Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be a longer one part of
Speaker 1: the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
Speaker 1: take their days from great to awesome and any advice
Speaker 1: they have for the rest of us. So today I'm
Speaker 1: excited to be interviewing Mike Fardy. Mike is a productivity expert.
Speaker 1: He is the author of the new book The Productivity Diet,
Speaker 1: which he will tell us about all about sustainable practices. So, Mike,
Speaker 1: welcome to the shower.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It's been a while since we've chatted.
Speaker 1: It's been a while. I'm glad to be chatting with
Speaker 1: you again. Why don't you tell our listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit about yourself.
Speaker 2: So I am a, as you mentioned, a productivity expert.
Speaker 2: I went from being like a kind of enthusiast to
Speaker 2: a specialist to a strategist and now having done this
Speaker 2: for fifteen years now I'm in that philosophical era now
Speaker 2: to a.
Speaker 1: Degree, you're in your philosophical era, ykay.
Speaker 2: But I mean this book, The Productivity Diet, Practical Guide
Speaker 2: to Nurturing your productive potential. It came out in early
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, and it's kind of the you know again,
Speaker 2: it leans into the how to how I'm able to do,
Speaker 2: you know, be simple, flexible and sustainable with my productivity practices,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of what I teach, so I write
Speaker 2: about it. I have a podcast, which you've appeared on
Speaker 2: on a number of occasions, and I have linked learning classes,
Speaker 2: I have skill share classes. So I've been out there
Speaker 2: for a while just teaching people how to stop doing
Speaker 2: productive and start being productive. And unlike you, well two things.
Speaker 2: Unlike number one, I'm Canadian. Number one. Number one, well,
Speaker 2: I guess three because I'm a guy. Number two. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's number two. I'm Canadian. Also, that's number three. I
Speaker 2: am not a morning person.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, we will get to that for sure, because
Speaker 1: you know, that does change how we go about our
Speaker 1: days and how we schedule things, and it's important to
Speaker 1: know ourselves with that and to you know, adjust how
Speaker 1: we approach things based on who we are. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit first about what time
Speaker 1: crafting is, because one of your big ideas is time crafting.
Speaker 1: So maybe you can explain to people what.
Speaker 2: You mean by that sure. So I'm not a fan
Speaker 2: of the term time management because time has been here
Speaker 2: before we arrived on this planet, and it will be
Speaker 2: here long after. And I think it's rather arrogant for
Speaker 2: us to say we can manage something that is beyond us, right. Instead,
Speaker 2: what I suggest we can do is we can manage
Speaker 2: our relationship with it. And when people who are trying
Speaker 2: to kind of change that mentality from like I'm going
Speaker 2: to manage my time to manage my relationship with it, Really,
Speaker 2: what it boils down to is crafting your time. You know,
Speaker 2: we will never stop crafting our time until we no
Speaker 2: longer have a relationship with it, which means we are
Speaker 2: no longer with time. Right. And it came to me
Speaker 2: through the title time crafting. The name of the practice
Speaker 2: came to me through a conversation I had with my
Speaker 2: son a number of years ago. We were walking to
Speaker 2: his elementary school. He's now in high school. And you know,
Speaker 2: one of the things you're taught as a parent is
Speaker 2: don't ask your kids like how school going or what
Speaker 2: are you doing today? Because they're like fine, like they
Speaker 2: shut down. They don't really talk a lot about it.
Speaker 2: But he had been playing Minecraft and I didn't know
Speaker 2: a lot about Minecraft, so I said, well, can you
Speaker 2: explain Minecraft to me? And he goes, well, Dad, you
Speaker 2: take these basic elements, you know, you know, earth stone,
Speaker 2: all these basic elements, and then you put them together
Speaker 2: and you craft something at a crafting table and you
Speaker 2: get something useful out of it. You can make a weapon,
Speaker 2: you can make a house. And of course, as somebody
Speaker 2: who has spent a lot of time writing creating over
Speaker 2: the years, I do have a background in comedy, so
Speaker 2: I always look through things and try to find the
Speaker 2: funny and everything that's kind of transferred to my life
Speaker 2: that I live now. And I mean, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to say that as he was telling me about it.
