144. How to Navigate Transitions

Episode Transcript

Courtney Baker:
So, Verbs, we are… I was going to say we’re nearing summer but in my heat index, we are in summer. And we have had multiple 90+ degree days here in Nashville already.

Verbs Boyer:
Yes, these are facts. Yep.

Courtney Baker:
So, to me that is summer. And my kids are already out of school and so to me that is summer, it’s here. We are-

Verbs Boyer:
It’s official.

Courtney Baker:
… making… May is kind of the month for those transitions. So, we’re in this transition period from, I think, when… Especially for parents that have kids, there is a natural rhythm that everybody gets into that the school schedule provides. And then we get out of that. I don’t know about your family, Verbs, but we’re already thinking of, “Okay, let’s make a summer wishlist, checklist on our chalkboard of things we want to do. We want to go to the splash pad.” My daughter has gotten really obsessed with the weirdest TV show on the internet, I promise you.

Courtney Baker:
It’s called Blippi. Have you all ever heard of this? The weirdest show. And it’s this guy that goes around to children’s museums… Well, she doesn’t really have a concept for distance yet and so she’s like, “Mom, we have to go to that place and that place.” I’m like, “The San Diego Zoo.” “And the…” I’m like, “Hey babe, we can find some places like that, but not those.” And she’s really adamant it has to be those. But everybody’s thinking about that, of, “Okay, we’re moving into a new season.” And I think it’s really nice that if you use the Full Focus Planner, you actually already have a system in place that can help you in this transitional season.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. No, I agree. Again, those are things that we know are coming. Obviously, transition is always going to happen in some way, shape or form. I think between a summer vacation with kids, for us, again, we school our kids at home. But when summer hits, it’s like, “Okay, we need a plan to get them outside and do things, and figure out what that looks like for them.” Then there’s times of the year, like daylight savings, to where times shift. If you have a certain kind of workout regimen that you do, you got to figure out what that looks like. So, transitions happen. It’s always coming and we need to figure out how to ride those transitions.

Courtney Baker:
Obviously, we’re talking about summer because it’s just relevant right now. But obviously there are lots of transitions that, one in particular, I never think gets enough credit for what a big transition that is, and that’s when you change jobs or change even roles. You basically disrupt completely probably the people that you spend the majority of your time with. And then there’s other transitions where it’s like you just move from one really big project that you’re working on, or maybe you’ve been assigned to a cross-functional team. Those are transitions, and usually we don’t really see them as transitions. We just see them as work, that it’s equal to any other kind of work. But a lot of times those transitions call stress and what we’re going to be talking about today really helps combat those as well. So, this is really a holistic episode that you can apply in all kinds of different realms.

Verbs Boyer:
This is where we’re going to talk about how we can use the Full Focus system to help us out in riding those transitions out. Surfs up. Let’s go.

Verbs Boyer:
Welcome to another episode of Focus On This, the most productive podcast on the internet, so you can vanish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Verbs here with Courtney Baker. Happy Monday to you, Courtney, and happy Monday to everyone listening today. So, the Full Focus system can come into play in helping us transition well and ride these transitions out as it provides two vital anchors in the middle of transition. Anchor number one, the Daily Big 3. Yes. The one you know and the one you love, the Daily Big 3. This is an anchor because no matter what’s happening in your life at the moment, it’s always going to be a crucial part of your day and not only just anchoring down and stabilizing, but also continuing to push you forward into that transition.

Courtney Baker:
I couldn’t agree with this more. When things are kind of wonky or you really haven’t gotten your stride, it’s so important. And I don’t know, I guess I could share this, but I’ve actually been testing out having a family Daily Big 3 on the weekend. And that has been really interesting because it just helps. Not everybody is involved with every one of those things, but it just brings awareness to everybody what we’re trying to do today, what’s important. And it might be that one of our Daily Big 3 is to go have a fun thing and go to the strawberry farm.

Courtney Baker:
But one of the other things might be we got to prep the garage for paint. But it just makes sure everybody’s on the same page. I don’t know about y’all but the worst is when you realize the other person has a big project planned that you didn’t know about, and I would say I’m usually not on that side of the… I’m usually on the other side of the conversation. So, it just helps make sure everybody’s on the same page. So, that’s a tip this summer that you might think about. But even in your own personal Daily Big 3, it really just helps keep you headed in the right direction regardless of the transitioning happening around you.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. And I don’t want to pass this up because I feel like you just brought up a good point. Because there are people, some planner users, who use their planner every single day, including the weekends. And I think what you just mentioned was good because it’s like, “Okay, especially if it’s a transition season for you, if you’re not one who uses your planner normally on the weekends, in a transition season it’s probably worth considering just accounting for your days.” Because like you said, where everything kind of feels off and wonky and a little bit clunky for a minute until things settle down, it could be a good way to account for your days a little bit more consistently until you feel like you’re out of a transitional point of your life. Because then the off and on could also add to the wonkiness of just using it during the week, because then it becomes more of just a work tool versus a life tool in general.

