85. Productivity Hacks for Creators: Chronotypes and Energy Matching, Pareto's and Parkinson’s Principles, Automation and Delegation

Richard Bernabe on productivity hacks and techniques for creators - photographers, artists, writers, musicians, etc. - so they can spend more of their time on the act on creating and less time bogged down on the mundane tasks of running a business.

These are battle-tested productivity techniques that transformed my creative practice. Discover how I wrote an entire photography book in just 7 months (instead of 2 years), how to identify which 20% of your work produces 80% of your results, and why multitasking is destroying your creative output. Does the time of day you perform certain tasks matter?

These aren't theoretical concepts - they're practical strategies I've implemented with dramatic results.

Notable Links:

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
The Myth of Multitasking: How Doing It All Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw
Never Play It Safe: A Practical Guide to Freedom, Creativity, and a Life You Love  by Chase Jarvis
When: the Scientific Secrets of Perfect Science by Daniel Pink
Muench Workshops
KelbyOne

*****

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This episode is brought to you by case filters. Look, I travel the world with my camera and I can use any photography filter I like. And trust me, I've tried them all, but I only trust my photos to case filters. That's case with a K, K-K-A-S-E. Why? Well, they're made with premium materials, HD optical glass, shockproof, no color cast. Unlike some filters I've used in the past, round and square filter designs, magnetic systems, filter holders, adapters, step up , rings everything I need so I never miss a moment. And now my listeners can get 10% off. The case filters Amazon page when they visit beyond the lens FM slash case and use coupon code Burnaby 10 . Check it out beyond the lens FM slash case. Use Burnaby 10 at checkout for 10% off your case filters. Amazon Order case filters, capture with confidence. Hello, I'm Richard Bernaby , and welcome to another episode of Beyond the Lens, where I usually speak with some of the world's top creators about photography, the arts, travel, conservation, entrepreneurship, and creative culture. I say usually because this episode takes a detour, slightly different format. But first, before we get to the detour, I wanna point out that this is the 85th episode of Beyond the Lens, our little podcast thing we have going on here, just us, you and me. And more importantly, this is the third anniversary of its inception, going all the way back to March, 2022. And although there are many people to thank for its success, I want you to know that you, dear listener, are the most important part of the podcast, and I appreciate it so, so much beyond words. So thank you. And I mentioned that this episode takes its slightly different format than the others, but if you're a long time listener, you know, it's certainly not new. I've done this before, had episodes with no guests , it's just been a while , so it's just me this time, boys and girls. Well , actually, it's just me and you. And it's surprising <laugh> , at least to me, that having an occasional solo episode by myself is one of the most frequent requests I receive. Yeah, I don't get it either, but here we are. So where do I start? Look, I do have a mission today, and it's based on some mentoring I do, mostly casual, but I do help and advise photographers who are trying to make a living at this wonderful art form. I want to help them succeed. I want to see it change their lives like it changed mine . That's the biggest reward. And I suspect the difficulties they encounter are not much different than other creators. In addition to photography, all artists, writers, musicians and more, the difficulties of finding themselves suddenly thrown into the role of entrepreneur or business owner more than they probably bargain for. So when a creator like a photographer goes pro, what they're essentially saying is, I'm starting a business. And most don't see that until it's too late. And in observing them up close, watching their work habits, what do I see that is most troubling? Well, if you ask any entrepreneur or business owner, what is their most valuable and cherished resource? Far and away, far and away, it's TIME time and it's the resource that's most recklessly, squandered and wasted. So at first, most new creators feel like they have all the time in the world without the albatross of a nine to five holding them back. Now they can use all their time doing what they love, but once they encountered the resistance of success, any success, and yes, I said resistance. I mean, look, if you're a creator, success and all that comes with it can be a problem, even if that's what you're working toward, success can be a problem because success takes time. Success eats time. Wake up in the morning. I mean , this is just one example, but wake up in the morning and go straight to your email inbox and immediately you're on the road to ruin you're, you're sunk. Several emails need responding to, some have said deadline demands on you, some want to set up a call later in the day. Some are asking you to fix a problem and suddenly instead of you running the day, the day is running you, you look up and you submit afternoon and you've not done a thing, you've certainly not created anything. Remember that creating you've become a hostage to your own success, but the alternative is no success. So what do you do? You need to reclaim your time. You need to master your time and be more productive so you can