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Speaker 1: How I Work is having a little break over the

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Speaker 1: bestib season, so I have handpicked a few of my

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Speaker 1: absolute favorite episodes from the last year to play for

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Speaker 1: you in this best of series. I hope you enjoy

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Speaker 1: and I will be back with new episodes twice weekly

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Speaker 1: from January twenty nine. In an effort to make time

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Speaker 1: for ourselves, many of us fall back on using to

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Speaker 1: do lists and time blocking. But often these sorts of

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Speaker 1: strategies can end up with the same result, getting lost

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Speaker 1: in chasing productivity. So how do we make time for

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Speaker 1: the things that truly count Joining me for a third

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Speaker 1: time on How I Work is Oliver Berkman, one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite writers. You might have come across Oliver through

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Speaker 1: the international bestseller four thousand Weeks, Time Management for Mortals,

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Speaker 1: or his regular columns for The Guardian, But what I

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Speaker 1: love most about Oliver's work is that he flips traditional

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Speaker 1: productivity advice on its head and gives a completely different

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Speaker 1: way of looking at how we use our time. With

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Speaker 1: his new book Meditation for Mortals four Weeks to Embrace

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Speaker 1: your limitations and make Time for what Counts, which is

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Speaker 1: out now, Oliver has been thinking a lot about how

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Speaker 1: we can all claw back time for the things that

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Speaker 1: really matter. In this episode, we explore the mindset you

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Speaker 1: should be using when you first approach a task if

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Speaker 1: you want it to be achieved easily, and why allowing

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Speaker 1: yourself to be distracted can actually create a positive result.

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Speaker 1: We also chat about the strategy you should be utilizing

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Speaker 1: instead of a to do list if you want to

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Speaker 1: get the most out of your day. Welcome to How

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Speaker 1: I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for

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Speaker 1: optimizing your day. I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imber. Oliver's

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Speaker 1: new book, Meditation for Mortals is packed full of wisdom

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Speaker 1: and advice, so I wanted to know of everything that

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Speaker 1: Oliver wrote about, which pieces of advice really stuck with

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Speaker 1: him and changed him the most.

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Speaker 2: I seem not able to write anything other than what

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Speaker 2: feels most compelling to me on the day that I'm

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Speaker 2: writing it, and that applies to the whole book in

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Speaker 2: the sense that, like, you know, these are the things

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Speaker 2: I have to grapple with, and then it applies on

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Speaker 2: the level of individual chapters through the process of writing

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Speaker 2: a book. So it feels like the answer that changes

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Speaker 2: every day basically, but in terms of specifics This book

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Speaker 2: is organized into four weeks, as you know, and with

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Speaker 2: a sort of short chapter per day for each of

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Speaker 2: those weeks, not that I can control how people actually

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Speaker 2: read it, but that's the sort of idea. And the

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Speaker 2: third week in there is called Letting Go, and it's

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Speaker 2: about the importance of learning to sort of let things

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Speaker 2: happen as a sort of compliment to making them happen,

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Speaker 2: and kind of unclenching from life a bit. And basically

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Speaker 2: all of that material is the stuff I sort of

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Speaker 2: needed the most at the point that I was putting

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Speaker 2: that together, and you know still now. So all that

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Speaker 2: stuff about, for example, the willingness to let things be

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Speaker 2: easy and not to sort of head into big projects

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Speaker 2: or life stages or anything like that with the kind

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Speaker 2: of assumption that they must be going to be grueling

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Speaker 2: and take a lot of unpleasant effort. That means a

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Speaker 2: lot to me, because it's still one of the ones

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Speaker 2: that I sort of grapple with the most.

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Speaker 1: I suppose I love that I did write that down. Actually,

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Speaker 1: it's something I wanted to delve into because it's a

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Speaker 1: question that I sometimes think about, and I've written it here.

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Speaker 1: What if this might be a lot easier then i'd

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Speaker 1: been assuming, I think was the wording from the book,

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Speaker 1: and I was actually curious, like, well, how do you

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Speaker 1: apply it every day? But I also wanted to know

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Speaker 1: to this book project, and particularly following up on four

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Speaker 1: Thousand Weeks, which such a mega hit around the world,

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Speaker 1: And I mean, you've written several books, and so it

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Speaker 1: wasn't like that second album syndrome they talk about for musicians.

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Speaker 1: Maybe this is like your fourth or fifth album syndrome.

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Speaker 1: But I wanted to know for this project, in particular,

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Speaker 1: how did you apply that advice and did you?

