162: 2025 Yearly Themes
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It is time once again for a yearly theme. Yearly theme episode 2025. So in case you're new to yearly themes and you would like a refresher, allow me to provide you with one.

What we recommend here at the Cortex Podcast is setting a theme for your year. Instead of New Year's resolutions, which we can all agree are bad, we recommend that you set up a yearly theme that will act as a guide for your life throughout that period. So I want to give the key example. This is the easiest example. I think we give this one every year. Instead of saying to yourself, oh, I want to read more books, I'm going to read 20 books in 2025.

That's bad. Because if you read 19 books, hooray, you've read 19 books, but you didn't read 20, and then you failed your New Year's resolution. What a failure. Indeed. And your year is ruined by that. Absolutely ruined.

But we would recommend that instead you would set a year of reading because if you have year of reading as your yearly theme, any reading that you do throughout the year is positive. Like you may decide you want to read biographies. That might be where you want to start. I have a bunch of biographies that I want to read. I want to read those this year. But then halfway through the year, maybe you get big into science fiction. It's all reading. So it's all part of your year of reading.

yearly themes are broad. They're adaptable. It's something that helps you shape the decisions in your life and it acts as a guide for you. It is not a destination. It is not a fixed thing, but it's something that can help you when it comes to making decisions. Like if you're maybe picking up the remote to turn on Netflix, why don't you pick up your book instead? Because it is the year of reading and your yearly theme will nudge you towards the thing that you're looking to do. Yeah. You really want to have it be that there's not a fail state

I actually heard a great tip from someone who did do a year of reading and they came up with what I thought was a genius thing, which was simply tracking word count. So it's like, ah, it encouraged the ability to be reading a book and then go, this book is terrible. I don't want to finish it, but you still get to count like, ah, how many pages, roughly how many words was that? And that's what they were tracking. Love it. And, and,

actually a thing that changed over time was they realized, you know what I actually want to read more of? I wanted to read more long form articles is what they were telling me. And it's like, ah, and that totally worked as well. They were just tracking like, what's the word count that I'm reading on a bunch of like well-written articles that I like online. It's like, and all of that just worked in year of reading. And they felt like, oh, this really did encourage them

so much more than if they had set out a particular goal of, oh my God, I'm going to read X books per month. It's like, no, that's not actually what you want to do. You can find the change halfway through and just roll with it. Your yearly theme can be about whatever is important to you. It's going to help something in your personal life, your professional life,

maybe both, will always act as a guide, something for you to think about every day. Your yearly theme provides you with a framework in which you can consider any new opportunities, how you're spending your time, how you're making decisions. Sometimes you may be posed with a decision, and if you feel like it can affect and change your yearly theme for the positive, it becomes something that you can take on for your year. It's just a tool that helps us change, and it's hard to recognize change.

But I know, as we're going to go through this episode, as we do every year, that my yearly themes, especially reflecting on them too, they act as this way for me to be able to see how did I do over this year? Did I make the impact that I was looking for? They're just a truly wonderful tool. It's been life-changing for me to think about my years this way. And we hope that you'll join us.

Mike, what was your 2024 yearly theme? My theme for 2024 was the year of people. So essentially what I set out to do for this year was to think about ways to find capable people who could help me with my work, to help me push my work forward, but not always with me being actively involved in the work being moved forward. And so I knew I needed more help

to start to take my life into some places that I wanted to go to. And that meant that I also needed to be able to let go a little bit more and seek help from some experts. And I'm very happy with the way that this year has progressed. The way that I...

saw my ideal scenario of like work occurring about me being involved kind of really came to be this year. And so I want to run through with you, Greg, a few key areas, like looking back over my year of the year of people. So a lot of this has been enabled by me hiring a new assistant. So I have a new virtual assistant.

And she has been helping me with various projects throughout the year. But we have a call every Monday, which is called the air traffic control meeting. And this is all about helping me build better structures and kind of like a better flow of my work.

Just on a fundamental level, it's been really helpful to have someone who I talk through my work with, who's just there to listen, ask questions and see if things could be done better and to maybe challenge me a little bit if I seem to be doing something that is not a priority or I'm doing something that really I should do later or I should have done sooner. Like it's good to have someone take that external view of my work and kind of be a positive critic of it.

this is a relationship that is developing in that way, right? Because she has to really understand a lot about my habits and what works for me and what doesn't. And over the space of a year, you know, like, and we've learned a lot together so far, um,

But then also having her then help build me some systems. A lot of it has been in Notion, as I've mentioned before. And then having her coordinate with other people to progress the projects on my behalf has really been amazing. There's stuff that's happened this year. It's all mostly Cortex Brown work, and I'll get onto why in a bit. But it's stuff that I would have had to have given up on if she wasn't pushing it forward because I didn't have the time to progress it. But it was stuff that was important.

I think it's been helpful in me assessing some priorities. It's also been helpful in me realizing something. Like one of the things that has been a, we've spoken about it a few times on the show over the last year or two is like, we're calling it stacked September, but it's really like stacked Q4. And in 2023, I thought, we thought it was just a, an anomaly, right?

Like the year had just conspired in such a way that towards the end of the year, everything was crashing together. This year has proven to me that no, that's going to keep happening every year. And it's starting to establish itself as a bit of a pattern. And this is a combo of things, right? So it comes from my podcasts, right? So this show, right? Our two biggest episodes of the year happen in Q4 and they take a lot of work.

to really do them the way that we want to do them. And it's also some of my other shows, we have like special episodes around the holidays. There's also just like a lot of life stuff that's going on around this period of time, but then also running a product business. I think we thought we could maybe be some kind of unicorn business that didn't have to worry about Q4 as being so important, but yeah, Q4 is super important. And so,

This year has kind of helped me highlight that and I've been looking at that and I know that's going to be a focus for the next forever years, basically, of doing a better job of planning that. But that has really taken me having this like

bird's eye view of my projects to realize how these strands were coming together that led to this being a very very very busy time again at the end of the year you feel like you have a better understanding of it because of the air traffic control meeting is that like is that what you're saying i could see it happening again right okay yeah as things were starting to unfold i could see it

And then now that I have like the groundwork of this system, it's how I know it can be better next time. Because like, for example, we now have tasks for like, it's kind of coming around to like April, May. And it's like, all right, what's happening at Christmas?

And like really making that like a priority then rather than in July or August as it has been before. Because really it's just one of these things. If we just gave ourselves one month more like as a runway for taking it serious, then the situation right now would feel a lot easier. I think the vast majority of the year of people has been related to Cortex brand because it is the growing part of my businesses. Like,

Relay is 10 years old this year, which is being an incredible thing of its own. And I've definitely taken the time this year to think about the people that have gotten me to this point, like from the people that I work with to the people that listen to my shows. But Relay is established. There are a bunch of people who know their roles and we've been doing it for 10 years. So at this point, it is a somewhat stable business from an organizational perspective. But Cortex Brand is...

is growing and has grown...

in complexity and possibility quite a lot in the last 12 months because the sidekick notepad has been a great success for us like it's proven the business as being a business and it isn't just like a fluke that we had a journal that people like but it's proven we can have another successful product which i think in turn proves to both of us that oh this can actually work and so we've kind of

put our foot down on that, like pedal to the metal or whatever the phrase is. And that takes a lot of effort. And so it has required for us and me, especially to work with more people to try and take it where we want it to go. Yeah, it's interesting. I think I hadn't actually quite realized like, what is the big thing that the sidekick notepad did is...

It proved like, ah, we've done this twice. So it wasn't just a fluke. The second time was even more successful than the first. And it's like, yes, that has directly fed into a whole bunch of growing cortex in lots of ways. It's like, yeah, it's like we've talked about it, but I think that just really clarifies the thing of, ah, we've

Yeah.

Yeah, so like one of the things that I really wanted to do this year was improve the imagery that we use on product pages and on our social media and really kind of try and like get a feel. And I started working with a selection of content creators, like a lot of people that I found through the keyboard community because they know how to take photos of things on desks. I'm only laughing because it's like...

That sentence makes it sound like, how hard can it be to take a photograph of a thing on a desk? It sounds so easy until the moment you try it. I've had post-traumatic stress disorder from just...

Some of the very short shots that I did for myself for the journal of like, and I have all this equipment. I was like, oh my God, just like getting a video shot of this journal to look good is impossible. So that's why it's like, yeah, you need people who this is the thing that they're doing because it is surprisingly deceptively hard to take a good looking photo of a thing on a desk. Yeah. And through this process, we found a small team that we're now working with to kind of really revamp

And it's been really great because this has been, for me, an example of finding really talented people who... And this is one of the things that I like about collaborating with people in general is sometimes...

you know what you want, you just don't know how to communicate it. You have like a feeling for how you want to create a project to come to life, but trying to get from step A to step F is very complicated. Like, you know where you are now, you know what the end result is, but like, how do you get through the many decisions that you have to get through? And I found this to be really great because I feel like I found people who truly understand how

I see our products and then are helping us communicate that visually because we sell things that are tactile and it's hard to get that across in visual. But I think that they're doing a very good job of helping us bring that to life. And it's definitely taking us to a place that me and you could not get to on our own.

