WEBVTT - Coping with digital exhaustion, with Paul Leonardi 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:14.280 Good morning, This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.160 Today's episode is going to be a longer one part 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:21.040 of the series where I interview fascinating people about how 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.880 they take their days from great to awesome and any 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.320 advice they have for the rest of us. So today 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.480 I am delighted to welcome Paul Leonardi to Before Breakfast. 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.080 Paul is a professor at You See Santa Barbara and 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.839 the author of the brand new book Digital Exhaustion, Simple 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:38.400 Tools for Reclaiming Your Life. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:39.760 So, Paul, welcome to the show. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:41.559 Good morning Laura, nice to be here. 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:43.480 Yeah, so, why didn't you tell our listeners a little 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:44.280 bit about yourself. 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:47.120 Yeah, So, as you mentioned, I'm a professor at you 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.680 See Santa Barbara. I've been a professor for about twenty years, 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:55.120 and during that time I've really spent my effort and 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:59.480 energy trying to understand how people and people who are 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:05.120 working in companies can use digital tools effectively to increase productivity, efficiency, 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:10.319 well being, etc. And there's a dark side. As we 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.120 both know that all of these tools do great things 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:15.560 for us, they also wear us out, and so a 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:17.520 big chunk of what I've been focusing on for the 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:19.720 last few years is trying to understand how do we 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.200 make sure that we're taking advantage of all the great 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.240 things these tools do for us at work and in 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.880 our personal lives and not get so worn out by them. All. 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:28.800 Right, Well, that leads us to the title of your book, 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.640 digital exhaustion. I'm sure you have been asked this a 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.840 million times, but what exactly is digital exhaustion? 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.960 Great question. I like to define it more by feeling 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.560 rather than just a definition. So play along with me here. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.600 If you don't mind, have you felt as you sat 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:47.960 in front of your screen that the screen's kind of 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.400 like a tractor beam. It sucks you in that you're 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:56.520 scrolling and you're clicking, You're kind of feeling lack of energy. 0:01:57.280 --> 0:01:59.400 You maybe look at your watch and you're like, what 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:01.920 have I been doing for the last ten minutes? You 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:03.720 know you need to send an email, you know you 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.440 should be replying to somebody on Instagram, but you kind 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:08.400 of don't want to, but you can't quite leave and 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.280 get up. If you've had those sorts of feelings before, 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.280 that's digital exhaustion in a nutshell, right, It's this kind 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.840 of pervasive feeling that I should be doing more, but 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.760 I can't quite pull away. But I'm not being productive 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:22.640 and it's kind of getting overwhelming. 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.440 All right, Well, that's an interesting way to look at it. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.440 You know, I'm trying to figure out what exactly is 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:30.800 leading to this, because obviously some tools are incredibly helpful 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.639 for our life. I'm hoping that the squadcast where we're 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:35.960 recording is not glitchy. But there's no way we'd be 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.480 doing this you in California and me and Philadelphia and like, 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.280 you know, be able to see each other. I mean, 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:44.000 there's a lot of tools. Sure, digital tools are incredibly amazing. Yeah, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.720 but is it just the sheer volume of them that's 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:48.919 that's the problem. Is it the time we're spending on them? 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:50.560 What is leading to the problem. 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.840 Yeah, there's a combination of factors that I really outline 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:55.799 in the book, And the myth that I wanted to 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.880 spell right off the top is that that we're just 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.280 using tools too much. I don't think that's really the problem. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:05.960 We have to use them to get by in today's world, right, 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.760 whether that's at home, whether it's at work, at parenting 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.040 with our families, The key is how do we use 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.160 them in ways that don't lead to those feelings of 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.880 exhaustion that we just describe. So there are three key 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.960 drivers to digital exhaustion. The first is attention. We hear 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:22.680 a lot today about how we need to focus, we 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.320 need to do deep work. All that's great, I totally agree, 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.560 but I think those conversations miss a slightly different point, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.919 which is that the way we pay attention exhausts us. 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.040 So for most of us, we're constantly switching across different devices. 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.720 We're at home and we're thinking about work. We're doing 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.440 one project, but we're also switching to do things on 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.320 another project simultaneously. And each of those switches and how 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.320 we pay attention and where we pay attention is really exhausting. 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.400 We switch tools roughly twelve hundred times a day. Think 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.560 about that, like, how many of those switches happen, and 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.240 even if you're doing something is seemingly banal, as switching 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:06.119 between let's say Microsoft Teams and Zoom that are both 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.680 video conferencing platforms, think about, Okay, I've got to figure 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:12.800 out where the record button is or how I get 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.440 my mic on on this new application, and all of 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:20.039 those micro decisions are just cognitively exhausting. They wear us out. 