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Speaker 2: Well, No, it was a bit like second album syndrome,

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Speaker 2: because you know, it's true that I had written a

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Speaker 2: previous book, The Antidote, and also a collection of columns

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Speaker 2: called Help, which was a book and is a book,

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Speaker 2: But I hadn't had to write in the same way, right,

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Speaker 2: because it was just a question of collecting and editing

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Speaker 2: some previously written material. But certainly four thousand Weeks was

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Speaker 2: far and away the most sort of successful thing that

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Speaker 2: I'd written at the point that it was published. And

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Speaker 2: so yeah, I think there was a very sort of

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Speaker 2: cliche aede, completely predictable and rather tiresome to talk too

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Speaker 2: much about phenomenon where I sort of froze a bit

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Speaker 2: and thought like, oh dear, now, if I mess up,

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Speaker 2: more people going to be watching. So I did kind

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Speaker 2: of a little bit, to some extent sort of freezing headlights.

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Speaker 2: And it was because it sort of brought into my

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Speaker 2: writing process a lot of the questions that I was

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Speaker 2: already focused on in what I wanted to put into

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Speaker 2: the book, and it sort of made them very, very alive.

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Speaker 2: And I've found this in the past, right, something about

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Speaker 2: the process of writing books will sort of foreground the

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Speaker 2: things that you're grappling with in the substance of the book,

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Speaker 2: and actually, you know, you end up, I think, and

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Speaker 2: I hope being able to express them more authentically because

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Speaker 2: you actually sort of have to go through a version

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Speaker 2: of that struggle to get the book written. And I

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Speaker 2: did have to find ways to allow the possibility that

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Speaker 2: it was more doable than I thought. But the basic

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Speaker 2: gist of that was to sort of keep coming back

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Speaker 2: and back and back. I don't think there's a single

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Speaker 2: way to flip the switch, but keep coming back to

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Speaker 2: this thought that maybe what I was ready to do

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Speaker 2: and able to do in terms of the next paragraph

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Speaker 2: in the next chapter was what needed to be done.

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Speaker 1: And now, just like in your day to day work,

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Speaker 1: how do you apply that principle of just having things

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Speaker 1: be a whole lot easier than you'd otherwise assume.

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Speaker 2: I mean, a couple of things come to mind. One

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Speaker 2: is that I do think and I wish this wasn't

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Speaker 2: the case, but I do think that a lot of

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Speaker 2: these insights are just a matter of returning to them

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Speaker 2: and returning to them and returning to them and gradually

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Speaker 2: sort of strengthening them mental muscle that allows you to

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Speaker 2: remember them. So it's sort of catching yourself from one

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Speaker 2: minute to the next, and it's actually quite sort of

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Speaker 2: physical for me, right sort of I find that I'm

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Speaker 2: actually sort of tensed against the work. It's in my

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Speaker 2: musculature somehow, and catching yourself doing that and just sort

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Speaker 2: of stepping back from it and thinking like, oh, maybe

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Speaker 2: that's not necessary is very powerful maybe to get a

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Speaker 2: little bit more practical. The other thing that makes a

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Speaker 2: big difference there is the idea of really just thinking

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Speaker 2: about the very next thing and the very next thing,

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Speaker 2: so sort of using methods of productivity, methods of planning

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Speaker 2: the day, and there are lots of different ones that

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Speaker 2: having common this focus. So I'm like, Okay, what's the

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Speaker 2: next small, completeable thing, the sort of radically doable little

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Speaker 2: task that I want to pick and then put into practice.

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Speaker 2: Now you can't do things like write a book or

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Speaker 2: even write a chapter. You can do things like come

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Speaker 2: up with a rough plan for the first half of

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Speaker 2: the chapter, and that's when I can get it down

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Speaker 2: underneath that threshold of what feels doable them back into

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Speaker 2: that easier way of working.

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Speaker 1: I love that idea of picking the thing that feels

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Speaker 1: radically doable that will stick with me. I think something

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Speaker 1: else that this relates to, and I want to say,

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Speaker 1: this might have been in the Letting Go section is

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Speaker 1: around developing a taste for problems, and you write about

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Speaker 1: how we kind of go through life and think, oh,

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Speaker 1: one day all the problems will be gone and there

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Speaker 1: will just be no problems to deal with, but of

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Speaker 1: course we know that that is not the case. It's

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Speaker 1: like it's so simple, but it's also it's like it's

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Speaker 1: quite profound when you think about it. I want to know, like,

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Speaker 1: how does that one resonate for you, like on a

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Speaker 1: day to day basis. Is it one of those things

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Speaker 1: that you do just keep coming back to. Because I

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Speaker 1: was very curious about that.

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Speaker 2: I write in the book about this story that Sam

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Speaker 2: Harris tells about, you know, being a coffee. I think

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Speaker 2: it is at lunch with a friend one day and

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Speaker 2: going on and on about all the problems he was

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Speaker 2: addressing in his work or whatever it was, and her

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Speaker 2: interrupting him in mid flow and saying, hold on, are

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Speaker 2: you still under the impression you're going to get to

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Speaker 2: the part of your life where you don't have any problems?

