order to do that. But really what you need is you need something that's going to kind of direct your focus. So this is what I should be paying attention to. And everything else is not as important at best or at worst, even a distraction

that's going to pull me away from this. And it's very flexible. It's supposed to be very fluid, but really that's what you want is something that's going to provide a little bit of structure. It's kind of like time blocking where you can execute the intention that you have set to go back to your word there without having to feel overwhelmed with all of these other things that you should be doing. So you can kind of craft your own system with this. And I think maybe a year is probably too long. So we've got the focus calendar and it's broken up into those quarters. You know, I really do believe that that 90 day period is there's something magical about that. But also, one thing we talked about in that previous episode, or we talked about our approach to

thinking about the year, there is something about turning the page at the end of a calendar year too, which I think is a little bit longer time horizon, so that the same sort of approach can work here as well. You want to be able to go back and forth between, what am I doing today and how does that connect to the long-term stuff, not just with 90 days or with a year, but even five years or even lifetime, you know, to go to your Arte concept. How are the things that I'm doing really helping me live out this ideal version of my life and become the best version of the person that I am meant to be?

That's really what all this stuff is in service of. If it doesn't work for you, then, you know, feel free to flex it or change it. Yeah. And that's where I think the theme system is at its best is giving you a framework to make decisions. Like say, okay, this year I'm going to be more minimalist or this year I'm going to be more exploratory or whatever. And that gives you a framework as other decisions in different contexts arrive in front of you. But I think at that part of the end is where you nail it. For me, to me, the focus is the R.A.T. It's becoming the best version of myself in my various roles,

and I put a ton of energy into that, and that is where my brain goes when I'm trying to decide how do I make a decision. Well, to me, it's tied to R.A.T. definitions and roles. So I kind of have a built-in system for it. It does alter over time, but it doesn't. It's just a little different structure than the word or the year. And so I pick one often when we do these shows.

But honestly, I don't really have one. To me, it's mainly I want to do better at my RTA next year. But intentionality is a great way. It's something that I can always work on and always get better at and not be scatterbrained and just be more focused on what's in front of me. And I think that is one of the keys to a good life. And that's something I'm always trying to get better at. So to a certain extent, that's always my word of the year. But I'm not really sure I'm even in the game on word of the year.

But getting back to the problem, this year became much more about production. I got a field guide out, a new field guide out with Obsidian, and I've got a new one releasing we're going to talk about in the next show, Productivity Field Guide. so it's like some things that were big targets on my thing got done um we had a lot going on in the family this year that took a lot of time and i was able to be there for those at the same time keep my max sparky stuff going just fine and um i even found more time this year for craft, which I hadn't done in a long time. So I feel like I'm kind of on the right track. And so 2023 overall was a pretty good year for me. Nice. And then you did something, it sounds like, in Q4, which is tied maybe not deliberately to this intentionality theme, but I think there's intentionality benefits to this. You want to talk us through your tools audit? I went through and I got itchy about my

tool sets and decided, you know, I should go through and look at everything. And part of this is because of my job as Max Sparky. I'm constantly advising people on, you know, good workflows and tools and some tools I've been using forever. I've been using OmniFocus for 15 years. So it's like, I wanted to go through and really deep dive on some of the other options out there and did some of the things, same thing with email workflows. And I spent a bunch of time on that and I could, I could definitely associate that with unintentionality, you know, spending days at a time looking at other tools thinking, well, does this make me a little more efficient or not? And however, for what I do and the stuff I cover in the Max Market Labs,

it's actually quite useful because it gives me a way to teach people to use other tools. But I thought it was funny because I went through that whole thing. And at the end, I felt like I was still pretty happy with my original tool set. And something I think to be aware of, if you're listening to the show, I think tools can quite often become a big distraction when you're trying to become more productive. It's like, oh, yeah, something that can make me 2% more productive. I should spend 100% of my day for three days switching over to get that 2%. It just doesn't work. Honestly, one of the things I'm coming to conclude at this point at the end of 2023 is there are so many good tools now where that hasn't always been the case. I feel like productivity tools a few years ago, there were a few good ones and a lot of

cruddy ones. And now there's just so many good ones that there isn't necessarily a perfect right tool set. It's just find one that generally you like and just go get back to being productive and don't worry about the tools so much. So it was just kind of an interesting thing at the end of the year. I put it in the outline because I thought it was funny that I had a good intentional year, but in the last quarter, I was quite unintentional as I did that little tools audit. Well, I like the idea of the tools audit. And I also like the compartmentalization that you kind of put it in by doing it at the end of the year. But I feel like even though you didn't change tools by doing the audit, that's still a win because you've established in your mind that

these are the right tools for the jobs that I've hired them to do. And that reduces the friction when you are actually making the stuff. And that's something that I think everyone should do at some point. And if you don't do it, I think that's kind of where the danger zone is, because that's where the shiny new object syndrome kicks in. It's like, well, I know the stuff that I'm using maybe isn't the right stuff, but I've never really stopped to unpack why that is. And so you're constantly kind of scanning the horizon for the next new shiny. Oh, maybe this thing is the thing that's going to allow me to be superhuman productive. And that's never the case.

