268. Spring Clean Your Life

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Ken: Marissa, it’s finally March!

[00:00:03] Marissa: I know, how is it March?

[00:00:05] Ken: You know what that means?

[00:00:06] Marissa: No, what does it mean?

[00:00:07] Ken: It means it’s spring!

[00:00:09] Marissa: Yes!

[00:00:10] Ken: Finally! All the rain here in Nashville and Minnesota, that means more snow, but what it does mean for a lot of people is spring cleaning.

[00:00:21] Marissa: Yes.

[00:00:21] Ken: Uh, so I gotta ask you Marissa, what is the most unexpected thing you have ever rediscovered while spring cleaning?

[00:00:28] Marissa: Oh my gosh. I don’t know about unexpected, but I have found in years past where I had these boxes that I used to keep my notes in from like middle and high school. Aw. It is so fun to read through those and that’s kind of a fun little unexpected treat.

[00:00:51] Ken: Yeah, that’s great. You’re so sentimental, like to find those things.

[00:00:56] For me, one time, we were going to buy my wife a road [00:01:00] bike, or like a triathlon bike. She used to do triathlons. And, uh, we were going to buy it used. We ended up getting ready to buy it and the person gave it to us for free.

[00:01:08] Oh.

[00:01:09] Ken: They were just like, they love my wife’s story and they just hooked us up with it.

[00:01:12] And I’m like, Oh, that’s awesome. So I saved like 300 bucks, right? We’re going to go somewhere with a friend that same time when we picked it up. So I took the 300 and I couldn’t quite remember where I put it. So then the next day my wife’s like, Hey, where’s the 300? And I’m like, I think they’re in my pant pocket.

[00:01:28] And I couldn’t find them anywhere for years. Until we actually moved to Nashville when we were like spring cleaning and we found it in this like random drawer With clothes in it. I’m like, hey, look what I found. So like five years later 300.

[00:01:45] Marissa: I have found money in like coat pockets and stuff, which is definitely fun

[00:01:49] Ken: Oh, 100%.

[00:01:50] 300 was nice. I was like, yeah, anytime

[00:01:53] Marissa: you find cash, that’s a good problem. I don’t really use cash anymore, so I don’t, I’m not finding it.

[00:01:59] Ken: [00:02:00] Yeah. Uh, well, you know, this happens to us a lot, right? Where we can unexpectedly find these things, but what’s worse actually is that our spaces have a way of getting cluttered.

[00:02:10] Right. All over our house. I have four kids at home. There’s chaos all the time. There’s like new toys that magically appear. I don’t know where they come from. What’s unexpected actually is that our lives can get really cluttered. So today, what we’re going to talk about is spring cleaning your life.

[00:02:27] Yes.

[00:02:27] Let’s jump

[00:02:28] Ken: into it.

[00:02:33] Marissa: 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 Marissa Hyatt and I’m here with my incredible co host, Ken Ferreira.

[00:02:50] Ken: Hey, happy Monday.

[00:02:52] Marissa: Happy Monday. Happy March. Oh, I’m excited about this episode.

[00:02:56] I feel like I can definitely use spring cleaning [00:03:00] of my life. Yes.

[00:03:01] Ken: I feel like I could always get rid of stuff.

[00:03:03] Marissa: Yes, I know. I feel like I love to purge. I love a good day where you just clean out a closet or something and just purge stuff. So hopefully today we’re going to help you do that, but for your life, you know, and stuff is just, it naturally accumulates, right?

[00:03:20] Like it just always feels like it’s multiplying. It’s has a whole life of its own, especially if we’re not paying attention to it. And so we’re going to walk through some of our favorite tools, which. We’re really excited to share with you that hopefully will become your favorites too. And one of our favorites is called the not to do list.

[00:03:44] Ken: Yeah, Joel, our chief product officer has always wanted to change the name to the to don’t list.