Right. Like as described, like we've both tried and we've both done an okay job, but it's not good enough. It's not good enough to really sell what we're doing very much like this will do kind of stuff, which is really not what we're trying to portray of like good enough. Yeah.

The escalation was, I need something that can work right now. And then you made the pass at like, you were going to do it and you made it look much better, but there's still that next level of like, does this look truly professional? And it's like, ah, that's what you need a professional for is yes, is the progress of like, I tried it. It's like, I cannot possibly do this. You tried it. You're like, but

better, but still not what we're looking for. So yeah, it's like more people just have to come in to be part of this. And then it's like the communication and the sharing of it, right? Like content has to be written. We have an email newsletter now, which unbelievably we did not have until this year. We're like taking social media more seriously rather than me just remembering to post something every now and again. And that takes people, that takes management, that takes planning, that takes copywriting, that takes testing, that takes sending. And that

I am involved, but I am not responsible for these things, which is the way that it has to be. Because there's zero way that I would be able to do this alongside Relay. That is two probably more than full-time jobs together if I was trying to do all of these things. And so being able to get a team, I think it was like,

Nobody is full-time on Cortex Brand, but I think now there are about eight people that work on Cortex Brand. And last year it was like two and a half. So like we're really trying, you know, but like this is what it is taking. And it has been for me so rewarding and interesting and thought-provoking to work with all of these people, right? So there's me and you,

But then there's also these other people who are like outside and they ask questions of us, right? And then we have to try and explain to them. And it helps me rethink stuff and reshape things. There are days now where I'm having meetings with like,

three or four people multiple meetings like three or four meetings with different people who are all really engaged and active and trying to push it all forward but the thing that has been the most amazing is it's happened there are meetings and working sessions that are occurring that i am not involved in like they're just happening we have two people working together on a project and

that we care about and neither me or you are involved in the work that is being done and it's just happening. Honestly, this is what I wanted. I didn't know that I could get to this point this year.

because that felt like so much effort in trying to bring together the people that I felt would work together. And I'm so pleased that we've been able to do it. And then I've been able to set these people up, give them what they need and kind of just trust them to go out there and do it. And it's hard, right? It's letting a little bit go. I mean, I had this last year, which kind of bled into your people, like letting go of the edit of this show and,

You know, it's been an incredible benefit from my life. And it was the same as all of the other editing projects that I've given away over years. You are letting go a piece of your creativity, but you're letting it go to people that you trust and they can go away and do something with it and get it to a point that you couldn't get to or get it to a point that is just what you're happy with.

But then you were able to put your time somewhere else and not be actively involved in it. So this is one of these things where I worked for a big company and I knew what this stuff was like. And I used to sit in meetings with 12 people and everyone go away, do their thing, come back. The reason this is so amazing to me is like this is my stuff now.

I have these businesses now where they're full of people working on their creative projects and working on projects that I care about and making it happen and putting it out there. I've been so happy with it, with the way that this has gone. And I feel like this is one of those themes where... They're not all like this, but I've had a couple of these in the last few years where the effects of the theme are felt for a long time afterwards. Like, I...

I don't need to have the same like focus next year on like thinking about people because the people already there now we're all got our projects. We're all working away. We've set up what we need to do. And now it just continues moving forward. And yeah, one of the things that I was pleased about that came in unexpectedly through the year, but again, it ended up being something that I could think about because of my theme is

was the way in which I allow people to contact me. So bringing in all these people, one of the downsides of it is there's now a lot of people who need a lot of things from me. I think this ended up coming out as a frustration in the year of like, I was kind of fed up with my email and the notifications that I was getting and you pushed me to

really rethink a lot of that. And that has been like a great thing of like, okay, I'm bringing more people in, more people need things from me, I've got to work with more people. How can I be the most effective for them and for me? And a lot of that is in setting up

boundaries, guidelines for how communication is done. And that has been like a great thing for me to consider as the year has gone on. I've been really happy where I am with that now. It's funny you got there because my brain was reaching for the same word of like boundary issue as we spoke about it at the time. That's a big identity issue was like recognizing a change in role and a change in like how you need to work. I think that that kind of stuff can just get quite sticky in your brain.

And then it does action out as a kind of boundary issue of like, "Oh, when am I going to be available? When am I not going to be available?" I think it's a genuinely big deal that you were able to do that and that it worked so well for you. I think it's because you were truly open to doing this and reassessing and recognizing

where you are. I'm feeling so happy for you in this moment because I didn't realize until just now that there's a way in which this could have gone in the reverse.

Because by bringing on more people, you could have started to tell yourself a story that this is the year of people. I need to be accessible to these people. I'm hiring them. And the moment that they haven't gotten a reply from me, we're just burning time where they're not doing something. There is a very...

valid story you could have told to keep yourself in the same role that you were in 10 years ago in a way or like not the same role but the same actions and it's like ah that's not really what you needed so I feel like doubly pleased that you were able to do this because I didn't even realize there was like a there was a real danger here that I wasn't picking up on so I didn't really think of it either but then when I did start considering

These changes it also the other part of it is I don't want to model upon the people that we're working with that they should be available to me 24 7. Right. Right. Like this is a consideration that now we're working with more people. I want them to see that I am not always around in the same way that I don't expect them to always be around also.

And so like that is a new area of moving into that like the more people that you work with or that you have performing work for you, setting the expectations and the models and the behaviors are important.

You can choose whatever you want, right? Yeah. But I choose this way, right? Because it's up to you, right? Like if you decide that the people that you want to work for you should be available to you 24-7 and you say to them that that's what you expect and they say, I'm willing to do that, that is a choice that everybody is making. I don't believe that that kind of choice leads to very good, long-lasting, productive relationships. So I choose the other one.

Right. So for me, it is that I want people to set their own time. They're available to work for me when they are, but they also understand that sometimes there are projects that are important. Right. And so like, that's really good, like to have the kind of flexibility to two and throw and that they get that from me as much as I get that from them, that it's just about communication that, you know, you can do whatever work you're going to do in the timeframe you're going to do it, that we agree to. But every now and then there might be like a project where it's all hands on deck and

And we understand that. And we've all spoken about that. Like, I like that kind of flexibility in my work. And to find people that want to work with me that way is really good. Okay.

But again, you know, I also just realized, Mike, what are you doing? You're setting company culture, right? There's more people. So this is, again, another one of these phrases that I can have rolled my eyes at previously, but it is trying to get at an idea. Now that there's more people and because you are the primary interaction point for them, like you are setting the culture of how does this work?

Is everybody expected to be available at all times? Or is that not the case? Can we have this greater asynchronicity? And it's like, yeah, it's a year of people. You are the only person because of your role at Cortex who can truly set that culture. I was like, people have to see you

you doing it. They have to see you not being annoyed if there wasn't an instant response. They have to see you not replying immediately. Through your year of people and people management, it's like, ah, you are creating the communication culture at Cortex. But it's funny because this has also changed me and you and how we work, though, too. So...

The way that me and you would discuss products is very similar to the way that we work on the podcast where it's once a month for a very long time. That's what we would do. And so we had like a separate meeting once a month and we would talk for hours and hours and hours and hours going over absolutely every possible thing. But as the year of people was unfolding and I was bringing all these people, I was realizing that worked for me and you. It does not work when there's a whole team.

And so now we meet weekly with our respective assistants and we have a very quick meeting and we go through everything. We get the decisions done and we're in and out because that is what the rest of the business and the team now requires. Because, you know, people can't wait for three weeks for me and you to sit down for four hours to talk about something. It doesn't work like that anymore. Exactly.

It's also changed that up too, which I think is good. That communication is good. It's forcing a different way for the two of us to work together, which is just very abnormal to how we work together normally and how we've worked together for so long. But I've found it to be

very beneficial I think on a funny meta point by doing this theme episode it's always interesting to me how I was like ah because you and I don't really talk about this through the course of the year there's always this way in which I feel like oh a bunch of things come together for me in these moments and this is another one of these things of like ah your

correct desire to increase like the communication frequency that we have about Cortex brand it's like that is being driven by the fact that there are all of these other people as well again obvious in retrospect but because we sort of stay away from these topics in some way it's like this is where it just like really becomes clear it's like yes yes

It's about clearing the path, not just for Mike, but like Mike as the person on top who is also like making the decisions and communicating to everybody else about like what needs to happen. And this is the reason that the communication frequency goes up

is because it is a natural byproduct of more and more people coming on board. The other byproduct for me, which was something that I thought would occur and has definitely occurred, is that the year of people is also created like the year of systems along with it. And this was, I think, really shown in the State of the Apps episode where I had so many team and communication apps. Because if you're going to be working with people and sharing documents and sharing work together, it requires...

a way of working which has to be different, right? Like the way in which there are meetings that weren't happening before, that people were sharing documents back and forth, that there is planning, there are deliverables, there are agreed upon things, you know, there are invoices flying around. Like it requires more administration, right?

but that is part of running a distributed team like this. And it's been very interesting to watch it unfold. I continue to feel, I think as I always will, that like none of the tools get me where I want, but it feels like that is just what team communication apps are always about.

