310. The Difference Between Busy and Productive

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel: I don’t know if you’ve had this experience. Probably have. I mean, you’re human. You’re like me. And if you’re like me, you know this happens somewhat regularly. You work really hard on the wrong stuff, and most of us do it maybe one to two, maybe three predictable ways. We call them overlap traps, and once you see them, you can’t unsee them

[00:00:29] Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I’m Joel Miller.

[00:00:34] Marissa: And I’m Marissa Hyatt.

[00:00:36] Joel: And this is where we remind you of something you already know. It’s not about getting more things done, it’s about getting the right things done.

[00:00:43] Marissa: Both at work and in life. And today, we’re talking about the three places good priority setting still goes wrong And like Joel mentioned, we call these the overlap traps.

[00:00:59] Joel: Well, let’s do a quick refresher on the priority filter because this comes directly out of the priority filter. You’ve got three interlocking circles, like imagine a Venn diagram. Venn diagram has circles that overlap, and where they overlap, where there’s commonality between those circles, that’s kind of where you want to pay attention.

[00:01:20] And the three circles that we’re looking at are you, what’s uniquely yours, in other words, like is it resonant with you? ROI, what’s high leverage? Like are there real results coming out of this? And now, in other words, is it relevant? Does it matter in this moment?

[00:01:36] Marissa: Yeah, and the truth is that most of us spend very little time at the intersection of all three of these things.

[00:01:42] You know, we often hit two out of the three, and we feel like, “Hey, that’s good enough. That’s, checks- Right … you know, the box.” But when we do, we fall into what we call the overlap traps.

[00:01:56] Joel: This is like, uh, Sir Mix-a-Lot, “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” These are the butts you want to avoid. These are the butts you want to avoid.

[00:02:05] This is very bad news.

[00:02:06] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:02:06] Joel: Trap one, we can call this the right work at the wrong time.

[00:02:11] Marissa: Mm.

[00:02:11] Joel: You’ve got you, and you’ve got ROI, but you ain’t got now.

[00:02:16] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:02:16] Joel: That’s a big problem.

[00:02:17] Marissa: Yeah, so this is something that is yours to do, right? It’s in your wiring. And it does drive results, but it has no relevance for right now.

[00:02:28] Joel: It’s in your wheelhouse, and it would pay off. It’s just not what the season actually calls for.

[00:02:33] Marissa: Yeah, so what are some examples, Joel, of what this might look like?

[00:02:37] Joel: You’re planning Q1 marketing strategy when your team needs your insight on some pivot that you need before Black Friday- Mm-hmm … for instance.

[00:02:45] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:02:45] Joel: Maybe one that actually comes our, out of our own recent experience.

[00:02:49] Marissa: Yeah. We’ve never had that happen.

[00:02:52] Joel: Yeah.

[00:02:52] Marissa: Or maybe you’re building and mastering an elaborate tech stack for what you’ll need as you scale your business instead of the minimum viable version to get it off the ground.

[00:03:03] Joel: Exactly. Or you’re working on leadership development content for your team instead of focusing on the person whose performance is flagging, like right now.

[00:03:12] Marissa: Right. And to bring this into the life context, maybe this looks like you’re training for a marathon during the quarter that you’re rarely home because it’s crunch time at work.

[00:03:24] Joel: Yeah. It’s like it’s very meaningful, right? Yeah. It’s something you really want to do. It’s just that it doesn’t really fit the season.

[00:03:29] Marissa: Totally.

[00:03:30] Joel: The issue here is that you’re solving a future problem instead of dealing with today.

[00:03:36] Marissa: Yeah

[00:03:37] Joel: And, you know, the future, it’s not gonna sort itself out. You’re gonna have to be there for that too.

[00:03:42] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:03:42] Joel: But if you neglect the present in order to do something in the future, you have created a worse future.

[00:03:50] Marissa: Yeah, and there’s a few primary reasons that we do this. So this isn’t just like we’re doing this because we’re stupid, right? We’re doing this for kind of clear, uh, reasoning. The first is that we’re avoiding stress. Mm-hmm. So the problem that is often in front of us is hard or scary, and so we tend to avoid it because, uh, something in the distant future that is in our wiring that will produce results feels easier for us to kind of manage and process through, versus whatever the problem is at hand.

[00:04:23] Joel: If you go back to our episode on the Dungeons & Dragons keys to productivity, this would be like chaotic evil procrastination. Yeah. This is, like, not good.