Speaker 2: You know when you watch a movie and the person's
Speaker 2: vocals kind of drifted to the distance and you're in
Speaker 2: your own head at that point, you know, and they
Speaker 2: kind of like this mother, and you're like, what's going
Speaker 2: on in my head? That's kind of what happened where
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my gosh, that's what I've because that's
Speaker 2: what I'm teaching. I'm teaching people how to take things
Speaker 2: like their calendar and their to do list and these
Speaker 2: different things and put them together to craft their time.
Speaker 2: And really what time rafting is made up of is
Speaker 2: three core elements, and they all involve the three kind
Speaker 2: of basic areas that I think help us craft our time,
Speaker 2: which are time theming, which is directly related to the calendar,
Speaker 2: theming your days, your weeks, your months, even your year
Speaker 2: or seasons. Then there is attention paths, which are kind
Speaker 2: of there, I would say, an evolution of getting things
Speaker 2: done's contexts, right, There's a bit more categories to them.
Speaker 2: There's types of attention pass and so for the people
Speaker 2: who are driven by their to do list, that's kind
Speaker 2: of the place that I start with them when I'm
Speaker 2: coaching them or working with them. And then the third
Speaker 2: element is a reflective practice, so journaling, which is something
Speaker 2: that we tend to bypass a lot when we're making
Speaker 2: our way through time, and realistically it's probably one of
Speaker 2: the most undervalued and underappreciated elements because it allows us.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've talked about this, tracking your time is
Speaker 2: a form of reflective practice, right, like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But again, nuance has to be applied to all of this.
Speaker 2: So when I talk about time theming, it's not quite
Speaker 2: the s same as time blocking. Right, there's a bit
Speaker 2: more flexibility built in. When I talk about attention paths,
Speaker 2: it's not quite the same as contexts because there are
Speaker 2: some elements to it, like energy plays a role in it.
Speaker 2: And then reflective practice doesn't have to be you know,
Speaker 2: tracking your time. It could be you know, chronological journaling
Speaker 2: through a daily log. It could be you know, just
Speaker 2: basic interstitial journaling. It could be the one line a
Speaker 2: day journal that James Clear does. So those three elements essentially,
Speaker 2: if you do any or all of those with great
Speaker 2: regularity in a consistent and sustainable way, then you are
Speaker 2: time crafting. And that's what I teach and and I
Speaker 2: go into it in the second part of the book, right,
Speaker 2: I want I want to get people's mindsets in order
Speaker 2: before we go down this path. Because when I say
Speaker 2: time management is a fallacy and a myth, it immediately people,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? We've managing time for years,
Speaker 2: have we though?
Speaker 1: So No, we're really just all playing Minecraft with our time.
Speaker 2: I guess this is what it comes. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: we hear like the ideal week, you know, the perfect week,
Speaker 2: that is such a I mean, it's great to aspire
Speaker 2: to that, but life happens. There are so many external forces,
Speaker 2: and our attention is really the thing. Like the things
Speaker 2: that we should be trying to manage are things that
Speaker 2: we actually have some agency over, a greater deal of
Speaker 2: agency over expectations, boundaries, again, your relationship with time, things, attention, right,
Speaker 2: like those kind of things. And so what time crafting
Speaker 2: does is it kind of allows you to use time
Speaker 2: and your relationship with time kind of as a framing device, right,
Speaker 2: and space as well to make your way through your days,
Speaker 2: your weeks or months, your years, and ultimately your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well you talked about it being more of a
Speaker 1: partnership with time and the idea that productivity is you know,
Speaker 1: you and time working together to get things done.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I also have strong opinions after
Speaker 2: being again I told you I'm in my philosophical phase
Speaker 2: of productivity is broken, right, I mean, you know, the
Speaker 2: speed speed is not the end goal when it comes
Speaker 2: to being productive. Yet it's being kind of rammed down
Speaker 2: our throats in a lot of ways, like get things done,
Speaker 2: like check off as many boxes as possible, be efficient,
Speaker 2: be efficient yet, but efficiency is a byproduct of being productive.
