Focused - 220: 2024 Retrospective

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks and joined by my co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hello, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? It's the verge of a new year, my friend. That's always kind of exciting, right? Yep. Hope springs eternal. Yeah. It's really odd because I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions. You know, that has been well documented in prior years, but I just feel like those never really work. Their obligations lightly picked up and easily dropped and just doesn't really make much

sense. And I think both of us are really kind of sold on the 12-week year concept of, you know, 52 weeks is too long for a big project. You know, give yourself 12 weeks and, you know, go get at it. So in general, I do most of my planning on a quarterly basis. All of that said, there's something about January 1st that gives you a sense of renewal and I can't really explain it. It's true. Yeah, it's a artificial, artificial distinction. I think there's, there's really no difference between January 1st and September 1st or any other date that you would use as a, uh, a point of contact for, I'm going to transition from one, one, uh, season to another,

but, uh, recognizing those points and leveraging them, I feel like that's the the foundation of living an intentional life. So wherever you can find those moments to reflect and, and then I think that's one book. And the other part is, is to look forward, set some intentions that, you should take advantage of those. Yeah. And in that light, both of us have been thinking about some stuff we did last year

and stuff we'd like to change. So we thought, let's talk about it today on the show. Let's do it. All right, so let's start with looking back. Looking back at 2024, let's talk about what worked and what didn't, and do you wanna go first? Sure, I can do that. So what worked?

There was quite a bit that worked, but it was sort of a delayed success, I'll say. For the vast majority of 2024, it was quite a struggle, to be honest. Well, we'll get to that when we get to the what didn't. But the positive side of this, what did work, is I feel like I finally found my niche. At the beginning of the year, I was trying a whole bunch of different things. I was still running with the Obsidian University brand, and that sort of evolved into practical PKM

as a result of doing a bunch of different cohorts. The third one is really where things kind of clicked for me. That's where I was working with some folks and going through my PKM stack framework. You couple that with the creativity flywheel framework and that really resonated with people and that really helped a lot of people. So that was kind of my version of make noise, listen for signal. Yeah. I feel like a practical PKM was, was the signal that I eventually landed on, but it wasn't really until probably May or June. So almost a year after I left my day job, I figured out what I was actually going to

do. From that, I did the cohort and I was talking about these frameworks. And just in conversation, people were asking for some sort of resource in order to implement that. That's the thing that planted the seed for what I consider to be my signature product, which is Life HQ. And that launch has gone really well. That is the thing that, you know, once I launched that product,

that's when I first started to really believe, okay, I can do this. I shouldn't say I didn't believe it before, but that was kind of like the first sign of reciprocity, I guess. Like I found something that I could make that the market decided was valuable, if that makes any sense. Like that's the thing that sort of validated, that that launch validated the idea that had been in my head. And that gave me the confidence that I can continue to do this. Laren Lerner Well, I mean, you went out on a limb a bit, right? Because you didn't really have the big signature product figured out, but you wanted to do this. And in true Mike Schmidt's fashion you just

sat at the grindstone until you figured it out and but this was the year that you did that right? Yeah yeah and I'm very glad that I got there. On the topic of the make noise listen for Signal, sort of the thing that that pointed me in this direction. You know, when I first went out on my own, I think there was some signal there around the Obsidian stuff. Like I love Obsidian, it's my favorite app, and I run my whole life out of it.

So there's obviously, like I have a preference for that, but I didn't really know that that was the thing that was gonna be, that's what everybody else was gonna be. My audience was gonna gravitate towards. I was making a bunch of productivity videos and creativity videos and I could just kind of notice that whenever I made anything about Obsidian that I would get exponentially more comments, likes, whatever. It's not about the number of the likes or the comments. So I want to share this because I feel like there's probably people in the audience who are maybe where I was and they're, they're experiment, they're kicking the tires, they're experimenting, they're thinking about, you know, some sort of creative project. This is the thing you have to put something out there and then you have to look for what really kind of pops off. It doesn't have to go like full on viral millions of views, anything like that.

Just anything where when I talk about this, I tend to get more attention. You know, that was really the thing that kind of got me to the, the place where life HQ was the, the product. But yeah, it's been a journey. Uh, the other thing I did really well, I think this year was I really dialed in the newsletter. And again, that's sort of a version of making noise and listening for signal. I grew my newsletter. When I left the day job, I think I had like 1800 people on my newsletter list.

And I now have over 7200. So that is quite a bit of growth. I want to continue that, obviously. But one of the reasons I think this is successful is that I started consistently making YouTube videos. And I was pointing towards my starter vault. So I was giving stuff away for free that was valuable to people.

When they signed up for the starter vault, they double opt in, and they get on the newsletter. And in the newsletter, I talk about something that's PCAM related. It's an original essay every single week. I share something cool that's obsidian related. And then I share a book notes from one of the books that I've read. I've got a whole bunch of them, a huge library. So I share one of those every week. And I feel like that format has really kind of clicked for me. It was an experiment at the beginning, but now I feel like that is the product. That's what the Practical PKM newsletter is. And I'm really proud of that. I try to make my newsletter actually my best product. I try to make that the very best thing that I make. And I think that that shows.

