RWL232: Mastering Deep Work and Remote Team Strategies with Alex Denning

Now , ellipsis is a digital marketing agency for WordPress businesses , and their clients are WordPress product businesses and WordPress agencies , and I want to say a big thank you , alex , to you for joining me today on the Remote Work Life podcast .

Yeah , thanks for having me Excellent and , as I always do , I'm quite inquisitive when it comes to getting to know my guests . I want to know their backstory . How do they get to where they are now ? So , alex , uh , please tell us . Tell us , how did you get to uh , becoming the founder of ellipsis ?

As you mentioned , we live in the WordPress ecosystem , so WordPress powers a third of the internet and there's a big ecosystem of products and agencies product conservators around that , and those businesses help people do more stuff with their websites . So like on the agency side , for example . So like all the Facebook's non-Facebook product stuff runs on WordPress .

One of our clients handles that for them On the product side . You might want a contact form on WordPress and one of our clients handles that for them On the product side . You might want a contact form and then you can post a plug-in to do that .

Or you might want a contact form which integrates with your CRM and does a whole bunch of automation stuff and also lets you sell stuff and you can see how it gets out of hand quite quickly . That's where we live , that's what we do . Um , how did I end up here ?

I , I guess by accident , because , um , I like solving problems , um , and , yeah , I get to solve them all day and people pay me money for them . So I've been involved in , like , the wordpress space for a long time , um .

So I knew a lot of people around there , so I uh started off just doing bits of work , freelance , um , and it was stuff I enjoyed doing . And then I was as a freelancer , I was booked out the whole time . So at that point it was either like , do you do that forever ? Maybe put your rates up a bit ? Um , I decided that I didn't want to do that .

I wanted to be able to solve more problems for people , um , so that's why I started the agency and wordpress .

If it's intuitive to me , maybe that's because I'm in it quite often . I'm not a program or anything like that , but I can actually get work my way around it now that I've been in it for years .

But it's one of those things that is just so relatively easy to understand for a newbie once you sort of get your head around it , would you say a big problem , a big project that , uh , we , the community , have been working on .

So last year , I guess the end of the year before that uh , with wordpress 5 , there was a new editor , um , which has some teething issues , but going forward , that's going to make that a lot easier to do . Um and the . The market that everyone's interested in , um is the , the small business with no website .

Um , because that's how a lot of people get started and those obviously sometimes turn into bigger businesses , um , or even just medium-sized ones . Um , and it's that initial experience that , uh , we're trying to work on . So , yeah , you're I . I could tell you didn't want to say it's hard to use , yeah I didn't want to say that I mean it is at times .

We're working on it , yeah so it's hard to use .

Well , if you look beyond the tech , it's , it's pretty , it's pretty good and it's you can bolt things on and it's scalable and you can make it look really professional if you're working with the right people .

You did a , you did a degree in in politics and international studies and you've had quite an interesting journey since since then . Tell us a bit more about that I I'm especially interested in in mini clip yeah , so , um , yeah , so , I did a degree in politics .

Um , before that , though , I uh worked at miniclipcom , um , which is now a mobile games company . At the time , it was for , like , free casual games Um years ago .

Minicabcom was uh like the place where you'd spend your lunch breaks , um , and I got that job because I knew someone from the WordPress community who was their director of web development , who , uh , long story short , I now co-author a weekly newsletter with um , and he doesn't .

He also works remotely now and doesn't work at Winnipeg as well oh , so yeah , I did this . I did their social media um , which is cool , and that I learned a lot about that . That was an office job in London and , yeah , it was my job to keep the community updated about the stuff we're doing with our games .

That's something a lot about , like the working in a results-orientated environment .

You had WordPress , WP Shout , which looks like again very much a strong WordPress connection there , and tell us a bit about that and then , after actually actually told us about , after you've told us about that , tell us about your typical clients at the moment sure , um , so don't be .

Um , and , being quite naive at the time , I thought , oh , I know I can figure this out and I know all the answers . So I made that website and that was where I first got to see what growing an audience looked like and all that stuff . And that was really helpful earlier on for just figuring stuff out .

So that's also where a lot of the WordPress connections come from . So , even though that was seven years ago , you can draw a straight line through there . That was our new Bennett mini clip , and here we are .

Um , to start with , I just gradually started working with freelancers on individual projects , um , and then over time , I started getting a bit more revenue and just took things very slowly . Um , there are four of us now , um , we're currently hiring number five . Um , and we're now at a point where we can pick that up quite quickly .

Um , because we've got all the structures in place . But it , yeah , it took a while to to really get used to it . I had to . I now don't know what's going on with client work In the best possible way , yeah , but it took me , like , I guess , a year , 18 months , to be okay with that .

We're now at a point where I can totally trust my team to get on with stuff , and I guess it wasn't I didn't trust them before . It was that I just needed to let it go .

