Focused - 212: Living the Llama Life, with Marie Ng

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

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 today? Doing great. How about yourself? Excellent.

Excellent. And it's September and you know what that means? It means that Mike and Stephen are going to talk into a microphone for a very long time on September 20th for the podcast-a-thon. Yes, it does. into a microphone for a very long time on September 20th for the podcast-a-thon. Also it means that we're raising money for St. Jude this month. It's Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Yes, yes. This is one of my favorite things that St. Jude, or that Relay does to be honest. I remember reading Stephen's blog post a while

back and just the emotion that he shared in that and how real he was with everything It was very easy to put myself in in his shoes and as a father myself, I can't really imagine what it would be like to have a kid that has to go through that but the truth is that that's reality for not just our friend, but a lot of people and St. Jude is an amazing organization that just provides all of the care and everything that these kids need at no cost to the parents.

I mean, how amazing is that when you're in a battle for your life, you don't have to worry about can you actually afford the care. And it's top-notch stuff. You know, St. Jude does the best work in the world when it comes to this Yeah, it is really you know remarkable work and Unfortunately an illness sometimes can be a financial drain on a family, but st. Jude decided to make sure that's not a case Whenever there's childhood cancer and and they do more than just take care of sick children.

They also are a research hospital. They're internationally renowned. One of the things they do is they don't claim intellectual property over their research. They share it all freely. So they have made a huge dent in the battle against childhood cancer. And any money you give to them goes to that. And

I can't think of a better place to send a few bucks. Exactly. It really does make a huge difference. And just for some context here, they say an estimated 400,000 children worldwide get cancer every year. And in a lot of the countries that those kids live in, four out of five of those kids who develop cancer are not going to survive largely due to the lack of access to quality care year. And in a lot of the countries that those kids live in, four out of five of those kids who develop cancer are not going to survive largely due to the lack of access to quality care like St. Jude Children's Research Hospital provides. And curing childhood cancer is a tremendous undertaking, but St. Jude is doing it and they need our help. The generosity of the focus listeners and all the Relay FM listeners, all the donors,

that supports that cutting-edge research that you were talking about. It really does save people's lives and it ensures that families never receive a bill from St. Jude for the treatment, the travel, the housing, the food. All of it is taken care of and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has this goal that they're not going to stop until no child dies from cancer, no matter where they live. But they need our help in order to achieve that goal. Yeah, so, you know, dig in a little bit, gang. Daisy and I say for this every year, one of the big events we have is her company does matching.

So we get to double our contribution. If you work for a big company, check it out, see if they do matching as well. But give a few dollars, check it out, see if they do matching as well. Give a few dollars, help out St. Jude. This is something both Mike and I really enjoy doing every year and we love being a small part of helping this fundraiser. So why don't you join in with us and donate to St. Jude? Where do you go, Mike? You go to stjude.org. Where do you go, Mike? You go to stjude.org slash relay. And yeah, I'll be participating. You'll be participating.

And whether you can donate a bunch of money or just a couple of bucks, I would encourage you to do what you can because there isn't a better organization, a more worthwhile cause that you could support than this. So if you go to stjude.org slash relay, you can contribute there. You can also register to create your own fundraiser if you want to join us in raising money for St. Jude. And then after

you sign up, you can share your fundraiser with friends, family to spread the word about this amazing mission. So one last time, go to stjude.org slash relay to donate or to create your campaign today. And with that, let's welcome our special guest, Marie Young. Welcome to the show, Marie. Thank you for having me. Yeah. I'm in Australia, so we're kind of the, um, the opposite opposite side of the globe opposite time. Yeah. I appreciate you making the time work, Marie.

I know scheduling was a little bit tricky, but you are a focused listener. You reached out to us initially. And then when I started digging into some of the things that you had done, I realized that we do have a mutual friend in Jessie J Anderson and you've made this really cool looking app called Lama Life, which we're going to talk about a little bit later. What else would you like people to know about you before we get into this episode? Yep. That's a good intro. Yes. We have a mutual friend, Jesse.

Jesse and I used to do a podcast together called the weekly build, which was all about products that we were building. We're both software engineers and designers at the same time, self-taught. And that was kind of tracking our progress. So it's been a while since I've done a podcast actually. So I'm excited to chat to you guys today. I think you covered it pretty well. So I'm building a tool called Llama Life, which is a productivity app,

which is focused on helping you manage your attention and not just your time. On the surface, it looks very simple and sort of fun and not too overwhelming. And it looks a little bit like a to-do list. But it's not really about helping you make lists because I think there are a lot of tools out there that help you gather all your tasks and organize your tasks. We're more about helping you work through the list versus creating lists. And it's meant to be used in conjunction with other tools that are helping you collect everything to do. It's really the tip of

a productivity workflow about what you're doing now and actually just working through that. Tim Cynova Which I really like that approach. I feel like knowing what you need to get done in terms of the task management piece of this, that's kind of entry level or elementary level. But once you identify that, then there are lots of other roadblocks that could prevent you from actually doing the thing. You kind of hit on attention being one of them. And I know that that is kind of rooted in some personal experience and backstory. How did you get to the point where llama life was a thing that you actually wanted to build? Yeah, so you hit on that well.

So attention is such a big thing for me. It's kind of a lifelong struggle, to be honest. I got diagnosed with ADHD about 10 years ago, and that was such a huge eye-opener because I'd always known that I was struggling in this area, but I kind of managed to get through school. I still managed to get fairly decent grades, but I always had a challenge with kind of getting the homework done and staying on task. That all changed later in my adult life when I got diagnosed. I've always been trying to find different ways to cope with it and different strategies

and different tools. And I really just couldn't find a tool that worked for me. I kept jumping around to different tools and it really started during COVID. So peak COVID a couple of years ago. You know how everybody was learning like a new skill because everybody's in lockdown? I'm very bad at cooking and I'm not really sort of a gardener or anything. And all my friends were doing those things and I was like, well, maybe I should learn something new.

Like maybe I should learn to code because I've always been sort of tech savvy, but I never really learned to code. And I thought I'd try and teach myself coding during lockdown. And I'd done a lot of theory and I was reading a lot of, you know, material about it and watching a lot of YouTube videos on coding, but I wanted to put the theory into practice. And I thought, well, maybe I'll try and build a productivity tool

that is something that, you know, I'm looking for, that has the features that I want and works the way exactly like I want. And that's kind of how LamaLife got born. It wasn't really meant to be a tool for other people. It was really meant to be a little project for myself. And I put it on Twitter. And when I put it on Twitter, like a very basic version, I put it on Twitter and people were like, oh, what is this? You know, like, where can I get this tool? And I was like, well, it's actually not available. You know, it was just something I'm small that I was building.

But because of that reaction, I started sharing more of what I was learning on Twitter and the progress, and it kind of just developed like a little cult kind of following like a small group of passionate users. And it's grown from there. And now, you know, it used to be just me, but now it's me and two other people as well, working on the business. What were the challenges that you were facing that weren't being met in the other tools and apps that you were trying? What was it that you were really trying to solve for when you were building Llama Life? Yeah. So for me, it's about managing my attention and my focus. So I don't have any

challenges in terms of gathering all the tasks I need to do. And I know very clearly what I need to do. That's not an issue for me. The issue for me is actually working through it. So I can make a list and I used to make lots of lists and I've tried lots of different tools and different methods. And what would happen over time is those lists would just start to get bigger and bigger and just get super overwhelming. So the problem I'm trying to solve for myself is like, how do you actually work through that list?