I get a lot of responses from people who are on the newsletter list, a lot of comments, replies on things that I share. And that's been really helpful, too, just helping to understand, you know, what are people liking? What are they not liking? Where maybe do I need to pull on this thread a little bit more and see. Let's go down this rabbit hole and see what's there. So yeah, really happy with the newsletter growth and I'm going to continue to dial that in over the next year. We'll get to the strategies and the words for the year later. So all of this kind of is like connected with I guess you would call it a flywheel. You know, I was creating YouTube videos, which people liked, and then they

would download the Star Vault and that led to the newsletter list and that newsletter list. That's the thing that really made the life HQ launch successful. So just in that, I feel like 2024 was a success. I've got something that works. Now we can refine it. We can experiment with changing up little pieces of it here and there, see if we can't get better results. But at least there's something there now that works. And the thing that helped me, I think,

get to the point where this works is the personal retreats also went really well. I did these consistently throughout the year and I did them at these postcard cabins. It was the getaway house, now they've rebranded. But I absolutely love these. These are the perfect place for me at least to do a personal retreat. And, um, I've been doing them every quarter there. And it's, it's just, there's so much clarity that comes from that experience for me, every single time that I go, I'm able to learn the lessons from the feedback loops. I think that's a really important step that you can really kind of, kind of

miss out on if you don't take the time to disconnect from the day to day and reflect on that stuff. So getting away for an entire day once a quarter, I think that's the thing that allowed me to look at, well I tried this, you know, this didn't work, but hey look there's something maybe here and then we shift and we try something over there. I feel like I would have eventually gotten to the Life HQ signature product anyways at some point, but without the personal retreats. I think it's probably another year away I would have eventually gotten to the life HQ signature product anyways, at some point, but without the personal retreats, um, I think it's probably another year away at least. Well, you know, this year you're on solid ground as you get started and that,

that really makes a difference. Yep. Good. Good for you. So it sounds like a lot worked for you in the last year. Well, it, uh, it got there. Yeah, there's definitely some stuff that didn't work too, but what worked for you? Well, a lot. You know, I felt like it was a good year for me too. One of the big things I did this year was I hired more help. I paid the guy that was helping me out more

and he's doing more for me. And that's been a big help because it allows me to focus more on the making stuff part, which is kind of where I matter the most in the loop. That's cool. This year, Indoor Studios really kind of hit its stride. This is the kind of the room I added onto my house to do my work in. All the things I wanted to get out of it, I'm now getting out of it, which is kind of nice. All the things I wanted to get out of it, I'm now getting out of it, which is kind of nice. I feel like this year AI worked for me.

This is the first time I ever productively used it. And we did a show on it recently, but so I don't need to go through all that, but using Notebook LM to help me sort through my own stuff was helpful, and there was a couple things I did this year with AI that were helpful. Physical books this year, i think was the year that i really kind of finally got religion on physical books to the point where. I'm pretty much just buying those now i think i bought two or three kindle books over the course of the year where usually you know they would all be kindle.

And the physical books you know we've talked about it but it, but it's kind of nice and I've gone back to analog in that way. And speaking of analog this year, I feel like I finally kind of got the journaling analog digital mix right, which took me years. I just could never get it right, because I always wanted a bit of analog as part of it, but I couldn't really figure it out.

I didn't like all the notebooks because the pages never made sense because I did them in weird order. This year, I got a ring system, the plotter system, and that combined with day one, I've got a really nice journaling system. A lot of systems got better this year, and I do think that getting help was – I was kind of at a point where that was necessary, and that's allowed me to kind of have a more consistent output. And I think actually the stuff I'm making is better because I can focus on it more.

So that's good. In terms of results this year, the thing I'm proudest of is the productivity field guide, because I worked on that for like seven years. In terms of results this year, the thing I'm proudest of is the productivity field guide. I worked on that for like seven years. Many times I got to, at one point I'd written it as a book, but I never released it. Even last year this time, when I was finishing it up, a couple friends told me, hey, this really isn't your forte. You do tech.

You shouldn't do productivity. Just let this one go. But then I released it anyway, and a lot of people got a lot out of it. And it feels very good hearing from people all over the world that are using something you created to help make their lives better. And so the Productivity Field Guide to me

gave me all the happy chemicals because I can help people with shortcuts, helping them figure out their life is even kind of more fulfilling. So that's now part of what I do and I'm going to be making that a regular thing and I feel like that's maybe where I can make the biggest contribution with my life. So I'm very excited about the ability to have the privilege of doing that. And that happened this year. So that's really exciting. I mean, when I quit being a lawyer, one of the big reasons was for this PFG to get this

out because I felt like I would never get it out otherwise. And I did get it out and it was successful enough that I can keep making it. And now it's just up to me to keep making it good so people still wanna do it. And I'm up to the challenge. Nice. So question about the PFG.

Yeah. It kinda sounds like that's the thing that you really wanted to make. Do you consider that to be your signature product? I guess. I mean, I'm doing a new edition of it in January and for my technical stuff, usually I wait much longer before new additions. But there was just so much feedback after teaching the course for a year and there's

so much I want to add to it that and also frankly I want to do the webinar series again because I feel like the webinar series really helped a lot of people. So yeah, I'm doing that again. I guess the answer would be if I was on the side of the road just got hit by a bus, which one would I be most proud of? It would probably be that one. So does that make it my signature product?

