SUMMER REPLAY:  The Power of Constraints: Do Less, Achieve More

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel: Welcome to Focus on This. We are on summer hiatus, so what you’re about to hear is from the vault.

[00:00:12] Marissa: But this vault is a good vault, and we don’t keep any junk in there.

[00:00:18] Joel: The truth is, some of these episodes are so stinking good, we can’t believe that they just, like, come down the conveyor belt and disappear.

[00:00:25] These are things that are worth revisiting, and so that’s what we decided to do with the summer. We’re gonna replay some of the best stuff from the vault. Uh, it’ll give you a chance to hear it maybe a second time, maybe even a first time. But regardless, you may be in a different season of life, you may have a different set of ears.

[00:00:42] These episodes are gonna be great for you.

[00:00:44] Marissa: Yeah. And the truth is, our best ideas don’t expire. A lot of what we talk about on the podcast, which maybe was recorded a few years ago, is still relevant today. And this stuff is good. We’ve really gone through and cherry-picked the best of the best. So we hope that you enjoy this episode.

[00:01:02] Joel: We’ll be back soon. Until then, we hope you enjoy.

[00:01:10] Verbs: Blake, do you ever feel like, you know, especially at the beginning of the year, that there’s a whole bag of 20- of the year, the previous year’s stuff that you’re bringing on top of what you’re looking forward to in the new year?

[00:01:21] Blake: Yeah, that feeling where you kinda just… All, all the stuff, especially if you didn’t hit a specific goal, but even if you did hit a goal, if it was about your everyday life, like let’s say you had an income goal- Mm-hmm

[00:01:35] well, you probably still wanna make an income this year, right? Just because you hit or- That’d be helpful, yeah … maybe came close last year. Or maybe it’s, uh, you know, you had exercise goals, or you had all of these other things, or just life commitments. Right. I think it’s, the temptation sometimes is just to add on top of stuff, be like, “Oh, well, let’s do it all again,” or, “Let’s go even further,” or, “Let’s add- Sketch it out a little bit, yeah

[00:01:59] five more goals or, or a bunch new, a bunch of more things on top of what I was already doing previously. And, uh, especially if you’re a high-achieving personality, I think the temptation is that, “Hey, I’m just gonna go, just go, just go. I’m gonna 2X, and then I’m gonna 2X, 3X, and 5X, and I’m gonna 10X my whole life.”

[00:02:24] And I think that obviously that’s, you know, that’s admirable to an extent. But if things- Yeah … never slow down, uh, if things… If you’re always just adding, adding, this mentality that you’re, it, it will all just pay off if you just keep doing more and more and more, I think is a flawed mentality. And for me personally, uh, I don’t know if you’ve been here, Burbs, but my physical body will tell me when I’ve been operating by that mentality- Absolutely I get really sick or- Mm-hmm

[00:02:58] um, the first time I get a break or allow myself to take a rest, it’s not even rejuvenating. It’s like all of a sudden I get sick with something or, uh, I remember one time I was, like, just going, going, going, going, going, and then it was, like, my first breath I took it felt like I had a break in my schedule, and I ended up g- getting shingles.

[00:03:19] And like that, that’s not a pleasant experience. Wow. I don’t recommend that to anybody. Um- That doesn’t, it doesn’t sound

[00:03:24] Verbs: like a pleasant experience. No.

[00:03:26] Blake: Shingles. But y- but even if your body doesn’t break down, I think even mentally- Yeah … you can feel that or emotion- Has that ever happened to you, Virbs?

[00:03:33] Verbs: The idea that you can tow both whatever you didn’t land in the previous year and the new year, um, it’s gonna exhaust you ’cause you’re, you’re a finite being.

[00:03:43] At some point, even though everything didn’t land the way you wanted it to, um, you have to have a plan out of that. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today is just how do you embrace these constraints and learn to live and work within them so that you can improve the experience, you can maximize your results, and really just enjoy life more in the whole process.

[00:04:03] So we have three ways that you can leverage constraints to maximize your output for incredible results.