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Speaker 2: And he sort of recounts the experience of realizing, like, oh, yes,

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Speaker 2: there is kind of something in the stance I've had

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Speaker 2: towards life that implies, yeah, not only that a given

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Speaker 2: problem might be difficult depending on its content, but that

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Speaker 2: like I shouldn't have problems. I'm trying to get through

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Speaker 2: to the point in life where there aren't problems. And

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Speaker 2: I sort of explain in the book why this hasn't

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Speaker 2: going to happen, and you wouldn't want it to happen, right.

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Speaker 2: There are certainly specific kinds of problems that you wouldn't

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Speaker 2: wish on anybody, but the sort of sheer existence problems

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Speaker 2: on some level is the synonymous with having meaningful work

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Speaker 2: ahead of you. But I try increasingly to have some

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Speaker 2: kind of direction, have some kind of vision. It's not

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Speaker 2: purely about just stumbling through the dark, but not to

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Speaker 2: try very hard to link that up to moment to

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Speaker 2: moment action. So I'm really trying. It's very much a

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Speaker 2: work in progress, but I'm really trying to combine that

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Speaker 2: idea of like having a fairly clear sense of what

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to create here with a very very much

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Speaker 2: more intuitive and spontaneous even sense of like, Okay, what

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Speaker 2: feels like the right thing to do next.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about worrying, and you talk about

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Speaker 1: this idea of most of the bridges that we worry

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Speaker 1: about never end up being crossed. Can you tell me

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Speaker 1: more about that, and just on a day to day basis,

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Speaker 1: how do you live that? Because I really struggle with

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Speaker 1: that one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, me too, And that's why it was interesting

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Speaker 2: for me to write about it. The worry is kind

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Speaker 2: of fascinating, and I think one way of understanding worry

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Speaker 2: is that it's the sort of attempt by a human

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Speaker 2: being who is inherently limited to the present moment. One

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Speaker 2: of the many ways in which we're limited is we're

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Speaker 2: sort of temporarily localized. We wish we could sort of

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Speaker 2: also be in the future checking up on it, making

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Speaker 2: sure that everything's going to be fine, but we can't,

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Speaker 2: and so worry is this sort of mental discomfort that

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Speaker 2: arises from trying to repeatedly sort of get out there

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Speaker 2: and secure a place in time that we're not actually

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Speaker 2: in and never are in. And you know, if I

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Speaker 2: wanted to get sort of evolutionary psychology about it, which

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Speaker 2: I don't usually want to do very much, but you know,

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Speaker 2: you could see how perhaps we sort of evolved in

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Speaker 2: an environment where where having that concern and then dealing

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Speaker 2: with it was something that happened in a very short order.

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Speaker 2: Like you hear a sound, you're worried about it, you

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Speaker 2: check it out, you realize it's no threat to your safety.

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Speaker 2: Now we live in this world been called a you know,

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Speaker 2: delayed return environment, where the thing you're worrying about could

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Speaker 2: well be whether how an editor will respond to a

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Speaker 2: pitch you've made sometime in the next four weeks, or

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Speaker 2: whether an attempt to purchase a house will go through

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Speaker 2: at some point in the next two months. You know,

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Speaker 2: all these kinds of slow things where the worry just

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Speaker 2: has nowhere to go. It doesn't motivate a quick action

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Speaker 2: to get to deal with the worry. It just sort

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Speaker 2: of curdle. And I think the thing about crossing bridges is, yeah,

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Speaker 2: there's another way of making the same point. Really, we're

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Speaker 2: trying to sort of think through all the things that

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Speaker 2: could go wrong, think our way through what we do,

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Speaker 2: and reassure ourselves that that will have gone okay if

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Speaker 2: that happens. You can't ever be certain that something goes

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Speaker 2: okay until it's gone okay. So trying to cross bridges

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Speaker 2: before you get to them, in that sense, is just

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Speaker 2: a recipe for that kind of unpleasant, anxious state of constantly,

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Speaker 2: repetitively trying to do it and failing. There are all

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Speaker 2: sorts of ideas in cognitive therapy and elsewhere about you know,

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Speaker 2: scheduling a time of day in which to worry things

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Speaker 2: like this, and I think it does help some people

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Speaker 2: to do something like that. The version of that that

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Speaker 2: I find helpful is to market date in my calendar

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Speaker 2: maybe three four weeks in the future, to sort of

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Speaker 2: remind myself to focus again on that topic. And I

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Speaker 2: find that knowing that that's there and it's coming up

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Speaker 2: in the calendar is incredibly powerful in terms of enabling

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Speaker 2: me to let go of it in the present. If

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Speaker 2: it's still a big issue four weeks from now, then

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Speaker 2: I will kick into worrying about it again. I sort

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Speaker 2: of on some level, I'm concerned that if I were

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Speaker 2: to stop worrying about it, I might completely forget about it. Right,

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Speaker 2: And it's wild, right as parents, if you're worried about

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Speaker 2: some issue with your child's welfare, Like, I'm not going

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Speaker 2: to forget about that, It's ridiculous. But some part of

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Speaker 2: me doesn't trust myself. And it's like, if I let

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Speaker 2: go and just got into the thing I was working

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Speaker 2: on today, maybe like ten years later, I'd be like, oh, no,

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Speaker 2: everything's gone terribly wrong in life because I completely failed

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Speaker 2: to attend to this thing. So putting that kind of

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Speaker 2: three or four week the head thing in I find

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Speaker 2: really effective because then I can be like, Okay, just

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Speaker 2: in case I completely forget about this important thing that

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Speaker 2: will come back into my world.