I don't know. I don't know. Well, let me reframe that that question a little bit. So if you had to pick just one product that you were going to continue to work on and sell, what would it be? Would it be this one? Yeah, that would, it would be productivity. Yeah. Cause it, it has the greatest capability of doing good. If that makes sense. You know? Yeah. Then I think that does make it your signature product. Yeah. It feels really good because I did a thing over the summer with a bunch of kids. And then

I've had people from 15 to like 93 take this course. And it just feels good being able to like share my journey and help some other people along with theirs. And of course it pays for the shoes too, which is nice. But I mean, I'm not gonna be buying a desert island, you know, on this, but it is really nice that, you know, it's like the Walt Disney story, we make movies so we can make more movies. You know, that's kind of me and this productivity field guide to me, it's just, that's kind of me. And this Productivity Field Guide to me,

it's just, it's special to me. Because it's how I got through my doldrums of life and it feels like it's helping other people with theirs. Yeah, the Productivity Field Guide, so first of all, it's really good. But second of all, it seems like it's very different than all of their field guides that you make, because this is the one where once you released it, you continue to think about it, you continue to talk about it, and you want to make changes to it,

where a lot of the other field guides that you make, they're there and they're done until there's a new version of an app, And then you have to go make a new version. This is the one, at least as an observer, as your friend, it seems like you are excited to work on. Ben Frick Well, I'm, honestly, I'm excited to work on all these things. I have, I'm very lucky with what I get to do to make a living. But this one, I feel like, I don't know, it's just like when you help people get over something difficult. I mean, I had this as a lawyer too. People would have big problems and they'd come to you

and you would help them get out of a problem. But this one is even better in a lot of ways because it doesn't have those negative emotions attached to it. It's just, hey, here's a way to maybe make your life a little easier, make it a little more intentional, and at the end of the day, I feel like you put that dent in the universe exactly where you wanted it,

and it feels really good. And to me, just kind of the backstory is the personal journey that it took me so long, you know, dealing with the imposter syndrome for so long and just wondering if anybody cared and then finally doing it and finding out, oh yeah, people do like this and it is helping them. And it's just very satisfying. Nice. Not all puppies and rainbows though. What didn't work? Yeah. For me, I feel like as I get to the end of the year, the quarterly reviews are so good, and I'm consistently reading my quarterly reviews for the whole year. I feel like I need to start

rethinking my role order. To me, I have a group of things I do towards other people. That's number one for me, my family, my friends. And then Max Sparky is second, because that stuff is so important to me. And then I've always ranked myself third. And there's been some stuff going on with my family, some health scare stuff, but also just like, I want a little more time for me. If that makes sense.

I want to do more craft work in the shop. I want to do a little more music. Looking back on the year, I really didn't give myself much time for any of that stuff and I'm not any of that stuff. And I'm not sure how that happened, and some of it's worked, but there's a whole bunch of reasons. But reading, one of the nice things about doing

these reviews, you can go back and read them, and I see that's a consistent theme. And I just noticed with the beginning of my quarter four review, like, yeah, this is really something I need to address. So I'm thinking about that going into next year and frankly, next quarter is like, it's time to get a little bit more margin and a little bit more time for just, you know, the art stuff on the side.

I'm somebody who really likes making things. I don't wish I had more time to watch TV. I do wish I had more time to watch TV. I do wish I had more time to make a cabinet. And so I'm trying to figure that out and how that fits. And maybe it's time to audit the ideal week and kind of engineer around a little bit more time towards stuff that I want to do.

And I don't know really what that means yet, but it's on my radar now. So that's something I want to do. Nice. One of the problems for me, frankly, is that I was a lawyer. And being a lawyer is really hard. And now what I do is not that hard.

It's fun, largely. The stuff I do as Max Parkey is just really fun. And so it's easy to spend your whole day doing it. You know? But there's other things I want to do, too. fun. And so it's easy to spend your whole day doing it, but there's other things I want to do too. And, um, and I, I just need to start like, I don't really even have the answer yet, but now I've identified that that's a problem that needs addressing. Yeah. So the struggle is real. I mean,

that is definitely one of the things that didn't work for me as well. Um, anything else you want to talk about with, with what didn't work before I jump into mine? Yeah, go for it. Go for it. I'm good. Okay. So for me, the big thing that did not work was the, uh, the boundaries. Um, I put in the notes, the boundaries disappeared. I found myself partially out of desperation, trying to find the thing that that worked,

just working whenever I had a spare moment and the energy to do so, which meant that I actually ended up working almost every Saturday, probably, which I recognize is not good. And now that I don't have to, I find myself sort of just defaulting to, oh, it's Saturday morning. I have some time and I should find a project to work on. And I know that's not great. I need to build in some better boundaries, better shutdown routines at the end of the

day. So I can stop thinking about work for a little while. We talked about this in the episode that Stephen was on, but one of my words for this year was sabbaticals. Systems was another one. And basically when I went into this year, I kind of thought I'm just gonna dial in what I'm doing And it's gonna gonna click what actually ended up happening was what I was doing didn't work and I found something that did so Oh, it is systematized

What wasn't working that would have been a bad thing? So I'm okay with you know how it turned out But it did not turn out the way that I had planned or intended that it was going to you know how it turned out, but it did not turn out the way that I had planned or intended that it was going to. Um, I, as part of the, the commitment to the boundaries, I do want to implement some sabbaticals. In fact, I committed to having some of those scheduled by the time we recorded this episode and, um, I am going to shoot for every eighth week. That is the goal.

Um, is that actually going to work? I don't know, but even if it's like 50%, I feel like that would be progress, not perfection. That would still help a lot. But I feel like that's just part of the emphasis on the boundaries that I really need to build in some of that stuff. Another thing that didn't work but has a silver lining is this year I was throwing a curveball with the bookworm podcast. Joe decided that he did not want to do it anymore which I think maybe we should have had that conversation earlier than we did but we had it and that meant that I had to kind of scramble to figure out, is this something that I can even keep doing? If I want to keep doing it, what's the right format?

