243: The Single Source of Truth is On the Fridge, with Thom Gibson

Welcome to Focus, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz and joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you? I'm doing great. How about you? Ready to talk about... being focused i need it i've had a focused light week i feel like you ever like show up you're like i'm making a show about being focused but the last couple days i have just been adrift Yeah, that does happen. That's...

I think that is one of the things, hopefully, that sets focus apart is that we are not the gurus coming down the mountain saying just do this sort of stuff. And we've got another fellow traveler with us today. Welcome to the show, Tom Gibson. Thanks, Mike. It's good to be here. Yeah. So Tom and I met, I think, first at Crafted Commerce when we went for a run. And then again at the newsletter marketing summit in Austin.

And I was really drawn to what you do, Tom, because you have a side hustle, maybe we'll call it, which is titled Work From Home Dads. And you share a lot about the struggles of trying to be productive when you are working from home. So it's not just independent creators. There's a lot of...

people in the corporate world now who are working from home and they're facing a lot of these same challenges. And so I wanted to have you on to talk about some of that stuff. You've got a little bit of an interesting story. Want to tell us how you got here?

Yeah, I never thought I would work remote. I thought it'd be really cool to work remote, but I was a classroom teacher for 10 years. I taught middle school math and robotics, did the creator thing while I was doing that, kind of doing YouTube, newsletters, social media, all about building a teacher brand and helping other classroom teachers. And around 2020, about two weeks before the pandemic, I became a dad and my daughter was born. And so becoming a dad and beginning to work remote.

literally happened at the same time for me. The school obviously is all schools. We went fully remote, I was teaching from home and doing zoom school and all sorts of stuff like that. And eventually, I started making my way back into the classroom. But my daughter was getting to be about 18 months in the next year after that.

Me and my wife were originally planning on just putting her in daycare at 18 months, but this was still the middle of COVID. And we didn't feel at ease about putting her in daycare.

But I was like in this really conflicted space because I was like, okay, well, my wife is a pediatrician. So like her staying home just like wasn't financially an option for us. On top of that, she had wanted to go part-time for a long time and lower her hours and stuff, but just making teacher money, that just wasn't realistic for us. And so part of me was like, oh, man. I don't want to just stay home and take care of our daughter and not...

work, not be a teacher anymore. Cause it's like on multiple fronts. Like I felt this, like I need to be working. Like I I'm totally fine. Not making much as much money as my wife, but.

I don't want to put that entire financial burden on her. And like my vision before was like, the goal was like, I'm going to be a teacher and I'm going to build this side hustle. And then I'm going to make as much money as I can. And hopefully she'll be able to go part-time with that. And then to like start working from home. It just felt like throwing all that away. You know, I'm not working. Sarah's never going to go part time. And I was just like, oh, I don't know what to do. And I remember.

That summer, I started working a few different gigs from home just to kind of make a little extra money while I was working, while I was on summer break before school started. And one of those was actually working. with another guy that I had met in the YouTube space that was serving teachers. And he was like, hey, why don't we work together and kind of build up this thing that I'm building? And he'd actually...

gotten a lot of financial success and was wanting to build out his team. He brought on his brother. He wanted to bring me on. And so- Originally I was like, well, maybe I'll just, I'll do that on the side. And then I'll also keep teaching. And we got to this point where it was literally a week before school was starting. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't want to send her to daycare, but I don't want to stay home, but I don't want to send her to daycare.

care but i don't want to stay home and so i remember i i went into like a word doc and i just started listing out the different scenarios i was like what if i just stay home and i did what if i stayed at school and i did these best case scenario i did worst case scenario and I did likely scenario from each of those. And it wasn't until I actually spelled it all out that I realized I was like, well, like if I stay home.

I can maybe actually invest more in this startup. You know, instead of the startup that I was working on with Sam that was going to just be on the side in addition to teaching.

What if I stayed home and I also built that startup? And I was like, that's it. Like, I get to work. I get to do the creator thing because it was like I was making YouTube videos and newsletters and stuff. You know, my wife is feeling at ease because we're not sending our daughter to daycare yet. And it's like, wow, like this is.

It was like the answer, but it wasn't until I actually just like wrote it all out. I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. And so it was hard to leave teaching because I was like, oh, I'm a good teacher. I was named teacher of the year twice. Like I'm respected in this industry, in this role. But it was like, it was a way to like meet the needs of my family and meet my own internal needs and drive to start working from home. So I started working from home full time.

fall of 2021. And then worked at the startup for a little while until I eventually moved on to working at Kit, formerly ConvertKit, which is where me and you kind of connected, Mike. I think I was doing some kind of social

media stuff about you. And I was like, man, this guy does all this like productivity stuff and all this other stuff. And I was like, I want to connect with him. And then we got to actually connect in person, which was super fun. And now I've moved on from Kip, but still work doing social media. video marketing with a cybersecurity company. And in that time, I also founded Work From Home Dads as a way of serving other dads that work.

hybrid jobs, either work full time from home, or maybe they work a little bit in the office and a little bit at home. But I noticed a lot of guys were struggling with some of the same stuff I was struggling with, with just kind of like, how do you...

How do you balance like when your home is your work? How do you create those boundaries? How do you make time for the family, make time for work, make time for your side hustle and things like that. But that's kind of like what brings me here today. I remember when my daughter turned two. We decided to put her in daycare at that point. And the way our hours were, my wife worked nights. My wife worked early morning, so my job was to drop her off. And the first day, we dropped her off at daycare.

No problem. She's like, oh, this looks like fun. You know, other kids. Then she realized she was going to be there for like six hours, you know. And the second day I dropped her off, it was raining. And she says, daddy, save me. And the people at the daycare are like, just walk away. Pretend like it's no big deal. Don't overreact. They always, you know, at the beginning, I'm walking away. She's yelling, save me. It was raining. Sitting in my car, I started crying.

I'm like, I'm going to quit my job today. This is it. I literally picked up the phone. I was this close. It's tough when your kids are getting started. Even though you've got a successful career, it suddenly makes you rethink a lot.

Good on you for figuring a way to make that work. Yeah. What I love about the whole premise of work from home dads is... the there's sort of this uh inherent vibe with the stuff that you make which is different than just the standard hustle culture which is well just get up earlier and crank and you can get it all done I'm assuming this is intentional, but just from reading your stuff and talking to you, it's kind of like the underlying premise is...

Life is complicated and there's all these things that are competing for our attention. And you don't have to necessarily shut out the creator side or you don't have to compromise being a good dad, but you have to constantly struggle with how do these. pieces fit together and um i just would love to hear a little bit more about

how you manage to do that. What's your thought process as you're thinking through? How do I balance my full-time job plus the side hustle plus the family? What are the trade-offs that you have intentionally made? What are you optimizing for? That sort of thing. Yeah. To really kind of answer that, I think it helps to... to even share a little bit of like what type of work I was looking for. I left kits and got laid off earlier this year. And as I looked for my next role, I,

I kept in mind and was reading all the different job descriptions. I kept in mind that I did not want a job. That was going to demand everything from me. And, you know, when I would read job descriptions and I saw things like we're scrappy and you got to wear a lot of hats and.

Serving the client is our number one priority. And that means sometimes we got to work weekends and we got to work nights. And that's what we do because we're trying to build something. We're trying to win. So A players only. I'm like, okay, maybe if I was like in my 20s, didn't have any kids, my wife's still in residence. and working 80 hours a week and I needed something to do.

