170. Give Me a Verb: The Grammar of Goal Setting

Episode Transcript

Nick Jaworski:
Okay, here’s a quick quiz for everybody. What is an adjective?

Verbs Boyer:
First of all, I just appreciate that you pronounced the c in that word. I’ve never heard anybody do that, and I’ve always wondered, is this how we’re supposed to pronounce the word adjective?

Nick Jaworski:
I think it is.

Verbs Boyer:
So high five on the adjective. We’ll go with it. It sounds right to me. Let the comments flow in the Facebook group, whether or not we actually said that right.

Nick Jaworski:
Now, but wait, but who can answer the question of what an adjective is?

Courtney Baker:
I don’t like this game.

Nick Jaworski:
Look, you can speak and write. It doesn’t matter if you’re can identify it. We’re just wondering, do you know what an adjective is?

Courtney Baker:
I mean, I think-

Blake Stratton:
An adjective is nice. An adjective is fun. An adjective is sweet.

Verbs Boyer:
An adjective describes a word that precedes it. Is that correct, kind of?

Nick Jaworski:
Well, I don’t want to-

Verbs Boyer:
It’s a descriptive word.

Nick Jaworski:
I don’t want to get confused with adverbs.

Blake Stratton:
An adverb is when in the beginning of the podcast, Verbs tells everyone that there’s a 10% discount on the full focus planner. That’s what an adverb is.

Nick Jaworski:
Oh!

Verbs Boyer:
Nice. Nice. We weren’t going to be able to get through this entire episode without it.

Blake Stratton:
We weren’t. But verbs is verbs but today we’re talking about a different kind of verb. Maybe, I think we could all agree, maybe not as cool to talk about the parts of speech, verbs versus the person Verbs. Probably not. But it is very important. Maybe the most important part of speech for what we’re talking about today, right guys?

Courtney Baker:
That’s right. So today we are going to do a little crash course on verbs, why they’re important for goal setting and how to leverage verbs.

Verbs Boyer:
Welcome to another episode of Focus On This. This is 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 Blake Stratton, actually the dancing Blake Stratton is what I’m going to refer to him as today. Happy Monday to you all.

Courtney Baker:
Happy Monday.

Blake Stratton:
Happy Monday unto you Verbs. It’s great to dance with you or dance near you in a little virtual box.

Courtney Baker:
Yes, so Verbs, we heard that we were going to do a little refresher on what a verb is, but it just doesn’t seem right that anybody else but you should teach the audience what’s a verb?

Verbs Boyer:
Yes, funny that you should ask that question as it does seem fitting. We all know, hopefully that verbs are words of action, words that describe actionable items in speech. According to Merriam-Webster, if we want to get super technical verbs are words that show action, sing, run, jump, dance, or an occurrence like develop or-

Nick Jaworski:
Grow.

Blake Stratton:
Podcast.

Nick Jaworski:
… develop. Podcast, there you go.

Blake Stratton:
Casting pod.

Nick Jaworski:
That’s an excellent. Casting pod, podcast. We must keep in mind though, not all verbs are made equal. You have strong verbs such as catch, ride, eliminate, create, run, automate, higher, but then you also have weaker verbs, such as be or become words of that nature.

Blake Stratton:
Well, the strong versus weak is an important distinction when it comes to what we’re talking about, which is goals. Strong verbs matter. If you say, for instance, I want to be healthy, that’s a weaker, more cloudy, less actionable way to think about that goal. And goals require actions. That’s what makes them different from just a wish or an aspiration. So choosing the word, actually getting granular and thinking about, well, what is a verb, a strong verb that can help me understand the very first steps to getting started on my goal, choosing that strong verb is going to make your goal clearer and easier to get started and ultimately to accomplish.