I get so much out of reading those books and talking about them every couple weeks that I was a hundred percent committed to finding a way to, to at least try it and my friend Corey Hickson stepped in and has been doing a phenomenal job as the co-host I feel like we've really hit a stride with with the show so I think ultimately it probably is is better because Corey is completely excited about this and asking me like, what can I do? You know, so he's, he's been a, a big help with Bookworm. And I think ultimately in the long run, uh, that sort of excitement for the project means

that Bookworm is going to be better than it ever was, but definitely not something that I wanted to have to figure out in the middle of, of this year. something that I wanted to have to figure out in the middle of this year. Yeah, but that happens. And in Joe's defense, it's sometimes life comes at you. I shut down a podcast this year. That was really strange for me. I'd never done it before,

but it was just a question of kind of going back to the things I was talking about where I want a little bit more time to catch my breath. And I had to kill one of my darlings, but it happens. And sometimes evolution is what you need and at the end of this, you really, I think the show is better, not because it wasn't good with Joe,

but because it's got this new energy in it and I really like what you guys have done. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And just to be clear, you know, this was not a Joe and I are still friends. We continue to talk regularly. And it was just Joe Define. He kind of realized that he didn't want to have a life on the Internet anymore. He has more fun running chainsaws and stuff like that.

So like we're in complete agreement that this was the right thing to do. It was only an issue for me because of the timing and me scrambling to figure out what do I want to be when I grow up essentially? And is this a part of it? Yeah, yeah yeah and you were under a lot of pressure at the time because you had you had left the job and you were trying to make it work and bookworm is one of your key kind of things you do so I get it it's my baby

yep so yeah ultimately you know I think there's a lot that lot that went well even that with, I mentioned the boundaries disappearing and my kind of default to let's do work. You know, I guess if I were to frame that, it's sort of like I slipped into hustle mode again and I'm not thrilled about that. So I want to definitely establish more firm boundaries. But one, again, another silver lining with this is that there were a couple of things that I had committed to family-wise that really did not slip. And that is,

I do these weekly one-on-ones with my kids and date nights with my wife. That has sort of, we're still trying to figure that out with basketball because basketball definitely threw a wrench in things with our regular Tuesday night, Tuesday night routine. But for the most part we've been able to do this every single week for the entire year and that actually I think is, that's something that I should celebrate. You know, even when things went completely sideways, in a sense, I was still able to protect the time for the things that I had decided. These are really important and non-negotiables. So I was able to hold the boundaries in some areas, but I recognize, uh,

they got to be a little bit more firm in, in others. Yeah. The other thing that really just, uh, kind of shocked me when I was talking to Cory about it on bookworm not too long ago, I was thinking about what do I do for fun? And I didn't have an answer other than to read books. I don't really have a hobby. I like to run, you know, but that's like physical exercise. That's, that's not really just something that I do for the fun of it.

And so, uh, I need to find something that's, that's just like a, a fun, even if it's a completely time-wasting activity, in fact, if it is a time-wasting activity, it's probably better for me at this point. Uh, I don't have to be productive all the time. You know, I got to find something that is just, I enjoy to do, I enjoy, I enjoy doing it, and that's the only reason that I do it. Well, I can tell you with five kids, you're at the phase of life where there aren't many times for that, you know?

That is true, yeah. I mean, it's like, I talk about the wood shop. Well, I shut my wood shop down for 20 years. I mean, I made so much furniture, you know, before we got married and when we first got married, I made furniture for the whole house. Then when we had two kids, suddenly it just wasn't an option. Like, no, daddy can't go spend the whole day out in the wood shop on Saturday because, you know, I'm daddy and I got to do whatever daddy needs to do.

And I think you, part of this is you're at a phase of your life where there isn't a lot of margin for that stuff. And that kinda comes with the job, I feel like. Try to find things you can do with your kids that are fun for you, that kinda stuff. Because I don't know, I just feel like I had about, well there's five years between our kids and for about 20 years, I was always busy with them or just, you know,

keeping the household going and the career and all that. So I feel like you're kind of in the middle of that right now, so that's part of it. And give yourself some grace there. Yeah, that's definitely true. But that doesn't mean you can't find a few things to do, you know, for fun. I know like you like playing video games or whatever it is.

If you need some like me time once in a while, find something, but this isn't the time to become a scratch golfer, if that makes sense. It does, it does. I almost bought a steam deck when they were on sale for Black Friday. I need something like that where just 15, 20 minutes a day I can just zone out and do something fun. Yeah. Well, I think you should do that still, but I think be realistic with your obligations. Yep. That's fair.

What a stick in the mud, man. Sparky telling you. Well, let's talk about 2025 right after I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie.

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and Olive Relay. Mike, we can't help ourselves. We're both thinking about next year. What are we going to change? What are we gonna do? I know you have words of the year. What are your words this year? Yeah, well, it's sort of like a reboot of, um,

what I did last year, I feel, but there's two words specifically I'm zeroing in on, and that is people and process. Uh, the people part that really comes from the, uh, I read this book free time by, by Jenny Blake, and it was, it was really good. And, uh, it got me thinking about business systems and specifically getting help with things. Uh, I've sort of defaulted in the last year to, well, we don't have the money to pay somebody to do this anyways. I know how to do it. I'm just going to do it.

And I have done that, but, uh, I'm at the point now where I need to start looking for some help. The, the bottleneck is me. Yeah. You know, I mentioned the, the flywheel as like the thing that really clicked this year. Uh, that all starts with YouTube videos. And since I launched life HQ, I have released no YouTube videos.

