Multitasking is ok if leadership says so, right? Aaron Davis explains.

Can we, should we do more than one thing at a time? If we have more than one thing at a time that's today's topic multitasking , we can do more than one thing at a time. We all know we try to do that, but can we do it well? Should we prioritize that's today's topic and our guest today is tackling just such a topic. His name is Aaron Davis . He is the founder CEO of reckless tech referral-based tech recruiting platform. Welcome to the show, Aaron. Hey Greg. Thank you very much.

Appreciate you having me on. Yep . Thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedule. I know you recently started your company and , uh , some of the challenges you're facing, I believe you may be the only person there. You may have some other folks on your team and , uh , tell us what's going on with your company. Yeah, so you're referenced to other people that I work with is very relevant because that's , uh , it's, we're a micro organization.

I'm the only employee as the founder, but I do have, you know, I've got a design team or the dev team and marketing consultancy that I collaborate with. And to some extent they have to interact together as well. So, you know, we've

It's, you're always, there's always an opportunity cost to calculate, you know, just about every , uh, you know, multiple times a day.

It sounds like you're, you're running all the departments. You're trying to figure out what should I do next? And what have you done so far to try to prioritize maybe your day and maybe the long-term things that , that you think are gonna help you be successful.

Um, you know, I like, I look forward to the time when , um , funding is such that we're, you know, we're pursuing business development in every state, but , um, you know, in the early days that we're in now, it just requires a lot more patients , uh , than that. Um, so I constantly have to assess like, okay, is that something that's going to impact us , uh , this quarter, you know , this week? Um , or is that something that's like visionary that I need to kind of postpone until next year?

So I kind of go through this, like, you know, I got through this, well, let me give you a personal perspective on where we're at. So we've got a , um, you know, it's , it started as an idea, you know, we're going to use references , um, for identifying talent instead of, you know, using recruiters , uh, to, to cold call people from databases. And so solicit people on LinkedIn were kind of getting rid of that and we're going to an exclusively referral-based , uh, talent sourcing model.

So that sounds like, Oh yeah, everybody wants that shirt . You just, you just decide to do it. And it's as simple as that, but of, it's not the devil's in the details. It means we have to, we have to build a community of people that we've qualified as, you know what we're calling connectors, that's its own body of work. We've got to build a clientele that says, Hey, we want to , uh , we want to work with you. We'll pay you a large fee to place , uh , technology professionals with us.

And then we've got to have administrative questions answered along the way, how people get paid , um , how the bills get they get , uh, you know, invoices get delivered and received, et cetera, et cetera. Right? So there's a lot of , um, a lot of effort goes into all of those things and , and it , to an extent has to be done at the same time in tandem.

You know, I've used the analogy several times of starting a, you know , kind of what we're doing is kind of a marketplace business, a platform, if you will, where we've got , uh, three different stakeholders really that have to all be engaged at some level of scale at the same time. So it's like , um, it's like learning to ride a bicycle. You can't learn to ride the left pedal first. So exactly that drives a lot of, a lot of pause for how we make decisions. Right,

There's a lot of teams that, you know , a lot of companies want to do that, but when they start off small, they work in something called MVP, minimum viable product. So do you, do you use any, any of that in your, in your business workings, like let's just get this out the door or what , what techniques do you use to help you determine what's number one, what's number two, because we know we can't have four number ones.

So we apply those principles. A good example is using WordPress to put together our, our initial , um, uh, system, right. It was a very affordable way to build some simple functionality. Of course, we had to make compromises on what the ideal, you know, design and set of features are.

Um, but it works and it works well enough for us to run some other tests and see if you know, how, you know, how one stakeholder group wants to and what questions come up and what reservations people have about this kind of, this kind of approach versus that kind of approach. So that's one really obvious, you know, kind of MVP oriented decision that helped us get off the ground, so to speak and that's, and that's, you know, that's my dad pushing me down the street. Right.

