132. 4 Questions to Reflect on Q1

Episode Transcript

Courtney Baker:
So, Verbs, it is March. I don’t know about you, but I, kind of especially at the beginning of the year, it’s like these months, all of a sudden they start going so quick. I’m still practicing writing 2022 instead of 2021. I’ve had a couple times in February. I got so excited in early February, it was 2-1-21, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, guys, look, this is so cool.” And I was like, not even the right year.

Verbs Boyer:
It’s not a thing, right.

Courtney Baker:
Not a thing. This is 2022. Yeah. I think sometimes it’s like things go so quickly, especially this first quarter and you’re just kind of like, Wow, this time is flowing. I kind of feel like this always, but I think especially at the beginning of the year, that it’s all of a sudden you’re at the end of the first quarter and it’s hard to even take the time to analyze like, Okay, what has been good and what has been bad? It’s almost kind of that fresh start effect has been holding on for an extended amount of time-

Verbs Boyer:
Right, yeah.

Courtney Baker:
… that all of a sudden you realize, “Oh, it’s not the beginning anymore. We’re in this.” Matter of fact, you were like, “The first quarter is over.” I think sometimes it can be challenging to step back and kind of evaluate what’s been good or not good.

Verbs Boyer:
That’s what’s going to be important about today is really making sure we’re distinguishing between those two quarters, so everything doesn’t roll right into the next thing. But just takes us a moment to really process the quarter and set up the best way we can for the next quarter. So today we’re going to be walking through four questions that we can reflect on from the previous quarter to really set ourselves up for the upcoming one.

Verbs Boyer:
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 Verbs, here with Courtney Baker. And that’s it. Still no Blake. We’ve had multiple episodes without Blake Stratton, but happy Monday to you, Courtney.

Courtney Baker:
Yes. Happy Monday.

Verbs Boyer:
Have you heard from Blake? Is he alive? Is he doing well?

Courtney Baker:
You know, I’ve texted him a few times. I have not heard back. No, I’m just kidding. Actually.

Verbs Boyer:
Just kidding. Just kidding, guys.

Courtney Baker:
Just kidding. He did text me, actually, this morning, and I strategically just tried to take a beat before responding, just to quid pro quo. I think that’s what good friendships do you know? No?

Verbs Boyer:
Absolutely.

Courtney Baker:
That did not even make you laugh.

Verbs Boyer:
Sorry. I was like, I need to figure out what should be said next when I looked over here. Oh, so I was like, Yeah, you are right.

Courtney Baker:
That’s how you know a joke really lands well.

Verbs Boyer:
All right. So we’re getting you to these four questions. It’s really going to help us set up for this next quarter, process this previous quarter the best way we can. Question number one we can ask ourselves is what worked, but what didn’t? What worked, but what didn’t? And I think you mentioned this at the beginning, Courtney, just getting ourselves into that mindset of really reviewing, even though we still feel like thing may be moving at a pace that we didn’t really expect. And again, I think 2022, it was just an abnormal start to a year. I know I felt like I didn’t get started until the end of January due to some sickness in our house and all of that, but things are still going to move regardless. But what can we do to put ourselves in the best position to process appropriately?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. And I would just say out of the gate, if you use the Full Focus Planner, and if you’re in the practice of doing a Quarterly Preview, which I think I’ve said before, I think less people do their Quarterly Preview than maybe we think. It’s a really great tool. But even if you aren’t able to do that, if you can just use these questions to help kind of reset and kind of guide you as you move into the second quarter, I think it’ll be really helpful.

Courtney Baker:
So this first question, “What worked, but what didn’t?” Obviously, that’s really two questions folded into one, but they really can’t be separated. It’s intentional that these are together. You have to take one with the other.

Verbs Boyer:
Sure.

Courtney Baker:
Again, the first one might feel really simple. What worked? What went well? What was successful? That can be something small or barely noticeable, or it could be something bigger and really innovative for you. I think honestly, Verbs, when I ask myself this question, a lot of times even the big stuff that happened in the quarter, I kind of forget. I really-

Verbs Boyer:
Oh, absolutely.