[00:04:16] Ah, I totally missed my cue. Man. Sorry, man. So there w- there’s actually a cue there, and I totally, by the time I realized what was happening, I missed it.

[00:04:27] Nick: All right, here we go. We’re doing it again. Take two.

[00:04:29] Verbs: Here we go. Let’s do it. Take two.

[00:04:35] Welcome to another episode of Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet so you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Virbs, here with my man Blake Stratton. Happy Monday to you, Blake. How’s it going?

[00:04:54] Blake: Happy Monday to you, Virbs. I’m kind of embarrassed.

[00:04:56] I totally… I was trying to get the claps right to that great intro groove we have and didn’t quite get them right. But that’s why, ladies and gentlemen, we have chosen strategically an audio medium to come to you so that you don’t have to see- … just how, uh, embarrassing my dancing is. Those visuals coming at you.

[00:05:13] Yes. The, the benefits of technology, man. Yeah. Let… You know what? You know what? You know what it is, Virbs? It’s an intentional constraint, isn’t it? Ah. You know, we could be… That we’ve… I can’t tell you how many broadcasting companies, I mean, Nick, our producer, gets asked probably every week, right, Nick? It’s like NBC, you know, ABC, all, uh, y- cable channels, networks.

[00:05:32] Netflix has called, “Please put Focus on This all over the world. We wanna turn it into a movie. Can we get the movie rights?” And we just say, “No No, we’re here to do a podcast. We’re gonna do an intentional constraint. So thanks for joining us again. That was nice. You might hear, uh, we’ve actually are under a constraint even in the number of hosts.

[00:05:53] We’re missing one Courtney Baker. Uh, please don’t turn that dial, ladies and gentlemen. It’s, it’s just Virbs and myself, and of course, our producer Nick here. But, uh, Courtney, uh, will be back with us soon. She’s living it up right

[00:06:07] Verbs: now.

[00:06:08] Blake: Yeah, she’s living it up. Um, but here we are talking about really a perspective shift, Virbs.

[00:06:16] I think for a lot of us, we… A- and I think culture can perpetuate this. If we want to have more, uh, experience more, mo- uh, greater emotional- Mm-hmm … fulfillment, uh, greater financial or career achievement, you name it. If we wanna have more, we have to be doing more and more and more. Right. That’s one perspective.

[00:06:40] The perspective we’re talking about today is what if we embraced constraints? Would it be possible to actually get a greater return from our efforts- Mm-hmm … by embracing constraints rather than simply layering more and more things on our schedule? So that’s what we’re about, and, uh, we’ve got three constraints, I guess, for you to think about applying to your life.

[00:07:04] Verbs: Yeah, and I think it’s important to mention, too, Blake, if anybody who’s listening may have been Michael Hyatt and company followers, you know, for a few years, four or more years, when it comes to constraints and setting goals for the new year, you might have noticed that our, um, our thinking on this based really on some of the science with goal achievement has shifted and adjusted, and I believe where we’ve landed at and where we are now is, is probably the best spot we’ve been at as far as the amount of goals that you would set, uh, per year or per quarter, and I think, uh, because of where we’re at now, we’re starting to see some, some pretty cool success.

[00:07:45] So constraint number one is goals. Now, this is important ’cause we’re saying two to three goals per quarter is probably gonna give you the best results or at least the results that you’re looking for when it comes to goal achievement.

[00:07:59] Blake: The hardest time to set two to three goals, Virbs, is in January and February, that first quarter.

[00:08:05] Why is that? Because I agree. I think- So

[00:08:08] Verbs: why, why is that?

[00:08:10] Blake: Well, we finish the previous year, and m- whether we ended on a high or we ended on a low or somewhere in between, we typically have a time to reflect. We have this fresh start effect that happens in our brains, where it’s a new year- Mm-hmm … and we start to examine different aspects of our lives, our different life domains.

