308. The Improviser: The Half-Life of a Good Idea

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel: How do you recognize an improviser? You can do it by the trail of half-finished projects. Some of them are brilliant. Some are, well, they’re, they’re something. If your workplace looks like Tony Stark’s workshop, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, or Doc Brown’s garage, this episode is for you

[00:00:29] Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I’m Joel Miller.

[00:00:34] Marissa: And I’m Marisa Hyatt.

[00:00:36] Joel: And 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.

[00:00:43] Marissa: Both at work and in life. And today, we’re talking about our last work style type, the improviser.

[00:00:52] And hopefully, you’ve joined us over this series and have learned all about these different work styles. This is our brand-new free assessment that essentially tells you how you tend to show up at work. And so far, we’ve gone through four out of the five, so we’ll give you a very high level overview of these.

[00:01:12] So first up, we have the giver. These are the ones everyone depends on. The achiever, the one who never stops moving. The juggler, the one carrying it all alone. The optimizer, the one who needs it done just right And last but not least, the improviser, the one who probably has 120, if not more, tabs open on their browser right now.

[00:01:43] And I’d like to use this as an opportunity, Joel, to ask you, my friend.

[00:01:47] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:48] Marissa: How many tabs do you have open today?

[00:01:51] Joel: Knowing that this would happen, I checked just before we started recording, and I in fact have 734.

[00:01:58] Marissa: You’re joking, right?

[00:01:59] Joel: No, that is true.

[00:02:01] Marissa: Okay.

[00:02:03] Joel: I work off an iPad Pro most of the time, and the Safari app on iPad Pro allows you to have an unhealthy, ungodly number of tabs open, and right now mine is at 734.

[00:02:15] Marissa: Okay, I actually thought that was a joke, but-

[00:02:18] Joel: No …

[00:02:18] Marissa: you’re being serious, so.

[00:02:19] Joel: No, I’m just being completely serious.

[00:02:20] Marissa: Well, consider this, Joel, your intervention.

[00:02:23] Joel: No.

[00:02:26] Marissa: Well, the truth is we do love improvisers. And while you guys may be a little bit scattered, you do bring a lot of value to the table. And today we’re gonna dive in to several parts about who you are, why we love you, what drives us, and probably you crazy as well about yourself.

[00:02:45] But let’s start first and foremost with some clues that if you’re listening to this or somebody shared this episode with you thinking you might be an improviser, here’s how you know whether that’s true. And you, I should say, can take this work style assessment completely for free. Takes about five minutes.

[00:03:02] You can go to fullfocus.co/ws to be able to take that assessment to know for sure. But let’s get you started with a few telltale signs.

[00:03:12] Joel: Let me just start off with we have a list that we’re looking at, and I’m gonna invert two of them because one drives the other. Hmm. So the first is that interest is your on switch.

[00:03:27] When something grabs your attention, when something just fills your mind, you’re unstoppable. And when it doesn’t, it feels like pushing a car uphill. So for me, like if I’m like dog on a bone with a project, could be for personal stuff, could be for work stuff, whatever, I’m like consumed Right up until I’m bored with it, and then that leads to the second telltale sign, which is that you’ve got some stuff you haven’t finished.

[00:03:55] You know, like something lit the fire, then something else did, and after that second thing lit the fire, you lost track of the other thing. So you’ve got a lot of projects sitting at, you know, like 60, 70, 80% done, and you probably know exactly which ones they are.

[00:04:13] Marissa: You also, your to-do list lives probably in multiple places.

[00:04:18] You’ve got four different apps, your notes app, you’ve got some kind of project management app that you’ve probably got some stuff in. You’ve got a couple notebooks where you’re writing down things in there. Mm-hmm. And then you probably also have a text thread with yourself where you send yourself reminders or tasks or things you don’t wanna forget.

[00:04:36] Joel: You’ve also written a few things on your arm, let’s be honest.

[00:04:39] Marissa: Okay. Exactly, yeah.

[00:04:41] Joel: Yeah.

[00:04:41] Marissa: So you know what you should be doing, it’s just that finding where you wrote it down is the challenge. It’s like, okay, was that in my notes app? Was that in my planner? Was that in a Slack message to myself? Or where the heck did I write that down?

[00:04:56] Joel: 1984, George Orwell’s novel, there’s this concept of the memory hole where you put things to go when you… They’re no longer gonna be remembered by the society any longer. A lot of times when I hear things that I need to do, if I don’t write it down, it’s going in the memory hole for sure. And even if I do write it down, there’s a 50% chance that it’s still going in the memory

[00:05:19] Marissa: hole.

[00:05:19] Right. Well, another telltale sign is that you do your best work on the bleeding edge of a deadline.

[00:05:26] Joel: Can confirm.

[00:05:27] Marissa: I can confirm this, too. And the only deadlines that count are the real ones with the real consequences. You can’t self-manufacture this. Yeah. It actually doesn’t work for you. Like, this works in a lot of context, in a lot of work styles, but it doesn’t work on the improviser.

[00:05:45] Joel: No, it can’t be artificial. If there’s no stakes, then it doesn’t matter, and Having a deadline, for instance, on a project that I know really matters, that deadline is gonna be close to sacred to me, and I’m gonna deliver great work. But if I know a deadline can push, then I’ll finagle it. I’ll push it.

