Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Akil and joining me today he's
senior product manager and Co founder Joseph Hill.
Time is finite. What you spend you can never get
back. And today's episode is all about
personal productivity and self management.
Joseph shares how to be intentional with your time and
he shares means that will help you throughout your career.
So enjoy, I got a new laptop recently and for me new laptop
means fresh start and one of the things that I always disliked is
how I take notes and kind of knowledge management and I've
always read about settle custom. So I decided I'm going to set up
my system and like start doing that.
This was 2 days ago. So far I'm enjoying that, but is
there anything you use for knowledge management with
regards to note taking? I use Obsidian, so kind of it
goes in that you can use it for that as well, right?
So basically I have a, a log each each day and I bullet point
everything I'm doing and even meetings is a bullet point.
And I just write notes like that, like short notes.
It enables me then to look back on the day as well and say, OK,
I did a lot because that often you have the feeling, you know,
where you've been in a lot of meetings and stuff and then
suddenly you're like, I don't feel like I've done much today.
And then you open this log file and basically, oh wow, I did a
lot, you know, and I think that really helps the mind with that.
So using Obsidian, I actually do, you know the book Getting
Things Done. I've been meaning to read it.
So I read probably 20 pages in and I got so excited I've never
read it again. And that basically was my
journey of like task management and stuff.
So I'm always trying new tools out, new processes because I
also find it's like switching to a new tool.
I then manually move stuff over that helps me get rid of stuff.
You know that like, why do I have this task there?
Like, OK, throw it out. And it helps you to audit like
your life as you go along. So I'm always happy to jump on
new tools, see what's going on there.
I think it really helps also to freshen the mind with that so.
I am the polar opposite. I do not want to stick with,
yeah, like I, I like being very effective in my tools, know my
hot keys and like how to move around.
And then I don't really want to do that for a new tool again.
Yeah, Yeah. What is like the latest tool
that you've adopted that you're really happy about?
Yeah. I mean, I've gone back to To Do
List actually. So I use To Do List for like my
private life. I use Trello for projects I have
with other people. And basically then at work I
have my own JIRA project at work where I basically manage my work
at JIRA work on Jira like that. And I also like for work using
the tool that the company uses because it also gets me more
familiar with it, gets me used to some of the tooling.
And I think it helps them to like teach people or show people
how they can organize themselves with that tool.
And it helps like as a team, you're most likely using Jira
for your sprints or Kanban process.
And if you're using it for yourself as well, you really get
fluent with it and it becomes less of a like admin task, but
more of AI can see where this is going and how to improve that.
So I think it's really cool to like do that.
So last company I used Asana. I brought Asana into the company
and I was also using that. I liked it a lot.
The last company that I worked with was like Azure DevOps and
for some reason it had a bad reputation and everyone hated it
and it was very particular. And then I was like, OK, every
time I thought it must be a better way, there usually was.
It's just you have to kind of dig deep and like, figure it
out. And then I showed people some
stuff that we could do, and they're like, wow, I've never
seen that before. It's actually quite nice.
I had that recently with in Slack.
You can have lists and instead of like in a meeting, making an
agenda. So we have certain rounds where
people come and then you kind of build an agenda what should talk
about and stuff. And I started using Slack lists
to do that asynchronously, you know, so people can
asynchronously put stuff in there.
And they're more used to using Slack as a conversational tool.
So there's certain stuff you can get off the list before the
meeting because there's already a conversation going on and
clarified it. And it was really cool to try
that out because I didn't see that before.
I thought, let's try it and see. And I'm all for experiments,
right? So you should just try it, see,
does it work? Great, let's continue.
If it doesn't, then move on. That's like for me what agile
is, right? It's like that's how we should
be moving and moving forward. I like that.
It's just, I feel like a lot of people are hesitant with regards
to experimenting, not just because just gathering people
around you and making people excited about something and then
kind of dropping it and then going on to the next might be
perceived as you being flaky. So it's like, OK, what do you
experiment with and what do you actually need to be searching?
You have. To be intentional.
Right. I mean, if you keep flipping
tools to tools, yeah, maybe there's a commitment problem
there, right? But I think we shouldn't also
get too relaxed because I think when you get too relaxed with a
certain tool set or a method, it becomes numb.
Maybe it doesn't have that same appeal or same energy gathering
moment, right? I think sometimes shaking it up
a bit enables people to go, ah, OK, the way we were working was
actually the better way. And only by experimenting.
Do you know that, right? You know, we all get used to
these things, right? And it all goes to the back of
the mind and be autonomous. And then we don't challenge why,
why do we do that? You know, like, why do we do it
that sort of way? Oh, we've always done it that
way. Like, OK, why don't we change
it? Let's, you know, people change
teams change the time, change projects change, right?
So why not try something? I think people have that fear,
right? I mean, I think it's about a
human nature when it comes to that, right?
So I heard an interesting thing that decide homicide and
suicide, all of these sides is ending something.
