A Googler’s guide to getting things done
57:16 Share

Welcome the verge cast, the flagship podcast of the add cast in system. If you don't know what that is, don't worry about IT. And honestly, you're probably Better off for IT. But if you know you know i'm a friend, David piers, and this is the first in our new three part series that we're calling work smarter. And the idea is based to talk about productivity.

But I mean that in the biggest browst losest way possible, like I will talk to four hours about counter apps and task management systems and whether notion is Better than one note, like, truly, I will talk you about this four hours, but no one needs to hear that. I just think that these questions about how we should deal with all of the stuff that happens in our digital lives is really interesting. How should we think about screen time and managing our relationships with our devices? Where should we put all of our stuff? We have all this stuff online, from photos to sensitive documents to emails to, like just the random things that you accumulate as you go about your life day to day.

How should we manage all of that? Does that matter? Do you need to manage all of that? These are the questions, I think are really interesting.

And we're in a minute right now, where are there a lot of new tools being built to make sense of all of your digital stuff. And we're starting to rethink what that means to be productive. What IT means to be a person online is changing. And I think that's really interesting. And so we're going to spend the next three sundays talking about all of that.

We're going to talk to people to make products, people who use products, people who talk to people about using those products and try to make sense of all of IT and maybe come up with some like cool practical tips or on the way for the first one, we're going to talk to a Laura may Martin who works at google, helping other people that google be more productive, SHE coaches, executives. He teaches courses. SHE has a newsletter that you can subscribe to SHE just sort a book called up time.

That's really good. And the thrust of her work is to help people get more done. But to also redefine what that looks like, he thinks a lot about how you should use downtime and how you should structure your days and how you think about your own energy flows and communication styles, and really what this means to just kind of be more deliberate about everything that you do, and not just professionally.

One of her big ideas that I really like, and we talk about a bit, is this collapse of the idea of there is a professional you and a personal you. I think that's wrong. There's just you you have to do all this stuff.

And increasingly, all this stuff is meshed together and happening on screens. So we talked about all that and much more. IT was a really interesting conversation, and I learned to time.

So let's just get into IT. All of that is coming in just a second, but I have to check my notes to make sure I got to everything. So hold on, i'll be at back.

Support for the show comes from the crucible moments, a podcast from the koa capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences. No one knows this Better than the founders of some of today's most influential, incredible moments.

Let's listeners in on the maker break events that defined major companies like dropbox, youtube, Robin hood and more told by the founders themselves. Tune in to the season two of crucial moments. Today, you can listen at crucial moments. Stop com wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome back. All right, let's get into my chat with Laura main Martin from google. So Laura, but this book called up time is kind of a like how to get more stuff done productivity book that has lots of systems and tools and there are like template tes for note fabs that you can use. But her big idea is basically that just raw, a number of tasks completed, is not the goal that we're in this place now where we have to provide different ways of thinking about productivity. That button seats in an office is not the answer, that how many widgets you create is not a good measure.

And SHE also argues that the way we've talked about productivity for forever is just wrong that we've been in this age of, you know, hustle culture and hustle browse being like get up at five A M and do different tasks and then six hours of workout to know you three days out of my day. And all of that, he says, is just wrong. It's unhealthy.

IT leads to burn out. IT doesn't actually help you accomplish more over time. It's just unproductive. So we started just by talking about that, and I asked her basically, yes, okay, you want this more holistic, more seen, less hostile cultural way of thinking about productivity.

But is that realistic? Are we actually going to get that in a time where still maybe the best way we have to measure productivity is how many hours you in the office and how many things do produce. Even if everybody intellection agrees those are bad measures, those are kind of still the measures we have.

So I asked her what she's seeing. Is there a real cultural shift happening in the way that we talk about productivity? Or is this just kind of a woooo thing that we like to tell ourselves before we get back to yelling at people about not working enough?

What I would ask of you too, is all these people who have talked to that kind had that mentality for maybe ten or fifteen years. What happened is, then, is that sustainable? Or those people now totally step back from the workforce and started a farm, because that was the only way of kind of pulling out of IT.

So I think that one thing the pandemic did is kind of shift our mindset to, okay, we have to think of ourselves as whole people and everything we have going on with work at home. And how do we look at how to keep employees happy and productive long term. And so even the word productivity, I didn't really want IT in the title of the book because they just feel that brings up this sense of, like, uh, I gotto turn more out, kind of that sense of dread.

But I think when we think about well being and people ask about the baLance of the two IT makes IT seem like there the opposite, and there are two ends of the stick that you're trying to go back and forth on. But when you think about the fact that when you prioritize your well being, you end up more productive, which gives you more time for your well being, which makes you more productive. And so IT ends up being actually this holistic view and sustainable of you of getting things done.

I think the hustle culture is still having its moment in the sense of you hear a lot of ah come back to back i'm crazy you know how IT is fire drills this this language around IT. And so I try to be aggressively the opposite and say awkward things like i'm actually the perfect level of baLance or have the right exactly right front of commitments or you know, I have breaks in my day and IT makes people feel weird because, you know, that's what we're supposed to do, but nobody talks like that. So I think the language is dragged a bit, but I think the mindset there.

which is great, is so funny. You bring up the word productivity because this is the thing i've been thinking a lot about two. And like we talk about productivity going back to, like the industrial revolution is like, literally, how many things are you making? Intellectuality, if you ask anyone, is a terrible measure, right? Like all of our measures of productivity in life now are bad.