[00:06:06] Marissa: So you need some level of accountability or like an external level of a deadline-

[00:06:12] Joel: Yeah

[00:06:12] Marissa: with real consequences.

[00:06:14] Joel: Also, though, the, on the creative side, improvisers are wildly creative. We come up with stuff that you ain’t never seen, and- … we’re good at it. Especially when the deadline really is real, when the stakes really are high, we are busy coming up with connections, coming up with ideas that just are not on the table for other folks in those moments.

[00:06:36] And as long as the interest is high-

[00:06:40] Marissa: Right …

[00:06:40] Joel: like as long as the curiosity is high, we are going to be able to work, like at a cognitive level, at a creative level, just like on a different plane than other people. And I’m not saying other people can’t do that, I’m just saying we do it differently and do it really well.

[00:06:56] Marissa: And arguably better. Arguably better. This is one of my favorite things about you and the other improvisers that I know. It really is like magic how it kind of comes out of nowhere, and then you just whip up this brilliant idea or execute something to a degree in which it’s like I didn’t even know that was possible-

[00:07:19] Joel: Mm-hmm

[00:07:20] Marissa: whatsoever, and somehow you whipped that out of a hat, and it’s so cool to get to watch on the outside. Like, I have no idea how the magic trick is being done. You know, I don’t, I can’t see behind the curtain, but it’s really fun to watch, uh, from the audience. And this really nicely leads in to essentially what your double-edged sword is-

[00:07:43] Joel: Yeah

[00:07:43] Marissa: as an improviser, and we all have these. Every single work style has this, where on one side, this is what makes you you. This is what we love about your work style. It’s what makes you exceptional. And on the other side, if you’re not careful And even if you’re just not aware, this can really easily lead you down a road of exhaustion.

[00:08:06] Joel: Before we jump into this, let’s just remind everyone, if you wanna take this assessment for yourself, it’s free, it’s available. It’s available now, even before you’ve done it. Like, the electrons don’t even have to line up all throughout, all the way throughout the universe to get to you. They’re already there.

[00:08:22] They’re waiting for you at fullfocus.co/ws. So fullfocus.co/ws. This will get you the inside track on all these different work styles, including potentially the improviser, if that happens to be you. And if you know any improvisers, share this show with them. They’re gonna love hearing a little bit about how they do what they do, and they’ll also benefit from what Marissa and I are getting ready to talk to next, this double-edged sword, because it ain’t all magic.

[00:08:52] Yeah. Some of it is a nightmare.

[00:08:54] Marissa: Well, Joel, before we jump into this, one of the things that you often talk about in how you work is that you’re kind of playing jazz-

[00:09:04] Joel: Yeah …

[00:09:05] Marissa: while a lot of people, the majority probably of the people that you encounter, especially in your work life, are playing sheet music.

[00:09:13] Joel: Yeah.

[00:09:14] Marissa: Right? They’re playing classical. And For anybody who likes jazz, hopefully you guys like jazz, it’s every bit as amazing as classical. It’s every bit as impressive. It’s just using a different skill set. Right. Right? So let’s talk about your superpower as the improviser, and also your double-edged sword, which is curiosity.

[00:09:37] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:38] Marissa: I love curiosity, and this is a really fun one. I kind of wish I had this one for myself. So Joel, what makes this your exceptional part of your work style?

[00:09:50] Joel: Another way you could think about it adjacent to curiosity would be novelty. Like-

[00:09:55] Marissa: Mm …

[00:09:55] Joel: when I’m curious about something, and that’s often when it’s novel in some form or fashion, I can go deeper than almost anybody can follow on that thing.

[00:10:02] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:10:03] Joel: Which means I’m really great at research. It means I’m really good at chasing something down till the end, whatever that happens to be. And in that process, I’m gonna see connections and just make connections that other people aren’t even gonna recognize. Once I’ve made it, I can show it to you, and you’ll be like, “Oh, my gosh, where did you get that?”

[00:10:23] But the answer is, you know, way down a trail in my mind someplace. And- Right … it was great getting there, it was a lot of fun, and now you get the benefit of it. As a result of that, people bring to me challenges or problems that they haven’t quite figured out how to crack yet. Mm-hmm. And sometimes the answers are just, like, very obvious to me.

[00:10:45] Other times they take a lot of digging and research and so on, but, like, I can usually find what’s going on in a thing.

[00:10:52] Marissa: Yeah. We have another team member who reports to me who I think is this work style. Without a shadow of a doubt, he’s the guy I bring my most challenging, kind of like head-scratching issues to that I’m like, “I cannot figure this out.

[00:11:10] I don’t even know really how to make sense of this,” and I hand it to him, and somehow or another he comes back and is like, “Here you go,” and has figured out the whole thing, has understood it in and out, and has figured out a different way. Yeah. Like, he has forged a new path to be able to solve for that thing, whatever it was.

[00:11:29] And I see this a lot in you, Joel, in, in how we as an executive team work together. You’re always the one who’s able to find solutions to things that the rest of us are kind of scratching our heads going, “How do we figure this out?”