Courtney Baker:
Well, and this is really kind of the next step from what we talked about last week on answering the question of who you want to become. If you thought about that and you were like, what I really want to become is an author, I really want to write that book that I’ve thought about for so long. Well, to do that, you need to write a book. And so the way to craft your goal is that verb should be right. What is the rest of that goal? Craft that out. But figuring out who you want to become and then what’s the verb? What’s the action that’s going to actually get you there? Another example might be, you said last week, I really want to be someone who is fit. I want to become someone that is in really great shape. Again, that’s a great aspiration, but to make it actionable, you got to figure out what’s the verb here?
You could try something like completing a CrossFit program or hiring a personal trainer or training for a marathon or buying a Peloton, I’m just kidding. You’ve got verbs in there. And maybe something like you decided, I really want to have a more balanced life. I’ve spent so much of my life focusing on this one area that I realize now that I need to have a more balanced life. You could try implementing rituals, you could hire an executive assistant or apply for a new job. Basically, this is the next step. Again, who do you want to become? And then what are the verbs? What are the actions? What are the things that you need to do to create the goal, to help you achieve it?

Blake Stratton:
As I’m thinking about this, I realized how could I play with verbs and what if I… Obviously I want to play with Verbs, we’re going to probably write a rap song together after this. Right Verbs? We’ll just you be on-

Verbs Boyer:
No comment.

Blake Stratton:
And I’ll-

Verbs Boyer:
No comment.

Blake Stratton:
Okay, cool. Well, but just literally just playing around with words may give you different ideas about your goals. As you were going through that list, Courtney, I was thinking about how it seems like I always have some kind of goal around earning and that’s just a word, a verb that I’ve used for the last several quarters, probably the last several years is like, oh, earn X, or maybe it’s generate X revenue for the business or this, and then I was thinking, well, what are other verbs that I could use related to that? And one of the verbs I haven’t necessarily used in the past, only because it doesn’t tick that box of really exciting is saving.
And yet that is a thing that I want the result of having saved. And so I was like, well, what’s another verb? And I was like, oh, accumulate. That actually sounds more fun. And it’s weird how just a little bit of wordplay makes me go, “Oh, maybe next time I’m setting goals instead of just having to be earning, I’ll be, well, I want to accumulate this,” which will require me to probably earn and probably save and probably invest or do other things. But I don’t know, just to give a real life example, an encouragement, I guess is just playing around with this for a few minutes to think about, well what’s a verb that’s strong, that lights me up when I hear it? Those are good signs that you’re on the right track and can start giving you creative ideas for actually following me through on your goal.

Courtney Baker:
Hey, I have Jim Kelly who was on the podcast a few weeks ago talking about some of his favorite hacks and I had to have him back. He had just a wealth of information. And so Jim, welcome back to the podcast. Before you say hi, I will say for anybody that missed the last time they were on, Jim, you’ve been at Full Focus for seven years and I think that whole time you’ve been Michael’s executive assistant and you have… We call Michael the prince of productivity here on Focus on This. And so not only have you been working very close with Michael, but you also have a really unique giftedness in this area as well. So welcome back.

Jim Kelly:
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. If he’s the prince, what does that make me? Am I the jester?

Courtney Baker:
The knight?

Jim Kelly:
The knight? I like that.

Courtney Baker:
The court jester of productivity.

Jim Kelly:
I like that.

Courtney Baker:
The knight of productivity, yeah. I like that better. All right, let’s just jump into some more of your favorite hacks. What do you have for us, Jim?

Jim Kelly:
Okay, so if you guys are watching online with us today through YouTube or whatever platform you’re using, you would see that I’m wearing the same exact thing that I was wearing last time. And the reason is I have five of the same shirts and people, this is not new to many people, but I have a uniform, a work uniform that I use. And the only things that I differentiate throughout the year is if I’m wearing a T-shirt or if I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt. So right now it’s like 70 degrees outside in Nashville, so I’m wearing a T-shirt but if you caught me in the winter, you would see me wearing a quarter zip.
And I do this because it just takes the guessing game out of what I’m going to wear, one less decision that I have to make. Steve Jobs famously did this. Obama famously had only a blue and a gray suit that he wore. So it’s not new, but it’s something that I utilize because I figured some of the greatest minds in history do it, so I’ll steal from them. So that’s just one small hack that you could use of try to find something that you’re comfortable in, that you look good in. I hopefully look good in this, I definitely feel comfortable in this. And then buy a few of those to take the guessing game out of what you’re going to wear for the day.