And you give your team member the scissors , but then you hold on to them by the top so they can't take them . And then you say , why didn't you take , why aren't you holding the scissors ? I , it's because you haven't let go of the scissors .

And recently we've had an email into the mix as well , um , because again , it was just responding to what people were asking us for . Um , and people were asking us for email or other people weren't doing their email and it was a really good opportunity , so we figured we needed to step in for people . Um , uh , kaylee's our SEO specialist .

She's our SEO content manager . She does our specialist SEO stuff and also a lot of the content process . She joined Zella this year Just more capacity and expertise around SEO , which has been great so far . Peter handles our promotion and outreach stuff .

We're currently hiring a conversions manager , um , who's gonna just add more capacity , um , for our conversion focus projects .

So what I urge you to do is get across to Ellipsis' website , which is getellipsiscom , and have a look before you reach out and speak to anybody or reply to the job or anything like that .

I mean , it's not every day that you get to hear the founder or the the owner of a business talk about the kind of person that they want in the job , so it's a massive clue for you there . If you're , you're out there listening and you need need work at the moment .

So check out , get ellipsiscom and the team's content , seo , promotions and outreach and you're that conversions person who's just waiting to apply to this job .

What I really want to talk about this podcast because Alex is really focused on really being able to focus while working , and I know that's a big problem , especially for people who are new to remote work , but it's not exclusively to that , um , to those sorts of people , because remote work has its challenges in terms of work and in the I guess , in the climate

that we're living in now , we're not going to obviously go too much into that , but in the climate that we're living in now , I myself am at home . Believe it or not , I'm at home with my kids you would never know but I'm mixing homeschooling with work .

So I'm trying to really put slots in place where I can do the homeschooling , which we did a bit in the morning , and then focus on my work and then other stuff around that . So alex , I hope can help me in terms of understanding what's called deep working . Have you ever heard that expression before ? Deep working ?

So we're going to focus a bit on that in a moment , but before we go to that , I want to talk a bit more about your team ,

alex . In terms of what because I mean I know there's some , obviously , managers out there , they're listening in terms of how they've gone from being in a co-located scenario to now being in a scenario where they're forced to work remotely and they've had some challenges themselves or having some challenges themselves .

What challenges do you have when you were first starting out , other than you mentioned the , the trust issue and the letting go issue , any other challenges that you had ?

So if , yeah , as we're recording this , there's a global pandemic going on , and if you are working from home for the first time , or you normally do it one or two days a week , and now you're doing it all the time , it is going to be a shock , and my fear is that unless yeah , I guess unless people take the , I feel like people might have a bad time

and that would be bad , and that , instead of this being a great remote work opportunity , people might experience it for the first time . I think it's rubbish . Um , yeah , yeah , and then go back to it . It is hard , it doesn't require adapting . Um , there's a couple of things that we do . So this deep work idea is a thing that I like .

Personally , I'm a big fan of um . We structure our communication asynchronously . Um , whether you want to do that for working from home for two months , I don't know , because it requires , like , I guess , if you , if you , communicate differently , it requires a totally different way of working , of course .

So we use Basecamp , and that means that it is set up for asynchronous communication , ie everything's on a task and when you need something , you can say what you need on that task .

It then goes to whoever you've sent it to and they've got the time to write like a proper response when it suits them , um , rather than just sending off pings through slack or whatever um and demanding uh attention immediately . That lets people like we talk about protecting attention um , and respond when they're able to .

For me , that that is that unlocks like the . The big benefit of uh remote work , which is you can set up your day to be able to focus how you want to do . If you've got to deal with uh like teaching your kids in the morning , then you can set aside the time later on , um to make the progress . That's really interesting , um .

We'll talk about them more in a second . One of the other things , though , that we have done , that has been um really good , and I don't know that that many remote companies do it .

We sat down to try and work out what was good and bad about being remote , and one of the things you do lose is kind of just spontaneous collaboration , yes , so we just tried to work out how to add that back in . So we ended up with a monthly co-working day .

So we specifically set aside a day where we specifically co-work and we do screen sharing and we do a group call .

I'll do a team update to start with and then we'll go through some general issues and then , if we've got specific things to work through even if we don't need everyone there , we've got everyone there and then that creates the opportunities for the more random collaboration you might get . In an office you also lose some general chats harder .

Yeah , definitely , if you use Slack , maybe you can have a general channel or a random channel and do that kind of thing there . As we don't , that's a bit harder . So solution again we just schedule a monthly call in which we just have a chat . I know some people do that weekly because we're in different time zones . We found that monthly worked better .

Base camp also does have one-to-one chat as well as group chat , um , and we do use those a fair bit . In general , though , the like general approach is to uh respond asynchronously , um , and when you do need that time to to say I'm doing something else , I'm not going to respond to stuff .