[00:04:33] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:04:34] Joel: Another reason we do it, another chaotic evil here, would be avoiding boredom. The work in the moment requires us to do something just less interesting than we would prefer.

[00:04:48] Marissa: If you’re an improviser and you’re listening to this, like-

[00:04:51] Joel: Yeah …

[00:04:51] Marissa: pay attention, ’cause this is probably the reason that you’re specifically falling into this trap.

[00:04:56] Joel: Absolutely. I should’ve been the one to say that because I am an improviser, and I don’t want to admit my faults publicly for all to humiliate me at a later date, but I do this all the time.

[00:05:07] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:05:07] Joel: Like, this is a, a constant trap for me.

[00:05:09] Marissa: Yeah, so either way, we pick a diversion that’s still technically valuable, right?

[00:05:15] Joel: Right, it’s a good self-justification for even doing it-

[00:05:18] Marissa: Yeah …

[00:05:18] Joel: while neglecting the present.

[00:05:19] Marissa: Yeah. It’s just not a- that it’s the best use of our time right now.

[00:05:23] Joel: Give me an example of when maybe you have poured yourself into some good work, justifiably the right work, but not the right time.

[00:05:31] Marissa: Well, to get vulnerable for a minute, I caught myself doing this this morning.

[00:05:37] Joel: Okay.

[00:05:37] Marissa: I woke up and was just bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, and I don’t know if this ever happens to you, where, you know, it’s 7:00 AM or whatever time, and you’re just kind of like, “I’m ready to go.” And I was ready to go, and I was feeling inspired.

[00:05:52] Um, I saw an Instagram post about sales pages and how to structure them, and I could geek out on this stuff all day long. And Our Double Win Coaching program sales page desperately needs an update. And hopefully by the time that you guys are listening to this episode, we have updated it, okay? That is my, uh, my goal by the time this episode airs.

[00:06:17] But it’s out of date, right? Like, we’ve updated a lot of the curriculum in the program. We have some phenomenal testimonials that are not on that site that just… It just needs to be brought up to date. And so I found myself this morning deep in writing copy and digging into all of this, trying to get it right-sized and current and, uh, convincing and all the things And I realized, oh, I’m absolutely avoiding a project that Megan has asked me to do that has a lot of financial components and a lot of difficult strategy that, you know, I’m falling into that avoiding stress moment of it is, that feels more stressful to me.

[00:06:59] It f- feels more challenging to me. And the thing that I was working on, the sales page, is in my wiring and, uh, will, you know, drive results. It’s just that it’s not the most relevant thing right now. Yeah. The project that Megan has asked me to complete is more relevant, right? Yeah. It matters more right now.

[00:07:19] And so I caught myself in that, and I had to, like, kind of with a, you know, dog with my tail between my legs realize, okay, shoot, I have totally fallen into this trap and I’ve got to put it to the side and get to the work that matters now. So it was helpful- Right … for identifying that in the moment.

[00:07:34] Joel: I mean, if you’re thinking about how to identify it in the moment, the question to ask is, all things considered, what does this moment call for?

[00:07:43] Marissa: Which, for me, this morning was the project that Megan handed me, not this great sales page that I was excited about, which will be coming. Yeah. So it will be happening, too. So we want to assign that other, you know, you slash ROI work a time. So for me, I want to slot that time in to actually complete that sales page copy.

[00:08:04] It just doesn’t need to be done today.

[00:08:05] Joel: Right. It’s appropriate, right? It needs to be done. It’s good. It is. Yeah. It should be done. It j- it just shouldn’t be done today.

[00:08:11] Marissa: All right, the next trap is the comfort zone. Ooh, this is a good one. Yeah. So this is where you have you, it’s in your wiring, um, it’s u- uniquely yours to do, and it does matter now, but it’s not high leverage.

[00:08:25] It doesn’t have the ROI component. It doesn’t drive results.

[00:08:30] Joel: This, I mean, you could imagine optimizers and achievers kind of falling w- into this one- Mm … a fair amount. This is the check mark chasing problem.

[00:08:39] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:08:39] Joel: Just because it’s on the list doesn’t mean it actually is driving the results that warrant the investment of time and attention.

[00:08:46] Marissa: This is kind of like over-functioning in some way. So this looks like you’re the manager doing the individual contributor work- Mm-hmm … that you just got promoted out of. So it’s not something that will necessarily be driving results, right? Or you spend all day in meetings, but you never actually move whatever the project is that you’re working on forward.

