158. The Power of a Checkmark

Episode Transcript

Courtney:
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 Courtney here with a very special guest, and my all time favorite director of marketing, Marissa Hyatt.

Marissa Hyatt:
Hey, Courtney, excited to be here.

Courtney:
Hi.

Marissa Hyatt:
It’s always fun to come back on the podcast, I love it.

Courtney:
Yes. Yeah, for those of you that don’t know, when I was on maternity leave Marissa stepped in for a full three months, and was here with Verbs and Blake every week. And so it’s really fun, I think there’s only been one other time that you and I have done an episode just the two of us.

Marissa Hyatt:
Yep, yeah, it’s always fun, I like it, I like coming on the podcast.

Courtney:
Marissa, you and I have worked pretty closely for, I don’t know, three or four years now.

Marissa Hyatt:
I think it’s almost four years.

Courtney:
Almost four years, it’s a long time. It’s like all of high school, to put it in perspective.

Marissa Hyatt:
Yes.

Courtney:
We’ve done high school together. I would say both of us are pretty driven people, but I’m curious, I don’t know that I’ve ever asked you this so directly, but what are the most powerful motivators for you in work?

Marissa Hyatt:
Yes. Well, as you know, I love the feeling of actually getting things done. That feeling of achievement when you’re just like, yes, I accomplished that, I did it. It is done, it is off my list, I feel like there is nothing better than that feeling, especially in the workday as you go through. And our Full Focus System really has this kind of feeling built into it, and it’s all in the power of a check mark. So that feeling when you check off, whether it be just one of your tasks for the day, or your daily big three, even a goal, anything like that, to me, is so motivating and just keeps me going throughout the day.

Courtney:
So what I hear you saying is you would like for me to start giving you three very easy tasks to check off at the beginning of each day.

Marissa Hyatt:
Yes, yes, show up for, make my coffee, and open Slack.

Courtney:
Yes, check, check, check. It is really interesting, I mean, I think we all know at our core that yeah, there’s something very rewarding about just checking something off. Blake actually teases me all the time because in my planner, everything that’s listed in my task or to-dos I put a little square box. He’s like, “You put a box in a box,” and I’m like, “Yes, because I just want that check to be even more pronounced when I get it done.”
But the thing is, there’s a chemical effect to this. Even a little micro step, like checking off something in our planner, gives us dopamine, and that can keep us motivated and keep us going, when we get those little hits of dopamine. So it’s science-backed, and so for everybody teasing me right now about my little squares inside of a square, I got a system over here for getting things done. And so today we are going to be talking about how these micro steps are built into your planner, all throughout it. So if you’re wanting to get faster traction, using these little micro steps, these little checklist, can help you get there.

Marissa Hyatt:
All right, so Courtney, I want to walk through four different check mark points in our Full Focus System inside of our Full Focus Planner. So the first check is our StreakTracker, and this is one of my favorites because this is technically intended for habit goals, where you can keep track of your streak, we’ve probably all done some version of this, but I actually like to do this outside of my actual habit goals as a motivator for daily habits that I’m just trying to do. So whether it be journaling, I use my Full Focus journal every single morning, and I love marking this inside my planner.
And we just came out with a couple new versions, we have our evergreen and our finch linen Full Focus planners, and we have updated interiors in there, and inside of our weekly preview we now have a StreakTracker for the week. And I am loving tracking my journal usage inside of my weekly preview, it just, like you said, gives me that hit of dopamine, gets me excited every morning to sit down and keep my streak going. I don’t know about you but that’s one of the things that I like to keep track of in my StreakTracker, I also track my daily meditation habit, things like drinking water, which can be simple, but again, it’s an easy thing to check off, and keep that momentum going.
So what about you? What kind of things do you like to keep track of in your StreakTracker?

Courtney:
I feel like in general my personality is always keeping streaks. Side note, I’ve been keeping a streak of not getting a speeding ticket for 24 years, and that one just came to an end. But there is a sense of… Nick is looking at me like, what?

Nick:
Okay wait, we don’t really have time to stop, but I do have to know, how fast were you going?