Like, you know what you need to do that day, but how do you actually work through that in a way that doesn't feel stressful or overwhelming? And I think, you know, two people can have exactly the same to-do list for the day, but those two people can actually work through it in different ways and have a very different emotional outcome. So, you know, we might both have five things to do and we both finished those five things, but you know, you might end the day feeling very calm

and accomplished, but I might end the day feeling kind of stressed because it was very difficult for me to get through those five things. So one of the problems I'm trying to solve is like, how do you manage your attention and how do you manage sort of your emotional state as you're working through something? Can you do that in a way that's kind of calm and a bit more leveled versus the way I often do things which are kind of like these peaks and valleys and like spurts of focus and then sort of nothing. So that's one of

the things I was trying to solve. And the other thing is kind of just, a lot of tools these days feel very boring to me. So I wanted something that felt a little bit more fun and gave me a bit of dopamine every time I finished a task. And we build in a lot of little animations and fun, like little Easter eggs and stuff in Llama Life. So when you complete a task, you'll get confetti and there's some really cute sound effects that we do.

And there's a lot of colors and themes and emoji. And all of these things are put in from a design perspective to make it just feel a little more fun to get through what you need to get through. And you know, if that's a boring task, maybe you can kind of make up for that because you know, you'll get this sort of burst

of dopamine or satisfaction when you tick you tick it off in llama life yeah, you're really speaking to me with this because I feel like at some point along the way task managers became task masters and A lot of people have these really unhealthy relationships with digital task management where it just feels like it's oppressing you And you don't really have any control of your life anymore relationships with digital task management, where it just feels like it's oppressing you and you don't really have any control of your life anymore. And I'm a big advocate of OmniFocus, I've used it for years, but I'm very mindful

about how I use it, really it's a list of lists for me. And that's evolved over the years, but I think we're kind of part of something right now where people are starting to think differently about these things. And it feels to me like, you know, Lama life, just the little I've worked with it, seems like it's right in that sweet spot of dealing with a new healthier way to deal with your things, but actually get them done, but in a way that doesn't feel like you've got a

master. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. There's kind of this emotional component to it. And, you know, like I was saying with those two people with the same list sort of thing, where, you know, we can, even if we can get through that list, like how can we feel good about that? And how do we sort of manage how we're feeling throughout the day? So, yeah, no, that's exactly right. And, um, you know, Mike and I were, we're having a little chat the other day

about this as well, but we were also talking about just expectation management and how expectation is such a powerful thing. And it's also the thing that kind of sabotage, we sabotage ourselves with expectation as well. So, so the easiest example I can think of is, you know, building LamaLife as a, as a small sort of development team. Sometimes we, we're trying to build a new feature and we'd set ourselves a deadline for that feature. And we set that expectation that we can finish it by that deadline. And we'd say, okay, well, let's, let's do this in a week.

We have one week and we think we can hit that. But in reality, it takes that deadline. And we'd say, okay, well, let's, let's do this in a week. We have one week and we think we can hit that. But in reality, it takes two weeks. And we feel awful because we've actually blown past the deadline and we've taken two weeks. We've taken double the time that we said we were going to take. But if we were actually a bit more realistic with our expectations and we said, Hey, let's do this and we think it's going to take three weeks. But it actually took two weeks Cause the reality didn't change.

The reality was two weeks. We've now actually beaten the deadline by a week. And I think that's a really powerful concept because the reality didn't change. The reality was two weeks. What changed was our expectation. We thought we could do it in one week or three. And as a result, like the team just feels so much better if we actually give ourselves a little bit more time. And obviously you've got to be realistic about that time, but it's just what I'm trying to

highlight is just sort of that, that mental, you know, what you have in your head, that mental sort of expectation, if it's earlier or later, makes a huge difference when the reality itself didn't actually change. Yeah, I think the key question whenever you're thinking about what is it that I'm doing? How big is this task that I'm actually trying to do? What is the appropriate timeline? We tend to view it relative in terms of what resources

we think we have available as opposed to just looking at the task or project for what it is. And so we've got, you know, a week before the deadline, well, I can get this done in a week, but it's actually a three week task. We just don't want to deal with the reality that this task is actually going to take longer than the window that we have For it, but once you get over that that mental hurdle I'm hearing you right and this has kind of been my experiences as well It becomes a much less frenzied pace. It becomes a more calm Work environment, but it doesn't just apply to work I think this could be personally or professionally and it just totally changes the way that you engage with the things that

you do. Now making that mindset shift, I don't think is easy. So you have any tips for us, Marie? Yeah, I was going to say there was one important thing I left out about Lama Life, which could help with this mindset shift. And that is, you know, I kind of mentioned that it looks like a to-do list on the surface, but the thing that actually makes it very different is that for every task that you have in that list, you can set a timer against it. And I'm talking about a countdown timer, not a stopwatch. And what that actually does is, is it creates that mental space to

focus on one task at a time. So you'll say, okay, well today I need to reply to emails. Um, and I want to do that for say half an hour. So I type in reply to emails and you can actually just type like the number after, so you type in reply to emails 30, and that will just create a 30 minute timer around that task. And I'm sure because this is a productivity podcast, a lot of your listeners would be familiar with the Pomodoro method, where you set a 25 minute timer and have a five minute break.

So it's kind of similar to that, except it gives you a lot more flexibility because, uh, me personally, I struggle to do 25 minute, uh, blocks. And sometimes I might want to set a timer for like five minutes or, you know, 10 minutes and just work my way up to something bigger. And I can do that with Lama Life. So I can say, well, maybe I just want to spend five minutes planning my day. with LamaLife so I can say, well, maybe I just want to spend five minutes planning my day and you know, that wouldn't fit in a 25 minute Pomodoro, but I can write, plan my day as a task with the number five and I'll create a five minute block. So I personally find that when you set a countdown timer against a task, it makes me feel for some reason, it makes me feel very, I don't know, it sort

of makes me feel quite calm. I know that I've allocated that time for that task and I'm not going to do anything else during that time. I've created sort of a little space around doing that task and my goal is to focus just on that task for that five minutes or 10 minutes or whatever time I've set and nothing else. And that for some reason creates like a sense of calm in me. And it just makes me feel like everything's accounted for. The other thing that Lama Life will do is it will say, okay, you've set all these tasks with all these timers against each task. It'll

actually add up the length of that list. So it will say, hey, you have, you know, 10 things on this list. And the total time for these 10 things is maybe it's like four hours or something. And then it will also say, well, the time is, you know, nine o'clock now in the morning. So if you got all this done, as you, you know, as you planned, you'd finish at 1pm. And it really helps to kind of figure out like how much you've put on your plate. You know, did you put too much? Did you kind of have the wrong expectation of what you could do today? And what time might you finish?

Like what time of day might you finish? And if you start to see that time of day, like that finishing time creeping up and maybe it's blowing past like 5pm, you might go, well, actually I can't take on that extra task today, I need to wait because I've put too much on my plate. And just seeing all those figures, like seeing the countdown timers, seeing my total list time, seeing my projected end time, that just makes me feel calm because I know where I am in my day. And I think one symptom of ADHD is,

it's just this symptom of time blindness. It's very hard for me to figure out time and where I am. So seeing it in front of me really, really helps to make me feel a little calmer when I work through that. Yeah, see, I would argue that's not just an ADHD thing. I think everybody struggles with that. And one of the things I like about this app,

and this show, Gang, is not gonna be an hour long commercial for Long Life, but we kind of stumbled into the beginning here. But one of the things I do like about the app is that it asks you to make an estimate when you create the event, which I think a lot of people don't do. In the morning, they write down a list of things

they wanna do, but they don't hold themselves accountable to a time estimate. And if you do that responsibly, it adds up quick, and then this app gives you that total. And I think that can help you avoid a crash where you put too much on. Like if you write five things down and each one is a two-hour estimate,

you're like, oh, I just committed to 10 hours today. or you put too much on. Like if you write five things down and each one is a two hour estimate, you're like, oh, I just committed to 10 hours today. What's the likelihood of me working 10 hours? So I do like kind of the method you're using. Yeah, I think you hit on something too. What we're talking about here is really kind of systems and approaches and methods. A tool is just a tool. You could do something like this with just

a stop, get like a kitchen timer or something like that and have an analog list that you want to write things against. I think tools nowadays, it's really about having the systems and approaches and the methods that you want to use or that work for you. And then finding tools that help you do that. And there are many different levels of tools. Um, like I said, it could just be a kitchen timer. Um, but something like LimeLive is trying to put it together for you and just make it a bit easier, but it's the method. That's the most important.