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Speaker 1: I love that I've experimented myself with having a worry

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Speaker 1: list and then setting a daily worry time and confining

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Speaker 1: my worrying to that time of day, and I found

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Speaker 1: that quite effective. But what I like about what you've

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Speaker 1: just suggested is that it's almost like a test of

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Speaker 1: a hypothesis. And the more and more you're like, if

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Speaker 1: everything you worry about you actually just put in the

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Speaker 1: diary to spend some time thinking about a couple of

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Speaker 1: weeks from today, and then every time you get to

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Speaker 1: those things, like nine times out of ten, you're going

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Speaker 1: to think, what was I even worrying about that never

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Speaker 1: eventuated into anything, which I feel then feeds, you know,

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Speaker 1: the like a more sensible hypothesis and theory that actually

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Speaker 1: I worry about things that I don't even need to

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Speaker 1: be spending time worrying about. So I really I enjoy that.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and even in the one time of ten right

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Speaker 2: then it comes around and you're like, Okay, what are

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Speaker 2: some the chances are you'll be in a better place

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Speaker 2: to just sort of figure out some actions that you

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Speaker 2: could take relative to it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, now you're right. Even though you're I would

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Speaker 1: say an anti productivity guru if that is a thing,

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Speaker 1: you do have some really good pieces of advice around

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Speaker 1: how we can I guess, make the best use of

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Speaker 1: our time and think differently about things, And I want

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Speaker 1: to talk more about this idea of treating your to

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Speaker 1: do list as a menu. Can you tell me more

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Speaker 1: about that?

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Speaker 2: So I guess where this started off in my thinking

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Speaker 2: is in another chapter of this book, where I'm talking

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Speaker 2: about not to do lists, but like you're sort of

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Speaker 2: to read pile or your digital folder of articles save

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Speaker 2: to read later, and how not very much reflection on

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Speaker 2: how content works in the twenty first century will reveal

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Speaker 2: that this is essentially an endless list. The better technology

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Speaker 2: gets at filtering information, the more stuff we find coming

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Speaker 2: our way that we feel like we really need to

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Speaker 2: read or would be really important for our jobs or something.

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Speaker 2: And I wrote then about how it can be really

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Speaker 2: helpful to see that kind of collection of things not

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Speaker 2: as a bucket but as a river. Right, So this

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Speaker 2: is just an possibly helpful analogy, not as something you've

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Speaker 2: got to sort of deal with an empty but as

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Speaker 2: a sort of flow of things that goes by you,

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Speaker 2: and your only job is to pick a few things

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Speaker 2: that seem interesting and not to feel guilty about the

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Speaker 2: ones that go by. And I find that very useful

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Speaker 2: in my own approach to literally that topic. You know,

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Speaker 2: the four hundred articles that I've got stored in a

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Speaker 2: read it later app if I think that it's my

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Speaker 2: job to get through them, firstly, I won't approach them

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Speaker 2: in the most creatively helpful or enjoyable way. But secondly,

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Speaker 2: also like, that's not the end of it. There'll be

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Speaker 2: another four hundred in a short time. So treating them

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Speaker 2: as like, well, what actually still feels compelling and let

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Speaker 2: the rest go is much more powerful. But the more

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Speaker 2: I thought about this, the more I realized that you know,

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Speaker 2: in a sense, every list of things, even things that

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Speaker 2: feel much more obligatory than a to read pile, every

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Speaker 2: list of things has the same character because if there

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Speaker 2: are more things that you could meaningfully usefully do with

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Speaker 2: a day, then you will be able to actually do

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Speaker 2: with the day. Then you are, in fact picking items

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Speaker 2: for now and letting the rest go, whether you like

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Speaker 2: it or not. So to switch screech of breaks, to

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Speaker 2: switch metaphor into menus. The point there is that we

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Speaker 2: don't get stressed by a rest Most people anyway don't

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Speaker 2: get stressed by a restaurant menu. And if you do

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Speaker 2: get stressed, it's not because you think it's your job

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Speaker 2: to get through the whole list. Right at a single sitting.

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Speaker 2: The fact that a restaurant menu is long and you

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Speaker 2: get to pick a few things from it is kind

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Speaker 2: of the point of a restaurant menu and what makes

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Speaker 2: it pleasurable. And you can actually see that the same

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Speaker 2: thing applies to our to do lists, right because obviously

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Speaker 2: a lot of the things we're going to be doing

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Speaker 2: and not thiscessarily going to be as fun as eating

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Speaker 2: a delicious meal. But if there's more that we could do,

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Speaker 2: then we're going to get to do in a day.