[00:08:33] And when you pause and reflect and look at all your different life domains, most of us, you know, we see areas that we’d like to have improvement. Right. And maybe we do a course like Your Best Year Ever or something like that, and we go through this process like, “Man, I’m, I’m starting to get in rhythm of setting goals, and I’m believing more in my possibilities.”

[00:08:53] And before you know it, you’re like, “And I want this goal, and I’m gonna run a marathon, and I’m gonna make a million dollars, and also I’m gonna change my career, and I’m gonna start a blog and blog post probably twice a day on my YouTube channel, and I’m gonna make 10 new friends every week.” And it’s like we start thinking in terms of idealism- Sure

[00:09:10] and all the things we wanna do, and we end up overcrowding our schedule. And the irony is that the mentality of I need to have more goals if I wanna have greater change in my life-

[00:09:22] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm …

[00:09:23] Blake: is that the opposite is true. If you want greater change in your life, you should actually limit the amount of goals you have because more than three, you’re asking for being stretched too thin.

[00:09:35] Yeah. And before you know it, you’re not able to actually make progress, much progress in any area, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:09:43] Verbs: Yeah, it– and I was laughing when you said that because I did this exact thing, uh, at the beginning of this year while setting up and framing up, uh, my goals for, for 2022. And I got to that. I was going through the course Your Best Year Ever, so I got into that exercise of, hey, what do you want the end of the year to look like?

[00:09:59] So I’m jotting down just a bunch of ideas. Then when I got down to actually formulating my, my goals, it was like, “Man, I’m not gonna be able to do all this stuff,” um, if I wa- if I’m setting two to three por- per quarter and eight for the whole year. But it forced me to really examine, hey, do I really– is this really a goal, first of all?

[00:10:19] Or is it just something, hey, I wanna do, something I wanna accomplish? Is it just, is it a project, but is it worthy of goal status? And if not, then let me go ahead and, you know, move that, remove that from the list and just focus on these actual goals that’s really going to, you know, move the ball down the field, so to speak, for 2022.

[00:10:35] Otherwise, when you’re committing to all this stuff, you forget that there’s other areas of life that you also have to live, and you have to take those things into account also, um, and not just, you know, professionally, but personally and what other, other relational, uh, all the other domains that you want to just grow in for the year.

[00:10:52] Blake: E- even if you have eight goals for the whole year, I think it’s tempting to just wanna get started or, or just let’s do ’em all right now, ’cause I’d love- Sure … for all this to be different tomorrow. So although you can have more than two or three goals for th- through the course of the whole year, I think another constraint to practice is the practice of prioritization.

[00:11:14] To say- Mm-hmm … what goal, if I were to accomplish it in the first quarter, would make these other goals that I have easier to accomplish? That’s good. So let’s say for instance you’ve got some, uh, you know, a habit goal to do your morning ritual starting at 6:00 AM every day. Mm-hmm. And you also have a goal to read 40 new books throughout the year.

[00:11:40] Well, you may find, hey, I… Maybe I should focus first on establishing this habit of my morning ritual. Sure. Because if I nail that and that no longer takes any energy, forethought, it’s just an automatic rhythm of my life, well, now I’ve installed time, I’ve installed margin that I can leverage to reach these other goals like reading more books.

[00:12:08] So that’s one example, but if you feel like, “Oh, well, you guys are just trying to sell me short, and I know I can accomplish more,” I, I think it’s highly, highly strategic because where you have greater focus, you have greater power. Mm-hmm. And so th- think in terms of constraint, but also that prioritization of, you know, how, how could I nail one or two or three goals this first quarter such that it makes these other goals I have a lot easier to manage?

[00:12:38] And kind of be, be your own advocate. Be on the team of your future success.

[00:12:42] Verbs: Nice. I like that.

[00:12:49] All right. So let’s move on to constraint number two. Uh, constraint number one was goals. Constraint number two is tasks. Task, and in particular, the daily big three.

[00:13:01] Blake: The daily big three. Now, this is, um, my personal workout plan we’re referencing, right? Where I just put 500 pounds on the squat rack. I just do three, and then I’m good.