[00:11:43] Joel: Well, it’s like there’s four or five variables, and we’re all tugging away on the same variables, but in that moment I look over and I go, “Oh, there’s this whole other thing we hadn’t considered over here.”

[00:11:54] Marissa: Yeah. I don’t know how you do it. There’s no way that I would be able to do what you do. Like, your brain is so… It’s wired so differently than mine, and it is so valuable.

[00:12:05] Joel: Well, it produces work that other people aren’t, on the team aren’t gonna do necessarily, but-

[00:12:10] Marissa: Right …

[00:12:11] Joel: it does have its downsides, right? So- Sure

[00:12:13] for instance, I start more work than I finish.

[00:12:17] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:12:18] Joel: A lot more work than I finish, in some cases, and the pile just grows. So, like, on any given day It’s not like I need a to-do list. I already have a to-do list. It’s called yesterday. I haven’t actually finished some of that stuff- Right … if not a lot of that stuff.

[00:12:34] And again, the deadline thing is what keeps me honest. Like, if I s- Yeah … because there are certain things I know are, they’re absolutely, they have to ship, I will do excellent work on those things. But it’s like sometimes the, the low ROI or the not relevant now, or those kinds of issues to me resolve themselves ’cause I just don’t pay attention to them.

[00:12:55] Yeah. I just focus on the most highly urgent things that I know really matter. Yeah. But what that means is I do have a lot of stuff that I never get fin- that I, I never finish.

[00:13:06] Marissa: This can be a challenge. You know, working with improvisers is, like, bringing things over to the finish line, right? Making sure that they’re getting done what needs to get done.

[00:13:16] Sometimes it can feel like chasing, herding cats or whatever, you

[00:13:21] Joel: know? Oh, absolutely. And by the way, I apologize to every other style who’s listening to this right now. I have done this to all of you.

[00:13:27] Marissa: Yeah, but it’s part of it. I mean, we all have our own, you know, shadow side of our work style, and this just happens to be yours.

[00:13:34] Yeah. But it’s great because the truth is, what is on the other side of that is so impressive and creative that it’s hard to stay frustrated for very long, right? Now, one thing that can be true is that your curiosity borderlines on compulsion.

[00:13:55] Joel: I, I think that’s unfair. I think it actually just is compulsive.

[00:13:58] Yeah.

[00:13:58] Marissa: So what does that, what does that mean for you as an improviser?

[00:14:02] Joel: Uh, I just, when I go down the rabbit hole, sometimes the only thing in the universe that exists anymore is the rabbit hole, you

[00:14:08] Marissa: know? You get tunnel vision.

[00:14:09] Joel: I just get tunnel vision, totally.

[00:14:11] Marissa: And so, you know, it’s going to make you totally blind to basically anything else that is going on.

[00:14:18] Yes. Which, again, if you’re leading somebody who’s an improviser, if you are an improviser leading a team, can be challenging. And, you know, it can be difficult sometimes in a work context to be collaborative if somebody is fully down their own rabbit hole.

[00:14:34] Joel: I mean, it can be a big liability, for sure.

[00:14:36] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:14:37] Joel: I can chase new ideas until the old commitments become an emergency.

[00:14:44] Marissa: Mm.

[00:14:45] Joel: This has, again, something to do with that deadline feature. Like, if I know the deadline is out here, I can wait a long time to deal with it And so I do.

[00:14:54] Marissa: Yep.

[00:14:54] Joel: But that can bite me in the rear when I haven’t really allocated quite enough time-

[00:14:59] Marissa: Something’s on fire …

[00:15:00] Joel: to figure that out. You’re right. And all of a sudden, or some of these fault lines strike at the same time.

[00:15:05] Maybe I… Something has gone down the memory hole, and the deadline has now inched.

[00:15:10] Marissa: There’s a lot of rabbit holes and memory holes. Yeah. And there’s… This is interesting. Okay. I’m

[00:15:15] Joel: And then it just blows up in your lap, so there’s another metaphor. Yeah.

[00:15:18] Marissa: Yeah. It, it can be a real trap that you can find yourself in.

[00:15:21] And I think the other thing is that if something isn’t interesting to you, you’re gonna resist it.

[00:15:26] Joel: Yeah.

[00:15:27] Marissa: Right? You’re gonna feel naturally, like, avoidant of something that feels mundane, that feels tedious. Anything like that is just not going to pull your interest, and that’s problematic when we’re talking about especially inside of a workplace environment.

[00:15:44] Joel: Right, because there can be systems or structures that might help ameliorate some of that stuff, and that’s the last thing I wanna mess with.

[00:15:53] Marissa: If you wanna just, like, have any kind of death to an improviser, like, give them an SOP.

[00:15:59] Joel: Yes.

[00:16:00] Marissa: We’ve known this. I mean, Joel, like, you know, we’ve had over the years, it’s challenging because, and I think I’ve learned to work with this with you, but years ago we were trying to implement a project management system.

[00:16:14] Yeah. Like, team-wide, company-wide project management system, and Joel was so resistant to it and was like, “No, I don’t wanna do that.” And for so long, I’m like, “Why? What’s the problem?” But now, I think this is where the, the work styles are so helpful as you learn each other’s on a team, is that now I know this about Joel.