Courtney:
It was really not that, it was, but it wasn’t.

Nick:
We’re not going to get a number?

Courtney:
Okay, I’ll give you a number, I was going 63 in a 55.

Nick:
Oh.

Marissa Hyatt:
That’s not bad.

Nick:
That’s not bad.

Marissa Hyatt:
I do way worse on a daily basis. But the best part though, Courtney, that you do have to share is what happened once you got pulled over.

Courtney:
Okay, this is bad guys. I’ve, again, streak, I’ve had a streak, I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket in my entire life. So I get pulled over, and, “I need your license and registration,” I did not have my license with me. I had just gone to the ATM and gotten money for my daughter’s allowance, and know how they stick it back in your cash? And I had just run out the door, totally had forgotten it. And then my insurance, my insurance was also out of date. I was like this, uh-uh. I probably could’ve gotten out of this speeding ticket if I would’ve had it together here.

Nick:
Anything.

Courtney:
Anything, literally.

Nick:
Any of the requirements for a traffic stop.

Courtney:
I honestly was like, but you know what? I haven’t needed any of these things in 24 years, and so can I have a little grace on that? That is a streak. Some streaks come to an end. I will say even working out, when you are like, okay, I’m working out on a streak, when you do get further into a streak it really becomes powerful because you’re like, I don’t want to drop it now, it’s going to take me months to get back to this level of a streak. And so there’s a lot of power in that for me. I’ve tracked all kinds of things over the years, but I would say really the thing I’ve been most committed to is tracking habit goals in my goal section of the planner, and those have been a wide variety of things, but certainly has been helpful over the years.
So check two is your daily rituals. This is actually a little hidden secret, it’s not hidden because we look at it every day if you use the Full Focus Planner, but any version besides the pocket version, there’s a place at the top to check off if you completed your rituals. And so again, this is just a place that you can get a little dopamine kick by checking those off, and it’s going to help you develop that streak. It’s also helpful if you track it because you can actually see, hey, this day was crazy, what was missing here? And see if, hey, it was actually my daily rituals, I didn’t get my workday startup done, or I didn’t get my shutdown done, which I’ve talked a lot about how those contribute to that feeling of overwhelm. And so actually using those and getting those checked off each day can be really helpful for you, especially in your weekly preview when you look back to do that after action review of what worked and what didn’t work.

Marissa Hyatt:
Gosh, I never even thought about doing a self-analysis like that about daily rituals, but I think that is brilliant. Honestly, true confessions, I’m not great at checking these off, I actually do them pretty religiously every day, but I’m not great at checking them off, I tend to forget. But I love the idea of being able to go back and reference this in my weekly preview, I feel like that is a productivity hack and life hack, because the truth is I know that I am way less productive if I don’t do my morning ritual and then my daily startup ritual.
That brings me to check mark number three, which is daily big three. So this is an obvious one, but this is so important to check it off every single day as you complete them. So I think that sometimes it’s easy as we get busy, or if we have a crazy day where we’re in meetings all day, or something, that we don’t check these off as we go, we end up looking back at our planner at the end of the work day and checking them off, or in the evenings. But I notice that when I check these off as I complete them, it again gives me that hit of dopamine, gets me super excited, makes me feel like I’m making progress throughout the day.
This happened yesterday, I was in meetings all day, which can make me feel really unproductive because I’m just in meetings all day and I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing a ton, and yesterday I made sure to check off those daily big three as I went through and completed them, and it helped me, even though I was in meetings the majority of yesterday, it made me feel like I was making real progress on my list, which was really encouraging. And I feel like this will give you also visibility to remind yourself what you have left to accomplish for the day. So for me, one thing that is really helpful is if I have two of my daily big three checked off and there’s one that is left, throughout my day I’m able to reference that and remind myself of what’s really important that I need to accomplish that day.