Courtney Baker:
… have to take the time to reflect, to even remember the big things. I know I’ve talked a lot about that on the podcast, but it is really important for me to take the time to do that.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. And I was going to say that because that just underscores the importance of those weekly previews to where you’re pretty much asking those same questions. “Hey, what was a win for the week? What worked? What didn’t?” And you’re asking them in those segments of the Planner, if you’re a Full Focus Planner user, which at that point, it’s just going through the motions of going back, flipping back through the previous quarter, and highlighting those wins, or highlighting those things that worked, or highlighting those things that you thought you could do better at. And so it’s kind of, again… I’ll say it again. It’s the secret sauce, those Weekly Previews.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Verbs Boyer:
But they really set you up to also fold into your Quarterly Preview when you get to that point.

Courtney Baker:
Well, and again, it’s really confidence building. When we take the time to acknowledge those wins, it’s helping build our confidence to go into the next quarter. Now, obviously, you’re going to ask the rest of that question, which sometimes can be harder because it means having to be honest with ourselves, which is not always that easy. When we ask “What didn’t work?” there’s a lot that can come up with that question.

Verbs Boyer:
Especially when we’re also looking at this through the lens of how we started out on those goals that we framed up for the beginning of the year and where we feel like our progress is, or is not at this point in the year. But the good thing about it is this Quarterly Preview is going to give you visibility back into those goals and really reconnect with your key motivations. And just examine, “Hey, did I take the proper amount of next steps that I set out to really get momentum on this thing that I wanted to do? And if not, then what can I adjust? What can I change to really get on back onboard with those things?”

Courtney Baker:
Right. And I think really acknowledging what didn’t work doesn’t mean that you failed or that all is lost and that you need to like throw in the towel. Really what we’re doing is trying to not just ignore those things, but bringing awareness to them so that we can make meaningful action into the next quarter. Verbs, for you, what’s the most important part about asking what didn’t work?

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. I think again, just posing the question itself, like you mentioned, is important, because it’s making me identify whatever the thing was that didn’t work. Because if it didn’t work, then it doesn’t mean it’s not going to work ever, but it’s given me the opportunity to see what adjustments could be made to really dial it in so that it could work on this next quarter coming up, or at least get me closer to where I want to go in this next quarter by making those necessary adjustments.

Verbs Boyer:
So let’s say for instance, I had a goal, which I actually did have a goal. I had a goal to write eight bars of lyrics every morning.

Courtney Baker:
Mm!

Verbs Boyer:
And that was going to be a habit goal. And at the start of the year, when I formulated that goal, it was going great. But then I lost some momentum, the rhythm of it got off, and I wasn’t able to do it the way I wanted to as consistently as I wanted to. So now it’s going back asking that question, Okay, well, why didn’t that work? What didn’t work? Why didn’t it work? And then I can make those adjustments to kind of get back on that rhythm, so.

Courtney Baker:
I’m curious for you, and maybe our producer Nick can jump in here too, do you find it harder to ask the question of “What did work?” or “what didn’t work?”? Is one of those… Because for me it’s actually “What worked?” that’s harder. I’m so good at being like, “Okay, we’ve got to improve that.” I mean, I’m just constantly can see ways to improve things.

Nick Jaworski:
Well, it seems like you should put twice as much energy into the what did, right? So you can just feel good about yourself, but also keep doing the things that did because something’s going to work.

Courtney Baker:
Absolutely, yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
Nothing’s wholesale a failure.

Courtney Baker:
How do we replicate that? Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. But you got to know. But what didn’t is so easy. For me, it’s always like, don’t get enough sleep. That’s like, “What didn’t work? Didn’t go to bed.” It’s like every quarter or every week it’s endless. But what about you, Verbs?

Verbs Boyer:
No, I was going to say, because I think we often talk about this on the show, is just the inability to celebrate properly. Especially when we’re doing these weekly previews on, “Hey, you did something. It was great.” But by the time you get to the end of the week to process the week, it’s like, “Ah, yeah, that was cool. But here’s what we need to work on.” And that may just be a thing of people that work in a more innovative environment to where there’s always space for iteration and that sort of thing. It’s because it’s like, “Yeah, we did it! But I know we could also do it a little bit better by making these adjustments.” So we never really settle to where we would put it in the category of a win or celebrate the thing because it was good, but, dot dot dot, we can work on this.