[00:09:09] Joel: Another one could be you’ve got an internal presentation that’s due, and you’ve got a lot of other pressing stuff on your plate, but man, you’re spending a lot of time just dialing this sucker in. You’re gonna have the best slide deck in the history of slide decks, and nobody will even remember what you talked about in a week, and it really doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you’re putting into it.

[00:09:31] Marissa: Another one is that you go all in on some type of analysis that you’re running And you’re so deep in it, you know, probably with Claude and digging all this stuff up, and the truth is, there’s only a few data points that are actually really important.

[00:09:48] Joel: Yeah. Have done that. I’ve,

[00:09:50] Marissa: I’ve done that. Have done that.

[00:09:51] I can get- Yeah … really lost in the data of things.

[00:09:54] Joel: And, you know, the problem is there’s no end to some things, right? Like, analysis has no natural endpoint. Yeah. It’s not like I have analyzed, therefore I am done. It’s like, it’s when you decide to be done is kind of when you’re done.

[00:10:08] Marissa: Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:09] Joel: So you kind of need to think in terms of this trap, what is the value that’s actually being added by this ongoing analysis?

[00:10:16] Maybe I just need to stop. The general quality of doneness is enough.

[00:10:21] Marissa: Yeah. Well, in your personal life, this might look like, and don’t ask me how I know this- … creating some elaborate, you know, plan for your health And you- Yeah … actually don’t get to the workout.

[00:10:36] Joel: Hmm.

[00:10:36] Marissa: Right? Like, it’s, you know-

[00:10:38] Joel: You asked me not to ask how-

[00:10:40] Marissa: Yeah

[00:10:40] Joel: you know, but, I mean, I’m speaking on behalf of the listeners now. I mean, like, has this actually happened to you?

[00:10:46] Marissa: Many, many times. To the point now where inside of Claude, in my personal… Like, I have a personal health project, it will flag this on me. And it will say, “You’re doing it again.” Like, “You’re creating this amazing, whole elaborate thing, and it actually isn’t the highest lever- the most important thing you could do is just go do the workout.”

[00:11:07] Joel: Even the clanker knows that you’re in the trap.

[00:11:10] Marissa: It’s, it’s embarrassing at this point because I’ve used Claude in specifically this project so much, how well it will call me out.

[00:11:17] Joel: That’s hilarious.

[00:11:18] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:19] Joel: This is the difference between being busy and productive, right? Mm-hmm. This is the difference between being in motion and actually driving results, and it can be hard to catch because it feels like…

[00:11:30] I mean, like, motion feels like results.

[00:11:33] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Joel: Right? Busy feels like productive. Yeah. But they’re not the same thing.

[00:11:37] Marissa: The reason that we do this is, first, that these types of days feel really good, right? We’re actively working. We’re probably checking things off our list. Yeah. You know, we’re using our real skills that are u- you know, our unique wiring to do this.

[00:11:51] We’re responding to the urgent needs, which makes us feel really important. It feels good. Right. This is where the achievers, the optimizers, like, they can get really stuck in this because it really scratches that itch.

[00:12:05] Joel: And the problem is sometimes we haven’t actually… Like, if you go upstream, sometimes we haven’t actually clarified the results that we are responsible for.

[00:12:15] Right. So we don’t even know that the work that we’re doing doesn’t matter that much.

[00:12:20] Marissa: Yeah. It’s, it’s very true. We’ve got to have that sense of clarity, and again, this is where the priority filter comes in. It’s going to help us to know what is actually driving the results.

[00:12:31] Joel: I would say, in my job, I don’t fall into this very often.

[00:12:36] Marissa: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:36] Joel: Because the kind of work that I do doesn’t lend itself to this, but I fall into the prior trap a lot. Yeah. You know, like, if you think about what research and development is, there is not necessarily any urgency to research and development.

[00:12:52] Marissa: Right.

[00:12:53] Joel: And so there’s not a now moment where you’re like, “Oh, this is relevant now.”

[00:12:58] Mm-hmm. Like, that, it could always be punted.

[00:13:00] Marissa: Totally.

[00:13:00] Joel: And so I often find myself Knee deep in research, neck deep in research, past my head in research that I don’t necessarily need to be doing at that moment.

[00:13:11] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:13:11] Joel: However, I do think that whatever your work style, there is a version of this trap that is probably happening- Mm-hmm

[00:13:20] from time to time at least, if not maybe depending on your work style, constantly.