Like we actually tell our users when they sign up, we just, we tell them that, you know, a tool is just a tool, like make sure you've got your method, make sure you've got something that works for you because if you don't have that, there's no tool that will be able to save you. Yeah. And something you pointed out that I think not enough people consider is that you want a tool that brings you some joy and delight while you use it because you're using this to do your important work. But there's no reason why that can't be a little fun and a little interesting and entertaining

along the way. And I think that will be, for a lot of people, what makes it easier to use the tool. And like some people like apps that are very straight-laced and very simple. Some people like apps that are very straight-laced and very simple. Some people like apps that are more whimsical. Some people like analog tools versus digital tools. All of us monkeys are different, but you need to figure out the tools that work for you. And that's really one of the great things right now,

because I'm old enough that I saw productivity apps mature in a way over the last 20 years where it used to be in each category there was one or two acceptable choices and now for a variety of reasons people, even relatively new coders, can spin up a really great productivity app and a lot of the tools used to Cloud Sync and all that stuff has been democratized. So there's a lot of great apps that can scratch the itch and that gives you the opportunity to go find what brings you a little delight as you do this stuff and makes your work easier.

Although I will go on record that Llama Life is exactly my kind of app. I love the little delight moments you put in it, and I think you're speaking my language, Marie. Thank you. This episode of the Focus podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com slash focused

to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code FOCUSED. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, you can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything,

your products, services, and even the content you create. Squarespace has got everything you need, all in one place, all on your terms. You can start a completely personalized website with their guided design system, Squarespace Blueprint. Choose from professionally curated layouts and styling options to build a unique online presence from the ground up,

tailored to your brand or business and optimized for every device. And then easily launch your website and get discovered fast with integrated optimized SEO tools, so you can show up more often to more people and grow the way you want. You can also integrate flexible payments to make checkout seamless for your customers with simple but powerful payment tools. Except credit cards, PayPal and Apple Pay and ineligible countries offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with Afterpay and Clearpay. With Squarespace you can even sell your content. Squarespace has the tools you need to sell exclusive content on your site by adding a paywall to sell content or courses,

or sell files your customers can download, like PDFs, music, or eBooks. I've been using Squarespace since they first launched. I still have a site, and I still love them. I love the way they are always updating the service, finding ways to become more useful, and I love their them. I love the way they are always updating the service, finding ways to become more useful, and I love their dedication to the product. One of my favorite stories is when they were

hand carrying gasoline up the stairwell to the server room to run it off generators through a big storm. Squarespace is really serious about keeping your website running. So head to squarespace.com and sign up for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com and sign up for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash focus to save 10% off

your first purchase of a website or domain. That URL, one last time, squarespace.com slash focus. When you decide to sign up to get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the Focus podcast. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the Focus podcast and all of Relay FM. So Maria, one of the things that you had mentioned earlier, you didn't use this term, but you were talking about

compartmentalizing the time that you spend on specific tasks and that bringing peace and calm as you went about doing the tasks. And I think what you're describing is Parkinson's Law, where the work will take as long as the time that you give it. And it struck me as you were describing that, that essentially you are eliminating the anxiety

of doing these things simply by putting some parameters around those. If that is what you are actually doing, I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing some examples of how that creates that peace of mind that you mentioned before the break. Anna That's exactly the principle that Lama Life is kind of playing on Parkinson's law. Like you said, that the work will expand to fill the time you give it. I think if you're someone that is, you know, works well toward having a deadline, Parkinson's law, that's really Parkinson's law sort of working, right?

It's like, I have some urgency around this task and I have a time limit that I need to do this task in. And for me, you know, I guess, Lamalife is doing it on a micro scale because Parkinson's Law is usually talked about when, you know, you've got an assignment due or a couple of days to do something, but this is doing it on a really small level, like saying, oh, you've got a task and maybe that task is just, you know, 15 minutes, can you leverage Parkinson a task and maybe that task is just, you know, 15 minutes. Can you leverage Parkinson's law to create that sense of urgency to get it done?

But there's a really fine balance because if there's too much urgency, it could lead to stress and anxiety, which is, which is why we try and balance that with making things really fun and feeling fun at the same time. So there's a sweet spot somewhere in there and I think it's up to the individual to figure out the sweet spot that works for them. So this is all about like estimating how long something might take you, not going, you know, having too high expectations for something, but creating enough urgency with that timer to help you, you know, move things along and not, and also not spend too much time on something, but yeah, that's kind of something that each individual will have to play with to figure out like what

works for them. Can I motivate myself with this timer and create the urgency and maybe a sense of sort of competitiveness in a way to get it done before that timer runs out. But yeah, that's all sort of Parkinson's law working, but at a sort of more micro scale. Pete Slauson Well, I think there's two aspects to this. There's the general broad definition of the Parkinson's law, which is probably measured in hours, not minutes. Right.

And there are some tasks like the one that struck me as you were describing. It was checking email or checking social media or something like that. One of those inboxes that you just dip your toes into. And then before you know it, three hours have elapsed. So you've completely eliminated the likelihood that that's the opportunity for that to happen by putting a timer in place. But also I think there's an element here of this really isn't this big scary task because I'm just going to do this for a little bit. It's almost like I will, do this for a handful of minutes. And then because it's such a small, a small

bite, essentially, you're not, you're not trying to tackle this whole big project in one sitting. It's a lot easier to engage with those types of tasks. And then you kind of find the sweet spot of 15 minutes, 20 minutes, you know, the Pomodoro type stuff, where this is what I can handle on a regular basis is tasks about this size and you stack those up, you do enough of them and you've had a productive day. Yeah, I really like what you just said about the big scary tasks,

because yeah, there's so many layers to this. One is kind of what you said about the, you know, find that sweet spot with the 15 minutes or whatever works for you. But then it also depends on the task and what that means to you. Like, is that task something you've been dreading to do for a long time? Is it a particularly boring task to you? And what you just mentioned about breaking it down into these smaller little chunks.

Um, yeah, that, that, that's kind of perfect. That really resonates with me too, is sometimes there's stuff I don't want to do and I'll work my way up and go, all right, well, I only have to do this for X amount of time. Or I'll break it down, I'll go, let me just start with this little piece first,

and that seems a bit more manageable or achievable. And then once I get into that rhythm of actually working through it, it makes it easier to tackle like the next bit of that task. And it is comforting knowing that, oh, I only have to do this for 10 minutes. You know, you just kind of, I hate doing this, but I only have to do it for 10 minutes. So, you know, I can do that. I can do 10 minutes. And if I feel like I can't, maybe I should set the timer for five minutes and just try to do the five minutes.

One of the things that I find I procrastinate on on things is when I don't have clarity on what exactly needs to be done. I have this general sense that I should really do this thing, but what is it that I need to do to move that thing forward? I don't really know. I haven't taken the time to define it. So I tend to avoid those things because in my mind, they are multi-hour, all day consuming tasks.