Courtney Baker:
Okay, so I actually read an article from a woman that did the same thing and she actually went into an office and her whole hypothesis was just, I want to see how long it takes for someone to say something or notice it. I want to say it was two weeks before someone said… I can’t remember what they said and maybe they did start to notice and didn’t say anything. I do think sometimes you just… People love clothes. Personally, I do. I enjoy buying clothes. Anybody surprised by that? No. But I do think, especially when you have two working parents, Jim, I know you and I have that in common.
You have small children or even older children and then you’ve got all… You’ve just got a lot of decisions that have to be made in the course of the day and so eliminating as many of those as possible. I would say another version of this that I’ve played around with, rather than having the same outfit every day, is having the same outfit every Monday, every Tuesday, every Wednesday. And so you get a little more variety during the week, but essentially you’ve still taken that decision-making process out of it. I love that one.

Jim Kelly:
Yeah. To go back to what you said before, I think the article, I think I might have read the same article or a similar article for those that are interested in learning more about this hack, I think it’s called Project 333. So you wear, I think it’s 33 articles of clothing for three months. So we can link to that in the show notes and then the Minimalism documentary is really great and that is also featured… Project 333 is featured in that documentary. I love this stuff, the minimalism and the uniform.

Courtney Baker:
All right, what’s your next hack?

Jim Kelly:
All right, next hack up is this Time Timer. So for those, again, that are watching, it’s called the Time Timer. I think you could get this on Amazon or just the Time Timer website, but I use it for really timing the time that I’m going to spend on a specific task. So we’ve all heard of the Pomodoro Technique. I use the Pomodoro Technique times two. So I found best that 50 minute time clocks work for me. The original Pomodoro Technique is 25 minutes and then five minutes off. For me I find that 50 minutes works better. I feel like I could get further in a certain task and then I take 10 minutes off. But yeah, this is super simple. I think it’s 30 bucks. You could probably find something even cheaper on Amazon, but I really spend my day doing that. So I say, “Okay, what’s the one thing that I want to do during these 15-minute time block that I can accomplish?”
And then I try to shut out all the other distractions that I’m dealing with, whether it’s Slack or email or my phone, and then focus on that one thing. And what typically happens is I finish that thing faster than I would have had if I didn’t have that timer on, and then I’m able to go to the next task in my task list. So it’s a simple one, but it’s tried and true and it works. But yeah, just having that physical representation instead of just looking at your computer clock of like, “Okay, I’ll stop at 11:00,” but then this chimes after the timer’s done. So it gives you that just added benefit and you’re not using your phone as an alarm which could get sticky. So yeah, it’s a great hack that I’ve used.

Courtney Baker:
I need to share a story about how this tool, this hack actually helped you smoke everybody in the company at a walking competition. I think that you were still using this methodology back when we did this. And I think at that time, correct me Jim if I’m wrong, but we were having a steps challenge and your timer would go off and then you would take a quick loop, come back in, do your next project, and absolutely, Nick, I don’t even think you would understand the number of steps that Jim Kelly put on the rest of us. It was like, I’m sorry, are you human? I don’t know. It was amazing.

Nick Jaworski:
That news trickled down to me because I was working closely at the time with somebody who was like, “Oh, maybe I can win the steps challenge.” And then pretty quickly it was like, “Oh no, I am not going to be able to.”

Jim Kelly:
Yeah, I get super competitive on things that I think I could win. On certain things that I think I can’t win, and maybe this is a threeness nature. You could tell me about this, Courtney.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah, it is. It 100% is.