Um , if I'm trying to get both pedals going, right , right. MVP is , uh , uh, you know, using a minimum viable, like what can just work functionally, can I use a whiteboard or do I need some kind of, you know, project management system? Or can I just scribble it on the board? So anything I can, I just had this happen this week actually. So I had the , one of the things that we do is pay out. Um, we pay out our connector group, we pay large referral fees. Right.

Okay. And so, you know, essentially we , um, set them up as consultants and deliver , uh , a w nine for them to complete. So we know what they're , uh , how they're going to receive their payment, that kind of thing. And so there's all kinds of really relatively simple ways to , um, you know, automate a, an e-signature for that form. So I found myself kind of like down this rabbit hole, trying to decide between these three different, different approaches that all seemed kind of good.

And then I, I just had to take a deep breath and say like this , or any of these even necessary right now they're yeah. They're solving a problem, but the measure of convenience is so significant. Just some the document. Right. Right. So I just dialed back and I said , forget it. I'm just going to email a PDF there . Ideal . No , of course not. You know, I'm , I'm dealing with it folks. Right.

So I'm thinking a little bit about how imposing is that on their user experience, but , um, you know, on the final assessment, like, is it men, is it the minimal viable? No, it's not. It's, it's beyond minimal, so screw it. Alright . We're just gonna move without it. We don't need it. So I mean , a lot of those kinds of decisions. Right. And it's , it's , it's hard sometimes when, you know, there's a better way, there's a smarter way.

And if I just spent an hour tinkering or configuring something, but man, every hour counts. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, every hour is an hour. I don't do something else. Um, and maybe that's hanging out with my kid or whatever. Right. So , um, you gotta make those priority decisions.

Whenever I think of this topic, multitasking is that you consciously make a choice when you prioritize, you're saying yes to this thing and no to these other things, me and you put them in and you say, okay, today I'm going to do this , uh, tomorrow I'm going to do this, or I'm going to do number one to its completion. That's the other part of it too, is that , uh , start, start one thing and finish it.

And I learned that early, early on in my career in development is that , uh, the saying is stop starting and start finishing so that we, that it , we want to have like three, four or five balls in the air. I was at a place that someone actually said, yeah, throw another ball in the air. And you got all these things going on, but am I really doing, I'm doing okay. I'm doing five things at once at, at, at , um, in my day.

But how well am I doing those things so that you can say, yeah, okay, I'm multitasking , I'm doing things. But have you found that when you're trying to do multiple things that , um, have you noticed that maybe the quality of your work suffers if you're trying to do more than one thing at a time and is there like if you did every single time? Yeah.

There are things that I know I need to get to, but whenever they came to mind, I didn't have time to focus on them at that point. Right. It's my backlog, if you will, or what, whatever you want to call it. Um, and so I look at that list every day and just to kind of assess, like, is there anything that's been promoted? Um, and generally speaking things will promote themselves without me having to refer to this list.

But every once in a while, I'll observe something that overlaps with another problem that I'm focused on. Right. Um, but the hardest thing I do every day is deciding what, and I do this a couple of times a day is deciding what to start. Um, cause my , your calendar drives you a bit, but I'm still small enough that I'm not chasing, I'm not being pushed around by my calendar.

I've got, I've got a pretty big amount of , uh , pretty fair amount of , um , self-directed time throughout the day to build things and make decisions and so on. So, you know, what I focus on is , is key. And I, I think of the only time I really allow myself to go into a true multitasking scenario where I'm , I'm literally like, you know , on a call while I'm tinkering with something else. It's when it's, when they're both time-sensitive and there's just no way to reschedule.

There's no way to push a deadline. And both these things have to be done. And every single time I make a decision to do that, I'm deciding to do them both halfway. Right. You're just , you only, you can only compromise when you're multitasking .

And if you pull their attention off to do something else, they gotta close out of what they were doing. Pull up the next user story in the backlog, get their head, get their head , uh , framed around like that. Do you ever have any, any issues like that come , come to your mind when you're, when you're, when you're switching things like that, that you are aware that you're wasting time and where that your mind switching back and forth so fast.

I was more focused on the business side of our, of our organization and oftentimes needed input from , um, some lead developers and other other , uh, uh, technical professionals that, that were actually getting the client work done. And so I was fortunate enough to have some smart people who knew my character and trusted me enough to kind of punch me in the mouth and say, stop interrupting me.