You know, something I did with that, that I would recommend is when you, if you do a tools audit, if you start, even if you decide, I want to compare this email app to that email app, and you try them both, um, write down your findings, what you liked and disliked, put it down somewhere. So then later, if you get tempted, you can go back and read that and save yourself the trouble of doing it again. And it really makes a difference to write it down and because it was a tools audit i did that in apple's freeform app you know which is kind of their big canvas app that they have now and like i discovered that's something freeform is actually pretty good at like just kind of exploring ideas and thoughts and uh and so i actually have a big free form where i did my tools audit and and now as i go through and look at new tools i write them down add them

to the document nice i love it i have a similar version of that that i did of course it's an obsidian using obsidian canvas but i basically thought through using the PKM stack model because that really is clicking with me. The information, the ideas, action, philosophy, and then reflection to force the perspective from the top down. What are all of the habits and workflows that I have in relation to those different levels? And what are the apps that I am using to accomplish those things in those different roles. And I will share an image here in the show notes. But essentially what I did is I broke down the PKM stack and then I put next to it all the roles. And next to that, I have the icons for the apps that I am using with these. All right.

So I shared this with you in messages. And essentially, this provided a whole bunch of clarity. And in the upper right, I even thought through, what's the simplest version of this actually look like? What are the essential tools that you really need if you were going to just start over from from scratch and this has provided a a lot of clarity and it may look like a lot to people who have just glancing at the image but all of these things have a essential place in the workflow, which has been developed over years and years, honestly. Things like the life theme, the core values, the habits and the routines, mind maps, sketch notes.

This is all stuff that I've been doing for a long time. But by figuring out how they all tie together, it makes it real clear where I should be drawing the the lines and the next time i see a fancy new app i don't have to think about well where does that fit in terms of the the workflow and in like adding new functionality and what does that do to all the additional pieces i've kind of thought about all of the the core things here yeah and uh it just what role does this slide into? And does it do that job better than the currently hired app to do that? And I think you're right that at this point,

we don't need a whole bunch of new tools. We need to use the tools that we have better. And kind of that's the thing that inspired this is Cal Newport is you look on the surface, all the books that he writes, plus he's a college professor, all these other things that he does. He's a really productive guy. And he uses plain text files. He has one called Working Memory, where he just jots down all the things that he's thinking about. And he has a couple like simple lists that he works off of. It's kind of crazy.

You know, he doesn't have a crazy task manager, but he's able to get a lot done. And so that's kind of what I want to do with this is not constantly be looking for something new that maybe has some new technical capabilities. But how do I get more out of the tools that I'm already invested in? This episode of Focused is brought to you by Vitally. Customer success teams today are facing a problem. How do they connect customer data back to their work? And Vitally. Customer success teams today are facing a problem. How do they connect customer data back to their work? And Vitally is the answer by allowing you to provide a better experience for your customers. Vitally is a new kind of customer success platform. It's an all-in-one collaborative workspace that combines your customer data with all the capabilities that

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changing customer success platforms if you already have one in place, then schedule your call by visiting vitally.io slash focused to get that free pair of AirPods Pro when you schedule a qualified meeting. That's vitally.io slash focused for a free pair of AirPods Pro when you schedule a qualified meeting. Our thanks to vitally for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. Okay, Mike, we've covered the past. Let's talk about the future. We're heading into a new year. Have you given it much thought? You know, what's your big theme for the year and how are you going to pull it off? Yeah, well, uh, as like I mentioned, I think essentially I want a do over from last year. Uh, I feel like this should be the year that I'm

trying to stabilize things because, uh, I have an idea now from a bunch of different experiments that I know what is actually worth doing when it comes to my creative projects. And there are a bunch of things that I am currently doing because I was in a divergence mode where let's figure out what is actually going to stick. Let's throw a whole bunch of spaghetti at the wall. That's kind of the approach I was in for a little while. I have some clarity now on what are the things that I need to stop doing from that. And then the things that are worth continuing to do, I want to figure out how to do those better. And better could be quality or better could be just that there's going to be better processes which are going to make doing those things a little bit easier. The big thing as I think about stabilization for me in

