164. How to Spot Downhill Work in Disguise

Episode Transcript

Blake Stratton:
I know there’s good reasons people feel torn about Halloween. Personally, not my favorite holiday, but I love a good costume. Okay. So Courtney and Nick, you can chime in on this too. What’s the best costume, Halloween or otherwise you’ve ever worn?

Courtney Baker:
A group of friends in our small group dressed up at our church. We all did this Harry Potter… It was amazing experience where we were all dressed up as different characters and kids came into the room and we put the sorting hat on them, and the hat told them their house. It was incredible and we had rented costumes. The legit ones and I was Professor McGonagall and it was epic.

Blake Stratton:
Sounds about right.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. So I would say that was… I got to live out… I was in high school when Harry Potter came out, and so that wasn’t… I didn’t really have the opportunity to get to dress up like Harry Potter characters. So I got to fulfill all of my childhood… The things you wish you could do as an adult, but you’re not a child so you can’t.
Now I can buy Legos all the time. I love Legos because my daughter buys them. But before I had a daughter, I really wanted to buy Legos, but I would not allow myself to.

Blake Stratton:
You’re living through your kids. How often do you wear the McGonagall outfit?

Courtney Baker:
I had to return it. It was rented, but I do still have the sorting hat.

Blake Stratton:
Okay. I was thinking you probably just said, “Hey, how much do I have to pay you…” You still have the sorting hat?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Blake Stratton:
Okay.

Courtney Baker:
I still have the sorting hat.

Blake Stratton:
Do you wear that when you’re trying to decide what should my big three be? You go hmm and you just let the sorting hat tell you?

Courtney Baker:
Yes, yes, yes. I can negotiate with the sorting hat too. It works well.

Nick Jaworski:
By the way, Courtney. I have… I’m looking at it right now. I have a Star Wars Lego set not assembled right now in a box. I use them as rewards when I hit breaks. I go hey, after this season I’m going to get… It’s only a few hours, but it feels really nice to just sit there purposefully. So that’s number one.

Courtney Baker:
Man, I love Legos. Okay.

Nick Jaworski:
Number two, my favorite… I kind of panicked when you said favorite costume, Blake. But one year when I was in elementary school, I decided to go as the Charlie Brown ghost from It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Which for Charlie Brown people you may remember, he has “a little trouble with the scissors.”

Charlie Brown:
I had a little trouble with the scissors.

Nick Jaworski:
So he cuts a bunch of holes in his little ghost outfit. It’s all over the place and I’ve always just really liked that. In fact, I think I’m going to do that this year. So thank you for reminding me.
Blake, what about you? What’s your favorite costume?

Courtney Baker:
Wait, Nick, you mean tonight?

Nick Jaworski:
Tonight. ‘Cause this is live.

Courtney Baker:
Tonight.

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah, this is a live show.

Courtney Baker:
This is live and you need to get those scissors out, buddy.

Nick Jaworski:
That’s right. Blake, what about you? What’s your favorite costume?

Blake Stratton:
Boy, it’s tough. In college, I went as three hole punch Jim. The Office fans will recognize that one. That was a pretty simple one. I remember I was taking a Bible literature class, I think this was in high school, and we had to dress up as some story from the Bible. I went to a pretty prestigious education high school. We dressed up as characters from the Bible as a means of educating ourselves.
So it was a David and Goliath story. Now I know you’re like, “Blake of course, he’d be David.” Hero, bravery king, great songwriter, on and on. Don’t ask any anymore questions about David, by the way. That’s where the list stops, the comparisons.
I went as the David and Goliath story. Those may realize hey David, he fought Goliath and yay they win. But if you actually read the Bible, it has kind of a gruesome end to it. He does the sling and he gets Goliath, but then he walks off with Goliath’s noggin. So I was like, “How am I going to illustrate this?” Well, we had from the nineties, my dad would go as… And then I inherited it. Would always go as Bill Clinton, because we had this great Bill Clinton mask. So you can see where this story’s going. I made quite the unintentional political statement there that day in high school, as I had to bloody up the Bill Clinton…

Courtney Baker:
This is not going to make the podcast.

Nick Jaworski:
It has no-

Blake Stratton:
Wait, but you shouldn’t have asked me. You’re going to cut it. But now at least you two know I went as David and I carried around a Bill Clinton head at school that day.

Courtney Baker:
Wow.

Nick Jaworski:
Did the secret service come visit you?

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Blake Stratton:
No they did not.

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, okay.

Blake Stratton:
No, they didn’t want to mess with me.