Speaker 2: It's it's not being productive, right, So to me, I
Speaker 2: think that what I try to do in a productivity
Speaker 2: diet is and I've been trying to do this over
Speaker 2: the years that I since I left life hack, because
Speaker 2: life hacks really have been both a blessing and a curse. Right.
Speaker 2: The idea of hey, we can shortcut some of this stuff,
Speaker 2: but then we end up life hacking and life hacking
Speaker 2: and life hacking, and all of a sudden, we've hacked
Speaker 2: our life to death with no hacking essentially is derived
Speaker 2: from a Latin term which I'm not going to necessarily
Speaker 2: be able to translate right now, but the idea of
Speaker 2: hacking is to cut without care, right, So this is
Speaker 2: more of a deliberate, intentional kind of pruning and curating.
Speaker 2: And so to me, productivity isn't about being efficient and
Speaker 2: effective like I said, those are byproducts. Productivity is about
Speaker 2: the active link between your intentions big or small, and
Speaker 2: your attention and that partnership. So those two like if
Speaker 2: you can think about productivity and in a different way.
Speaker 2: And that's why the productivity diet I'm not talking about
Speaker 2: a diet is in like a crash diet like quick,
Speaker 2: it's a lifestyle. And that's what this book kind of
Speaker 2: purports to help you with is to craft a lifestyle
Speaker 2: that allows you to craft your time in a way
Speaker 2: that allows you to live a fulfilling life where you know,
Speaker 2: you keep in mind things like cadence, rhythm. You mentioned
Speaker 2: listening to yourself listening, you know, living with nuance. I
Speaker 2: talk about in the book the idea of absolutes, and
Speaker 2: I mean, for somebody who's a night owl, we can't help,
Speaker 2: but here all the time, Oh you got to get
Speaker 2: up early, you got to do this, you got to
Speaker 2: do that. So many health issues with people who you know,
Speaker 2: stay up late, but we don't look at the underlying
Speaker 2: or the underpinning elements of that. There's nuance to all
Speaker 2: of this stuff. And that's what I try to get
Speaker 2: into in the book is the idea of like, let's
Speaker 2: keep nuance in mind as we make our way through time.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, We're going to take a quick ad break
Speaker 1: and then I will be back with more from Mike Verdi.
Speaker 1: I am back with Mike Farty. We are talking productivity
Speaker 1: in the different ways we can do time crafting. I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about time theming, because
Speaker 1: you have different levels of this and the idea roughly,
Speaker 1: is you're choosing different kinds of tasks to do a
Speaker 1: different intervals, or you know, assigning a theme to a
Speaker 1: different length of time.
Speaker 2: Sure. Sure, So the way I look at it is
Speaker 2: time theming is giving an overarching focus to a like
Speaker 2: you said, a type of task, maybe a role that
Speaker 2: you have, maybe a category. Right, So to me, I
Speaker 2: think the first off, a lot of people will say,
Speaker 2: there's no way that I can theme my time. My
Speaker 2: days are too dynamic, et cetera, et cetera. Whenever I
Speaker 2: start talking about time theming, I immediately go to things
Speaker 2: that are certain, because that's what we look at. Right.