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Speaker 2: Then by definition, what you're doing when you look at

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Speaker 2: a do list is picking a few items and choosing

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Speaker 2: a few things that feel most compelling, most important, most meaningful,

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Speaker 2: and not expecting to get through the whole of it.

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Speaker 2: And there is quite a deep potential shift here, which

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Speaker 2: is summed up in that sort of familiar phrase. But

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Speaker 2: it's not that the items on a list, when you

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Speaker 2: viewed like that, stop being things that you have to

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Speaker 2: do and become things that you that you get to do.

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Speaker 2: You get to pick from a menu, and we do

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Speaker 2: get to pick from our to do lists. Again, we

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Speaker 2: may decide that certain things that we're going to pick

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Speaker 2: us kind of unpleasant in the same way that I

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Speaker 2: suppose you might pick a extremely healthy side dish and

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Speaker 2: a menu that you didn't particularly like because actually it's

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Speaker 2: part of your long term goal to eat healthily. But

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Speaker 2: there is something really important in letting go of that

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Speaker 2: notion that you've failed unless you get through the list.

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Speaker 2: And I think that seeing and understanding our listener's infinite

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Speaker 2: is the way to do that, because then you're just like,

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Speaker 2: that's not happening.

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Speaker 1: Something else I really liked as an idea in this

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Speaker 1: book is around setting a quantity goal.

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Speaker 2: Can you tell me.

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Speaker 1: More about that, because I think that's particularly interesting for

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Speaker 1: knowledge workers like us.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So you know, there are other contexts in which

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Speaker 2: the idea of quantifying your life and measuring everything you

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Speaker 2: do can be quite sort of detrimental, and I sort

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Speaker 2: of don't recommend it, but I'm always one for picking

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Speaker 2: the right technique for the context and contradicting myself wherever

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Speaker 2: I feel like it. And the context of quantity goals,

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Speaker 2: I think that if you do any kind of creative work,

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Speaker 2: and that I would define very broadly, there is this

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Speaker 2: tendency to set things up in your mind so that

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Speaker 2: you can never feel like you've done something well enough,

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Speaker 2: or that you've done it to a sufficiently high quality.

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Speaker 2: So the way that you sort of, or the way

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Speaker 2: that I sort of naturally, if I don't catch myself,

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Speaker 2: proceeds as a writer is sort of to sit there

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Speaker 2: staring at the screen waiting for something really good to

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Speaker 2: occur to me. Finally, maybe it does, and I type

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Speaker 2: it out, and then I sort of judge it again

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Speaker 2: and realize it is in. I delete half of it,

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Speaker 2: and you sort of make this incredibly halting progress over

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Speaker 2: the page. And it's actually antithetical to high quality anyway,

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Speaker 2: because the way to get to high quality is to

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Speaker 2: is to allow things to flow and then pick from

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Speaker 2: what flows out. So the idea of a quantity goal

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Speaker 2: is just that it gives the part of your brain

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Speaker 2: that wants to think in terms of goals and progress

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Speaker 2: and productivity something to do. But it's something to do

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Speaker 2: that sort of doesn't get involved in the quality arguments.

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Speaker 2: So for someone writing, this could be simply a question

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Speaker 2: of like, my next job is to add two hundred

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Speaker 2: words to this, or my next job is to write

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Speaker 2: for an hour today, or you know. And the most

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Speaker 2: sort of purely quantity form of this is the kind

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Speaker 2: of free writing exercise as that I was talking about before,

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Speaker 2: where you might just say, like, I'm setting a timer

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Speaker 2: for ten minutes and the only rule is that I'm

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Speaker 2: not going to stop typing or writing for that ten minutes,

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Speaker 2: and you know that is not going to create the

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Speaker 2: final draft of a publishable book. But that's not the

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Speaker 2: point is to stay in this world of letting things

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Speaker 2: flow out to see what there might be to be

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Speaker 2: worked with. So I find there's something really sort of

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Speaker 2: something that really sort of removes the drama from things

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Speaker 2: by setting a quantity goal, because the other problem with

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Speaker 2: the quality goal is that it's really hard to express,

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Speaker 2: like what does it even mean to say, I'm going

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Speaker 2: to try and write this chapter as well as I

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Speaker 2: possibly can, or really excellently, or as well as the

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Speaker 2: last one. These are just kind of endlessly flexible definitions

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Speaker 2: that you will by default flex in the direction of

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Speaker 2: feeling bad about yourself. Yeah. So, I'm very often in

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Speaker 2: my creative work, either sometimes literally writing it down. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: it's just in my mind, but I'm thinking, like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: what I'm doing next is a twenty minute brain dump

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Speaker 2: on this topic. What I'm doing next is filling a

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Speaker 2: single page with a little structure diagram, because that's how

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Speaker 2: I work. But the point about the quantity there is

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Speaker 2: it's like filling a single page. It's not getting the

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Speaker 2: perfect structure, and so on and so on.