Courtney Baker:
That is amazing.

Blake Stratton:
I was David.

Nick Jaworski:
Yeah, that’s right.

Courtney Baker:
So today we’re going to be taking a look at the ways downhill work tries to disguise itself as productivity. It is productivity in costume. So let’s get into it. That sounded weird.

Blake Stratton:
Let’s get into it.

Courtney Baker:
Let’s get into it.

Blake Stratton:
Hey.

Courtney Baker:
Hi.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 Baker here with Blake Stratton.

Blake Stratton:
Hey Courtney, happy Monday.

Courtney Baker:
I would like to say that your dance moves are improving, so congratulations on that. Good job.

Blake Stratton:
Thanks. It’s been a habit goal of mine to get cheesier and cheesier dad style dance moves. I’ve got a son on the way and my family’s growing. I’ve got to step up my dad game. So I’ve got New Balances.

Nick Jaworski:
I didn’t know that. That’s so exciting.

Blake Stratton:
It is exciting. I’ve got some New Balances. I’m looking at some lawnmowers. I spend more time at Home Depot just trying to step up my game here.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. Well great work and happy Monday to you as well. So let’s jump into it on when we’re talking about downhill work and things that disguise themselves as productivity. What is the first disguise?

Blake Stratton:
The first disguise, you’ll never guess it wasn’t productivity, but it’s not. It’s busyness. It is busyness. Activity and productivity are not the same thing.
Productivity is about the product. It’s right there in the word. What’s the product that we’re producing? What are the results coming from our activities? Or I should say lack of activities. Because a productive thing to do may be to take a break, to rest on the weekends, to do something fun. But the product we’re creating is a life that we enjoy. It’s more peace of mind, or it’s great ideas. It’s about the product we’re creating.
Busyness is something different, and I’ve been guilty of putting on this disguise all too often where I’m just occupying myself. I open up my email application, just start responding. Oh my gosh, I responded to a hundred emails today. I’m so productive. Not necessarily. If we’re missing on the important stuff by just busying ourselves, that’s not productivity.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. This is where you find just going after a task list with no discernment of what is actually more important than the other thing. It looks like you’re being productive because you’re probably just spinning like crazy trying to get through that task list, but you’re not actually being productive. You’re just being busy. That’s kind of a harsh way to put it, but I think it’s true.

Blake Stratton:
That’s true. Beware of the disguise of busyness.
The second disguise Courtney, what do we got?

Courtney Baker:
Conversation. So sometimes we talk about work instead of doing work. We set meetings we don’t actually need because we want to kind of outsource our thinking that we’re actually capable of. We’re like, “You know what? Let’s just get a meeting together.” One, I know that I’ll focus on it at that point and I can use these other people’s brains to help me come up with the solution.
Another example might be just spending the first half of a meeting just catching up. Hey, how was your weekend? What’s going on? Certainly there’s a point of you want to connect with people, but I think there’s a point where you flip the scale to hey, we’re just talking, putting off doing the actual work and not so much trying to connect with our peers. This probably was if you were working in an office. I saw this all the time in my twenties, where you would find people kind of hanging out wherever the fridge was, wherever the water was, just kind of chatting rather than going and doing the hard work. So again, it can look like it is productive, but actually it’s a way to put off the actual work.

Blake Stratton:
Okay Courtney, are you ready for a little Halloween scuba dive?

Courtney Baker:
Yes, let’s do it.

Blake Stratton:
Let’s go a little bit deeper because we’re introducing two disguises. Things that feel productive or may look productive to other people, but they’re not actually productive. We’ve talked about conversation and we’ve talked about busyness.
Well, just like a Halloween costume, we put it on because it’s about being spooky. It’s really about protecting ourselves from what we’re afraid of. That’s kind of the theme of Halloween. You put on this costume and you’ll appear more scary, but really you’re trying not to get scared yourself. That’s how these productivity disguises work is oftentimes we are afraid. We’re afraid of taking a risk, we’re afraid of failure, we’re afraid of looking stupid. We’re afraid that our best isn’t enough.If I could just stay busy enough or if this meeting went long, then I wouldn’t have to be put to the test of whether I can produce what I really want to produce.
So just as you’ll tell your kid, “Hey, guess what? It’s okay. You’re safe. You don’t have to be afraid.” Let me, in this scuba dive tell you, you don’t have to be afraid. In fact, the less disguise you wear, the more self-confidence you’ll build and that fear can get squashed.