That's why people struggle with like deciding because it's
ending something. You're killing an opportunity if
you decide one way or the other, right?
I think we've experiment and it kind of helps people go in a
direction but not fully commit, right?
Because you say, OK, let's try this for two weeks or a month
and then let's reflect on it. And I think that enables people
to try things out because they know it's not permanent.
You know, I think people have that fear.
We don't like change. We're humans, right?
We're comfortable with the situation.
Any change makes us unnervy. And I think that's really what's
interesting by approaching it also with the terminology,
right? Let's just try this for a week,
see how it goes. I've seen people be way more
relaxed when we call things an experiment rather than OK this
is a change because then they're like, OK, I have to fully
analyse this because this is exactly going to happen.
Yeah, exactly. It's the same if you're like,
let's push this feature live, they'll be black people.
Oh, we can't do that. What, what, what, what, what,
what? But if you say let's experiment,
let's try this out, people more relaxed then, right, because it
minimises like the impact area. I think you can approach that at
work in your private life as well, right.
So try to shake things up and challenge the way you're doing
things. I think that's something that we
all struggle with. That's just human nature, I'd
say. Yeah, For me, I'm wondering is
there a right time and kind of right place to challenge
processes or kind of ways of working or how things used to be
and start experimenting? I mean, I would say like my
team, what the how they work this week is different from last
week and will be different from next week.
You know, I think it's always about right now, like
documenting is a topic. We do like how to document and
we currently experiment, OK, how can we reduce this like burden
of documentation but still be effective with it, right?
So then we try to experiment. Let's try it this way on this
topic and see, I think it's a constant moving target, so to
speak with that. There's never an end point,
right? I think because you may find how
you're working now is the right way, but Fast forward six
months, you might need to reflect again.
It might not work or it might not be efficient, or you've got
a new team member changes it, or the company's priorities change
or you have some other pressures there.
And I think that's you should always be challenging.
Why? You know why?
Why am I in this meeting, for example, right?
I see a lot of people that are in meetings and just sit there
and don't really do much. They just sit there because they
feel like they need to be there, right?
But OK. But is that a good use of your
time in that regard? So I think you should always
challenge, OK, why? Why do you want me in this
meeting? What value can I bring?
Or can I just get the meeting notes afterwards?
You know, I think that's a struggle a lot of people have.
You know, for me, being in a meeting is not working.
You know, it's usually you're talking around a topic, you may
decide or move in a direction, but the real work happens after
the meeting, right? So, and I think that's something
we should be wary of, right? So being 8 hours a day in the
meetings, are you really, what are you doing right?
And I think that also hurts you mentally because you're like,
then it's a struggle of like, how do we move these things
forward? Where's the time?
And the only way you can, you know, 8 hours is finite, right?
There's only so much you can do. And so you need to be aware of,
OK, how do we bring more time into the day, less meetings?
OK, how do I do that challenge? What is there?
I think that's something that you should always be
challenging. Can everyone do that?
I I have a few friends in especially in big tech but also
due to them being early in career that they feel hesitant
right? It's either their manager or or
they get a meeting invite which is very last minute which
overlaps with a few other things and they make they move like
heaven and earth to make it happen.
Basically because they have this perception that they cannot say
no. Yeah, I think again, this goes
bound to this decide this kind of fear of missing out, right.
I would say you can you can ask what do you think the value I
would bring to this meeting is? It's not saying no, right.
I mean, and it helps them put the other person who is inviting
you to think about, OK, what do I want you there for?
You know what, what is the reason?
What is the value? And they might say, actually,
no, it's OK, you we can just give you the recap afterwards.
Or they might say, actually, we want you there because your
opinion on X is important. And then you're like, OK, I
understand. And you can come in prepared,
right? Instead of just sat there like
consuming everything that's going on and then go after it
going, OK, that was a waste of an hour.
You know, how do I move forward? Right?
So of course, it's always a struggle, right?
Different topics are more important.
So if the company is really in a stressful situation, maybe you
need to be in that meeting, right?
But I think you can always challenge.
I think especially early in your career, if you want to move into
a more senior role, you need to get into that mindset of
challenging, asking why, what value can I bring, you know?
And again, it's not saying no, it's just challenging the
perception now. It's interesting that you ask
the question to the other person because I feel like, especially
early in career, I felt like I needed to answer that question.
Why should I be in this meeting? What value do I bring?
But you put that in the other person.
'S how would you know you're early in your career?
Right. Just do my best, yeah?
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the conception, right?
If if you feel that if you have to ask, maybe you're not the
right, you feel uncomfortable with the role you're in then,
right. But isn't that a part of what
we, you know, when we talk about seniority, we talk about that,
we talk about challenging, we talk about, you know, making
that awareness there. So when you get comfortable with
that earlier on in your career, I think it makes it like brings
a superpower later on because you can really challenge the
status quo then because a lot of companies get numb with the
processes and rituals they have, right?
But if you come in fresh and challenge those things, things
can move forward in a better way, right?