Courtney Baker:
Absolutely. Anchor two is Rituals. When you’re going through transition and things can feel a little chaotic, rituals really will help you feel grounded. Again, we say all the time, a lot of when things are stressful and transitions by nature, they are, there’s a stress that happens with those, it’s easy to just throw out your rituals. It’s the first thing that’s easy to be like, “Oh, I just need space. Let me get rid of these.” When in reality it really can help you feel grounded. Now, the key here with your rituals in a transition, especially if your day-to-day life is going to look different, is to update them to make sure that they meet the demands of the new season. So, for example, if you just took a brand-new job or you just got a new promotion, really updating those rituals to say, “How do I craft this to set me up best for the day, for the night? What would that look like?” And update them to match that.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. I think that’s good. And this conversation as far as in regards to transition is fresh in my mind as I was talking to my mom who recently retired, which obviously is another huge life transition.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Verbs Boyer:
Because you have 40, 50 something years of a work schedule that you’ve been accustomed to for so long. So, now that when that’s removed from the process and you’re used to doing things around your work schedule and now that’s just zapped out of the equation, it’s like, “What do rituals look like? All right. If I had to do all this stuff in the morning in order to be at work by this time, now how can I spend my morning? What opportunity is there to do what you said, go back and intentionally update those things, or even just reimagine what those could look like, to help me be more anchored into my days and my weeks?”

Courtney Baker:
Again, not to do more family things here, but this is also, I mean, we have a great planner for kids that you can use or you could just think of, “How do I set up rituals for my kids during the summer?” That also, again, this structure that normally school would provide, you don’t have that. And so structure of rituals actually does give them some guide-rails as part of their day that, again, just like us, it helps keep you grounded. And so I think it’s a really helpful tool if you have kiddos or work with kiddos to keep that in mind as well.

Verbs Boyer:
And I’ll say this before we move off of this anchor. I think what’s important to know, what’s important to realize, is if you know transition is coming up and whatever emotions that come along with that for you, whether it’s an adrenaline rush, an excitement, anxiousness, whatever it might be, is understanding that those emotions will come, but don’t allow yourself to be disconnected and floating when you have a tool that’s in front of you that you could really use to help usher you through that transitional period. It may take slowing down for a moment and putting some thought into processing it, but it’s going to serve you well to be able to do that just so you can remain anchored in that season and, like we mentioned, really ride out that transition well. Just know it’s coming. It’s going to be different. Take account of what could change or what could be different and then implement those into these rituals and your daily process that we spoke about earlier.

Nick Jaworski:
I’m going to sneak in here. And I was a musician growing up, which is a discipline you have to go through. And then I went to college and I got my degree in how to teach music. And then I taught band from fifth grade to 12th grade. And I know Verbs has one saxophone player in his house, one of his kids.

Verbs Boyer:
Yes, indeed.

Nick Jaworski:
And you can imagine that when you give a bunch of kids implements that are really designed to just make noise, and not just make noise but to amplify the noises, into a room and you might have a room of 90, 100, 110 kids with these things that are designed to drive you crazy, and they don’t. So, what you learn when you’re starting and then as you grow older and you take it seriously and then as you’re a teacher… This isn’t just true for music. It’s true for parents. And I’m using kids here not because this is a family podcast, but just because kids are just these little creatures that we are also. We’re all the same. They just have less experience. That the transitions in those spaces are so key for success to whatever happens next. And so as a teacher, us having a routine that is consistent and that we buy into is the only way that we found success.

Nick Jaworski:
And so thinking about the word transition a little bit differently is to go, “How do I schedule and practice and ritualize my transitions themselves to have success. So, my kids can’t just walk into the room and do whatever they want until the bell rings and then we go. No, because I got to start teaching when the bell rings. So, the moment they walk in the room, there’s the following 10 steps for them to get to their seat so that when the bell rings we’re ready to go, and so they’re in the head space to be successful.”

Nick Jaworski:
So, in a way I know this is a little off script or whatever, but when I see the word transition, just because I was trained to do it so much, I am thinking about, “How do I practice my transitions?” If you were in band or if you were in sports, you know what it was like to go, “Okay, the performance is tomorrow night. Oh, the game is tomorrow. How are we going to walk onto the field? How are we walking on the stage?” All of these things I don’t necessarily think we need to be surprised by. So, there is some agency to connect to last week’s episode that we can really own in order to be successful.