Want to know why? Because I don't have time to edit them. Too busy doing other things, which are important things and they need to get done. But, um, I actually have sort of already taken, on this one. I'm trying out a service that will edit videos for me. And I don't think it's going to be like a hundred percent edits, but at least I can send things off and they can do like the first cut. And maybe, you know, they end up adding some lower thirds and things like that. And they can do the stuff that I don't know how to do. I'll still add in the screen cast and things like that. Cause I,

I'm pretty particular about the specific way that I, I want that stuff to look and the timing and all that kind of stuff. I don't have a, a JF with that sort of knowledge yet, but I can, you know, throw a little bit of money at this problem and get probably the 80-20 in terms of the editing time done for me. And so I'm already experimenting with that. I also want to at some point get an assistant who can help me with some of the more systematized regular tasks that go with what I currently do. Like one thing I'm thinking about is I write the newsletter but I can you know write this and hand it off to somebody and they can put it up into into kit and make sure it's ready to go all the links work stuff like that. I obsess over those things. It

takes me so much time because I'm so paranoid that I'm gonna miss one and ultimately I end up missing them anyways, because just like when you're editing a document you kind of look over your misspellings, well I just look over that sort of stuff. So I need someone to get another set of eyes on that anyways. And those are the... So video editor is sort of already in motion, but the assistant is the next thing. And then along with that is process because I need to create documentation for how I want all this stuff to be done. And I'm sort of doing that already as things pop up. I'm figuring out, you know, okay this is the way I want this to be done. So I

start jotting down some rough frameworks. I've written tons of SOPs in the past. I really need to just kind of dedicate a whole bunch of time towards making these a specific format that I could actually hand them off to somebody. But I'm moving in that that direction. I'll tell you how I dealt with that is because you know, JF is the guy who I hired to do edits, but he wanted to do I was going to hire somebody else to do admin work, and he said, well, I think I could do that too, and we talked,

but I didn't know if he wanted to do it really, once he started doing it, you might say, oh, this isn't really for me, or if he had the bandwidth to do both of those things. And so at the time that we first started exploring that together, I wasn't even sure he was going to want that work. So I thought, well, I don't want to teach this twice.

So I got my Loom account, and I made extensive Loom videos of all the things. And so in our Notion database that we share, there's a page with, I don't know, like 50 Loom links in it. Like, how do you deal with a customer refund? How do you deal, every little thing that I deal with, you know, administratively, I made a loom video explaining how to do it and walking through it,

and now that's perfect. So like, if he decided he didn't want to do it, I could share those videos with the next person, and it's just, you know, just, I would recommend, rather than making SOP documents, look at loom. It's perfect for that. Yeah, I have a loom account and I have done that before. Maybe this is just me being particular. I need to get over this,

but I don't like just having the videos because I've been on the other side of that as well where someone is delegating this to you and they make a loom video and you really need the 10 seconds in the middle but you don't know where it is so you've got to watch the 30 minute loom. If you can break it down into the very component pieces I feel like that's great. But I do want to actually have the documentation. I want to have it searchable. And yeah, you could have transcripts and things like that. But I think that for the type of delegation that I want to do, that is absolutely the first step. I should be doing that anyways. So that is great advice. But I want to actually have the specific bullets on like, this is not only how you do this

process but this is when it gets triggered and this is why we do this in the first place all that kind of stuff again I've written this you know I've written these these uh stories with Scrum and and you know I'm really good at creating documentation it's just something that I haven't creating documentation. It's just something that I haven't really prioritized yet and it is now time to do so. I've also got a couple things that I am really focusing on in quarter one. So and these again are kind of already in in motion. I want to continue to make LifeHQ, which I am doing. I right before Thanksgiving actually added two new video courses to Life HQ, which I thought were missing when I originally launched it. And that is a video course on the creativity five wheel framework. It's 20 videos in that one.

And then a video course on the PKM stack framework. So those are actually in Life HQ. And the first time you open Life HQ, there's like a whole guided process. The first thing is here's how LifeHQ works and then the next one is introduction to the PKM stack. The next one is the Creativity Flywheel. So you can dive deeper in that but basically it's laying the foundation for all of the workflows. That's all there and I'm gonna continue to refine that. I've also got a Practical PKM cohort that I'm going to be doing in January. And I am upgrading the marketing for that. I'm working with a sales page designer. So this is going to be serious. I actually got the first version back of all the updated copy yesterday.

And so it's going to get a whole big visual upgrade. And then also along with that, some official branding for real, for like the Starter Vault and Life HQ and Practical PKM. I just threw something together quick previously and I actually am working with someone to have a coherent brand associated with all the stuff that I do,

which is going to make it look way more professional. I'm also committing to getting serious about social. We talk about social media off and on. I know it's important. I've been able to grow my newsletter list quite a bit by the YouTube videos, but I should be taking the content from those YouTube videos. I've already put it together. I've already thought through how it all flows. Just break it down into text with some screenshots and things and share that different places. It's low-hanging fruit for me. And how much could I grow my email list if I did that stuff also? So I'm committing to figuring that out in in Q1 is as well. And that is the thing, you know, that's the one that that sort of triggered me for the SOPs. Like that's what I want to be able to to to delegate is that kind of stuff. I have so much stuff that I've made.