Verbs Boyer:
So I don’t know what that is or what it says about us within any of grand speak or anything like that. But I would say it definitely is easy for me to… I have more things to write down on the “What didn’t work?” part as well. But again, kind of going back to the Weekly Previews, if you’re processing it in the moment, at least in the timeframe of the week, by the time you get to the quarter, you’re just referencing back on the things that happened within that three months to pull into that Quarterly Preview. So it’s not as much of a reach to try to remember back as far as what happened.

Courtney Baker:
I don’t know if this is really the answer, but it’s an interesting way that I’m thinking about it in my head. It’s kind of like if we think about our work as a machine, no, we’re certainly not machines, but the machine is just doing the thing that it needs to do. You know what I mean? And so you’re not going to be like, “Oh my gosh, that cog right there. Look how awesome that cog is. It is like crushing it,” because it’s really just doing what it needs to do. It’s doing its job.

Courtney Baker:
And so I think that’s why… But when the machine has a problem, like when it produces something that’s purple that was supposed to be green, it’s so obvious. Like, “Yeah, that’s not right. That needs to get better.” And so it’s interesting. How do you break down, especially when it’s just day to day getting it done, and really figure out how to celebrate those wins in the midst of that machine?

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. It’s kind of like the garbage man’s challenge. It’s like nobody’s out there congratulating the garbage man when he’s picking up trash when he’s supposed to, but let that week pass where he doesn’t do his job, it’s emails, it’s calls. “I’m switching companies, this service is garbage!” No pun, but yeah.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. This is actually really interesting. I think this may be just for myself, I think what I’m going to try to do this next quarter is really pay attention to these things that I’m listing as ways to “What didn’t” so that in the next quarter, obviously I want to work on improving those, but when I look back at what worked, looking back to see like, “Hey, did those get installed? Did they improve?” is an easy way to see like, “Okay, well, those things they did work.” It’s an easier way to identify things that weren’t working and then started to work.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah, and I think it’s-

Nick Jaworski:
Verbs, what you call the garbage person’s dilemma is also the audio editor’s dilemma, because if you do your job well, the client doesn’t realize how much work you did. It’s seamless. They don’t notice how much editing went in.

Courtney Baker:
Right.

Nick Jaworski:
And then if you miss something, they’re so mad about it and you’re like, “Listen, you don’t know how much work went into getting this, so.”

Courtney Baker:
Right.

Verbs Boyer:
Yes.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. And just for the record, Nick, you’re not talking about us.

Nick Jaworski:
Oh no, no, no, no. These are straight to tape. These are straight to tape.

Verbs Boyer:
No edits needed.

Courtney Baker:
Okay. Okay.

Nick Jaworski:
No edits needed.

Verbs Boyer:
No EQ-ing.

Verbs Boyer:
So question number two is what will you keep doing? What will you keep doing?

Courtney Baker:
So it might be obvious to think to yourself, “This went well, so I’m going to keep doing it.” Yeah. Okay. But what we’re talking about here is really about intentionality, with so many things on this podcast. But sometimes we don’t always notice what actually went well and therefore what needs to keep happening. And so again, this is kind of that point in the quarter to really take some time to reflect on this. And again, if you’re using your Quarterly Preview in your Planner and actually spending the time to write this down, it’s really powerful. It can really kind of breathe new life into the actions that you’re taking that you want to continue to repeat.

Verbs Boyer:
No, that’s right. And you can take what you’ve learned and really start to distill your discoveries down into short statements. Whether it’s, “Don’t look at my phone for the rest of the night beginning at 9:30” or “Just do the next thing in front of me and don’t overthink things.” These are some of the things that you may have tried and experimented with. You found that they were working for you, and so you want to continue doing those things into the next quarter. Maybe it’s just something as simple as, “Go for a thirty-minute walk after dinner,” and you want to keep doing that.