[00:03:50] Yeah. Let us

[00:03:51] Ken: know which one sounds better. But the not to do list or the to don’t list, right? It’s, it’s supposed to help you subtract things from your life. [00:04:00] Too many times what ends up happening is that we just keep adding thinking that we could just fit it into the crevices.

[00:04:07] But the reality is that we want to start to subtract things because when we subtract things it helps you make space for more of what you actually do want to do. So subtraction helps us eliminate that busy feeling that we are left with whenever we get stuff done that actually, ultimately, proceeds to having stress in your life because you’d never feel like you’re accomplishing anything.

[00:04:30] Marissa: Well, it’s like if you have a crazy cluttered closet or house. It makes you feel crazy and cluttered

[00:04:38] and

[00:04:38] Marissa: it’s the same way when we have so many things just on our to do list. It makes you feel frantic and busy and overwhelmed. I was just literally earlier today on with one of our double wind coaching clients and she was talking about how she felt so overwhelmed and she didn’t know how to take things out of her list because everything had to be done.[00:05:00]

[00:05:00] And she’s like, I’ve got to get everything done right now. And so we had, we talked through a lot of the strategies we’re talking about today, but specifically how to subtract some of those things off of your to do list. So we’ve got four categories that we’re going to walk through today, and I’m really excited about this.

[00:05:18] So category one is tasks. thinking about what you typically do in a day. And the truth is, there’s probably some things that you’re doing that you actually just don’t need to do anymore. So this could be related to your work. This could be your, you know, in your professional life. This could also be in your personal life.

[00:05:40] So how do we know what to cut? Can

[00:05:42] Ken: a couple of things that you got to think about is number one. Realize that some things aren’t important at all. They’re just not. I’ll give you a great example. I was in a, I was, uh, on a coaching call this morning, talking to an individual and he had a similar situation.

[00:05:57] He was like, I just feel like everything needs to happen today [00:06:00] and right now. And I know this sounds so simple, but I asked him, I’m like, is it really that important that you get it accomplished today? And he’s like, um, I think so. I’m like, are you sure? Like, tell me what the problem, what the task is. And he told me, I’m like, do you really need to do that today?

[00:06:16] And he’s like, I guess I don’t. And he just had this revelation. He’s like, I’ve self imposed these pressures on myself. So the first one is some things aren’t important at all. The other one is that some things aren’t important anymore. Like they used to be important, but not anymore. I love this one. Cause there are times in my life where people are like, you need to do this report and I’m like, okay, why?

[00:06:39] They’re like, this super important. Cause we’re tracking metrics and I’m like, sounds great. And I would just do them for months at a time. And then one time I was like, I just stopped to see if people were asking for it. And then he never asked for it. So I’m like, I guess it’s not important anymore. So I’m not going to do it.

[00:06:53] Then the third one is that some things aren’t important to you. There might be important to someone else, [00:07:00] but not important to you. And this is huge for all of you who are listening to this, right? When you’re trying to figure out what should you cut a big mental issue or mindset issue you may be having is that you are a people pleaser.

[00:07:12] So you do things because other people have imposed it on yourself, but they’re not really important to you. So make sure you are able to delineate what stuff is actually important to you and what stuff is important to other people and sometimes you just got to tell them now. Which leads to the last one, which is some things aren’t important enough or not worth the lift.

[00:07:33] This can happen so many times when we feel like there’s a lot of things on the to do list. You just want to do all of them and you’re like, They’re not important right now, or they’re just not important enough.

[00:07:42] Marissa: Well, I think what I loved that you said in there, Ken, is that you talked about if you just stop doing it.

[00:07:49] You know, is anybody going to ask you for it or are you even going to notice? So often we end up carrying on tasks over and over [00:08:00] again because we did them at one point. They were important at one point in our life or we thought they were, or somebody told us they were. And the truth is a lot of that stuff, if we just stopped, Does anybody even notice that we stop and just like you I’ve done similar kind of experiments where I’ve tried where I’ve stopped certain things and on occasion, that person will come knocking, you know, or you’ll notice, oh, wait, I actually do need to keep doing that because it helps me be more efficient in this or that, or it helps, you know, keep this train moving along and on occasion, sometimes it’s like nobody notices, not even me.