[00:16:34] Right. And so rather than it feeling like an annoyance to me, it’s like I just know how Joel is wired. And so that’s fine. Again, I wanna play to his strengths, and there’s certain times, sure, you’re gonna have to bend and, you know, figure things out. But now that I know that Joel is an improviser, I don’t need to get frustrated or try to force him, you know, into this box because I know that if I actually don’t do that, I’ll get better results on the other side.

[00:17:02] Joel: That’s true. I also need to be a good citizen and participate to whatever extent I can in the things that the company is doing so that I’m not, like, causing unnecessary friction.

[00:17:13] Marissa: I think you’re self-aware.

[00:17:14] Joel: Yeah. I mean, at this point in my life I, I’m, I think, aware enough.

[00:17:17] Marissa: Yeah, exactly. We all have these, right?

[00:17:21] So, like, we’re just shining a spotlight on yours, but you know, a couple weeks ago we were doing it on mine. So it’s, it’s natural and it’s normal. Yeah. And I think what we’re trying to get at with these work styles is it doesn’t have to feel so challenging, whether you’re that work style who’s trying to work through this yourself, it doesn’t have to feel that challenging, and if you’re somebody who’s working with that type, you can help them, right?

[00:17:46] There’s strategies, there’s things that you can do to actually overcome some of these things or to grow and become better in your improviser-ness or whatever your work style

[00:17:57] Joel: happens. If, for instance, you are, you know, like a leader and you have an improviser on your team, have them do the work style assessment and ask- Yeah

[00:18:08] them to share that report with you. It will be eye-opening.

[00:18:10] Marissa: It is, and it’s, it’s very comprehensive. Like, what we’re sharing in these episodes is just, like, the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more that you can kind of peel back and discover about yourself and about the people that you interact with on a day-to-day basis, and I think it’s important to say our work relationships are some of our most significant relationships in our lives.

[00:18:32] Yeah. It’s easy to forget that, that, you know, we go home and we have our own personal lives, our spouses, our kids, our friends, our family, but the truth is we’re spending the large majority of our time with our colleagues. And so it’s really critical that we first and foremost understand ourselves, we have good self-awareness, and that we’re able to relate and to understand, kind of dig into what makes each person uniquely them so that we can all collaboratively be able to play to our strengths to get the best results that we need to get in our roles.

[00:19:06] Joel: Yeah, 100%.

[00:19:20] Marissa: So let’s talk about what the cost of being an improviser is over time.

[00:19:25] Joel: I knew this was coming.

[00:19:27] Marissa: Sorry.

[00:19:27] Joel: This is just what it looks like, right? Yeah. There’s the downside, but do you live with the downside long enough, and here we are. Yeah. It’s come to this. It’s come to this. Boy.

[00:19:37] Marissa: So what is the cost?

[00:19:38] Joel: Yeah. I mean, if the novelty and the urgency just continue to run the show, like, everything gets delivered last minute, and everybody’s ticked.

[00:19:47] Marissa: Right. Nobody’s happy about that.

[00:19:48] Joel: Nobody’s happy. I’m not having a good time. You’re not having a good time. It’s bad for everyone. Yeah. So, like, that dynamic, if you get on the wrong side of that, that dynamic actually just starts taking over, and it’s really hard to get ahead of it again. Mm-hmm. Because when you’re really behind, like that kind of behind, it’s just very difficult to get caught back up again.

[00:20:07] You have to d- almost declare some kind of bankruptcy and negotiate your way out of something or whatever before you can rightsize that again. And the other side of that is this is bad for the individual, and it’s really bad for the organization too, but the exploratory work-

[00:20:24] Marissa: Hmm …

[00:20:24] Joel: the really fun work of following the curiosity when the stakes are low, and it’s like I’m learning something new that I know I can turn into a thing, you know, that I know I can, I can develop into a new project or a new product or whatever, like that exploratory work gets like drowned by all these fires- Yeah

[00:20:43] that I’m busy having to navigate. Yeah. And so that is a real cost. And if you are an improviser and you’re in an organization and you find yourself in this dynamic, you’ve gotta figure out how to get out of it because it’s burning your reputation, and it’s like eating up the real value that you provide in the company.

[00:21:03] Marissa: Well, and we need you to be in all your glory as an improviser. This is why it’s great that you’re an improviser. But if it’s just you’re constantly bogged down, it backfires.

[00:21:14] Joel: Yeah.

[00:21:14] Marissa: Right? So we need, we need to get you more in that sweet spot. So over time, unfortunately-

[00:21:20] Joel: Yeah, I mean- …

[00:21:21] Marissa: this looks like what?

[00:21:23] Joel: People don’t trust you.

[00:21:25] Marissa: Hmm.

[00:21:25] Joel: You say, “I’ll get a thing done,” and they don’t believe you, so you’ve dented trust not only with other people but even in yourself because- Yeah … at some point you start to believe that you can’t quite deliver.

[00:21:37] Marissa: Right.

[00:21:38] Joel: And when you’re constantly chasing new stuff, you’re also missing the payoff of slower work that if you had just persisted a little longer, that one project that no longer lights your fire in the same way but which might be really lucrative is now, you know, just abandoned on the desk, and that’s not good either.