So now that we're we're being forced to work remotely , everybody's going to see the benefits of working remotely . But that's not necessarily the case because there's so many . There is a period of adaptation and you know , my fear is that people may kind of shy away from it because of the .

This whole experience is just everything on top of them all at once , when you know that this experience that we're we're I guess we're in now to me is not really a true reflection of what it is to to be able to work remotely because you have so much more food in them than you do right at this moment , you know .

What getting a co-working space was actually one of the things that uh took that time , um , and was really helpful . So , so , if it isn't because you're having a crisis , just give it a bit more time .

As you've heard , alex has had his challenges . It's taken him a while to adapt . It took me a while to adapt as well .

So I just think the best thing to do is just talk to somebody who has either had similar challenges to yourself or just just talk , just just um , talk about them , and , like Alex did he , they talked about you know what the benefits are and what remote work is all about , and I think that communication in itself , getting it out into the open , can actually ,

uh , at least start to remedy the situation . You know ?

And if she needs me again like I guess I missed my co-working space but , uh , I'm sure they'll have me back or I can find a new one is those I can work from anywhere . That's the big one . Um , and yeah , I mean , internally , we talk a lot about like setting the environment that you need personally to be able to do really good work .

Um , and that is , uh , yeah , I mean that's like what that's . One of the things that really motivates me is having a really good impact , having to do really good stuff . Um , and yeah , this like deep work idea we've touched on is one of the ways that I personally find really effective for me to be able to do that .

Um , like , I guess I run a remote business and that's pretty cool , I think , if we'd have to , if we'd have to get an office or whatever . That's a whole different world . I don't know how to lease an office . I don't want to know how to lease an office .

of , uh , not just the scenario you're in at the moment , but your future , how you can apply it to , to your work in general , not you know . So let's , let's get into that , shall we ? What ? What does it mean ? What does deep work mean ? And sure , yeah , let's do that .

And people mainly do so-called shallow work , which he defines as things that aren't hard and or you could easily train someone to do in , say , six months , um , whereas a deep work is a thing that provides these outside returns for and it is something that , specifically , you can do , no one else can do , um , and that's where you really drive value .

And , yeah , I came across this idea when I was starting to work remotely . That's really shaped how I do it . It is not especially complex , that's basically it .

He has written a book on it which I'd probably recommend , but it's like okay , the book's good because it repeats the message so much , um , if you just got it from that brief summary , then you're all good well , what I'll do is I'll leave any sort of resources that we talk about in the show notes , because I think this is useful .

I also mix in another book recommendation , uh , something called a book called work clean , uh , which is actually about how chefs organize their uh workstations , and one of the ideas in that book is is process time , um , and if , if you're a chef like you , you need to chop up your veg before I don't know what I'm talking about .

You gotta chop out your veg before you do the other chef stuff , that's really on the side yeah , um , so in in practical terms , that just that idea from that book was really helpful

. Um , and say I schedule in , say after lunch , half an hour process time and that's where I deal with my emails . That's how I go on slack and check um any wordpress stuff . So I go on twitter , um , and respond to anything that needs like under five minutes , say anything over , that is your deep work , um , and I guess you might need to .

So like sending a specific hard email could be one bit of deep work . Got a right proposal . Um , you might specifically schedule that in um , say we're working on , say I'm working on some strategy stuff for a client .

I like to work out the whole day for that and I don't have any process time on those days , and that means that when you say , have your lunch , you've got the opportunity to take a break . But also maybe you come up with the extra ideas which are going to move the needle for the client .

So it's not , oh , I see an email , I reply and it interrupts me and I get back to doing whatever I was doing before . Is you ? Because you focus all your attention and don't have these distractions available ?

Um , it means that you're able to get them much more rich insights and better results that only you can get , um , and that's why it's so powerful and what are your ?

So I just know I'm not going to be distracted If I am at home . I just find having headphones on helps . Just a personal thing . Um , and yeah , I mean it's like the system has taken me is always evolving . I have a daily planner which has hours and I block out um process time and deep work time in that .

So I know , like after this call , I'm going to do this , as we discussed . I'm realistically going to respond to my base count messages and then I've got something else to do . That means a lot of friction because the next action you've got to take is kind of automated there's no , the procrastination happens when you're not sure what to do next .

Automated , there's no , the procrastination happens when you're not sure what to do next . So this just makes it easy to realize what you've got to work on . Um , well , the deep work stuff is taking breaks as well . Um , so I take a lot of breaks and I eat a lot of food because I found that's what I need to uh be able to do this stuff effectively .

For a while the focusing is tiring and for a while I get to half past five and I just want to sit on the sofa all evening . That's no use . So , uh , I now take a slightly longer lunch break and might have more to eat and the .