Courtney:
So that actually brings me to the last check which is your weekly big three. So just like your daily big three, tracking your completion with your daily, big three keeps you accountable, it also keeps you focused. It allows you to celebrate when you’ve hit these bigger things that you’re trying to accomplish during a week. And I think the really powerful thing, we talk about this all the time, is ending the tyranny of the never ending to-do list. When you are checking off your daily big three and your weekly big three, that’s the recipe to end the week feeling like wow, I got so much done this week. Because again, that to do list, it’s literally never going to end. It is just going to keep coming. And so if we can’t ever get to the very end of our never ending to-do list, doing the things that matter most and that are going to give us that sense of fulfillment in our work, and the motivation we need each week to come in ready to go and excited, is a really powerful thing.
I will say one other tip when it comes to checking off your weekly big three is making sure that you are solving problems along the way. So if Monday goes by and you just had this massive project thrown in, a big pivot that you’re going to need to put all your focus on this week, you need to be looking at your weekly big three to reevaluate, is this the correct weekly big three? Do I need to alter these, or do I just need to be more intentional about making sure I have time to do these? But you’re basically problem solving along the way.

Marissa Hyatt:
The other thing that I love about the weekly big three, which is different than the other ones that we’ve talked about today, is this is an area where you can give yourself partial credit, where even if you didn’t complete your weekly big three, or one of your weekly big three, we specifically ask you in the after action review section of the weekly preview how far you got on your weekly big three. And so for me, last week, for instance, I had two that I completed 100%, and then one that I was a little bit shy on, I think it was like 80% complete. And that was a really good motivator for me as I went into this week to wrap that up before I jumped into my new weekly big three. So this is an area where you don’t have to say, well, I completely missed and totally failed on that big three, but you can actually give yourself partial credit, which I think is important.

Nick:
Can I suggest something for the listener? If we’re going to hack our brains and try to get that dopamine hit, I think something that would really help actually, I’ve not done this, I can’t vouch for this, but it seems like it would work, get yourself a stamp pad, or one of those automatic stamps. You know like on video games or on your phone, they give you the ping and the sounds to reinforce when you’ve done something, imagine checking off stuff with that cha-choom of a check mark, and how exciting that would be. I’m not saying that-

Courtney:
Marissa, this sounds like a new product that we need to have.

Marissa Hyatt:
Totally.

Courtney:
Get those stamps that has the hard, yeah.

Nick:
Yeah.

Courtney:
Yeah, I think that’s pretty brilliant. I want one of those, for sure.

Marissa Hyatt:
Yeah, I’m going to call-

Courtney:
Carrying it around in my pocket.

Marissa Hyatt:
I’m going to call Adam after this and see if we can get that rolling.

Courtney:
Marissa, even better, as if it was the top of your pin, if you could just flip over, like in the cap, flip it over,

Nick:
Is that a thing?

Marissa Hyatt:
Brilliant.

Courtney:
I don’t know.

Marissa Hyatt:
It is now.

Courtney:
Guys, don’t steal my million dollar idea. Well listen, if you have listened to these four checks that are built into the Full Focus Planner, or maybe you don’t use a Full Focus Planner, you haven’t quite tried it out yet, we actually have a free tool for you to still get some of the power of checking things off, we have a free StreakTracker for you. So if you want to download that and get a little dopamine hit this week, you can download that at fullfocus.co/streaktracker. We’ll also include that in the show notes so that you can get it there as well.
I’m trying to remember how I did it last time, Nick, and I’m like.

Nick:
You just, it’s like jazz, you just feel it, there’s no rules. That’s annoying.

Courtney:
No rules, okay. So I have one of our certified, already messed up. I have one of our Full Focus Planner certified pros that are… Gosh, oh no, oh no Nick.

Nick:
These are all in the show now, so you’ve got to live with these.

Jake Brown:
So I do have an appointment tomorrow.

Courtney:
I know, I just got roasted by Jake, it’s like Blake is here. Oh my gosh.
Hey guys, we have a new segment of the show that we are doing with some of our amazing Full Focus Planner certified pros, and so it’s really all about learning from them some of their best hacks and tools. So today I have Jake Brown joining me. Hey Jake, how’s it going?