[00:08:38] That I’m not doing any.

[00:08:40] Ken: You know, I was thinking about, uh, Marisa, you, I don’t know if you remember this, but this happened maybe last September, October, I had stopped doing our financial reports for a while or like putting in our expenses. And then at one point Marisa, you texted me and you’re like, Hey.

[00:08:55] You need to get these done again. I’m like, okay. But I was just [00:09:00] checking. I’m like, how important are these? Like, are we actually keeping track? And then you gently reminded me and I’m like, okay. Well, there’s certain

[00:09:06] Marissa: things like that that are important, but sometimes you need to test it. So kind of asking yourself as we’re going through this, you know, what are some things that maybe you’re doing right now that if you just stopped, nobody would notice or maybe you wouldn’t even notice if you just stopped.

[00:09:24] So ask yourself that. So let’s move on to category number two, which is meetings. Now this is kind of similar. I’m going to give you guys a real life example of this. So one of the biggest culprits here to spring clean out are recurring meetings. Okay, these are super sneaky. They end up on the calendar because at some point in time we said this was important for us to have this on the calendar.

[00:09:50] And this happened to me recently where I was feeling really overwhelmed when I looked at my calendar for the week. I had so many meetings. [00:10:00] That were just, it was like week after week after week. I was just in so many meetings and I was talking to my sister, Megan, who’s our CEO here, who happens to also be my boss.

[00:10:11] And she was like, well, what are, what are the meetings that you feel like are eating your time up? And I’d shared with her some of those and the majority were all recurring meetings. They were things that at one point in time we had said we need to have a recurring meeting about this. And so she reminded me of that, you know, some things are important at one time, but maybe they’re not anymore.

[00:10:34] And so I was able to clear some of those recurring meetings off of my calendar. That really just aren’t that efficient anymore. And what I like to do now is rather than just sticking a recurring meeting on my calendar, I actually will only put on, unless it’s like a one on one meeting or something like that.

[00:10:53] If it involves a team, I only will put on meetings now on my calendar that are like specific to one [00:11:00] topic. So it’s not something that’s just like every single week or every month. I have this recurring meeting that happens over and over again, outside of my one on one meetings. I don’t do that. I make myself ask the question, why is this important?

[00:11:15] What am I trying to accomplish before I even put it on my calendar? So recurring meetings are very, very sneaky.

[00:11:22] Ken: Yeah, another practical tip, very similar question to Marissa was saying is I always ask myself, do I really need to be at this meeting?

[00:11:30] Yeah.

[00:11:30] Ken: So I, I do this quite often with Marissa cause I look at my, my week, I’m like, Hey Marissa, do I really need to be at this meeting?

[00:11:35] And she’d be like, Oh yeah, you can, you need to be at it for X, Y, Z. Or sometimes she’s like, actually you don’t need to be at it. I’m like, great. You know, like I’ve just cleaned out my schedule. The more regularity that you force yourself. So do that. Like, do I really need to be here? Do I really need to be in this meeting?

[00:11:50] The more you save up your time.

[00:11:52] Marissa: Well, and asking the question too, of like, does this meeting need to happen at this frequency or [00:12:00] even the link? So often our default is to put a meeting on our calendar for an hour.

[00:12:06] It’s like,

[00:12:07] Marissa: you really need an hour. What if you only had 30 minutes to talk about that? Or better yet, what if you only had 15 minutes?

[00:12:14] Could you get to the conclusion faster if you only had 15 minutes to talk about something?

[00:12:20] Ken: Yeah.

[00:12:21] Marissa: Probably.

[00:12:21] Ken: 100%. I mean, if you think about most 30 minute meetings or an hour meeting, the first 10 minutes, you’re just like hanging out, kicking around, personal, catch it up, right? But if you only have 15 minutes, you’re just going to get right to the point.