But if I were to take the approach that you're describing where I'm gonna set a 30 minute timer and I'm going to work on this for 30 minutes, it's not scary anymore. I've given myself an out, you know, even if it is the worst thing that I've ever done, I can do that for 30 minutes. That's not that big a deal. And then I'll move on to something else. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I agree. I agree. It really is. So often, I think just a question of little wins, you know, of getting yourself a little bit of momentum. And before you know it, you're, you know, you're a big snowball rolling downhill. And, and I like that, that idea.

The other thing is, like I said earlier, I feel like this is encouraging a good habit of time blocking versus micromanaging lists. And I think the more people experiment with that, I think the more happy they are. I've been talking about this more publicly lately, and a whole segment of my last field guide was about this idea of a softer approach to task management that's block-based. And I've had so much positive feedback from people

that are trying this and saying, oh yeah, I don't know why I hadn't been doing this a long time ago. So this is a great tool for that, right? You just set up your blocks, spend your day, knocking your timers down, and off you go. Yeah. Yeah, and I think a lot of people down and off you go. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think a lot of people have, are used to setting up blocks in their calendar. I've seen, and that's certainly how I started. I kind of would get my calendar and put blocks of time within that and try and time box that way. And, and that can kind of work. Um, I think, I think the problem that I used to run into was more that. Say I went a little bit over the time or under the time that I'd blocked, I would then have to go and move all the blocks after that to, you know, fill up the space or, or, or push them back if I needed to.

And, you know, when you talk about this kind of softer approach, it's with, with something like Lama life, it's, it's, um, it's like a relative time approach. If that makes sense, like everything just gets shifted for you because it's not actually a slot in the calendar that you don't actually say I'm scheduling nine till 10 and then 10 till 12, you're just putting in like the focus is more on the task and how much time for that task, like 30 minute timer or 15 minute timer. And everything will just shift around that.

So yeah, it's a slightly different approach, but same kind of concept, but just a slightly softer maybe approach. Yeah, and by hard coding the blocks in the calendar, like I do that and I only do it at the last minute. Like I don't even block like when I do my week planning on Sunday, I don't block Thursday, right? Because who knows what the world is gonna be on Thursday. Whereas, but I do know what blocks I'm going to do on Thursday, generally, right? And so, having something set where you can say,

okay, on Thursday I'm gonna do this one two-hour block. And then when you get to Thursday, by not putting it in the calendar, it gives you the ability to manage and work with your energy levels to be like, oh, this is definitely going to be an afternoon thing, not a morning thing. And then you don't have to go in and fiddle with your calendar. You just save it. And again, this is not something you have to use Lama for,

but Lama makes it easy, but I mean, you can also just use the timer, like you said, or a Pomodoro timer or just a timer on your watch. But rather than forcing yourself to decide when those blocks go in, those soft blocks that can be any time, maybe look at your energy level and what life brings you that day and be more willing to move them around.

Yeah, I really like what you just said then about the energy level. It sort of links back to the emotional management that we talked about right at the beginning. It's definitely something that I'm trying to be more conscious about and sort of more self-aware and trying to work with my brain and work with how I'm feeling versus against it.

So I love that you just said, you know, I know what blocks I want to do on a particular day, but I might not know the order in which I'm going to do them because it's partly based on how you're feeling or your, your energy levels. And, you know, obviously sometimes you can't avoid it. Maybe you've got a work meeting or your task relies on somebody else to help you with it. So that time might be fixed. But where I can, I'm really trying to figure out, look, how am I feeling right now? Is it worth me starting this task?

Because if I'm not in the right mindset or feeling the right emotion or energy around that task, I might end up just spending a lot of time on it where if I was in the right mindset and feeling, you know, good about it, maybe I could actually get it done in a shorter amount of time. And I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but you know, sometimes you just sit there and you're staring at your screen and you're, the time is just passing and you're not actually getting stuff done, but I'm, I'm trying to, but I'm wasting a lot of energy because I'm not in the right frame of mind for this particular task. And yeah, I just, I just love what you said in terms of trying to

figure out where you are, like how you're feeling about something. Cause it might be a lot more efficient to just come back and do it later when you're fit, you know, when you're feeling about something. Cause it might be a lot more efficient to just come back and do it later when you feel, you know, when you're feeling it. That does happen. Um, yes. And there's a feeling that goes along with that of because I am dragging my feet on this task, it's actually throwing a wrench in my entire day. Yeah.

Yeah. Which the, the thing you were kind of hitting on prior to that was this concept of the relative time boxing. And this is why I think this is a really powerful idea. And I've seen this other places, you know, like Cal Newport has his time block plan that he's been talking about for, I don't know, 10, 15 years at this point. And I remember seeing the original post that he put up about you create the time

block plan. And then the minute that things go sideways, you draw another time block plan to the right of that for the rest of the time that you have available. And you might have four or five revisions of your time block plan. Now, every time I've looked at that, I've thought to myself, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to do that amount of, uh, of time of modifying my time log plans. For me, I do them analog and the intentions are there. That's kind of been like the 80 20 good enough for me, but I do think that there is something about having flexibility to rewrite

the plan at any given point. And so I think llama life is, has a really cool mechanic for this. The concept can be applied a lot of different ways, but if you decide that, you know, this thing needs to be bumped back an hour because you're just not feeling it, you can move that thing and correct me if I'm wrong here, Marie, but everything after that gets moved as well. So if your original plan for four hours was to get done at 1pm, but at the beginning of the day, something goes sideways and you just, you can't even for two hours, you can move the whole thing. And now instead of 1pm, you're getting done at 3pm. And obviously if that's happening every single day and you're, you're struggling at the end to get the things done that you had planned to get done, you might want to look at your environment and what are the contributing

factors there that have thrown the plan out the window. But I like the flexibility to move the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. You just touched on something else, which was really good, which is, um, you know, that review at the end of of the day. What is the reason why the plan got thrown out? Because it's completely normal for a plan to get thrown out. It's important to have the plan at the beginning, but it's also important, like you said, if something happens, you've got to readjust it. But what is the reason for that happening? Is it because you put too much on your plate? If it happens every single day consistently that you can't get to something, is it because you just had too many tasks or those tasks took too much time? So I like this notion of reviewing and

assessing why something happened the way it did. Obviously, if it's an external factor, that might not be able to be helped or actually maybe it could be. Maybe you need to talk to someone else or a manager saying, hey, actually I don't have time for that or push a deadline sort of further into the future. But it's this kind of assessing and reviewing aspect that I would like to do it more personally. I know I'm quite bad at that is sort of going back and saying, well, how did today go and why did it go that way? Yeah, that is a struggle. I think a formal review process has never really stuck for me either, but building it into a journaling routine has. And so that's kind of where I do it. And I don't have a formal process for it necessarily.

I just kind of ask myself what happened today. And those things will be added as journal entries. I do have a gratitude practice I try to do every day. But then once a quarter, I'll take a break and I'll do a personal retreat and I'll get away and I'll ask myself, you know, what went well, what could have gone better. And at that point, I'll just let my brain come up with as many things as it can possibly recall from all those journal entries that

I've taken. So I don't think it necessarily needs to be, I mean, that's four times a year, once a quarter that I'm doing that. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a formal process. Every week you have to have these questions in your weekly review, although there probably is benefit to that. How do you handle this sort of thing, David? Well, I wanna go back, I'll answer your question, but I wanna go back and just make the point

about the end of day review. Like one of the things of putting together a system where at the beginning of the day you decide these are the blocks I'm gonna do and this is how long they will take, the end of day review is essential because it gives you a feedback loop every day of how well you're doing that.