I'm focused if I'm looking at my screen and not my head's not wanting , you know, like they would tell me in their own way, like, how do I identify? Like, what's, what's okay to interrupt. What's not.

And because I was, I was probably the worst, you know, when I think about the lessons I learned from a few honest people , um, I was that guy, I mean, those rules, those , those kind of philosophical philosophies in software development or whatever were made for somebody like me to stop interrupting people from their flow. Right. Um, and I've heard it called flow as well. You know, there's the words for it or whatever, but to answer the question about myself yes.

And so like every time I get into that, okay, I'm solving this problem, you know , you know what really plagues me, I'll interrupt myself. I do it all the time. Um, and you know, I don't know if that's an add problem, I will be focused on something.

And then I, so I stop and I think, and inevitably the intuitive things, or check your email, you know, look at your wife, whatever, whatever little system or whatever is a comfortable place to kind of land when you're wandering, when your mind is wandering. And I don't spend enough time sometimes just kind of seeing that problem and then I'll realize, Oh shoot , you just interrupted yourself. You know? Right.

So if it's any consolation to you guys over there and maybe they're listening , um , I'm doing it to myself over here too. So sorry about that. Yeah . And , and , and, and it is, it is I know exactly

It's also so easy to just, you know , four hours are gone or two hours are gone or whatever, when you get sucked into that, you know, that , uh, that black hole of , of social media, or just, you know, wandering the internet in general. So , um, you know, I get seven to 9:00 AM, is it unless I've got meetings from eight to nine or whatever. So sometimes it's that first, you know, that first hour of the day when I'm awake and drinking coffee, whatever, and that's it.

And I just kind of limit myself to that. Otherwise, I mean, there's no end to it, right. It's like opening up the tub of ice cream. I mean, if you don't dish out, if you take that time with you to the, to the couch or

I'm not going to , uh, I don't necessarily need to prioritize them, just get them done in , in some order sometimes I do. And I'll say, okay , um, I want to work out for an hour, so, okay. Six to seven is when I'm going to work out, that's what I'm doing. Unless something else important comes up, which is very agile. If you have a backlog and something else comes up and you make a trade off. So I'm always readjusting my schedule throughout my day, but I'll, I'll chunk it out.

Okay. Three to four, I'm going to play basketball with my son. And then , uh , five to six is dinner. This time we're going to go to a movie or this time, you know, an hour here to help him with his homework. I found that's the best way to , uh, to get through my day. It sounds like you do the same thing.

So , um, the, you know, committing that time is really important. So there's, there's a number of different reasons why a number of different, otherwise you just go to the path of least resistance or the path of most reward. And that's a , that's a good point to be made, right? Like social media is made on purpose to have no , it's like a series on the television show, right?

Every, every episodes , cliffhanger , um , every post is a cliffhanger, every, you know, the , the kind of voyeuristic nature or whatever that , you know, Mimi me or whatever kind of , uh , psychology that goes into it, it's made to never feel conclusive and , and, you know, sales business development is , uh , there's a lot of very unrewarding tasks that go into that. So kudos all those sales professionals out there that somehow, you know, make a full , uh , uh , career out of it.

I did a few years and then I got it . Yeah . But I can't do it enough at it cause I was hungry.

But the, you know, the, the, it's, it's hard to really commit to things that don't provide you any kind of status , you know, you write software and then, you know, at the end of the sprint, maybe , um, so anyway, speaking of , uh, you know , agile kind of stuff or whatever, regular releases are such a, it's so valuable to the person actually producing to be able to push something into production quickly , uh , because sales is unfortunately still in that kind of waterfall world where it just

takes a long time. It's not a lot of rewarding stuff that gets done up front . So anyway, I time box for that stuff because , uh , it doesn't provide reward or emotional satisfaction on time.

I can't relax mentally, physically if I have this, this big thing hanging out over my head, so I'll prioritize the heart . If I can, the hard thing first and get that thing done and then I can relax. And then, then I can , uh, it's very gratifying, delayed gratification, which is a bad word with a lot of people in , in our system .