Nick Jaworski:
All right. Today we are going to get another question from the community, one of our favorite things to do. If you’re not a member of the Full Focus Planner community, go on Facebook, search for it. There’s a link in every episode in the description that can take you right there.
So today Courtney’s answering a question. We got a question from Kate. Kate writes, “I know the advice is to focus on two to three goals a quarter. So I’m curious how you mix in habit goals with more concrete goals. I have a few habit goals I’d like to start implementing, but also have a few achievement goals that are on the table for this quarter. I know there aren’t hard rules for the planner, but wanted to see how others juggle mixing achievement and habit goals. Also, how many quarters do you roll your habit goals? Until they are truly habits or indefinitely so it stays a priority?”

Courtney Baker:
Well, that’s a really great question. I think I’m going to take it in reverse on hey, how long do I keep doing a habit goal? Habits are incredible. They’re very powerful, but unfortunately, sometimes habits have to be reinstalled.
I would say in principle, the idea is to try to get it installed in the quarter that you’re trying to achieve the habit goal. That’s kind of the premise of having it as a goal.

Nick Jaworski:
What’s the average days to install a habit? Isn’t this a bit of research that I should know?

Courtney Baker:
Way longer than we think and that’s what it is.

Nick Jaworski:
Okay. Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
What do people say? That it’s 30 days or something like that. That is way longer than that. But the idea in that quarter is to get it installed and habits still may take some focus. I have certainly had habit goals that I have installed in a quarter and then had to come back three quarters later and focus on it again for whatever reason.
With working out, there are seasons where I have it installed. Then I was out on maternity leave or had a baby. Then it was like I got to do this all over again. I wish I didn’t, but I did. So there’s certainly times, or maybe it’s a different type of… I’m going to talk about Peloton because…
By the way, Nick, I run into people that listen to the podcast and they’ll be like, “I ride a Peloton too.” I’m like, “We have got to start a group on there to ride together.”

Nick Jaworski:
Yes. Actually, I will tell you right now that if you did that, I would join it. So I will be there too.

Courtney Baker:
Actually, do you want me to just do it right now and we can start saying that?

Nick Jaworski:
I don’t know. What would that even look… I’m scared suddenly. I went oh no.

Courtney Baker:
Basically you’re scared.

Nick Jaworski:
I’m not in any group, so I don’t know what that means.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah, so basically you would just follow a hashtag and then anytime you’re on, you could see if anybody… Should we call it Full Focus Planner? Any Full Focus riders are also on, and so you can give them extra high fives.
So ideally you’re not doing a habit goal indefinitely. You’re doing it for a quarter, getting it installed with the caveat that there are times where you’ve got to circle back for whatever reason, you may have to reinstall a habit.

Nick Jaworski:
When I’ve done a habit goal as a goal for a quarter, I’ve had this idea where it’s like I’ll do this habit goal and then the next quarter it’s going to build on the previous quarter.
For example, for me it’s often a morning ritual, evening ritual kind of situation where I go, I’m really going to focus on my mornings. I’m really going to focus on my evenings or whatever. But the problem is I’ve found is that because it takes longer than you think to really put these habits in, the moment that I stack that other habit on top too fast, depending on what the habit is, that sometimes everything becomes very destabilized.
So maybe having some time to just internalize that habit, even if it’s not a goal, depending on what it is. Especially if you’re stacking habits, that might be well advised.

Courtney Baker:
Well, I think that is a good caveat. When you’re talking about focusing on a morning ritual or workday startup, those are habits stacks. You basically have a set of habits that are building up to that one package. So you definitely want to be mindful of hey, I’m not just doing one thing like hey, I’m going to start reading for 20 minutes once a day. I’m actually stacking a group of habits I’m trying to install.
So when it comes to kind of your mix with achievement goals and habit goals, we usually recommend no more than one habit goal per quarter, because it does take a different type of energy, and focus and the ability to stack those becomes more and more challenging when you do that. So we recommend trying to keep that to one.
There’s certainly times that you may have habit goals that are in different life domains that work together. So you may have something like the habit goal is we’re going to save $100 a week for every week for how many weeks are in a quarter.

Nick Jaworski:
It’s 13.

Courtney Baker:
13. We’re going to save $100 a week for every week for 13 weeks. That is a habit goal in a sense that you are taking that money and putting it into a savings account. But you may be able to stack that efficiently with hey, I’m going to work out daily. They’re in different life domains and so they could work together.
So it’s not a hard and fast role by any means. We would say usually you just want to have one, certainly one in one life domain. You don’t want to have hey, I’m going to work out and start intermittent fasting, all of this. That’s a lot. Your body is like I hate you. What are you doing to me? So those are some tips to be mindful of when you think of the mix with achievement and habit goals.