Yeah, yeah. But I think I've found in Notion a tool that works well enough for getting most people together. And I actually think what has been very beneficial about Notion specifically is so many people use it for their own stuff that it becomes a tool that a lot of people are very comfortable with using for work stuff because they understand how to use it.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Not the same as some other tools that I've used, like the different communication apps or different project sharing apps. That because people build their own personal knowledge management systems in Notion, that they're more used to using it. I feel like out of everybody that I work with, I understand how to use Notion the least because I never did anything like that. But I have the parts of it that I need and it's been very, very effective for me.

And then just like one like personal note on this, like, so year of the weekend was 2023. And that was a lot about establishing better relationships with the people that I care about in my life.

And I've kind of brought that forward to the year people. And I feel like with some of the additional structure that this year has provided me, I feel like I've been able to be a lot more emotionally available to people that need me in my life. And it's been challenging at times to get all of my priorities in order. But I think something I've been happy with this year and I want to continue again further is to make sure that I am

doing this like being available to people that need me and reaching out to people one of the other things that's kind of come along this year is I have realized I'm a very bad texter now I know that must seem insane to you Greg but I would say that it just makes me feel terrible about myself but like

I can believe that, though. I feel like this is a byproduct for, like, many successful and busy people can actually be quite bad at this kind of base-level human communication sometimes. I often feel like I'm thinking about somebody, but I don't contact them. Like, I don't communicate with them. And I've been working hard at this this year, because it's not something that I want to do. It's just, I don't know what it is. I just, like...

I think, oh, I wonder how such and such person's doing or I wonder what they would think about this. And then it just ends there. Like I don't actually do the thing. And I've been trying to reach out to more people this year. And I really want to do more of that. And I think that my 2025 theme is going to enable more of that. And so that's just like a little byproduct of a thing that's come out this year. What I've been thinking about people is that there's also a lot of people in my life that I care about. And I kind of want to make sure I'm doing a better job of checking in with them.

So that's a year of people. I mean, it sounds like it went really well. Hey, look, themes can't fail, but this one succeeded, you know? Okay, there's the thing. I always talk about like, ah, the themes can't fail. This is one of my favorite things about this. But there is a little bit of like, ah, but I feel like it's slightly different for us doing the podcast because we're talking about this

But we also have to kind of like we're meta thinking about it in the context of the audience and like what seems to work and what doesn't. So I do think we kind of have to focus a little bit more on the success or failure part than a person actually doing this would. However, I do also say that we get the benefit of actually doing a real deep reflection.

Yes, yes, that is true. But I think it's why, like, when I'm listening to you, all I'm hearing is like, ah, this seems like it was just a real success. And that last point of it that you just made, like, on the personal side about being more emotionally available to people, that feels to me, again, like, just the kind of thing that I really love that can come out of these themes. It's like, was that an explicit goal? No, but it's a thing that developed through all of these interactions and, like, just...

causing your brain to think about like, what am I doing in these different interactions? So I could not be happier for the way that this has sounded like it went for you. This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Fitbod. If your yearly theme is the year of health, there is nowhere better to get started than Fitbod. It is an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan that is made just for you to enable you with your yearly theme.

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So go now and get your customized fitness plan at fitbod.me slash cortex. That is F-I-T-B-O-D dot me slash cortex for 25% off your membership. Our thanks to Fitbod for the support of this show and Relay. So Gray, what was your 2024 theme? So my 2024 theme was year of small improvements. It's a funny thing.

Often I feel like I'm the weird one with the names of the themes. Yeah, you are, yeah. You don't need to feel like that.

How dare you, Mike? This is an entirely subjective feeling. It's nothing to do with the reality of I always pick weird names or I always overcomplicate the names or all these kinds of things. Year of small improvements is better than what you wanted to do, which was quality of life update, not even year of. That was your original pitch for 2024. So we at least found a decent name rather than what you wanted to go with.

That's why I was sort of working towards this. It's very funny in retrospect. It's like, yes, I came to the show with this idea of like, what do I want to do? I want to do a quality of life release. And in the show, bumbling around, we eventually stumbled upon, I think you were the one who said it, like Year of Small Improvements, which I did like. But in that show, I kept feeling like slightly grumpy, like I cannot really...

I'm not really expressing the kind of thing that I want to do here, but in retrospect, that seems wild to me now. Because like Year of Small Improvements is, I think, a really good name. Like, I feel like this is one of the years that I have most intensely resonated with the name itself.

And it's quite interesting. Like, there's a thing that I'm really tuned into when I'm talking to people, especially people who are more on like the periphery of my social groups, like people I know, but don't necessarily know well. What phrases do people react to? Like, or like, what sequence of words are kind of like getting a response out of someone where you can see someone's like, interestingly intrigued? And

And I think Year of Small Improvements has got to be one of the ones that I feel like most intrigued other people. I felt like almost everyone I mentioned to it resonated with that quite strongly. And so I wanted to mention that now because at the end of this section, it's like, ah, there's something I want to say about the

the year of small improvements as a theme if people are considering it. But I just noticed that and I was like, ah, I loved this name. I felt like, oh, this actually really did get right at the core of what was I thinking about last year and what was I trying to do? And fundamentally, the position that I was in was I was feeling like

I was like, ah, Cortex brand had been growing. Like there's a bunch of stuff going on and like business life and personal life. And I felt like, ah, I've built up,

kind of like what people sometimes call technical debt. It's like, oh, you're just trying to solve a problem in code right now. And they're like, ah, but it's like, is this the perfect way to do this? No, you're just kind of getting a thing done right now. It's like, oh, is this thing set up the most optimal way? No, but you just need to get it done right now. And I felt a little bit like,

Oh, I had kind of recognized that I had built up a lot of this like technical debt in life. None of it's a big deal, but in the aggregate, it all matters. And it was our episode that we did about state of the hardware that really got it in my brain of realizing like, oh,

Going through when we were thinking about all of this stuff in our lives, and it just really had me recognize like, ah, I have not done a true and deep physical and mental sweep of my environment in a long time. And no surprise, as a result, there's a lot of small frustrations and frictions in like the physical and virtual worlds that it's like, ah, it's just annoying. Like it had gotten to a point where it's like...

I need to look at this in aggregate. And boy, I feel like this has just been one of the most successful and impactful themes that I have done in a really long time. And

I kind of like that it has had that impact when it is also the theme that was targeting the smallest thing. So my idea was with a lot of this is like, ah, what is the plan? The plan about like year of small improvements is...

It's not even necessarily about adding things into life. It should be the opposite. It should be about simplifying. It should be about making things smoother. That's why I was trying to go with like the quality of life release idea. Like you're not adding major features. You're just trying to make everything a little bit nicer. So I've come to think when we talk about themes, this one that I have done, what I'm going to do next year. So I've been trying to kind of think about how

There's kind of like five broad families of themes that you could maybe fit everything else into. And I didn't realize it at the time, but Year of Small Improvements was a variation on what I think is one of the best themes, which is Year of Intentionality. So many people picked that one, being like intentional, like...

focusing on something, being present. That is a very popular theme for people. Yeah. And I think there's a good reason for that. We get a lot of positive feedback when people do that one. And so it's like, oh, I kind of backdoored myself into a intentionality family theme with year of small improvements. That's what it was. And I just didn't know. And so I felt like I had an entire year. What I was doing is like,

kind of viewing myself from the third perspective a little bit and be like, ah, notice what you're doing. Look at the thing and like re-evaluate each part of it every time. And this goes from like business processes. It's like, oh, we're having a meeting about like what's going on with the business. It's like, okay, how did this meeting get set up? Was it smooth? Could it have been done better? Is there like a better order that we could have arranged things? To even just like

The thing that I really started with was a lot of like stuff in the house. Like just notice the high contact items that you're interacting with. That's a kind of small improvement. Is this door handle that you work on every day slightly sticky? Why don't you just fix that right now?

And that's what I felt like I just kept doing. Oh, these light bulbs. Do you actually like the way they look in this bathroom? Notice that it can catch your attention. Like look at the light bulbs and then reevaluate. If like, ah, if you were starting from fresh, is this what you would want to do? And so that's how I found myself really just like moving through the world. And it's just been fantastic. And so like,

One particular area, which I mentioned at the time, was like, oh, this is a thing that I want to do. And as a perfect example, like, how does stuff build up slightly slowly was just...

looking at my wardrobe and realizing oh of course like over the years you just naturally build up a bunch of one-off items and so then you have like a closet and it's got a bunch of shirts in it and it's like do you like all of these shirts do you like all of these items is this what you would do if you were starting a closet over like probably not you could probably rethink this and so uh

Backing up. What's the thing that I'm aware of for like the person hearing this? None of the individual frictions or like minor frustrations in life or like the squeaky door handle. Does it matter? No, it doesn't. But in aggregate, they do. And there's the flip side of this. It's like, oh, do I like my socks anymore?

It doesn't really matter, but in the aggregate it does. And this is the experience that I keep having with like various areas of like things that I have noticed and paid attention to over the course of the year. It's like, ah, make some small improvements here. You make a small improvement there. And at some point it kind of flips, it crosses a line where now like, ah, the aggregate of all of these changes has really made a difference.

And like, oh, in my wardrobe, that is one of the areas where it's like, I can feel this so strongly. Getting rid of some one-off shirts that I don't like and that I'm not going to wear again. Trying to simplify down the actual items. Does any of these steps, do they actually matter? No. But in the aggregate, it's like they create something that just feels different. And so that is like the experience that I've been having in wardrobe.

