286. Do Less and Enjoy More During the Holidays

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Marissa: When was the last time the holidays felt peaceful? Have they ever, what if

[00:00:05] Joel: Silent Night? I don’t know about that.

[00:00:07] Marissa: Yeah. Well, what if they actually could, and what if you ended the year feeling rested instead of frazzled? That’s exactly what we’re talking about today.

[00:00:26] Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I’m Marissa Hyatt.

[00:00:31] Joel: And I’m Joel Miller.

[00:00:32] Marissa: This is where we remind you of something you already know. It’s not about getting more things done, it’s about getting the right things done,

[00:00:41] Joel: both at work and in life. And today we’re talking about how, practically speaking, how to do less over the holidays

[00:00:50] Marissa: and all God’s people said,

[00:00:52] Joel: amen.

[00:00:55] Marissa: I think everybody this time of year is feeling crazy. You know, here we are, we’re in December, which is. Wild. By the way. I feel like I blinked.

[00:01:06] Joel: It’s two months in one, right?

[00:01:07] Marissa: It’s like I blinked and we somehow ended up in December and I can’t believe it’s the end of this year.

[00:01:12] Joel: It’s not still May. Is that what you’re saying?

[00:01:14] Marissa: Yeah. And it also feels like this month is multiple months wrapped in one. Yeah. The amount of things that we have to finish with work. Obviously the holidays, but it’s not just the holidays, it’s all the things that come with the holidays. It’s the shopping, it’s the cooking, it’s the traveling, the people in town, hosting, uh, holiday parties that we have to go to or host ourselves, and all the things that go within that.

[00:01:39] And it’s just feels like it never ends. And it all has to be done right now because we’re coming up on the biggest deadline of all, which is the end of the year.

[00:01:48] Joel: I mean, how many commitments do we already have and we’re getting ready to add more.

[00:01:51] Marissa: So let’s all just take a collective deep breath because, oh my gosh.

[00:01:57] It’s like, but truly, I like to think of this episode, Joel, as kind of our part two to mm-hmm. Our last episode that we did on the holidays, um, a few weeks ago. We talked about compression, you know, that feeling that there’s more to do in less time, and that’s certainly happening right now. And why boundaries and rhythms are really essential this time of year.

[00:02:19] Now we talked to our double win coaching clients about what they most wanted to hear us talk about on focus on this. We often go to them and say, Hey, what do you guys want us to hear? Or what you know, topic should we cover? And the answer was like crystal clear, loud, perfectly in pitch, all of it, which was how do we survive?

[00:02:39] And even potentially thrive during the holidays.

[00:02:42] Joel: Is that even possible thriving during the holidays? I, I mean, I know it’s supposed to be a time of joy and cheer, but there’s an awful lot of tears involved too, right?

[00:02:49] Marissa: I think it is on the table for us, and I think, uh, what we’re gonna talk about today is hopefully going to really encourage all of you that you don’t just have to end this month and this year, like completely out of steam with your hair.

[00:03:01] Crazy, you know, looking like you are just disheveled and are. Barely crossing that finish line. I think there’s a way to do this that actually is manageable and even potentially invites more peace than at any other time in the year, which is a big promise. We’ll see if we can follow through with it.

[00:03:19] Joel: Alright, well let’s just like start with this thought for a second. Not everything we do around the holidays actually has to be done this month. Which is automatically kind of a liberating thought.

[00:03:30] Marissa: That’s kind of like mind bending a little bit because I think all of us feel like everything has to be done right now.

[00:03:36] Joel: But I mean, there are some things that do have to be done. We could call them your non-negotiables. And it seems to me that the first thing to do is to figure out over the these next several weeks, what are your actual non-negotiables, not everything that you could do. Not everything that everyone wants you to do, not everything that even you want to do, but what are the things that are non-negotiable?

[00:03:57] Marissa: Yeah. So how do we figure this out? Because I think sometimes the trap that we end up in this time of year, everything feels like a non-negotiable. It’s like how do you even parse out what is truly a non-negotiable? ’cause you’re saying that, Joel, and I’m like, great, that sounds awesome in theory. And yet I feel like I could turn this episode off and.

[00:04:14] I go back to all the things I’m trying to do and I’m like, no, but I have to get that done. No, but I have to get that done. No, that has to be done. And so how do we actually stop that chaotic thought process long enough to actually realize what is actually a non-negotiable or not?

[00:04:29] Joel: Okay. So I think one of the first things to do, and you know, just like as a coping strategy in general, I think one of the greatest things people can do is just like, start with a list.

[00:04:40] Mm-hmm. Write down everything you think you have to do. And just, I mean, this is an exercise. It’ll take you 10 minutes, you know, get a cup of coffee, put on your favorite album, and just start writing the things that you think you have to do over the next month. Then put some discernment on that list. Be scrutinize that list.

[00:04:58] You know, like ask yourself, does everything on here truly matter right now? And so you’re kind of looking for things like what is one or two or three things at the most that absolutely have to happen? Yeah. What do you absolutely committed to finishing? Because here’s, here’s the reality, you’re not gonna get it all done.

[00:05:16] And so you might as well make peace with that on the front end. Then just be frustrated with yourself that come January 1st, you still have nine things on this list that you haven’t finished.

[00:05:23] Marissa: Right?

[00:05:24] Joel: It makes more sense to just recognize, well, you are gonna get done. Just two or three of them. Go ahead and list them, and then show some front end discernment and just decide what those things are gonna be and then use that to help guide you.

[00:05:36] Marissa: Yeah, I think it’s important to realize that technically all of these things that you’re gonna write down. May actually need to happen and they may really matter.

[00:05:47] Joel: Yeah, every one of them probably does matter. Like you’re not a non-serious person, you know? You know what matters in life and all that kind of stuff.