2024, the thing that I think is going to be the biggest contributor to that is going to be focusing on the email list and also related to that is the focus on the YouTube channel. Those things aren't directly connected, but the way that I have approached YouTube, I basically share all this stuff about Obsidian. I had a video I published last week on building a quote book inside of Obsidian, which sounds kind of straightforward, but it's a combination of like a beta plugin, a custom CSS snippet, plus some basic search functionality. And people like that kind of stuff. So I walk through how to build that. And then always at the end of the videos, I have those resources are bundled inside of a starter vault that people can download for free.

So I'm basically showing something. and then if you want to download it, you sign up for the email list, you get the zip file, and you can just download that, open it up as a new vault and play around with the stuff yourself. So that's working really well. I've been doing that the last couple of months and I want to kind of double down on that. What I mean by that is, like with the YouTube videos, it's been a struggle to get one out a week. I did it consistently for a while. I think that's what I would like my cadence to be eventually. But there were other things that took precedence over that. Things that have been firmly established in a schedule like recording and publishing focus, recording and publishing bookworm bookworm i'm going to be building the email list i know that i need to take the

newsletter seriously so i've been sending a newsletter every week and those things needed to be in place before i could figure out you know where the bottlenecks in terms of the the youtube production but that's essentially where the focus is going to be, is on the YouTube and the email. And again, this is working, so I know that this is fallow ground, I guess. I will get fruit from this effort if I take the additional time and attention and focus on it. As an example, I mean, just to encourage someone else who may be where I was, you know, when I decided to go off on my own, I kind of had an email list, but I really wasn't doing anything with it. And I think it was like 2000 people. And after I started sending

emails regularly, it went down because I haven't been sending emails and people are like, who's this guy that's emailing me now. So it was like 1700 when I started the YouTube channel. And then since then, it's basically doubled in size. It's almost 3400 people. So I know that I am able to do that well. People are getting value from it, which is why they stick around. And you can look at some of the stats like the open rates and the click through rates and unsubscribes and all that kind of stuff. Figure out, you know, are you actually delivering on the promises? and you can look at some of the stats like the open rates and the click-through rates and

unsubscribes and all that kind of stuff. Figure out, you know, are you actually delivering on the promises? And I think that I am. So I just want to continue to do that a little bit better. If you're subscribed to my newsletter, you'll notice that I've tried to take it up a notch in the last couple of weeks. There's some different sections and things like that. So that's the kind of stuff that I want to focus on in 2024. And kind of related to that are these systems. So I know that creativity is a system. As a creator, that means that everything that I do is part of a system. even if you don't realize it, even if you think like you're just reacting to this flash of inspiration that you got. And that's the thing that caused you to sit down and write the script or publish the blog post or the podcast episode, whatever it is. But I've been doing it long enough that I realized that if I collect better dots, eventually that comes out. And by being forced

to produce on a schedule for the podcast and things, I know that I can do that as long as I am focusing on the inputs and not the outputs. Well, that's the creative piece, but there's still a whole bunch of business systems that I know how to fix them, just haven't had the focus, I'll say, because it's not really an issue of time. It's kind of the chicken and the egg scenario there where you don't had the focus, I'll say, because it's not really an issue of time. It's kind of the chicken and the egg scenario there where you don't have the time because you're busy doing the processes, but the processes are inefficient, so you don't have the time to fix the processes. So eventually, you just got to say, I'm going to take the time and I'm going to fix this thing and

make it a little bit more efficient, and then I'm going to move on to the next system. So I've got a long list of things that I want to dial in in terms of the business systems. And then kind of a system for my sanity is the idea of sabbaticals. I am committing right now to this. This is kind of a weird season for me. We're recording this between Christmas and New Year's. And right before Christmas, my wife caught COVID. She's doing okay. She's on the mend, never really had the super serious symptoms, but she's been isolating. And I've been stay-at-home dad with five kids, and I have a greater appreciation for everything that she does. Let's just say that a little bit exhausting. But I also

recognize that I have been so focused on all of the creator stuff that I've had to do that I've been pretty close to the point where I have that picture you talked about running downhill and you're almost falling on your face. Well, I feel like this was the moment where I fell on my face and I've had to reach out to some people and be like, hey, you know, not gonna be able to get this thing done on time. Got to push this back a week. I hate doing that. But I've had to do that recently. And I am committed to avoiding burnout, essentially, by building in these sabbaticals to my calendar. I am doing them every eight weeks, like Sean