Like, how long were you sitting in your chair is not a good measure of productivity. How many things did you make as like a knowledge worker is not even a thing. And yet IT feels like an aggregate. Nothing has changed. And I I think in a certain way, like I thought to fox IT companies like microsoft and google who are like looking for new ways to track people with the idea that maybe if you attach more numbers to this will sometimes figured that out. No, everything will be great. What I wonder is whether like we're going to look back fifty years from now and realized that like the pandemic was a real sort of cultural inflection point, or if we're going to be stuck in these problems forever, even though everybody knows the solutions we've been talking about for decades are not the right ones.

Yeah I think even though like how long sitting at your desk, but you know you know that nine to five, I feel like even with the pandemic, we saw a little bit of a shift to and in some companies like google already thinking this way. But oh, if somebody feels like they work Better from ten to six, is that something we can honor? And and we only would have figure that out about ourselves.

And we were given that little bit of breathing room and flexibility to decide our schedules and without commutes and working from home. And so I think the goal when I talk to managers and and people who are thinking, how do I judge if it's not number of calls per day? If it's not, you know how much did I get done that day? What should I be really judging? And I think IT goes back to that one gevalia.

Ece, do you have happy, successful, inspired, creative employees that want to stay and that are performing well? And when we look at the macro level, so instead of, hey, what did you get done this week, how long are you sitting in your chair today knowing that there will be eds and flows and giving people that flexibility instead saying, what did you accomplish this quarter or hey, we're gona look at this half your project and you do IT in the way that feels best to you and IT gives more of that chance for you to figure out what is the best way to do that. Is that breathing room instead of the micro age mentality .

curous how you think about this, even in like the coaching you're doing with folks at google? Because I I would assume most of the people are working with our managers and other sort of high ranking people, people who oversee people, generally speaking, right? And like, yes, those are the people who set the rules for the other people.

Many of humor are gonna read a book like yours in order to figure out how to escape the meeting hill that their managers have put them in. And so, like, I think this idea of starting at the top to make some of this change makes a lot of sense to me. But IT also seems like the last few years have been a lot of people raise in in their hands being like, I get way more worked on at home, can I stay at home and a lot of managers being like absolutely not community of as because that's how I deliver working. What are you seeing from the manager or side of thing like they just slowly like learning how to let go a little bit on some of that stuff.

I think you know there is a lot of flexibility in the sense that, okay, if you're going to spend three days at home, then i'm gonna be OK with whatever you're choosing to do on those two days. If you want to switch the days that you're here or let's think about our team meeting, meeting schedule. And so you're right, always encourage, even from the well being perspective.

We were just talking about know I tell managers if you are going to say, oh, don't worry about working on the weekends, but I am sending emails on the weekends or take your vacation off but you know you'll see me emAiling on vacation that doesn't set the example. So IT really does have to start at the top where you might create you. One thing I do with a lot of executives as create a user manual, meaning A A description of how they work. And I think it's important to showcase there. Hey, i've really thought about where I work best, and i've thought about the fact that I have my power hours or my best workout when i'm at home in the morning. And so i'm going to do my best to keep those free and communicate that and encourage people on your team to do the same and have that empowerment to say i'm really thinking about when I get my best work done and then as a manager, both living that and communicating IT because the more that you talk about those things, the more that says, oh, you know, r VP this so I feel like I can do that and they're showing how they get more done and I can do the same yet.

Do you have a strong thesis on hybrid work? IT feels like we're in a moment right now where I suspect everyone you talk to is asking you, like how do I set up my team to succeed in a hybrid universe? And at some point, maybe the answers is lots of answers, but that's no fun. So do you have a sort of strong idea about how to kind of do this correctly?

Yeah, I think that some level of flexibility is idea also saying, you know, everyone has to be in office every day at this time. I don't think you're going to get your best results at that point. You might not even get the best people with that schedule.

And so I think figuring out what is that right mix of saying, hey, we as a team need to connect and that needs to be on this day and setting those things from the beginning so that people can then work around IT. But at the same time, you know I know a lot of successful companies that have only remote employees, but there really thinking about, okay, then we need to have these connection points throughout the year, maybe more in person offsides. Or you know if you're working globally, you need to have more of a structure of saying, okay, when we have APEC U S.

Meetings, they're always on tuesday night, wednesday morning because that's respecting culturally and everybody is is not just working at all different times. And so I think it's looking at the makeup of your team because hybrid can be lots of different things that can mean. You in the office and in work, I can mean some of your team is in the office and some of your team is remote, which says you know a lot about higher conducting meetings and making sure that people feel included and things like that.

So I think it's really about intention. I mean, so many things are about tention, but sitting down and saying, what does this actually look like and how can I make IT work? And then the other thing I always encourages, don't just set and forget IT. If you have a team who's hybrid and you're say, hey, let's test out this three, two model. Let's test out all of us being here wednesday, and then you choose these other days in our meetings, fall these days, go back in a quarter, half year and take a survey and ask how it's working because a lot of times you won't flush that out unless you ask. And so that's the best way to make sure it's working for everyone totally.

And one of the things I really like about your book is you keep coming back to the idea that you just can have to do this up on on purpose. And I never I know I hadn't really thought about IT until I was reading up, but I think it's really true how much of work and Frankly, the digital life in general just happens to us, right? Like things appearing in your inbox, stuff happens in your calendar.

Like slack is always going. There's just there's just things always happening. And I think like the all the examples you gave of executives, you talk to her like where are you spending time and they just don't know. Was both very uh made me feel a lot Better about my own habits but was also really interesting IT. And I think were in a moment right now where so much has changed about how we work and like the tools that we use and the kinds of work that gets done.

And IT feels like we just haven't developed the muscles in so many ways to actually both like measure this stuff with numbers and tools and stuff, but also to just say, like, okay, how is any of this supposed to work? What am I actually doing? What am I getting out of this? And I feel like IT was just just simple piece of advice to take out of like a in a lot of ways, a very sort of practical, technical book. But I was just like just pay attention. Look at this as you're doing well.