Courtney Baker:
You know when you have those days at the end of the day, you’re like, “Man, this was just a great day. I feel so good.” Maybe there’s not some huge thing that you can point to, like maybe you didn’t get a promotion that day, but just in general, you’re like, “This was a great day.” I love at the end of those days pausing to say like, “What about this made it a great day?” and really trying to identify those things. And I think that practice can help when you get to the end of the quarter to say, “What I want to keep doing?”

Courtney Baker:
Again, this is why I’m so adamant about exercising, because when I look at the recipe for those days where I just feel great, it had exercise in it. So again, this is kind of that intentional part of kind of examining what you need to keep doing. Again, it seems obvious. I don’t think it’s obvious at all, actually. So for you guys, how does your quarter feel different when you’re not intentional about reflecting on what you want to keep doing versus when you do?

Nick Jaworski:
So I think for me, a couple years ago now… Gosh, this has been a long 2020, right? A couple years ago now, I had a goal around meditation, and I really liked doing it. I really like meditating. And I was doing it every day for 90 or whatever days. The house we were at, the animals started to bother me a little bit. It’s hard to be focused when there’s a cat meowing at the door. And then I never documented how much I enjoyed it and how helpful it was. Right. I did the habit. And then as it went around, I never distilled it into like a, “Oh, keep doing that.” And because of that, guess what? Now I’m starting over. Literally this year, I’ve had to start over as part of my routine. And it’s sort of a bummer to go, “I was doing it. I was crushing this. It felt really good.”

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
But that’s a good example of saying it’s not just enough to have done, you also have to have documented that you did it.

Courtney Baker:
I think this is really smart, because of our goal-setting framework, when you’re installing a new habit, you have a set amount of time to… You don’t want to just say, “I’m going to do meditation for the rest of my life.” That’s not a goal and, frankly, completely overwhelming. But if you don’t take the time to actually say… I’m kind of in a similar situation where I tested being vegetarian and it’s like, I need to have this point to say, “Okay, what do I need to keep doing? How did that make me feel?” to determine, “Do I need to continue that and not just let it fall to the wayside?” I think it’s a really great example, Nick. Nick, do you want to be on this podcast?

Nick Jaworski:
I guess I am. I guess I am. I’m going to go back re-edit.

Courtney Baker:
Our fourth co-host, Nick.

Nick Jaworski:
I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to edit out all of Blake. No, Blake’s gone. He’s fired.

Verbs Boyer:
All right. Question number three. What will you change moving forward? What things will you change moving forward? And hopefully you can kind of see the sequential order of this process. Because once you’ve decided what you are going to keep doing, again, some of those things could be adjusted, some of those things could be tweaked just a little bit to make it what it needs to be going forward. So what about those things will you change if there’s certain elements to it that you would change? Now, if there’s a gap in between what you wanted to happen versus what actually happened, then something has to change, but you have to be willing to name that necessary change and then go ahead and act on it.

Courtney Baker:
So I think the real important thing here is, as you go through these steps, you can’t just acknowledge the gap. If there is something that you realize like, “Oh, that’s not where I want it to be,” you’ve got to take note of that, what you’ve learned, and make the action shift or the mindset shift that you need to. Otherwise, you’re kind of just back where you started. You’ve got to be willing to change and adjust to compensate for that gap. Again, just acknowledging the gap is really not going to get us much of anywhere if we aren’t willing to make the changes needed.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. And it’s important to mention as well that not changing those things or making those adjustments means many of your experiences, especially the really tough ones, will have been from for nothing. You went through all of that, and then there’s nothing to show when there was a growth opportunity there that could be identified.

Courtney Baker:
It sounds kind of drastic or a little like big things, but it really doesn’t have to be big things. It could be really small tweaks. I mean, Nick, I’m thinking about a few episodes ago when we talked about your inbox. At the end of the quarter, you could actually examine, like, “Hey, did those new workflows that I put in place, did they work? How did I do all my workday shutdown?” It doesn’t have to be kind of this big thing. It could be something small, but if you acknowledge… I’m just making something up because I’m sure you’re going to hit this 100%. But at the end of the quarter, if you were like, “Hey, I actually only did that workday shutdown 50% of the time,” well, there’s a gap there that you… I think the point here is not just to say, “Okay, I only did it 50% of the time,” but actually to determine, “Okay, what actions do I need to put in place to change moving forward to hit it 100% of the time?”