Like so many physical and virtual areas. It's like, think this over from the start. Again, as example with the clothing, one of the things I was thinking of is I should just have all of my clothing optimized to be good clothing that I could take

while traveling? Why am I going to have different kinds of clothes of like, these are the clothes that I normally wear. And these are the clothes that I will pack for trips. I was like, because maybe if I just think about it, I can find clothes that fits both of these purposes. And then I've simplified something down. Like in the future, I have removed a kind of like, oh, where's the other thing that I use less option? It's like, no, no, just

Try to make it simple. Try to make it work better. And again, does that matter? No. But in the aggregate, it does, for me anyway, I feel like it makes a huge difference to get those kinds of things running very smooth. So,

I mentioned the clothing one because I think it's an easy one to think about. At the start of the year, when I was thinking about like, oh, we're going to talk about this at the end of the year, I had this idea where I was like, I have a cute idea for what I'm going to do for a year of small improvements. I'm going to... This is crazy now. I'm going to make a list of...

of each small improvement I've done over the course of the year. And I thought that could be like a funny update at the end. I realized after like three days, it's like, no, I am aborting this project because it's like the whole point of it is it should be an extremely large number of small changes. And it was just going to be like this endless list of like things nobody cares about, but just small,

Stuff I noticed and changed. When you started talking about it, I was like, oh, I hope he has a list. But then in hearing you mention it now, I realized that that actually goes against the theme. Because one of the things that is really interesting about this theme is that we all have these projects in our lives, usually around our homes, where it's like...

I got to do the thing, right? Like I got to do the thing. And we don't do them because we don't want to do the thing because the thing is boring, annoying. It gets in the way of us doing other stuff. But with the year of small improvements, you get the extra credit of doing the thing for your theme, right? So you're like, oh, look at me.

I'm such a good theme boy. I'm doing the light switch, right? But then if you then had to write it down in a list, now you've made it back into boring again. That was exactly what I felt straight away. It was like, oh, a big part of this is about

finding ways to reduce friction. And this list, trying to keep a running list, is introducing friction. That's what's happening here. It's like, ah, it's just a small point of that I want to have this extra thing because I feel like it really does sound crazy. But it's like, oh, Mike, trying to fix the house and my wardrobe and a bunch of stuff on my computer and also business checklists and all of the rest of it. I feel like it

created an intensely present mind focus all year.

Because I was really aware of the way only way this works is when I notice I do the thing essentially right away, because that's the whole problem. Like you just said, it's like you have these mental loops of like, I need to get to that at some point. And that's like the whole thing I was trying to fight against is like, don't do that. Just notice the thing. But when you are constantly

Constantly doing that, it creates a very, very now-focused, like, what is happening presently, right in front of me kind of mental space. And that's also where the list, in a very small way, was, like, kicking me into some kind of, like, forward future there. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Don't also now be thinking about how are you going to talk about this in six months at the end of the year. Like, seriously.

Stay noticing. Stay paying attention. I see how the intentionality comes into it, right? Because if you're focused on fixing the things when they come up, you end up in this loop of like, why did it just come up? Like if this is the thing that's been broken for months, why am I noticing it now?

now like what is happening right now that is making me realize I do need to set up the FTP server the way that I want it to be or like I do need to do my Gmail rules correctly like what is the thing that has made you realize that and I guess there are other things that can come out of that of like the fix can actually be larger than small

Like, I don't know if anything like that came up for you this year, but like something you start thinking like, oh, this is just a small fix. And then you're like, oh, actually, there's something bigger here that I would like to address than a tiny thing or whatever. Oh, yeah, exactly. Like that is the thing. Like often what catches your attention is like related to other things. That's why there is very much like present focused thing there. Like keep yourself in the mental space. I just didn't.

realize how much this is addressing some kind of like

Small problems build up precisely because you're like, can't do that now. So the only way something like year of small improvements works is you have to constantly remind yourself, do it now. Like do the thing now. I mean, like one area where this is just like the real madness is I wanted to properly sort out a bunch of automations

Automations, the way things like work automatically in my life of like, I know that there's so many little things I can just make smoother through some minor automation. But this is the whole thing is like, ah, but in the moment, automation might be the most pure example of this.

Why do you notice a thing can be automated? Because you're trying to do the thing right now. And so what will always happen is you go like, ah, I can do the thing right now fast, or I can try to create the automated version of this and it is going to take longer. And so you almost always go like, I'll just, I'll do it next time, or I will do it later. And you don't.

And so that was another area of like, I was quite aware of like noticing myself using my devices. How am I doing things? And just being deeply aware of the way that like this can be automated. So you don't have to do that. And if this automation is ever going to exist, you have to do it now. You will never do this in the future. It will always be like a fleeting thought you have of like,

Every time I sit down to do the writing stuff, like, why am I manually arranging where I want all of the windows to go and what music I want to play and how I want the house lights to go? It's like, there's actually, like, six steps that I want to do every time I'm, like, opening up Obsidian to work on a thing. It's like, I can just have that happen automatically. This is killing me, hearing you say this, because I'm thinking of all the things. Like, I have, like, window management that I do with Moom. And...

I have it set up into certain sections, right? But there is like a couple of extra sections I'd like to add, but I'm like, I'll just drag it. Yeah, but like that's it, right? That thing that you're saying right there is the thing that I kept...

Bringing myself back to all year. Like, I just realized right now, I reached for the language of meditation because like this is what people talk about with meditation, which again, I tried like didn't really work for me. They're always like, oh, the whole trick is you've like got to keep reminding yourself that there's some

point of focus you are bringing your mind back to. And I have just realized it's like that is what I was doing all year. It's like, why does this feel like it was a meditative year in a way? Because that is literally what was happening. A constant reminder to like be in the present and notice things that could be

easier notice things that could be simpler look at you finding mindfulness through the help of automator and shortcuts yeah it's like uh guys the the path to enlightenment is not through following the breath the path to enlightenment is shortcuts but yeah so this is another one of these like oh i will not uh i will not possibly go into like the absolute boringness in some ways of like what are these automations because they're all so very specific but there was a thing of just like

What really helped was, again, knowing for years, but never fully bothering to do the thing of there's always a even in automating stuff, there's always a sloppy, fast way to do it. And then there is the proper long term way to do it.

And like the proper long term way to do it is designing basically everything as a sub function. You have an automation that does a thing, but it is also designed so that it can be a sub function of some other automation. So you can just like roll this in to everything else that happens. And I guess the example that I will give is related to when we were doing State of the Apps.

I was going through all of my focus modes and it's like, we all like to have a good laugh at gray. It's like, why are my focus modes so crazily complicated this year?

The reason is because of this automation focus and because of designing a bunch of different things as sub functions of each other, it ended up being much, much easier to very quickly use the focus modes as a tool, like how to set up things. And so it's like, ah,

I designed a, like, what should my phone look like now shortcut? What should my Mac look like now keyboard maestro shortcut? Basically the same idea. And that is a thing which is like, oh, I can create this as a function that can be called by any other automation. So when I'm doing anything else, I can just run the, like, what should the phone look like now automation? And that one will automatically change everything

every single possible setting that I do want to be different in a particular mode right then. So you're not doing the like fast and sloppy thing of like, I'm doing an automation. I want something to happen now. It's like, oh, and what else do I want to have happen? I know what I want to have happen. I want the computer to be in light mode at this moment, not dark mode. That's what I want. And so you like manually put that in. It's like, no, no, no. The long-term correct, actually simpler way is just clockwork.

call the sub function that says, what should the computer look like now? And that deals with it. It deals with it every time in the same way in all cases. So you don't end up with a bunch of technical cruft all over the place where you've got random shortcuts, like randomly changing settings. And then you can't figure out like, where is this happening? Why is this? It's like, no, no, do the one thing that does it properly. It looks like

What time of day is it? Where am I? What is the current focus mode? What is the previous focus mode? What is the timer that is currently running? And what is the previous timer that was running? It's like those pieces of information answer every single picky question about what do I want my computer to look like? But you can never get it right if you're doing it the sloppy, fast way every single time. So that's the automation stuff.

That, as you can imagine, actually took up a huge amount of time kind of thinking about it, but is also the thing that was paying the biggest dividends. It's like, I actually feel like we talked about the difference between programming and automating in previous years and how they are not the same thing. But I do think this year I have gotten about as close as one can to programming in terms of automating what I'm doing on my computer and, and

dividends to me are just like off the charts. It's just like absolutely pleasing to like get up in the morning, press like a single I'm up button and like 20%.

20 things happen from like what's the temperature of the room supposed to be like what timer is currently running what are all the lights what does the phone look like is the car getting ready to go somewhere because it knows like what day it is and where I'm gonna go the directions are automatically there the thing starts getting the temperature right it's like

All of that happens and I just press a "I'm awake" thing that calls a bunch of sub-functions that configure all the rest of that out. It's like fantastic, just from a quality of life, friction reducing perspective.