I think that was one of cow new ports books, maybe digital minimum of that talks about omi culture and how they don't reject all technology. They actually look at each individual technology and really analyze, is this technology, what is he going to do for us? What is that going to take from us? Is IT worth adopting.

They like really think through IT. And I feel like it's the opposite where like you is like art flags on the scene. Now we're all in slack. Okay, now we have our phones. Now we sign up for this newsletter.

It's just like we default into these things and then we spend a lot of time kind of backtracking and say, like, okay, do we really need this military in box? Do I actually want to be on my phone for this many hours every night? You know? So is that reverse mentality? But I joke with people.

My phone has a bad time, like the alarm goes off, I put IT to bed. I put IT to bed in its own bedroom. But that requires a lot of intention because it's much easier for me to just sit with IT all night on my couch doing things that I actually don't want to do. So what does kind of require that thoughtfulness of what time do I want to be done with my phone at night? And then how do I make that happen with a routine?

Yeah yeah and I think there is an interesting tension in that that I I find really fast any about this whole space that I really like the productivity submit because half the post on there or just somebody being like, why can't I get anything done? I'm super burned out and half the comments are always like trying to be helpful and give them tips and sort of build them up. And I take a break.

You know, here are some things that were and then the other half of people being like, just be discipline, shut up. Like just if you have that, you just do the stuff. I don't understand. And I think it's it's such an interesting economy because on the one hand, like if you want to use your phone less, just use your phone less rates is not I think is not a particular helpful piece of advice, but is not a wrong piece of advice.

And like charger phone in the other room is a thing you can just do, right? But I also think we're in a moment right now, we're all of the questions are being asked about like, okay, how can I sort of use technology to help me manage my technology? And we're talking about you focus modes, all these different apps that build trees when you're not using them and all the difference.

So curiously, how you feel about just kind of being a thoughtful person and being proactive and thinking this through verses like can you build systems to protect you from your own worst instincts because I feel like a lot of technology is trying to take advantage of your worst. And thanks. And you are very much trying to keep people out of those holes.

Yeah, I think I acquit always just if you were saying, hey, I wanted eat healthier, you know that's like a lofty IT is kind of a big goal. And so if you have years of having those practices and recipe and that IT, it's easier. But if you're getting started, you really want to drill down to what does that actually look like.

So all the way down to, like a grocery list, like this week I wanted healthy. What am I actually going to buy the store and what am I going to clear out of my cabinet? So that's why in the book I didn't just want these like delegate more.

You know, I feel like those are just like too big. I think those those good people on redit you're talking about, they are like just put your phone away. It's like, well, we almost need to trick our brain into these like little small you know routines even with myself.

I see you know what, I can't get something done I talk about in the book that's been a really popular idea like splitting up the task into the preparation of the task and the doing of IT, because for some reason, you know, setting out anything I need to do, and then walking away and then stumbling upon IT the next day and saying, oh, this is already set out. It's like that, such a simple thing. And so you could just say, just do IT just bake the mus but instead of that I can say OK no, I have actually arrest be something to do.

I'm just going to set the ingredient out. And so I think it's a mix of know having the understanding why these things are important, but then also giving yourself a break and saying, yes, it's very hard to just say put your phone away. So maybe I will take advantage of something on my phone that turns off certain apps at a certain time just to remind myself and maybe in three months that could be turned off and I would have the good habits to just put my phone away.

But if you never start with some of those things, and I do think the technology itself has a lot of those features that we just don't go into which I talk about in the tools chapters, you know, like you can choose, here are the ten people I want to get email notifications from and after hours, and that can be a setting, and no one takes the time to set that up. Again, we default into, oh, you know, there was a office wide email about the carnival going on, and I opened my phone at nine to see IT. We really just have to either take the time to set up rules for ourself, set up the rules in the technology itself, but then knowing that with time, we'll see the benefits of those things and say, well, I really see when I do this IT makes a big difference. And now I have that as a habit in in general.

And one of the reasons I knew I wanted to have you on the show was because you have a whole chapter in your book in which you just yelled people to use the settings of their apps. And it's like that's that's a large cast thing, if i've ever heard that in my entire life.

Simple, but it's underworked. I think, you know, I even talk about the dish washers thing in the book, about how my father in law just is his dish washing is a piece of art. It's so perfectly stack and everything comes out clean. He gets so much in there.

And when I asked, how did you learn how to do this? Like, he's like, no, the curve bulls go here just like, how did you know that he's like what I read the manual for ten minutes when I got the dish washer and it's like how many of us do that? No one.

If we run the dish washers every single day, imagine how much that ten minutes of just really understanding the settings would benefit us every single time we run the dishwasher. So you with your phone, with your email, you're slack like all these things. The readers are there, but we don't take the time to dive into you. There should be like a limit, like you can't get into the APP unless you spend ten minutes figuring out what I can do basically.

Yeah, I ve spent a lot of time in recent years trying to figure out whose responsibility IT is to do that stuff. Because on the one hand, like there are a lot of tools out there that are vastly more powerful than almost anybody knows, right? And sometimes, like excell is the perfect example, right? Like if you really know how to use a cell, you can run the damn world out of excell.

But if you don't and you just need to type a bunch of numbers in and get some of those numbers like that's fine. You don't actually need to know how to use the tool. And so I think to force you to learn how to do everything before you do anything is actually the wrong outcome.

But then is IT excel job to teach me as I go? Or is that gna be annoying because he got all these little pop up tool tips that everybody just ignored and closes? So I, I don't know. Part of me wonders if this is just sort of an impossible problem to solve. That is like, how do you help me along without.