Nick Jaworski:
I think that’s totally right. Of course, I am going to crush it though. So. How dare you.

Courtney Baker:
Of course, I know you are.

Verbs Boyer:
Boom!

Courtney Baker:
I have all my chips in your basket. Is that an analogy? All my chips…

Nick Jaworski:
No.

Verbs Boyer:
It is now.

Nick Jaworski:
You’re all in.

Courtney Baker:
I have all my eggs in your basket.

Verbs Boyer:
Eggs.

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah.

Verbs Boyer:
Hey, some people don’t eat eggs. They love chips.

Courtney Baker:
Hey, listen, no chips.

Verbs Boyer:
All right. So, question number four.

Nick Jaworski:
That’s a tee shirt right there. “Hey, listen, no chips.”

Verbs Boyer:
So question number four is, and I wish Blake was here to speak to this one, but Nick, you may have to stand in instead, because you can go school about just as well as Blake can, but who are you becoming, and is it who you want to be? This is a very important question to ask yourself during this.

Courtney Baker:
Actually one of our company of core values is continuous growth. And I think personally if I think about my own core values, I think that is very true of who I am as a person and something I hold very, so important. I always want to be growing, and I think the purpose of this process is to facilitate growth. Each quarter I want to be learning and growing and taking what I’ve experienced and, again, improving. And so I think just to be stagnant or status quo, that is not the person I want to be, settling for the mundane.

Courtney Baker:
And I know we all have to ask that of ourselves. If you’re out there, probably if you listen to this podcast, I would be shocked if people that listen to this podcast are like, “Yeah, I’m totally good with just being the same always.” That just is not our core audience here. But if you are committed to transformation, again, in small and big ways, it could be things like, “Are we healthier than we were? Am I more focused? Am I more productive? Am I more rested?” And probably the most important one, “Am I more fulfilled?” And I think really taking the time to look at our goals and kind of what’s important to us and how things kind of unfold from quarter to quarter will really help us answer those questions.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. And I think obviously our whole Full Focus System is really built off of a process. And I love this question because it’s so profound. And I actually think we could have bumped this question up a little higher in this list of questions because if you start from a place of “Who do I want to be?” then that’s going to help you really process through everything else. And it’s not adding goals or efforts or projects based on what you think somebody else would want you to do or what they would want you to be, but it’s like, “By the end of this whole journey, who do I want to be? Who do I want to become?” And not just about doing the things, getting the things done, but who you really want to become.

Courtney Baker:
And I will say, I mean guys, this isn’t like… Wouldn’t it be so nice, I would love to snap my fingers and be the person that I dream of being one day. I wish it was that short of a process. This is something that isn’t going to happen over a quarter or even a year. This is a process, and what we’re really doing here is playing the long game.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
Again, the Full Focus System is so powerful that when you use quarter over quarter after quarter will produce that for you. And I think that’s why we believe in it so fully.

Nick Jaworski:
I will say that in terms of the process idea, I’ve told this story before, I used to sit in person in the before times with Megan and Michael for like two years, and they would talk about the Planner, and they would talk about goal setting. I never felt like it was… They were like a different person than me. So they got to make plans and set goals and I did not. And so if I were to look back on the first…

Nick Jaworski:
I had a whole process of just sitting with the Planner, and it was on my bedside table and it was on my desk, just existing near it. If I were to go back and look at it, that idea of what I probably reflected on after that first quarter was I’m turning into somebody who can set a goal. That’s not even a goal goal, right? It’s like a transformation of the self and of the belief in what I could do. And so it’s really important to be able, once you think that, then you can become that. So it’s very, very important. I think you’re right, Verbs, that maybe starting here and returning to this question of who you want to be is probably very powerful.

Courtney Baker:
Nick, I think what you just said is so key because it really was a shift in your thinking, and now you’ve been using the Planner for, I mean, how long have you now used the Planner?