[00:05:54] So you’re gonna feel, and you’re probably a very responsible person, which means you’re gonna feel the pressure to like tack on a lot of stuff on that list. Yeah. All of which feel meaningful and important,

[00:06:03] Marissa: but not everything has to matter. Or get done at the same time.

[00:06:08] Joel: Or in the same way.

[00:06:09] Marissa: Or in the same way.

[00:06:10] Right? And we’re gonna give you guys some really practical strategies. I think this episode’s gonna be really good because my hope is you guys can really walk away with clear strategies that you can go implement today. So like you don’t have to let this list linger any longer than it needs to. Like we want you creating this and then filtering this and getting into action, into the things that do matter right now.

[00:06:32] The things that you do wanna accomplish or make time for or prioritize before the end of the year. ’cause there are gonna be those things. So I think you’re right, it’s, it’s asking these questions of what really matters to me right now. You know, realizing that there are gonna be limitations involved. So what is it that I really want to make happen between now and the end of the year?

[00:06:51] And maybe there’s things related to your health or your self care that you wanna prioritize. There’s probably a professional goal or two that needs to happen between now and the end of the year. I think that’s pretty normal for all of us listening as like, we’ve got stuff we’ve gotta get done. Before the end of the year targets we need to hit and so forth, and so great.

[00:07:11] That needs to be a priority. I need to make sure that I’m, I’m making space and making room for that thing, but I also don’t need to do all the other things that I just. Decided in my own mind, needed to happen before the end of the year. The truth is there’s a lot of that stuff that we can probably push into January or even later into next year to kind of relieve some of that pressure.

[00:07:33] Right now

[00:07:34] Joel: that goes for social stuff too. You know, not, not every invitation is an obligation.

[00:07:38] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:07:39] Joel: You know, we don’t have to think that way.

[00:07:40] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:07:40] Joel: Uh, we get to choose. So you want to decide, like for instance. Where would my presence be most meaningfully felt, both for my own sake and for others’ sake. And then where would it be like, not necessarily as important?

[00:07:52] And those are the, uh, moments where you’re able to say, no, I’m gonna take that off my calendar. I’m not gonna actually even put that on my calendar.

[00:07:59] Marissa: Well, I love this because I think this kind of leads us into this concept of like, take off what you can on your list that isn’t critical. So like mm-hmm.

[00:08:09] Stop doing the stuff that you don’t actually have to do. Yeah. A couple things with this, Joel. It’s true with social events. Like where is it gonna really, where is your presence really matter and where is somebody not really gonna notice if you don’t show up to that party? Or you know, that event that it’s not?

[00:08:25] Critical for you to be there.

[00:08:27] Joel: Here’s how old I am. By the way, when you said that, my mind instantly went back to when I was, I don’t know, 13 or 14 years old, and I was watching Rambo First Blood part two.

[00:08:37] Marissa: Yes.

[00:08:39] Joel: And in Rambo first Blood part two, there is a moment where Sylvester Stallone, AKA Rambo is sitting there trying to explain to this woman.

[00:08:48] What expendable means because he’s expendable. That’s the kind of the idea, right? What does expendable mean? And he says, it’s kind of like if you throw a party and you don’t show up, nobody really notices you’re not there. That’s pretty sad, really, at the end of the day. But the truth is. You don’t have to go to everything.

[00:09:06] No. And it’s fine if you don’t go to everything.

[00:09:08] Marissa: And we create these obligations for ourself more often than not. I think. Totally. The other thing is more people, at least in my experience this time of year, are more grace giving than any other time of the year or all dealing with this. It’s like a collective struggle.

[00:09:25] Mm-hmm. And so when somebody, you know says to me, Hey, I would love to be at that party or that dinner. Honestly, I am really struggling to keep up with everything going on this time of year, so I’m gonna need to sit this one out. I’m like, I totally get it. Say no more. I got you. You know? Yeah. It makes complete sense.

[00:09:44] Where I think at other times we may not be, it may feel more disappointing, you know, to the person who’s hosting or you know, throwing the event. But at this time of year, I think we all have a lot of grace.

[00:09:54] Joel: That’s part of the season, right? I mean, this is a season of generosity. Let’s be generous.

[00:09:58] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:09:58] Joel: To people and their needs.

[00:10:00] Marissa: Exactly.

[00:10:00] Joel: I think that’s doable. I would, I would hope that people would show that to me, so I, I should be showing that to others.

[00:10:06] Marissa: And also ask yourself what on your list that you’re trying to accomplish, if you just didn’t do, nobody would notice.

[00:10:13] Joel: Right.

[00:10:14] Marissa: Sometimes we’re our hardest person to please, because it’s like we create all these expectations for ourselves and all these to-dos, and sometimes it’s like, what if you just didn’t do it?

[00:10:23] Joel: Give yourself the gift of not doing it.

[00:10:26] Marissa: Yes, exactly.

[00:10:27] Joel: Yeah. In free to focus language, we’re kind of talking about elimination, we’re talking about eliminate. This is like, stop doing the stuff you don’t actually have to do.

[00:10:35] Marissa: Yeah. Well, and I think this time of year can be particularly tricky because we believe that there’s a right way to do this time of year.

[00:10:43] Mm-hmm. Most of us have some idea in our brain that in order to be successful by the end of the year, we have to go through this next month in a certain way. Most of us are unconscious to that. But if we slow down for, you know, a couple seconds, and I’m gonna invite all of you listening, give you a little space to do this.

[00:11:01] Like, what are your expectations for yourself this time of year? Like if you think about how could I go through December perfectly? What does that look like? That’s usually what’s driving most of your decisions this time of year. Mm-hmm.

[00:11:12] Joel: We’re guided by all these unclear assumptions, these unstated assumptions about our ideal behavior and.

[00:11:21] If we actually spent a moment scrutinizing them, we might, we might change our opinion about how important X, Y, or Z actually was.