And I think that's a fear you need to get over quickly, I
would say. But I understand that.
I totally get. I also was the same when I
started, you know, So it was only later on I realized, OK, I
should have asked why? What value?
Because it affected my work then because when I was in such a
meeting, I couldn't produce what I wanted to do in that day,
right? Then that's a knock domino
effect, which earlier on in your career, at least for me, I did
overtime then like unpaid over time because I was like, oh, I
need to get this done. And that's not healthy because
then that affects your private life and not going to affect
that, right? So.
It's interesting that the only person that can get you out of
that, and I recognise what you're saying, if I have a lot
of stuff to do and then all of a sudden there's a meeting and
there's a bunch of them, that stuff still needs to be done.
So then you push it forward and you still have to do it.
The only person that can get you out of that is is kind of
yourself, by managing expectations and managing your
own calendar. Your boss or your manager is not
like in charge of your day and how you're working, right?
We don't want to be micromanaged, right?
Where your boss says, OK, from this time, from this time,
you're working on this, from this time.
You know, we don't want that. We want empowerment.
We want self-control. So only you have that capability
to bring that forward, right? And I think again, it's this
reluctance, you know, formal is also a thing, right?
So we want to be in that meeting, we want to know the
outcome. And I think it's we need to get
more comfortable with, OK, it's OK missing out because less
information means like less cognitive load and maybe means I
can focus more on the topics that interest me or the topics
that are important right now. What I recently saw and I, I
haven't experimented much with it, is you can now get, I think
if you're in the Microsoft stack view of Microsoft team and our
meeting is recorded. You get this transcription and
then also an AI summary on exactly the topics that have
been discussed, any follow-ups and who is going to take action,
which I think is very. Cool.
Definitely. I think that's always, I mean,
at least for me, like meeting notes, like who takes the
meeting notes, It determines what is in the meeting notes.
You cannot really make a transcript, right?
No one can write everything that's going on there.
And I think that's what AI does, right.
It's like it augments an aspect of our life.
So meeting notes is perfect because it's listening to
everything. It writes it all down and then
no one has to then be omnipresent in the meeting
because usually the person making the notes can't really
participate in the meeting because they are have to be
aware of everything when they're talking.
They're not also making notes of what they're talking about,
right? I think that's where the power
of AI comes into it, right? It augments part of what we need
to do and freezes up some of the burden there to enable us to
have more time to do something. I think I totally agree.
I think that's something which will bring a lot of value
because then, you know, there's going to be meeting notes and
it's going to be clearly defined what's there, what's the
outcome, what decisions are there.
And you could also use the AI to challenge what's still missing
there, right? You know, if there is no
outcome, it could come up and say, hey, you talked for an
hour, but it's useless. There was no outcome, right?
So because a lot of meetings also don't have agendas, I think
that's also a struggle, right? So if you come to a meeting with
no agenda, you don't know, you're not prepared because you
don't know what's going on there, right?
So, and I think that's also part of the side effect there, right?
People just set meetings up because fast-paced culture, but
people also should be present when setting up a meeting.
What do I want? What's the outcome?
What's the direction here? You know?
And I think that's sometimes what's missing that leads to
conversations with no outcome. And then after an hour and a
half, you leave the meeting and go, OK, where, where we're
going? What's the direction there
right? Yeah.
I'm not sure if kind of this remote culture that happened
during COVID contributed towards this because I feel like
especially if you don't see your colleagues, if you don't have a
physical office space, if everyone's remote, those
conversations are very valuable in kind of building
relationships. And then that's fine as a goal.
Like, let's come in as a call. In a call, let's have a
conversation on status quo, what we're happy with, what we're not
happy with. And maybe there's an outcome and
maybe there's not. But we know kind of more where
everyone stands. I think that's fine.
But indeed, if you have a goal and you want to have a meeting
as means to an end, an agenda definitely helps.
A purpose, yeah. And again, that's like you
mentioned the remote culture now, right, where a lot of
remote eating meetings is easier, right, to organize.
We're often in more meetings now, I think, in the remote
world than we were previously, right?
Because we have no room restrictions anymore.
It's easier. And that brings up mental
loading, right? So I remember when I started a
new job during COVID, I was an agile coach and basically
back-to-back to back meetings because everything could be
packed next to each other, right?
And you're exhausted at the end of it.
I think that's also something we should be more aware of.
Like, does it make sense to have a meeting of this or is async
something better? You can make decisions
asynchronously, right? So, and I think that's if you're
aware of it. OK.
Is this thing really critical right now?
Do we need a synchronous meeting?
It's expensive, you know, I'm stopping everyone doing what
they should be doing, like bring them in.
Is it meaningful, this topic or can we distribute it
asynchronously, you know, and have people on their own time,
like when they have the capacity, when they have the
right mindset to work on that topic.
You know, there's no like right or wrong.