Getting in the way as I do the stuff that I actually need to do because I think to your point, the other thing that's happening is like you get lack for the first time and you open slack and there's already stuff happening like the the minute you get slack, you are already behind. And and that's stressful, right? And and I think it's true with a lot of work is like you don't download powerpoint to learn how to use powerpoint.

You download powerpoint because you know somebody a deck. So I think this thing of like building the work about work into the work is just really hard. And I grew you that it's really valuable and and sort of whose respons ibi IT is to make that easier has always been a chAllenge. And think i'd talked a lot of product people who can figure out how to do IT because .

like we don't want to get IT in their way was going to say, yeah, I work a lot with our product people and I think it's finding that right. BaLance of like google counter, for example, can tell you how much time you're spending in each type of event and give you all this data. And it's like but if you're my mom who's just kind of scheduling a couple one of things on our google counter, you know he doesn't care about that.

So I think IT would actually probably waste your time to see a whole tutorial of how i'm using google counter. But I think the right point to hit is maybe if I am changing the color of an event, you know that they say, okay, this person is now customizing, you know, all of their events and maybe they care about, did you know you can see how much time you spend in each calendar color, you know, so then and then, oh, and by the way, you can click this little tutorial. So it's kind of like, where's the right hook? You know, if you see somebody add one multiple time zones and now you know, okay, you're working across time zones.

Did you know you can add world clock and so you know just finding that right, what is the profile of the user where they're looking for more information? And then how can you make IT easy from there? Because I totally agree, people are using the tools in so many different ways. You don't want to overwhelm getting the sum in the cells person with every single formula available. So I think it's is trying to find that profile person and and give them the right things they need.

We got to take a break, but then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about digital tools because I have too many of them on my computer. It's time to figure out which ones to use. But at that.

Support for the show comes from the crucible moments, a podcast from the coia capital. We've all had turning points in our lives where the decisions we make end up having lasting consequences. No one knows this Better than the founders of some of today's most influential, incredible moments.

Let's listeners in on the maker break events that defined major companies like dropbox, youtube, Robinson od and more told by the founders themselves. Tune in the season two of crucial moments. Today, you can listen at crucial moments, stop com, or very listen podcasts.

Alright, we're back with Laura a. Martin. So I wanna to talk now about how you think about digital tools, especially when you're coaching somebody. Do you have kind of a diet of things that you hand them that you're like? These are the tools that you need to use, because they are the ones that work the best, I assume, because you work at google, many of them are google tools. But do you have sort of religion? Unlike everybody should have a calendar, and everybody should maintain us to do list, and everybody should maintain the X, Y, Z, E mail structure or is that just as personal as some of the other productivity stuff that are talking about?

Yeah, that's a great question. I think the first thing I like to ask in a coaching session, the point is that everyone has pressure from work or life or whatever is. Is this like get things you need to do, pressure and IT will surface.

So I think that when that pressure is hitting, it's going to find a way to get to you somewhere. And so I could be your emails. So with somebody emails you and you don't email them back theyll email you again.

And if you don't respond, they're going to add time to your calendar. And if you don't do that, they're gonna instant message you or chat you and you know. So why not having that one place where you've directed your communication and you've told people and you've stayed on top of that one place, you end up having pressure in all of them.

And so I think that it's very personal in the sense of what do you want your medium to be? And so some people are, like, you note, still want to deal with email. I'd rather have people pop in in my office every five minutes just, you know, touch base, that's a personality.

Some people only want to communicate instant chat and they are they don't want to start with a meeting. And so the first question I always asks, if everything could fund through one of those, what would your preference be? And then that's the tool that you really, really need to get to.

And so IT doesn't really matter exactly what took you're using. I think people look for tool just to solve their problems, but it's really the intention behind the tools. It's how you're using the tools that makes the biggest difference. And so it's thinking through that first before again before you just dive into the tool.

okay. Well, as someone who uses every tool and expect them all to solve my rooms, I feel personal attack. But but I think that makes sense to me. I think the idea of having one thing that you treat, the sort of your main communication system is is really smart.

right at telling people is the except of people chat me or say, hey, can I grab time on your calendar I usually say, hey, do you mind starting with email and then will go from there.

And so it's it's just a gentle nudge putting that, you know and of course, I still meet and chat with people, but it's just, hey, this is where I prefer communication and IT just makes IT a lot easier on you because I always say if you have like twelve places to check for things you need to do, think a bit you went out to your street and you have like twelve mailboxes. So like you'd have to go to every single one to be like, is there a bill in here? This all advertisements.

So by having less places to check, IT gives our brain a little bit less stress of yours a slack. Then you've fn all people there and your brain thinks, okay, if I check here, i'm pretty much good. You know, I got to look other places, but people know, look for me here and that can help a lot.

What do you tell people who are like, I want to do chat or I want to do email or I really believe in meetings, but my boss is different and that's not up to me like, yeah, I do think the one thing I hear a lot from people who are sort of mad productivity cultures that are like this. This all sounds great for people who are completely and charged their own life and schedule.

And I just not most people, right, like most people have a job where someone else tells them more or less where to be in, what to do and how to communicate over time. And I think it's it's easy in that moment you just come to throw your hands up and be like, well, i'm not in charge. There's nothing I can do about IT. But of course, I mean most of the people you talk to I think are fairly seen er but like they have bosses, what do you tell those people? Is the job just to kind of adapt?

Well, I think now I coach executives. But I mean, in my fourteen years at google, i've coached you know all levels. And i've also been all levels. I've been what I called the sandwich levels, which is I have people reporting to me. I'm to people, you know, i'm not the executive who's making all the decisions.