[00:11:28] Marissa: Right? And the problem is we don’t do that and then we feel like we’re failing.

[00:11:32] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:33] Marissa: And we’re kind of just in this rat race. And the truth is, we have the agency, and I say this all the time to our clients.

[00:11:41] We have the agency to create. Anything that we want to win at, like we get the choice. We don’t have to create an experience or a playbook or whatever you wanna call it, that we’re gonna end up failing at the end of it, right? We get to stop, and this is your invitation right now to stop and ask yourself, how do I actually really want to experience a month of December?

[00:12:07] And let’s go engineer for that. Yeah. So the first thing is you wanna eliminate all the things that you actually don’t have to do. So every no is actually a yes for something better, for something that matters. It’s

[00:12:20] Joel: just a trade

[00:12:20] off.

[00:12:21] Marissa: Yeah. For something that matters more for you. And what we want to do is we want to make space for those non-negotiables, for the things that really matter so that all these other things aren’t crowding that out.

[00:12:33] Joel: So basically. There’s the office party and you’re able to say, no, I need to rest. I’m gonna actually stay home that night.

[00:12:40] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:12:41] Joel: I mean, here’s a loaded one, but family gatherings, there’s an expectation maybe about certain dishes that show up on the menu.

[00:12:49] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:12:49] Joel: But what if you didn’t actually make that complicated or not so interesting family recipe if no one really likes it anyway.

[00:12:56] For instance, are we scrutinizing this? Are we, are we actually checking? Because I can think of green bean casserole and I’m like, I don’t want that. What if we just didn’t do it?

[00:13:04] Marissa: I don’t want that either. Honestly. That might get eliminated from the Hyatt family Christmas this year. Yeah, it’s like, who wants that?

[00:13:13] You know, one of the things that we have done, uh, we actually did this for Thanksgiving and I’m sure we’ll do it again for Christmas. We have a text ed for all of the sisters and my mom. We’re planning all the dishes and everything, and we usually ask. What’s the most important dish to each person? Hmm.

[00:13:30] Whoever, whatever the dish is that you really care about, usually you’re the one who’s gonna now be responsible to create that. Because if it matters to you, great, we wanna have that. But I don’t wanna cook a whole meal by my own assumptions thinking that we’re just doing this by default, because it’s a tradition that we’ve always done when the truth is half of that food isn’t gonna get eaten because nobody in the family likes it.

[00:13:51] Right, and then you’re just like wasting a bunch of food and you spend all this time and energy and money, you know, preparing it. And it’s actually a lot easier if you either just don’t do the thing in the first place and you create what you want, or you just ask people also, you know, right. What, what of these dishes do we wanna let go of this year?

[00:14:11] Joel: Another example for that would be like. You know, this is gift buying season. It’s not even gift giving season, it’s more like gift buying season. And it’s like you have this long list of people you have to buy for. What if you didn’t?

[00:14:23] Marissa: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:23] Joel: What if there were like a more strategic way to be thinking about this, like.

[00:14:27] You kind of have like a, a secret Santa thing or you assign gifts to people. I know we do that in our family where like one person is responsible to give gifts to another and it’s kind of like a lottery, the way it all gets worked out and it’s super easy. But the end result is like, not everybody is on my Christmas list all of a sudden.

[00:14:43] Yeah. I just have one or two, two that I’m focusing on and. It takes all the stress out of like picking gifts for people.

[00:14:50] Marissa: Yes. Or what if you just bought the same gift, you know, for each person, rather than putting your energy into tailoring all these gifts to each specific person. What if you created, you thought of a meaningful gift that everybody would.

[00:15:04] Enjoy and you just rinse and repeat. I mean, my mom, she does this each year with us girls. She gets, we do get individual gifts, but she gives us each one gift that is the same across the board, and it’s usually the most meaningful gift. That’s the one I remember, actually.

[00:15:19] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:20] Marissa: All the other gifts that she’s getting just for me.

[00:15:23] I’m not necessarily remembering those because those are often more practical or things I’ve specifically asked for. But that gift where she’s put that energy and the beauty is she’s putting that in that energy in once and then just batching it essentially, which is really wise to do. Uh, so this is another kind of hack is rather than trying to.

[00:15:42] Buy all these different gifts. Yeah. What if you didn’t, first of all, and also what if you just didn’t buy all these individual gifts? What if you bought one gift for each person? I think the other thing is finding meetings or things on your calendar that are needing to be canceled. Yes. Or eliminated. And often this to me, I, I am the most ruthless about my calendar this time of year.

[00:16:08] Because usually that normal recurring meeting that we have, or that meeting that I added to the calendar two months ago, it now feels less relevant or less urgent or demanding. And so rather than following through with that, just because it’s on the calendar. I’m gonna push that out. I’m either gonna push it out into next year or just say, you know what?

[00:16:31] Actually this is no longer important. This no longer is something I wanna prioritize, so we’re just gonna cancel this all together.

[00:16:38] Joel: Well, and how many things are meetings on the front end? That really could have been a slack exchange in reality. And this is a great moment to just say. That could have been an email, you know?

[00:16:49] And most emails shouldn’t even be written. So there’s another way to think about this than just like, I have this calendar full of stuff and it looks like a brick wall of appointments. Yeah, you can clear some of those out.

[00:16:58] Marissa: Yeah. What if your goal this December was to have the least amount of things on your calendar, then normal than any other time of year?

[00:17:06] What if you just were ruthless and you said like, everything that can go must go.

[00:17:12] Joel: Yeah.

[00:17:13] Marissa: And so I’m not gonna show up to. That meeting that I normally show up to once a month because I don’t need to, I’m not needing that thing that I normally need. My priorities have shifted this year or this time of year, or whatever it may be.

[00:17:29] How could you accomplish what you need without all of those meetings on your calendar?