[00:12:32] Like here’s the problem. Here’s the thing. In and out, right? Like sometimes you can do it in 10 minutes. I had a boss once who had scheduled seven minute meetings. So you’d have to come in with like, what exactly is a problem? What are the three solutions that you already had in place? And what do you need from the boss?

[00:12:49] Marissa: Oh, I like that.

[00:12:51] Ken: It was just seven minutes and I’m like, okay, here we go. You know, in and out, super helpful.

[00:12:55] Marissa: As you’re thinking about your meetings and you look at your calendar [00:13:00] and you’re thinking about this concept of spring cleaning, you know, be ruthless here. Look at your calendar and ask what just isn’t important at all.

[00:13:09] You know, like Ken said, what are some things that are important or aren’t important anymore? What’s maybe not important to you, but is important to somebody else? And what are some things that are important that aren’t important enough to stay on your calendar? So asking that question about the meetings on your calendar can be really helpful to just clear the decks and allow you to actually get to the work.

[00:13:47] Okay, let’s talk about Category three, relationship.

[00:13:49] Ken: This one can be a sensitive topic, okay? Sometimes you’ve got to spring clean your relationships. Now before anyone calls in, we don’t mean giving up on the [00:14:00] people you love or getting rid of them. There are some people in your life that are just negative and they’re just constant drain.

[00:14:09] Uh, they’re like vampires. They’re just sucking the life out of you.

[00:14:12] Yeah. Right.

[00:14:12] Ken: They don’t want to change or grow. There will be times that you’re going to need to pull back from these relationships by degrees, right, so that you could, that that can help you so that I could give you some energy back.

[00:14:24] Again, we’re not saying give them up entirely there. There’s a. Conversations that need to be had or different things that you need to do before that. But there are some relationships that you just have to assess. And then sometimes I have found that there are some relationships that the season has ended.

[00:14:39] It’s not that they’re bad, but, you know, like for me, sometimes I move from a different state, so those relationships change. So now you’re going to have to have different conversations. You’re not going to be hanging out every once a week or, you know, being on the phone once every two weeks. Life just changes and you have to start to saying who are the relationships [00:15:00] that you want to be a part of today in this season of life that are going to get you to the next place.

[00:15:05] Marissa: Well, and if you think about, I think, I’m trying to remember who was the first person to say this, I don’t know who it was, you know, but this concept that you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. And if you think about that, like literally just stop for a second, who are five people that you spend most of your time with and your kids don’t count, but who are the five people that you spend the most time with?

[00:15:29] Think about that and just take a second, like take a mental note of who those five people are. Do you want to be like those people? Are those people that are going to encourage you, that are going to push you to be your best self, you know, that are encouraging you across the board? Are they people that inspire you, that uplift you?

[00:15:49] And if the answer is no and you have some agency over those relationships, then either how can you show up better and influence those relationships [00:16:00] or maybe that season has ended for those relationships. You know, friendship breakups, so to speak, can be really hard, but sometimes they are necessary. And that can be really helpful for.

[00:16:13] Kind of launching you into this next season where you’re able to fully show up. My encouragement to you guys is rather than ask yourself, who do you necessarily need to let go of in your life? Ask yourself, who are five people in your life that you want to invest in? Those relationships, those people that are priorities to you, those people that you want to be like, that you aspire to be like, that you know will encourage you, motivate you, those five relationships are the most important ones, and then allow the other relationships in your life to not take up as much priority.

[00:16:49] Ken: Yeah, that’s a really good way to think about it, Marissa. Because even as you said that, I started thinking about like, my natural tendency is, I’m a loyal individual, so I’m always going to try to keep everybody around. Right. So I’m like, Oh, who do I want to [00:17:00] get rid of? I’m like, Oh, hun, I see this quality and this quality and this quality.