McCabe talked to us about when he was on a show back in the day. And I'm not sure exactly if they're going to be firm on those dates or not. I'm going to try, do everything that I can. But I feel like projecting out every eight weeks for the entire year at this point, I have no idea what the next 12 months are actually going to look like. So I feel like the commitment I'm willing to make right now is that these are going to happen roughly every eight weeks. I'll never cancel a sabbatical, but I may move it. But they're on my calendar right now. Every eight weeks, Mike is out. And I know that there's some things I need to put into place in order to continue to send the newsletters on those weeks, for example, and have to maybe cover some things in terms of the

podcast or the other creative projects of City University, things like that. But all the cohorts that I do, those can fit around those sabbaticals easy enough. I just need to start with the sabbaticals, put that in the jar first. And I'm committed to doing that this year because that every eighth week, having that space, I feel like ultimately that is going to be a big help in the long run. I've seen it working with the Blanc Media team, and I just haven't taken the time to implement anything like that. And the trigger point for me was realizing that in the back of my mind, I've been saying, well, when we get to Christmas break,

that's when I'll slow down. That's when I'll recharge. Well, I didn't get that opportunity. So what do I do? Wait till next Christmas where I can take some time off? I'm not willing to do that. I realize that I need to build in a regular cadence of rest into my rhythms if I really want to be able to be a prolific creator for a long time, which I definitely want to. So those are my three words, themes, whatever you want to call it at the beginning of 2024, stabilization systems and sabbaticals. That's a lot, man. That's a lot. All right. I want to call it, at the beginning of 2024, stabilization systems and sabbaticals. That's a lot, man. That's a lot. All right. I want to go in reverse order, starting with sabbaticals. I love that you're doing this. And I'm kind of jealous. When I saw

it in the outline, I'm like, yeah, I really should do this too. Like as we hit the end of the year, I managed to get sick as well. And, uh, but I think it was just because I kind of wore myself out. I was finishing up the productivity field guide and doing family stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I've been sick the last week and a half. So yeah, I like the idea of built-in downtime. I think that, um, even from a selfish productivity standpoint, the idea of built-in downtime. I think that even from a selfish productivity standpoint, the idea of built-in downtime probably means I come up with better ideas for everything. But then also, I do get a lot of downtime. I mean, we do stuff as a family together a lot. I mean, I track my family time, and they get a good chunk of me.

But the sabbatical thing, I'll tell you. So now it's about me, I guess. But we have one car. So for me to say, I'm going to take a sabbatical and go up into the mountains or whatever, it's like she needs her car to get to work. So what do I do? Get on a bus and go up? I mean, it's the same thing with a quarterly off-site retreat. They're hard because there's some logistics about it, right? Yeah. And I really

struggle with that. I think I'm getting to a point where I probably could take some downtime days. You know, I don't have legal clients anymore. And the Max Parkey business is getting to a point where I could plan to have days off and not work. But logistically, it's difficult. Yeah, and that's really what I mean by that is the days off from work. Sabbatical sounds fancy. It sounds like you're going to another country for a couple of months or something like that. That's not what I mean. It's a forced break from the creative work. And I really believe that with creativity specifically, if you're exhausted, if your

brain is tired, it's harder to create. And yeah, you can force yourself to do it, but I don't think that's sustainable in the long run. So really, I just mean like during this week, I am not going to pre-plan any work projects. It doesn't mean that I can't do anything work-wise there, but to borrow Sean's hard, fast rule, nothing is going to get scheduled there. So when I go into that week, there are no commitments. And if I feel like cranking out a video course during that week, then I can do that. But it's

not required. It's scheduled for when I come back. And really, that's kind of the protected space where I can play with things and I can just kind of noodle on things and ultimately just have fun with things. I feel like when you have fun and you stay curious, that's really where the insights come anyways. So I really think that once I start doing this regularly, it's actually going to provide a source of inspiration for when I come back from those sabbaticals. But I need to not just take a day, I need to protect that whole week. Because the first couple days, knowing myself, it's hard for me to let go. I'm not really in the mode yet. And by building it into the schedule, I feel like that's the only way that I can do it consistently. If I just,