Nick Jaworski:
At least two years. I mean, I’ve got people doing Your Best Year Ever, I give planners out all the time. It really is a… It’s a little crazy for me to think about.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. But it actually just became your thinking on it changed, which is what is so crazy. I mean, again, it’s our thinking about ourselves. It really became part of your identity. There was a shift somewhere way of like, “That’s not part of my identity” to “Actually that is part of my identity.” And I think that’s what’s really powerful, I think, about this question of “Who are you becoming and is it who you want to be?” of like, “Okay, I do want to be somebody that is aspiring to something bigger. And because I’m a person that’s aspiring to something bigger, I want to have goals. I want to have a system that helps me improve quarter over quarter over quarter.” And then that just becomes who you are. It’s not a question of, “Am I going to set a daily big three or a weekly preview? I am because it’s who I am. It’s become so ingrained into my identity.” And I know there’s so many of you that echo that as well. And Nick, you are such a good example of that shift.

Nick Jaworski:
Well, can I just say, this is my short story about this? I bought some… I wear glasses, and maybe five or six years ago I was in this really trendy glasses store. And I was like, “Oh, these are so cool. I want to be the kind of person who can wear these really cool glasses.” And I was sitting in the store and I thought to myself, “Well, who gets to wear these cool trendy glasses?” And then every realized it’s the person who buys them and wears them out of the store. That’s it. And I really like…

Verbs Boyer:
I like that.

Nick Jaworski:
That was very transformational. I was like, “Oh, I can be that person.” That’s all it takes is to recognize that it’s just a choice.

Courtney Baker:
It honestly kills me sometimes when I hear people, when I’m talking about the Planner and they’re like, “Well, I’m just not really a planner person.” I’m like, “Well, do you know what you’re saying to me? You have decided you’re not a planner person.” There’s nobody that decides who is and isn’t except yourself. And so how about you decide to be a planner person, and then that changes your actions. Totally shifts.

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah. You’re a planner person when you use a planner, that’s it.

Courtney Baker:
Right? Yeah. I think this is very powerful and not to go… Well, in lieu of not having Blake here, we’ll go a little scuba on this question in his honor.

Verbs Boyer:
Let’s go. The thing I always kind of go back to, and this is kind of, again, broadening the scope out, Courtney, you mentioned we’re playing the long game, right? So these weeks that we’re experiencing now, obviously they turn into months, those months turn into quarters, those quarters turn into years. But when you start thinking about it, as Michael expressed in the book Living Forward, just the thought of “What do you want said at your eulogy?” That question always gives me pause because then it helps me figure out, “All right, whatever I once said at that point, am I positioning myself now? Am I making those necessary changes? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to start doing?” Because if it’s the long game, that’s when the game ends, but what will others say about who you became in that process?

Verbs Boyer:
And to me, that’s always sobering to think about it. And there’s a quote in an ancient book of Hebrew wisdom, it’s actually found in the Book of Psalms, but it says this, it says, “Teach us to number our days that we may gain the heart of wisdom.” And I really think that’s what we do with this planner that we talk about, that we use with this system. It’s teaching us how to take account of the time that we have that’s before us. So we can get into that long game and use wisdom and live in such a way that meant some great things and some significant things could be said about us by the time it’s all said and done.

Courtney Baker:
I mean, if that’s not a final thought for an episode, I don’t know what is.

Verbs Boyer:
I should have saved it. I should have asked the question first.

Courtney Baker:
I think it is. That is the final thought. Everybody needs to leave with that today. I think that’s so good.

Verbs Boyer:
So the good news is you don’t have to live through another quarter just like the last one. Everyone can set themselves up for a successful new quarter by asking, “What worked, but what didn’t? What would you keep doing? What would you change? And who are you becoming?” So thank you listeners for joining us on another episode of Focus on This. This is the most productive podcast on the internet. So please share it with your friends, and don’t forget to join our Full Focus Planner community right there on Facebook. We’ll be here with Blake next week with another great episode. But until then, stay focused.

Courtney Baker:
Stay focused.

Nick Jaworski:
Stay focused.