[00:21:57] Marissa: That’s never a good feeling. But as we’ve learned, we can’t just like manufacture deadlines and then hope it works out, right? So what do we do? What is… How do we grow as improvisers? What is the most important or one key growth strategy you can implement as an improviser, uh, to really help some of this?

[00:22:20] Joel: Well, because you can’t just make up fake deadlines that you hold yourself accountable to, you have to You have to develop some structures inside the organization that do this for you.

[00:22:32] Marissa: Hmm.

[00:22:32] Joel: So for instance, if you are accountable to a deadline, you can set it, but somebody else has to hold you accountable to it.

[00:22:39] Marissa: Right.

[00:22:40] Joel: And in our case, if I say I’ll deliver a thing by a certain date, there’s now like six other people waiting for me to do it- Right … by that date.

[00:22:48] Marissa: So like the accountability, almost like the social pressure- Yeah … is really important for you.

[00:22:54] Joel: So if I have– if I know that I’ve commit… Even if it’s a really tight timeline, which sometimes I will set deadlines that I know are gonna be really hard for me, but I’m like-

[00:23:02] Marissa: Yeah

[00:23:03] Joel: it’s worth it, A, to get it done, and B, because the pressure itself is gonna be helpful in the process. And, you know, I’m gonna be leaving Julie and Dave and Hannah and whoever else-

[00:23:15] Marissa: Right …

[00:23:16] Joel: waiting for me, which means I’m not gonna disappoint them. I’m gonna do whatever I have to do to deliver.

[00:23:21] Marissa: Right.

[00:23:21] Joel: Yeah. So like instead of waiting for the conditions to align, the stars to align, I just like push the stars in their place.

[00:23:29] Marissa: Well, I think this is really important because otherwise it can feel kind of maddening, you know, for yourself if you’re not self-aware to realize what’s happening, and gosh, why can’t I just finish the things I need to finish or whatever it may be. And even though you’re not necessarily making up a fake deadline- Right

[00:23:49] there are, there are ways to manufacture this in your favor that will help keep your interest high, that will keep your tunnel vision in the right place, so to speak, and you can do that by especially that layer of accountability, having something where other people are waiting on you or there’s a real deadline with real stakes.

[00:24:09] Yeah. All of that can be really important.

[00:24:12] Joel: I will say along with that, some of that sounds, especially in the language we’re using, like it’s a negative or it’s difficult or whatever, but I get a big kick out of my job. And in part that’s because curiosity, novelty is like driving everything productive that I’m doing.

[00:24:29] And it’s some of the most satisfying work I’ve done in my entire career, and every time I’ve ever succeeded in my work, it’s been by adjusting the job to fit my work style. And I think there’s a lesson for all work styles in that, which is if you’re working against your wiring, your job’s gonna be miserable.

[00:24:49] But if you can, if you can negotiate and adjust your job so that it fits your work style, you’re gonna love it. It’s gonna be fun for you. And I have learned to do that over the years, and- As a result, I love my work. It’s a lot of fun.

[00:25:04] Marissa: Well, and this is something that we directly teach our coaching clients to do.

[00:25:09] Mm-hmm. Which is you don’t have to just up and quit your role if you feel like this isn’t in my wiring, right? Right. Like, a lot of people end up going through some of our coaching and go, “What the heck?” You know, like, maybe I’m just in the wrong role. Maybe this job isn’t where I’m supposed to be. And the truth is you have more negotiating power than you probably realize to be able to fully show up as who you are, bring all your unique wiring, and be able to make high contribution even in the role that you’re in right now.

[00:25:41] Joel: Well, let’s go ahead and hear from some other improvisers about how they found work style assessment.

[00:25:58] Jana: So my name’s Jana Parkin. I’m an artist. I live in Utah, and I’ve been a huge fan of the Full Focus Planner and the whole system for as long as it started. I think I bought the very first planner that Michael launched.

[00:26:13] Marissa: Wow.

[00:26:14] Jana: Which has made a big difference for me. Huge.

[00:26:17] Marissa: As you took your work style assessment and looked over your results, was there anything that felt eye-opening about discovering that you’re an improviser?

[00:26:26] Jana: The biggest thing was how on the nose it was. Like, some of it literally made me laugh. I’m like, oh my gosh, how did you

[00:26:35] Marissa: know? Yes. That’s awesome. Yeah. What do you feel like surprised you the most?

[00:26:40] Jana: Probably how dialed in to my weak spots and how, how it could help me do better.

[00:26:48] Marissa: And what, what are some of those weak spots that you are referring to?

[00:26:52] Jana: Chasing the next shiny thing, not finishing before I start a new thing, taking on too many things, uh, getting lost in, uh, the chaos. Um, how one of the things that surprised me honestly was- How it nailed down that I resist structure and also that I need structure, that was really, really helpful and really good insight for me.

[00:27:17] Marissa: Can you see areas in which you could apply structure that wouldn’t really feel kind of confining, but that would actually enable you to be your full self and, and get what you need to get done, done, and all those things? And if so, what might some of those examples be?

[00:27:34] Jana: Totally. The first one, honestly, and this is really interesting, going back to school almost felt like a vacation because the structure after the chaos of summer actually felt really good, and I didn’t expect that- Yeah

[00:27:48] but it did. Yeah.