well, yeah, you know, I'll schedule the next one when I get there. No, it's not going to happen. There's going to be too much work to do. And I'm going to convince myself that I just can't do it right now. So it's already on the calendar through the end of the year. I love that. And I'm very inspired. I'm going to go back and read. I have a bunch of tabs from Sean that I've saved. Every time I start thinking about this, I'm going to go read them in the next week. And maybe, maybe I'll join you. We'll see. I'm not going to commit right now, but I, I, I do like the idea. You make a good point. I can take a sabbatical without having to get in a car and drive away. Yep. The other thing is how are you going to deal with that? Like when you have vacations planned, are you still going to have a sabbatical in that two

month period? Or is that going to be your sabbatical, your vacation? That'll probably be my sabbatical. I'll move the closest one. So it coincides with that, but ultimately, you know, we don't go on vacation all that often. And, uh, whenever we do, I'm in a different mode than just relaxing at home. Yeah. So I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation sometimes. That sounds ridiculous. No, it's common. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is going to give me, I believe, the margin that I need to really be effective as a creator. Okay. Well, I like that. Inspiring. Stabilization again. Yes. I think this is, you do get your mulligan. You turned the table upside down last year. I think you do need a year to stabilize. But I can see just as your friend from the outside

with your email, the quality of your email and the things you're doing, I think you are going to find a spot where you become stable. I think that's inevitable so long as you just keep at it. I think you're doing the right, you're making all the right moves. Thank you. For me, I just want to continue to do the stuff I'm doing, but better and more efficiently and with more intentionality. I feel right now, which is always a dangerous thing, right? Where I feel like I kind of know what I need to be doing. That's usually when the things start getting turned upside down on you is when you think you know what you should be doing. But for me, right now, I want to make great stuff

for the people in the labs. I want to make great field guides, I want to make great stuff for the people in the labs. I want to make great field guides. I want to make great podcasts. That's kind of how I pay for my shoes, but also how I fulfill my my arete to go and help people get better at this stuff. So right now, I have a huge focus on just doing those things at my best possible quality. And I feel like I made a lot of progress. You know, the, the reason I spent all this money on this room and, and some of the other stuff I've been doing is so I can deliver a better product. And I want to keep doing that. You know, that's it's funny.

Cause I'm in my mid fifties, but I feel like I'm doing my best work right now. And I, I really just want to keep doing more of it because I'm in my mid-50s, but I feel like I'm doing my best work right now, and I really just want to keep doing more of it. I feel like I'm in a really good groove right now, and so I'm very happy. A couple things I'd like to improve on going into 2024, one of them for me is a public YouTube presence. You talked about this as well, but I've made something like in the last two years, 300 YouTube videos, but they've all been shared with labs members under private links,

you know, but I've, I've got pretty good at making YouTube videos. I want to make more that don't go to lab simbers. You know, I want to do some stuff that's public as well. And I meant to do that in the last year, but just between a variety of things going on in my life, that was the thing that got thrown overboard because I knew I didn't have time to do it properly. But I feel like I'm in a good spot heading into January, 2024, that I can start like making time to make some public videos too. And, you know, labs members are still going to get the lion's share of the stuff I create, but you know, I want to share stuff publicly as well. So that's something that I'm looking to improve upon in 2024. Nice. Well, I think, uh, you've got all the pieces for,

uh, a killer YouTube channel. Uh, I will say, cause I've gone through Ali Abdaal's part-time YouTuber Academy. So a little bit of free public advice for anybody else who's thinking about starting a YouTube channel. It is a little bit different because essentially the approach has to be in terms of the algorithm and what people want to see. That doesn't mean that you're having to go all overboard with the crazy YouTube thumbnails and the clickbaity titles, but essentially, it's not enough just to make the high-quality stuff. You have to make it in a way that it's discoverable. But I think that you have the materials all right there. And one of the things I like about YouTube

is that the algorithm essentially is incentivized to work in the creator's favor. If you make good stuff, then people will find it and they'll watch it and YouTube is incentivized to keep showing it to more people. So I wholeheartedly endorse this intention for 2024. Looking forward to what you're able to make there. Yeah, it just seems like something I'd like to add to the mix. You know, it's a curiosity to me more than anything else. I'm not looking to become the next Ali Abdaal, but I would like to share some stuff publicly as well. And I think that's something that I absolutely have the bandwidth to do now as, you know, we hit this point. I mean, one of the things people uh a lot of

my fellow creators are like you know telling me hey you you make so much stuff you know and uh because we do put a lot of content into the labs and and i make three podcasts and all this but the thing people don't realize is i used to be a lawyer i mean the stuff i used to have to do as a lawyer this is like child's play compared so i don't feel overworked or overstressed, although hitting the end of the year and getting sick just really makes me think more seriously about the idea of sabbaticals and maybe a little more controlled time off. The other thing I want to do more of this year on a personal note is I really want to spend more downtime creating. I've spent a lot of time and effort kind of getting this wood shop set up. I just bought some glass cutting tools.