And so I I try to include the book those things that I still teach in my scale ball learnings that are more directed at what you're talking about. And I think when I had that, I prefer email sense. I also had a manager who exclusively chatted. That was the only way he was going to communicate with me. And so I think that what I talk about, the whole book 给 even eighty， twenty is gone to make a huge difference.

Like if everybody who's coming at me and says, hey, can you do a coffee chat? I say, hey, can you actually send an email first but then I say, and I always pick three people that can chat me no matter what, and is usually like my boss, my boss is boss, and maybe like a crossed functional partner that i'm working with. If they chat me, i'm not going to say, well, I prefer email, but if i've done that with everybody on my team, then now i've still shifted you most of my energy into the right place.

So the same thing, you know, you make this perfect all that you wanted to fall this way. You know, you can't tell your manager, hey, I can't meet during this time. That's my power hours. But you know, if you've .

saying exactly right.

but if you've done that with everyone else, you know if you have no plan, then it'll never fought a plan. But if you have some plan, it'll at least fall some and you feel a difference with some, you know you feel a big difference with saying, so I think sometimes people just throw up their arms and say, I don't have control over my meanings and I don't have control this. But no matter what your level, there's still is something you have control lover, you know. And that the only lever you can really pull.

where is the science right now on kind of energy flows and how we're starting to understand when people are and are not productive because I think I think it's pretty obviously a personal thing, but also it's insight. There is an increasing body of research that says everyone has that kind of cycle that you're describing and we can attack those cycles with different systems in different places. Like how well do we kind of understand what peak productivity looks like for people?

Yeah weirdly, I feel like a lot of the studies that i've been happening almost started with sleep. So like those natural circadian rhyme of like, how are we sleeping? When are we resting? And then one of my favorite books is by Daniel painting, called when.

And I feel like he really started talking about, okay, but how does that apply to productivity? And so how do we take those rythm that we know about ourselves and say, i'm just somebody who sits down at eight in the morning and does not feel like jumping into the day or no. I'm a person who naturally gets an afternoon well.

And of course, it's very personal. And I would say that if you ve talked to the hundred and last people that I coached, I would say this would be the top answer of the one thing they took away and and immediately applied and made the biggest difference because not all time slots are creative equally. And I think that we look at our schedule, we say, okay, only thirty minutes tomorrow.

I an hour to work on something. So for me, blocking nine to ten is so different than blocking four to five. It's totally different. I'm gonna feel different in that moment. I'm going to produce different work, you know, so I am going to be in different energies. And so just knowing that small thing about myself can help me shift just a couple of things so that I can do IT where IT feels right. But IT doesn't just mean, hey, i'm focus two or three hours of the day.

That's that's my day. Is your experience that most people when you ask them about that can self assess pretty quickly?

No, I think they can say things like i'm not really a morning person or i'm a bit of a night owl or I like to do I find myself not wanting to do this work at this time you know, it's kind of these like little snipped but if I say, hey, what are two or three hours a day do your best heads down? Focus strategic work. Not a lot of people have like that exact answer.

So but it's so fun to uncover IT with people because you know can be as simple as okay, just keep a little post IT and when you're feeling your best right down, what time IT is some of the conditions you this goes back to working from homeworking in the office kind of thing? Just what are some of those patterns you're notice in every time I am working from home and it's one woman I loved SHE noticed IT was like ten to one every day he would write down. I'm feeling focus.

Then when he was in the office, SHE was taking a break every day at noon to eat lunch. And he was like, you know what, I actually that's like one of my best hours of the day and i'm just eating lunch. So what if I shift some of my lunches to one P M.

And squeak that extra hour out of my best time? And that's just such a small change and such a small thing we noticed. But now she's getting back like three hours of the week, a focus time just from shifting lunch and knowing that about herself. So I think that people have those general, but they haven't actually thought through what is my ideal two to three hours.

And IT can be from sometimes getting yourself thinking about IT can say, hey, if you had these things to do tomorrow and focus things that just require you like build a new presentation or write something and you had no meetings, no commitment, no structure to your day at all. How would you set IT up for tomorrow? So that's when you can get the sense of there like, well, i'd wake up kind of late and then I do this for a while and then I might take a break and work out. And then, okay, now I can tell you you're kind of more an afternoon person because you have never said no. Then you have people who are like why I wake up at five and i'd start right away and you so like those little nuggets can help you figure out, okay, they're hearing on this side or this side and and figure IT outward, right?

We got to take one more break, and then we're going to come back. We have a few more things to talk about, some maps, some I back.

Support for this show comes from the aclu. The acl u knows exactly what threats a second Donald trump term presents, and they are ready with a battle tested playback, the acu legal action against the first trumpet administration, four hundred and thirty four times, and they will do IT again to protect immigrants rights, defend reproductive freedom, safeguard free speech in five for all of our fundamental rights and freedoms. Join the aclu today to help stop the extreme project twenty twenty five agenda. Learn more at acl u dot org.

All right, we're back, Laura. I spent a lot of time while I was reading your book thinking about i'm sure you've seen the meme that's like the bell curve and at the beginning, it's just apple notes and in the middle, it's this like unbelievably complex web of all these interlocking productivity tools. And then the end is just apple notes.

Again, like someone who was lived in middle of that bilker for a really long time, I feel that. But I wonder, like you advocate one point in the book for doing things like boosting up the design of your email plan in order to make IT look nice the way that you or tweet all the settings and changing the labels and sort of making everything lovely in a way that makes you want to use IT. And I totally get the appeal of that.