So yeah, there's a bunch of other like minor stuff. It's like I've done just major cleanup of a bunch of again, like the digital areas of my life, doing the thing of like reevaluating the businesses like none of those are particularly remarkable. I think the other area of thinking about small improvements and how can I change things was also just around my health and exercise and diet and all the rest of this.

And I was kind of applying the same sort of thinking of like, what can be simpler? What can be easier? What reduces the number of decisions in terms of food and fitness? And as a result, this year I lost 50 pounds. And in preparation for this episode, I went through like my health data and

And as long as I have worn the watch, I have never been as physically fit as I am right now. I was actually kind of shocked to see that. I thought, like, oh, surely I was better off when I first bought the watch. It's like, oh, no, no. I've gone better than the point that I was years ago when that watch first showed up. And there was no point in the middle where it's like all of the metrics are in as good of a spot as they currently are. And...

I feel like more than anything else, I'm very aware when the listeners hear these sorts of things,

There's a question of like, what is this like action out to? And particularly because my kind of work has what it can describe as a huge amount of latency that changes take a long time to show up. Like it's not fast work. Things are very slow. And also things that have changed take a long time to actually show up. And so I'm very aware that people are always a bit like, like, lol, what's really happening over there?

But that's why the health one is like a place that it's like, oh, the impact was actually much more immediate and like quite visible, very fast of friction is a much bigger deal than people think. Minor complications are a much bigger deal than people think. And by focusing on that, it's like, oh my God, the health stuff is just unbelievably improved over this same period of time. Like,

Like, I look at photos of myself now versus a year ago, and it's like absolutely shocking the difference in my appearance between those two points in time. It's like, and this wasn't even the primary goal of this theme. It's kind of like a byproduct of what happened and just do the thing of like,

Notice, look, and reevaluate as a loop that is applied just constantly throughout my day to every single part of what I'm doing.

So yeah, in conclusion, I think I'm not sure how good of a job I have done talking about this because it's like, oh, this is a theme that uniquely has touched basically every single area of my life in some way. I'd have to go back through the Rolodex of themes to double check. But it's like, oh, this is easily top three, like most impactful themes that I have ever done.

But what I want to say to anybody listening, and it's precisely because people were like resonant with this theme, people really liked it. I feel like I just want to say though that I think in our pantheon of themes, this is not a beginner theme. I think this is not a thing that is good to do as your very first one, because I think if you are doing it right, it will be surprisingly all encompassing. And also...

It is a theme that ends up needing like a lot of space in your life. And I think if I didn't happen to have like a bunch of time as a result of like the travel where I was out in the West for forever, like a bunch of other reasons, like I don't think that I would have been able to do this properly, like without a lot of space in my life to do this, like evaluation, to be able to take the time to like do that work.

quality of life release of like get things in order. And I will also say, I guess again, there's like a comparison to meditation here, which I think I've heard like beginners talk about, like, oh, it can be quite tiring. I do feel like while this theme has been amazing, it has also been in many ways quite tiring to be in this little like constantly evaluate loop.

Because just making decisions all the time or like rethinking things from the start is quite a lot just like mentally to be doing and to constantly bring yourself back to. So that's why I've been thinking about this for like the last month of like,

ooh, I'm probably going to be selling this theme quite hard in a way of like, ah, this is easily one of the best and like one of my most favorite themes. Just absolutely love it. How on earth did I not like the name at the beginning? I don't even know. That seems ridiculous now. But also feeling like with that hard sell, I feel like it's not a beginner theme. If you were thinking about this, like,

it probably shouldn't be the first time you try to do this. And also, I think you should just be kind of cognizant of the sort of year you expect to be coming up. Like, don't do this in the middle of, like, what you know will be some frantic time. I think it could just go, like, really badly if you tried to do this in a year that you knew was, like, a crunch year for some reason. That's, like, a thing that I just feel quite strongly is, like, I just don't think that would work. I think that is...

oppositional to being able to do this well it's almost like if you had a theme that was something like a year of serenity but you absolutely for sure knew that like my next 12 months are going to be a complete disaster right that's just a terrible mismatch that wouldn't make sense yeah that's what I'm feeling is like I just the thing that I just wanted to kind of like

signpost with this as a theme. It's like the year of travel, but the government took away my passport. You wouldn't do that. Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah, yeah. What I would say for this though, right, is to bring it back to your beginning, which is if you've listened to this and you're like, this sounds really great, then what you probably should do is a year of intentionality, which you can bring some of these elements into. And...

I was just doing something real quick and it's reminding me of a thing that I have a friend for the show, Ian, who was thinking about his yearly theme with his partner, which was great. And he was telling me that he was using ChatGPT to help him workshop his theme.

This is a new thing that I will actually recommend to people that they could do for this year, which I would not have recommended in previous years. If you need somebody to help you come up with a yearly theme, you can talk to the LLMs. They have language. This is what they do. And what I like about these tools is that you can have a to-and-throw with them a little bit.

So I want to just give you very quickly, if you would like to think you would like a year of intentionality, here are some things that Claude recommends that could be as part of a year of intentionality. It could help you break free from mindless habits and routines, deepen your relationships by being more present, reduce stress by saying no to non-essential commitments. If you're being intentional, it's not going to bother you if you say no.

You can improve focus by eliminating some distractions. And then I would add on to that of like, you can do some of these little things like Gray is doing of like, here's the thing that is frustrating to you and you want to fix it.

And you can better manage your energy and avoid burnout with this. So I think that these tools can be good of like, hey, I'm feeling like this. I'm feeling like that. Help me come up with a yearly theme. It could come up with some stuff for you because these LLMs have ingested the entire internet. They actually have a pretty good grasp of yearly themes. But if you need to give it some prompts, like you can recommend, like if you reference this show,

it surprisingly knows quite a bit about yearly themes. Like you can just kind of prompt the tools in that way and they can help you. There's an interesting connection there, Mike, which at the beginning when you were talking about the things with resolutions and how we don't like, you don't like resolutions. I was thinking, oh, I feel like

culturally people are actually better at this idea of like recognizing that the resolutions are some kind of bad way to do this and without being too egomaniacal about it i do feel like we have had an impact on that talking about like why this doesn't work and importantly what is an alternative and i feel like ah is that crazy maybe but the very fact that you're right

the LLMs do have some kind of knowledge in this area. It's like, oh, right. Because they've hoovered up everything. Like it is out there in the world as an oppositional idea to the resolutions. So yeah, that's interesting. I think also if people are going to try that, like with something like, I would at this point in time, I'd recommend Claude in particular, I think is the best at this kind of like soft thinking language stuff. I think it's good to like,

I would suggest you should probably ask it to ask you questions. Like I find that just, I find that very useful of like, try to zone in on a thing that you yourself might not be thinking. So just off the top of my head, I'd probably recommend a prompt of something like, you tell it like I'm working on it. I'm working on my themes. You know, it's like, you know, the style of cortex, blah, blah, blah. And then I'd probably start with something like,

please ask me like the 10 questions that you think will help you zero in on the most useful theme to me. Like that's the kind of thing that if I was going to try to brainstorm with Claude,

I would probably do that. That'd be my suggestion for anybody thinking about this. Because yeah, I can sometimes ask like quite surprisingly insightful questions. I never thought to have it ask me questions, but that's really cool. I like that as an idea because you're essentially then you're feeding the context, right? Like that's what you're helping it do. And so like you're giving it some information that it can then try and scour the internet to give you more good recommendations. I'm coming to this because I think,

it's a variation on a thing that is a hundred percent for sure useful, which is on some of the like script or writing work. I've tried different variations of this kind of thing of like,

ask me a question I'm not thinking to ask about this script. Like trying to go into those kinds of things or like, what is a question that you could ask, which would most clarify the most confusing point in this script? Like that kind of thing of like prompt it to give questions that are clarifying, I think is quite helpful. But, um,

I think that's really great advice, Mike. And yes, I feel kind of like, ah, much better now. Like, yes, that's exactly the thing. It's like, ah, people, year of small improvements. Absolutely fantastic intermediate to advanced theme. If you haven't done something like this first, this is where I was focusing on the family of themes. The actual place to start is year of intentionality and think about what does that mean for...

That's the version. If you were like interested by what I said today, I think that is the thing that you should try. Still better than new decades. Dueling again. Yeah.

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Okay, so often when I think about what is the theme for next year going to be, I frequently feel like I want to do what I just did again. It makes sense sometimes why I want to do that. It's like, ah, thing has just been very successful. What if it was more? Like, keep doing it more. It's like, no, no, no, that's not the thing to do. Two years is too long of a period of time for something like this. It's just like, it's no good. But

The reason I was thinking about this concept of like theme families is I think the actual thing that I've been trying to get at many years is something much more like, do you want to stay within the same theme family or do you want to move to a different theme family? That's what I think I'm actually like getting at a lot of times. Just kind of off the top of my head, I guess I feel like most of the themes probably fit into these categories of like, okay,

They're an intentionality theme. You have themes that are novelty themes, right? Stuff is new and different. I think you have themes that are about like stability versus change. Like, are you trying to make things like more stable and solid? Or are you trying to like mix things up? Or do you have some theme that's like about growth? I feel like those are probably the ones off the top of my head that I feel like

80% of things might fit into one of those categories. And so like, you're really, really asking a question of like when you're doing the next thing is like, uh, if you've had something like stability, do you feel like you now want to move into something that's in the novelty area? I don't know. Maybe we can, we can workshop this a bit more about like what they actually are, but that's the thing that I think I'm often trying to like resolve for myself. Don't want to stick in the same family. We don't want to move to a different family. And, um,

This year, once I thought of that, it's incredibly clear to me that like, ah, I want to stick in the same family of theme. I want to stick with something that is intentional and intentional.