But I'm like, that's not what I want. I even saw a school here in Austin that was this AI school, and they pay teachers $100,000 a year. And if you're a team lead, you could get $150,000. $50,000 a year. I'm like, holy cow. And they needed a teacher. that was going to be able to teach the kids how to build an online presence. Basically, we need someone who understands teaching and social media. I was like, holy cow. I'm a social media strategist who has 10 years of teaching experience.

looking into it, it would require me being at the school by 745. And I wouldn't be leaving until after five o'clock. And I'm like, that is my whole day. Like that is that is I'm not a part of drop off. I'm not a part of pickup. I am rushing to making. dinner. So like, I can like say goodbye to that, you know? So it's like, even though the money was there, even, and like the cool job idea was there. Like I didn't want

want to pursue that because I knew the compromises that it would make, that I would have to make with my family. And so like, I ended up getting a role that was like, you know, it looked like there's something that there's okay, there seems to be some sense of like, they value work life.

balance and stuff. And so I know not everyone is like in a place where they could just like go look for a new job. But that was like my mindset and like when I was approaching my work. And a big part of it is like, I think through like with I try to be as intentional as I can about what are the things that I want to make space in time for in my week? And how can I make that happen? Whether that is time blocking, whether that is figuring out like, okay.

Let me talk to my wife and let's work out a schedule where it's like, are you going to take the kids to school or should I take the kids to school? Do you want to do pickup or should I do pickup? If I do pickup, then maybe you can actually go to the gym because she's still working and works like 30 minutes.

32 hours a week and everything. And so there's a sense of intentionality of like having the conversations with my wife and thinking through like, where am I going to spend my week and all sorts of different kind of boundaries that I. I try to create in my day of like, okay, this is the time that I'm setting to work. And then if...

this time ends, like that's when I'm going to stop working. And not only because I've said I'm going to stop working, but I told my wife I was going to stop working at that time. We agreed on it. So there's a level of intention. that goes with it and a lot of different facets that we can explore, but that's kind of the main, the main way that I think about creating, creating that balance and making the time for the things that are important for me.

And I would say back when I had a fancy job and we hired people, I used to advocate to hire people like you, Tom. I was a big fan of hiring somebody who had, you know, 10 to 15 years experience, knew their way around. and had a kid or for whatever reason, and like maybe, also we hired somebody once who's taken care of an elder parent. They didn't have time to be a full-time employee, but they wanted to be in the industry. They wanted to work.

uh on with limitations and every single one of those hires was fantastic you know it's just like so long as you understand going in you're not getting a full-time employee but every person was of quality and they were so thankful that we found a spot for them They did good, you know, and employers out there listen to this because there's an untapped group of people like Tom that you should be hiring.

yeah there's like it's an interesting thing it's like the more you have on your plate the more you have to be intentional to make time for it and then you end up being more productive like i don't know how many people i've talked to they're like I don't know how I'm like more productive now that I have kids because it's like you're forcing yourself.

to do whatever it is that you want to do in these limited windows of time versus like, I've got all day. There's no sense of urgency. There's no need to plan it all out. I'll figure it out. It'll all work out together at the end. yeah but it's also don't you think it's part of that that accountability of being a parent i remember i mean my daughter's much older now but when they first put her in my arms i was like i remember the thought that just immediately occurred to me is like

if you screw up now, she pays, you know, it's like my whole life. It was only me. If I screwed up, I was the only one that paid, but it's like you get, that was the first thing that occurred to me when I held her is like, okay, it's on now, you know? And so suddenly you've got a real good reason to be organized and show up on time and do good work. Yeah. Motivating factor. Yeah.

Now, one of the things that we chatted about prior to the call, Tom, was one of the ways that you are intentional with figuring out how all these pieces fit together. You talked a little bit about how you're doing this collaboratively with your significant other so that you both get... what you need. And I know you've shared online about this Sunday meeting that you do. You want to talk us through that process? Yeah.

The realization of this came from like when I was talking to like a friend and he was struggling with the same thing about like, you know, his partner. And it's like, it felt like every day him and his partner were trying to figure out like.

She's like, when do I get my time? I want to go work out. And he's like, I don't know. I got a meeting today, maybe tomorrow. And it was just like this constant, like trying to figure it out as they go. And so before me and my wife even have like our Sunday meeting, I think whatever.

know, season of life you're in, you kind of have to agree upon some kind of default schedule. And me and my wife had to kind of figure this out when I started my new role at my current company, because, you know, our default schedule now is different than when it was. was six months ago. And so what that is, is like, okay, I'm working from home. And so we are, let's agree on the times that.

are designated as like this is tom's time to work um it doesn't need to be like one big long stretch and for us it was like okay this hour and the early morning i mean i wake up early so i'm working 5 30 to 6 30 you know and unless like

you know, one of the kids just like made a mess in their pants. There's all over the room and everything like that. And it's all on the sheets and stuff. Then it's like, okay, you know, I, you know, she's going to take care of the kids, uh, until, you know, six 30 strikes. And then I will, I'll wake up and.

you know, have breakfast with the family. And then same with like during the daytime, you know, we say like, okay, I have the time when she's at work and the kids are at school to work. And I can, I can say like at four o'clock every day. That is the end of my work time. And so she picks up the kids and then she brings them home and I get them. And if she wants to go do yoga or if she wants some time to herself, that's the time that we have agreed.

It's not just like, when am I going to work? But it's like, when am I going to get what I need? Which is my work time. And then when is she going to get what she needs, which is, you know, just time to decompress after working all day. And then with my friend that I was talking about this, I was like, what if you just like, I was like, when does she want to go to her workout class? And, you know, he's like, ah, she usually goes like on Tuesdays or Thursdays. I was like, so what if you just said.

All right, Tuesdays, I've got the boy. You have. from nine to noon to do whatever you need to do or 11 to one or whatever it is, just come up with like this default that you kind of assume that week, unless there's some kind of change that needs to happen. And that's where like the Sunday conversation comes in. Like every Sunday, me and my wife just look at our calendars.

And we say like, oh, Audrey has got an early release day this Friday. So that means I'm going to have to pick her up. My day is going to be a little bit short. So when you get home, you know, could you watch them until so and so time or, you know, like, you know, one of the kids has a. appointment in the afternoon. Were you going to take time off?

take him to the appointment or was I going to do that? And we just get on the same page from not only just the kids stuff, but like, I like to do jujitsu. And so, you know, I was like, even today I knew like, you know, like normally I go during the day. So that way, you know, like.

I can, I've got the time. If I don't have meetings in the middle of the day, I can go to that class. And I knew I was going to be doing this podcast today. So I was like, Hey, like, you know, since I'm doing the podcast, I'm thinking about going to jujitsu on Tuesday night after the kids go down. She's like, Oh yeah, that's fine. You know? and maybe Saturday morning. You know, we kind of come up with an agreement at the beginning of the week about these things. So that way it's not like...

there's not these expect unvoiced expectations that end up becoming disappointments where it's like, Oh man, like I thought, I thought you were still going to pick them up. I didn't know that there was like, it's like, I was, I planned on doing this. And then that starts leading to like conflict. And then that starts.

leading to resentment and leads to problems when you guys aren't when we are not communicating with one another about like what are our expectations for the week let's just get on the same page and if things have to change that's fine at least we can talk about it but like having that default schedule that you kind of assume week to week, and then every Sunday talking about any deviations that need to be made.

given the nuance and the needs of that week, has gone such a long way from having just... such avoidable arguments or frustrations had we just talked about it? Talking is the key. I heard somebody say that communication is the basis of life, and that's true. In a relationship, that's true in a company. I love what you said about the unvoiced expectations leading to disappointment. I feel like that's a really important concept.

where you can fool yourself, especially when life is busy into thinking that, well, we don't really need to hit pause and talk about things because this person knows me better than anyone else. So they should just know what I need. They should just know what I want. And I can pretty clearly, I'm sure there's very close to 100%.