It would be great to say, OK, now here is the process for chopping this apart. And here is here are the steps for putting this into whatever tool. And on Fridays we send this and on Wednesdays we send this and on Mondays we share this type of thing. These different places. I just need to put in a little bit of the time to figure out what is that cadence going to be? What is the process? I need to do it a little bit myself. And then I feel like it's not something that I need to do. It's not my unique ability. Somebody else could probably do it better than me once I can give them some direction on what I want it to look like. So that's my 2025. How about you? Is that quarter one or is that for the year in general? Like your words,

do they last for the whole year? The words will last for the year, but, uh, the way that they are getting applied, I've just thought about Q1 and that is again, based on the personal retreat framework. I just got back from my personal retreat as we record this. So it's fresh on my mind and I'm excited about these these things. But I'm not looking further than the next quarter in terms of the specific projects. Yeah, I you know, I just don't I don't do the word thing. I try I've tried a few times. I know, um,

Gray and Mike do a really good like annual theme and that works for them. But it just doesn't work for me. I've tried a few times. I kind of know what I want to work on just based on kind of my own role system. But like I do have emphasis that I work on as I go through each quarter. And like I said earlier,

I definitely want to build a little bit more time for me into the system and a little bit more time for me into the system and a little bit more artistic time and downtime from the work, because I work all, I mean, I just always work, that's what I do. My kids are older, so I have more time to sink into it, but I'm doing too much of that. I need to kind of find a little bit of a better balance.

And hiring somebody really did help me out with that. So I can tell you from the other side of it, the types of things that you're looking to hire someone for. I did, and it definitely helps. Like part of me thinks, well, should I hire more people? Or, you know, but it's, I'm not that big of an operation here. You know, we're not Apple, you know? So we'll see.

But I think you will really get benefit from that. And you're thinking about it way earlier than I did, which is probably for the best. For me, production-wise, looking forward, I kind of know what I want. I'd make field guides, I'd do the labs. Those are the things I like making, and I kind of know what's going forward.

I already said I'm going to do an updated productivity field guide. Everybody tells me those have to come out in January because that's when people want to think about this stuff. And I'm probably going to do it in January, but not 100% settled. It's largely done, the update, but I'm still reshooting some of the videos and things. But yeah, I don't know, we'll see. As we record this, I still have a little time to make a couple decisions about timing. One thing I would like to do on the Max Sparky side

that I haven't done is more free YouTube videos. I make a lot of videos for YouTube in the Max Sparky Labs. We make hundreds a year in Max Berkey Labs. So I've published a lot to YouTube, but almost none of it is public. So I was thinking, I'd like to do some public stuff. And I've got some fun ideas. I understand that videos you do as part of a membership are different than videos you do for the general public. And I get all that, but I'd like to do some of those. And for the last couple of years, it's been on my list, but it's now kind of at the top of the list to do a better job of that. So if I could encourage you with the YouTube stuff,

because I know last episode you were asking kind of thinking out loud, should I experiment with blue sky and should I be on social to promote my stuff? I would view the free YouTube videos. That is the social platform you're experimenting with. Don't focus on any of the other ones, but it is very different when you're public publicly publishing YouTube videos, as opposed to the ones for, for your community, because those could be any videos. It's up to you to decide what people want,

but YouTube is going to decide which people want the free ones. And so experiment with that. And like I mentioned earlier, make noise, listen for signal. But approaching that as your social media experiment, I think is gonna make it a much more fruitful endeavor for you. Yeah, well, that's kind of the intention of it.

And I've done a lot of work behind the scenes on it, but I haven't really got to the point of releasing much. And I've even written scripts for some. And it's just something I need to kind of get on this week. I already mentioned I want every quarter I look at my ideal week. But for some reason right now, I'm thinking about really like turning it upside down. And I'm not sure what that means, but as we head towards the new year, that's something I want to look into. One big change I'd like to make next year is I think on the theme of getting myself

a little bit more balanced is sabbaticals and personal retreats. I did my personal retreats this year all at home. I didn't do any of them offsite. Maybe that would be something I'd like to change going into next year. We have those little tiny house cabins too near me, but they're kind of up in the mountains and they're more expensive in California, of course. But I am thinking about offsite personal retreats. I think that's probably in the cards for me.

And the sabbatical question, you know, we keep talking about it, we keep having guests on, I've never done one really. So I think this year will be the year. And I've been thinking the way I think I can do it is not on a set schedule, at least not right now. I think the way I feel comfortable starting it out is after like in between big projects.

That makes sense. So what I was thinking is like, once I finished this new productivity field guide, it's usually about a 12 week webinar series. So that's a quarter. So I'll get me somewhere, March or April, and then take a week off. And truly in the sabbatical fashion, what I'm thinking is really just for myself.

Like, what if I just took a week and just made a piece of furniture and just didn't answer any email and just pretended the whole thing didn't exist, got ahead on the podcast or whatever so I can just take really a week off and just do something completely out in the left field and then get back to work at it. I think based on field guide release schedules and different things. I think I could do that two, maybe three times over the course of the year, which isn't what Sean was doing. You know, it's not nearly as much as he was doing,

but it's more than I've ever done, and it would be a nice experiment. And I think I could probably afford to do that if I was smart about it. So I've started kind of planning for that. And you know, what does that mean in terms of getting work done? Because of the nature of what I do, like I'm not going to just shut down the Max Barkie labs for a week, I'll have stuff done in advance. And so I'm going to have to work a little harder before and after. But that still gives you that week off. And I think this is the year that I'm going to really try and make that happen.