[00:17:34] Joel: It’s a clearance sale for meetings. Everything must go.

[00:17:38] Marissa: Everything must go. Exactly. I love this, Joel, which is. We need to resign our role as Chief Everything Officer.

[00:17:49] Joel: Yes. During this season, in one form or fashion, we take on a lot of extra responsibility, and last week we talked about gratitude and how interdependent we are, but we rarely act like it.

[00:18:01] We act like everything falls to us and we kind of willingly step into. Taking on more responsibility. And so we adopt this. You know, we put on the hat, the CEO hat, the Chief Everything officer hat, and we fail to recognize that there’s other people on the team. There are other people that can play a part, they wanna play a part.

[00:18:20] We don’t actually have to backstop everything.

[00:18:22] Marissa: Yes. When we think about work for most of us, even if you’re not in a leadership position and you don’t have a team or team members reporting to you, you still can delegate, but. This is not only something that you should really be doing, but it, it really is something that you can do.

[00:18:39] And you know, when we think about work, it feels like, of course there’s delegation opportunities, but it’s rare for us when we think about our home lives, that there is opportunity for delegation there too. And there is, we’re gonna talk about some specific ways that you can be delegating at home. Even if you’re like me and you live alone, there’s uh, it’s not just only up to you to be doing every single thing.

[00:19:03] For instance, uh, just a quick little application from my own life. I host book club with my neighbors almost every single month, and it’s usually dinner. And then we, you know, talk about the book and the whole thing, and I usually cook. I have to say hosting a dinner party by yourself is a lot because it’s not just, oh, I have to cook the food, which is what we most of us think that looks like.

[00:19:26] It’s, I have to clean the house, I have to go grocery shopping, right? I have to make sure everything is just so that the timing works out with all this stuff, and it’s a lot to go into hosting. When you are by yourself,

[00:19:38] Joel: you are creating an experience for these people and kind of the sum total of that experience falls on you, and there are so many elements to that.

[00:19:46] Marissa: Yes. Well, I had the gift of one of my neighbors. I texted, I was running late. It’s Mondays are our day that we go into the office and so I got stuck in really bad traffic on the way home, and therefore I got home later than I thought and I wasn’t gonna, you know, be ready for everybody to show up at the time I originally said.

[00:20:04] And so I texted the group and I said, Hey guys, I’m running late. Can y’all, can we bump out 15 or 20 minutes? And one of my neighbors texted me and she said, Hey, can I come over and help you? And I was like, yes, you can. I was a little bit embarrassed because, you know, everything wasn’t done and, and just so when she arrived, but oh my gosh, I couldn’t have done it without her.

[00:20:24] And I was able to delegate creating, I was doing a pair, uh, gt and so I delegated that to her. I know she’s really good with desserts and all that kind of stuff, so I delegated that to her. I delegated, I’m actually

[00:20:35] Joel: just peeved that you didn’t invite me because I love Go lets.

[00:20:38] Marissa: I know I’m talking about books and dessert, buttery, flaky crust, which is two of Joel’s very favorite things.

[00:20:44] But she, you know, lit all the candles in the house for me and dimmed the lights and turned the music on and all that stuff that normally I would’ve said I don’t have anybody to delegate to at home. But in that context, and luckily it was by her offering, uh, right, that it allowed me to get a lot more done.

[00:21:02] Um, and this is the same thing for you guys too.

[00:21:17] Joel, let’s talk about a couple applications that people can think about this time of year. Delegating specifically, you know, at home first, and then we’ll get into the work stuff.

[00:21:26] Joel: Yeah, well, I mean, if you think about like what goes into creating a, a holiday experience, you’ve got food as a part of that.

[00:21:33] What if you just didn’t do it all yourself, you know, like. There are some very wonderful prepared food options for folks. Truthfully, I, you’re an amazing baker, so I wouldn’t suggest this for us because I would like the benefit of having your, your sour day.

[00:21:48] Marissa: Joel’s like this applies to everybody else except you.

[00:21:52] Joel: Yes. But like, if you’re not an amazing baker. Don’t do it.

[00:21:56] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:21:57] Joel: Have somebody else do the baking and there are probably bakeries in your town that are phenomenal.

[00:22:02] Marissa: Yes.

[00:22:02] Joel: There’s one that just opened up in our called Perrin that, I mean, honestly, if I could eat there every day, I’d probably weigh 300 pounds and I’d be really happy about it almost.

[00:22:10] Marissa: Right.

[00:22:11] Joel: Because the food is so good there and there’s no reason why. You have to cook every dish or prepare every meal, you can ask others to step in and do it, or you can hire other people to do it.

[00:22:22] Marissa: Yeah, you can definitely outsource some of that, which I think for a lot of us feels kind of taboo, but it doesn’t have to mean that you’re giving it all away.

[00:22:31] You can still, again, do those things, those dishes that really matter to you or that you feel like you’ve really mastered, but the ones that you don’t like, the mashed potatoes. Is anybody really gonna care if you made those versus the bakery or the, the great place down the street that is offering that, you know, people just want really good mashed potatoes at the end of the day.

[00:22:51] You know, that would be something easy. Or, or if you’re not a baker, get some pies at a really delicious bakery. Again, most people aren’t gonna be the wiser. You don’t even have to tell anybody. Um,

[00:23:01] Joel: right.

[00:23:02] Marissa: That’s a huge, huge help. I think another one that can often feel like a huge task, especially for us women, is gift wrapping.

[00:23:10] You know, you’re usually gift wrapping for your spouse, for all your kids, for your parents, you know, in-laws, whoever you’ve got. And it can feel really overwhelming to do that. And what if you just delegated this or even changed the way you think about it? I know Megan said in our sister text the other day, one of my sisters shared a.