You know, the times where things have been hard and our relationship has suffered, it was because we just dropped the ball in terms of communicating. Yeah, yeah. It's like... It just creates the opportunity to be on the same page every week and then just talking about what you need. It is such a difficult time in your life.

having young kids. So you have a few now? Yeah, we have two. We have a five-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. So in the thick of it with toddlerhood. Yeah. But it goes fast.

Yeah. Sounds like you guys are figuring it out, though. So when you sit down on the Sunday meeting, you've got kind of the ideal week or the general, you make variations. Then what are the tricks to then actually execute on this stuff and get through the week? I put everything of mine inside of a Google Calendar that I share with my wife. And so that kind of helps her see if I've got anything that's any like...

bleeding, things bleeding into the evening or in the morning or during the day or whatever. But she very much likes having like a physical calendar. We have two calendars on our refrigerator. We have a monthly calendar and a weekly calendar. And she goes in every week. And like for her, she even says like, I just feel better when I just have like.

written everything out and it's all color-coded and we know like we've got the meals that are written down on the on each day of the week we've got audrey oh the audrey tom's picking up the kids on this day and sarah's picking them up on this day and

Tom's got this, you know, happy hour with his former colleagues on this day. And it's like, it's all mapped out. And it's just kind of like, okay, it's all out in the open. We can reference it, you know, it's available. And so she looks at my digital. calendar and that's where we keep all the appointments but the the actual you know

This is where we look to see what's going on. That is the source of truth is those two calendars up on the refrigerator. The single source of truth is on the fridge. I like that. There have been times where I'm like, I had something on my... my calendar, my Google calendar, but I forgot to like add it because it was like a last minute edition. She's like, well, if it's not on the calendar on the frizz, then it didn't happen or it doesn't exist. So it's like, fair enough.

Something you've said there, though, I think that is important is that you go to her space on this. If you're setting this up for your company, your home, your spouse, you need to... understand where they're comfortable with this stuff. I feel like a lot of people listening to the show are probably the people who are going to be more geeky and want to have Google calendars and automations and things set for these. But if you're working with a team or other people...

You've got to go where they're comfortable. And just adapting to that, I think, is an important step. Yeah. Yeah, you can't force systems on anybody else, but it's not just... In a family, like you were kind of alluding to, David, I saw this when I was the integrator at the digital marketing agency as well. One of the things that helped us out a lot was...

Everyone in the organization took the Colby assessment, which is kind of like your working styles. And I'm a high fact finder, so I need to have all the information. Let's assume that Tom is a high quick start. He just wants to get in there and do stuff, right? So there's natural friction. anytime Tom and I work together because Tom's like, what's the deal, Mike? Let's get going. And I'm like, no, no, no, we got to figure it all out first. And just recognizing that.

improves the working relationship. It was interesting. Colby actually came out with a version of that for couples that Rachel and I took. And there wasn't anything completely earth shattering. in there but what it did is it painted a picture of like when you're trying to communicate what you need as a high fact finder to your significant other who is a high quick start opposites tend to attract

you should maybe try framing it like this. And those little tactical tips, they didn't change what we talked about, but it changed how I... presented it and I think that's the key you were talking about kind of like alignment and agreement in terms of getting on the same page and there's give and take with that so it's not just well this is who I am and this is how I naturally communicate, so get on board or we're not compatible.

I mean, you can't say that when you join an organization. And I don't feel you should do it when you join a relationship either, that you should figure out, you know, how do we actually make this work? Yeah. And that's like back to that, you know, conversation. It's like, it's discussing not only what I need, but like, how can we create space for, you know, you, Sarah, to get what you need, you know?

um because then it also creates a lot more buy-in and it's a lot less like what you just said like this is this is what i need and this is what we're going to make happen because i work from home and i need my time to work and blah blah blah and that uh perspective feels a little bit counterintuitive, especially if you're coming into it as someone who is single and just focused on managing your own stuff, but really the key to getting what you need.

is making sure that the other person gets what they need. It feels kind of counterintuitive, but that really is the secret, I guess. I don't know. And I mean, obviously there are work...

cultures where that is sort of broken, but in good work cultures and company organizations, there's a little bit of that aspect too. I mean, the whole idea behind the daily huddles that we did back in the day you know you're sharing your roadblocks is not so that everyone can hear where you're stuck and then go back and crank on their own things it's so that someone who's listening

and values the team over the individual oh i know how to do that let me connect with you after the call in 10 minutes we'll we'll straighten it out yeah so what's your process for mapping out the uh the week you you look at your calendar

which is digital, and you compare it with your wife's calendar, which is analog. But then how do you make sure that the real important stuff gets done? Are there some sort of rules or frameworks that you... you use here and then um does that translate into like daily planning at all yeah so how Yeah, the system I use, I actually came up with it. It's a very revolutionary system that you'll find out about in a second. When I came back from being out of office for like a week...

And then I was just like, oh, I just got, I got to catch up. I don't even know where to start with all of this stuff. And what I did and now what I do every day or at the start of every week is I just make. one massive list of everything that I need to do, particularly when it comes to work. And then I prioritize it by everything that's a top priority, medium priority, low priority.

The way that I approach it is I have like a checklist where because like, you know, when you're working with an organization, you have tasks that are just sprinkled. everywhere. You've got stuff that's come in through email. You've got stuff that's come in through Slack. You've got stuff that's come in through your project management system. You've got bookmarks of Slack that are not new Slacks, but you bookmarked them last week because you're like, I gotta come back to them. You've got...

You've got all sorts of different notifications that are coming in all different directions. And so I just had like a checklist where it's like, okay. Let me first look at my calendar. What are all the things on my calendar, meetings that I need to go to, different people that I need to talk to? Let me add that to this big to-do list. Now, what's Slack conversations? What's... stuff in my project management system. What are things that I need to, I go through.

all of it. And then I just add it to one big list. And if you're using a digital task manager, I will always like, if it's like, oh, there's that Slack thread where I kind of need to give like some input on this, I'll always like link to that.

thing that I'm putting on the to-do list. So it just makes it a lot easier to click through it, whether it's an email, a Slack conversation, a Notion page or whatever it is. And then once I have the big list, I go through, it's like, okay, what are the things that are like...

They need to happen this week. They're big projects. They're things that move the needle. Those are my top priorities. Things that I would love to try to get done this week, but if they end up getting pushed off, that's okay. That's going to be medium priorities. things that like

You know, if I don't get to them this week, like totally fine. I'm going to put them on the low priorities. And I even have a separate space for meetings because I was always like, is this meeting a top priority, a medium priority? I don't know. It's a weekly meeting we have every week. So I just have like a separate space for meetings. So I don't have to actually decide where they go. I don't do a ton of...

Like, you know, when am I, even though I have like, you know, when I'm going to jujitsu and all this other stuff, kind of like on like the calendar and stuff that doesn't go on this to-do list. This weekly map of mine is really for me. to focus on my work tasks to make sure that I'm focusing on the highest leverage work. Because at the start of every day,

I look at that list, that weekly map, and I'm like, okay, which of my top priorities have I not gotten done yet? Or which ones still need progress? And I try to make sure that stuff's happening when my... energy level is a lot higher at the beginning of the day. My focus is a lot more. And then a lot of times I'll either try to either have meetings in the afternoon or I'll push some of those medium to low priority stuff that

doesn't need like as much of like my creative and mental energy. But I really want to focus my efforts on the top priority stuff. And I just grab a note card at the beginning of the day. And then I just write MITs, most important things. And I list three or four of the most important things that I am working on that day.