Nice. So that, that is the tricky part for me too, because there are things that happen on a set schedule. And for me, the thing that eats up the most consistent time is the newsletter. The podcasts are every other week and And I can usually plan around that. You know, like over Christmas, for example, we bump a recording back a week or move one up a week. So we've got a larger break in between. That's that's fine. But when something comes out every single week, that is where if I continue to just try to do this myself and get ahead, I will I realize I will never get ahead. I need some help because doing the whole thing is

too much of a heavy lift. But I feel like if I had someone who could help me with the normal process, then I could probably work ahead and delegate it to them. And they would be able to make sure that the trains run on time while I step away for a little bit. Yeah. Well, I can tell you it works. I mean, we had someone get sick in my family last week, and it required a lot of my time. And having someone on the team who could deal with the email and the little daily crises that come in while I was dealing with that was really nice and It's money well spent in that regard

Yeah, but I think it's possible this year to do this and I always say it last year I put them on the calendar. I got all inspired I think I put like five on the calendar last year and I didn't do any of them I got all inspired. I think I put like five on the calendar last year and I didn't do any of them. But I think part of it was I was a little too eager and aggressive in setting the schedule unrealistically. And I'm just going to look, see how it goes this year. I would like to get my life a little bit more in balance.

I feel like it's a little heavy towards work right now. And I like the work, but I also want to get a little bit more downtime and That's something I'm gonna start working on this year awesome All right, you want to talk about shiny new objects? Let's do it. I've got a weird one. I I was when I was hanging the Christmas stuff We've got this Mickey Mouse that hangs in front of our garage

and you've got to hang it with two ropes. And I always had struggled to get it like even because you're hanging it from two points and you don't want it to be crooked. And that sent me down a rabbit hole of knots. And I had kind of forgot about all the knots I learned as a kid, so I went back and started relearning knots. And I bought some paracord

and a marlin spike, just cheapos off Amazon. And I've been having fun lately, even just like if I watched TV with my wife sitting there, like making knots. How's that for a weird one? That is a weird one. Well, mine's weird also, but I have to admit, I have no idea what a paracord or a marlin spike even are.

A paracord is just rope, it's just rope, but it's got a, if you put a flame to the end, it like melts a little bit so it like, it doesn't fray. And so I've been like redoing all the stuff that has knots in it around the house with proper knots that can be taken out and sliding knots and ratchet knots and truckers hitches and everything.

So the dog leash, you name it, I've re-knotted it in the last month, but that's been kind of a fun little diversion for me. It has nothing to do with productivity, but it feels good, you know, learning your knots. And then a marlin spike is just a piece of steel that helps you like thread the rope through when you're making a knot. I mean, this sounds like the natural progression, honestly, once you run out of things to gridfinity.

Yeah, that's true, right? It is, it feeds that part of me at some level. Yep. Cool. I have a shiny new object which again was a Black Friday purchase but there's this company, Fellow, that makes nice coffee products. It's kind of the best way to to describe it. They've got these like electric kettles which are really well designed and sort of like if Ugmonunk made coffee

gear this is what it would look like. That's basically how you describe anything Fellow makes. They have a round cylindrical canister called the Atmos which you put your coffee beans in and then they have a manual one where you turn the lid back and forth and it sucks all the air out of the canister so it keeps your beans fresh. And they came out with an electric one, which I had to try. The electric one is really cool. So basically you have this canister that you put the rubber top on. The whole thing is metal, but the seal is rubber. And then you charge it via USB-C, but there is a button on the top where you press it

and it just like sucks all the air out of the canister. You can hear it whirring. And then when it's done, it turns, there's a little dot on the top that turns green. So that's how you know that it's vacuum sealed. At that point, you cannot take the lid off. You have to press the button again. It releases the vacuum seal and then you can take it off.

The electric one actually. Will periodically throughout the day continually suck the air out of the the thing, so it's not a perfect seal, obviously. I have it actually in my co-working space downtown. I have a little coffee set up in my office where I'll make coffee during the day. And so I'll have my beans in that thing and it'll be at my desk. And every once in a while, every couple of hours, I'll hear the thing just whirr, it sucks the air out of the thing. But it's a stupid little thing that there's no way anyone needs to spend money on an electric vacuum canister thing. But every time I hear it go off,

it makes me smile. Very satisfying, right? How long does it preserve the beans by putting them in a vacuum? I'm assuming it allows them to last longer, right? Or makes them fresher? I don't think this is the sort of thing where you've put this in a vacuum seal and you stick it under your, in a cabinet somewhere and you take it out three months later and the beans are gonna be fresh.

I don't think that's the intended use. I think it's, you know, you've bought a bag of beans and you don't want the bag anymore. So actually what, what way I'm using it, uh, I have a brother-in-law who runs a coffee shop. Yeah. There's a particular type of bean that comes out seasonally that I really, really like. And I asked them, you know, do you, can you get me some sort of discount on like a five pound bag of it? Because we've got, uh, we're going to spend a lot of time with, with family over the holidays. Like I'll just bring the coffee. Yeah.

And so he got me this big five pound bag, which once we open it, you know, we're making it at home. So I pour the beans from that bag into this, this, uh, thing. I think if you had a, like a smaller bag with a, you know, one of those plastic seals, that's probably good enough for most people. But one of the things that really makes good coffee good coffee is how fresh the beans are. So I am using this every single day when I make coffee, but I don't have any way to like measure, you know, this is the point where the beans are no longer good.