Nick Jaworski:
What is a habit goal that you feel like… And I only ask this because pre planner, I remember this process for me. What is a habit goal that you go, I have installed it? It has become… I intentionally set out to include this into my life as a habit and now it is fully ingrained. Not that you don’t have to touch it up every once in a while, but it is there.

Courtney Baker:
That’s a great question. It’s almost hard to identify because they’re habits at this point. You’re like it is just who I am at this point. Well, I was going to say basically anything related to the planner. Weekly preview, setting daily big three, all of those things are real habitual for me to the point that when I don’t do them, if there’s a reason that they don’t happen, it feels like I’m a little out to sea. Oh, what is happening here? This doesn’t feel…
I would say, although it’s still challenging, working out is never for me just easy. But I do feel like it’s always something that I have happening. There’s certainly times where it’s like oh, I may miss some time, but I’m always coming back to it because at this point it is just who I am. I’m just a person that works out and I think that’s what we’re really going for. Even with the planners like that, you Nick speaking directly to you, where you feel like hey, I am a person that plans. That is just who I am.
Even I think the sooner you can take on the identity of the habit that you’re trying to install, the more likely you are to keep it long term. Again, there’s certainly times where you’ve got to focus on it and get it back where you want it, but it’s much easier when it’s part of your identity.

Nick Jaworski:
We should have an episode on that. I love talking about [inaudible 00:20:47].

Courtney Baker:
Yeah, you should. Yeah.

Nick Jaworski:
Hey listeners remind me in case I forget. I’m going to write it down too. But anyway, thanks so much, Courtney, for your wisdom on this topic. You’re stacking all kinds of stuff. You got your Peloton, got your planners, you got your laundry. It’s all happening. What are you working on now?

Courtney Baker:
Well-

Nick Jaworski:
Do you have a habit goal?

Courtney Baker:
I just started a new habit goal with the new quarter and actually just started it. It didn’t start with the quarter because we were gone on vacation, but I feel like it’s the most Enneagram 3 habit.

Nick Jaworski:
What is it?

Courtney Baker:
I don’t know. I feel weird sharing this, but my husband and I started intermittent fasting. When I mean started, we started yesterday, which also was my birthday, which I wouldn’t…

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, happy birthday. How’s it…

Courtney Baker:
Thank you.

Nick Jaworski:
That’s exciting.

Courtney Baker:
Thank you. So we started intermittent fasting yesterday. I’ve kind of talked about this previously. Sometimes with habits, it’s more of an experiment for me. I just am curious, how would that make me feel? What if there’s a thing that if I just did it this way instead of the way I’ve always done it actually made me feel way better?
Yeah, I kind of did that at the beginning of this year and still mainly eat vegetarian, but I don’t know. It’s such an Enneagram 3 thing. You know what? We should just try it and see what works. So anyways, that is a habit goal for the next-

Nick Jaworski:
What is the goal? To eat-

Courtney Baker:
What is it?/ So yes, to basically intermittent fast for right now, just 28 days. So this is an interesting conversation because this isn’t necessarily a habit that I don’t know that I’ll want to continue on. It’s more an experiment of okay, once I get past 28 days to evaluate hey, how do I feel? What have I learned about myself in the last… Do a little after action review on it. But then it may be that yeah, I want to make this part of just who I am, and how I live and move on to the future.

Nick Jaworski:
I want to talk to you about that when we’re not recording. Thank you, Courtney. If you have a question, make sure that you go to the Full Focus Planner community. Sometimes we talk about them on the show, but truly the real value is the community itself. You’re going to get a bunch of great answers from people who are living the life and trying their best with great insights. So go there, link is in the description and I guess this is the end of the segment. That’s how you end a segment, Courtney.

Courtney Baker:
What?

Nick Jaworski:
That’s not how you do it.

Courtney Baker:
So today’s tip to level up your focus is to take five minutes and audit your day. During your workday shutdown, write down everything and I mean everything you remember doing during your workday. Star anything you suspect might be productivity in disguise and estimate the amount of time you spent on those tasks.

Blake Stratton:
Thanks 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 don’t forget to join our Full Focus Planner community on Facebook. We’ll be back next Monday with another great episode. Until then, stay focused.

Blake Stratton:
Stay focused.

Nick Jaworski:
You didn’t snap that time, so it was hard to know.

Courtney Baker:
I know.