I like having the digital note card. And every time I don't do it, I'm like, why am I not doing it? I should go back to the digital. I'll go weeks without doing it. And then I'll restart doing it. I'm like, oh yeah, this is way better way to do it. Because I like having that.

One, I don't have to jump back into my task manager, which then I see that big list. I was like, oh, I still have so many things to do. But I just feel like, okay, there's three or four things to do here. There's something just so satisfying of taking a sharp... and checking it off, but not only checking it off, but also drawing a line through it. It's like, yes. And then at the end of the day, I have a physical representation.

of the things that I got done that day. Because when it's like just your big to-do list and you checked off the things that you did and then they disappeared because you did them, you end the day just feeling like, ugh, look at all this stuff that I have done as opposed to being like, ugh. Look at the high priority, most important things that I worked on.

today. And so I've just recently got back into doing the note card system. And even now, I'll write three bullet points for my main work stuff. for the cybersecurity company I work at. But then I'll also write one bullet point. for work from home dads, like in that 30 minutes to an hour that I'm going to devote to work from home dad stuff. Like what's the one thing that I want to work on? Cause I found like I was, I wasn't, I was.

I was getting to my time that I've allotted to work on work from home dad stuff. And I was like, what do I work on? Do I want to write a newsletter? Do I want to like schedule out next week's LinkedIn stuff? I've got all those YouTube videos I can edit. And then I was kind of like...

I didn't know what to do. So I just did the easy thing, you know, like whatever it was like low energy, as opposed to being like, that's the thing that I want to work on. So the note card systems kind of like for the daily most important things. And if I have a ton of meetings, I'm not going to put like seven most important.

things that I'm going to try to cram when I have like six meetings that day. It's like, I'm going to have like one thing on there if I've got a meeting heavy day. So I don't want to meet, treat those days as if I have no meetings and I've got all this extra time. So the weekly map.

prioritizing work tasks, top, medium, low. And then my daily MITs on an analog note card to keep me on track and focused on what I need to work on next. Getting the actual items on a physical card or... book or whatever uh i don't think i've ever talked to a single person that tried that and didn't appreciate its value i think a lot of people avoid it because it feels inefficient it's like well now i gotta write it down on a card too i mean

I already have a great system and that's good. I think I felt that way for a long time until I started doing it as well. And now it's an essential part of the system. It's almost like the... You know, just like getting away from the mothership and just saying, okay, these are the things that today will get done. It allows you to really focus on what's important. And if you're hesitant to try it out there.

Just stop by the stationery store on your way home and get a pack of note cards. Get a piece of paper. Get some paper. Cut it in half. You don't have to make it fancy. There's fancy ways to do it if you want. But I just don't think I've ever talked to anybody that tried that that didn't appreciate its value. And it takes seconds. In terms of this inefficiency thing, it literally takes you less time than one commercial break.

And the ROI is there. It's like such a good return on the investment of eight seconds to write it down. Yeah, most of the time you talk about a return on investment and you're like, oh, I'm... For every hour invested, I'm going to get two. But like you said, this is very, very small. But it still provides a big benefit because you're not having to go back to the screen and look at that stuff.

Yeah, your approach. I love that. And I think David and I have similar approaches where we have digital task managers, which we don't want to become taskmasters. It's going to give me recommendations for things that I should consider doing, but then I'm going to make my own decisions and put those on an analog list.

I think it was your newsletter that kind of used, I like that term, like this is a list of, these are recommendations of what I could work on. I was like, I like that framing a lot. Yeah, it's a recommendation engine. Because I experienced the same thing you described, where if you're working off of that list, you can go in there, even if you have a separate perspective or flagged items and you get through all of those.

It's still one click away and then you see all the stuff that you haven't done yet. And there is not a quicker way I know of zapping your motivation to do anything than looking at all the stuff you have yet to do. Yeah, I've come to calling it a list of lists. That's what my task manager is. Just a list of lists. Disarm it a little bit and then choose what you're going to do from there. Put it on a card and go make a difference.

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Indeed is all you need. And our thanks to Indeed for their support of the Focus Podcast and Olive Relay. Tom, one thing I wanted to talk to you about is the topic of dad guilt. Like something that I never, my kids, I didn't work at home when my kids were little, but I don't know how you guys do it because when that little sweetheart walks in and wants to play with daddy and you're supposed to be getting work done, how do you deal with that?

Yeah, definitely. When you do work from home, like is it is so. needed to have those boundaries. I am in a spot right now where both my kids, my son, he's three and he goes to like a preschool. And my daughter, she is now in kindergarten. So they're both in school for a good part of the day. And that is my primary work time. But there are times where they either are home or...

for whatever reason, I have to work and they're home. Unless I decide to take the day off, which I can do, I have work to do. So a lot of it is just really... communicating both with, not only with my wife about like, Hey, can you watch the kids? I got to make sure this work is done, but also communicating with my kids.

Like I've told my daughter, like when she comes in, I do have like one of those doorknobs where it's like, it's kind of kid proof. My five-year-old, she can get past it. But my three-year-old just kind of like, it's like, I can't figure this out. So I will close the door if I need to get work done, but sometimes my daughter will come in and I will just let her know. you know, sweetheart, I have to get some of this work done and I'm going to be finished at 11. But if you keep coming in here.

it's going to take me longer to get my work done and I'm not going to be able to come out and play as soon as, as, as at 11, it's going to take longer. And so at five, she kind of understands that a little bit and like, we'll, you know, kind of go back out. My three-year-old doesn't understand that. So it's mainly with my wife trying to make sure he's preoccupied and busy and just playing with him. But I think just even having that conversation in a way that... a child can understand.

Because I think, you know, I've, I've been guilty of just like getting frustrated with her. I'm like, I'm trying to work. Stop talking to me, you know? And she's like, I just want to play. You know? And so it's like, if I don't have that conversation. I end up just kind of reacting out of frustration. And so other things that help with that, like for example, like this Friday.

my daughter will have a half day at school. So I'm still going to have to get some work done, but I'm already doing my due diligence to first make sure all of my meetings, I'm moving them to the morning. So that way I don't have to have a meeting when I am...

with my daughter. Additionally, you know, I know that there are certain things like we can do that she can preoccupy herself with a certain level of involvement for me. So If she's coloring, sometimes she'll ask me to color and I might be working on my computer.

But I'll be like, when I'm done working on this, we can color. Or I just started teaching her, letting her use a website that teaches you how to code. It's like built like as a game and she's like learning how to do little coding things. But now she's getting to the part where she can't figure it out herself.

needs help. And so like, I'm like, okay, that one's probably not the best one to put her on while I'm working. But there's also times where it's like, if I have to get something done, you know, I will, I will have her watch TV for a little while. Um, whether it's 45 minutes or an hour and I'm going to say, okay.