Courtney Baker:
Nick, here is the really brilliant part.

Verbs Boyer:
Oh, yay.

Courtney Baker:
We basically have already done that for you all in the Full Focus Planner. Because when you get into a professional job, nobody is going to tell you, “Okay, you need to do these things to get into your day. There needs to be a routine, a set of steps that you take to set you up for the actual work.” But the planner is set up where that’s why you have a Workday Startup and a Workday Shutdown, where basically, like your school teacher or your band teacher, or is that what you call it? Band director. That’s what you do it. Band director.

Nick Jaworski:
Well, don’t get me started. I have very strong feelings on-

Courtney Baker:
Okay. Okay. Well, I’m going to step-

Nick Jaworski:
It’s band teacher.

Courtney Baker:
… off that line. Band teacher, I guess.

Verbs Boyer:
Band teacher.

Courtney Baker:
Your band teacher imposed for you. As an adult, nobody ever… It’s like the wild, wild west. Figure it out. Just get the job done. And I think what we’re trying to help you all with, and this tool helps you with, is actually gives you the framework for what that could look like or should look like, our best recommendation for that.

Nick Jaworski:
You ever walked into a room and maybe it’s your kids or maybe you’ve visited, whatever, and you see the kids and you go, “They’re lost. They don’t know what’s… They’re here, but they’re just in space.” And you’re going, “I don’t know how we’re going to get anything done.” And I know that kids have to play. I get it. Whatever. But that’s also us. It’s the same concept. It’s like you don’t see it because we’re older and bigger. We don’t run into walls and we don’t hit each other when we’re out of pocket. But it really is. I think of it the same way where you go, if we had not set this up and we haven’t thought about the transition specifically, we find ourselves just like, “Woo.” we’re picking things up. We’re pushing our phones.

Courtney Baker:
Organizing files in Google Drive.

Nick Jaworski:
Yes. That’s the equivalent. That’s the equivalent of the fourth grader with the trumpet walking around and-

Courtney Baker:
Exactly. We default into doing things that aren’t important or urgent. They’re just distractions from actually-

Verbs Boyer:
Yes.

Courtney Baker:
Because we’re lost in a lot of ways.

Verbs Boyer:
But so here’s the thing. Even as we’re talking about transitions and what you just said, it’s like we have defaults that we go to, that we resort to, that take us out of experiencing the transition well. So, I mean, I’m just thinking about, we’re used to transitions. Life is a series of connected transitions. You talk about, you go into marriage, into parenthood. You go from a job transition to a new job transition, out of a job, working into retirement. There’s, whatever, losing a loved one. It could be, like you mentioned, Courtney, earlier, a new role in the current job.

Verbs Boyer:
So, there’s always these things of series of transitions, it could be a health event that’s occurred, that now you have to just look at life and how you do life differently. So many transitions that can pop up in our lives. But just again, what we’re talking about is the opportunity to do those things well and let’s ride the transition instead of the transition riding us out until we feel like we’re just depleted, and then we’re only resorting into defaults, which is the thing that helps us not ride it out well, you know?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
The transition is the feature, not the bug, right? We think of a transition as something to overcome and you go, “Well, maybe you could just ride into it, right?” And it is actually part of what makes you successful.

Verbs Boyer:
And not to say that all these things are going to be easy, but we know they’re going to come at some point at some time in our life. So, let’s try to figure out what we can do to anchor ourselves in those moments.

Verbs Boyer:
So, we’ve come to that time once again where we’re pulling a question that has been posed in the Full Focus Planner community. If you’re not a part of the community as of yet, feel free to jump on Facebook and join the Full Focus Planner community. But our producer, Nick, has a question to stump us today.

Nick Jaworski:
It’s not to stump you. We use affirming language here. We use positive-

Verbs Boyer:
I’m sorry. Yes.

Nick Jaworski:
… self-affirming talk.

Verbs Boyer:
You are right, sir.

Nick Jaworski:
Yes. I have a question to help you demonstrate your profound knowledge and experience and wisdom. So, this is a question-

Verbs Boyer:
I like what you did there. I like what you did.

Nick Jaworski:
This is a question from Matthew. Matthew writes, “Do you guys plan for what you will watch and why during the week in your Full Focus Planner?”

Verbs Boyer:
My immediate answer is no, because with the five of us in the house sitting down together to watch one thing, it’s the equivalent of going to lunch with a bunch of friends. And then you ask, “Hey, where are we going to eat?” It takes about 20 minutes to decide on the location, and you go to that location. Much in the same way that when we’re figuring out what to watch. So, I’m tapping out on this question and deferring to my colleague, Courtney.