[00:27:50] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:27:50] Jana: The second one is the planner. The planner is the perfect structure for me because it’s flexible enough, and it lets me choose different things every day. Yeah. It’s, like, so perfect.

[00:28:02] Marissa: Yeah. I love that, but how are you able to kind of balance all the things that you need to?

[00:28:07] Jana: The question of the universe, isn’t it?

[00:28:08] That is the best question ever because I don’t know.

[00:28:12] Marissa: Yeah, true.

[00:28:14] Jana: I do get it done most of the time. What I don’t get done is my taxes. That falls very much into the drudgery part- Sure.

[00:28:21] Marissa: Yep …

[00:28:22] Jana: but I’m figuring out how to hand that off. Um, but- Yep … in the meantime, yeah, I feel like the structure of the planner, the structure of school, gives me certain things that I can plan around, gives me blocks.

[00:28:35] I’ve also noticed that my energy ebbs and flows, and I’m sure that- Mm … part of that showed up in the improviser, and part of it shows up in other things. And I realized that planning my energy, like, I know sometimes, and this sounds crazy, I give so much energy to my classroom- Yeah … when I come home, I often have to take a nap.

[00:28:53] Yeah. And I’ll just give myself a 20-minute breather, and then I can get back and, and focus again.

[00:28:59] Marissa: Now, if you think about your younger self, um- Mm-hmm … who maybe wasn’t this self-aware or this kind of ruthless at saying no, what advice would you give to her when you, when you think back on yourself maybe 20 or 30 years ago?

[00:29:13] What would you say to her?

[00:29:14] Jana: Okay. I would say, yes, you need the deadlines, and you also need to make space for yourself. I hit a couple of really hard burnout spots. There were a lot of things that I was doing really well. I was a graphic designer in Los Angeles back then- Oh … and it was a really exciting career, and things were going really well, but the deadlines and the all-nighters, the burnout really hit, and I think if I had learned before I was 40 to take some time for myself, that would’ve been really helpful.

[00:29:46] Marissa: Yeah, that’s a really good word. Um, now as you think about the other improvisers who are listening right now- … what advice would you give them?

[00:29:54] Jana: I would say to- Lean into the deadlines and the strength. Don’t procrastinate to the point that you can’t do your best work. And I would say also to be aware of that, I’m just gonna say this over and over again, that need to make time for the things that really matter.

[00:30:16] Make time for your family, make time to connect, make time in nature, make time for the sacred, all of that. Mm-hmm. So helpful. Yeah. So necessary.

[00:30:28] Joel: You got the improviser. How did that strike you?

[00:30:31] Naomi: Uh, exactly what I would’ve expected. I read that and also the description. I’m like, “Yes, these people have been sitting around in the third person in a meeting that I didn’t know was there watching me.”

[00:30:43] Joel: I happen to also be an improviser, and that copy Resonates exactly with me too.

[00:30:50] Naomi: Well, some of the things that jumped out were, first of all, I have a million ideas- Mm-hmm … every day, and, um, which is fun. You know, it’s a great experience of having lots of ideas, and that if I don’t put intentional, uh, structures and relationships in place, that I will follow my interests, not necessarily what’s- Yeah

[00:31:14] important. And my interests seem important to me, but they’re not always.

[00:31:19] Joel: Do you have a hard time kind of s- personally establishing the ROI for a particular project? Or, I mean like, if it’s interesting, it’s valuable, as opposed to it actually has a payoff?

[00:31:30] Naomi: Yes, because I love the ideas- Yeah … that I come up with, and so I’m doing them, whether they’re important or not.

[00:31:39] As an example, I went to Peru last year. I love, love the food in Peru, and on Sunday, I found this recipe for Peruvian beans that became kind of my fixation, and so I had to go order the particular spices, you know, online, and get the right type. And, and what inspired it was I was shopping, and our grocery store carried this unusual type of Peruvian bean all of a sudden.

[00:32:06] I’m like, “Whoa, that’s what I saw in Peru.” So this whole thing emerged, and I I finally cooked them yesterday, by the way, but when I talked to my husband about it, he’s like, “Of course you did. You found the beans, and then you ordered three different elements from Peru, and that became your joy and your, you know, fixation.”

[00:32:28] Meanwhile, I have important other things in my life to be doing too.

[00:32:31] Joel: Yeah. Do you find that those interests end up competing with things that would be more valuable that you just don’t get to? And what, what happens as a result of

[00:32:42] Naomi: that? Hmm. That is a good question. Yes, or I don’t get to enough. Mm-hmm. And so truthfully, I’ve been somewhat aware of these tendencies for a long time, although I didn’t have a name for them, and so I have learned to put a lot of structures in place, and I’ve learned I absolutely have to have those.

[00:33:04] Joel: Mm-hmm. And

[00:33:05] Naomi: actually, Full Focus and the planner, I use the wellness planner- Yeah … uh, is a big part of that because I, you know, heard on some other place that if you actually identify your goals and you write them down and then you review them, then you are just so much more likely to actually see many of them achieved.