Jim Kelly:
Yeah. So I hate doing things that I don’t think I could win so like gingerbread competition, we have this annual gingerbread competition at Full Focus that I freaking hate because I know that I can’t win it.

Courtney Baker:
And on the flip side, I am all in on the gingerbread contest, but as soon as I’m up against Jim in a walking competition, I’m like, I’m out, you all.

Jim Kelly:
Yeah, yeah. But I did, you’re right, I did use this as part of my victory there. I would work for 50 minutes and then my timer would go off and then I would have 10 minutes of break time. And I have a great loop around my neighborhood then I would go for a run because it would be more steps than just walking. So I would run for two blocks and then I’d come back and continue working and yeah, that’s how I won.

Courtney Baker:
There you go. There’s the winning formula for a steps competition in case you were wondering. I think all the ones, all the hacks you have left, we can do in kind of a speed round of hacks. So if you’re listening, get ready. Jim’s about to give you a lot of tools and hacks.

Jim Kelly:
Yes, yes. Knock these out. I think there are five total that I have, so I’ll go through these quickly. First one, Focusmate. We’ve talked about this before, but Focusmate is great because you could get paired up with someone and it’s kind of similar to what we talked about earlier about time blocking and giving yourself a timetable of doing a specific task. But just go to Focusmate, I think it’s focusmate.com and you get paired up with someone that’s also focused on a certain task to do. So that’s the first thing. And then the second thing is it’s a Chrome extension, it’s called SpeedUp. A lot of Netflix and YouTube have this already built in, but you sometimes have to click an extra button to speed up the video that you’re listening to. But this Google Chrome extension is called SpeedUp. It allows you to automatically speed up whatever video you’re listening to or watching. So whether it be Netflix or Prime or YouTube, whatever, it speeds up the video. So that’s a way to go-

Courtney Baker:
Or a Loom? Will it do a Loom?

Jim Kelly:
It will do a Loom as well, yeah. So you don’t have to click that extra button.

Courtney Baker:
What about a Zoom meeting that you’re on live? Can it make that go faster?

Jim Kelly:
I wish. I wish. No. Doesn’t have that technology, but I wish it did. The next one is… It’s another extension on Google Chrome, it’s called the Honey extension and it will search-

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Jim Kelly:
Do you use this Courtney? Yeah, yeah.

Courtney Baker:
Yes. Yeah.

Jim Kelly:
It searches the websites, all the internet for promo codes, so you don’t have to do that silly thing where you’re Googling promo code for whatever website you’re on, Bed Bath & Beyond, or Walgreens. It searches the entire website to see which promo codes are active and will work so you don’t have to do that legwork. Two more. The Libby App, most libraries have this, but it’s a great app for listening to eBooks and downloading books to your Kindle for free. So they’re just tagged to your library. So as long as you have a library card and your library uses Libby as associated with Libby, you could get access to all these free books from your library on Kindle or your e-device. So Libby-

Nick Jaworski:
I know that this is a speed round, but I don’t… Audio books are expensive, stupidly expensive and so when my friends kept talking about Libby, I was like, I don’t know, whatever. It really is great. I want to say out loud, if you’re walking a lot or working out or laundry every day or dish whatever, the Libby App really is a great simple, easy tool. It’s amazing. And you just put things on hold, they pop up. It’s great.

Courtney Baker:
Guys, is this like a replacement for my Audible account? Am I going to be able to lose Audible?

Nick Jaworski:
Yes.

Jim Kelly:
It’s like a library so some of them are on hold. If it’s a really popular book, it might be a while until you get it. So if you’re quick start in nature and you’re like, “I need to have this book now,” Audible’s the way to go. I also use Scribd, which is a subscription, it’s similar to Audible, but it has audio books as well as e-device books. And that has a lot more that you could have access to right now. You don’t have to wait for the library. That’s more money or it’s less-

Courtney Baker:
I got to check this out.