I also think it's really easy and a lot of these tools to spend a lot of time mucking around with the tools and not a lot of time using them. And I think especially like i'm someone who is very much guilty of spending way too much time trying to devise the perfect roof gold berg machine that will make everything easy forever and not actually just doing the thing that would have taken me less time to go get done. And there's tons of tools out there are being built for this stuff, right?

You can build an incredibly complex web of notes and personal knowledge management is a thing and because of about the casting for hours. But I wonder if at the end of the day, you're spending a lot of time with these people being like just right a list because that where we need the land. So how much of what you're talking about is just get a piece of paper.

just get a piece of paper.

Is that like is that where we need to land? Yeah like I I wonder so much of what you're talking about is like just just make things smaller and make things simple er and part of me I hate s that advice if i'm being honest, I think is the right advice. But I think it's it's a really interesting moment kind of in the product space of all of this stuff just cares what you think about as you look at all those tools.

I think you when you start with a system that you want to use in your head, so it's kind of like that. Why in the whole book, I give tour agnostic suggestions of how to organized things. So for example, email, you know, and I talk about thinking about IT like laundry and thinking about your driver like your inbox.

And you know, you have all these laundry basket of things you need to do. So that's my system that can actually be then applied to any email program. I have to think gmail does IT best because I worked on up.

But I think it's then saying, okay, I I have this system for email or I have this system for capturing things i'm thinking about and getting them to to do this now that I opened the tool, instead of looking at tool to solve all of these things of the system, how can the tool support the system that i've created in my head? And then sometimes enhance IT like like things like my ability to add things to my to do list using my voice on google, keep its like that is a tool based feature that's amazing and helps me keep up with the system that I started on paper and I used to have to run on my paper and write something down, which is inefficient. But instead of kind of logging into the tool and saying, what are you going to do for me, having that behind the scenes like this is how I want to think about email.

This is how I wanna capture. So that's why I tried make those systems for people so that they can say, like kate, this is how an idea, when you get an idea, this is how I should travel until it's actually executed. You know, you're on a run. You think of something.

You know, what tool can get IT at your head? What tool are you looking at to put IT in a group of things to do when you're at your computer? When are you actually scheduling the time to do that in a calendar and then executing? And so I think everyone's different, but the way that you're talking does make me feel like you have a lot of focus on tools where as some people, I feel the opposite, where it's like, hey, you know, some of the stuff you're doing with paper and pencil can really be enhanced with some of these tools.

So let's see if we can just shift. You know, I work with a lot of teams that are global and you know they're trying to do a synchro communication about priorities. And there is a lot of benefit in things like google dogs, and we're all working on the same time in the middle.

The night you're here, i'm at priority. So you know that would be impossible if you're not using a tool like that. So I think in some ways, you can go too far one direction. But IT does feel really nice to always have that sense of, hey, if this tool was ripped from me right now, i'd be able to replicate this system because it's mine. It's not the tools, you know so I think that's a good place to start.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I I am cared about the voice thing because um I was all prepared to have a with you about penny paper versus digital tools.

Where do you stand?

Let's go i'm fully digital tools um but only I I am less mad at your approach because i'd love the idea of making a listen and taking a picture of that on your phone. I think that is like a an extremely clever middle ground of like the the science on when you write by hand, you remember IT Better seems just unshakable, like that just is true. My handwriting is trash, and I mostly can't read IT, which is a little problem.

But but I think there is something to that. But for me, it's always been just like the the availability of my phone in particular is just untouchable compared everything. Um but i'm i'm really curious particularly because you're you're an advocate for penny paper, but you're also an advocate for voice dictation. I know i'm curious about both of those things and how you can push them together. Yes.

that's a great question. I think it's just advocate for whatever gets you excited because you're only gonna stick with the system that you like and use, which kind of goes back to your customers question. So I like pending paper because I like writing in pretty color pants, and I have good handwriting that I like to to decorate August and make IT fine. So it's like that more time than I see.

like all of our instagram showing the beautiful bullet journals.

And no, no, no, no, I don't have time for that. That's that's why I kind of pick a lane words like i'm gonna have one thing that I that I keep going back to, that's my list, what I call my main list and it's just, you know you came to mune like what's everything that you not personally, you work, you, you, Laura, have to do. I would have a list.

Okay, these are all the returns I need to do. These are all the things through my kid summer cap. This is everything I have do at work.

These are all things I need to buy, like those are all in one place. And I like having that kind of one touch point, write everything like that out. Could this just as easily be of a digital list? Yes, but it's not as fun for my brain.

So I think it's just a personal thing, but it's more important to have something that you're consistently using and the capture thing. I talk to one productivity expert on his podcast and he said he has a little he has like twenty little journals that he brings everywhere. And instead of he's invoice sticken, he just always has a little journal in any pocket of any pants. And he writes down all these things that come to him. So SHE is so funny because .

it's my nights are, I would never get anything. I would never remember one .

thing meet then everyday, the end of the day, he takes twenty little journals and deposit them into like a bank box, and then he goes through each little journals. So but the point is, the little journals give him joy. They work for him.

And you know that. So for me, the dictation, I think a lot of times I get those ideas in the shower, on a drive, on a walk, and I don't want to to pick up my device of the dictation helps with that. But him and I essentially of the same system. If you think about IT, it's just we're doing IT in different way is .

so yeah when that feels like spiritually, the process there is is not that different from the way you are talking about communication, right? Where is is less about having the sort of one specific thing work one specific way and more about uh having things that work for you but like most importantly, not having very many of them um which is a thing I had not really thought about that like the the problem with living the way that I live, which is between a thousand different productivity apps is the intervening is and so I spent an enormous amount of time collating all the stuff in all the places to try and make sense out of everything.