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Speaker 1: We will be back with Oliver soon and when we return,

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Speaker 1: we'll be discussing why being open to distractions can be

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Speaker 1: beneficial and the strategy you can use instead of a

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Speaker 1: to do list to make the most of your day.

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Speaker 1: If you're looking for more tips to improve the way

423
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:42,760
Speaker 1: you work can live. I write a short weekly newsletter

424
00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:46,000
Speaker 1: that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.

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00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:49,480
Speaker 1: You can sign up for that at Amantha dot com.

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Speaker 1: That's Amantha dot Com. I feel like this dovetails perhaps

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Speaker 1: into running a done list at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's fairly self explanatory perhaps, but maybe

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Speaker 1: i'd love you to talk about how you use a

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Speaker 1: done list and perhaps what it is in your work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say, well as a list you keep

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Speaker 2: through the day, probably rather than necessarily just at the

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Speaker 2: end of the day. So, and this is very adaptable.

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Speaker 2: You know, if there are people listening and watching who

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Speaker 2: have really complicated, tricked out task management systems, Like, I'm

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Speaker 2: not suggesting throwing that away. It's just a question of

437
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 2: building this in and making sure that it's got a role,

438
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:34,879
Speaker 2: just a role for recording proactively the things that you

439
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 2: do as you do them, so that you as well

440
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:38,760
Speaker 2: as a to do list, or instead of a to

441
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:42,000
Speaker 2: do list, you're also creating this list of your accomplishments

442
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:44,600
Speaker 2: through the day that gets longer and longer as the

443
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:47,880
Speaker 2: day goes on, which I mean to do lists often

444
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:49,199
Speaker 2: tend to get longer and longer as the day goes

445
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 2: on as well, But that's a problem. This is a

446
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 2: good thing, right, the longer you have done with better

447
00:22:54,480 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 2: And as I've say in the book, you know, it's

448
00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 2: a very simple intervention, but I think it is so

449
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 2: powerful because it invites you to compare your output, not

450
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 2: to infinity, which is what we're usually doing, that all

451
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 2: the things we could yet do that would be useful

452
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,480
Speaker 2: if we could do them, but to zero. It's implicitly

453
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:16,679
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, here's what I've done compared to

454
00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 2: if I stayed in bed and done nothing today. So

455
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 2: you know, I definitely cycle through the ways I'm actually

456
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 2: doing this in my own life and actually maybe that's

457
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 2: something to talk about. I'm glad that I do that now.

458
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 2: I'm not in search of the final rigid system in

459
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,880
Speaker 2: the way that I definitely used to be. But one

460
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 2: way that you can put this into practice, obviously is

461
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 2: just writing. Is just you know, adding items to a

462
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,200
Speaker 2: piece of paper as you go through them. If I'm

463
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 2: in more of a sort of a motivational rut, I

464
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 2: will sometimes pair this with another approach. So what I'll

465
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 2: do is, I'll it's going to sound very silly when

466
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 2: I put it in to words, but you know, I

467
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:02,000
Speaker 2: will in a notebook, on one page, write down a

468
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:06,159
Speaker 2: task that I propose to do, do the task, cross

469
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 2: it out, and then write it down on a different

470
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,880
Speaker 2: page as being done. Right, so you have a list

471
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 2: of the things that you're doing. You just added one

472
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 2: task at a time, and then a list of the

473
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,040
Speaker 2: things that you've done. I mean, I'm willing to be

474
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,399
Speaker 2: told that this is kind of dumb on some level,

475
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 2: but I find it it's really it's really helpful for

476
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 2: just sort of focusing when you're feeling like you lack focus,

477
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,400
Speaker 2: and just finally on the done list. I mean, one

478
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 2: thing that people have said and that I think I

479
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 2: have once or twice found myself as well, is that

480
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 2: if you're in a really low place, like if you're

481
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 2: really in a kind of like I can't quite make

482
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 2: myself get out of bed kind of psychological place in life,

483
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 2: which does happen, you can just lower the bar for

484
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 2: what counts as something to be added to your done list. Right,

485
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 2: there is something weirdly motivational, something that gets the ball

486
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,639
Speaker 2: rolling about keeping a list in a notebook where you say,

487
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 2: you know, took a shower, made coffee, things that you

488
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 2: wouldn't normally qualify as counters accomplishments because they're two below

489
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 2: the level of significance. But if you do that, you

490
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 2: know you don't need to show anyone else this list.

491
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 2: You can you can burn it at the end of

492
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 2: the day, and very swiftly people find that it snowballs.

493
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 2: Right that you find that if you see, oh, actually, okay,

494
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 2: this narrative inside me that says I'm totally useless, I've

495
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 2: already done like five effective things today, and yeah, maybe

496
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:26,119
Speaker 2: one of them was brush my teeth, But like, okay,

497
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 2: maybe two or three hours later, I'll have graduated to

498
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 2: answering some emails.