Jake Brown:
Hey Courtney, doing great.

Courtney:
Jake, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do before we dive into your story using the planner.

Jake Brown:
Yeah, sure. I’m Jake Brown, I run a coaching consulting company called Air Balloon Advisory, and I work with specifically creatives who have, typically they’re creative, they launch out, they have an idea, they start their business, and they build something that they love until they have to business, and then it turns into a prison around them. And I help them organize that structure so that they can get back to having fun and enjoying, delegating things off of them so that they can enjoy having fun and doing what they’re a genius at. So that’s my business side. My wife and I have four kids, and we homeschool. We basically said, what could make this the most crazy environment in every way possible in our lives? And that’s the path that we chose.

Courtney:
That’s amazing, and I feel like you and Nick would be friends. Nick, Jake, Jake, Nick.

Nick:
That description of a creative who starts a business and then is terrified of all the businessing is very accurate.

Jake Brown:
It’s pretty much all of them out there, yeah.

Courtney:
So tell us a little bit how you, before maybe that you were using this with clients, how did you start using the planner?

Jake Brown:
So first off, I got an email from Michael Hyatt that there was a new thing coming out, and I preregistered, and then I read the email. Because I was just like, never steered me wrong, and I dove in. I was one of those people on the pre-order, and then when there were the glitches, whatever, I was there through that ride.

Courtney:
That’s amazing.

Jake Brown:
Got the planner, the planner actually came two days, was it two days after? My youngest was born. So our fourth kid was born, it was like, nope, nevermind, I’m not going to dive into this. There is no order for the next month, I just have to survive at this point. And that actually taught me a big lesson in the planner because, for a lot of my clients specifically, it is overwhelming, because it’s really, and I tell people all the time, it’s a dozen tools in one, and grab a corner. What is the need that we have to do right now? And you just grab one corner and then you grow into it.
And that’s what I did, I got that first planner got my feet back under me after our kid was born, and I was completely overwhelmed. I tried to dive in, watch all the videos and everything, and I got about two days in and put it on the shelf. And then about a week later I got it back out, and what I realized is, so I’m an Enneagram seven, so fun, great, boredom, no, I will run from boredom. And what I found out is if I will use the planner to, I got in the habit of using it, I realized that I’m very undisciplined by nature, but discipline is just self-imposed accountability, and if I blamed the planner, then I could keep having fun.
So I separated in my mind all the boring stuff that has to be done, I can blame the planner for the things that have to get done, and then I can keep having fun, and then I can report back to the planner to grab the next thing that has to check off. So by adding that structure was the first thing that I did, and during that time I launched, with my kids, a board game company for kids, and we sold that.

Courtney:
That’s amazing.

Jake Brown:
So I launched that, we created some board games and some books for kids, and I was the creative director at an ad agency, so I was working all of that, leading that team. Got that organized, then was spending better time with my kids and with my family, which became this board game company. And yeah, that’s basically the story is it added this structure so that I could be more free to have fun, which is the structure that I had been avoiding for most of my career.

Courtney:
For me it’s being able to trust that I have this system that’s being my brain for me, like I don’t have to hold it all in my head.

Jake Brown:
It’s like, what is it? The Einstein quote, I can’t remember it word for word, but basically he says he doesn’t carry any knowledge that he can find, so you don’t have to memorize things that you can find. And I’m like, when I knew that I could find it in my planner, then I could continue dreaming, I could continue really the creative thinking, because I knew that all of the deductive and the deciding, all of the controlled thinking was in the planner, so I could then go back to doing what only I could do.
One of my biggest tips that I always tell everybody is grab it, break it open, grab a ped, and just scribble over it. Now you’re not afraid to write in it. And I always tell people, start with pen. Some people start with pencil, I’m like, grab a pin and just put ink on the page, I don’t care what you do.

Courtney:
Yes.