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.760 So how we focus our attention is one. The second 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.760 is about inference. So we are exposed to so many 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.960 data points all day long, and sometimes those are data 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.880 points in a seal spreadsheet. Sometimes they're images that we 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.279 see on Instagram or a video on TikTok, and it's 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.680 easy to think that, well, we just are seeing the 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.159 total here, we're seeing the world. We're seeing all of 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.919 the bits and pieces of information, but we're not. We're 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.440 always making inferences about, well, what do these data actually mean? 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:52.760 Or why did that person post that? Or I wrote 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.680 this thing in this email, what does that person think 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.560 about what I just wrote? And so we're constantly making 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.279 all these inferences about data and information sources, and there's 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.760 just great research that shows that when you make those inferences, 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.240 we get emotionally exhausted, We get mentally exhausted, and we're 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.760 just doing that constantly. And then the final piece is 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.279 just really around emotions. You know, I don't think we 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:16.920 typically think of technology and emotion in the same sentence, 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.160 but the way we use our tools and how we 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.440 get involved in you know, sort of the flow of 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.359 our work or you know, interactions that we have, maybe 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.120 on text message with our family and friends, they lead 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.760 to a whole range of emotions, some of them really great. 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:36.240 We're excited, we're you know, we're feeling really happy. Others 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.640 were feeling kind of depressed, or we're having anxiety, or 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.320 maybe we're mad. And emotions are one of the biggest 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.600 sources of our exhaustion, whether they're positive or negative. Emotions 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.800 wear us out. And everything we do with technology today 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:51.960 piques our emotions in all kinds of ways. So if 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.640 you think about attention, inference, and emotion, those are the 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:57.640 things that are wearing us out. It's not our tools, 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.240 but it's how our tools create these different orientations to 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:02.160 those three drivers. 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:04.360 Well, and one of the things you suggest in the 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.039 book is doing a bit of an audit on all 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.000 the tools you are touching in the course of the day. 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.640 What we're switching between twelve hundred times. I'm curious what 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.880 are the sort of numbers people are posting when they 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.760 do an audit. What kind of numbers are is that 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.040 list going to be so our readers, our listeners don't 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:21.719 feel bad. 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:22.640 When they do this. 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.600 Yeah, so I've done this with a like probably at 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.800 sixty seventy people at this point, and on average, I 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:34.679 would say people report using between thirty five and forty 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:39.120 different applications today. That's up from about a decade ago 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.679 when I started doing this, and people were reporting somewhere 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.960 between ten and fifteen applications. So that number has just 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.359 dramatically increased in a few years. Another interesting fact about 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.640 that difference between then and now is when I used 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:54.680 to ask people, okay, well, tell me about the digital 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.720 tools they're using, they would say, well, I use my laptop, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.120 and I use my phone, and i use my computer, 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.359 so they are all devices. And today almost nobody mentions devices, 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.000 but they say I'm on this app and that app 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.440 and this app across all of these different devices. So 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.560 it's not just that we're switching and paying attention and 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.720 using so many different tools, but we're using them across 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.440 different devices, and so they all have different interfaces and 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.480 different ways of interacting with them. And thirty five to 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.640 forty that seems like a lot. But if you just 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.080 start to think about, okay, well, I use Safari on 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.600 my phone, and then I go on LinkedIn, and then 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.280 I'm using Microsoft Word, and then I look at Gmail 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.280 and then they all add up real quick, real quick. 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.120 Well, but one of the things you then say with 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.800 that is, I mean, the truth sets us free when 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.280 we know what all these are. One of the upsides 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.120 of doing this is you can see how many are 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.600 just for personal use, which I think gives people more 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.240 of a sense of agency over it. Like I can't 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.840 suddenly decide to stop using Zoom if that's how I 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.120 communicate with my boss and I'm working remotely, right, we 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.840 can't just write that off. But nobody's requiring you to 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.800 be on Instagram, for instance, most of the time. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.840 Yeah, that's true. So my recommendation when you're doing what 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.280 I call a tool audit is to say, first, just 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.840 list out all of the different technologies that you use, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.760 and I think you'll be surprised often how many duplicating 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.840 tools we have. You know that maybe you're kind of 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.480 just for fun, you're talking to your family on FaceTime, 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.280 but you're also talking to your family on Zoom, and 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:28.440 you're like, well, those are sort of giving me the 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.640 exact same functionality. Maybe I don't need to be using 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.320 both of these. So just listing as powerful as you mentioned, 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.840 but then dividing between what do we use in our 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:38.840 personal lives and what do we use at work helps 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.679 us to recognize, just as you point out that we 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.560 can do a lot in our personal lives to reduce 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.600 the number of tools that we use. Sometimes it's harder 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.880 at work, although lots of great examples of people who 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.840 found that they're using a bunch of different technologies at 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.560 work and nobody really knows why, you know. So I 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.160 talked to one woman who was saying, well, we we 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.080 have Dropbox, and we have g Drive, and we have SharePoint, 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.400 and we seem to save our files on my team 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:07.199 and all of those and so I went and asked, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.880 why are we using all three of these? And nobody knew. 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:11.760 So I just said to the team, the team was 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.520 about eight people, what if we just picked Google Drive? 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:16.319 And everyone's like, oh, yeah, that's fine, we'll just move 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.280 everything over to Google Drive. So often we're just stuck 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.320 in this tool creep right where we have more and 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:24.520 more devices and applications and we don't know why. And 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:26.760 so it's easier to take care of the ones at home, 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.760 slightly harder in the workplace. But I think both are doable. 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.200 Absolutely Well, We're going to take a quick ad break 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:42.439 and then we'll be back with more about digital exhaustion. Well, 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:44.959 I am back talking with Paul Leonardi, who's the author 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.520 of the brand new book Digital Exhaustion. We've been talking 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:50.640 about doing a tool audit of every tool you touch 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:52.240 on the course of the day and seeing which ones 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.719 maybe duplicates, which ones are solely for personal use in 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.120 er within your control, whether you think they add to 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.760 your life or not. But even if we are going 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:03.800 to use a tool, there are ways within the use 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.840 of the tool to sort of tone down its exhaustion 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:08.640 factor for us. I mean, one of the things you 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.240 mentioned is simply delaying responses and how does that work 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.000 to tone down the exhaustion. 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:17.200 Sure, So this is I think a powerful rule that 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.120 I talk about in the book. It's rule number four, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.080 and it's maybe the most controversial of the rules in 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:27.960 the book. You know, we're soingrained in quick response times 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.480 in at least the western industrialized world. You know, somebody 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.760 sends us a message, a text, an email, what's that message? 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:37.640 And we feel like, well, we just have to respond 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.480 right away. So there's a very strong cultural pressure towards 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.800 that response. What's interesting, though, is there's been a lot 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:49.920 of research about people and response times, and what the 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:55.880 research shows is, first, people overestimate how urgent they think 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.000 someone else's requests are, so we often think that we 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.839 have to respond away because this person needs this thing 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.240 right now. And if you go and survey the people 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:06.600 that sent the request, they often say, well, I didn't 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:08.280 really need this as quickly as they thought that I did, 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.280 so thinking about this email urgency bias, I think is 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.920 an important thing to remember. Second, the data also show 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:23.000 that people in train to our response patterns. So if 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.559 I'm someone who responds really quickly, then you're going to 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.080 respond quickly because I responded quickly, and if I respond 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.760 more slowly, you tend to respond more slowly because I 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.120 responded more slowly. So we get into this choreograph dance 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.880 pretty easily with the people that were exchanging messages to 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.360 So if you want to slow down the rate at 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.400 which you have to receive messages and respond to them, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.800 like just don't send messages quite so quickly, or respond 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.199 to people's messages a little more slowly. I'm not suggesting 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.480 that we shirk our responsibility if there's a really important 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.640 and urgent thing, but many of the things that people 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.079 ask us aren't super and many of the things people 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.320 ask us resolve themselves if we don't respond right away. 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:07.200 I mean that you can probably think of many times 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.640 in your life where someone's asked you for some help 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.480 or asked you for this piece of information and you 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.880 don't respond for whatever reason, and then they email you 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:17.840 back or text you and say, actually, I don't need 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:19.600 that anymore. I moved on or I figured it out. 