499
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 1: That's so good something that I was thinking about after

500
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: I read it around. You know, there's a section around

501
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: staying destractible, which of course is the antithesis to a

502
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: lot of productivity advice out there. And I know that

503
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: you're a fan of Cal Newport in deep work and

504
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: the idea of having blocks of uninterrupted, deep focused time.

505
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: So I was really curious as to how do you

506
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: apply this idea of being open to distractions and interruptions

507
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: rather than feeling frustrated with them or with children that

508
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: come in and interrupt work.

509
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:13,400
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, it's funny, I sort of I did

510
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 2: a podcast with Cal just a few weeks ago, and

511
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 2: I sort of really enjoy exploring this sort of tension

512
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 2: point that the conversation between us tends to be. Like

513
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 2: I say, like, well, you know, but it's really grueling

514
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:26,880
Speaker 2: and hard to try to impose that level of schedule

515
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 2: of your life, and Col's response is like, yeah, but

516
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 2: it's worth it. So, like, you know, buck up. On

517
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 2: some level, this is not wrong. I'm not sort of

518
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 2: against the deep work approach. I'm not against time blocking

519
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 2: in the sense that he teaches it at all. A

520
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 2: lot of this is to do with navigating against one's

521
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 2: personality and figuring out where you're most likely to sort

522
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 2: of get too rigid and clamp down, and taking the

523
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 2: opposite approach as a kind as an antidote to that. So,

524
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 2: but what I'm talking about there is this notion that

525
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 2: it's really easy, I think, or for some people people

526
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 2: like me, to kind of make things worse for themselves

527
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 2: by trying to sort of stick to a schedule so

528
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 2: rigid that more things get defined as distractions, and distractions

529
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:15,959
Speaker 2: all feel worse when they do happen, or interruptions, and

530
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 2: that distraction, I guess, is an internal kind of interruption,

531
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 2: and then the other kind is people coming into the

532
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 2: room or whatever. So the example I give him the book,

533
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 2: You know, if it's an afternoon when it's not my

534
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:29,320
Speaker 2: turn for school pickup and I'm working at home and

535
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: my son burst into the room to tell me about

536
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 2: something that he's done at school that day, there might

537
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 2: be contexts where the right thing for me to do

538
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 2: is to stop and take a breath and explain that

539
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 2: actually I can't listen right now and I will be

540
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 2: free later. That I might be working on something urgent,

541
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 2: I might be in a conversation with somebody. This could

542
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 2: happen in the next five minutes. It'll be interesting to see.

543
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 2: But I don't want to have a productivity system that

544
00:27:54,119 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 2: has defined this period as so importantly devoted to rigid

545
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: focus that by definition, that lovely thing that life is

546
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 2: supposed to be about is defined as a problem. I'm

547
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 2: not saying it will never be something that needs to

548
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 2: be managed in that way, but like, don't default to that.

549
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 2: Don't start from the position that unexpected things happening must

550
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 2: be bad. I think that is the risk of sort

551
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 2: of overly investing in schedules. Obviously, there'll be people in

552
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 2: the audience here who may say, well, you know, my

553
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 2: schedule is you know, there are lots of professional roles

554
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 2: in which your schedule is more dictated than that, right,

555
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 2: if you've got appointments, if you're working as a teacher,

556
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 2: or working in sort of lots of different settings where

557
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 2: there's kind of a scheduled aspect to it. But to

558
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 2: whatever extent you have that autonomy, you don't want to

559
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 2: use that autonomy to make serendipity inherently the enemy. One

560
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 2: of the ways that I seek to sort of operationalize

561
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 2: that I guess in my working life is to relate

562
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 2: to another chapter in the book where I talk about

563
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 2: this kind of three or four hour all of creativity,

564
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 2: where you see all the way through history, great creative

565
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 2: people are choosing to spend about three or four hours

566
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 2: a day on their core activity if they have the

567
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 2: freedom to do that, and then everything else and the

568
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 2: rest of the time. So something I try to do

569
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 2: to emulate that is like, Okay, I'm going to try

570
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 2: really hard to ring fence several hours in the morning

571
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 2: for writing, very few exceptions to that. That tends to

572
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 2: work best for my energy. So I'm trying to keep

573
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 2: that time free to try to exert quite a lot

574
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 2: of control over time. But the crucial flip side of

575
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 2: that is I'm not going to try to do that

576
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 2: with the rest of the working day or the evening.

577
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, okay, after lunch or however I

578
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 2: do it. Then I am just more open to things.

579
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 2: Then I'm willing to make more appointments and willing to

580
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 2: be I'm going to be interrupted. I'm going to have

581
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 2: my phone on the desk so that I can respond

582
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 2: to messages. So that I think is a way of

583
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: kind of finding the balance between structure and serendipity.

584
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: I really like that. It feels like instead of I guess,

585
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: like a region time boxed schedule, which in a way

586
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: is not particularly resilient, what you're describing feels like quite

587
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: an anti fragile kind of system, if you know what

588
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: I mean.