You're going to watch TV during this time, and I'm going to get some work done. And I have told myself to not... feel guilty about that because that's another one of the things the screen time stuff everywhere you look it's like you would assume that if you just let your child look at a screen before the age of five like

They're done. Like, that's it. You know, there's no chance. They're never going to learn how to focus. They're never going to learn how to read. They're just going to be zombies. And I found that I think there's little nuance to that conversation. I think if you approach any kind of screen time with intention and intentionality and boundaries, I think that that is...

a much more realistic and a much more healthy approach than just all or nothing kind of thing. And so for our kids, their normal TV time... is when me and my wife, when I'm making dinner and when I'm making dinner, my wife is usually making their lunches for the next day. And the kids know like, okay, you can watch TV. You can watch any of these shows or any of these channels right here.

And as soon as we say it's time to eat, we're turning the TV off. And if there's any crying, if there's any yelling about turning the TV off... You're just not going to watch TV tomorrow. And so the kids know like, okay, we've got this time. We can watch these shows. And so they know when it can happen. They can know what they can watch. And they know that if there's what their behavior needs to be. And if they're trying to ask for TV outside.

of those times and they keep asking, I'm going to say, if you keep asking me, you will not watch TV today. My three-year-old understands that. He's like, I want to watch Blippi. I was like, if you keep asking, you will not watch Blippi today. Okay. You know, Eddie stops asking, you know, so I think just having those boundaries and making those boundaries clear to the kids.

is what allows it to be something where it's like, yeah, they're watching TV and we're getting work done and we're getting dinner ready and we're getting lunch ready and all that kind of stuff. Totally, you know, parents don't want their kids watching any TV at all. Like, of course, just like set that up. So that's like, you know, if that's the value that you want to instill and you want the kids to do other things. But if you find yourself like, man, like I just.

I want to give my kids an iPad when we're traveling a little bit just so I can have some peace. I want to let them watch TV so I can cook dinner, whatever it is. You don't have to feel guilty about it. create those boundaries and set that intention around it and, and let go of the guilt. Yeah. I mean, if it makes you feel any better, I've seen the experiment run. I'm old enough now, you know, that we had friends who.

didn't let their kids watch any TV. And now the kids have grown up and turned into TV-aholics. We had another friend who would not let their little boy play with guns. That was their big thing. he would come over and play with my kids and anything was a gun, a stick, a Lego, whatever. This notebook is a gun. Yeah. And then now he's like 30 and he owns. A lot of guns. I feel like sometimes you can go overboard as a parent and actually cause the inverse thing of what you're trying to do.

yeah the other thing is when you were talking i was reminded when you're with talking to kids they have no subtlety they don't read between the lines you just have to be direct with them they just don't you know as an adult you think well don't doesn't he understand what i'm trying to say here no they don't you have to just say you know

Don't keep doing this. You just have to stop. Yeah, fun times, fun times. Yeah, I think it's tough, though, right? But it sounds to me like you're handling it well. and you know the other thing i would always tell people is there's nothing wrong with not being able to give every minute your kids they come out weird if you do that but at the same time as parents now more than when i was had little kids

You really have to focus on being present with them when you are present with them because, you know, I just wrote a newsletter post about this a few months ago that got a lot of traction. We were at Disneyland because we live close. My wife works for them, so we'd go there often.

we're at disneyland we always see these strollers being pushed around with kids in it that are just staring at an ipad it's like you spent all this money to be here this is if the kid cannot be entertained at disneyland where where can they be entertained you know and then And we sat down for dinner at a fancy restaurant, and there was a family of four, mom, dad, and two kids, and they were on their phones, all of them. Well, the kids were on iPads, the parents were on phones.

It became a game at our table. It's like, are they going to talk to each other at any point? And they didn't. There's nothing sacred.

Even Disneyland. I don't know. I just feel like it's weird. It's like, as a parent, don't you realize what you're doing there? Well, you hit on the largest... problem i have with the screen time stuff david is that a lot of times kids just will reproduce at a higher intensity level what they see their parents doing yeah so you don't realize that you're spending hours on your phone scrolling tiktok but your kids see it and then you see them absorbed in whatever kids app they're

trying to play on their iPad and then they throw a fit when you take it away, at least when they're little and you're like, oh my gosh, I see what this is doing to you, but you can't see what it's doing to yourself. So you kind of have to model the expected behaviors here. I like what you said, Tom, about teaching them to use it with intentionality, too, because I was that kid who was told you can't play video games. So every chance I got, I would go to a friend's house and play video games.

So your kids will figure out a way around it. You're not really protecting them from being exposed to it, but you got to teach them how to navigate it. They have to figure out for themselves how to have success. controlling the urges and fighting back against the dopamine hits of the free apps and the social media as they get older and things like that.

And I feel like if you can teach them to manage it well, that's the best thing you can do for setting them up for success in our increasingly digital world. Yeah. And it also kind of comes back to like a lot of what you write about, Mike, was just like, what are your values? Because when you're talking, David, about like, you know, sitting at the dinner table, you know, like we value.

talking to each other. Even at age five, at age three, we're going around the table and saying like, hey, what was your high today? What was your low today? What was the thing that you had to like... persevere through? What's something that you're thankful for? And just having those conversations at the dinner table. It's the intentionality.

And also when the kids watch TV while we're making dinner, that also creates space and time for me and my wife to kind of connect about our days because she's making the kids lunches. I'm making the kids dinner. We don't have kids screaming at us at that time because they're... zombied out in front of the TV for a little bit, but that, but it's like intentional that way. But, and it just, it reminds me to like, I read this book called hunt gather parent. Um, that was all about how.

We live in a culture that's kind of like, you know, to that point where you're like, you're spending all your time with your kids and doing kid stuff. We live in a culture that's very much like doing kid-centered activities versus family-centered. activities. And it talked about the kid-centered activity is like, oh, let's go to the play museum. There's nothing for me to do as an adult, but the kids are just running around and playing. Whereas a family-centered activity is like...

Let's go on a hike together. I like going on a hike. I like being outside. You guys like being outside. It's something we can enjoy as a family. And that really stuck with me because it's like, if I am going to spend time with my kids, I want it to be...

family-centered. Even if we go to the park, sometimes I'll play with them, but sometimes I just want to sit and read my book and not feel guilty that I'm not the dad that's crazy and wacky and having a great time on the park and going on the slide with the kids and stuff. It's like...

okay, we're at the park. I like being outside and reading a book. You guys like playing at the park. This is now a family activity versus just a kid activity. So that was something that just kind of gave language to something that I had kind of felt but didn't really know how to articulate.

articulate and was like feeling guilty about to. Yeah, this looks like a fascinating book. I think you just cost me some money. Another thing that helped me with some of this, when... You're working from home specifically was actually Chris Bailey in his book, Hyper Focus, has one of those two by two productivity grids, you know, where you've got.

dealing with distractions essentially and on one axis you've got was it avoidable or is it avoidable or is it not avoidable and another one is is it enjoyable or is it not enjoyable and I realized I was falling into, I'm going to call it a trap, but exactly what you described where a kid will walk in while you are working and you get frustrated. They interrupted your flow. Now you got to stop and you got to deal with this thing that you hadn't planned on dealing with. So that is a distraction.

or an interruption that I could not have prevented. I did everything I could to prevent it. I put the childproof thing on the door. The light is red in the hall. I'm wearing the over here headphones, all the visual cues. I've talked to my wife ahead of time. So we know like dad's working right now. Still happens, right?