It's always hard to predict. And it also depends on the
people. But I think asynchronous can
solve a lot of these problems when it comes to meetings,
right? Like status updates as well,
right? You can also do that
asynchronously a lot of the times.
Yeah, I was. I was actually reading an
article and that was a person that left recently open AI and
he was kind of putting down his thoughts on culture and ways of
working and everything. And one of the things you
mentioned is that there's barely any e-mail culture.
So everything happens on Slack. All communication when it comes
to asynchronous communication is there.
So it can also be overwhelming. If you follow all channels and
you want to have no messages on unread, you're going to
overwhelm yourself with the rest of everything.
But I do like that I've, I mean, I've been in different
assignments, emails always there.
There's stuff on confidence, SharePoint, There's so many
channels of information that I also have to familiarize myself,
know exactly what is where and for what purpose.
I do like this idea of most of the communication just happens
in one place and that's it. Yeah, that's the thing I think
you need to define like how we work.
I call it HWW, you know, like what is the, what is Slack used
for? What is it not used for?
What is e-mail use for? What is it not use for, Right.
And I think that's the thing. There's so much noise, there's
so much going on because there's no friction.
It's easy, right? And we're always, especially in
the product world, right, we go, we want to make things
frictionless, but some friction sometimes brings benefit, right?
If it's harder to do something, we're more reluctant to do it,
you know, like the same with meetings, right?
It's so easy to do now we just do it.
But we if there's a bit of friction there, you know, then
that changes it a bit. And I think that's, I think as
companies need to define like the communication strategy there
because it can be overwhelmed. I know people that have like
free monitors on their screen, Slack on one, e-mail on another
and like the IDE or something there and they just every time
there's a blink, they just change their focus.
Right. You know, and they're like, OK,
how can you do that? It's like, again, it's this
formal, right? It's like, I need to be aware of
that. And I'm always saying like, turn
Slack off. Like maybe you say from 12:00 to
this time you have Slack open or e-mail open, and then you work
on it because if there's something really important,
people will find a way to get to you, right?
But of course, there's that fear.
Then, you know, a lot of company policies also say you need to be
available on Slack. But I think it's OK to turn it
off from time to time to really focus, right?
And like switching context all the time is also not good.
You know, especially as engineers, you know, I work a
lot with engineers, the context switching, different services,
different tooling, they have to get back into the topic, which
reduces like the efficiency there, right?
So how can you do that with your own like communication stack?
How can you figure that out? Do you challenge people if you
work with engineers from a product sense?
Because I I've done that and sometimes it made me feel
uncomfortable. But then I also feel like I have
a certain perspective because I've done engineering for so
long that I do feel a little bit more comfortable challenging
like switching focus and like also challenging if they need to
be in a meeting specifically. So like for example, we use
JIRA, we use components for all the different services and
tools, and we're constantly keeping a track of how many
different components we are active on.
And we try to keep it below a certain amount.
You know, because sometimes you cannot help it, right?
There's an issue, you need to switch context, but being aware
of it enables you to challenge. How do we work on that?
So I also try to plan that the team is focused on bigger topics
so they can just focus on a singular like context in that
regard. But I don't think it's common
that way. You often see it's like
switching focus and I couldn't do it.
Like that's a lot new than OK, I need to get into this service,
this system, how does it work again?
OK, I need to look over the code of documentation that time.
It has wasted in some regards, right?
So if you can batch these things up and again, it goes down to
this urgency and importance topic, right?
OK, is this topic important to do now?
OK, can we batch it up so that we have many of these smaller
topics for this context that we should do later on, right?
I think that's a way we have to start approaching some of these
things. I think with seniority, some
people attribute more focus to personal productivity, team
productivity, organizational productivity.
And in the end, because I have this sense of responsibility, I
feel like it's my responsibility, my
productiveness, and to a certain degree also the team as well as
the organization. But in the end, do you agree
with that? Are people responsible for their
own productivity or are people also there to then challenge and
kind of increase productivity overall?
I think you have some ownership there, right?
So yes, you could get a like a task or a thing we need to do
this, but I think you can challenge that, you know, you
could say, hey, how about we do this next week because there's
these other topics. I think everyone is in charge of
their own destiny, like they're in charge of their own time and
they're in focus and they can say, OK, this doesn't make
sense. Now I challenge that, you know,
because a lot of times these tasks come from different
angles, whether the they don't have that perspective of your
workload, You know, that leads to overwhelm, that leads to
burnouts as well, right though you just have all of these
topics coming in from different angles.
And This is why I always kind of preach sounds too harsh of a
word, but you should have one place where you collect all
these things because then you see it.
You know, if again, I use Jira, so any slack message comes in
with task or e-mail or coffee chat or a meeting, I throw it
into Jira and then I can clearly see.
And I said to myself, OK, my to do pile has a WIP limit.
And I have to consciously say, OK, if I need to work on this
now, what do I drop? And that enables me to have a
conversation with people like my boss, for example, where I can
show, look, this is what's going on now, what do we need to
reduce to be able to work on this topic?