[00:13:14] You’re good to go. Um, no. Uh, let’s see. Daily big three, how do we want to talk about this, Verbs? This is… We talk about a big three all the time. We talked about two or three goals. This constraint, the daily big three, is talking about our task list, right? So- Correct … my guess is if you’re listening to this, you’re, you’re doing a productivity podcast.

[00:13:35] You’ve probably tried to keep a to-do list. You probably keep a to-do list. Maybe you even use the planner that we sell to, to have your to-do list. And my guess is statistically you probably have today, as you’re listening, 15 to 20 different things that you feel like you’ve got to get done today on your task list.

[00:13:54] Verbs: They’re all important.

[00:13:55] Blake: And they all, they all feel important. They all- Yeah … need to get done. And- Maybe you’ve had this experience where you start the day with 15 things to do. You actually get a lot of those things done, maybe even all of them, but you still end your day with about 15 things to do, right?

[00:14:16] Because as our day goes on, s- it, it’s like Whac-A-Mole, right? You knock one thing down, another thing crops up that you weren’t expecting to crop up. So Virbs, talk about this. Have you… Y- y- you’re someone that I know just looking over your shoulder and the projects that you’re working on, there’s always a lot to get done.

[00:14:37] Sure. I’m really curious how you leverage this constraint on a daily basis.

[00:14:41] Verbs: Yeah, and I think it’s important to remember that, you know, these, these Daily Big Three are our most high-leverage items that we need to complete for the day, and that most of the time these should already be on your radar from, uh, if you’re walking through your weekly preview process, you kinda know, hey, this is coming down the pike for the week.

[00:15:01] Um, and these are gonna be the important things that I need to accomplish each day that qualify themselves as a Daily Big Three item. So I know for me, just in my rhythm of work and what I do, most of it is project-based, um, tasks that need to be accomplished because eventually I’m gonna pass that on to someone else who needs it in the timiest, timiest manner as well.

[00:15:21] So for me, the Daily Big Three is, is pretty easy to identify, even though there’s always a bunch of smaller tasks that might feed into that project. But I know if I chase those things down, then I’m gonna get distracted. It’s gonna take up more time than I thought it would. But identifying the Daily Big Three for me normally is pretty easy because a lot of my work is project, project-based, so it’s easy to say, hey, I can’t spend time kinda getting into the woods on these smaller tasks.

[00:15:46] What I normally will do is write those tasks down inside my planner, put a little box to it. I may get to those during that day after I’ve completed my Daily Big Three, or I know that I’m at least setting up so I can push them, uh, tomorrow or a different day in the week where I know that I can actually knock those off, uh, knock those off the list.

[00:16:04] So, um, that’s kind of how I avoid getting buried in those smaller tasks that end up taking a lot of time that, you know, you get to the end of the day and it’s like, “Oh man, what did I do with the entire day? I have nothing really substantial to show for it that fed into my, my highest leverage work.”

[00:16:20] Blake: Hmm.

[00:16:21] Yeah, that’s good. There’s definitely a stronger sense of control and visibility- Mm-hmm … and power over your workday, even if it is busy. Let’s just look at productivity. So much of it is a mental game. Mm-hmm. It’s a stamina game of your mental and emotional capacity and endurance. I know that I’ve had days where I actually am very, very productive.

[00:16:45] I, I, I do a lot of different things, but I didn’t identify my Daily Big Three. I end my day mentally feeling just as chaotic or, uh disjointed, separate as I did when I started. There’s still that feeling of, am I doing enough? I can remember, I’ve referenced it on this podcast a number of times, literally having sleepless nights or, or nights where I’d wake up, you know, in the middle of the night and my head just starts, my brain just starts cooking with, oh wait, did I do that?

[00:17:20] Or I should probably do this tomorrow. And your brain’s just always working. And that’s a recipe for burnout if, if that’s how you’re living your life. It’s just running, running, running kind of an endless treadmill. Another thing that happens is you make a to-do list of 30 things every day. You just have a long to-do list and every day you break a little promise to yourself.