And there's something even in your case, where you're like you you have you you get stuff on the one list that then goes on to the other list. That's still only two places. And that's that I feel like and I would expect for a lot of the folks that you're meeting with like they have so many things in so many places and just the act of having all of your things in fewer places seems like IT goes a really long way.

Yes, if you're really like i'm so overwhelmed, I can only do one thing. What should I be? I always recommend just making this main list from all your list from all twelve. Me, that sounds like you have twelve mail box is such as saying, okay, I got all the mail out.

I i've taken my brain and said, no, these are are in these categories, things I need to buy, things I need to do, things I need to put on my website, whatever those are, even if you haven't actually done any of them. IT feels like a, okay, i've got a dashboard because then I can make decisions based on that. I know well.

I my main less is blowing up right now. I've got ta make. More time for these personal things because it's the beginning of the school. You know like I need more than sunday night to do some of these personal computer things or I have a lock going on at work. I'm going to need to start saying no to things personally, because I really need to make more time for that. So IT just gives you that constant gage of what's going on, you know, instead of trying to do the math on each of your tools and say the tools, but sometimes the tools work for people, so they could just, you know, how are you feeling using them is the biggest question .

yeah make sense. So good. But I want to talk about downtime. And we've the sort of needing downtime in order for up time to be a thing and to be successful. And I think right now, we think of downtime so much as lake, you know, the joke, as I go from the big screen to the small screen while I watched the biggest screen. And that's that's how I relax now.

And and and I think part of what you advocate for is like finding more pockets of like space, right? And you talk a lot about focus and kind of disconnecting and pulling back. And uh, I would assume again, for a lot of the people that you coach a google and a lot of the people who read a book and things like that, the idea for like when my downtime is I set in call tiktok for an hour, which is a certain kind of downtime, but it's not solving the problem that you are talking about.

So like how do you coach people through how to not quoted talk for an hour and then IT goes back a little a bit to the discipline of just just don't call tiktok hour. I think one of the theory I have is that one of the reasons walks i've becomes so popular is that that is that is a thing to do and it's like it's not just don't look at a screen, it's go do something else and so that is that is that the kind of advice you good force sort of redirect that focus to something Better? Or like how do you dark people through that?

Yeah like like you're talking about is kind of the crowding out method like you can't roll tiktok if you're doing something else. So I even do that you with my kids. It's like if you want screen time first, you need to play outside for an hour.

And it's like by the time they're outside for an hour, they are having so much fun in playing and then you so redirecting the focus. But I think it's starting small realistic ways before you're diving into some big every night. I'm doing this or i'm never throwing tiktok.

And like you said, I think there are some benefits of scrolling tiktok. Maybe you enjoy the content, maybe are getting something out of that. But you know, I made a role for myself that i'm not going to score on my phone and watch T, V.

At the same time. And so if there's a show I want to watch, or something, or know something I want to go watch and look at, IT IT kind of makes me have to decide again, the attention piece. Or do I want to sit here in scroll, or do I want to watch this show? You know, I have to now decide to.

Sometimes i'm like, no, I wanted to look for new recipes today, so i'm actually, i'm going to on here, but then i'm kind of done. And I think that having some structure. So one chAllenge I started, which I talk about the in the book, which has been so popular that no tech tuesday night chAllenge.

So again, IT was a small thing. Not everyone wants to give up technology every night, but let's just say, one night a week from dinner to bedtime. Could you give up technology in one night for five weeks, six weeks? And so thousands of people started signing up for IT.

I really did IT to keep myself accountable o because I was like, if I tell all these people on doing this and I don't, i'll be so barrel. So what make kind of a big chAllenge? So but what now has gone on for five years, it's been this huge success.

But what's so interesting is looking at the feedback, you kind of think it's gonna. Oh, I felt so good during that downtime, you know. So like I was really relaxed off my phone, but IT ends up being these longer term things.

Like, I slept so much Better. Like, I have you watch that keeping track of my sleeve cycles. And he was the best nightsy I get all week as tuesday night. Then the biggest fees of feedback that I thought was so interesting, which is kind of proves my point of the whole book, is I am so much more focus and productive on wednesday because I took tuesday night off. And so I think that that's where people have the aha moment and then they stick with IT every tuesday all year, or they start doing two or three nights a week, or they start doing little more adjustments, saying, now i'm going to start doing this at eight o'clock every night because I made such a difference in my sleep. But if I had said, do IT at eight o'clock every night from the start, no one would have started so it's about, you know, even with people i'm coaching, I just say, hey, even if it's just like on my commute, i'm just gonna have silence for fifteen minutes you or I see people locked to the bathroom in the office and still have their phone i'm just like that is the short as rocky we just use that time to deep compressed .

and as someone who is very guilty of both, uh, watching tiktok while I coffee in the morning and taking my phone to the bathroom and a morning.

we'll see for someone like you it's just about like I was really bad about waking up and looking at my phone right away and then I just realized, unless i'm sending emails at six thirty in the morning, like why am I going to do this? Nothing's gna happen between six thirty and seven. And so I had to start putting my phone outside my room.

And then I was like, now if my phones in my room, I still not look at IT because it's such a habit. But it's you know, it's hard to trust yourself that you're gonna a want to do that or do that. And so having little tiny habits like no tech tuesday or like just setting your phone and then you start sitting there and making your coffee and realize, well, this is actually relaxing makes you want to screw less, you know.

So I think it's just gradual and any amount of change is helpful. But on overnight, all is unrealistic. I think that's where people go wrong sometimes.

Yeah, I agree. Um I i've kept to you too long. I have one more thing I want to talk about.

You have minute. Yeah, okay. I want to talk about eye before we go. Yes, which we can do very quickly because it's a super small. But yes, fine.