[00:17:03] And like, I’m gonna keep them. We’re like, Oh, who’s going to take me to the next level of where I want to go. Immediately. I started thinking about five people that I want to invest in and like with my family and stuff. I was like, it’s just a different perspective. I love it. Right. Leads us to category number four, opportunities.

[00:17:22] Man, this one was, is a hard one, but it’s such a good one to think about when you are spring cleaning, you got to spring clean your opportunities because life is full of them. There’s going to be people demanding so much of you and demanding your time and energy and giving you opportunities. If it doesn’t get you where you want to go, it’s not an opportunity.

[00:17:45] It’s a distraction. I’m going to say that again. If it’s not going to get you where you want to go, it’s not an opportunity. It’s a distraction. So as you’re considering the opportunities you might have in the coming months, What shouldn’t you do? [00:18:00] You might have to back out of some, you might have to preemptively say no.

[00:18:04] You might know about things that are coming through the pipeline that you’re gonna like, okay, nope, that’s not the thing that I want. I’m in a season where my kids are really young. I want to invest a lot of time, uh, with them that I’m saying no a lot to things that I, in the past I would’ve loved to do it, but it’s just like I don’t have the time for it.

[00:18:22] So recognize that this exercise is like choosing not to buy the thing. You’ll probably end up. donating later. I don’t know how many times that has happened, right? Where it’s just like, Oh, we’re like, Oh, let’s get this thing. And I’m like, no, no, no, just get rid of it. Just get rid of as much stuff as possible.

[00:18:37] Marissa: So I heard years ago, actually on an Instagram post, this woman who was talking about how, like, you know, we have this tendency to just want to buy things Somebody showed it to us. We get online on Instagram and we see all these people showing all these different products and we’re like, Oh yeah, Oh my gosh, I totally need that thing.

[00:18:58] She asked the question [00:19:00] or challenged her, her viewers to ask themselves the question, did I need this before I saw it? And that is a filter to help you not just say yes, because all of a sudden that thing is in front of you, but to actually say like, did I need this thing? Was I already searching for this thing before I saw it?

[00:19:20] And That’s true, you know, and that’s helpful if you’re trying to like cut down on how much you’re spending and that kind of thing. But you can translate this to your opportunities. Were you seeking out this type of opportunity before it showed up for you? And I’ll give you an example of this in my own personal life, which is I love traveling.

[00:19:38] Okay. You guys need to know probably about anything. In life, like the number one thing I’m always going to want to say yes to is traveling. If somebody’s like, Hey, do you want to go on this trip? Is it? Yes. Tell me where, when, where do I need to show up? I’m already booking my flight as we’re talking like, absolutely.

[00:19:55] So I have some specific goals this year. I had shared with [00:20:00] you guys that I’m working on this garden that I’m so excited about. I was talking about that on our episode last week. I’m going to be landscaping my backyard. I’m also, this first quarter, I’ve been working to pay off a credit card that is almost paid off.

[00:20:14] And then I’m about to switch now to putting, um, and kind of investing into my backyard. Well, one of my sisters came to me and was like, Hey, I want to go to Peru this year. I want you to come, which I’ve been to Peru with her before. We had the best time. It’s one of my favorites. Favorite trips I’ve ever taken.

[00:20:30] And she was like, I want to go with you. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I, I would love to go. Like, of course I want to go to Peru. Yes.

[00:20:37] Ken: You started booking your tickets. You’re like, okay,

[00:20:39] Marissa: I mean, I like looking at tickets. I’m like, okay, like got it. This is great. When do we want to go? Like we’re planning out dates.

[00:20:45] She’s planning out the whole itinerary, this whole thing. And I had to have this really hard moment with myself where I said. I actually don’t think I can commit to this opportunity right now. As much as I want to go to [00:21:00] Peru and maybe I will in a few months, it’ll be different when I look at that opportunity.

[00:21:03] But right now I have other priorities and those priorities are in direct conflict with taking a trip to Peru. So this is where I wasn’t thinking about going to Peru before she came to me with that opportunity. I wasn’t already seeking out that trip before she came to me. So my challenge to y’all as, as you’re listening to this and as you’re thinking through the opportunities that are showing up in your life, ask yourself, did you want that opportunity?