The longer you go three, four weeks, the higher, the higher, the risk there. Um, D do you, do you , uh, kind of apply that to your, to your, when you, as you're growing your business, they're taking risk. Yeah.

I could probably sell it to investors and , and get some buy-in or whatever, but to a degree there's a different kind of, there's a different kind of risk there. I guess I'm avoiding , I'm also avoiding large. Um, you know, when I started, I wanted to make sure that we had done successful placements before we built a custom system, for instance. Right. Um, I want , I want it to be able to attest that there was buy-in from our employer , uh , community from our employers. Right .

And so, and so there has been, and so now that we're at that stage where we've kind of seen how the backend works with the connector community, that people making referrals. And we've learned a few things about how they like to see the new con the new jobs get posted and how they want to actually transact, transact, a referral messed around with the administrative side of payment processing, et cetera, et cetera.

We've learned a little bit about , um, the , the kinds of things that employers want to see and how to go about the , um, the sales process. And so now that we've got some learnings there, it makes more sense to, you know, we're kind of on the cusp of putting more money into building out a product that's client facing, right. So that's a good example of what you're talking about, putting off risk until , uh , or , you know , um, in my case, I ran some experiments, I guess you would call it.

And I tinkered with some things and learned some things, unpacked, the things that made that investment risky , um, through some smaller, easier , um, tasks and experiments. And then now with a lot more learning, I would drop a chunk of change and to building out something that's a little bit more robust and client facing with a lot more confidence.

And then eventually you come to a decision, which kind of sounds like what you did. So now your , your business is, is , uh , you mainly focusing in the it space at the moment. That's right.

Um, so, you know, building for that stakeholder group is it's more of a , um , it's more known, right? It's more predictable for me, me personally, not, you know , not as a, you know, not speaking in generalizations here, just me personally, as a founder, that's a more familiar space. So it makes sense to , um , work there and have less variables to introduce. And then sometimes at some point in the future, this model that we're using, you know, pay referral external referrals, essentially.

Right. Um, it obviously applies to several other professional fields where employers pay big fees for, for a hiring. So

I know as companies grow, they get bigger and you yourself, founder , CEO get further and further away from employees who, you know , quote unquote in the trenches, maybe someday, do you have any, and this could, maybe you haven't thought about it, but your values, you value , uh , not multitasking sounds like you're against it. Have you thought about a way of filtering that down? A lot of people listening may be like, yeah, I'm in, I'm at the, here, the person at the top, doesn't get it.

We keep trying to , uh , uh , tell them, have you thought about that?

So I constantly think about how that's, that , that question, what you're asking me is a conflict that I'm dealing with and, and we'll continue to deal with as long as we continue to be a small, right. Until we get to a scale where it doesn't matter anymore, but I can, I think a lot about, okay, right now I'm the chief sales officer and the chief marketing officer. I'm the chief operating officer. I'm, you know , whatever, right. Yep .

Yes , judge , I'm kind of responsible for it all again, not to say that I don't want any of my , um, my colleagues and partners, whatever to hear that, thinking that I'm saying I'm doing it all, but I'm making all those decisions and kind of prioritizing correct funding and moving forward and et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, at some point let's say I divide myself in half and I have one other person who's also responsible for , uh , um, you know, a similar volume of work. Right.

And we're each then able to focus a little bit better on, on a smaller set of things. And that person is, is going to have to focus on a lot of different things, right. I'm not going to have the luxury as a small micro organization to say, okay, now you can just focus on automating our test cases or whatever. Right. I'm not going to be able to pick just one really narrow thing.

Um , you know, the first dozen employees are gonna wear a few hats, so the , uh , or however many employees, right, correct. Um, the , the smaller the organization , uh , the more hats that are to pass around. Right. And so, you know, the, the idea that you can never bring somebody in to not have to multitask throughout their job, to me seems , um, unlikely at least in the early days of our organization. Right.