Speaker 2: So when I'm working with clients or I discuss this
Speaker 2: with people who have kids, I'm like, well, do your
Speaker 2: kids go to school on Saturday or Sunday? No? No, okay,
Speaker 2: So therefore you you know that your kids don't go
Speaker 2: to school on those days. So you may not want
Speaker 2: to be doing things like, I don't know, recording podcasts
Speaker 2: on Saturdays or Sundays. If you're running your own business
Speaker 2: or things that require you to tell your kids to
Speaker 2: keep down, keep it down, so on and so forth,
Speaker 2: you can orchestrate your time around that. And that's really
Speaker 2: what we're talking about here. So yes, there's daily themes.
Speaker 2: There's also what I call horizontal themes, which are increments
Speaker 2: of time throughout the day. So as a night owl,
Speaker 2: I do all of my writing tasks in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: So I have a writing theme that goes from two
Speaker 2: to four pm Monday through Friday. So at two o'clock,
Speaker 2: no matter what my day is looking like, it's like,
Speaker 2: all right, two o'clock, it's time for me to work
Speaker 2: on my writing. Means nobody can schedule meetings during that
Speaker 2: time all of that stuff. The distinction between time theming
Speaker 2: and say time blocking, especially in those smaller increments, is
Speaker 2: that it is a consistent time it is. It's not
Speaker 2: like you're patchworking it, which can happen with time blocking
Speaker 2: plus time theming, because it's an overarching focus you're looking for,
Speaker 2: kind of like the just right, You're not trying to
Speaker 2: be too narrow with your focus. So if I was
Speaker 2: to say my two to four time is to focus
Speaker 2: on book writing, but I'm not writing a book, then
Speaker 2: it's useless, right, Or yeah.
Speaker 1: You want to make it not too narrow, but that
Speaker 1: too broad as to be.
Speaker 2: Exactly, which, by the way, also you want to do
Speaker 2: with attention pass as well, because I mean one of
Speaker 2: the things that and I love David Allen's work. He's
Speaker 2: a mentor. I've had many conversations with him. But when
Speaker 2: people use a context like home, especially during the era
Speaker 2: of COVID and remote work, not a terribly helpful context
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. I mean, because what they
Speaker 2: should do is they should act as filters, and that's
Speaker 2: what time theming does. So if I know that, like today,
Speaker 2: as we're recording, it's my connection day. So this is
Speaker 2: the day where I will do outreach. It's where I
Speaker 2: will actually send a bunch of these books out in
Speaker 2: the mail to people to say, hey, here, check out
Speaker 2: this book. It's where I will do that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: both personally and professionally, because it's covering my entire day.
Speaker 2: You and I are having this conversation right now, This
Speaker 2: would be an abstraction, So I stop focusing on that.
Speaker 2: And once we're done having our conversation, my brain doesn't go,
Speaker 2: well now what My brain goes, Okay, hold on what
Speaker 2: day is it? Oh, it's Tuesday? Okay, which is Tuesday?
Speaker 2: Meaning oh, Tuesday's connection? What are my connection tasks? And
Speaker 2: then I can go from there. So, yeah, it is.
Speaker 2: It is essentially giving you an overarching focus. You don't
Speaker 2: them all seven days of the week, not especially not
Speaker 2: out of the gate. Start with the one that you
Speaker 2: know that you can have the most success with, and
Speaker 2: then if you want to add more, you know you're
Speaker 2: gonna have two daily themes, maybe a horizontal theme that's
Speaker 2: kind of what time theming is. And again there's monthly
Speaker 2: themes and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: Well, what are some other useful themes? I mean you
Speaker 1: said connections. I think that's one that would be broadly
Speaker 1: useful for a lot of people. Like this is when
Speaker 1: I reach out, this is when I have my nice
Speaker 1: to have conversations.