[00:13:25] Marissa: Well, if you find yourself in this trap and you’re going, “Oh my gosh, I have totally ended up in the comfort zone,” there’s a couple things you can do instead. So first is just to stop doing it. So delete or reduce this type of work

[00:13:39] Joel: and add on- This, this is the Bob Newhart answer.

[00:13:40] Marissa: Yeah. Just stop it, right? Stop

[00:13:42] Joel: it.

[00:13:43] Marissa: And implement boundaries. So if you’re the kind of boss who’s always on, you might need to retire that open door policy. Only let yourself prepare for that presentation that you could easily get lost into the slide deck in for one hour. Like set- Yeah … a timer. Give yourself some parameters and some boundaries.

[00:14:04] For me, this is, you know, create the plan once and go do it. Don’t keep iterating. Don’t keep digging into. Don’t keep adding elaborate bells and whistles onto it that make me feel good and that they look great. Like go do the thing you need to actually be doing.

[00:14:19] Joel: It’s worth remembering that all, you know, the priority filter itself and then some self-diagnosis around these traps, the point of it ultimately, along with the work style assessment itself, is to help drive self-awareness.

[00:14:33] Because when we’re in what the Covey people would call the whirlwind-

[00:14:37] Marissa: Mm …

[00:14:38] Joel: when we’re just in the day-to-day, when we’re the sort of the quotidian craziness of everything coming at us, it’s really easy to just be in the moment, not in a way in which we are remotely self-aware, and we’re just reactive. And being reactive is a trap.

[00:14:57] It’s a setup for a lot of wasted effort.

[00:15:00] Marissa: Yeah. And we’ve all had that feeling. We all know what that experience is like, so this really is the way out.

[00:15:20] Joel: All right, trap three we call the delegation trap, and this is where you’ve got now, right? It’s like it’s relevant. You’ve got ROI, there’s results, but it doesn’t resonate with you. There’s no resonance. There is no fit for you. It’s high leverage and it really matters. It’s really pertinent to the moment, but the problem is it’s just not yours to do.

[00:15:42] Marissa: Well, and before we go any further, don’t tune out if you don’t have anyone to delegate to. So I wanna just challenge you, like I know we have a lot of listeners who are sitting here going, “Well, I don’t have anybody to just get this stuff off my plate to.” Right? So listen, because we’re gonna answer that here in a minute.

[00:15:59] But this type of work, it’s real. It needs to be done, and probably like this week, right? It’s important now, and it’s on your list because it is important, and, you know, handing it off feels irresponsible or impossible.

[00:16:13] Joel: You are, as the old timers would say, shirking your duty.

[00:16:16] Marissa: Wow, I’ve never heard that. Yeah.

[00:16:19] Joel: Yeah, you don’t wanna shirk.

[00:16:21] Marissa: Yeah, I don’t like that word, so I don’t want any part of that. Um, but the truth is you end up buried under work that was never yours to do because of this exact trap, okay? Right. So again, if you feel like maybe you know, “I shouldn’t really be doing this,” but either it feels impossible to get it off my plate ’cause there’s nobody, or it feels irresponsible, like, “I need to be the one doing this,” um, this is for you.

[00:16:47] So Joel, walk us through a few examples of what this might look like for somebody.

[00:16:51] Joel: Uh, it could be like you run the weekly report because you built the template and no one else knows how to use it.

[00:16:59] Marissa: Mm.

[00:17:00] Joel: It could be you’re the only person with access or authority, so the request always comes to you.

[00:17:06] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:17:08] Joel: It could be you’re editing everyone else’s copy instead of setting the standard, like saying, “This is the expectation.

[00:17:15] Do it like this.” Maybe that’s a style guide or something like that. Instead, the style guide lives in your head.

[00:17:20] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:17:21] Joel: It could be like you’re fixing a problem someone else caused because it just takes longer to explain it and deal with it that way.

[00:17:30] Marissa: I do feel like, you know, another one is you still own a specific vendor relationship because they know and trust you, even though you probably should have handed this off, like, you know, two promotions ago.

[00:17:44] But it’s just that you have that relationship- Yeah … and it’s still on your plate.

[00:17:47] Joel: This is more common than people probably think, but, like, whenever we’re in an organization and we’re dealing with outside people, those outside people don’t wanna learn new people.

[00:17:56] Marissa: Mm.

[00:17:56] Joel: And it’s really easy for that relationship just to follow you around your organization-

[00:18:01] Marissa: Yes

[00:18:01] Joel: even if your direct responsibility over that particular area is considerably thinner than it used to be. Yeah.