589
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 2: I think that's a lovely way of putting it. I mean,

590
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 2: and now I want to say in cal Newport's defense

591
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 2: now that he needs my defenses.

592
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: Certainly doesn't He's going quite fine that.

593
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 2: I think I can imagine him saying now if he

594
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 2: was in this conversation too, that making a very clear

595
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 2: time blocked schedule for your day is not the same

596
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 2: point as saying I have failed if I adapt it right.

597
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 2: So in his like time block planning approach and everything,

598
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 2: there's always these extra columns to the right hand side

599
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 2: of the main time block for adapting and adapting is

600
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: the point. And I think there's something to be said

601
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: for the idea of a very clear plan very loosely held.

602
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 2: For me, the way that works best is if there

603
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 2: are chunks of the day which are not specifically assigned

604
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 2: in advanced to specific tasks. But you know, maybe we're

605
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 2: all agreeing really here at the end of the day.

606
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 2: I do think that the thing I'm happy to sort

607
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: of be against is the idea that like setting it

608
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 2: up in your mind so that if reality unfolds in

609
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: ways that were not fully within your control, you've messed up,

610
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 2: because that's just like living in a world that doesn't exist.

611
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: The final thing I wanted to ask you, Oliver, is

612
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: just around your information diet, and you kind of touched

613
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: on it before and in terms of treating all the

614
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: things that we could be reading as a river as

615
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,239
Speaker 1: opposed to a bucket that is filling up, and it

616
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: reminded me of this conversation I had with a friend

617
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: of mine who's in creative fields and does a lot

618
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: of writing, and she said to me a few years back,

619
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: she said, I've just had the realization I've done the

620
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: calculations of how many books I can read in a year,

621
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 1: and probably how long my life will be, and I've

622
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 1: just realized I'm not going to have time to read

623
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: all the books that I want to read in this lifetime.

624
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: And that really stuck with me. And when I read

625
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: sort Of how you talk about sort of there is

626
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: infinite information out there and for you as a writer,

627
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: and when you're researching books as well, how do you

628
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: decide what to read, what to like, dedicate your precious

629
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: attention to.

630
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a fraud issue. I think that the approach

631
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 2: that I'm gradually but successfully sort of easing my way

632
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 2: into is just a much more fluid one. So it's

633
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 2: fluid in the sense of treating the list of potential

634
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:27,480
Speaker 2: books as articles as a river. As we've spoken about

635
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 2: like picking from things and not feeling bad about the others.

636
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 2: It's treating individual books in that way, being willing to

637
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 2: read bits and not necessarily, you know, feel the burden

638
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 2: of having to complete them. I think also it's the

639
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 2: willingness to not try too hard to retain what you're reading.

640
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 2: There's this thing a foot everywhere now in sort of

641
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 2: personal knowledge management about how you've got to try to

642
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 2: remember everything you read. And I'm just like, maybe in

643
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 2: certain you know, if you're training in the law or

644
00:32:57,800 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 2: in medicine, there are context where you have to remember

645
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 2: the things that you read. In that way, the rest

646
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 2: of us don't need to do that, right, you can

647
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 2: say that if something's relevant, it's going to stick to

648
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 2: some extent, and you know, if you forget about it,

649
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 2: then that's a filter, right. The fact that something stays

650
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 2: or doesn't stay tells you something about it's relevant. So

651
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 2: there isn't a sort of answer to how I choose

652
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 2: what to read other than what I feel drawn to

653
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 2: and learning to trust that sort of instinct of what

654
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 2: feels enjoyable and interesting and when a book feels like

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00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 2: it's like I'm done with it, even though I may

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00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 2: never finished it and all the rest of it. I

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00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: think that's the thing we need to cultivate.

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00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: I love that, Oliver. I could continue talking for hours.

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00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: I love your work so much. There was just so

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00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: much wisdom in here. Sorry, I have a feeling I'll

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00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 1: be going back and rereading it and not trying to

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00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 1: remember anything, but just knowing that it's there if I

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00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: need it. So thank you so much for being here

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00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: very early. Hopefully the sun has risen, But thank you

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00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 1: so much for your time.

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00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 2: Slowly, slowly. Yeah, I knew it would be a pleasure,

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00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 2: and it was. Thank you so much amount I've enjoyed it.

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00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: I hope you loved this chat with Oliver as much

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00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: as I did. He sheared so many nuggets of wisdom

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00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: that I am personally very excited to implement in my

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00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: own life, and if you want to learn more about Oliver,

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00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 1: I highly recommend checking out his new book, Meditation for

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00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: Mortals Four Weeks to embrace your limitations and make time

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00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: for what counts. We've put links to that and his

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00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 1: website in the show notes. If you like today's show,

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00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: make sure you hit follow on your podcast app to

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00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 1: be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work was

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00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people, part

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00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: of the Cooler Nation