Speaker 2: What might be in an administrative at mid day a
Speaker 2: horizontal theme would be let's say, actually, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: a great one. I was working with a client who
Speaker 2: was an administrative assistant, not just for the CEO, but
Speaker 2: for I mean, and what would happen when they were
Speaker 2: working with their CEOs and invariably others would ask this
Speaker 2: person to do other things, and so they said, I
Speaker 2: was having a really hard time doing my things, and
Speaker 2: I was doing all these other things. I said, well,
Speaker 2: what if you had a horizontal theme. Well, first off,
Speaker 2: we work backwards from their certainty. So I said, when
Speaker 2: do people stop bugging you? Like? That was the first
Speaker 2: which no one had as asked her. She's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know the afternoons people are kind of in there.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I go, so people that means they're
Speaker 2: primarily bugging you before lunch, right, yeah? Yeah? Like well
Speaker 2: what if your what if your morning time from let's
Speaker 2: say eight to noon is serving, that's your your theme.
Speaker 2: So it means anything you're doing is serving others, whether
Speaker 2: it's the CEO, whether it's that's what you're focusing on.
Speaker 2: And then lunch access kind of like that boundary. And
Speaker 2: then after lunch, your overarching focus is the self serving stuff.
Speaker 2: And I go, by the way, if you're doing the
Speaker 2: self serving stuff, right, you're serving others anyway, especially in
Speaker 2: your role. And what she had to do then was
Speaker 2: look at her to do list and just put s
Speaker 2: next to the tasks that we're serving others, and then
Speaker 2: SS next to the tasks that were serving herself. And
Speaker 2: then all she would do is look at our list
Speaker 2: and instead of looking at the details of the to
Speaker 2: do list, which is where we can get caught up.
Speaker 2: She was looking in that last at the end of
Speaker 2: the task, saying, oh, these are all my ass tasks.
Speaker 2: Let me batch those. Okay, that's what I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: in the morning. So that's that's a very nuanced approach
Speaker 2: for an individual. But I have a day called the
Speaker 2: household day, you know, and that means that that's when
Speaker 2: I do household tasks, which we all do anyway, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I think I read a meme recently that
Speaker 2: was the week The weekend is either a day where
Speaker 2: we do all the things we love to do or
Speaker 2: all the thing errand's we have to run. And we
Speaker 2: hate both options, like we want both options, right, But
Speaker 2: but i've you know, if you are somebody like let's
Speaker 2: say a light bulb burnt out in my study here,
Speaker 2: I could stop and do that, but it's not affecting
Speaker 2: the light in my house. So if I wanted to,
Speaker 2: I could just write it down on my list the
Speaker 2: day I would probably the default day would be Saturday,
Speaker 2: let's say, and.
Speaker 1: Then you but there's like an annual theme too, Like
Speaker 1: an annual axiom is sort of an overarching theme. I'm
Speaker 1: very curious what your your annual axiom is this year.
Speaker 2: So the annual axiom acts is kind of like a
Speaker 2: north star, right, So it's very much like all of
Speaker 2: my projects have to serve that. If they don't, then
Speaker 2: probably going to be pushed aside, or they better serve
Speaker 2: a monthly theme at the very least. So my annual axiom,
Speaker 2: which I've returned to, and I mentioned this in the book,
Speaker 2: is Redesign, Rebuild, Reclaim. And I've had them in the past.
Speaker 2: One was called whatever it takes, no matter what. I've
Speaker 2: had three words, I've used the three words that Chris
Speaker 2: Brogan has used in the past. And what the annual
Speaker 2: acxiom does is I'm the only thing I'm resolute about
Speaker 2: is following my annual axiom. So if I want to
Speaker 2: I'm turning fifty one this year, I can't eat what
Speaker 2: I used to be able to eat very very you know,
Speaker 2: I have to start to take care of myself. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to. Okay, redesign, Rebuild, Reclaim does getting myself
Speaker 2: in shape and building a habit around exercise makes sense? Absolutely? Okay?