[00:23:29] Link to a great wrapping paper company and Megan was like, oh my gosh, this is beautiful. However, I swore off wrapping gifs a couple years ago ’cause it just became too difficult and I only do bags now.

[00:23:40] Joel: Yeah, I was gonna say, the other option here is not even delegating it, it’s like back to elimination.

[00:23:45] What if you just didn’t wrap the gif and you just used GIF bags?

[00:23:47] Marissa: Yeah,

[00:23:48] Joel: that was her solution. We’ve grabbed often, it’ll be like. The day before or two days before or whatever, and all of a sudden it’s like, oh my gosh, we’ve got all these things to wrap. And I’ll be sitting there with all this stuff out on the bed and I’m like trying to keep track of everything and I’m trying to vary this wrapping paper with this gift and all this stuff, and it’s like, it’s insanity.

[00:24:08] And Megan one day was just like, we’re never doing this again.

[00:24:12] Marissa: Yeah, she’s good about that. She’s good about. Laying down the hammer and saying, it stops here, right? Madness stops here. The other thing. Often, frankly be overlooked is when we think about childcare, it feels like we’ve gotta do all this stuff and still have the kids 24 7.

[00:24:32] And this may be a really good time for you to call a neighbor down the street and say, Hey, do you mind if I send Naomi over for a little bit, or whoever your kid is while I go knock out some work or wrap the gifts or do whatever I need to do, or send the kids to grandma’s delegate the childcare. For

[00:24:50] Joel: this is really meaningful this time of year because on top of our calendars already being completely stuffed.

[00:24:56] The kids are outta school for like two weeks.

[00:24:59] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:24:59] Joel: Oh God. And what the heck? Heck do you do with kids that are outta school for two weeks while you’re trying to operate your life? It’s like, oh, here’s, you know, you’re drowning. Let me hand you a piano,

[00:25:09] Marissa: but you don’t have to do it all. Yeah. And so I think that’s the thing.

[00:25:12] And it doesn’t have to be expensive. I think sometimes people think, oh gosh, I have to hire a babysitter and I’m already doing that multiple times. No, you could just send the kid, you know, down the street to a neighbor that you trust. Or, and you could even offer that in exchange at a different date for them.

[00:25:26] Mm-hmm. So they have the ability to get some stuff done. You can kind of trade off.

[00:25:29] Joel: Yeah. Trades

[00:25:30] Marissa: are great. You can, yeah, a relative or whomever may be close by, but there’s ways for you to do this. I know that we have our local community center and at this time of the year, they do like a little kind of camp where you can go drop the kids off.

[00:25:43] For free. Actually, it’s crazy that they do that. Uh, but my neighbors rave about it, and it enables them when the kids are out for these long periods of time to still have a life and get the things done that they need to. So that’s a great option. So there’s a lot of creative ways to think about delegation at home when you think about cleaning, you know?

[00:26:01] Is this a time when you wanna bring in an outside cleaner to clean or employ your children to clean, you know, whatever it takes to kind of, or the laundry or the things that may feel like you just can’t keep on top of this time of year? Is there a way to think about that, where you could delegate it?

[00:26:18] That it doesn’t have to be you. Doing it

[00:26:21] Joel: well, and there are so many more services like that available than ever before, and sometimes we don’t know what they are. Sometimes all it takes is a search, you know, online to find it. But like if there’s something that you don’t like to do, there’s probably somebody willing to take some money from you to do it for you.

[00:26:36] Marissa: And especially this time of year, everybody is looking to get a few more, you know, bucks to be able to. Provide a great holiday for their family. And I think if you have the means, this is such a beautiful time to employ somebody to help you with wrapping gifts, cleaning the house, prepping food, grocery shopping, whether that’s Instacart, I mean, I, I will absolutely be doing Instacart and tipping really well this time of year because I wanna.

[00:27:02] Bless those people. Yeah. I mean, they’re doing me a massive service and I wanna really go above and beyond to help them. It’s such a gift in both contexts. So if you have the means, do that if you can. ’cause I think it’s really impactful.

[00:27:15] Joel: What about work? It’s insane at home. It’s insane at work. So what do we do in a work context?

[00:27:20] Marissa: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of ways to lighten the load. Specifically through delegation at work, and this is what most of us think of, but you know, maybe there’s some really time consuming tasks that does have to be done by the end of the year or before Christmas or whatever, and you need to get that accomplished.

[00:27:37] But could you just hire a contractor, you know, somebody for a set fee or an hourly rate? We use Upwork a lot. Here at Pull Focus, we employ various people at various different times for lots of different projects to just knock out a specific theme for us. Mm-hmm. And that’s really helpful. You could also ask a colleague to take over a project temporarily or you know, for part of it so that you can keep the ball.

[00:28:05] Rolling and moving, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be you doing that one part of the project.

[00:28:10] Joel: Talk to me about micromanagement. So like if you’re a leader, I think one of the tricks is recognizing how independent a teammate can be and Right, empowering them to do the work. But sometimes we hold onto too much stuff.

[00:28:26] What about that?

[00:28:27] Marissa: Well, I think there’s kind of two sides to this, and one side it’s us as a leader holding on too tightly to something. It’s like we don’t quite trust somebody else to do it. We have this like, I don’t know what you call it, hero complex where it’s like I’m the only one you know that can do the thing.

[00:28:41] And then the other side is that we may have a team member who feels a little bit more insecure maybe. We in our own leadership, have created kind of a habit of them feeling like they can’t move without our input. And so they’re actually like asking us in a weird way. To micromanage them. So there’s kind of two sides to this, and I think really the solution is the same for both, which is we want to really empower that person, which ultimately empowers us.

[00:29:09] So if you’re, if you’re the leader in this context, this is gonna help you actually empower yourself to go do the things you want, free you up to do the things that matter most to you. And so essentially it takes clarity. It’s like, Hey, here’s what I’m trying to actually accomplish, and I’m realizing I’m too engaged in this project with you.