Or what is more important? It's about empowering them to
have that overview. And only you have that
capability, right? You know, if you don't do that,
no one else will see that because how can they, You know,
there's so much going on. Yeah.
So I definitely think you have the ownership there on that.
I agree. I've I've also had this
conversation, especially with again, people in big tech and
they're they don't want to give their boss kind of a voice in
that because they feel like they own priorities.
They own a lot of work and a lot of work usually means I'm good.
I should be good. I should be working towards
getting a promotion and a lot of work means I'm on that path and
I deserve it because I do a lot of work.
It's like, oh, in my head, usually from my perspective is
like a lot output driven rather than outcome driven.
I feel like the conversation you have with regards to the people
that kind of guide you are responsible for a hire over road
map helps with regards to that conversation.
What is the most important, not just from a personal
perspective, but also from a company overview?
And I feel like that's missing sometimes.
Yeah, that's, and that's the thing, right?
Again, no one has that perspective but you.
And again, being busy is great, but does it bring value right
now, right. Is also, is there a topic which
you really enjoy that brings you energy?
Because we also shouldn't forget that, right?
You know, if there's something you want to refactor this area
or you see something that's really brings value, you should
champion that, right And figure out, OK, I could say we reduced
this thing or we delayed this week if I can do this, right?
And I think that's the conversation we need to have
with our leaders as well, right? And again, it's about bringing
that seniority into it, challenging it and not just
accepting it because at the end of the day, the To Do List
should never be empty. No one has an empty To Do List,
right? It's always fun.
And so how do you manage that? And I think that's what really
helps them bring that to the table surfacing up.
I feel like we talked about FOMO and I feel like for tasks like
these, especially if I like a lot of things, I have a lot of
FOMO and then dropping things is very hard.
That's like me personally, if I have many things and I enjoy all
of them, I by virtue of time being finite, I will not be able
to work on all of them. So then I learn about my own
priorities and me saying something is different than how
I act, right? If I really like this thing and
I want to do this, but then in practice I prioritize everything
else, that means for me it's the lower priority and that reality.
Sometimes it's hard. And then making decisions on
what to do and what to drop, I've always found that
difficult. Yeah, I mean, that's, I would
say that's life, right? It's really hard to do that.
You know, you can extract it out from work to your private life,
right? You probably want to spend more
time at sport, but that means OK, what needs to be sacrificed
for that? You know, I, for me, I struggle
getting into a reading routine because I I find gaming more
interesting, right? But it's about, OK, I need to be
more aware of that, right? And I think it's about being
intentional, being aware of what's going on there and also
understanding that you should formal is something we can
control. You know, I had this with like
Game of Thrones back then. Everyone was watching it.
And it's like, OK, do I really want to invest this time to
watch this now? Because everyone's talking about
it and stuff. And in the end, I decided, OK,
no, I'd rather do something else.
I'd rather focus on something else.
And of course, you again, making a decision, you lose out on some
aspect. But I think that's something we
all need to understand. That's OK.
You know, it's OK to not be in that cool group to talk about
that topic or it's OK to miss out on a certain topic because
we cannot do everything right. And that's something we need to
be more comfortable with, more aware of, and that's always the
struggle. Yeah, I feel like it's also hard
kind of giving yourself grace because I know I, I mean, I did
this unemy course on Seto custom because personal knowledge
management and everything there and there the advice was also
think of what you consume throughout the day because time
is finite. If you want to read an article
consumed with regards to then capturing that knowledge and
managing that through this method.
But also think of what you do on a daily basis.
Do you game? Do you watch?
For me, it's like anime, manga, gaming, also sports.
And I feel like I could be this superhuman version of myself
because I can cut out all the fluff that's not going to give
me value in my career. And I see other people do that
and I'm like, I, I don't know, I cannot do that.
Like I, I know I can. It requires a lot of discipline,
but do I want to? I feel like I don't, but then
it's valuable and it's useful. So should I be doing that, that
grace? I have to give that to myself
and also be like, yeah, it's fine to do other things as well.
Yeah, and I think that's OK. I mean, you know, know the rule,
be the rule and break the rule. I think it's OK to sit down and
doom scroll from time to time or to not be productive.
I think it's OK. Our bodies need that.
Our minds need that, right? And I think that's, again, it's
about being aware of your own energy levels and realizing, OK,
does this make sense now? And for me, it's all about
intentionality, right? If I pick up my phone and let's
say I open Instagram, I try to ask myself, does this make sense
right now? Do I, do I think I'll get value
from this? Or am I just wasting time?
Could I be just doing something better?
And I think when you kind of get into that flow of intentionality
and being aware of what's going on and that helps you kind of
structure it and focus on that because it's so easy.
You know, we have a huge billion dollar industry that's looking
for our engagement, our focus, right?
That's hard to kind of beat. So again, it's about being aware
of that. OK, does this make sense right
now? And sometimes things don't make
sense but make sense, if that makes sense.