Sure. But can you, you know, the, the , the next question then, just in terms of like work hygiene or best practices or whatever you want to call it , um, the question you're provoking me, and I don't have a great answer for it. You're , you're making me kind of make it up. Uh , but the question you're provoking is how do you kind of instill the discipline of being able to focus on a given task at a given day? And I think as a leader, to me, a lot of that comes to a lot of that.

It rolls up to communication and to constantly regularly communicating priorities , um, and being careful not to send people on wild, wild goose chases, knowing that there's uncertainties that you're navigating. Right. So being wise about saying, I think, you know, th this is, this is the way we have to go , um, and establishing a culture where it's known that the paths that we take are the paths that we take until we don't , um, that there's going to be constant change.

Um, and we are going to reprioritize and, you know, instilling that kind of like that agile practice into the entire business, not just building, not just the organs , the parts of the organization, that built stuff. Um, but every organization that makes any kind of decision that it's going to be a regular ongoing decision-making process for prioritization. Um, and as a startup, you have to stay nimble, right?

And as an innovating organization, you have to stay nimble, no matter how old you are or how big you are , um, you have to always kind of be ready to change directions and make decisions. So anyway, there's a couple of different conflicts that, that provokes there, you know, one is kind of being able to focus by having a narrow set of responsibilities. That's hard to do when you're small.

And it is secondly, being able to focus when you're in a space that's innovating fast and learning a lot of new things,

And now Kroger, you walk into Kroger. Now they have , um, clothes and furniture. I bought a kitchen table there. Once. There you go. Yeah , exactly. You bought a kitchen table at Kroger and you bought food on that kitchen table. So yeah, that's, that's my point of being everything to everybody.

So, and what goes through my head is I just can imagine these , uh , um, people that work there, you know, it, whoever, and , uh, the day that someone cut their boss comes and says, you know what, we're going to start doing this and add another feature to the pile. You know, we don't , we're not only want to have a head of lettuce fresh for the customer. We want to sell a t-shirt too , and we want to sell your kitchen table and you can share .

And then , and , uh , Walmart saying , now, now we want it because we want to compete with each other. And that's an extreme example. I know, but it seems like , um , they don't, they don't want to say no. Yeah, go ahead.

Figure out ways to , um , um, answer the question of certainty and commitment early in the process, because there's nothing more demoralizing than to build a whole marketing campaign for a product that you scrapped or to write the software for a system for, you know, nine, 10 months, and then it never launches. Right. So that's exhausting.

So I think one of the things you have to do as an organization is get really good at minimizing the instances of , um, you know, investing somebody's heart and soul into work that you scrap.

And then the, you know, the second thing concept or solution is the culture of the organization needs to reward , um, um, being able to change , um, being able to understand the, the why or the bigger picture or the broader vision, so that they're still reward and their satisfaction in the failures or the , uh , the learning kind of experiments that don't necessarily translate to a product , uh , or the, Oh , we were convicted of this. And then we get new data or get new insights.

Um, and we just to make a decision to go elsewhere. There needs to be some satisfaction in those changes of direction, because no matter how small they are, they still kind of suck the life out of your weather 10 months of your life, or , or, you know , 10 hours that you put into something is still okay. Right.

So you need to find ways to reward and honor people who kind of like , um, you know, help hold that cultural glue , uh , or , you know , help , help hold that together with those kinds of sacrifices that they make given up their work to learn this or that. Um , and it needs to be seen exactly like that. I mean, you're the, you're the , uh, you know, who the explorers who went out West where it's been a long time since I was in grade school. Yep . Yeah . Lewis and Clark, right .

You're an Explorer, right? Like you have to, every , an organization that's , um , good at adapting, learning, changing, et cetera, and builds an Oregon boy builds a culture around that has to treat their team, their people , um, like the reward, the value is in the learning. Right.

Um, and I think , uh, I think when you create an emotional satisfaction around that, it helps to some degree to offset the, the sting that comes with , uh , building and discarding building and discarding experimenting and moving that's waste to waterfall. Yes. That's, that's exactly right. And that's , uh , that's all the time we have today. So again, our guest has been Erin

So this has been another episode of the agile within where we challenge you to be more agile.