Because when you first start doing it, you're gonna underestimate how long things take and then eventually you'll get better at it, and then you're going to start thinking you're a superstar, and you're going to start biting off more than you can do. And there's a process. I could tell you what you're going to go through, but you actually just need to go through it.

So I'll just, just trust me, there's a journey, you know? At least in my experience and in teaching this, I've seen it so many times. But that feedback loop at the end of the day is essential, you know, at least in my experience and in teaching this, I've seen it so many times. But that feedback loop at the end of the day is essential because whether you discover it through a journal or, you know, looking at your navel or just sitting there looking at well, my life or whatever,

you're gonna see at the end how you did compared to how you thought you would do. And that's gonna give you essential feedback. And then, of course, then you go back to kind of the weekly, monthly, quarterly reviews. Mike and I, you know, we've been banging this drum the whole existence of the show, but the reviews, as I tell people in the productivity field, they're the vegetables of productivity. You don't want to eat them, but you really need vegetables. And doing those reviews, and like Mike, the longest increment for me really is 90 days,

but I do them monthly as well. Just kind of keeping track of how you're doing and doing it without judgment and just saying, oh, you know, I didn't do it. I mean, right now we're headed towards the release of the next version of iOS. And I wanted to have a new field guide out on the new shortcuts. It's not even close to done.

And like in the reviews, I've been preparing myself. I'm like, oh yeah, I still haven't got a lot done on that. That's not going to happen. And there's really good reasons. I don't need to go over them all now, but there's good reasons why it got delayed. And that's okay. And now I'm just gonna plan without judgment, okay, now what is it gonna take

to get this thing rolling again? And like that review gives you that. So I would argue like 90 days isn't enough. I would argue monthly as well. But that's just because that's how I work. I need to give myself kind of the warning shots over the bow when things aren't working. So I'm not shocked when I get to the end of the quarter.

Sure. I love how you just said reviews or that review process is other vegetables of productivity. That's so funny. It's such a good analogy because, but you need vegetables, right? Vegetables are good for you. And in the long run, they'll make you healthier, but you don't want to eat them in the moment.

And I have the exact feeling when, so, so I'm, you just reminded me, I really need to start getting back into my reviews. Cause I used to do, I used to do a daily journal as well. And I used to do sort of these monthly and quarterly and yearly reviews. And I never wanted to do them, but I remember like every time I finished them, I would feel great. Like I would just, I'd always feel like actually I did more than I thought I was going to do. It's just such a hard habit to get into, but I do think like vegetables in the long run, it's something that will benefit you and will help you have a healthier mindset toward what

you're getting done. You just learn so much about yourself. It's really priceless. I have really been reminded of this because in January I released the Productivity Field Guide and a big piece of it is the reviews, the vegetable eating. And now here we are in September and I'm getting emails from people

who are like really giving me good testament that what I taught them worked. But every single one of them is doing the reviews. Like, and it's like the people who it's not working for are the people who are not doing the reviews. It's like it is direct one-to-one. You can see it works if you do the reviews and it doesn't, if you don't, it's really that simple.

Got to eat your productivity vegetables. Yeah. I think it's sort of human nature as well, just to go off track a bit, because sometimes the shifts and changes that happen, they're happening slowly over time, so you might not realize that, you know, you're, you're putting something off and it's just, I'll do it tomorrow, but tomorrow really turns into like three weeks later. And then you kind of step in and go, and go, what happened to that time? Whereas if you're doing the review, it'll be a lot more top of mind and it'd be a

lot more like, okay, well, this is now a week that I haven't done it. And maybe there's something going on. Like what's the reason for me not having done that task and try and figure it out that way. Maybe we're kind of going off topic here, but I think that the reason is it's the same reason people don't go to the dentist. There's like, there's a little bit of pain associated with it because you're going to have to confront or you weren't able to do whatever it is that you had planned on doing. And that's why I'm just so insistent on telling people,

make it a judgment free zone. Usually the reason you don't do something, there's really good reasons for it. Like somebody in your family needed your help or there's always really good reasons. Rarely do you not accomplish a goal because you spent the whole quarter watching Netflix. So just be nice to yourself in the process.

And even if you did spend the whole quarter watching Netflix, you say, well, I learned a lesson. I'm not gonna do that anymore. Let's figure out how to stop that. And then get back to work. And just don't be mean to yourself. But too many people do the review and they're like, oh, I'm a bad human.

I'm a bad productivity person. They pull themselves through this madness and then they don't wanna do the reviews. Yep, and it doesn't have to be a huge thing either. If you maybe, in fact, to the time-boxing, if you set yourself like an hour or something, or half an hour, or if it's just a daily thing, it could be like five minutes or less.

But it doesn't have to be a massive thing. This episode of Focus is brought to you by our friends at Vitaly. Vitaly is bringing in a new era for customer service productivity with their all-in-one platform. Vitaly's collaborative workspace combines your customer data with all the capabilities

that you expect from today's project management and work platforms. So with Vitaly, you can measure the effectiveness of OKRs and operational strategies on customer outcomes at scale thanks to their goals feature. Goals allow you to track the progress of your accounts against target metrics, meaning you can standardize goal setting across the board

so you know exactly how effective your processes really are. And best of all, it's designed for today's customer success team, which is why Vitaly operates with unparalleled efficiency, improves net revenue retention, and delivers best-in-class customer experiences. And Vitaly is offering a free pair of AirPods Pro for every focused listener who books a qualified meeting.

So if you're a customer success decision maker, schedule your call today by visiting vitally.io slash focused, F-O-C-U-S-E-D. That's vitally, V-I-T-A-L-L-Y dot I-O slash focused and get a free pair of AirPods Pro when you schedule a qualified meeting. Our thanks to Vitally for their support of this show and all of Relay.

So Marie, you put something in the outline that is like red meat to me. I can't resist it. Anytime people wanna talk about systems and tools, I am there. So tell us about your theory of systems design. Yeah, so for me, I think it's important to capture like what you've got going on as soon as it happens. I've got a pretty bad memory. So I use a few different ways to get around

that. So I have a reminders app on my phone, which I just put voice notes into, but they're very short term notes. So if someone says, um, you want to catch up this weekend, maybe go for brunch. Um, I will maybe be able to say to them, yes, let's do it. But then I, I might be on the go. So I'll put a voice note going, you know, create like a calendar thing for later. Or, you know, or maybe it's like research, a restaurant that we can go to, but I'll put it straight into a voice note and that will go into my reminders app and that will remind me in like one hour,

two hours, whatever, whatever I set. I usually go, remind me to do this in two hours and then it'll come back and do that. Um, so that's one, one sort of system that I use. The other, if it's sort of like a more meaty kind of task, I use TicTic, which is a, it's like a to-do list app, but I've used like pretty much every single to-do list app on the planet. I'm more sort of like TicTic or Todoist or Trello, those kinds of apps or Notion. I used to use Notion as well. For me, those kinds of apps are more about like collecting things. I would have an inbox that I would just create for myself, an inbox folder for things that come in that need dealing with.

And I mean, this sounds really good in practice, but I'm not as sorry in theory, but in practice, I'm a little bit like not as good as managing this, but I'll have an inbox and I'll say, okay, well, every day I really should go through the inbox and figure out does this need a due date on it? Does it, is it a personal task? Is it a work task? And from there, I'll actually move it into a different folder, like a personal folder or a work folder.

And then I have two tags that I use. I use a tag for things that I'm waiting on. And I have a tag that involves other people. So it's just called, um, hashtag others. And I used to have a lot more tags, but it just got too complicated to manage. So I find that I'm always trying to simplify this system. I basically put things in the inbox. I figure out is it a work or personal task?