[00:17:44] Every day you say, “My word is not that strong because I wrote down 12 things, I only got done six.” You feel bad, you feel guilty, you feel on maybe even a subconscious level, your integrity getting dinged, and yet you’ve probably had a really successful day. Right. Right? Right. You probably actually got stuff done, but you bring that energy to the next day and you go, “Gosh, when is this gonna end?”

[00:18:12] Rather than going into the next day feeling like, “You know what? I, I got a win yesterday and I’m gonna win again today.” I’m telling you, that compounds, that energy compounds over time to long-term success or long-term I want to quit, or I, I resent my work, or I, I… You name it, right? Yeah. So that is, I think, something I would want you to catch if you’re listening and struggle to, uh, wrap your arms around this idea of setting a big three.

[00:18:42] Think in terms of the long game. Think in terms of defining a clear win for yourself, so you go, “You know what? I’ve– My two wins are gonna happen. I’m gonna identify what’s most important. I’m gonna exercise my executive function, set those priorities. I’m gonna check off those three things and say, ‘You know what?

[00:19:00] Win, lose, or draw, I got those three things done. I moved closer towards my biggest priorities, my biggest goals for the quarter.’ Maybe e- everything else is gravy.”

[00:19:09] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:10] Blake: You’re gonna sleep better at night, I promise you.

[00:19:12] Speaker 5: Yeah.

[00:19:12] Blake: And the next day you’re actually gonna perform better than if you had gotten 12 things done but were in chaos.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:32] Verbs: Constraint number two was tasks, in particular your daily big three. Moving on to constraint number three, workday startup shutdown ritual, which you just alluded to, uh, in this, in that last constraint.

[00:19:44] Blake: Mm. Mm-hmm. A workday startup and shutdown ritual. Let’s, let’s define what this is Have you noticed, uh, raise your hand if you’re driving in your car listening to a podcast and raise your hand.

[00:19:57] It might look weird, but just do it anyway. Just do, just do a

[00:19:58] Verbs: pinky. Just raise your pinky on the steering wheel. Just

[00:20:00] Blake: do a pinky. Oh, yeah, just do that, that pinky one, like when someone lets you in. There you go. You know, and then you just give them the pinky thank you.

[00:20:09] If you’ve, before you’ve even gotten out of bed in the morning, you, you know, you turn off your f- alarm on your phone and you see you got an email, and you just open your email. Or, y- you know, you’re, you, you put your kid down at night or something, and it … You’re just on the couch, um, maybe you’re watching a show or something, and, and you open up that email again.

[00:20:32] Or you go, “Oh, right, I gotch- I just have to do a couple more things and finalize this for tomorrow.” If we’re not careful, our workday never really begins and never really ends. Mm-hmm. It just kinda always is. The idea of this workday as it was f- 25 years ago, 30 years ago, is kind of done because our, we don’t go to our office.

[00:20:59] I mean, even if you do have an office you go to, your office travels with you in, in your pocket. It’s your smartphone. You’re always reachable to some extent. And what this creates is a lack of healthy boundaries around work and your personal life. And over time, again, this theme of the long game, you will start burning out.

[00:21:22] And, and you may not even notice it, but- Yeah … you will s- you will, I promise you, be less effective during your day if you’re always on. Even if it’s at 5%, if you’re always on, you’re gonna be slower and feel like, “Ah, I just need a break.” So enter the workday startup and shutdown ritual. Ferbs, why don’t you tell the people what exactly that is and what it looks like maybe even in your own life?

[00:21:47] Sure.

[00:21:48] Verbs: Yeah, and I think it’s important to note also is, you know, not only will you be exhausted, but you’ll never actually be present in other areas of your life ’cause you’re always in work mode, ’cause it’s just- That’s a great point. Yeah … you know, forever that open window of things that you’re, you can access at any point when you feel like you need to.