I I do think the the like bull case for A I says that I can do a lot for a lot of the stuff you are talking about, right? Not just like write emails and help you do some of that stuff more quickly, but like you talk a lot about sort of bridging different ideas and pulling stuff together. And part of the work is like coating all the information going on inside of your head.

And part of the promise of A I is that I can start to do some of that stuff for you, right? That I can teach you how to use these tools so you don't have to mark on. And setting so much IT can make sense of all of your ideas for you. Like, do you think of A I is kind of a key part of what you're gonna be working on and coaching people on in the next few years?

Yes, IT ready is definitely. I think I am glad you brought IT because I meant to mention IT when you were talking about some of the automation of tools. And I think that the first tool that's really come around that I think can replicate some of these or create some of these back and systems that i'm talking about is A I.

I think that A I right now is at that level of, okay, these are the test that I know I need for my system, and then i'm gonna get A I to help with those test. I think where we're going is A I knows what task I need for my system and A I helps with those task. Or for example, I have an idea and I put that on my capture list. And by the time I get back to my desk is already on my part of my main list that I want to to be so kind of that next level of taking the systems and making IT totally easier for me.

And just questions about, you know, maybe A, I will be able to tell us, what are my power hours? You can you tell how many times i'm switching tabs or when my output is best or when i'm you know going to tiktok too many times, know how I might be able to give us some of that information about our own productivity, whether it's hours in meetings who were meeting with which platform do I prefer? Am I responding to emails faster than i'm accepting meeting invites? You know, whatever that is.

So I think that it's just getting more and more exciting right now. It's kind of that helpful tool, but I think it's gonna be one step ahead of us in figuring out our own productivity and kind of bringing IT all together. And it's a fun time to be in productivity, I would say, because it's just it's cool to see what a difference it's already made. And I feel like we're just at the tip of where it's going. And I work super closely with our german I product managers on just like what is the ultimate productivity things that this tool could do and how can we get there?

yes. So talk me through kind of the the north star thinking about because I think, yeah, you just brought a couple of different versions of IT that I think are interesting. The one is like I say something to my device.

IT recognizes IT as a to do, and IT puts IT on my list, right? That's very useful and very accomplished, right? Like I think most tools will do that pretty. So really like every meeting now is like there's some APP that will take your action items and voted and leaders to do this. I actually I think that's great.

But then there are all these tools out there that are lake the sort of A I calendars where you you put up one stuff in and it'll try to organize your days for you based done all of the stuff that you need to get done and kind of the optimal flow like you're talking about. I'm skep portal of that stuff now because my experiences to just spend that IT doesn't seem to actually work all that well. But that is the sort of thing that might get Better as technology gets Better.

But i'm current because you think about fast for a few years in the tech keeping getting Better. And like do you think of A I is kind of I just sort of yell at my system all day and then I kind of goes and accomplishes everything on my behalf? Or is IT like you're talking about kind of the the great engine of like insights and summer zone? And then i'm still on the hook to actually like make the most out of that. Like where is this sort of land in the process?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's always going to be how am I powering some of these things that A I is doing for me. And so take your point about the calendar piece is like unless I tell the calendar, i'm very productive between nine and eleven and that's what I like to do, focus time.

How is IT really gonna to mize for that? So I feel like that personal knowledge of your own patterns and things like that still starts with you. Now I think of that kind of like an in turn like what things can I assign? But I think ultimately IT will become more of that like assistant business partner you with mean where it's like. We're both thinking on the same level and bouncing off of each other to make these great results. Whereas I think currently we're in more of the what what am I doing that I can assign, which that's what I always tell people.

If you're kind of like where do I start with the eye, take a look at your to do this and just circle three things that you might be able to delegate to AI and just try IT because I think a lot of people get that like blank screen nervousness, just like what do I put in here? But I talk about summarizing, brainstorming, planning, know those are kind of like the key buckets researching. And if you can just start with those.

And then I think IT will become that next level partnership with us, you know not not solving everything we have to do and not us yelling at IT. But just like this understands what i'm thinking, how i'm doing IT and gives me most importantly, the time the downtime to come up with the next level things because i'm not spending hours sorting through comments. And so I think that is a cool st part about IT.

Yeah I have to say from intern to assistant to business partner is one of the best solutions of the path of AI. Anybody ever heard? It's very good.

Yes, that's where i'm hoping I I think we're kind of between internal assistant right now. But every time he does something cool like, oh, this state level, you know so yeah, it's exciting.

All right. That is if for the verge cast today. Thanks to Laura, my Martin, again, for coming on the show, and thank you.

As always, if you want to buy Lauras book, it's called up time is very good. I actually listen to the audio book on spotify. Work great. The exam. There's lot more on all this stuff that we talked about, productivity tools, how to be a person on the internet, screen time, focus modes, all that at the version that com open some links in the show notes.

But you know, as always, read the website and as always, if you have thought, questions, feelings or after you think I should try because i'm a true, you can always email us at verge cast at the verge dot com, or call the hotline eight, six, six, verge one one we love hearing from you. Send us all of your thoughts and questions on this episode or and this shows produced by incremental liam James and will poor. And this episode was edited by ander atoms.

The verge cast is verge production and part of the media podcast network. Nearly Alice will be back on tuesday and friday. Lots of news, lots of fun stuff. And this tuesday, we actually have a really fun, different kind of episode for you that i'm very excited was then back now.

Hey, it's lee from decoder with the laptop. We spend a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series, diving into some of the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buy? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you listening to you right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like the venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially A I space? Why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license tech can hire away cofounded ers? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems you'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with the life of presented by strike. You can listen to decoder wherever you get your podcast.