[00:18:08] Marissa: Well, in our personal life, I think this is where it really shows up for a lot of us because… And I think I’m gonna fully speak to the ladies here for a second. We default to just doing it ourselves, right?

[00:18:21] And so you may be the person who is gonna handle juggling all of your family’s calendar When the truth is, technically somebody in your family could look up when that event was, but you’re like, “Oh, I’m the default,” right? They’re always gonna come to me as the mom or as the wife or whatever, you know, because I’m the one who does it.

[00:18:42] I’m just the one. Or I’m doing the grocery sho- shopping or meal planning or what have you, uh, which is important and all the things, but just because it’s the default, right? Right. It’s, it’s the assumption.

[00:18:55] Joel: You can imagine that if you’re a giver, this is a particularly a trap.

[00:19:00] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:19:00] Joel: Because there’s some kind of part of you that has significance tied up into this, that has a psychological reward tied up into this, and you…

[00:19:10] We might be this person in our, in our company. Mm-hmm. We might know this person in our company. They have a lot of, you could even call it power, because they have the ability to know where something should go, who it should go to. Right. They route stuff through themselves a lot, and, like, that’s great. It’s just that it doesn’t quite belong on your list.

[00:19:33] Yeah. There’s other things that would be a better use of your time.

[00:19:35] Marissa: I think there’s two other work styles that may be not as obvious that this happens to. Mm-hmm. Which is the juggler, because they’re just used to carrying such a full load and being the one who everybody kind of just says, “Oh, yeah.” You know, it’s the age-old story of like, if you want it done, give it to a busy person.

[00:19:53] And so they’re like- Totally … “Cool, I’ll just make it happen,” right? They’re the make it happen person. And then the other one is the optimizer, and they potentially are doing this because one of the reasons we’re gonna get to in a second, is that they may not trust others to do it to the degree in which they would like it to be.

[00:20:09] To

[00:20:09] Joel: their standard, right?

[00:20:10] Marissa: Yeah. So let’s talk about then why we fall into this trap. The first reason is that we’re doing work that feels familiar even if we’ve outgrown it. So when we’re promoted, you know, we almost always inherit new work without letting go of the old stuff.

[00:20:28] Joel: Yeah.

[00:20:28] Marissa: Yeah. We hear this a lot from our clients.

[00:20:31] Joel: People regard us as the expert, and that feels great.

[00:20:34] Marissa: Yeah, we like it.

[00:20:35] Joel: And there’s nothing wrong with that, you know? Feeling good is great.

[00:20:37] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:20:38] Joel: It’s just not relevant in this moment that that’s you.

[00:20:41] Marissa: Another one which I kind of touched on is that we don’t trust others to do it to the standard in which we expect.

[00:20:49] And so it’s that whole thing of like, if I wanna get this done in the right way, I’ll just handle it myself.

[00:20:55] Joel: Right. Meanwhile, you burned up two extra hours that you didn’t have because you didn’t figure out how to hand it off or renegotiate it or whatever.

[00:21:04] Marissa: Yeah. And then the last one is that we think, “I don’t have anyone to delegate this to.”

[00:21:10] And so we just don’t even think there’s any other option on the table, and so we just give up. It’s just like, “All right, conversation over. I’ll just handle it.”

[00:21:18] Joel: Meanwhile, there’s AI, there’s bartering, there’s horizontal delegation, there’s renegotiating things on the team, there’s solving upstream problems so the task disappears entirely.

[00:21:32] There’s building processes so it doesn’t need as much of your time. There’s, like, probably 27 different options here. Right.

[00:21:39] Marissa: Well, I see this a lot with our clients. When we talk about delegation, the first thing, and this is why I said it at the beginning of the episode, they immediately go, “I don’t have anyone to delegate to.”

[00:21:49] Mm-hmm. And I wanna say that is a bold-faced lie for all of us at this stage in the game when we have AI. You actually do have somebody, it’s just not a person, to delegate things to any longer. And maybe the barrier there is your own knowledge base of AI and what it’s capable of, and so I wanna challenge your thinking on this.

[00:22:08] I’m sure we’re gonna dig into this in future episodes. AI is such a huge advantage for all of us to be using, no matter what level of a position you’re in. If you have a whole team under you, reporting to you, if you’re a solopreneur, if you’re an independent, you know, contractor. No matter what it is, AI can help solve at least part of these types of tasks for you.