[00:29:27] Yeah. Or into this behavior with you. And so what I actually wanna do is I wanna empower you to feel totally confident to go do this thing yourself, because I know you have the ability to do it and do it with excellence. And so here’s what that’s gonna look like over the next month. And I just did this with a team member of mine where I realized I was.

[00:29:47] Way too much in the weeds with what this team member was doing on a daily basis. And it was like not a good use of my time, and I was actually hindering their progress and their growth.

[00:30:00] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:00] Marissa: And so all I did was I communicated that I said. Hey, I caught myself. This is, this behavior that I’ve been engaging in is actually not helping you.

[00:30:11] And so what I wanna do moving forward is actually center our conversations or our time about this thing rather than that, because I think you’ve got that and I actually trust you to do that. So, you know, obviously if you have questions, let me know, but you’ve got it. And we’re actually gonna focus on this part rather than the other thing which.

[00:30:32] Doesn’t make sense.

[00:30:33] Joel: Yeah.

[00:30:33] Marissa: It’s not a good use of either of our times and it’s hindering your growth. So that would be how I would handle that, because I think that micromanaging can feel really tempting, especially when we’re on the hook as a leader for the results of that thing.

[00:30:46] Joel: Back to the gratitude conversation last week, we are dependent on other people, and it’s like if they feel empowered to do their work, then we actually get the benefit from it as opposed to.

[00:30:57] Trying to hold onto it all ourselves in this kind of scarcity mindset that is full of anxiety and fear that things are gonna go wrong. We should be empowering people to do well so we can just trust them to do their work.

[00:31:08] Marissa: And if they’re coming to you kind of asking indirectly for that micromanagement and you kind of sense that lack of confidence, one of the ways that we as leaders can really coach our teams is asking them like, what part of this do you feel insecure about?

[00:31:22] Yeah. You know, or, or least confident in. That will be really revealing to you, and they’ll be able to share with you in their own words, the part that feels the most insecure to them. And so then it’s like, okay, great. How can I help that person develop that skill or the skills needed to deliver that thing that they feel insecure about?

[00:31:41] Joel: Yeah.

[00:31:41] Marissa: And shift your energy rather than to just doing it or to being so micromanaging on that thing, like where they send it to you for review constantly, you know, forget that. And shift your focus on helping that person develop the skill needed. To create the thing in the first place.

[00:31:56] Joel: What I think all this comes down to, whether it’s delegating at home or delegating in the office, is just knowing what are the things that only you can actually do.

[00:32:05] Yeah. And then empowering others or just. Pleading with others, asking others to step in and give you the support on the rest?

[00:32:13] Marissa: Yes, a hundred percent. And doing our best in that process to be as grateful. Kind of going back to LA last week’s episode, being as grateful as possible in that process. Yeah. So showing a lot of gratitude when the person does say yes, or when we have delegated that out or.

[00:32:29] Source that item showing a lot of gratitude because it is meaningful and, and you couldn’t have accomplished it without that person or not, certainly not in the same way that you could with them.

[00:32:39] Joel: So we’ve talked about two strategies really so far. Actually three, like the first would be identifying your non-negotiables, like the stuff that you absolutely have to do.

[00:32:47] The second would be to eliminate the stuff that you don’t absolutely have to do. The third would be to delegate the things that can be delegated the fourth. What we’re getting ready to talk to you about now, procrastinate. The stuff that can wait, and this is actually, I think, one of my favorite topics because the most powerful word in the English language, it’s not even an English word, manana.

[00:33:12] Tomorrow. It’s a beautiful thing tomorrow. Um, I love you tomorrow. Like Annie sings like tomorrow has so much potential and so much possibility. And one of the greatest things about tomorrow is it doesn’t impinge on today. And I think you can put off things in a bad way, but the truth is. Strategically contributing in any context is learning how to procrastinate in a good way.

[00:33:35] Yes. And if you don’t figure this out, you’re always gonna be swamped, because if you pull all of the future into the moment, you will always be buried. But if you push the future out into the future, you will not be buried. You will have, you know, enough trouble for today. Like Jesus tells us that there’s, uh, you know, there’s enough evil for every day, basically.

[00:33:56] You don’t have to worry about it. And if you do, you’re just heaping up trouble for yourself.

[00:34:01] Marissa: Yeah. You know, we think usually procrastination is like this dirty word, you know, it’s like this bad thing that, oh, don’t be a procrastinator.

[00:34:09] Joel: Right.

[00:34:10] Marissa: And somehow it makes us less than if we are, you know, procrastinating something or we’re just like, oh, like you’re, you’re a partner estimator.

[00:34:19] Like you don’t get it all done.

[00:34:20] Joel: It’s a dirty P that you wear like a big red letter on your chest. Yes. Like Hester prin, but it’s like for procrastination.

[00:34:27] Marissa: Yeah. And the truth is you could actually be a really strategic procrastinator and be much better off for it. And so I think there’s ways to do this like.

[00:34:38] Sometimes we need to do less, but sometimes that means just doing some of it later. Mm-hmm. So it doesn’t mean that we’re doing it. We’re not doing it at all. It’s just we’re being strategic and saying, you know, this stuff can hold off and we don’t need to worry about it. It doesn’t need to take up my brain space or my calendar space right now.

[00:34:54] Joel: Right.

[00:34:55] Marissa: A couple practical ways that you guys can think about this. Recurring meetings. I, I talked about this a little bit earlier, but like, are there things like that that you actually need to just not be doing this time of year? You know, they’re not that productive. They’re not that critical. It’s not that necessary for December.

[00:35:12] And so could you just kind of push that off until next year? Or even social gatherings, and I think this is really great, like book club is a great example of this. Do we need to be doing book club? Like do we really need to be trying to put that pressure on ourselves in December to read another book, to have another social gathering?