You know, I found a deal on some used glass cutting tools. It's like, so now I'll be able to make stained glass. I've got a 3D printer. I've got a laser cutter. I've got a nice supply of hand tools. And it's like, I like the idea that in the evenings I can just go out there and make something with my hands at will. And I want to do more of that this year. So I'm really looking forward to that. I'm in a pretty good place right now, except for the fact that I'm not 100% right now. I'm feeling a little sick.

But yeah, it's all good for me. The other thing that I want to work at in 2024 is my health. I've been doing Pilates and exercise a lot more the last few months, but then me getting sick the last couple weeks has kind of put a hitch in my giddy-up. So I need to get back on the horse there as soon as I'm feeling a little better. Nice. I like the idea of the stained glass. I could totally see a stained glass window in Endor studios. Well, I just, I want, there's a piece of furniture I want to make that would have some stained glass in it. I was thinking, well, I'd have to find someone that can make it for me. And then I started reading about stained glass and it's not that hard because especially

the kind of stuff I want to do is largely geometric so a lot of straight cuts and i'm like well if i can cut wood i can cut glass so and um and i found a local guy who was kind of hanging that up he didn't want to do it anymore so for a good deal i got some some used equipment and um that's something else i'll probably be doing the next year. We'll see. I don't know. I'm a very creative person. And that's not meant to be like a humble brag, but I really like making things. That to me is like a drug. And I'm always looking for ways to do it, whether it's with words or with my hands. Well, I think it's important. It reminds me of something that Sean Blanc said when he was on on the show that if you work with your head you rest with your hands that's what it seems like you're doing it so it is a form of creating but it's not exercising the same muscles it's not

depleting it's actually a restorative putting words in your mouth here but yeah no it is same thing with playing music i mean all of these, it's like you're using different zones of your brain, but all of them are trying to make something. And I find that quite enjoyable. you know, as a human, that's something that we have. Like my dog doesn't sit around and think about making a painting or designing furniture, but the human animal does. Right. So I think the more we do that, the more we get in touch. This episode of the focus podcast is brought to you by nom nom with healthy fresh food for dogs formulated by top board certified veterinary nutritionists prepare it in their kitchens with free delivery to your door

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Nom Nom will refund your first order. No fillers, no nonsense, just Nom Nom. Go right now and get 50% off your no risk two week trial at trynom.com slash focus. That's T-R-Y-N-O-M.com slash focus for 50% off. Make your dog happy. That URL one last time, trynom.com slash focused. And thank you nom nom for all of your support of the focus podcast. So Mike, what are you reading these days? Reading a couple of things. The one that I'm currently reading, and this is a little bit of a difficult read, is Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone. And I say difficult read just because it's a 300-page book about how to have difficult

conversations. Probably not everybody's favorite topic, but this is going to be a bookworm book, and we're recording this one next week. So I have a guest lined up who suggested this one, and I thought it looked interesting. And there's some really good stuff in here, but it is all very practical. And a lot of it is, I mean, there's a personal application of it as well. You know, there's high stakes conversations that you have with your kids or with your spouse, but a lot of this seems to be anchored in like a work context. So part of it is like, I wish I would have read this before.

Um, but it's, uh, it's not an easy, like you just crank through it type of read. I do have another one, though, that I am anxious to start as or excited to start, I'll say. As soon as that one is done. You mentioned Ali Abdaal earlier. Well, he actually just published his first book and it's called Feel Good Productivity. And I am curious about this one. I have no idea what to expect with this. I kind of think I'm going to go into it and sort of disagree with a lot of the stuff that he's going to say, but maybe that's wrong. I know just by

going through Part-Time YouTuber Academy and watching Ali's story, he went from being a doctor to a YouTuber and he's had a bunch of success and kudos to him for all of that stuff. I feel the name, the feel good productivity piece, this is kind of the pushback we get sometimes when we talk about focus is like, oh, well, it's nice for you guys. You can control your schedule, but the rest of us have to do stuff we don't want to do. So I'm kind of going into it curious about how he's going to tackle that argument or that perspective. But it does look like a good book, and I've heard lots of great things about it already. So I like Ollie's kind of laid back, very chill style. So I haven't started this one yet,