[00:33:27] And so- At the end of the day, I look at what, you know, the focus planner, full focus planner calls the big three. Yeah. And often I will have gotten two out of three done. Okay. And, um, sometimes all three. But that gap between the two and the three is often because I went off on some fascination trail, like Peruvian beans, and enjoyed it thoroughly, and then at the end of the day looked back and went, “Oh, that’s really important.

[00:33:52] I need to get that done.”

[00:33:54] Joel: What’s your relationship with deadlines?

[00:33:57] Naomi: Oh. Oy. Um, because my mind is so flexible, and I think my backup style they call the juggler, and so I will have the end result in mind. Mm-hmm. And so sometimes the steps along the way, including many deadlines, don’t feel that fixed to me. It feels like, oh, you know, actually as we went forward, we…

[00:34:24] Example, right now I’m trying to work on a book proposal concept and refine it, and yesterday as I spent hours doing it, I’m like, wait, actually What needs to come first is a clear vision statement of where the organization I lead is going, because that will define which of these book ideas is the best.

[00:34:45] Okay. And so if the deadline was to turn in the refined, refined book proposal yesterday or today, I’d be like, “No, actually. Actually, no. We need to actually have this vision,” and then set a timeframe for getting the book proposal in later. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it’s discovery can affect the deadlines.

[00:35:08] Joel: All right, so there’s 168 hours in a week. How do you apportion those for yourself, given the fact that you’re gonna kind of go where your heart’s going?

[00:35:17] Naomi: When I have been at my best, I need to have rhythms. Mm-hmm. I wouldn’t call them routines, but they’re rhythms. And again, it’s kind of, uh… And I need people involved in those.

[00:35:28] Mm-hmm. So an example, when I was doing my doctoral dissertation, and at that time, thankfully, I wasn’t a CEO at that time. But I still had a job where I had to deliver results, and so I had a set four… I know it’s icky, but 4:00 AM to 6:00 AM is when I would get up and I would do my writing and work on the dissertation.

[00:35:48] And then at 6:00 is when my husband’s alarm would go off. He’d get up, and by 6:15, we were out the door to the gym together. And even that, I had fluidity because I would bring my printouts of whatever pages I had just written, and I would sit on, sometimes on the, you know, whatever bike or whatever I could sit on and with a pencil, sit there and edit what I had just written.

[00:36:10] Joel: Yeah.

[00:36:10] Naomi: And then go into my workday, which was structured ’cause it was a job, you know? It wasn’t self-employment. And, um, and then I had the routines of I love to cook dinner, so I would cook dinner. And then again, people, you know, uh, my kids and what they needed in the evenings. And then, you know, my husband’s really organized.

[00:36:32] He’s not an improviser, I’m sure. And he’d be like, “Okay, 9:00. This is when we start heading to sleep.” Not that we’d go to sleep at 9:00, but you know, it’s like start winding down the things. Yep. So that connection of rhythms and other people is really what’s helped me best.

[00:36:52] Tamia: I’m Tammy Buckingham. I just retired from a 40-year career as an accountant, financial analyst at the top level.

[00:37:03] Marissa: Amazing.

[00:37:04] Tamia: I’ve grew up in a sustainability culture, and I’m looking forward to taking the gifts that I’ve learned and developed in my career into sustainability as an avocation.

[00:37:17] Marissa: Okay, so you are the improviser, correct?

[00:37:20] Tamia: I am an improviser- Great … with a secondary optimizer.

[00:37:25] Marissa: So I would love to know, after you took the assessment, what did you feel like was eye-opening about learning that you were an improviser?

[00:37:34] Tamia: A lot of my career has been troubleshooting. They bring me in when things are not going so well. I look at how things are done, I look at where the sources of things are, and I help to streamline the process.

[00:37:48] The big thing with accounting is if you can’t get it by the best procedures, you look for alternative procedures. Also, you have to weigh everything along the standards of relevance, consistency, and materiality. So sometimes we’re doing things in a, in a very ingrained way, and that’s not serving the workflow process.

[00:38:20] So if you can find an alternate procedure that costs you less, provides reliable material data, you can really improve your process.

[00:38:33] Marissa: So you’re coming in as the improviser, being able to kind of see it a different way than- Mm-hmm … maybe what is standard or, um, the typical way of doing things. You’re able to kind of forge new paths in a lot of ways, it sounds like.

[00:38:47] Tamia: Yes. And also to say sometimes what’s right for one company will just not work for another company.

[00:38:54] Marissa: Right. If you had had this knowledge, this awareness about your work style 20 years ago, for instance, do you think it would have helped you? Um, and if so, how? And if not, uh, why do you think so?

[00:39:07] Tamia: I do think it would help me Except giving myself some grace.

[00:39:14] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:39:15] Tamia: My Enneagram is one, so I’m a perfectionist. Accountants typically are very high, high hours, hard driven, that sort of thing. Giving myself some grace, knowing that from that alternative procedure process, you have to look at it carefully to say, “Is this going to work consistently?” Because you have to build your systems to be repeatable month over month, quarter over quarter, year over year.

[00:39:47] I guess I didn’t really think about… It’s just what I did. I didn’t know why. That’s how I, that’s why I did.

[00:39:55] Marissa: Yeah. Yep. Totally. For all the other improvisers who are listening and who are learning more and more about their work style, what would be your, um, advice to them or encouragement to them?