[00:22:03] But, um, even as Blake mentioned, there’s probably things or there’s things that you’re already doing in the morning time, in the evening time that you may not have necessarily, uh, identified as a ritual quite yet. Um, and that’s what the benefit of this is, of this exercise is, is, or of this constraint, is identifying what you do already to set you up for your day, to set you up for your work, um, startup moment, as well as for your workday shutdown moments and your evening rituals.

[00:22:32] Let’s say my end of my workday is 5:00 PM, then I know that I’m gonna kick into my workday shutdown around 4:30 so I can start to taper down and get into that mentality of calling it, uh, you know, quits at 5:00 so I can go on with the rest of my day and into my evening, whether it’s, you know, family time, whether it’s, you know, even more self-care time, whatever it might be for you.

[00:22:54] Uh, it’s just important to identify that so you know what’s coming right from the start.

[00:22:59] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:23:00] Blake: Your workday startup and shutdown are an opportunity both mentally, emotionally, and practically to warm up, to get in the zone, so to speak, and then to get out of the zone. So for me, what I’m looking to accomplish with my workday startup is getting kind of out of dad mode and out of that persona- Mm-hmm

[00:23:25] into, “Okay, I’m here to help our clients win at work and succeed at life. I might have to have some hard conversations with prospects today that have a lot of issues.” Like I, I wanna get into that head space. Right. I also wanna leverage the time to just accomplish some of those lower leverage, but important things as well.

[00:23:47] So for example, you mentioned checking email and checking Slack. If you struggle with always being in Slack and always being in email, the workday startup and shutdown is a great opportunity to get the bulk of that out of the way. Right. Think of it as like a, a warm-up activity. You know, it’s probably not the most important thing you do, but it’s a little bit of life maintenance, a little bit of work administrative maintenance that occurs as well.

[00:24:12] When I do that, I am way more effective at work because I know what the plan is for the day. I know why I’m here. I’ve… The first thing I do in my workday startup is kind of a, I, I look at a document that sort of connects me to my why- at work. Okay. I, I try to connect to that why every time I get into work so that it, it takes me there a little bit emotionally and then I can get excited and up for it.

[00:24:40] Verbs: Yeah. Um- Now is this some … This is something you’ve written for yourself, obviously, it looks like. It is, yeah. Okay.

[00:24:45] Blake: Yeah, so I just, you know, created a document to sort of- Yeah … remind myself of like, okay, who do I wanna be at work and, and, and why is this important? I wanna connect those dots. And, and setting the daily big three does that as well.

[00:24:58] Sure. You’re connecting the dots from the big goal to today’s calendar and today’s workday. The same is true, uh, with the work day s- uh, shutdown. Now I’m betting there’s a lot of you out there that naturally do a workday startup. I, I used to do a lot of trainings for our, our team. I would go into to different, uh, companies and I would say, “Here, who, who here kind of has a routine when you sit down at your desk or, or you get started working?”

[00:25:22] And almost every hand goes up. I said, “Okay, who here has a ritual that’s specifically to end your workday?” Mm-hmm. Almost never do I see a hand get raised. And, uh, this is a powerful thing because when you get ahold of this, if, if you’re, you know, if you’ve, if you’ve got a, uh, a significant other, they will notice.

[00:25:46] They will, they will be like, “Whoa.” Uh. When I first started to get ahold of this, the last thing that I would do in my workday, uh, shutdown was some kind of meditation or journal, some type of like, ah, like, all right, it’s, it’s, it’s over. Work time’s over. I’m entering into husband, dad mode. And sometimes I’d feel guilty ’cause that would take extra time.

[00:26:11] Mm-hmm. And if I’m already running late or things like that, I just, ah, what am I gonna do? And I remember the first time, uh, or one of the first times I, I skipped it ’cause I was running late. And I came home and within five minutes my wife Elena said, “Hey, um, do you need to go do like a, a workday shutdown-

[00:26:29] or something? Because you’re off. You’re like not here.” Go fix that. “I mean, thanks for, thanks for being here, but like,” she said, “I would rather have 30 minutes less with you and have you be fully here-

[00:26:41] Verbs: Yeah …

[00:26:42] Blake: than for you to be here 30 minutes, you know, an extra 30 minutes but not really be here-” Yeah … you know, mentally or emotionally.