[00:21:31] Were you seeking that opportunity out before it showed up in your life? And if the answer is no, I’m going to challenge you to say no to that opportunity, which is really hard. Take some good discipline and spiritual practice, but my encouragement is that it will help you actually stay focused on the things that you actually care about and those priorities you really want to move forward on.

[00:21:53] Ken: And y’all, I don’t think you understand. When she says how hard that decision was for her, like her note I’m still

[00:21:59] Marissa: [00:22:00] questioning it in this moment. I’m like, I don’t even know if I want this to air on the episode, because what if I decide I want to go to Peru?

[00:22:06] Ken: I know, that’s why I was like, like it’s part of like, one of her top five core values is that she’s out traveling in nature, and it’s like, I’m like, wow, she said no to that?

[00:22:14] That’s impressive. Well, and I

[00:22:16] Marissa: will say too, No right now doesn’t mean no for forever. Yes. So as these opportunities come up, it doesn’t mean that you have to say no for forever. Yeah. You’re just saying no for now.

[00:22:27] Ken: The main goal here in this whole conversation is focus,

[00:22:31] Marissa: right?

[00:22:31] Ken: Where like, whether it’s opportunities, meetings, you know, whatever task is, you want to get rid of all that stuff so you can get focused on the things you get done.

[00:22:39] Once you get that stuff done, you can now reevaluate and say, well, what opportunities do I want to take on? Right. But what ends up happening is that we’re chasing too many things at the same time that we actually get nothing done. And we feel stressed out. We feel overwhelmed, burnt out because we’re like, Oh my gosh, I can’t get anything done that’s because you lack focus.

[00:22:57] And one of those things that you need to do is just. Get rid of the [00:23:00] distractions, get rid of the opportunities, and just say, I’m going to do this. Exercise that muscle of saying no. I know it’s hard. We’ve talked about how to do that in previous episodes, but that’s what you got to do to make it happen. So Marissa, I’m proud of you.

[00:23:12] That’s huge. I didn’t know that you said no to that. I knew that, uh, your sister was doing that trip. I didn’t realize you said no to it.

[00:23:18] Marissa: Yeah. Well, we’ll see. No for now.

[00:23:21] Ken: Right. No for now.

[00:23:24] Marissa: Just like we’ve talked about, you know, this whole exercise of You know, the not to do list is about clearing out the clutter.

[00:23:31] If you think of your life like a closet, you’ve got to clear it out. Just like you said, Ken, so that you can decide what you want to put back in. You know, maybe you have a linen closet that is like crazy and you need to clear it out and decide, Hey, I need to put better linens in here. I need better towels or sheets or whatever it is, but you wouldn’t even know that if you didn’t clear it out.

[00:23:52] And so our challenge today is look through these. four categories, your tasks, your meetings, your [00:24:00] relationships and your opportunities and ask yourself, what do I not need to do? You know, what do I want to put to the side? And in this season of my life, not think about, not worry about, not pursue for the sake of my priorities, right?

[00:24:16] Like that’s, that’s what we’re trying to move you towards. It’s so that you have plenty of energy, time, and focus to focus on what matters most to

[00:24:25] Ken: you. Marissa, you ended us on a strong note. Let’s end. Let’s wrap it there. My encouragement for you guys is do what Marissa just told you. Figure out what you do not need to do.

[00:24:39] Thanks for joining us on Focus On This.

[00:24:41] Marissa: This is the most productive podcast on the internet. So please go ahead, share it with your friends, leave us a review on whatever app you are listening on, and be sure to join us inside the Full Focus Planner community on Facebook so you can benefit from the creativity and encouragement of people chasing big goals [00:25:00] just like you.

[00:25:01] Ken: We’ll be here next week with another great episode.

[00:25:05] Marissa: And until then, stay focused.