[00:40:09] Tamia: Because our world is always changing, and change happens at faster and faster pace, improvisers are going to be the ones that help keep companies, teams, families, reactive isn’t the right word, but, you know, on, on the path to be able to make those changes as they happen.

[00:40:32] We’re forever getting new regulations, new laws, that sort of thing. Improvisers are the ones that can really make those paradigm shifts happen.

[00:40:53] Marissa: Well, I just find this so fascinating. I think that having each of these individuals on to share with us what it really looks like and means for them to be their specific work style, and in this case, the improviser, I think it just really adds a layer of color, a layer of dimension to what we’re talking about.

[00:41:13] And hopefully, for all of you who are listening, whether you’re certain that this is you, you’ve taken the work style assessment, or you’re still kind of on the fence, you haven’t taken it yet, maybe this is a first, you’ve heard of the work style assessment ’cause somebody you know shared this episode with you, I hope that this is helpful, that you can start to hear and start to see yourself in the people and also in Joel, uh, in this episode, and that you can feel a sense of, uh, validity, a sense of appreciation for how you’re uniquely wired.

[00:41:43] And again, in case you haven’t taken the work style assessment, you can do so at fullfocus.co/ws. So Joel, before we wrap up this episode, and actually this kind of series on work styles, I’d like to know from your perspective why priorities are so important to an improviser and essentially what they make possible.

[00:42:09] Joel: It’s like the filter for the work that matters. Because curiosity drives a lot of my attention, it’s really easy to get sidetracked on stuff that’s just low value or that doesn’t matter right now.

[00:42:23] Marissa: Hmm.

[00:42:23] Joel: Or that I’m not uniquely suited to do. And so by focusing on my priorities, by saying, “Is this really mine to be messing with?”

[00:42:32] and, “Will this produce high ROI? Does… Is this high leverage work?” and, “Is this relevant right now?” Even when I’m, like, going full bore on something that may feel irrelevant to somebody else, I know in that moment that it’s actually very meaningful, and when it’s time for me to, like, drop it on the desk of whoever I need to drop it on, they’ll be like, “Holy cow, where did this come from, and why is this exactly what I needed to see, and how the heck did you do this?”

[00:43:05] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:43:05] Joel: That priority filter is, for me, like, one of the most important tools that we teach, just the ability to work through those three variables to decide what is it I should be working on right now.

[00:43:16] Marissa: It gives some direction to, uh, like what we’ve been talking about, where your tunnel vision actually can be useful-

[00:43:23] Joel: Right

[00:43:23] Marissa: and impactful versus just going where the wind blows, right?

[00:43:27] Joel: And then what ends up happening is I conserve energy for things that actually matter. I’m not letting my best ideas be, you know, like, sidelined just by my newest ideas and, you know, all the rest of that. I, I’m able to kind of, like, keep the spark.

[00:43:42] I just put it, you know, under the right tinder.

[00:43:47] Marissa: This has been such a fun series. We are officially through all five- Yeah … of our work styles. Hopefully by now you’ve been convinced to take the assessment, like we’ve said a million times probably. It is free.

[00:44:00] Joel: I counted, it was, it was only 287.

[00:44:02] Marissa: Okay. Less than the browser tabs you have open.

[00:44:05] Yes. So- Yeah … that’s a win. No, this has been so fun, but hopefully it’s been really helpful to you to be able to see how you’re wired and why your wiring is what makes you great, and w- what it can do and, and create that can be not so great, right? Like that, that challenge, that frustration that you may feel inside of your work or that other people feel inside of your work.

[00:44:30] Hopefully you feel seen, if nothing else. And, um, I know that for me, this work style has been incredibly helpful for my self-awareness, for my growth, and for me in how I show up as a leader- Yeah … and a teammate to the rest of our team, and hopefully you feel the same. I would love to invite all of you to go inside of our Full Focus Planner community, this is where we get to interact with you guys, and share what work style you are.

[00:44:59] Uh, you can tag me, you can tag Joel inside of the community. We’re in there. We’d love to know. We’d love to hear from you what your experience and your unique work style has felt like, because I think it helps all of us be able to identify more people who might be in that work style, and therefore lead and work together better with those people.

[00:45:19] Joel: 100%. I think if we’re able to create, like, a little movement of people that know their work style, that know the work style of their peers, the amount of… Like, when we think about productivity, it’s about getting the right things done, right?

[00:45:34] Marissa: Right.

[00:45:34] Joel: It’s also about doing those things in the right way, and a lot of times we create unnecessary friction for ourselves and for our teams because we miss this part of it.

[00:45:43] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:45:43] Joel: And yet, this will help iron those wrinkles out in a way that’s really helpful.

[00:45:49] Marissa: Well, for the last time, at least in this series, we invite you to take the work style assessment at fullfocus.co/ws

[00:46:04] Thanks for joining us on Focus on This

[00:46:06] Joel: This is the most productive podcast on the internet. Share it with friends and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen or at focusonthispodcast.com.

[00:46:16] Marissa: And we’ll be back here next week where we’re gonna be talking about another practical tip and strategy for you to implement in your

[00:46:25] Joel: week.

[00:46:25] Until then.

[00:46:27] Marissa: Stay

[00:46:27] Joel: focused