You know, like, I don't know, I always use this analogy that my
wife got a coupon for, for a free watering can at IKEA.
Let's go and do it. The watering can is worth €1.00.
Takes us 4 hours to get there. Like is that worth it?
You know, is that 4 hours worth the €1.00?
You know, maybe they'd experience of going together to
IKEA is that's the value, right? But when you look at it, frame
it like that, it enables you to challenge it a bit more, right?
OK. Is my time worth so little?
I think that's what we also struggle as humans.
We don't value our time so much. Only when we're older, when we
realize there's not much time left.
It's when we realize, oh, we need to be more valuable with
our time. And that's something, it sounds
a bit morbid, but again, you mentioned it earlier, like time
is finite. I think it's being aware of
that, challenging that and asking yourself, OK, is this the
right time for this thing? Could I be doing this thing
which brings me more value? What can I do right now?
Yeah, I feel like it's very difficult.
Like I, I just turned 30 and I'm like, well, if I want to do
these things, it's going to take me a few years to become like an
expert or a level where I'm comfortable at, which means I'm
behind. Like I feel like I'm behind on
so many topics that I would want to do and then again, the
signing is very hard. Where to spend your time on or
taking control of the time that you have by not picking up your
phone and scrolling endlessly. I'd like that reasoning of being
intentional with that. Yeah, and I think it's all
about, you know, augmenting our time.
You know, for example, I don't like vacuuming.
OK, so how do I solve that? I get vacuuming robots.
They're not fully like they don't do the best job, but it
means I can reduce my vacuuming time by like 80%, you know, and
that brings me more time. So I think if you look at your
life in that way and OK, using your money or your resources to
augment some of that, like attributes or delegating,
especially when it comes to work, can I delegate this topic?
Is there a junior in the team which would get benefit working
on this hard problem, right? Looking at like that and
augmenting because that's the only way we can make time, so to
speak, right? Yeah, in this topic of kind of
self management and productivity, I think we covered
and we started with time management with regards to
meetings and challenging do I need to be in there?
We also talked about priorities and focus.
Is there anything you still want to share that we didn't
highlight yet? What makes you productive on a
day-to-day basis? Is it the structure that you
have? Is it the way you manage time?
Is it the priority you bring in focus?
For me, it's about the awareness.
Like I said, I have this log right where I have a bullet
point for all the topics and every time I change focus or
intentionality, I open that log and just write like a few words
like OK, I'm doing this now, I'm washing, or I'm going to this
meeting and open. That brings the context of the
day and enables me to look at it and say, OK, I don't know, we're
3:00 PM. I still have a lot to do.
Does it make sense for the me to do this now?
That really helps me like focus on how do I move forward with
this? What, what topics do I want to
do now? It's all about my energy levels
as well, right? So for me, I'm a morning person.
I can get a lot of stuff done in the morning.
So it's like, OK, how can I optimize that?
I do all of the stuff which requires a lot of energy in the
morning and the stuff which doesn't so much in the
afternoons. So that's why a lot of meetings
are in the afternoon for me because it's, it's not the same
energy level as like working on something or working on a
concept. So it's being aware of that and
kind of optimizing on that. So this like log for me is the
central point that I can open see where I am today, what I'm
doing right now and challenges what I should be doing.
Interesting, because I've been trying to get into journaling,
and I usually do it at the end of the day.
And I say usually, but I barely started.
And it's also because, yeah, at the end of the day, I'm
exhausted. I just want to go to bed.
And then I don't do it for that day specifically.
Yeah. So it's been very difficult.
You do it throughout the day. Exactly.
Interesting. So I just have like a text file
with bullet points there. And basically every morning I do
a gratitude journal and I also look back then of the previous
day, you know, because I have the energy in the morning and it
gives me like, what can I optimize today, which yesterday
I didn't optimize for or that overview there because I also
struggled with the journaling at the same thing.
Like at the end of the day, you just going to bed.
OK, I need to write something now.
And also you can't remember everything, right?
You're like, your brain is going, what did I do today?
And then you realize you can't sleep because your brain is
then. You're on.
Exactly. And then it takes you longer to
get to sleep and then again, Domino effect of that, right?
So I find that for me, it really helps bring that intentionality,
bring that awareness and it's a tool for reflection, right?
So I can look back, let's say last week on Wednesday, what
happened, what went on there? And it really helps me bring
that focus. How long have you been doing it?
That method for just over a year, as soon as I switched to
Obcidian, I kind of tried it like that.
So I'm always testing something out and moving around, but
that's really worked really good so far.
Yeah, I, I really, because this this intentionality that you
speak of as well as kind of this reflecting of the day, not just
the day, but also last week and kind of checking in with
yourself. I feel like I don't do that
often enough. I go really hard and I achieve
things and then it's like on to the next, next milestones like
always go, go, go. And then only in conversations
where someone is has the role of like a mentor or a coach, am I
more reflective or I really have to take myself out of it.