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:24.400 So delaying strategically sometimes can help us to reduce response time. 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.560 And the very last thing I'll say about this, because 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:30.000 I know we should move on, but is that a 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:34.800 lot of research shows that if we send longer messages 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:40.120 that are more thoughtful, people respond to them less frequently. 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.719 And that's important because what it means is that if 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.240 I just take a little more time crafting something that's 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:50.400 more thorough, then people will store that in their inbox, 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.840 they'll reflect on it. It'll help to answer their questions 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:55.840 maybe that they don't have right now, but they'll realize 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:57.920 that they have in five hours or in a week. 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.480 And that means that they're not constantly sending me these 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:03.680 small follow ups that get me out of the rhythm 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.960 of my work and really tax my attention for having 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.160 to respond when I'm trying to do something else. So 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.240 I think delayed response, slowing down a little bit is 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:14.880 a huge tool that we can have in order to 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:15.679 reduce our exhaustion. 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:17.760 Well, yeah, and you say you train people in what 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:19.839 you're like if I know that the emails I get 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.560 from Paul are thoughtful and explain everything, and you know 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.400 I'm not going to have a million follow up questions, 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.400 and I start to, Oh, the emails from Paul are 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.160 actually serious, I should. 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.480 Start paying attention to them and reflecting. 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.280 Upon them as they do what I think the things 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:38.280 I found sort of darkly humorous tell you like many 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.080 of us wind up using apps and group texts and 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.520 such in our personal lives, sometimes in the hope of 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.440 saving time, right, like the idea of Okay, I'm gonna 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:54.200 carpool with three other families to soccer, and because of that, 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.040 I am only going to have to go to soccer 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.400 twenty five percent of the time because we're all taking 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:03.040 each other's kids. And yet the mental management of that, 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.800 the mental load that winds up coming out of managing 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:11.320 the carpool group chat can sometimes be as much as 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.960 the time that you would have spent driving those children 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:14.440 to soccer. 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.280 Yeah, darkly humorous is probably a good way to describe it. 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:22.960 You know, this particular chapter in the book that's sort 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.000 of about parenting in the digital age is really poignant 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.760 for me personally because I've got three, well two teenage 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.560 daughters and one almost teenage, and I'm just like a 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.520 chauffeur service, right, I'm just driving them around constantly, and 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.280 so it was really sort of horrifying but also gratifying 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.240 to talk to so many parents to hear about what 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.000 are your struggles and what are the ways that you 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:48.640 deal with them. And the concept that I would urge 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:51.960 us to think about is what I call shadow hours. 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.960 So we think about a typical task like driving someone 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.400 or carpooling, like how much time does that take? And 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.040 the mental calculation that most of us make is, Okay, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:04.480 well how much time is this going to save me? 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.360 But what we don't think of are those shadow hours, 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.440 or the amount of time that happens in coordination to 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:15.240 make that carpool happen. And it's funny. So just I'm 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.160 just going to pull out my texts here while we're talking, 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.960 because just last night, my wife's friend sent her a 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:22.960 text and I'm going to see if I can read 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:28.160 it here, and it says, got eighty three texts today 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:32.920 about the carpool situation. I'm over it with a big 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.680 face with crime. Now, think about that all the time 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.640 that you're trying to spend to coordinate because someone you know, okay, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.080 well my other kids siys, so I can't do the 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.800 carpool today, or it turns out, you know, this person 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.600 has to go here rather than there. We're spending so 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.720 much time trying to do these coordination activities that really 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.840 take our time, attention, and peque our emotions that in 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.520 many cases, if we step back a bit, we might think, 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.120 maybe I just drive the person instead, maybe just drive 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:00.560 my kid and I don't have to do all this 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.960 coordination and spend all these shadow hours. And the other 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.480 thing that I find talking to a lot of parents 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.880 is they say, these are really crappy connections with people, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:15.600 you know, like, I'm not actually building relationships by saying Okay, 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.440 I'll pick up, no you pick up, No, I'll be there, No, 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:21.480 you be there. What people say that they do that 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.920 really helps is that they'll say, well, rather than let's 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.720 try to coordinate this on text when we both go 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.280 and we're here at this event, let's talk about it. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.080 And then you actually see somebody, you laugh a little 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.800 bit with them, you joke about the ridiculous situation that 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.240 we're in driving our kids to and fro, and you 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.400 feel like you're actually making a connection with someone and 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:44.560 you're able to resolve a lot of those ambiguities that 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.000 would have taken thirty texts in fifteen seconds worth of talking. 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.080 So I think that the watchword here is think about 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.720 your shadow hours and think about how you can connect 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.080 so much that you actually lose real connection with people. 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:59.880 Absolutely, we're going to take one more quick ad break 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:02.360 and then we will be back with more on digital exhaustion. 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.280 So I am back talking with Paul Leonardi, who's the 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.879 author of the brand new book Digital Exhaustion, Simple Tools 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.280 for Reclaiming Your Life. So, I mean that's not to. 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.879 Say we should never try to carpool or to you know, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.239 outsource anything. I mean I'm reminded of the fact that 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.120 like managing in general, like when you manage, when you outsource, 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:30.080 you're still a resource. 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:30.680 Problem. 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.239 Is we have to, you know, try to minimize how 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.720 many shadow hours we are devoting to different things, but I'm. 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:36.919 Curious about your scandle. Here, let's talk about your scandule. 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:42.600 Okay, do you have any routines, particularly around how you 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.439 deal with digital stuff or inputs that you feel make 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:47.160 you more productive. 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.960 Yeah. So I've developed a number of different tricks over 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.040 the years, mostly inspired by doing the research for this book. 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.479 So one of the biggest ones is about my pattern 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:02.840 of response to incoming queer and that for me often 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.719 happens on email, but it also happens on LinkedIn, it 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.720 happens on text message, it happens through some group chat 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.440 devices that we use in my work and in my consulting. 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.760 And I used to be what I call a very 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.520 hardcore batcher, meaning that I would pick certain times a 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.119 day and I would say, Okay, this is my response period. 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:26.120 I'm going to give you a window right an hour 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:27.560 in the morning, and I'm going to give an hour 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.480 at lunch and an hour in the afternoon, and I'm 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.120 going to respond only during those times. In fact, when 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.080 I was really at my peak of doing this, I 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.600 think I really did it like once a day, and 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:41.919 I was really efficient with all the rest of my 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:46.440 work because I wasn't getting interrupted constantly by incoming messages 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:48.439 that took my head out of the space that I 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.879 was in and put in somewhere else, and my exhaustion 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.840 felt relatively low. However, what I noticed over time, and 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.720 after interviewing a lot of people who do batching versus 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.040 what I can streaming, which is kind of just taking 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.199 things as they come in and then responding to them 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.399 right away, is that I was actually letting a lot 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:14.960 of people down. You know, that I wasn't careful about 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.040 triaging my messages right and triaging the things that I 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.760 needed to accomplish, and so I put everything into the bucket. 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:22.720 I'll respond to this at the end of the day 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.399 when some things actually needed much more quick responses, and 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.119 so I was making it difficult for other people to 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.119 complete their work or to do the things they needed 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:35.320 to do. So over time, I've moved toward having a 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.640 system where I do dedicate chunks of time morning, right 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:41.720 before lunch and then about an hour before it in 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:45.720 my day to real in depth responses. But I'm also 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:48.480 just looking throughout the day to make sure that things 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.680 aren't coming in that will require a really quick response 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.160 that doesn't take a lot of my headspace so it's 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.280 a combination of figuring out about that batching and streaming 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.639 and what the ideal balance is on those two activities 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.320 for you that I think are really. 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.320 Important well, because it really is a balance, right, I 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.520 mean there are because there are people who are streaming 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.240 all day and I can tell you having studied their schedules, 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.400 they get nothing done. I mean, you know, everyone's excited 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.200 that you hear back from John immediately, but if John 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.040 has never gotten around to finishing his part of the 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.800 project of initially, it gets a little tedious set you 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:23.080 know that he was responsive but not effective. 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.560 So I mean, I guess maybe people just need to. 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.800 Try different things and see, like where you get the 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.280 balance of people being unhappy with you versus where you 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.520