but anxious to dig into it. Yeah, I'm going to let you be the canary in the coal mine on that one. If it's good, let me know. I'll read it. But I haven't made my decision yet. Right now, I'm busy reading a book by a future guest. Marianne Wolfe is coming on the show in January. She is a cognitive scientist. And she is a person who loves to read books and she wrote a book

called prowson squid like 10 years ago that i've always liked and and she has a newer book although this is one of the few years uh only a few years old too called reader come home talking about the science of reading and i wanted to get the book kind of digested before she comes on the show and I wanted to get the book kind of digested before she comes on the show. But it is a great book about how we read and how our brains work when we read, and just the idea that as another uniquely human trait is, you know, we are not inherently given the ability to read. You know, like as humans, we know how to talk and communicate with other humans.

We figure it out without any special training. Our brains are pre-wired for that. But reading, it is not. You have to set up the wiring as you learn to read. And she goes through it, and she's got a lot of stuff in here. I'm in the middle right now of a section where she's talking about the different circuits that are triggered when you read an electronic book versus a physical book which has me questioning a lot to be honest with you i'm one of the things i'm going to be doing i believe in 2024 is probably reading more physical books because of the stuff that i'm reading in this book and uh i'm really enjoying it is very science heavy is not an easy read, but it is good knowledge. And I'm really looking forward to having her on the show.

Nice. Yeah, I'm looking forward to chatting with her as well. She seems like my kind of people. Yeah, definitely. And although one of the things she recommends is reading lots of fiction because of the things you learn from fiction. And I'm looking forward to smashing the two of you together about on that topic when we have her on the show so you're warned yep the the other thing uh is i i talked in the last episode i got that big epictetus book and i'm just going through and

just randomly reading passages and it's so good so good i just love these ancients that uh we're dealing with the same problems that we still have. Mike, I really like talking to you about shiny objects. We don't do it in every show, but I thought today, since it's the end of the year, let's do it. And lately I've been trying an experiment. You know, these travelers, are you familiar with the traveler's notebook, Mike? travelers are you familiar with the traveler's notebook mike i know what it is but i've never actually used one so i don't get why people are so crazy about them i'm not even sure why people are either but they're fun it's a basically it's a flap of leather and then midori makes these unique size paper inserts and uh the inside of it's kind of ingenious. You can,

with a fixture of elastic and rubber bands, you can put multiple notebooks inside of it. And I kind of like that part of it. Like, you know, I kind of have what I would call, for lack of a better term, a commonplace book and a journal. So I could have both of them in one of these little books. And I like the idea of traveling with it, right? You know, if you're moving around, you've got your little notebook with your little journal and your commonplace in it, and it goes with you. But I haven't decided to commit. We're at the very end of the year as we record this show.

And one of the things I do, which doesn't really make a lot of sense, is I kind of like to hit January 1 with a committed stack. That's the reason why I did the audit in the fourth quarter. When we hit January 1, whatever I'm using that day is generally what I want to use for the whole year. And so I was thinking, well, maybe this is the year that I get a traveler's notebook and I try to use these traveler's notebook pages instead of my tote book pages for hand journaling. So I'm using one of those and I've been using it for a week. And honestly, I don't know. As we record this, there's a few days left in the year and

I still don't know which way it's going to go. I mean, they're fine, but they're not like life changing either. They're not necessarily any better. I think the tote book paper is maybe a little better, but I do like the idea of being able to have, you know, multiples of these little traveler's notebooks that I can have different types of information in and carry them all at once. But I'm going to have to make a decision next couple days, but this is something I'm playing with right now.

Life is too short to use crappy paper. Yes, yes. But, you know, but if I was Indiana Jones, but this is something I'm playing with right now. Life is too short to use crappy paper. Yes. Yes. But you know, but if I was Indiana Jones, a traveler's notebook is how I would roll. And that there's a definite attraction to that for me, you know?

So, sure. So we'll see. How about you? All right. Well, I have a shiny new object that showed up this week, but I had ordered it several months ago because that's how keycaps work. Yeah, it is.