[00:26:48] So, uh, use that time to tie up loose ends practically, but also use it to sort of disengage and go, “All right, getting out of work mode, getting into personal life mode.” Th- that’s a challenge. That’s a challenge sometimes if, if you haven’t done it before. Can I jump in here

[00:27:06] Nick: real quick and- Jump in, Nick. The water’s warm.

[00:27:08] I, I am… If anyone knows anything about me through this show or other things that I’ve been on around the, the, the virtual water cooler we’re at, it’s that I deal with a lot of weird internal feelings. I’m a four, Blake. You know this. Mm. And- All right. Did you bring your scuba gear today? Uh- Are we going deep?

[00:27:28] I, I did. I did bring my- All right … scuba gear. Here you go. Oh, love that.

[00:27:33] Speaker 5: Love. Oh. Andy really hit you with the- Let’s go deep …

[00:27:36] Nick: effect. Going deep. So one- Laser … one of the ideas here that I think is interesting is that, and I got a 12-year-old, we use a, the student planner, and the idea of a routine, and I know we’re talking about, like, Workday, startup routines, whatever, the word routine feels bad.

[00:27:52] It doesn’t feel- Mm … great. And you sit there and you go, “I need a new morning routine,” that feels like I’m at work already. But there is something very- Mm-hmm … sacred about internalizing the idea of what a ritual is. Like, routine, I feel like- Yeah … I’m George Jetson making sprockets or whatever. Um, but a ritual is like I’m, you know, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or I’m a, a Buddhist monk, right?

[00:28:16] And this is, like, a very important self-connecting, family-connecting, other-connecting activity that I need to do and that I get to do. Yeah. And I really think, like, I really consciously say ritual. And if I catch myself saying routine, one of my quarter one goals is to, to reestablish my morning ritual.

[00:28:36] So that I just want people to think through that and go, it’s not like a punishment. Ugh. It’s not a chore. It’s like this- Mm … opportunity to connect to something bigger.

[00:28:45] Blake: Yeah. I, I think you’re onto something because y- your mentality, even how you talk about something, really makes a difference, again, in the long term.

[00:28:58] So if you associate a, a, a ritual, a routine or something as this work thing that in an ideal world you wouldn’t do at all- Right … then you’re asking for more resistance than needs to be there. And I think what you’re saying is, hey, just the connotation of a routine, I feel like, “Hey, it’s 6:00 AM. I’m not ready to work right now, uh, with this routine.”

[00:29:26] Mm-hmm. Right? But associating it as a ritual for you changes how that feels, how that lands y- on an emotional level, which then enables you to have more success with it in the long run.

[00:29:39] Nick: Yeah. I feel more disciplined if I do a ritual. Mm-hmm. Like, that’s something that disciplined people- Yeah … do because it’s important and they can.

[00:29:47] So I just if that’s helpful- Mm-hmm … for anybody, uh, please, uh, let me know in the Facebook community.

[00:29:54] Blake: What I have told people, uh, when I would teach this stuff is I would ask, “Hey, does anyone have a, a morning ritual?” And, and maybe- You know, half the room will raise their hand, and, uh, I don’t know why I do this ’cause I don’t like when speakers or teachers will do this, but it’s a little bit of a gotcha where I’ll say, “Actually, you all have a morning ritual whether you realize it or not.”

[00:30:16] Mm. So much of our life happens by programming, by- Mm-hmm … our, our subconscious mind is a- is doing stuff. If we were c- like consciously thinking of everything, our conscious mind’s the creative mind. Our subconscious mind’s really the doing mind, and so much of what we do is done without even thinking about it.

[00:30:37] Um, if we had to think about all of it, we’d like explode. It’s way too much. I have to breathe in, breathe out. Like we would just… We wouldn’t be able to leave the room. So what I l- how I like to think of this, Nick, is kind of the concept of, oh, I am… Like you, you mentioned, oh, I want to be the type of person that’s disciplined, kind of associating it as like a identity thing.