Also, when asking for feedback, that's when I'm reflective.
But if nothing triggers me, if there's no incentive, then I
don't do that. I just keep going.
I feel like journaling could be a really good means to an end,
to be more intentional with my time and to also be reflective.
And you probably do retrospectives in your job,
right? Where you reflect back on topic
or anything. I do that every week on a
Sunday. I basically get a coffee, sit
there and look over like the logs of the week and just see
what, OK, what did I enjoy? What didn't I enjoy?
And I do a weekly wrap wrap up. And every week I set like a
micro goal, like, OK, this week I want to do more sport and kind
of then I have that intentionality this week I want
to do this. So I find that's also easier to
do on smaller chunks and say, OK, this year I want to lose 10
kilos. That's harder to grasp.
But if you're doing on a week by week, you're breaking it down a
little bit more. So this weekly reflection
enables me then to look over the logs and since it's all bullet
pointed it's quite easy. Easy just to run through and see
and then go, OK, what do I need to change?
What's important for me this week?
Do you still do bigger goal setting in terms of years or
months, or for your own career or for your own personal life?
Yeah, I kind of try and set like a vision statement in some
regards. So not something not like I want
to be like having my own company by this time, but it's more like
I want, I envision this freedom, this kind of thing.
And that's what I then try to then on a weekly basis work
towards that. Because I find if you set a big
goal and then you like then figure out how can I get there,
It's quite intimidating. And I think that's then stops us
from doing something. And usually it's like, it's
always this problem, like after the new year, people go to the
gym, right? And after a few weeks they stop.
I would say it's the same kind of approach that right?
Whereas if you're doing it and checking in on a more regular
basis, you can like reflect on it and just challenge yourself,
OK, is this what I set out to do, really what I want to do?
Or was it just a impulse because someone I know is doing it or I
was inspired? I think again, it's about being
aware of that. Yeah, I feel like big goals have
this any positive effect that I break it down and there's a path
to that. And I can see that it's just
with varied interests and also with time changing my interests
change and then that goal might be obsolete.
And then I have to do that for another goal.
And it's like I feel like I also anchor myself to then not want
to change a goal because I've set that goal for myself and
that was the focus back then. So it, it kind of reduces how
agile I am with what I want to do.
So therefore I don't do it. But then these micro goals on a
weekly basis, I've, I've started trying to do them on a
day-to-day basis, not even on a week basis, but just give me a
few things that I need to get done today and do those.
And that gives me a lot of fulfillment.
Even just checking them off physically or like a check box
in Obsidian somewhere. I really enjoy doing that and it
gives me focus. Yeah, I mean, certainly I my
gratitude journal that I do every morning, I always define
what one thing that I will do today will bring me joy and
energy. One thing simple and it's not
like this overreaching goal that I'm going to get a huge pay rise
or promotion. It's like today, what do I want
to do? Like today is the podcast, for
example, you know, that's the one thing that will give me joy
and energy today. I think it, it helps them make
us more aware and be present in the moment, right?
Because it's about today. You know, I have control of
today. I don't have control of tomorrow
or the next week, right? Things can change and it really
helps. You have a positive mindset,
then you know you're because you're always achieving, you're
always bringing things forward and always reflecting on that.
How big is your daily log or your daily journal?
Because I feel like it's so personal that no one shares
actually how much they put in there, if it's a whole paragraph
or if it's just a few sentences. I would say it's like 30 to 50
bullet points and a bullet point is maybe one or two sentences
Max. I really use keywords or
something that maybe triggers that mindset on there or a link
to something which you know, has more details there.
So it's like meeting with the team about X and then just
bullet points. We decided X or we need this
information. Just quick bullet points just
for myself and how to work on that.
Yeah. And do you then separate because
this is what I'm, I've, I've tried to do this 10th custom and
where I struggle with it's a, it's a tool to organise
knowledge, like a knowledge management system.
But then if I have a meeting with regards to domain experts
and stuff that we need to do, there's deadlines, there's
context, there's a lot of stuff. And I feel like how do I have
that? And then also this knowledge
management system, do I combine them?
Do I keep them separate? And also you're saying there's
this daily log. Do you put that in there?
And then how do you get that information back if it's needed
again? Yeah.
I mean, I tried to keep the deeper context like separated
between work and private. So my, let's say personal
knowledge system is only for like my private life and side
projects I'm working on and businesses, that sort of thing.
My professional thing I keep within the tools within the
business. So I, I really, because I don't
want to be at home on a Saturday and searching for something and
then a work topic pops up. You know, I try to keep that
clear boundary. And of course that brings extra
friction, right? Because it's not one source of
truth then, but that's when I link into my log, OK, here's a
confidence link or here's a Jira book that or ticket that relates
to that. That's why I try and keep it
just to the minimal. So it doesn't replace like
taking meeting notes or anything, but it's more about
for your own opinion of how the meeting went or what your
thoughts are in a meeting. So it shouldn't replace meeting
notes or anything like that. But it's just like, how did you
feel at the meeting? You know, was it positive or
negative, right? Because then you can reflect on
that as well. How interesting.