As is often the case, I feel like I'm going along through the year. It's like, what is the theme? I don't know. And then it just like, it arrives. I don't choose the theme. The theme chooses me. But so the thing that I noticed was just like a phrase that kept kind of like popping into my head as a byproduct of doing the Year of Small Improvements.

And the phrase was, am I running the routine? Is this a day where I can run the routine? And so what I mean by that is as the year went on,

there's obviously less things that I'm still changing or like things that I'm making small improvements to because I have changed a bunch of things already. There's only so many things you can change. There's only so many automations that are actually worth doing. And so there started to become a kind of transition, particularly like in the last maybe two and a half months or so of noticing something like, ah, I feel like I'm slightly in a different mode today, which is something like run the routine.

Actually, I'm suddenly self-conscious because I'm realizing it's like, I guess the actual theme name is like year of the routine. But in my head, it's like I just always have to be weird with the theme names and make it difficult. It's like the actual thing that I'm resonating with really hard is like run the routine. I mean, it could just be the year of running routine.

Or running routines? Oh, just a year of routine. That works. Yeah, a year of routine is the thing that actually works. Also, how quickly did that become one of those words where saying it didn't feel right anymore? You know, you say a word enough and it loses it? Routine goes real quick. I just realized that. Wow. I only said it like three times and I felt like I was saying a French word I've never said before. Yeah. I wonder, there's got to be some rule, right? Like the...

semantic satiation is inversely proportional to word frequency has to be the thing like routines is not a word you would very often say back to back a bunch so it's got to see way faster that's what it's got to be but yeah so that's what I was thinking about and

It also felt like, oh, after this whole year about like simplifying and streamlining, I think I was partly resonating with this very hard because what I actually wanted was a simple and small theme. I did not want to have another new decade's dawn of the new year. I didn't want to do these things. And that's why I felt like, ah, this thing kind of came to me of what am I naturally trying to do? I'm naturally trying to do something that is in the same family.

And I feel like year of small improvements naturally leads into this. Just as with like, ah, with the health stuff, if you are making small improvements, it has to cash out into change. Right.

And so that's what I felt was kind of like happening a little bit with Year of Small Improvements. It's like, where is this all cashing out? It's cashing out in a higher number of days where I feel like I am running a smooth routine. This is a thing that exists because I have made a bunch of small changes. That is the intended consequence of making all of these little changes. But I just wasn't thinking about it at the start. Mm-hmm.

It's also one of these things like I specifically didn't want to go back and look. I know that I tried something like this in a previous year. I had a similar like I want to just like run a routine kind of theme. Didn't have those words. I do have this memory like that was one of the ones that when we talk about like what is success and what is failure, I feel like that is probably one of my like failed hardest ones. I feel like I had a very disruptive year. I don't remember the details and I was like, I don't really care anyway. It's very like future focused.

But I think my feeling is like, I tried to do that out of the blue. And this is actually the kind of like set up to the next thing. It feels like this is the very natural one too. Yeah, you should be able to do routine more easily now if you've taken a lot of minor frustrations and speed bumps out of your way. Yes, exactly. Like that's the thing that should be happening. And it's the thing that I noticed was like actually starting to happen. But so what I wanted to do was like, ah, what I want to do, like what does this phrase mean to me? It's like, it does mean to...

two things. It means a kind of narrowing of like year of small improvements. This is not what I'm doing anymore. But that mindset is being somewhat redirected towards like, what is the better day? This is where I keep finding myself like really circling these thoughts of what is the ideal sort of day that I want to have like better?

Back to back, like right from the start, right to the end. And very critically, not like an aspirational. I put this on the calendar. I can't wait to do eight hours of writing today. Kind of like unrealistic expectations, things like no, no, no. The real deal of like.

notice, observe, like reevaluate all these things, like pay attention to the real details of like what works and what doesn't. And I feel like I have the initial framework of this in place already. But this is the thing that I want to really dial in on as like the thing that I am redirecting attentionality to this year. So that's the high level part of what this is.

And then just on a lower level of like, what do I expect that that kind of means is, I feel like with Year of Small Improvements, I really rediscovered the love of a slightly absurdly long time.

checklist of like, here are the items that you're doing in exactly this order in the day. It's like, that is the kind of thing that most people look at it as being like quite ridiculous, but is a thing that to me is obviously so helpful, like work out the exact order that you're doing things. And that was one of these things like, oh, I didn't even realize I had kind of lost that at some point. I wasn't really doing that as aggressively as I was before. And so that's part of like, ah, this is what the intentionality is focusing in on. It's like,

I'm running with the routine. I'm doing the thing. But I'm also noticing is like, is there a different sequencing of these events? Does it make sense if this goes before this? And the other thing that I just want to say here that like I am very aware of and I want to make clear for listeners again, if they're like thinking about something like this is the key thing about this stuff is.

the reality of it. Like it sounds so inflexible, but the important thing to me is like run the routine means like the routine has to be adaptable to whatever else is going on. And there's a big difference between like

This is the minimum viable amount of stuff that you do on even the most disruptive days. Like making those decisions in ahead of time, that makes a really big difference. Thinking about like, oh, even what is the routine on an off day? There is some ideal number of things you should be doing even on a day that you are relaxing. And like that's where I want to really focus my attention towards. Like thinking about how does this work and just...

really zeroing in on like, run the routine, pay attention to the real outcomes of this. How does this actually work? Are there ways that this can be improved? How can it be made sure to be flexible and not fragile? So that is what I'm focusing on in 2025. So from a practical perspective, is it the case that you were like building a bunch of new checklists that enable you to

get work done in a way that you find efficient? Or like, what are the things that you're hoping are going to fall out of this by the time that the year ends? This is actually a byproduct of like, oh, just simply getting better at a bunch of automation stuff is the things that I have already started to work at is... Okay, so like...

High level. What am I trying to achieve with tools like OmniFocus and tools like my calendar, which I've also done a bunch of like, make these more visible. I talked last time, I think about how like with the new kind of OmniFocus, I'm basically always having it available on my watch. Like there's the top two items that I'm looking at. Like you should be reminded of these things. I've just made my calendar much more visible of like, what is it the thing that you should be doing at this point in time?

But the frustrations that I've always had in the past with this kind of stuff is it's like a house of glass in a way. It's like, oh, you design your ideal day, but then you wake up an hour later or like something else is disruptive. And now like the reminder system is subtly off from where it should be because like you're an hour behind or like some other kind of disruption occurs. And so on a real practical level, the thing that I am

focusing the intentionality time on like, get this to work right, that I have a basic version of right now,

is this kind of like flexible routine. I made an offhanded remark forever ago when we were talking about like Siri intelligence thing of like, oh, what's the thing that I really want? It's like, I want to be able to tell Siri to like clear my calendar. Nothing's happening today. I said that because I was already at that point in time kind of working on an automation that I can be like, what kind of day is this? Is this the kind of day where I actually just want to clear everything? Is this the kind of day where everything started like two hours later and I just want to like

reevaluate and figure out what is the minimum viable thing. It's like my calendar and my top two checklist items should always represent the real reality of what I have pre-thought should happen under these circumstances.

And I think that is functionally impossible to do with extant tools because you don't have the ability to say, like, automatically push all of this stuff. Oh, actually, I need to compress, like, work and exercise time into a smaller thing now because I have been delayed or whatever. So it turns out, again, it's like it's mindfulness in the same way. The thing that should happen is I'm, like, trying to lock in a loop of things

at every transition moment, it's like I should be looking at the calendar or list and that calendar or list should accurately represent what a past version of me has pre-decided is the optimal thing to do under these circumstances.

And that includes the considerations like you are sick and cannot work right now or like other sorts of things. It's not the like feel bad because you're not doing what you had as the ideal day. Make sure this really cashes out because there is an answer to something like, oh, you're having an off day.

what is the correct sequence of things you should do in an off day? And those sequence of things can be like, what steps are you taking to recover? And so that's how I'm focusing on this is I feel like this is the missing part that I've just honed in on. So most people talk about the routines. They're

intrinsically talking about a kind of ideal day. When most tools are trying to assist you in getting things done, they are implicitly setting up an expectation of the most perfect thing. But I think there is a way to do this, which is more accurate toward reality, more accurate towards what is the like possibility of options of what is occurring in a particular day. And so I'm

On the details level, that's what I'm focusing on. It's like, that is what I am doing is like, notice, is there a mismatch between what you feel like you should be doing and what the checklist is saying? Notice, it's like, oh, yesterday's routine, like I ran the routine, but I just don't feel like it went well. Why?

Like what could be different about the sequence of steps? What was different about the starting state? Pay attention to like all of these little parts in a very intentional way. And that should cash out in like achieving the things that you want to do in the same way that like,

All the small improvements really cashed out quite directly into huge health improvements and other improvements and just like reducing the friction of my life. So that's the details. And the high level is just like this concept of like, I should be running the routine. It should be going smoothly. Notice when it doesn't.