So what do you do in that moment? Yes, your flow is disrupted. Yes, you now have been interrupted with something that you were doing. Now you have to deal with this thing you hadn't planned on doing. And I realized that... A lot of times they would come in and they would want to, you know, play a game quick or go shoot hoops or something because we got a hoop in our backyard. And I realized, well, I've already been interrupted. What if I just enjoyed the break?

because that's kind of the the grid you know if you can deal with it ahead of time go ahead and do that but if it's something that you enjoy doing and it happened and you uh you couldn't have prevented it maybe you should just redeem that time maybe you should just go play a game of horse and 10 minutes later you can come back and restart what you're doing because you got to restart it anyways yeah

And that was kind of revolutionary for me. Now, my kids don't go to school. We homeschool our kids. So literally any point in the day, they can walk in and they do. But by getting upset about it, I was actually causing myself even more. delay and loss of productivity than, than I needed to have, uh, I needed to have. So yeah, that was a big thing for me. Yeah. And there'll be grown before you know it. And you'll wish they were coming in and banging on your door and asking you for something.

Dude, that is happening. My oldest is a senior in high school and soccer season just wrapped up. I was like getting emotional watching him in the last. Last game, you know, he just helped out with the fall drama. The last time he'll do that, you know, all of these milestones. I was like, where did the time go? Tom, I know you also are a journaler.

I am. I do journal. Mike and I, that is our Achilles heel. If we have a guest that journals, we can't resist talking about a little bit. This is our little subtle campaign to get everybody journaling. What are you doing? One of my favorite quotes about journaling comes from Penn Jillette. If you've heard, he did an interview with Tim Ferriss where he really got into the weeds on how he journals. And he said, Journaling is the closest thing we have to time travel.

And I loved that perspective because I will look at journals from 2009 when I was in college and I was writing about like my first semester, you know, being away and all this other stuff. And it's like, it's. It's like I'm being reintroduced to just like this other person, this person that no longer exists because I'm not that person anymore. And to see those just raw and unfiltered thoughts and emotions, it's like, whoa.

It's very eye-opening. I've journaled very regularly. Since probably college, I did journal like very sporadically in high school. But it was kind of interesting, like even in college, like before.

Newsletters were a thing. I remember I went off to Texas State and I had a list of all my family's emails. And then every few months, I would just like... send an email newsletter to to everyone it's like hey everyone just saying what's going on and stuff like that and it was like even though that one wasn't a personal journal it was like just like this yeah this account of just how things were going and back before newsletters were even a thing

But I really started journaling every day, probably in 2015, I think because a colleague of mine had just had a kid. This was five years before me and my wife had our daughter. And so we didn't have any kids. And my colleague was like, now that I have a kid, I just think like. what the heck was I doing with all my time before I had my kid? How did I ever say I didn't have time for something? And when she said that, it just stuck with me. And I'm like, I want to know what I was doing in my life.

Pre-kid. I want to know what happened on an average Tuesday in the summer when my wife was in residency working eight-hour weeks. I was on summer break from being a teacher. What did I do with all of my time? I made YouTube videos was what I was doing.

And I journaled like every day for a long time where I would just journal like not only what I did, I was talking about my workouts and like all sorts of stuff and my thoughts on things. But recently I have... changed my journaling practice because at the end of the year,

What I would normally do is I would just reread my entire journal for the year. And I would just kind of like anything that kind of like stuck out or like, that's kind of a memorable thing. Like I would, I would have like this notion doc and I would just like type out like.

journal entry from this date. And like, you know, I thought, I remember this was the day that Audrey, you know, first said, you know, these first words or whatever it was. But I remember as I got to the end of a couple of years, I was reading them. It was less of an exploration of what I was experiencing at that time and literally more just like a record of everything that I did. Just a diary. Yeah, it wasn't that interesting to read.

As I read through it, I was like, the stuff that's interesting to me is when I'm writing about a story or writing about my feelings about certain things or when the kids were doing certain things for the first time. I think when I was doing it daily, it just kind of felt like I got to write down everything that I did today. So recently I decided like, I'm just going to journal once a week after like six years of just journaling every day. I'm just gonna journal once a week.

And that allowed me to like not, it kept me from getting so into the weeds of everything that I did. Like I went on a run today and I ran five miles and like I ran at this pace and like my right knee was kind of hurting. And then I made lunch and I ate this. and it's like who cares I was just like I was more like reflecting

On a broad sense, like how my week went like, oh, like, yeah, last Wednesday, you know, I had I had lunch with like that new guy that I met at jujitsu. And, you know, like we actually talked about like faith and and talked about like where he was.

coming from. And I shared like where I was coming from and he's, you know, he had this going on and, you know, it was interesting because it made me feel, you know, and I'm just like writing about like my own thoughts on just like how that interaction went or like me and my wife like recently went on a marriage retreat.

And I was just kind of sharing some of the things that we were working through and like takeaways that we had from it. It gave me these broader strokes of what the week was like. And it also... It helped me actually write about the things that I think are going to be more interesting to read back later on because it's just like I end up sitting and thinking about what stood out to me. last week, about last week. And there's still a little stuff like, Oh, I finally got

a submission from that one guy at jujitsu that I never get. And I finally got him with this kind of submission, you know, like kind of like a little win. And I recently read Anne-Laura LeCombe's book, Tiny Experiments, and she's written a lot about... like reflective practices and she has this one called plus minus next. And so that kind of intrigued me, but I didn't want to replace.

my journaling practice with the plus minus next. So what I did was like, every Sunday, I sit down for about 45 minutes, journal on the week. And then as a recap to that journal, I do a plus minus next. That's just bullet points. And sometimes it's just the bullet point version of what I've written above. Sometimes it's other additional little things that I didn't actually write above, but it's like this next week, I want to focus on this thing for work from home.

dad's business. And, you know, I want to do this, or this was like a negative thing. I didn't really write about it, but it was like a negative. It's a minus. And so that kind of coupling, I really like it because whenever I start. Next week, I actually, I don't reread last week's.

whole journal entry, but I do look at last week's plus minus next. And I'm like, did I get that next? Was there still a little of that minus that was going on this week? So it kind of serves as just like a small summary that's easily just kind of glanceable. So I really have been in. but it's just really fun to also just go back and read stuff just from like, you know, I went, I went with, uh,

with a campus ministry back in 2009 to Greece, uh, for five weeks to do, to do ministry and talk to people on campus about their thoughts on religion and God and faith and stuff. And it was really interesting to kind of go back. That was another one. I was journaling almost every day while I was there. That's now 16 years ago. I was like a 20, 21-year-old kid. It's just so fun. It truly does feel like the closest thing we have to time travel.

Do you find the – because it sounds to me like you get a lot out of reflecting on old entries, going back and reading them. Do you find the process serves you at all? Like when you create an entry, do you find that it – pushes any buttons or helps you through thinking through stuff yeah the actual process of writing i don't know it just i just i feel this need to just like

get it out in some way and i don't know what that where that comes from um but it's just like even when i finish books like i feel this need like even if i don't write a journal entry about the book i'm like I got to create like a notion page where at least I just write some of the things that I thought about. Otherwise, it just feels like it's just lost to the ether. And I just, I feel like I've got this, there's something inside of me that just wants to.

document and just like put stuff down like when it just thinking back to like that that 2009 me in college and just writing these newsletters to my family members like I don't know Clearly, there's a value in it because I feel compelled to do it. And I've just felt compelled to do it for all these years. And I think there's some sense of like...

okay, I got it. I got it out there. And there's times, like I said, when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about whether I was going to stay home or we were going to put our daughter in daycare. And that was very clearly a moment where it's like,

Unless I got it written down, that clarity of mind would not have come. But yeah, I think that couples would just... I think you just hit it. I think you just hit it. Because for me, I have the same thing. I read a book. I have to write about it. I have a... Any sort of momentous event in my life, I have to write about it, or even just making an important decision. And for the longest time, I couldn't figure out why I felt this compunction, but I realized...