I just think it keeps them fresher longer. So that's how I'm using it. I don't think you have like a specific time frame where these are good and these are bad. Coffee is not like, you know, if you go to the store and you see an expiration date on coffee, that's like two months out in the, in the future. Like that, that already tells, uh, tells me that that's, that's not really good coffee cause good coffee goes bad, bad, you know, it starts to lose its peak flavor in days, not weeks. So at some point you're just like, this is good enough, you know, it's still good. And, uh, I'm not gonna,

I'm not gonna obsess about it quite that much. But you do have a vacuum sealer, so that's good, right? Yep. I'm so glad I never went down the coffee rabbit hole. I feel like it's a whole world you have to learn. Well, it definitely is. I mean, there's a whole bunch beyond what I've gotten into even. You sort of have to find the sweet spot with this and kind of like obsidian. I think most people when they get into coffee, they go way too far and then they dial it back. They're like, this is good enough for me.

So what are you reading, Mike? I'm reading something that you will probably enjoy. I am reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. We are covering this for Bookworm. I floated the idea by Corey. I told him I was nervous about doing it because it seems to be like the textbook for all the stoicism stuff, which is really popular nowadays. And I kind of feel like I'm not really gonna like it so maybe we'll take a bunch of people off. I just started it

I've read the first two books because the way that this book is set up there are 12 different books and it's a collection of writings by Marcus Aurelius and there's different translations. The modern one that most people would recommend I think that's more readable, is the Gregory Hayes translation. I have the fancy Ryan Holiday one with the gold leaf pages and everything. Because I bought this, I bought it a while ago thinking,

I really need to read this. And every time I've tried to read it, I have gotten bored and put it down. Now I have to finish it because we're gonna talk about it on a podcast. I mean, it's not really a book, right? That's the thing. I mean, the story behind it is he wrote notes to himself in the field. It was his diary. It was not his, it was never intended to be shared. That was, that's my understanding of it. So it doesn't really flow like a book.

It doesn't. There's, there's definitely some cool stuff in there. Um, I think it's, it's going to be, uh, if I was going to read, you know, a productivity book, this isn't the one I would pick up. But if I'm going to have a discussion about the topics, I think there's, there's potentially a bunch of stuff in here. Yeah. Just going through the first two books, you know, it's interesting to see the types of things that he's, he's jotting down. Um, like the first, first chapter is The first chapter is a bunch of gratitude and things that he's learned from different people in his life. That's a cool idea.

Not all of them I thought were great, but a couple of them like, oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. And honestly, to the extent there's philosophy in it, a lot of it is based on Seneca and other Stoics that he had read. He's just kind of regurgitating what he learned. But what makes it fascinating is he was the emperor of Rome. I mean, he was not an academic. He was a guy who was up against reality every day, and he really struggled to bring perspective

and do it mindfully. I mean, I just feel like to have that much power and still want to be humble, I think that's admirable. But I've always felt like that book's a little overrated in terms of like, he didn't add a lot of new, I'm getting in trouble saying that. He doesn't add a lot of new, I'm gonna get in trouble saying that, you know, he doesn't add a lot of new thoughts to it if you read some of the source material,

but the fact that he thought it and wrote it down is so significant, right? And like, he was so much more important in his world than you and I are in ours, and yet he's still worried about that stuff, and I really like that. Yep, exactly. I'm glad you're reading it. I think it's a good book.

I mean, I think it's read in context. Yep. I almost like it better because he wrote it for himself. He wasn't trying to preach about this stuff. This was just his notes to himself to keep himself in check. Because I do that too, almost daily. And I don't ever want them published,

but they do help me, right? Yeah, well, check back in a couple of weeks, I guess. And I'll let you know what I thought. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you're already kind of, you're reading it with the right perspective. And I think you'll, there's good parts in it and there's stuff you'll get and some parts are dated.

So I am, I'm not reading really anything right now. It's as we do this, we're in between the new year and Christmas and I've got family stuff that serious family stuff I'm dealing with. And I've got a field guide I just launched and then productivity which is almost done for a new edition. And I have a lot on my plate right now. So I'm actually not reading anything at this moment.

So I don't have anything to share, but next time we record, I'll have a book that I'm in. Physical book, hopefully. Yeah, yeah, I like that. The reason I think I push back on it so much is because I went to law school when you carried like 50 pounds of books. And if we had had iPads back then,

I would have loved it so much. But the fact is I don't carry 50 pounds of books anymore. So it's okay to buy a regular paper book. And one of my projects maybe in the next year will be to make a little library for the front yard where I can give away books after I finish them. The one question for me is, do I want to read everything in physical book? I know you've kind of gone that way. I still, there's part of me that are some books I just are not worthy. But maybe those aren't books I should be reading,

you know, maybe I should focus on the ones that I want to read good enough to bias physical. I don't know. I have thoughts, but I haven't sorted them all out yet, like so many areas of my life right now. Yeah. Cool. I can't wait to see the stoic little library that you end up making in your front yard. Yeah, don't pressure me out though. I don't know when I'm ever wait to see the the stoic little library that you you end up making in your front yard Yeah, don't don't pressure me out though. I don't know what I'm ever gonna get to it. I've got like right now I'm making a bookshelf just for my studio because Because of you frankly, I have too many books now. I've got to find a place to put them You're welcome

We are the focus podcast you can find us at relay.fm Focus, thank you to Zoc doc for sponsoring today. We are the Focus Podcast. You can find us at relay.fm slash focus. Thank you to Zocdoc for sponsoring today. We appreciate your support. For those of you that are deep focus subscribers, you get the ad for extended version of the show. Stick around. We're going to be talking today about what we're doing with our studios, a bit of a check-in. Mike's made some changes and so have I.

And otherwise, we'll see you next time.