Um, do I need to tag it as waiting, uh, or it involves others? And then from there, um, I figure out what do I need to tag it as waiting or it involves others? And then from there, I figure out what do I need to do today. And then from there, I put it into Llama Life, which is more like the focus tool for the day. And then I close my other tools. So I use other tools to capture and categorize, and then I use Llama Life just for the day. And I don't want to look at anything else after that. I put the other stuff away. Which I think this is actually a pretty brilliant approach. And as you're listening to this, hearing Marie describe just a couple of

tags, you're probably thinking, well, how in the world can you get away with just a couple of tags and some folders for all of these things that you need to do? And you can correct me if I'm wrong here, Marie, but I think the thing that makes it work is that you put the things into the task manager and then that serves as the recommendations list, but it is not the thing that you actually work off of. And this for me has been probably the biggest, the biggest positive change I'll say to the way that I, I work recognizing that the things that my task manager throws in my face because past me decided arbitrarily that this thing should be done by this day.

You know, that wasn't actually a great recommendation and that, that past me had no idea what he was talking about. So I'm going to give myself permission to decide today what is actually the most important. Yeah. And I think one indication of that is that if you find yourself not using your system, then it needs refinement. Because I always start off with more complicated systems. Like I started off with more tags and I was like, this is the perfect system. I have a tag for everything. I have categories for everything.

And then what happened was the inbox that I talked about that the inbox in my task manager app, it just started getting full and overflowing. And I was like, why aren't I moving things out of the inbox and categorizing them and tagging them? And it was because my quote unquote perfect system was just too complicated. It was technically perfect, but it wasn't perfect in a practical sense. And I just found myself like, I've got this massive inbox now and what's the point in that? So I just cut it back significantly.

And yeah, I don't know for me, the simple, simple works a little better. And if I find that there's a lot of stuff that past me put in there, I just delete them as well. I'm like, well, actually do I really need to do this anymore? Cause if not, I'm just, I'm just making my list even longer, which is stressful. So every now and again, I go through and I do a massive cull. And I'm like, do I really need to do this anymore? Am I actually ever going to come back to this? And if not, I just delete it and it feels so good. I mean, to me, that's another like review benefit, right? You go, you review, you kill, you know, kill your babies or whatever they say,

well, they're terrible. Who came up with that thing, your babies? But you know, you go through and you be realistic and try to, you know, cut some of that, the noise out. It really is so much about, I feel like just like, so committed to the idea of like, you've got to stop just like being driven by this hundred item task list. You've got to get it down to what are the important blocks in the Lama Life's case, you know, what are the important timers and just work

on those and then just trust the system. The other thing I'm finding is, you know, we've been talking a lot about the tasks themselves, but, um, and this might just be a ADHD or personal thing, but actually, actually, I think, I think it's everyone, but maybe it's more severe for ADHD. I'm actually focusing a lot, um, on the in-between times, if that makes sense. So I know I need to do like three things, but I'm really bad at task or context switching. So even if I'm efficient for the timer that I'm working on now, I've started setting timers for like the in-between because for me, like they're the

times that actually start running away. And it's really crazy when you, you set a timer for say 20 minute task and you're like, great, I got all that stuff done in 20 minutes, but then you realize, okay, in between that task and the next, I spent 30 minutes doing nothing. And that for me was a massive change as well as, is to not just focus on the things that I'm doing, but the stuff, like the time in between, and I set like a little block for that as well. Not to have too many sort of, I don't want it to become too strict. Like they are kind of loose and you can sort of just quickly add five minutes or

take away five minutes to those blocks. But for me, it's been a real eye opener to go, well, what's happening in between the stuff that I need to do. Cause that's kind of where a lot of the time is disappearing for me. Can I give you a suggestion? Yeah. Yeah. You were talking about journaling earlier. I find journaling between blocks is very beneficial to me. So like I had a big thing I did before we got on today. And so that finished it at like about three o'clock. And so I stopped and journaled for like 10 minutes. How that go?

And then like my brain switched gears to focused mode, gave me time to learn about you more and prep for the outline. And then two hours later, we did the show recording. It's just like that moment of journaling in between, speaking for me, I know everybody's different, but boy, that really helps my brain switch gears. Is it when you journal, do you, are you writing you like sort of physically

writing things down or typing into, into a tool? Yeah, I've done every way. But you, and it really doesn't matter, but if you're like a digital person, I think day one is excellent for this. You can put it in the menu bar and just like open up a menu and type into it. If you are like more kind of bullet journal inclined, you can get a pad of paper and just write note the time and write a few notes. You know, just whatever, whatever flow again, it's just about finding the light and the tools, you know? Yeah, yeah. But if you want to carve it into a shovel like Abraham Lincoln, go for it,

you know? Just, but just find a way that makes you happy and try that. Yeah, yeah. I've tried a lot of these, yeah, I've tried digital methods for journaling. I've also tried bullet journaling. I didn't keep up any of the habits, but I did find that the bullet journaling, and this is the reason I was asking, was the bullet journaling is more analog and having to write something down with a pen actually helped me quite a bit because I don't really write a lot of stuff now. I'm always just typing on my keyboard and it was very, I guess it just took me into a different mindset because it's not something I'm used to doing all the time now.

And it also slowed things down for me because sometimes when I'm typing, like my, my brain is sort of thinking faster than I'm typing. And so having to write things out, it actually helped slow my, slowed my thought process down a little bit so I could be more reflective. And you know, that really helped me with the, literally just pen and paper. I want you to put a pin in that Marie, cause we're gonna do shiny new objects in a minute.

Okay. And both Mike and I have things to talk about, about this analog angle to a digital life. So. Yeah. Okay, great. I do wanna ask, I have to ask it now, about this analog angle to a digital life. So. Yeah. Okay, great. I do wanna ask, I have to ask it now, otherwise I probably won't get another opportunity.

You're talking about simplicity and you're talking about slowing down. And I just picture you like sitting all Zen in a field surrounded by llamas. So what exactly does it mean to live the llama life? CK So I think you're asking about why is it called llama life? What is the deal behind this name? CB Yeah, exactly. CK Yeah. So there is a story behind this. So it wasn't like I just came up with this. And obviously,

there's a lot of tools now called llama. A lot of the AI tools are llama this and llama that, but llama life was created before all of that. And it came from a trip, like a holiday that I did way back. This is, this is before COVID. It's so funny how things are like before or after COVID for me, but it's like before COVID, I went on this massive holiday, um, to Peru. It was one of those life searching journeys that I went on with my best friend. And we did Machu Picchu and all those types of things and a lot of hiking. As part of that trip, we went to this small village just outside of Peru and there were maybe like 20, 30 people in this village and they did not have any

modern conveniences. They didn't have like running water, electricity or anything like that. But we had lunch with these folks and even though they didn't have all these fancy things, they had a lot of llamas. So that kind of stuck with me and they were using these llamas as their livelihood. So they would take like the wool off the llamas back and make, you know, sweaters and beanies and bracelets and things to sell to people. But one thing that struck me was like these folks were very calm. Like they're very calm and content and very happy with what they had. And when I was trying to figure out a name for the product, I was like,

oh, you know, I'm trying to create something that creates a sense of calm and contentment and, you know, working through your day steadily and not having these like frantic stressful moments. And I just kind of thought of that little village and I was like, oh, yeah, let me, let me call it llama. And so it was actually just called llama for a couple of years. And our customers actually started calling it Llama Life, which is really funny. So over the years, it went from just being Llama to Llama Life, which I do think is a better name

because it's kind of like this lifestyle that you're trying to aspire to. And yeah, not just the tool, but like this lifestyle of being calm and content. And yeah, that's kind of how, how it came about. And this is the tie back to what we were talking about. I didn't know the specifics of the story, but I hadn't had an idea that there was something about this experience that you had that was that that made you want more of that in some way, shape or form. Yep.