That's how I clarify my thoughts. It's like when you write it down, it's a nebulous thing in your brain. You know this is generally a good idea. You're not really sure why, or you know you generally like that book or didn't like the book, but you're not really sure why. But when you force yourself to write it down, you clarify your thoughts, and it feels really good to kind of put order to the chaos. At least that's me.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I concur. I am curious how you express these thoughts. Are you doing it analog? Are you typing it somewhere? What's your process? Yeah, through the years, I've done both. I even... in college i did a lot of typing because i really enjoyed the stream of consciousness like being able to type as like as quickly as i a lot faster than analog and so

I have those actually printed out, though, because I knew I'm like, if I just put these on a hard drive, they're going to get lost to the ether eventually. So I have quite a few printouts of things. After college, it was almost exclusively handwritten journals using a Moleskine 7mm Pilot G2 black ink. is my favorite pen to use. And I found that it forces me to kind of slow down, maybe think a little bit more about what I want to say. But there are other things like...

You know, whenever I do a book review in Notion, I've just recently started just doing dictation and then, you know, voice dictation, AI voice dictation, and then having AI kind of clean up stuff because I found it was like pretty cumbersome to like a lot of times.

I would want to like put the quote in. And so now I'm like, I just literally now go through the book with my microphone on. And then I'm like, okay, on page 45, there's this quote and it says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, end quote.

What I find interesting about that is it relates to so-and-so thing and it made me think about this. And then I just keep going through until I see a note that I made or whatever. And then it just, you know, that becomes a little bit more of a, I just want to get it all out there. And that's a more stream. line way to do it. Whereas just reflecting on the week, I want it to be a process that actually slows me down a little bit. And I really, I do really like to see.

the handwriting and it's funny to see like it's just that handwriting looks like aggressive i mean it seemed like or that handwriting looks like it was going really fast and i must have really been trying to get it out you know i think there's something that's communicated and just

the way you wrote something. I'm not a doodler, so I don't really draw anything in my notebooks or anything like that. But yeah, for the most part, it's analog. We live in an interesting time because the AI dictation has got to a level now that... It's kind of a solved problem. And if you want to just sit there and talk for 15 minutes, sometimes you're going to surface ideas that you wouldn't with pen and paper because we often edit ourselves and we write out longhand.

And that is absolutely valuable. But we just did a whole show on analog because I think that process is valuable as well. They're different. but um i think deploying both of them is the smart way to go because there are some things where you want to kind of clarify your thoughts talk through it even have the ai trying to organize it for you just don't have a thing for you and um

But then there are times when, you know, getting, I've got, you can't see it. I've got a writing desk behind me and just like physically pushing my chair over there, getting away from the screens that, that releases a different set of chemicals that are useful, you know?

All right, guys, you want to talk what's shiny new objects in our lives? Anybody bought anything fun? It's always fun to kind of talk a little bit about just rampant consumerism at the end of an episode of Focus. Yes, this is the ironic part of the show where we talk about shiny new objects on a podcast called Focused. Okay, so as we record this, the Green Bay Packers just played on Monday Night Football.

which is on ESPN. We have YouTube TV, which is currently in disagreement with ESPN. So no ESPN on YouTube TV. You can... up your disney plus subscription for like an extra 30 a month which i had no interest in doing so i was trying to figure out last night how do i watch the packer game on cable television

And I wanted to watch it on our, we use an Apple TV box, but I didn't want to try to stream it from some sketchy site and airplay it to the TV. We don't have an antenna that works currently. So I was like, well, I got to find something. Turns out. That Sling TV allows you to get a daily pass for five US dollars, $4.99. So that's what we did.

And I thought that was really cool because I'm sure there are a few other cord cutters in the audience who every once in a while, there's something on TV that they want to be able to watch. NBA Finals, Super Bowl, whatever. with sling tv's daily pass you can do that uh occasionally and it literally gives you 24 hours of access to the whole i think they call it the orange package so When we log in, you know, it says your access will expire at 7, 11 p.m. tomorrow or whatever.

But I thought that was actually pretty brilliant to allow like a daily pass for that kind of stuff. And I wanted to mention it here just in case other people had it used for that sort of thing. yeah we just did the because the world the dodgers are in a world series that's the local team we bought a month of youtube tv that was our like we often like during the olympics we'll do that if the dodgers in a world series we'll do it but it's not inexpensive but

you get a month of TV. And what I learned by that, by the way, is I don't want TV anymore. It's terrible. Yep. What about you, Tom? I... This is not a brand new shiny object, but I feel I've just rediscovered it in a new way, and that is the Stream Deck. For those who are not familiar, a Stream Deck is just a little... physical tactical device that you can plug into your computer and it's got a bunch of buttons and you can program those buttons to do whatever you want.

basic stuff. It's like if you want to open an app, you got a button there. If you want to paste something, you got a button there. But what I have found is that There are a lot of new things on the Stream Deck that have kind of like remade it something that's like super helpful and super valuable to me because like I wasn't using it for a long time except to paste like emojis because I'm a social media manager and I don't want to search through the emoji library.

to be like hands up yeah but like little things like okay I've got two apps open I want to just move this app one to the left and then the other one to the right

I can push a button to do that. And then whenever I was putting like my SD card into my computer to... download or put all of my footage like on my computer it's like okay i gotta open up the finder i gotta find the sd card i gotta find the folder that's four folders deep in the sd card then i gotta open up a new finder find the current projects folder and then i need to copy and paste those things over And it's just like, it's just so many clicks. And now when I push a button

On the left side, it opens up the folder with the footage. On the right side, it opens up the folder that I need to drag it into. And it's so seamless. And so I've just been rediscovering some stuff. Like when I first tried using the Stream Deck, it didn't connect to my Philips Hue lights.

which I have in the background where it's like these blue and these oranges. But then I've also got different colors for like when I'm doing work where it's only the work blue. And then if I'm reading a book, then it's like this reading color. And so now all of that is just at the push of a button. And then it's also got a... bunch of like really complex quick keys that

or in my video editing program where it's like, hold shift control command four, but then hit enter twice and then move the arrow down three times and then hit enter one more time. And it's like, that's to like add this special effect. So it's like, I don't have to remember any of that. I push a button and it just goes through all of those steps in like less than a second. So just rediscovering the stream deck and really, really enjoying it.

Yeah, Elgato has really done a good job of improving the Stream Deck software. If you've got one in a drawer, pull it out and update your software. You may find that it's more useful now than you remember. David, you should do a Stream Deck field guide since you have so many of them. I have, Tom, I have three of them. If you saw my desk, it looks like the Starship Enterprise here.

They're useful. And I do a lot of video production. You push a couple buttons, turn a couple of dials and things happen. Yeah, it's pretty. I don't have the one with the dials. I still have the old school one. I might have to bite the bullet and get the one on the dials. Well, they're really nice, and they're quite useful for the type of work you do, so maybe you will. The one that didn't stick with me, I bought the pedal years ago. They had a Stream Deck pedal.

And I tried to turn it into a mute button, but the way my mic works, it doesn't really work. And that's the only one that didn't work for me. I heard the pedal is great if you use the Elgato prompter and you use the pedal to kind of control the speed of the teleprompter. Because they have a voice one where it's supposed to follow your voice, but...

When it came out and I tried it, it didn't really follow my voice. And then I would have to just kind of have my mouse off to the side so I could scroll down because sometimes it would go too fast or too slow. But I never got the pedal. But that's the one use that I'm like, maybe I should get the pedal.