[00:35:29] We almost always, in my book club, we don’t do it in December. We just push it off.

[00:35:33] Joel: Yeah,

[00:35:34] Marissa: because it’s just like, it’s not actually helpful. It’s counterproductive, if anything. So thinking about what is on your calendar that you wanna just punt until next year,

[00:35:44] Joel: what about as we think about work projects? You know, like there’s this tendency to try to get everything done by the end of the year.

[00:35:51] Some of those are very arbitrary, you know, it’s like they’re not actually essential. It seems to me that part of the work of discernment is deciding like. In all these arbitrary deadlines that we’ve set for ourselves, which actually need to be done now, and which could be tackled later.

[00:36:05] Marissa: Yeah. Again, kind of going back to this idea of like, you get to create a playbook that you, or strategy that you can win.

[00:36:14] We don’t have to put this pressure on ourselves, you know? Or maybe it’s even just thinking about like, what does, what part of this does have to happen now? Mm-hmm. What part of it can I push off? Because it’s not always the case that everything has to happen immediately. Sometimes it’s just that one piece of it has to happen now, but the whole thing, like who, who created that deadline?

[00:36:35] Right? That’s a good place to go.

[00:36:36] Joel: Well, and

[00:36:36] Marissa: if the

[00:36:37] Joel: often it’s right, like an employer comes and says like, Hey, we need to do X. Like how fast can you do it? Or when can you have it done by? And we get really ambitious and we think, oh, I can have that done in three weeks, or I can have that done in two weeks, or I can have that to you by Thursday.

[00:36:50] I mean, we’re imposing the deadline on ourselves very often, and we could go back, even if we’ve committed to it, we could go back and renegotiate it. Hey, I’ve just looked over everything. And the truth is I don’t think I can reasonably get this done on this timeline. And just renegotiate it.

[00:37:04] Marissa: Having the qualifier too, of not only can I reasonably get this done in the timeline, but with excellence.

[00:37:10] Joel: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:12] Marissa: And I feel like if you are in a position where, let’s say you committed to something and you committed to your boss that you were gonna have that thing done, and so you’re on the hook for it. I would say that if any of my team members and came to me and said, Hey, I would love to get this done.

[00:37:28] In the timeline. However, I don’t feel like with everything else going on at this time of year, I’m gonna be able to do that with excellence. So I’d like to suggest that we push this to January or whatever the the future date is. I’m usually gonna go, unless it’s like something that is really writing on that, I’m gonna go, yeah, definitely.

[00:37:49] Yeah. I want you to do excellent work, right? I want an excellent product at the end of whatever the project is that you’re working on. And so if giving you two more weeks or another month is gonna be able to produce that result, then like by all means, take that time.

[00:38:05] Joel: What ends up happening is in order to not turn in something substandard, we work nights, we extend ourselves as far as we conceivably can in order to get it done within this tight timeframe.

[00:38:17] And we suffer as a result physically, you know, our energy level, you know, just like everything, like we’re basically putting a credit card in on the future for like. Our own performance, and we’re right, we’re suffering as a result because we take enough pride in our work that we’re not gonna turn in something bad, but the cost is just too high.

[00:38:38] And so. If you can do the math in your own head on what that’s gonna cost you, it really does create an incentive to go renegotiate those things.

[00:38:47] Marissa: Yes, absolutely. One area that we probably overlook and we feel like has to be kind of this all or nothing, we have to have that mentality, especially at this time of year, is our self-care.

[00:39:01] Mm-hmm. It feels like some of these other areas of our life are easier to apply these principles to, but I think that when we think about our self-care, um, it doesn’t have to be like either we’re shooting for the moon or we’re not doing it at all. Like you’re either, you know, exercising every single day, eating according to your, you know, nutrition plan that you set and, you know, getting eight hours of sleep and having this elaborate morning routine or.

[00:39:28] You’re not doing any of those things, and the truth is you could probably just pair this back.

[00:39:33] Joel: Yeah.

[00:39:34] Marissa: And make it really manageable for yourself, which I think is really important. And procrastinate. All that other stuff. All the like great shooting for the moon stuff until another time, another season that feels more manageable.

[00:39:49] Yeah. So when you think about your self care like. How can you simplify it? Again, going back to the non-negotiables, what are the non-negotiables for you? Maybe that’s just getting out and moving your body in some context. Each day.

[00:40:03] Joel: Right. A simple walk for instance,

[00:40:04] Marissa: that can look like, uh, so many different ways.

[00:40:07] Yeah. It could be doing, you know, some stretching. I mean, it doesn’t have to be like shooting for the moon and going, you know, to the gym for an hour every single day. There’s other ways to do that. To simplify, and again, if you kind of begin with the end in mind, what are the non-negotiables? What’s the thing, the outcome I’m trying to accomplish?

[00:40:26] You can reverse engineer it. Uh, for this month specifically.

[00:40:29] Joel: What ultimately we’re saying is you need margin

[00:40:33] Marissa: yes.

[00:40:33] Joel: And you can create more margin for yourself than you think. If you’re clear on those non-negotiables, if you eliminate the stuff that doesn’t have to be done, you can delegate the stuff that doesn’t essentially require you.

[00:40:44] And if you procrastinate the stuff that can wait, yes, it’s actually, it’s like almost a math problem. And it’s really as simple as 1, 2, 3.

[00:40:51] Marissa: What is the tool to help us accomplish this? Because I think when we think about this, it’s great, but like how can we actually put this into Praxis today as we think about creating December to be more about peace and creating more margin rather than running around like a chicken with our head cut off?

[00:41:11] Joel: Well, at the beginning I mentioned creating a a to-do list, essentially a list of all the stuff that you think you have to do. I think now you want to create a to don’t list. A not to-do list. Yes. And I mean, it’s as simple as just opening up a page in the back of your planner, like a notes page. It could actually just be any page in the planner that is open that day.