Jim Kelly:
… money than Audible. Yeah, it’s less money than Audible, but it’s more money than Libby. Libby’s free because it’s the library. But yeah, if you’re okay waiting for a book, I think the Libby App is the way to go. And finally the last one in the speed around is Otter. We’ve probably talked about this before on the podcast, but Otter for transcribing. So we use it for meetings if we want to transcribe meeting notes. I use it for some of Michael’s meetings. If he does a coaching call with someone, I’ll listen to that transcript and I’ll listen to it on 2X so I’ll listen to it fast and then it gives me… because I’m taking notes for the meeting, it allows me to just copy and paste instead of manually typing, what was the thing that they just said? I could just copy and paste from the transcript onto their session notes.
So Otter for transcribing and then it’s easily searchable as well. So if you get done with a meeting, you probably don’t want to review the entire transcript again, but you might say, “Okay, what was that key word that we were talking about before? Oh, we were talking about marketing. Okay, let me search the transcript for marketing.” And then it’ll take you to the places in the conversation where you talked about marketing and then you could re-listen to that part of the conversation.

Courtney Baker:
Can I ask a clarifying question that I think might be helpful for people that do notes or in a lot of meetings where they’re taking action items. In that call that you just were referencing, are you attending the original meeting as well? Are you doing all the notes post meeting?

Jim Kelly:
I’m doing all the notes post meeting. That’s a good question.

Courtney Baker:
And so you’re able to save half the time because you’re listening at 2X-

Jim Kelly:
Exactly.

Courtney Baker:
… and pulling those names from the transcript.

Jim Kelly:
I’m able to probably take better notes, more in depth notes than I would be if I was actually attending the meetings because I could just see what are the main points. And sometimes I go back at the notes after I’m done creating them. I’m like, “Oh, actually that wasn’t really important. We didn’t really talk about that.” But if I was actually in the meeting, I’d be like, “Oh, this is really important,” at the time. So yeah, Michael has Zoom tied to Otter so automatically all of his Zoom meetings go into Otter. So that’s another hack that you could integrate those two platforms so you don’t have to actually-

Courtney Baker:
Well, I said it saves you half the time, it’s probably more than that when you take into account like bathroom breaks and grabbing lunch if it’s a longer meeting. I mean, it is probably a third of the time that you save by doing it that way. There’s some very happy people listening to this podcast right now. Well Jim, thanks again for joining us and sharing your wisdom as the knight of productivity.

Jim Kelly:
Thank you.

Courtney Baker:
And we’ll have to have you back again soon.

Jim Kelly:
I would love that. Take care, Courtney.

Verbs Boyer:
Today’s level up tip to level up your focus today, and just to underscore what you said because I think this is a critical key point that most people miss or underestimate the intentionality behind selecting the right verb and so what could be helpful for you today is if you think back to your list of five ways that you want to grow in the coming year, and then pick three ways that you could move toward becoming that person using strong verbs. And if it helps, hey, pull out that Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, do a word search that really describes the verb that you want to lead with, that you do find exciting. If it’s going from earning to accumulate because that’s more exciting for you, but then by all means lead with that. But don’t underestimate the power of using a strong verb as you formulate your goal. And with that, 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 don’t forget to join our Full Focus Planner community on Facebook. We’ll be back next Monday with another great episode. Until then, remember to know de-verbs. Is that right? That’s it, right?

Verbs Boyer:
What’s happening right now? Hey, that was great. Courtney, you get the trophy.

Courtney Baker:
Thank you.

Verbs Boyer:
That was amazing.

Courtney Baker:
So go look up Verbs on Apple Music, hear the hits, and until then, stay focused.

Blake Stratton:
Stay focused.

Verbs Boyer:
Stay focused.

Blake Stratton:
That was awesome.

Verbs Boyer:
Great work.

Nick Jaworski:
Verbs’ what is happening right now is the funniest thing I’ve heard in days.