Jake Brown:
Give it to a toddler and let them break it in for you, just don’t be afraid of it, because once people get to that point, then you can install it in their life. Just a couple little habits, and once you get a couple habits, then you can install the next tool, and the next tool, and the next tool. And that’s really, I guess, been my joy with the planner, is getting it installed for myself, and then for others, because it can be scary, but I think really what most people are afraid of, because I was, is what if this works and I have to change things? That was my biggest fear, and I’m like, good. What if this works?

Courtney:
Yeah.

Jake Brown:
It just seems weird to be afraid of that, but I think we all are.

Courtney:
That is, first of all, my all time new favorite hack that I might steal, and I will try to give Jake Brown credit from now on, to grab your pen, let’s grab a marker, find a random page, and let’s get some doodles on there.

Jake Brown:
I have an install video that I send people like here, we’re going to install your planner, and the first thing I have them do is open it up and cut out the first three pages.

Courtney:
That’s amazing.

Jake Brown:
No offense to, it’s got the blank page, it’s got the Full Focus Planner, it’s got your name, your email, your contact information, it’s got the contents, it’s got a letter from Michael Hyatt, whatever, quote from him. But if you go straight to page five, imagine being able to open your planner straight to the annual goals. Why would you want anything else?

Courtney:
Oh my gosh.

Jake Brown:
I started writing my annual goals on the inside cover, and then my biggest pushback, people are like, “Well, what happens if you lose it? How are people going to know it’s yours? You can write your name on any page guys, you don’t have to have the, this is my planner, please email it to me page. So that’s been-

Courtney:
That’s a hack too.

Jake Brown:
You have to leave about a quarter inch to a half inch of the page, because if you actually cut too close to that first inside cover the spine will split, so you want to make sure you don’t do that.

Courtney:
Well, I have the coil, so I can just.

Jake Brown:
Well, you need to rip them out.

Courtney:
Yeah, I can just rip them out. But it’s true, once you have been using it for a while, you definitely don’t need the start here, or if they’re working with a certified pro like you that’s going to help them get it installed, you can just lose those pages.

Jake Brown:
My main hacks are typically like, this is nice, now it’s better, let’s start. I tell people all the time, at the end of the quarter I want my planner to just be destroyed. I want to suck every ounce of life out of it that I can. Eventually using all the tools in there is great. For me, the rolling quarter, I’ve never understood, it just never made sense to me before so I’m like, you know what? For over a year it was the Tic-tac-toe page with my kids. But one of our goals was to spend time together, and that became one of my habit goals, was to play Tic-tac-toe on that page, and I could track it.

Courtney:
That’s amazing. Yeah, that’s amazing, that’s such a great illustration. Well I think, man, this has been so helpful, and there’s been so many amazing tips and tricks. I do want to give people some insight on how they can connect with you, or our other Full Focus Planner certified pros. So first of all, we’re going to put Jake’s information in our show notes so if you want to reach out to him directly, but also if you’re just interested in, again, installing some of these tools, maybe they’re tools you’ve never used, or you’re brand new to the planner, these Full Focus Planner certified pros are just going to get you where you’re trying to go faster.
And so you can find our Full Focus Planner certified pros at fullfocus.co/directory, and just make sure to search by earners there. And again, we’ll have Jake’s information in our show notes. And then Jake, you’re also in our Full Focus Planner community, and so people can reach out to you there if they want to connect. I have found this incredibly helpful, I think, for all of us. So let’s get out a Magic Marker and go to town, let’s see how messy we can make these things. Jake, thanks so much for joining us, this has been really helpful, and I know everybody listening, and I, have some new tips to try, so thanks for joining us again.

Jake Brown:
All right, you bet, it’s been a pleasure.

Marissa Hyatt:
Well, Courtney, as always, it was a blast to be with you and get to chat about our beloved Full Focused Planner, and the dopamine hit of checking things off. So thanks for having me on, I’m sure that I will be seeing more of you, and hopefully get to come on the podcast again, so thanks everyone for joining us on Focus on This.

Courtney:
This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so share it with your friends, and don’t forget to join us over on the Full Focus Planner community on Facebook. We will be back next Monday with another great episode, until then, stay focused.

Marissa Hyatt:
Stay focused.