Speaker 2: So what does that look like. I've been in this
Speaker 2: business now for fifteen years, and sometimes there's some reinvention
Speaker 2: that goes on sometimes. You know, when you've been writing
Speaker 2: a book and you've kind of been well, you know this,
Speaker 2: you've written books, and you kind of go away for
Speaker 2: a little while, and then you come back out. You know,
Speaker 2: I've got this book, right, You're kind of peppering things
Speaker 2: out there, but you're you're in the weeds with the book.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, what things can I do that are
Speaker 2: project related that will live up to redesigning? You know,
Speaker 2: maybe where I'm at rebuilding, you know, maybe I've been
Speaker 2: gone for a while. I want to build my reputation
Speaker 2: back up, or my presence back up, let's say, and
Speaker 2: then reclaim you know, hey, you know being on this show,
Speaker 2: like you're saying, Mike, would you like to be on
Speaker 2: this podcast? Number one? You know, you and I have
Speaker 2: known each other for a long time, and I've got
Speaker 2: a book to market, so there's no question it makes sense.
Speaker 2: But also it does serve that axiom, right, it does.
Speaker 2: So what I often recommend if people are tired of
Speaker 2: New Year's resolutions, and I'm also a big believer and not,
Speaker 2: you don't have to start the year on January first,
Speaker 2: either start my ear typically in September because my kids
Speaker 2: start school in September. But do like Slogan's work mantras
Speaker 2: like anything like that, and it really is helpful. You
Speaker 2: can pair this up with reflective practice too. I don't
Speaker 2: get this into the into this in the book, but
Speaker 2: if you like meditation and you've got a mantra and
Speaker 2: your annual action can be that mantra that you chan't
Speaker 2: when you're doing like TM or something like that, it
Speaker 2: can actually allow you to kind of choose the kind
Speaker 2: of work that you want to do, the projects you
Speaker 2: want to take on, the initiatives that you want to
Speaker 2: bring to life. The annual action can kind of steer
Speaker 2: you in the right direction as opposed to you just
Speaker 2: going okay, well what do I do? How do I?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's because our brains will do we as
Speaker 2: we make our way through time. We can either do
Speaker 2: the primitive stuff, you know, like just survive or we
Speaker 2: can thrive. Right, So by giving our the newer part
Speaker 2: of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, some kind of help
Speaker 2: along the way, a bit of a compass, and that's
Speaker 2: what you know, timecrafting can do. And it also can
Speaker 2: short circuit any argument that the older part of your
Speaker 2: brain the ivingo that can kind of go, hey, well
Speaker 2: I don't really feel like doing this. Yeah, but you
Speaker 2: know what, it's Tuesday. Tuesday's your connection day, all right, fine?
Speaker 2: Or I'm tired. What can I do when I'm tired?
Speaker 2: Oh I can do all these things? Yeah, but you
Speaker 2: know it's the afternoon and or sorry, it's the evening
Speaker 2: and work's done. Okay, Well, let's look at our personal
Speaker 2: projects that are low energy and do those. All right, fine,
Speaker 2: I'll come back later to scrap with you again. So
Speaker 2: I could figure out, like that's the war that's constantly
Speaker 2: going on in our head, and having an annual action
Speaker 2: in any of these themes kind of give us a
Speaker 2: place to go absolutely. All right.
Speaker 1: Well, we're gonna take one more quick ad break and
Speaker 1: then i'll be back with more from Mike Varty. Well,
Speaker 1: I am back talking with Mike Vardy, and we've been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about different time theming. I wanted to
Speaker 1: switch gears a little bit here and talk about your
Speaker 1: night owl status because you know, this is a podcast
Speaker 1: called Before Breakfast and a lot of Elk have found that,
Speaker 1: you know, using their mornings is a key part of
Speaker 1: getting the things done that that they would have trouble
Speaker 1: finding time in the rest of the life to do,
Speaker 1: and when somebody is a night owl, you obviously have
Speaker 1: to work things a little bit differently. A lot of
Speaker 1: the world is set up for people who are more
Speaker 1: likely to get up earlier in the morning, So I'm
Speaker 1: curious how that affects your schedule and a advice you'd
Speaker 1: have for other night owls.