Nick Jaworski:
Well, no is an answer.

Courtney Baker:
Okay. I-

Nick Jaworski:
That’s an answer.

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Nick Jaworski:
Right? So, that works.

Verbs Boyer:
True.

Courtney Baker:
So, I thought my answer was no as well, but then I thought about it and I was like, “Actually…” Well, first of all, I don’t watch very much TV. Do y’all know that about me? I don’t watch very much TV. Very little, I think, compared to the populists. But I kind of do plan. There’s one show that I watch that, as I’m doing my weekly preview, it always ends up being in my Connect portion because we have some really good friends that always come over and watch it with us each week. And so I do plan that-

Nick Jaworski:
What show is it?

Courtney Baker:
… with them. You don’t know? Can you guess? You don’t know? I feel like I’ve talked about this one show that I watch that millions of people watch, but I rarely meet other people that watch it.

Nick Jaworski:
Is it the weekly Peloton?

Courtney Baker:
No. It’s been around a really long time. It’s Survivor.

Nick Jaworski:
Downtown… Oh, that’s right.

Courtney Baker:
Survivor. And it serves two purposes, which I really love. Our friends come over. They’re our really good friends. It’s a super chill night. But it doubles of, “Oh, we get to do this thing we all enjoy, but we’re talking.” And it’s a time each week that we get to connect with each other. And so I do plan that show, and usually that’s all the TV I watch. There might be one other thing that… Right now, we actually just started The Lincoln Lawyer, and we’re watching that together. I have not planned that. It’s more like an organic, “Oh, we actually have done the things that we need to get accomplished for the day, and let’s watch a show.”

Nick Jaworski:
Well, I feel like I need to be in defense of the yes a bit more. I love the Connect aspect, Courtney. I will say, and for similar reasons, we talked about this a couple weeks ago during a record that we were doing, one of my Big 3 for the week a couple weeks ago was that me and my family were going to watch all three rounds of the Eurovision Song Contest. That was-

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Verbs Boyer:
That’s right.

Nick Jaworski:
… a high priority for us. I don’t have time to get into it, everybody, I truly don’t, but we love Eurovision in this house. Other than Christmas, I do think it is the thing every year that we are most excited about. So, one day we’ll talk about it-

Verbs Boyer:
That’s fantastic.

Nick Jaworski:
… I’m sure.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
But the idea-

Courtney Baker:
I love that Nick, the editor, edits himself. He’s like, “I can’t talk about it, guys. I have to edit the podcast. I can’t spend any more time saying words I know I’m going to have to cut later.”

Nick Jaworski:
Yes. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It’s like, “I’m going to cut all of myself, so fine.” But the idea, yeah, being intentional in the stuff that we watch, and especially if things like documentaries. Somebody in the comments on this did point out, when there’s a documentary I really want to watch and you have those things, you go, “Oh, I didn’t get to watch that yet.” And it doesn’t have to be a documentary. It could be just nonsense, but you just wish you had seen it. It seems like the planner would be a great place to put that.

Courtney Baker:
Here’s what I do love about it. I think I’m not the best person to make this argument after I was just like, “I don’t watch very much TV,” which sounds very LDS. And I don’t mean… Guys, the reason I don’t watch very much TV is because I have two small children that take up so much time, okay? And Peloton, you know?

Nick Jaworski:
Yes.

Courtney Baker:
So, I don’t mean to sound… Really, I wish I could watch more on TV. But I do like the idea of scheduling it if you can hold to it. For me, what I don’t want to end up doing is just watching show after show after show after show. You’re actually just disconnecting from the world. And usually that’s not that a good sign.

Verbs Boyer:
They call that binging.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. When you find yourself on purposely binging, you know what I mean? That’s not good for me because I find that then I don’t get enough sleep, and then the next… There’s just a whole series of repercussions of that. And so I do like that idea of like, “Oh, if I just have it scheduled, then it’s like there’s a beginning and an end to something that’s scheduled.”

Verbs Boyer:
So, today’s tip to level up your planner usage is this: schedule time this week to reevaluate your rituals and make sure they’ll serve you well as you transition into the summertime. So, once again, thank you for joining us on Focus On This.

Courtney Baker:
This is the most productive podcast on the internet. So, share it with your friends. And again, like I said last week, if you can give us a review it really helps propel this show forward. So, we would appreciate that.

Verbs Boyer:
We’ll be back next week with another great episode, but until then, stay focused.

Courtney Baker:
Focused. I tried to do it different. I know.

Verbs Boyer:
She put the extra snap. She got [inaudible 00:24:11].

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, now she’s in her head about it. This is not good.

Courtney Baker:
I know. Man. Stay focused.

Verbs Boyer:
There it is.