And there isn't any kind of like blame or feeling bad about yourself for not doing the optimal thing. It's about onboarding. What does that mean? What is the optimal thing to do in a suboptimal state? But I've had more than enough of me in a row here, Mike. I want to know, what are you doing in 2025? Anything new on the horizon? What's happening? What's going on? What's your theme? Oh boy. So...

Oh, man. I have waited for this for a long time. This theme I've set months ago. I've known what my theme was going to be. I live my life online and I've done so for like 15 years. And I share a lot. It's kind of what I've always done. But I've had a huge secret that I've kept from the world. And it's the biggest secret I've probably ever kept from listeners to any of my shows.

I am so excited to share that I'm going to be a dad. Congratulations, Mike. Thank you. It's a big moment. It is the biggest, most life-changing moment a human can have. Oh, man. You can take your time on this because it is a big deal. I will also just say at this moment, it's like many times I...

don't know what is coming up on my Sealy theme. For the record, I did know that Mike was having a baby. So I'm publicly congratulating you here. But for the listeners, I did know this wasn't a complete surprise to me. I think I would have been absolutely appalled. That would be like...

You know, there are a lot of things that when you work with someone from a creative perspective that you kind of, you want to keep the real reactions for the show. This would be one of the worst things I could do to you. Especially because, okay, so the next part. So my wife, Idina, is expecting a baby girl and she is due in February. So it's so soon. This is the other part of this. Like, this has been a really long journey for us for...

many years full of lots of downs. So this was something that

When we were getting around to telling the world, like this is the first place in which I'm speaking about it. I wanted to feel as confident as someone can feel. And everything has been great. My wife is doing fantastic. And I'm so proud of her. She's taken this so well and is doing an incredible job. Yeah. So it's super soon. This has been so hard to keep to myself. I even like now feel weird talking about it.

it because it's like i have spent so much mental energy to not slip up for the last seven months right to not share this information so like it's it's a weird thing for me to even talk about but yes yeah it's very counter to you but like i feel like you did need to do that like that was an important thing to do but that's also why it's like this is a big

release to be able to just like say this publicly to have the announcement to be able to accept congratulations from the world about becoming a father again i'll say it again like it's just it's like such a big deal i'm so happy for you it's been a long road to get here that makes it even so much more of a big deal now that it's really happening so because surprisingly no one my 2025 yearly theme is the year of fatherhood

That is the theme name. That's really beautiful. Some themes skew more personal. Some themes skew more work. This is the most personal any theme can be for me in the sense of like every decision in 2025 goes through how will this affect my ability to be a dad? Right. I mean, and this is for me, not just new stuff. This is all stuff.

So this year was originally called the year of priorities. This was when we were still hoping that this would happen for 2025 before we were lucky enough for it to happen for 2024 because I was really still hoping that this would be a thing for us. And priorities is kind of the biggest function in the year of fatherhood. So I expect that

My becoming a dad will be all encompassing for probably the rest of my life, but like, especially for 2025. And so I know I'm going to need to spend a lot more time mentally assessing what has to be done. What is the most important thing? Who does this?

as like just a general rule for a lot of things that are going to be coming my way next year, especially new stuff, but even the older stuff. Because in 2025, being a dad is the absolute most important thing to me above everything else, everything else. And like, if I want to start this new chapter of my life correctly, I think that has to be the thing. Now,

The next year could throw any amount of challenges at me. What this doesn't mean is that I'm not going to work in 2025 because I want to be a dad. It might mean the challenge requires more work because it's important for my function as a provider for my child.

Right. So like it doesn't mean like all of my time is going to be focused on the baby, even though that is what I want it to be. It is just that like what is the best decision I can make in any moment to best do for my family. But this impacts like everything I do in my work. How much time am I spending on my work? Where am I working? When am I working? All of this stuff is going to become the priorities. But also like I don't really know.

how much time it takes to be a dad. Right? I expect a lot of it. I expect sometimes more than I think and sometimes less than I think. I don't really know. So like, I also feel like, again, unlike a lot of yearly themes, this one is so unknown for me because I have no experience with it. None. None.

Where, like, I might have experienced some things before. Like, I've worked, like, year of people. I've worked at people, right? The year of the weekend. I've taken weekends. You know, like, I have never been a dad. Like, I don't know what it means yet. And so, like, there's a lot of, like, nebulousness to it. That's the thing that's fundamentally different here. And the way that I think about this and the way that I've talked with people about having children and, like, talking to parents about the experience is...

There is some aspect of this that is fundamentally unlike any other human decision and unlike any other change you could go through. You can pick any of the biggest other things. It's like, what's probably the next biggest one is getting married. But even that is like, I've had a girlfriend before, right? Like you have some mental framework for what this is. And I think to a greater or lesser effect,

Everyone who becomes a parent goes through a kind of Phoenix-like moment where some part of the old you is burned away. Then there's a new part of you that takes its place. And that is just a shift that happens. But it's also why it makes it very hard to forward project about what is this going to be like? What is this going to be like now?

in terms of the practicalness of your life, but also what is this going to be like as the literal experience of you? It's the most uncertain thing to try to think about how it's going to be. You mentioned a word there that is in my mind a lot, which is uncertain. Looking ahead at the next year, one of the things that I am feeling more than I have ever felt is uncertainty.

and the effect of that uncertainty like this time of year is always a strange time of year especially a content creator who sells advertising as advertising focused businesses that you don't really know what your next year is going to look like and you don't know until you're pretty much into the next year but i know it's getting harder that is a function that has occurred for like two or three years now every year it's getting a little bit harder and the

The feeling of uncertainty right now is much stronger in me because of the effect of failure, honestly, right? Like that feeling to me right now is much, much stronger than it has been before because the ramifications for failure are bigger now.

Yeah. You've increased the downside of failure massively. Massively. That's what it is. It's like every business and every life is a narrow walk across a vast canyon, but you have made the canyon much vaster. That's what has happened. Like the way I've kind of been talking about it of like,

you know, me and Idina have made these choices together about the life that I live and, you know, the way that our money is made as a family and kind of like we take the good and we take the risk and we take the bad, right? Like that's the thing that we decided together. My child has no say in this, right? So like things going wrong in our family as a source of my... If something goes wrong in my business...

She had no say in that. So that is a thing that is really weighing on me a lot. So I am going to try my best next year to find stability in my work and in my income where I can. This is something that I don't have a...

full plan for. And I've been trying to think of things to make it better, but this is very difficult. I mean, one of these things is developing Cortex brand more for the future. You know, the further we go down this, the better it can be as a business to help kind of like level out any bad times in advertising and stuff like that, right? Like it becomes kind of like a part of my overall puzzle. But the other thing is like I...

want to focus more on membership next year. The direct support that I get from the listeners of my shows, this one and of the other shows that I do that have a good direct support model, that is very reliable. People become members and they stay members for a long time. Or if people leave, we get new people to come in. And that reliability is more reliable than the advertising market, which has various fluctuations

just in the market. Each year there is fluctuations, like there are micro and macro fluctuations. So that is something that I want to put focus on, but this is all so heightened by the fact that I want to take paternity leave and I'm going to take paternity leave. So I will be away from my businesses and won't be able to focus on them in the same way. So that is like a, here is just a set of things that I'm feeling and

I don't have any beginnings of solutions for them, really. But they're just things that I've identified what I consider to be a concern, like a threat. And I can see the two areas in which I could make an impact. But I don't, as of yet, really know what the solutions are for them. And or if they'll even need to be solutions.

But I have other areas that I am considering and I'm thinking about. I wonder what my schedule is like for a family. Yeah. Where is it good and where is it bad? Like, for example, I work late a number of evenings. Is that bad? I mean, probably in the long term, but maybe not because I also only need to be at the studio –

three or four days a week. And I also don't need to be here all day. So I think that there's going to be an element of like time shifting. Like I might spend more time with the family in the morning because I'm sure I'll be awake earlier and like I'll have more time and we'll maybe leave for the studio midday.

And then work until the evening. There's a lot of things that I'm wondering about how I move stuff around and maybe condense things more than I've done before. So like sometimes I will come to the studio, I'll be here at like 10 and I will leave at like seven. But there might be like an hour or two in the middle where I'm like hanging out or I'm playing a game or something because I've done my morning work and I still have my evening show to record. But there's just time in the middle of the day.

Where I can imagine that it might turn into a scenario where that kind of middle time doesn't exist anymore. It's done before and that's my home time. And I get to the studio, say, at two o'clock in the afternoon and I do all my work and record my show and leave. That like my time here may become more condensed. Yeah.

and purpose driven for at least for show stuff because they are very structured very understandable and kind of reliable in like the way that my work days fit I don't really know yet but I know that that is something that I want to focus on and kind of like there being an intentionality to that honestly like

Yeah. If I'm at home, I'm at home. If I'm at work, I'm at work. And kind of like making sure that there is a very good divide between these things so that when I am in these two locations, I am doing the best things that I should be doing when I'm in these locations. Right. So not working at home and not kind of like not working at work.