[00:41:33] Just write down the stuff that you’re not gonna do. And Yep. Like. It could be, take that opening list that you started with and just like on next to each item on it, just write like, and the margin right next to it. Just write, no, I’m gonna eliminate that. No, I’m gonna delegate that. No, I’m going to procrastinate that.

[00:41:50] And just use that little rubric to go down the page and decide what you’re gonna do or not do. And. It’s as simple as that. Honestly, there’s, there’s gonna be some conversations that have to happen afterwards. Like you are gonna potentially have to renegotiate some of that time. You are gonna have to ask those persons, you’re gonna delegate to.

[00:42:07] You are gonna have to maybe explain some of the things you’re gonna take off the to-do list, but. That’s the path to freedom. That’s the path to margin.

[00:42:14] Marissa: Yes. I love that. Well, before we wrap up, Joel, I have a listener question. This comes from Leslie, who is in our double win coaching community. She’s asking how can I use chat GBT and the full focus planner to plan for the holidays?

[00:42:30] Joel: I don’t know if this will work perfectly for everyone, but I’m gonna give you an idea. I started doing my weekly preview in chat GPT as an experiment. And one of the things I did was I spent, like speaking about margin. I spent like just an ungodly amount of time trying to figure out how to export my calendar.

[00:42:47] And then I, I just decided like I couldn’t figure it out. And so I stopped. And what I did instead was I opened up my calendar to the week and I opened up a chat and I basically narrated my week and it took me like three minutes to do. It was very fast. I just said, here’s what’s on my schedule. Here’s the kind of hours we’re talking about for each of these.

[00:43:05] Commitments here are a few of the things that I want to do. Help me understand like how to pace this work or how to schedule the work and so on. And it gave me surprisingly good answers and I was then able instead of having to like start from scratch and use, you know, like my own. Resourcefulness in that moment to conjure up the perfect schedule.

[00:43:26] There’s no such thing anyway, but to conjure, uh, the best way to do this, I had, it was like I had a partner in helping me to, to like troubleshoot my schedule. It’s a really cool trick. Now again, everybody’s experience in chat. GPT is a little different. Mileage may vary, but I found that to be really an interesting and helpful, uh, way to just like think through what am I committed to in the coming week.

[00:43:47] And I think you could probably sit down and figure that out for a month if you just spent 30 minutes in chat. GBT.

[00:43:52] Marissa: I love the idea of dictating it rather than trying to export it because there’s probably context you’re giving. Uh, exactly. In the dictation. Yep. That you wouldn’t get in an export or a screenshot or something like that.

[00:44:08] You’re gonna be able to provide context into each of those calendar items, which will be critical in filtering what,

[00:44:15] Joel: and that’s key. I did dictate it like so I didn’t even have to type it. I literally just had my calendar open on my screen in front of me. I had the chat window open. I just talked about what I was looking at.

[00:44:25] I gave it the context, and then it was able to basically process that in a way that was useful.

[00:44:30] Marissa: That’s so good. Uh, just another quick tip on this. One of our favorite tools for dictating in any context, not just in chat GPT, but an email or a text or whatever, is an application called Type List. Mm-hmm. And highly encourage you guys.

[00:44:45] It’s only for desktop, so there’s other ones you can get for your phone.

[00:44:49] Joel: Whisper Flow is one that works for your phone too.

[00:44:51] Marissa: Yes. And they save you so much time and it’s crazy and it formats it just perfectly and it’s, it’s pretty amazing.

[00:45:00] Joel: Well, it basically uses intelligence on the backend to decipher what you meant to say and cleans it up.

[00:45:06] So It does. Yeah. It’s not just like an audio note. It actually straightens it out so it like reads like it was supposed to.

[00:45:11] Marissa: Yes. Which is amazing. So definitely try those tools out. All right. Joel, what are our kind of like final thoughts to wrap it all together?

[00:45:23] Joel: I guess I have two. The first is that we need to be generous in this season.

[00:45:28] Mm-hmm. And one of the people that we need to be generous to is ourselves. And so we need to give ourselves the gift of more time. We need to give ourselves the gift of margin and the only way to do that. Is to think about the things that are eating up our time to think about what are the commitments and obligations, whether stated or unstated that we have on our plates, and how do we renegotiate those things with other people, with ourselves.

[00:45:54] And as we’re thinking about how to renegotiate that with other people and ourselves, we have to remember the second point. And that is that we have agency. We can choose to do this slower, we can choose to do this simpler. We can choose to do this in a more strategic way. And it’s like there’s no reason you have to take the thing that was given to you and just go with it,

[00:46:12] Marissa: right?

[00:46:13] Joel: Like you said, you can change the playbook, you can make a game that you can win. And so I think that’s how I would, what I would emphasize at the end.

[00:46:20] Marissa: I think that’s great and uh, I think we can’t hear that message enough. I think that the more that we can communicate that and give people that. Permission slip the better because I think it’s very rare that we’re doing that to ourselves or that we stop long enough to realize, wait, who created this whole crazy thing in the first place?

[00:46:40] Oh wait, that was me. Which means I also have the ability to make it stop. Yeah. Um, I can change the course of how this looks for the rest of the year, which is really encouraging and empowering and it’s not that hard. It’s actually,

[00:46:54] Joel: here’s another, here’s another name check that reveals how old I am. Susan Powder, stop the madness.

[00:46:59] Marissa: Amazing.

[00:47:04] Thanks for joining us on Focus On This.

[00:47:06] Joel: This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so please share it with your friends and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen or at focus on this podcast.com.

[00:47:16] Marissa: And we’re gonna be here next week talking about your year end goal check. So what are the things that you need to be thinking about now before the new year comes?

[00:47:28] Joel: Until then, Stay. Stay focused.