And then you quite literally built systems and tools to help you achieve that sense of peace and calm that you had when you were there. And I think that's the approach that we should all take to the systems and the tools that we are choosing to use. And the crazy thing about systems to me is that our life has so many independent and interdependent systems and they work exactly the way that we have designed them 99% of the time. And so if we don't like the results that we're getting, there's probably a tweak we can make to our systems

that will achieve a better outcome. And the question that we always have to ask is, what are we really optimizing for? It doesn't have to be the number of widgets cranked. And when you were talking a while back about this, this kind of identity that we unwillingly aspire to. I think we kind of have it in, in the back of our heads that we want to be these productivity superheroes who do all of this crazy stuff.

And so when we sit down to make our plan and you say, well, what do you mean? Only pick three things that you're going to do today. You know, that, that feels. That feels like we're settling in some way. But if we do that consistently enough, that actually is the way to increase our, our, uh, both the quantity and the quality of the output over time. It also reminded me of when Marie said, you know, even the most advanced tools, if they're not, if you're not getting the work done, maybe you need to reconsider.

And the natural response of a nerd would be, well, I need to make it better. I need the more advanced tool because this one isn't doing it. I need something faster and better and more complex. But what I would argue is that, like I said earlier, there's a lot of really good tools that aren't that complex that work really well now that didn't exist before.

And maybe a step back is what you need. All right, we always like to end the episode talking about shiny new objects. So Marie has happily agreed to play along. Who wants to go first? Let's let Marie go first. All right. All right. Well, I'm using my shiny new object as we're speaking, have been using

it for the last hour and it is a standing mat and I have a standing desk. And I think everybody knows what a standing desk is, but I personally didn't know what a standing mat and I have a standing desk and I think everybody knows what a standing desk is but I personally didn't know what a standing mat was. I didn't even know they existed. I was like what is this sorcery? But I had a problem with my standing desk in that it was great but I could only really stand for like I don't know, half an hour or an hour at a time and my legs would get tired. But now that I have this standing mat, which is kind of this foam, sort of like this rubbery foam mat that has contours on it. So it's not just a flat mat. It's got bumps and ridges on it. I can stand almost the whole day, which is crazy. And I'm not affiliated with this product in any way.

I just really love this mat because I didn't even know they existed. And I'm shocked at how, you know, how much better it's made my work. Um, and I guess health as well, cause I'm sort of standing up more, but, um, it's called the topo topo T-O-P-O. And there's two different sizes. I have the small size, but it's still massive. So if you're sort of considering it, I would, I think the small size is enough. It's pretty huge.

But yeah, have you guys ever heard of a standing mat? I have like a foam mat I stand on. And I, like you, I spend a lot of time standing each day. I've never seen anything like this though. This thing is, it's got a couple of like ridges in it and little mountains on it. And it actually kind of looks like it'd be kind of fun to stand on this thing. Yeah. Yeah. I have seen this thing and almost bought in it probably a dozen times, but I couldn't get over how weird it looked. I've read the description and essentially you basically like the little bumps in the ridges that is different ways that you stand on this mat and just by varying the way that you stand, it increases the stamina

that you have. Is that a fair description? Yeah, I think that's how it works. It's almost like you're giving yourself little foot massages as well. But I think it's more, yeah, like you said, it's more that it encourages you to move your feet into different positions and allows you to stand quite comfortably in those different positions. Because I think the challenge with standing is that if you just stand still in the one spot and you don't move, that's when it gets really hard. That's when all the blood goes to your feet and you start swelling and your muscles feel tired because they're trying to just be in one spot. So I think, and this is just me kind of guessing, but I think the reason this

works is because it's encouraging small movements and I'm not consciously thinking about moving my feet, but I'm just, it's almost like a fidget, I'm like fidgeting almost with my feet because there's all these different parts of the mat and with these little bumps and contours and stuff. Um, so I think that's how it works, but yeah, I was, I was blown away by this. And you know, like you, Mike, I was looking at it for a while and going, Oh, I don't know. Is this really worth it?

Cause they're not, they're not super cheap, but, but I definitely think it's worth it and I've recommended it to a couple of friends and, and they've got one now too, and they, they also love it. Yeah. I think there's many different brands as well, but this is just the brand that I've got. Yeah. I thought for sure this was a gimmick. I needed somebody in my life to say, no, this actually works. It probably cost me some money. Yeah. Because I was like, what? It's just a foam mat. Like, come on, like it's not, how is that going to really help? But it's, it's actually, I think it's quite thoughtfully designed and I love well-designed products. Like they've got a lot of little, I think I can, I can look at it and go,

yeah, they've put thought into this thing. Like there's the, the front of the mat is different to the back and the middle is different. I'm like, they've actually put a lot of thought into this. So I'm, I'm quite impressed with it. I'm a big fan of it. It looks cool. I am super tempted to. This is like a sleep on it link. I cannot like touch this for 24 hours. Yeah.

Mike, what about you? All right. So I got some new Uggmunk stuff. Always fun. Oh, I love this brand. I love this brand. Yeah, so we actually had Jeff Sheldon on the show a couple of times, I think. Really thoughtful guy and really a fan

of the analog system. Mm-hmm. He also, he just makes a bunch of really great looking products. One of which is this desktop gather system, which I have always wanted, but was always just too rich for my blood. Uh, they had a warehouse sale the other day, David.

So I have a complete gather system here. Well, I shouldn't say complete. I got a bunch of different pieces of it. It's complete for me. I can't fit any other, any more gather on my desk. I've got the, the big monitor stand with the black and the, the walnut legs. I've got the matching laptop stand. I've got the little wavy tray for a couple of pens. I've got the pencil cup with the, the walnut thing that goes on top with the nine holes in it. If you go on the website, you'll be able to see it. And then the phone holder. And it's all magnetic. It all snaps into place with the gathered desk, like the big piece, which is I think actually a monitor stand, but I'm not using it as a monitor stand. It's actually right in front of my monitor

monitor stand, but I'm not using it as a monitor stand. It's actually right in front of my monitor with my recording interface and my stream deck and the pens and pencils and all that kind of stuff. A couple of little Lego guys, some fidget toys. It's amazing. It's as awesome as I thought it was. Yeah. The, the, the warehouse sale was, was good to me. Yeah. I mean, surprise surprise. I can book makes good stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. And when I got surprise. I can book makes good stuff, right? Yeah. Yep. And when I got it from the warehouse sale, you know,

it was like ding and dent is some going to be some cosmetic imperfections. I'm convinced that Jeff sent me new stuff by accident cause I can't find it. Yeah. It looks really good. Looks really sharp. And you know,

if I kind of always wanted this stuff on my desk and had my eye on it now for several years at this point. And I think it was like pieces of it were 50 to 70% off when I pieced together my bundle. And he's done a couple of these warehouse sales in the past, but usually I'll check my email and it'll be like a day late and all the good stuff is gone. This one happened to come in while I was in my email inbox. So I immediately jumped over and got a bunch of stuff. There were a few things that were still sold out,

but very happy with my gather system. Yeah, it's really nice. I keep thinking I'm just gonna make my own where I have a little wood shop. So like, I kind of have thinking I'm just going to make my own. I have a little wood shop. So like I kind of have ideas where I'd like to build my own. But the magnetic attraction, you know, the way everything's magnetic, that to me is very, sounds very satisfying, you know, to have it all, you know, just snap on like that. So that's kind of cool. I love that.