Speaker 2: So, Laura, I remember and I share this story a lot.
Speaker 2: I distinctly remember us being on a panel years ago
Speaker 2: with Daniel Gold, Craig Jarrow, myself and you and hal
Speaker 2: el Rod Miracle Morning. And I think it was Daniel
Speaker 2: Gold who asked us like, when do you when do you?
Speaker 2: When do you get going? When do you start? Like
Speaker 2: how do you? And you actually I expected to give
Speaker 2: like a really early response, but I think you're like, well, no,
Speaker 2: kids have changed things, so I've had to shift a
Speaker 2: little bit. But everyone's like three am, five am, all
Speaker 2: that stuff.
Speaker 1: Over here.
Speaker 2: For me, I'm like, when do you start your day?
Speaker 2: It was like I go the night before. That's what
Speaker 2: you have to do as a night owl. You have
Speaker 2: to be a bit more proactive because you're right in
Speaker 2: the world that we live in it's very much geared
Speaker 2: towards the nine to five, the early riser, right. But
Speaker 2: I also look at the phrase the early word gets
Speaker 2: the warm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. So
Speaker 2: if I was somebody getting up early and my brain
Speaker 2: isn't wired, I would fall into a trap, There's no question, right.
Speaker 2: So I have to set myself up the night before.
Speaker 2: So the way I kind of flip my time around
Speaker 2: as a night owl is I kind of look at
Speaker 2: the afternoon as really the beginning of my day, and
Speaker 2: then I go to sleep, and you know, if I'm
Speaker 2: taking like seven hours sleep, it's almost like I take
Speaker 2: a really long nap, and then when I get up
Speaker 2: the next morning, it's like the second half of my day.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen have you seen that video that
Speaker 2: that's kind of gone viral on TikTok with Ed Milett going,
Speaker 2: I take my day and it's twenty four hours, but
Speaker 2: I did divide my day into four, and so now
Speaker 2: I have four days instead of one because it's six hours.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, okay, you're really just I mean, I
Speaker 2: get it. Time is subjective, but we try to make
Speaker 2: it objective, mainly for things we're doing right now. So
Speaker 2: we can agree to meet. But for me, I have
Speaker 2: to do things like journal the journal the night before
Speaker 2: so that when I wake up in the morning, my
Speaker 2: brain goes, well what do I do? And I've left
Speaker 2: kind of a letter to myself to go, this is
Speaker 2: what you should do. I know you're going to be
Speaker 2: susceptible to shiny. No, this is what and I will
Speaker 2: start off my day with low energy tasks. If you're
Speaker 2: an early riser, you'll start off with high energy tasks.
Speaker 2: So for me, that's why attention pass have been so helpful,
Speaker 2: especially the energy based ones, because I can look at
Speaker 2: my list and go, oh, it's Tuesday, It's connection day.
Speaker 2: That's great, but kind of tired. Okay, well, do I
Speaker 2: have any low energy connection tasks? And I can start
Speaker 2: with and that's where I go. So I'm able to
Speaker 2: make progress while honoring my body clock at the same time.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of how I've always navigated it. Now,
Speaker 2: to be fair, I'm also not staying up as late
Speaker 2: as I used to. I'm getting older, you don't, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's what happens. But after talking with folks like doctor
Speaker 2: Michael Bruce and others that are you know, well, steeped
Speaker 2: in circadian rhythms, and the science around it is that
Speaker 2: night owls will never not true like in his case wolves.
Speaker 2: All that happens is your bedtime shifts earlier, but you
Speaker 2: still can't get up and go. You're not wired that way.