[00:30:58] Along those same lines, I’m thinking, okay, I’m al- I already have a ritual. Mm-hmm. Or I already am acting in a programmatic way, and my b- and m- my body’s designed that way, my brain’s designed that way to help take care of me and help me get what I want out of existence, right? So how can I partner with my natural design and, and kind of be on my own team for that?

[00:31:27] Like, kind of almost like I’m feeding the program a little bit. Does that make sense?

[00:31:32] Nick: Yeah. You’re not, you’re not, uh, inventing a new pattern. Right. You’re doing the thing over… You’re just editing in some way.

[00:31:40] Blake: Editing, yes. And identifying. And for some reason, that feels easier, you know, to feel like, oh, I gotta do this whole new…

[00:31:46] It’s like, no, no, no. Let’s just make some edits to something that’s already happening rather than just- letting this program run by default, let me tinker with the program that’s running.

[00:31:57] Nick: It’s interesting. I was thinking more, like, spiritual in some way, and now we ended up with- Mm-hmm … computer. And I would

[00:32:02] Blake: totally…

[00:32:03] Nick: Yeah. But they both

[00:32:06] Blake: work. Yep. We’re just a bunch of spiritual computers over here. Ooh, let’s make that ’90s album. Spiritual Computers by Radiohead. Yeah.

[00:32:19] Verbs: So the good news is you no longer have to experience diminishing returns by striving for more. You can truly maximize your output through the power of constraints by setting just two to three goals per quarter, selecting a daily big three, and instituting workday startup and shutdown rituals.

[00:32:36] Blake, you’re actually the only one I can pose this question to. Actually, no, I think we should, we should roll Nick into this question as well. But- Yeah, Nick … do you have any final thoughts for our Focus On This listeners today?

[00:32:48] Nick: Nick, what i- what is your final thought? You know, I think for me, out of all of this, the talk about the conversation around…

[00:32:56] But you got a little scuba, Blake. You didn’t say it. Maybe you did. But the idea around- You did. You fell through a thing … our daily big three and this idea of our to-do list, and that there is this idea of you have a to-do list that never ends, that you provide a permission structure for yourself to not complete the tasks you write down, and this idea that we break promises to ourselves.

[00:33:19] And if my word to myself isn’t meaningful, then I’ve sort of got a problem. That’s not what you say. That’s my- Mm-hmm … take on that, is I just- Mm-hmm … what does it mean to go, “I have prioritized certain tasks, and it feels good to finish those tasks,” and just to do that for a few days and see the difference.

[00:33:35] It’s much more empowering. I have… My very best friend, I remember he used to keep a to-do list on paper, and then it transitioned into a computer list. And I remember one time he showed me. It was… He’s a teacher. It was hundreds of items long. And he, like, loved it. And I was like, “This is insane.” You’re never…

[00:33:53] He’s like, “I’m never gonna finish it.” And I just don’t… I mean, he was able to, like, brute force his way through it. I cannot do that. And so the ability to every day to literally turn the figurative page, or figuratively turn the literal page, either way feels- … feels really, really good. And sometimes I find myself falling in the trap of, of just letting these to-do lists kind of grow.

[00:34:17] And so that’s something I’m also really focusing on, is just being able to turn the page and know it’s all settled. So I would encourage other people to, to do that.

[00:34:25] Verbs: And with that, I think Nick should have the $100 token for the word he just used, permission structure. Mm. Very well done.

[00:34:33] Nick: That’s, uh- Very well done

[00:34:33] the parent in me and the former teacher in me. But that’s- Yeah. Talk about permission structure is a lot in this house. It sound like a teacher

[00:34:39] Verbs: phrase, for sure.

[00:34:43] Well, thank you for joining us on Focus on This. This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so share it with your friends, and don’t forget, join our Full Focus community right there on Facebook. We’ll be here next week with another great episode, but until then, stay- Stay focused.

[00:35:01] Focused.