The difference from a normal year of priorities is, again, like a normal one, you're just sorting for yourself. But this is like, ah, I was thinking, oh, it's just simply good because it's the biggest change in priorities that can possibly happen. But what it also is, is it is the addition of like other people's priorities in such like a deep way that it's

Yeah, I think while everything is uncertain and unpredictable, that basically has to translate into something like all of your priorities that existed before, they have to become more efficient to make space for these other things.

And so, yeah, like you're thinking about the time of the studio. That really makes sense. I was kind of thinking like, oh, I know Mike really likes to have these breaks. It sounds like it works really well for you. But this is one of these cases like, ah, yes, but I think he's right. That is going to almost certainly have to change because you need to make the per hour time at studio more efficient in order to be able to do all of these other things. Like what will be the bigger priority here?

playing 30 minutes of the new Call of Duty campaign or spending time with my child. Right? Like, and, you know, who knows? Different times of the year, depending on the day, there may be a question there, right? Like...

Of course, Mike, each additional hour of anything has a decreasing marginal utility. Like that is just the case. You're not going to spend all of your time with your child. Nobody does that. It wouldn't even make sense to do. But the flip side of that is like, ah, the first quality hour with your child is like

Probably insanely valuable on any given day. And that's a thing that's like, ah, you just have to think about that in a way of like, how does this fit into your life? The boundaries thing that I was talking about from Year of People, that is...

part of this. Setting these boundaries, part of the reason that I set the boundaries that I wanted to set was because of this. So I knew this was happening then. And so kind of laying the groundwork for

I may be less available. What is the right way to deal with that? Like that's part of it. And then the second part of this was one of the reasons I wanted to bring in my assistant was for stuff like this is trying to get someone to a place who can maybe answer questions for me to others because she understands what's going on. Oh, this is why I got the small iPhone. I need to use my phone in one hand. Oh, yeah.

I wasn't putting those puzzle pieces together. Of course. All right. That makes sense. I've been keeping this in my head for ages. I've got to remember to mention this. Yeah, this is why I got the small iPhone this year because it's harder to use the big iPhone with one hand than I'll be using my iPhone with one hand. That's really funny. I was thinking before, what an end of an era of Mike going to the small phone.

This really retroactively puts some additional context on like, yeah, it sure is the end of an era. Mike can't count on using his phone with two hands anymore. I love it. That's great. I have a lot of little bits to this too, right? Like the year of people and putting people around me to help me take an extended parental leave.

One of the things I've been thinking about, and I might do this or we can maybe talk about this. I'll get back to this at another point. My assistant said to me, you know, when you're on parental leave, you could just give me access to your email and I could just read it for you.

And like my initial feeling to that was, oh, God, no. Someone reading my email. And then like the more I thought about it was like there is absolutely nothing wrong with somebody reading my email. Mike, 100 percent. You should do that. Yeah. That's a no brainer. Yeah. You should do that. It was just one of these things where like she said it to me and I couldn't believe that somebody suggested it. But then by like two minutes later, I was like, no, this is a really good idea. So this is something I'm thinking about. So stuff like that.

But yeah, there's a lot of other little bits, right? Health and fitness. You kidding me? I mean, I've got to live forever now. So that has become like a thing that I'm thinking a lot more about. Finances in general, like I've got

I've got to be more responsible. Like it's kind of like responsibility is part of it too. And health, fitness, finance is like responsibility because I am responsible for another person. Like in a way that I have never been responsible before, especially because, especially at the beginning, she won't be able to do nothing. She can't do nothing. And so I have this responsibility

responsibility to her and so I'm starting to think about different areas of my life differently like in a way that you know I have lots of friends who have kids and they would make decisions and I would kind of be like why are you making that decision that way and now I'm starting to realize like oh they were being responsible parents

I was going to ask for an example here, but it sounds like this is a broad category of they were making a slightly boring feeling decision. Is that what you're getting at? Yeah. Like, why won't you take that trip now? You know, or like, come on, how hard can it be? No, there's just being responsible parents. So I retroactively apologize to all of my friends who have children.

This is, without a doubt, the most North Star-iest North Star theme that I've had. Yes, yes. This is how I've often explained what a yearly theme is. It's like it's just this thing, and you're just always moving towards it. It's up in the sky. It is your destination. It's how you find where you're going to go. You're never going to get to it, but it guides you. Some themes that I've had, they have a result.

In a way that I could imagine. Like, oh, if I do this stuff, I reckon I could be this person at the end of this year. I have no idea what this looks like. And also, there is no world in which this is just like a one-year thing. No, no, no. This is a theme that is about crafting the newest...

biggest, most permanent part of your personality and your identity. It's not a one and done theme by any measure. It's the first exploration of what does this mean for you? How do you change? What are you changing in your life? But it's different from other things because it is a new identity that will just be unchanged. And

I'm excited for that. Maybe this is terrible, but as a content creator, I'm also excited about all of the ways in which I'm going to have a new perspective on things.

And there will be an element of our audience that I will be able to relate to differently and they will relate to me differently. The way that I think about the work that I do is going to change. And I'm intrigued to see how all of those things kind of shake out as well. Like, I do not know what 2025 is going to look like. All I know is that fatherhood is the guiding principle upon which all decisions and considerations have to be made. So...

I can't wait. Oh, God, I'm so excited. Like, you know, I'm sure people... I know I'm going to get into this in more places and in more ways over the next few months or whatever, but...

I am not scared about being a dad. Like I have no apprehension for it at all. I'm incredibly excited. I wished I didn't even have to wait. You know, like I, I have been ready for this for months. I want it to be now. I'm happy to get the last few months of, uh, my marriage the way that it is right now. Like I'm happy to be living in that before it changes forever. But,

We are so ready to be parents. And I'm so excited and I'm so pleased that I get to share this with everybody. Yeah, I can't wait.

Listener, I think this year, more than maybe any other year, you could feel how big and impactful themes are. Mike and I have done this together for so long, and I continue to be surprised and delighted at how much this can really improve our lives, how much it can be used as a tool to focus your thoughts in a long way over a long time.

This is our pitch to you that you should try a theme and...

If you want to try a theme, we do obviously suggest that the best tool for this is the Theme System Journal. I always like to say you can do this with anything, but we have designed the journal to be the best tool that can help you in the way that you want to think about, progress, and check back in on your theme over the course of a year. What I like most...

about journaling around my theme every day is it doesn't let me forget it. So every day I sit down my theme system journal and each journal page is divided into four sections and I write down

things in these sections that are repeatable and chosen by me of how my day has gone. And then in the back of the journal, we have an area called the daily actions, which is almost like a habit tracker. And these are some things that I kind of tick off each day that if I hit each 10 of these things and I have progressed my life in the way that I want and in the way that lines up to my theme. What I also love about the theme system journal in this way is it sits on my desk and it is the constant reminder of my yearly theme.

It is a flexible, adaptable, high-quality journal. It supports you throughout the year. The structure is designed to grow with you. It can evolve as you do, as your theme may shift and change. It's fine because you set your own pattern with how you journal every day. We're not forcing you to do anything. You can just choose to do it however you like.

Every page has a perforated corner for you to tear out once you complete each page, which is very satisfying, but also makes it incredibly easy to pick up where you left off. Now, as Gray mentioned, it is essentially just a nice journal. You can do this with any journal. And we have tons of information about the Theme System Journal and about how we journal with themes at themesystem.com. And you can go and read all about it.

Now, we made the product that I think best reflects this. And so I recommend that you give it a go.

But hey, if you already have a journal that you want to use, you can use that too. Yeah. And I will also just make the pitch for what I know is a certain kind of listener who's going to be interested in trying this and wants to just do it digitally. And again, it's totally fine. Like if that works for you, you do that. But I think especially for anyone who's doing this for the first time, the presence of a physical object in your life

that is like on your desk or in some other visible place. And you just cannot discount the impact that that has. And it's one of the reasons why it's like, I love that we made this journal because it's

The physicalness of it really matters. It is a facilitator. To go with my own theme for the year, I think it reduces friction to simply have that thing on your desk in a visible place. You have a pen nearby and you write in it. And again, the act of writing with your hand on an actual piece of paper does something different to your brain. It forces you to slow down. It forces you to really think about it.

I feel like even the moment of when you like open something up that is paper, it's like it's a small bit of preparation for your mind to be like, hey, we're going to do this thing now. And it just like gets you in a different mode. So that's also why I feel like if you're doing paper,

this for the first time, I highly recommend you do it with a physical journal. One that you like or one that we have purposefully made to do this as well as possible. It absolutely makes a mode shift where you become reflective.

When you put down your phone or you move your keyboard or you even close the notebook you were previously using to open your specific journal, it really makes it intentional. And I think that you can make your theme an intentional thing by reflecting on it every day with Theme System Journal. So I said you can learn more at themesystem.com and you can buy now at cortexbrand.com. Cortexans, the show may be over, but it doesn't have to be.

Go and subscribe to MoreTechs and you will get more content for this episode. In this episode, we're actually going to review our 2024 Cortex brand theme, which is the year of basics, and set our theme for 2025 so you can hear us talk about that. All you need to do is go to getmoretechs.com and you can sign up and become a member and you will get longer ad-free episodes of Cortex.

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