[00:22:30] Yeah. It may not be able to do the entire thing autonomously, but it can do a lot of it.

[00:22:35] Joel: Well, if you think in terms of workflows, there’s, like, steps, there’s parts of projects and tasks, and if you analyze that workflow, you’ll see that there are parts that you can pull right out and drop right in an LLM and have it do part of that work.

[00:22:51] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:22:51] Joel: Now, that may not be true for every job, but it’s definitely true for all sorts of tasks that we- Yeah … have on our lists right now.

[00:22:57] Marissa: Yeah, so rather than immediately defaulting into this trap, you can ask yourself, “What would have to be true for this work to be done without me?” What would have to be true for this work to be done without me?

[00:23:11] And I really want to challenge your thinking on if you are struggling with delegation or if you think, “I don’t have anybody to delegate to,” there are other strategies that you can implement.

[00:23:21] Joel: What’s great about that question, what would have to be true, is it puts you in a place of possibility. Mm. It like, it puts you in a generative state because now you’re asking not, “Why can’t I do it?”

[00:23:33] But you’re asking, “What would have to be true- Yep … in order for this to happen?” Which is a different head space.

[00:23:38] Marissa: Yeah. Which maybe it’s learning AI, maybe it’s getting crystal clear on the outcome you’re wanting. And side note, if you’re good at delegation with people, you’re going to probably be good at delegating with AI and vice versa, so it’s a skill set everyone needs to learn.

[00:23:53] And there’s a lot of possibility within this question.

[00:23:56] Joel: The main thing to keep in mind, you know, we talked about this, we alluded to it earlier on our episode last week, but it’s worth saying again here, not that much stuff on your list actually lives dead center on the priority filter.

[00:24:13] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:24:14] Joel: And if you find yourself with work where you’re in these overlap traps, that’s because there’s stuff on that list right now that in those areas doesn’t quite belong.

[00:24:26] Mm-hmm. Only the stuff that’s dead center belongs on the to-do list.

[00:24:32] Marissa: And it’s by design. We’ve engineered it that way for a reason. This is why tools like the weekly and daily big three work, because it requires- Right … you to filter.

[00:24:43] Joel: And this helps define that, right?

[00:24:45] Marissa: Yeah, that’s ultimately what this filter helps you determine is, what is the right stuff that I need to be focused on?

[00:24:51] Joel: Which is killer because if you are working dead center, you’re going to make your highest contribution, and that’s going to mean that you’re going to advance in your career, that’s going to mean that you’re going to advance in your particular job, you’re going to gain the reputation as somebody that delivers results.

[00:25:08] You’re going to be the kind of person that matters in the organization that you work in. And if you work for yourself, that’s like really the only way to make that work well.

[00:25:17] Marissa: Right.

[00:25:17] Joel: So this is the kind of thing that makes or breaks your success ultimately.

[00:25:23] Marissa: Well, it’s important to mention, too, none of these traps look like failure You’re getting stuff done when you’re doing these- Right

[00:25:33] right? And when you’re inside of these traps. And you probably have something to show for it at the end of the day. You look productive, okay? So, and it probably feels productive to be in e- inside of each of these traps. But that means that other people are gonna be unlikely to spot it, and it means that you actually need to be the one who has enough self-awareness and, um, insight into these traps so that you can s- get yourself out of being stuck and actually go spend your time and energy on the few things that only you can do that drive results and that matter now.

[00:26:11] Joel: I say this to our coaching clients probably every week. This is a line that I stole from Anne Lamott, but you need to be militantly on your own side.

[00:26:22] Marissa: Mm.

[00:26:23] Joel: Nobody is going to be able to defend that precious space that is your to-do list. Nobody is going to be able to defend that valuable real estate called your calendar like you.

[00:26:37] Nobody’s thinking about you as much as you’re thinking about you. And if you’re not thinking about you, you can be sure that you are going to struggle on this stuff. So if you want to be effective, this is, like, the place to start pointing the, the pointy part of your boat, ’cause this is the direction you’re going.

[00:26:55] This is where you need to head.

[00:27:01] Marissa: Thanks for joining us on Focus on This.

[00:27:04] Joel: This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so please share it with your friends and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen or at focusonthispodcast.com.

[00:27:16] Marissa: We’ll be here next week where we’re gonna be talking about how to take your priority filter and utilize that to filter out all the demands of the rest of the year that come with Q4.

[00:27:28] Joel: Hmm. Until then.

[00:27:30] Marissa: Stay focused.