Speaker 2: So even if I'm going to bed at say midnight
Speaker 2: instead of two or whatever, it doesn't mean that at
Speaker 2: seven am like, oh right, it's time to go. No,
Speaker 2: my brain is still foggy. So you have to listen
Speaker 2: to your energy levels when you are a night owl,
Speaker 2: probably more than anything else. And also, I think anybody,
Speaker 2: whether you're an early riser or a night owl, having
Speaker 2: the evening routine is incredibly helpful because number one, for
Speaker 2: a night owl, it sets you up so that you
Speaker 2: can start the day with a bit of focus, a
Speaker 2: bit more clarity. But for early risers it allows you
Speaker 2: to hit the ground running. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Well, Mike, I always ask my guess this question,
Speaker 1: which is, what is something you have done recently to
Speaker 1: take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2: Oh? Oh wow, okay, so this is really interesting. Is
Speaker 2: one thing I started to do in the mornings is
Speaker 2: I go for a walk to start my day. And
Speaker 2: what that does is. It kind of gets me moving,
Speaker 2: both physically and mentally. And I think I remember reading
Speaker 2: it was probably a Japanese it might have been Murakami
Speaker 2: or somebody like that, that they go running first thing
Speaker 2: and then they go writing or whatever. I think it's
Speaker 2: what I think about when I run er. I think
Speaker 2: that's the name of the book. But I thought, well,
Speaker 2: if I go for a walk in the morning, just
Speaker 2: a twenty five minute walk, a Pomodoro like, I'll use
Speaker 2: all of the tricks that we've learned over the years
Speaker 2: to kind of go okay, Well, if I take a
Speaker 2: twenty five minute walk, especially now that we're in as
Speaker 2: we're recording this in the summer months in Victoria, the
Speaker 2: rain is kind of slipped away, it really does affect
Speaker 2: the shape of the day. And so what I think that,
Speaker 2: And again, we have the technology. It's not like we're
Speaker 2: sitting here going, oh, well, I can't you know, I
Speaker 2: can't do anything. I bring my phone with me and
Speaker 2: I will dictate things into my phone and look like
Speaker 2: a crazy person probably while doing it. But again, the
Speaker 2: one the beauty about getting older is that you don't
Speaker 2: care as much make you look crazy if you're wandering
Speaker 2: around doing any of that stuff, and it actually gets
Speaker 2: so my ideas start flowing. I'm like, Okay, well when
Speaker 2: you get back, I have to do this. So honestly,
Speaker 2: that morning walk has taken Any day I don't do it,
Speaker 2: Let's put this way. Any day I don't do it, it
Speaker 2: takes me that much longer to get the day to
Speaker 2: where I want it to be. Whereas that morning walk,
Speaker 2: which you know, cup of coffee. I'll even walk around
Speaker 2: in my pajama pants. I don't even care in my neighborhood.
Speaker 2: As long as I'm out there doing it, it does
Speaker 2: turn that just transform that day for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from great to awesome. And a day is less
Speaker 1: awesome if it doesn't happen. Yeah, Well, Mike, where can
Speaker 1: people find you?
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to get the book, for example,
Speaker 2: just go to Mike Vardi dot com slash lit. It
Speaker 2: not only lists the productivity, but the other books I've
Speaker 2: written as well. You can find me on social media
Speaker 2: Mike Vardi. And if you want to subscribe to my
Speaker 2: weekly newsletter, it's Mike Vardy dot com slash light. So
Speaker 2: I send a newsletter out every Saturday every weekend called
Speaker 2: The Lantern, and it's just some insights. I mean again,
Speaker 2: like I said, over the years, I've gone from being
Speaker 2: this enthusiast all the way to being a bit more
Speaker 2: philosophical about things and still offering practical, practical guides and takeaways.
Speaker 2: So that's where you can find me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we all have our eras we do. We do
Speaker 1: the different eras of the productivity expert exactly. Well, Mike,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to
Speaker 1: everyone for listening. If you have feedback about this or
Speaker 1: any other episode, you can always reach me at Laura
Speaker 1: at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, feedback, you can reach me at Laura
Speaker 1: at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.