There are ways like that you could deal with it . I know some people put it on their calendars , um , when they're dealing with uh , protecting their time , like that , and that also lets your team know what's happening .

So one of the things that well , I guess one of the things that I get to do because I am my boss , is that I can set those expectations internally and it's like we trust you to get on with stuff . We need to keep stuff moving , but it's a balance .

There's no shortage of advice on the internet about how to do your work . Yeah , often from people who don't , who aren't doing their own work , because they're writing the advice Exactly .

so . And the example this is something that comes up in the book the examples of where there is pushback because thinking , oh , that I can't do that because I have these special circumstances . My clients need to hear back from me faster . The cow talks about in the book , like they probably don't would your . Does your client want to have an email ?

I responded to within five minutes , or is half an hour ? Okay , and they get better results as a result . They'll take the better results , of course .

But I mean , in that sense , you can also you can also have a hybrid , I suppose , where you're doing a bit of deep work and you're doing a bit of shallow work , or you know working how you want to work , if you see what I mean .

So it doesn't necessarily have to be deep work throughout the whole day , or or a certain set structure or criteria throughout the whole day .

I think I wanted to get alex on and talk about deep work is deep work because I want you to , I suppose , be familiar with it and aware of , of a method of , of doing better work , and listen to his strategies as well and his mindset about , about getting things , things done . And I , I , I , when I come to think of it now , I do have periods .

I did where , even though I didn't know it , where I do do deep work , although what I need , probably need to do is have more focus periods , especially now because I'm still getting to grips with the whole homeschooling plus plus work scenario .

So I'm going to sort of start to really sort of well have started to designate areas of my calendar to do focused pieces of work , and then you know , mixing it in with other stuff as well , you know excellent do you ?

You put it you're doing on your desk , and then it connects your computer via bluetooth and then it tracks your time wow , okay pretty simple like you could . Just . This costs like 50 quid . You could just make it , get a dice and write some things on it and that would be fine . Um , the real benefit of this is it .

It makes you consciously say I'm doing this now , and then you put it down and then your computer goes . Time started tracking .

All of these like block your facebook news feed , block your twitter , whatever it is , um , if you're in the habit of constantly checking stuff , then having a thing to stop you from checking it is very helpful . Um , and there I'm sure there are like chrome versions or windows versions or whatever .

Um , I , I have a kitchen timer on my desk , so if I want to do something for an hour , like put it on for an hour , I just find like the ticking reminds me to keep focused .

Yeah , uh , yeah , and just like in general , I don't have like email open other than when it's processing time . Um , that's slack open , facebook , twitter , all that stuff I'm guessing you don't .

It shows me like what has happened and I I don't miss anything . I do miss things , but it doesn't matter . I get what's happened after it's happened , not what's happening . But what am I going to do with ?

Know it's , it's , it's good just to have something in your home sometimes , you know , just um , rather than having , like you said , constantly checking feeds or yeah . So I think , uh , newspapers are a good idea . So you got a timer . You've got , hey , you've got , hey , focus . You've got a newspaper and you've got , uh , a timer .

So you've got the kitchen sink . You've got the kitchen sink . You're churning through the work by the sounds of it .

That's going to let us do more stuff , um , and it's just more stuff I want to do . I like I talk a lot about solving problems . At the start , I just like solving problems , and there's more stuff I want to work on , um , and that is what drives the growth for me .

We may stop when I get bored of solving problems or need to solve a different problem , but for now , there's just more I wanted to do , and I think we can help our clients a lot more . So , yeah , that's our focus this year . We're also trying to become a B Corporation . Oh , nice , nice . It's a voluntary standard for ethical businesses .

The second idea is and I actually put out a podcast about problem solving the day I think again , now more than ever , I think people want to work with people who solve problems , as opposed to somebody coming up and saying I can do SEO or I can do content or I can help your WordPress business to get better , but how can you do that ?

What problems am I having that you can solve ? So I like that approach , Alex . And so , before we wrap up , then , one question that I usually ask is what's the most ? I ? You work in cold , cold working spaces when you can and you work at home . Are there any other sort of different types of spaces that you you've worked in at all ?

We went to the . We had a team meetup in the Netherlands , which was cool . I had some fun working from Arizona for a conference last year . I did , but it's not like I'm at the beach .

But I think those people , those gurus , make it look really easy and , look , make it look as though it's a walk in the park , just to sort of rock up to the beach or to go to Arizona and just work from from anywhere . It's not , it's not that easy , it's , it's . It's .

It requires planning in itself and requires coordinating , especially if you've got a team yeah , some people can do that .

Um , at the time of posting this , alex is hiring , so I hope you get this message before before um , I I post before he's not hiring , so get across to getellipsiscom . And , alex , I just want to thank you for joining us on the podcast and I want to just wish you all the best with Ellipsis .