Yeah. Mine is a weird one. I haven't really talked about it on the show, but about six months ago, I got hearing aids, which is weird, right? You know, as you start getting older. But I was really having trouble with...

tinnitus and my hearing i feel like an old guy today i don't know why it keeps coming up but it was funny because i went to my doctor and he says you should get your ears checked i check and they're like oh you definitely need hearing aids and i never thought i was the guy that did But then when you go to get them, they give you an interview form that your wife needs to fill out, your spouse needs to fill out. And one of the questions on it was, does he ever, you know.

ask you to repeat what you say and she and she wrote in it she's like no he just pretends like he could hear me but usually he doesn't know what i said and i thought That's terrible that my wife thinks that, you know, but it was kind of true. And so I made a video about it for the Max Sparky Labs that went public at some point. It's called Sparky's Bionics. I'll link it in the show notes.

If you're out there and you're of a certain age, just go get yourself tested for hearing aids. I mean, it really has been kind of life-changing. Like we had a... family dinner the other night with my in-law and um a bunch of family members and it was just nice sitting at the table and being able to hear everybody um after i got them i started reading about it and there's a huge connection between hearing loss and dementia

So there's a lot of good reasons. If you're of a certain age and you're starting to feel your hearing going, go get them. They're cheap. They're not cheap, but my insurance covered it. But you don't see them. I think in the video I was wearing them, you couldn't even tell. So you can get them at Costco, get tested there if you want. But if one person listening to this goes and gets tested, I'll feel like it's a mission accomplished. Awesome.

All right. What are you reading, Tom? That's the other thing we do all the time is we talk about books. Yeah, I am reading a book by Saul Hill Bloom called Five Types of Wealth. I think it's a New York Times bestseller at this point. Should be. I am pretty impressed because I feel like, I was like, well, he just figured out how to make a time management book.

a social networking book, a self-development book, a physical fitness book, and a financial literacy book, all in one with like the through line of like building the life that you want. And so, and it's like very. Very practical. It kind of reminds me at least the time management one. One of my favorite books is Make Time. It kind of reminds me of that style where he kind of talks about what it looks like, but then he gives you all these different exercises of what you can do.

And, you know, there's all these assessments on like the areas of life that you feel you would you could you could stand to improve or the ways that you would like to grow in. And financial wealth is like the last one that he gets to because he's like, don't. Don't play the game where financial wealth is the only metric, is the only thing.

If that's the game you're playing, you're going to lose because it's not the only game that there is. So I appreciated that perspective. And yeah, that's what I've been reading in the nonfiction world. And I don't normally read fiction, but I did start reading. dungeon crawler Carl. And it is just a fun book. It's like Hunger Games meets ready player one and it's it's just it's a little vulgar but it's just a fun fun read so those are what i'm reading nice big fan of the five types of wealth

That is a great book. Not surprised that that one is checking the boxes for you, given your whole work from home dad's bent. Yeah. What about you, Mike? All right. So I'm an episode behind you, David. You mentioned Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday. We just finished that one for Bookworm. Holy cow, I like this book. I was nervous going into it because I feel like I have...

reached my stoicism quota. It's not for me. And I like Ryan Holiday's writing style, but the fourth one in the series, I'm ready to be done. So I kind of went into it skeptical, but I think this is my favorite one out of all four of those books. It's just, it's so good. And actually my favorite part of this, have you gone all the way through it, David? Yeah. Okay. So the afterword is amazing.

Yeah. Because in the book, he talks a lot about historical figures. And then in this one, it feels a little bit weird because he's calling out some people who are currently living. And not just like, oh, these people are jerks because they believe something different than me.

He's talked to specific people and knows, like, the decisions that they made. And, like, this doesn't line up with the principles I'm talking about in Wisdom Takes Works. One of those people is Elon Musk. And in the afterward, he talks about how, like... He really respected Elon Musk and he's been invited to his house. And he actually has his bookstore in the same town as the Tesla factory.

Actually, you're in Austin, Tom, so maybe you've been to the Painted Porch. I have, yeah. Made it out there last time. It's a really cool bookstore. And so I just really appreciated the end of the book where he shares all this context, not in a like, well, I'm smarter than these people and you should totally just listen to what I have to say. It's kind of like, this is happening and it's kind of sad.

which is sort of what he does with all the historical people. It's like, well, they were doing well, and then they did these sorts of things, and this is what we can learn from it. So I thought it was...

Really, just like the topic was great. There's a lot of stuff in here about kind of like... critical thinking and writing as a process to that and figuring out what you think i don't know this one just pushed all my buttons um i really really liked it so we talked about last episode because it was a book i was reading at the end i had made kind of the statement that i don't want to hear people calling

ryan holiday a broicism guy that he's like you know because that's the thing now guys who you know want to go to bed with women and make a lot of money and they call themselves stoics and that's I feel like that is not Ryan Holiday. And I felt like the afterword was really what inspired me to say that. But I didn't want to call it out in the show. But yeah, I feel like this guy.

This guy's for real. And we had Donald J. Robertson on the show, who's really an academic and probably, I think, understands the historical importance of stoicism maybe more than Ryan Holiday. He's certainly in the league with him. And I think he is equally, if not more, a valid authority on this stuff. But don't call Ryan Holiday a pop psychologist kind of stuff. This guy is for real.

So my book this week is Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway. A book just came out. It's an interesting book. Scott made a lot of money. He kind of tells his story. He grew up with a single mom. He didn't have, you know, his father, you know, left them and he had a tough time, but he really made, you know, he was very financially successful. And I think as he's gotten older, he's became very much more mature in his own.

feelings and he it's just such a great advice guy this is a book that i wish i had read when i was 20 because he talks about things of the importance for men to have friends and to you know share emotions and

and things that he's learned in his life. It's just an interesting book because he spends a lot of time talking about his story, and I think that'll turn some people off. But it's also just sprinkled with really good advice. I've actually bought two copies of this and given it away to some young men in my life.

And I just think it's, you know, we're at an interesting time where young men are struggling. And this book provides an alternative narrative that isn't the broicism stuff we were just talking about. And reading the book makes me want to mentor some young men. You know, after I read the book, I'm like, I want to help some young men through this time because I think they have a harder time than I did when I was their age. And it's a good book.

Check it out. Notes on being a man by Scott Galloway. All right. You cost me some money too. It's a light read, honestly, because it's very narrative and he's had an interesting life. He's made a lot of mistakes, and he openly shares them. But I think the underlying message is a good one. Awesome. Tom, where do people go if they want to keep up with all the stuff you're doing? You can check out wfhdads.com slash playbook.

workfromhomedads.com slash playbook. That is going to be a free playbook that is going to walk through a lot of the stuff that I shared here, where like what it looks like when I have that weekly conversation with my wife, how to take inventory of your... time each week with the whole, the goal of the playbook is to create a six hour work day. So that way you're not just burning the midnight oil all day, every day, and you have time for yourself, for your family, for your side project.

And I walk you through a lot of the stuff that I shared here. It's absolutely free. WFHDads.com slash playbook. And I'll send it right over. Thanks. And we are the focus podcast. You can find us at relay.fm slash focused. If you want to be a member of deep focus, get the ad very extended version of the show. You can do it right there. Thank you to our sponsor this week. Indeed.

For Deep Focus today, we're going to be talking to Tom about jiu-jitsu. He's been mentioning it through the show. I have questions, and we'll see you next time.