So I bought the extended 2048 dark keycap set. I just sent you a picture and I'll put this in the show notes as well yeah so the 2048 is a very sculpted i think it's an essay profile keycap set so they uh they are very well sculpted is the best word like there's definitely a different angle to the bottom keys than there is to the top keys and uh they sit up pretty high on the keyboard so you definitely kind of need one of these wrist rests if you're going to do this. I have these in my Keychron Q1, and the 2048 is supposed to kind of model the old Apple Keyboard 2,

which I've never actually used, but they are designed to look like a modern Mac-style mechanical keyboard. So I've really liked this, these key caps. These are the ones that I have had the light versions of these in this keyboard, the one at the coworking space, like every keyboard I've used in the last two years, three years, uh, whenever these key caps came out, like I've put these key caps on all of my keyboards everywhere just because I liked them so much. Uh, but they came out like i put these key caps on all of my keyboards everywhere just because i like them so much yeah but they came out with this dark set and you can see in the the picture that i've got this purple q1 keyboard so this is like a big aluminum purple keyboard and i really really like

these black keys i didn't think i after i ordered them i kind of second guessed it and like oh am i really gonna gonna like the way that those look? Spoiler alert. Yes. I love the way that these look. Did you get the accents as well? I mean, the accents look really cool. So I did, I ordered, they have a separate thing on the website that says the dark accents. So I bought the dark accents. It's actually the light accents. It's the exact same thing. In fact, the accents actually came with four extra light mode, like the white ones for the arrow accents. It's the exact same thing. In fact, the accents actually came with four extra light mode, like the white ones for the arrow keys. So there is literally no difference between the dark accents and the light accents. And these are actually the light accents that I already had

on this keyboard. Once I saw that they were exactly the same, I was like, well, what's the point of replacing them? Yeah. Yeah. But they've got kind of like the neon, they've got like the neon colored command keys and option keys. I kind of like that neon, they've got like the neon colored command keys and option keys. I kind of like that. Yep, yep. So they have those colored keys. And there's more than that that comes with it.

But those are the ones that I've chosen to use. I think there's like a different color for the tab key and the cap slot key. But the ones that I've used are like the control option and command in the bottom so those are red blue and purple respectively the shift keys are yellow the escape key is red and then the enter key is is green and i don't know if these actually look better like i do have the black versions of these i actually thought about just blacking out the entire keyboard yeah removing those those colored modifiers and just putting black keys all

the way across i think that would look pretty cool too but i do like a little splash of color so i don't know if i'm gonna keep those but for now they're they're there do you um do you have the uh i mean so i go back and forth on this i've got also a Keychron keyboard that I get out, and I can never keep it out longer than like a week because I miss like the Apple Touch ID key. And there's certain things I do with an Apple keyboard that you just don't get with these mechanical keyboards. How did you get past that, Mike? get with these mechanical keyboards is it how'd you get past that mike well the the you just hit on the the biggest pain point which is the touch id yeah so the way around that it's a little bit cumbersome but i've got an apple watch so when i unlock it'll say you want to use your apple watch to verify all that kind of stuff and i'll just do that and that works 95 of the time every once in a while i do have to enter

my uh my passcode manually which is always annoying when it happens so i get it why people would be like no it's not worth it just give me the the touch id button yeah but i just don't really use it and then i'm not always at the desk using this mechanical keyboard either when i'm doing this i'm kind of in a focused writing mode. I'm not jumping back and forth between a couple different things. I've already unlocked my computer. I'm sitting down in Obsidian and I'm cranking out words. And I really, really like the mechanical keyboard for that. I can type thousands of words and it's not anything magic or special about this particular keyboard or these specific keycaps.

It's just, it feels really nice. And when you feel good about the tools that you're using, you can use them more effectively. So this is kind of the sweet spot for me and I absolutely love it. Well, I'll get mine out again. Give it a try. See, maybe the, um, the other thing that I miss is I have now started to use the globe key on the Apple keyboard, which is right next to the control key for some keyboard shortcuts. So I'd have to rewire a few things, but yeah, I don't know. Why not? I'm going to get mine out again. You always inspire me, Mike. All right. Well, good for you, man. Uh, either way, way listen thank you for listening to the focus podcast we're at the end of the year we're very thankful to have you as a listener uh this show

is very special to me because so much of the stuff i do is about you know technology and using the tech and and being effective with it but for me the focus is a huge piece of it like being able to stay focused i'm a weird person who teaches people how to use technology, but I'm also leery of technology in a lot of ways. And, uh, I feel like you're with me here on this journey and we really appreciate it. So, um, uh, I hope everybody listening had a good 2023 and you're looking forward to an exciting 2024.

Agreed. Thank you to our sponsors today. That's the folks over at Nom Nom and Vitally. If you are a subscriber to the Deep Focus podcast, that's the extended ad-free version of the show, Mike and I are going to talk about analog and digital books. I have thoughts and comments and questions, so that's going to be what we're going to get today. But otherwise, have a great new year and we'll see you next time.