So that's how you keep them separate.
I'm going to experiment with this because I feel like it's
something that I do see having value.
What? What has journaling brought to
you now that you've done it for a year?
Do you see yourself different than like a couple years back in
how you are intentional with your time or how you feel in
general? Yeah.
I mean, one thing it's bring up positivity for is that I
actually do a lot. That's something that I always
struggled. Like at the end of the day, I
really struggled to realize, OK, what did I do today?
And this really helped me bring awareness that I'm doing a lot
and also enabled me to bring new processes into how to reduce a
lot of the topics because I realized, OK, there's a lot of
context which is there, so how? And this has really helped me
bring awareness to that and kind of challenge that as well.
And I've been journaling for, I don't know, eight years and
really like gratitude journaling, really realize it
helps my positivity and my energy, you know?
Yeah. Do you still read back the
journals of like years ago or are they like archive and like?
Not yet, not yet. Maybe that's a, a weekend
activity with like some whiskey or something like this.
But yeah, I mean, it would be interesting to look back like, I
don't know, one year ago, like what was, what did the week look
like then or a few years ago, right, to see how you're
progressing. But our lives are so fluid.
It changes so much, right? And our priorities change.
And I think that's always interesting to be aware of that
and realise, like you said, your interests change as well, which
is perfectly fine. You know, like AI is the big
thing now. Who would have thought like 10
years ago that it's part of our daily business?
Like that wouldn't have been a part of your goal maybe to go
deep on that. But nowadays it's like, OK, how
do we focus more time on that? And that's, I think that's being
aware it's OK to change. It's OK to stop something if you
don't enjoy it. Don't do it just because you
feel like you have to. But you know, work on that.
Yeah, Yeah. Interesting.
It's very interesting that you can take this perspective of
kind of analysing what you do on a day-to-day and be in control
of that, even though you're both in the driver as well as the
person that analysis to improve your own life.
You can take both roles because normally if you go, for example,
to therapy, there's two people in there and one helps the other
kind of get their own thoughts in order and realize things that
they otherwise wouldn't have. And you can do this yourself as
well. I think that's fascinating.
Yeah, I mean, you need to like step back from yourself.
You know, I think that's sounds easy, but it's, it's quite
difficult to reflect on that. I'm being critical of what
you're doing. And I think such tooling enables
you then to sit with someone. Like I could sit with you and we
go through it and you can give me your thoughts and
perspective. And every thought and
perspective, of course, is your own.
There's no right or wrong. I think that system enables you
to have that conversation as well, right?
So I think it's also good to get some outside perspective because
again, we don't see ourselves from the outside, right?
So someone might say, hey, you're super organized, but
actually inside your chaos, you know, and I think it's also a
good tool to enable you to sit down with someone, reflect on it
and get feedback. And then it's like a knock on
effect because then the people are like, actually, how do I do
it? Then like this, you know, and it
leads to that conversation about that I've had all the time,
especially around like meeting chaos that people have, you
know, and you show them, OK, this is how I've done it.
And they're like, ah, OK, I get I should think about doing that.
It goes back to this whole impact apartment, right?
You are in charge of your time and destiny in that regard.
Don't get lost in the day-to-day.
It's so easy to do that. But step back from time to time
and look, is this the direction I want to go in?
Just this makes sense. Does this have the outcome I
want to achieve? And you have the power to change
that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Have you tried that, getting feedback from an outside
perspective on like your your notes or your system?
Because I think if I would show you my journal, I'd be
embarrassed a little bit. Maybe that's like my ego thing.
Even when people say, OK, who took meetings and can everyone
kind of centralized their meetings, their meeting notes,
I'm like, man, I have to make these more organised because
otherwise it looks embarrassing. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think because of the log is quite short and simple.
There's not too much emotion in there, right.
So it's not like I'm really going into the feelings or
emotional side of things. And I think that's, that's the
area where we need to be more sensitive, right?
Because it's like opening, opening up the door to my inner
self. And that's quite intimidating,
right? I think that's when like
journaling becomes usually it's a private thing that you don't
share with people. It's people are very secretive
of that, right? But with how I do the log, it's
more pragmatic and more straightforward.
And I think that's OK to share. And I might say this meeting was
not good or didn't bring me any value.
And I think that's OK to share that.
Again, it's not super negative, it's just my perspective of a
topic. So I think it's totally fine and
it enables then you to grow and to also help the person who's
looking at it also gain more value.
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on,
Joseph. This was a real fun
conversation, self management, productivity, It really made me
think and it really made me want to experiment with some of the
tools that you shared. Thanks so much for coming on.
Our pleasure. Cool.
Then we'll round it off. If you're still here listening,
let me know in the comments section what you thought of this
episode. Leave a like.
Likes are free, you don't have to pay for them and otherwise
we'll see you on the next one.