So I'm on the website now, just having a look at the gather system. I love that it's almost like a physical system. Like we were talking a lot about systems and approaches, but this is kind of, I've been following this brand for a while and I just love it. They're quite opinionated in the product they put out. Like this is something you can tell there's a lot of passion behind it. It's well built, but it's also like a physical system with these little compartments, uh, you know, we have places for your pen place for your phone

and the magnetic part where you can move things around and create your own system as well from, from the pieces. I know it's sort was like a good physical representation of some of the stuff we just talked about. It's like you're physically creating your environment to help your mental wellbeing before you start doing whatever you need to do, whatever task that you need to do.

But yeah, I love just the aesthetic of this. It looks so nice. I think that's actually Jeff's approach with this is it's supposed to be a system that allows you to engage with the work because everything has a place. And like you said, you can build your own system. They have had like headphones stands and all sorts of stuff. And they have these base plates that can, that the things can snap onto if you don't have the big metal monitor stand.

So the pencil cup and the iPhone or the phone holder, those are kind of squarish shapes and they're like, I don't know the exact dimensions, but essentially they're one by one. And then there's the wavy tray that's actually two by one. And so you can kind of figure out on this grid, which tools can fit. And then they all snap into place because they're magnetic. And yeah, it's, it's really nice. Yeah. Yeah. It also allows because you can move stuff around, like it's still within like that grid system, but it, it gives you a little bit of variety because you're like, Oh, maybe I want to switch things up. And I personally, I need variety.

Otherwise I'll get super bored with something. So just having the same things, but just moving them around. Like if you ever, if you're the sort of person that will go and remove furniture in the room just to get a bit of variety, like this would be perfect, I think. Yep.

What about you, David? I'm spending money now too. So we're all doing it together. So you were talking earlier about the benefits of analog and I have been experimenting with this for some time. I was using the Tote books for a while and they're very good books made by Studio Neat, but I wanted something,

what I really wanted was a ring system. And I experimented with the Levinger ring system a couple of years ago, and ultimately it wasn't for me, it's just too bulky and I don't know, it just wasn't elegant enough for me, I guess. I don't know if that's the right word or not, but then somebody sent me a link to an interview

with this Japanese fellow who designed this system called Plotter. And plotterusa.com, do not go to that website if you're at all interested in this stuff, it's dangerous. Well anyway, so they brought it to the US, but it's a tiny ring, it's only like, I think an 11 millimeter ring, and it's enclosed within the book,

so you really don't see it when you hold the book so it feels nice, but you can still reorganize the pages and the The pages themselves they have their own paper as well, and it's just really great You know Japanese thin but very usable paper Especially if you have fountain pens or use pencils with ball points, it does bleed through a bit, but then they have a bunch of different types of paper. So I ordered a couple of paper pads and I used them for like a week. I'm like, yeah, I need this.

So I ordered a, I also ordered a binder and, and I'm kind of incorporating a bit more analog into my life using the system. And, and so to answer your question earlier, I'm, of incorporating a bit more analog into my life using the system. And so to answer your question earlier, I am doing the interspace journaling on paper now in between event blocks. But I've done it in day one as well, but I just keep one of their pads on my desk. Because the paper is interesting

because it's on a pad that's glued on the left side, but the glue is a very light bond. So you can tear it out really easily and then drop it into the binder wherever it belongs. And that's the advantage of a ring system. Because I do a lot of writing and I have thoughts on something I want to add to a field guide and then I have a daily plan and it like, everything is just mixed up and the bullet journal method accounts for that. But I don't want to do all that coding that's involved with the bullet journal. It feels too much for me.

Whereas this is, I can just, you know, rip out a new piece of paper and stick it where I want. And, and it's a, and it's, it's really tastefully done. So. Yeah. I'm on their website now. Yeah, be careful. It looks super nice. Be careful. It's taken me back to, so I used to use a phyllofax.

This is like way back in the day, which had the rings as well. It had like a leather, leather sort of foldable thing and then, you know, rings inside. And I always used to like how I could move the papers around and like different sections around, but this is, well, Filofax for me was more calendar. This is more notebook, I think. Yeah, well, you can really do whatever you want with it.

They've got pages for calendars. They have pages. I like the, I have found that of the, I thought I would like the dot grid the best. They have a five millimeter dot grid. But actually what I really like is the two millimeter boxes. And so they have one that's just like two millimeter boxes and I find it very easy to write on that.

I generally write with pencil and it's really nice with the pencil lead. But I tested it with fountain pen and other devices too. But it's a fancy Filofax is what it is. Yeah, it looks nice. Yeah. So that's my shiny new object and I'm incorporating some bit more of analog,

doing a little bit more of my journaling analog. And for the reasons Marie was talking about during the show, I do think that because I'm working digital so much that just kind of pulling away from it in between blocks is a nice way to kind of reset myself. The real question is how many shiny new objects will this one shiny new object turn into? It already has turned into several.

I mean, I'll tell you, because I already have like four pads of paper because I tried one of each and then I ordered the booklet that goes around it. And then they've got like a pen holder. So yeah, this is not healthy. Just think about how calm and focused you're going to be though, David. Yes, this is all I need. And then I'll be calm and focused.

Just have to spend this moment. But yeah, so I'm toying again with a little more analog. It's hybrid for me, like I still scan the pages, but that's actually another benefit of a Ring system, is like if I want to scan it in, it's so easy to scan a page that you're gonna lay on your desk flat. So I just find a lot, yeah,

I knew I was kind of onto the right track with the ring system, but I didn't like the Levenger paper, I didn't like the way the books were designed. There was like a bunch of like friction points for me and it was all just fiddly nerdy stuff. There's really no good reason for it, but the things that I didn't like about Levenger, I do like about plotter. And so here I am. I expect this one will stick. Yeah, this one will stick. This one will stick is a famous last words. Yeah, right?

She knows me. It's the first show we were doing together. She already knows me. The thing I love about both the Uggmonk and plotter is just the level of craftsmanship. It's just exquisite. I don't know. It's just like so, you know, we're talking about paper and, you know, a

notebook, but the craftsmanship is just so that the level is just amazing. Like the detail and just, you look at it and you feel some joy just looking at it. Like it makes you want to use it. Like just because it looks and I'm guessing it feels quite nice to the leather. But there's something that draws you to it, which is important because the goal is to use it right. And if that can help me use something like, yeah, I'll take it. Like that's just the feeling of it.

Well, I mean, that gets back to my discussion of your app. I think if you can introduce an element of delight to the user, whether it's a fancy notebook or, or a time blocking up, and that gives the user just that little bit of extra push to use the app, to become their better selves, then it's money well spent. Yep, I agree. Agreed. I agree.

All right, well, why don't we wind up there. Marie, if people want to learn more about Llama Life or you, where should they go? Yep, so Llama Life, we're on all the social platforms. LlamaLife.co is the website. It's.co, not.com, Ll llama life.co is the website. It's a.co not.com llama life.co and I'm pretty active on Twitter as well. I tend to build in public, uh, which is, which just means like I share a lot of what we're doing and the thoughts and the

process behind it. And on Twitter, or I should say X, um, I'm at three hour coffee that spells out the words three hour and then coffee. Excellent. And we are the Focus Podcast. You can find us at relay.fm slash focus. Thank you to our sponsors this week, Squarespace and Vitally. And you know who else is our sponsor? That is the Deep Focus subscribers.

You guys are really helping us keep the lights on. Deep Focus is an ad for extended version of the show. In fact, today we're going gonna talk to Marie about fidgets. So I'm looking forward to talking about desk toys and fidgets with you. If you are a Deep Focus subscriber, stick around. Otherwise, we'll see you next time.