conserve that time for creating, proactively, creating, starting new projects, photo shoots, self assignments , writing, and I have some help, some advice, some tools to offer, which is the purpose of this episode. Some of this will apply to you and some of it won't . Some will apply to different people to different degrees. I hope it'll make you think. And I hope that after listening the first time, you'll want to listen to it again and maybe multiple times. That's my hope. So here goes, we can call these productivity hacks if we want, but the word hack really kind of turns me off. I mean, it's kind of negative, it's overused, it's cheap, but it's definition. And mono vernacular refers to creative problem solving . So I'll stick with it for now. The first two hacks I learned from Tim Ferriss's book, the Four Hour Work Week , which is, I don't know , 20 years old now, but it's still certainly relevant today. And I'll link to the book in the show notes, the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. The first is something called Pareto's Principle, P-A-R-E-T-O. So who is this Pareto guy? He's Reto Pareto , 19th century Italian engineer in Polymath, an owner of one of the coolest names ever, fil Fredo , Pareto , I don't care what your name is. His name is cooler than yours. The Pareto principles also known as the 80 20 rule. And he popularized it by concluding that 80% of Italy's wealth was in the hands of 20% of the population. See, nothing's changed since the 19th century. And then in the 1940s, another engineer, Joseph Duran, applied that observation to other things, most notably quality control and described it as the vital few versus the useful many. So how does this apply to creators and productivity and photography? Businesses use this principle to analyze their customers and revenue sources and their problems, and it turns out that oftentimes 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the customers, the vital few, and it turns out that about 80% of the problems and attention and work come from 20% of their customers. So look, if you make a Venn diagram and if you have revenue sources in the 80% that only contribute to 20% of the revenue and they happen to intersect with the 20% that lead to 80% of the problems, you should probably fire them or at least automate them. And then the 20% that lead to 80% of the revenue find others who share the same characteristics after some analysis and find more just like them. At one time I had almost 40 affiliate partners, which I get revenue from, and some of them require more work and attention than others. I applied this principle to the 40 and some partnerships I dropped, others I modified, and then I added others that were similar to the vital few. The result I now have only eight down from 40, but more revenue and less work, a lot less work. So I said, this may or may not apply to you, but if you have multiple income streams, take a closer look, do less and make more. The second hack from Ferris's book is called Parkinson's Principle, commonly referred to as Parkinson's Law. Ferris in his book, which I've already mentioned, defines the law as follows, quote , Parkinson's law dictates that a task will swell in perceived importance in a complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. Tasks. And projects often take longer than necessary because people tend to use all the time allotted regardless of the project's, actual complexity, in other words, deadlines are almost always extended way too far into the future, much farther than necessary. And the farther they go into the future, the more complex and bloated and unfocused they become. Not to mention they're a terrible waste of time. I have an example, a personal one that I'll share. In 2017, I was contracted to write a book on wildlife photography for a publisher in the uk. Now, I'm not that great a writer. I mean I do okay if I have plenty of time, but other than that, not great. So I'm in London and we're at lunch and we had just signed a contract back in their office and then I realized we hadn't talked about when this might actually get published and how much time did I have to do this? The rep asked, well, how much time do you need? Well, I knew my writing skills, I knew I had some images I wanted to make for it. I knew I had to organize the table of contents and the outline and probably do some research for it. They wanted 140 pages or maybe it was 160, 50,000 words of text and I really wanted it to be great. So the more time the better, right? So I said, about two years <laugh>, he laughed, no chance this book might be obsolete. By the time we published it, I mean, this is digital photography, digital technology. So I said, okay, how about a year? Divide that in half . He said, what? Half of a year? There's no way I said this to myself, I can't do it. I'm gonna embarrass myself. I'm not gonna get it done in time. I'm have to give back the signing bonus. I also knew that I had two months of traveling in Africa coming up, and that would take up way too much time. I can't do this, but my pride got the best of me and I ultimately agreed. So immediately I wrote out an outline of a book scope in a day. I cleared my schedule of all marginally important work, and I wrote and wrote and wrote. I didn't second guess myself. I just wrote what I thought was essential for each chapter. I went to Africa that summer and wrote on planes, on buses, in hotels. I wrote every evening, every available chance my laptop was out and open and I was writing. In the end, I finished the book in seven months, but that's not even the best part. I'm convinced that the work I did was better than if I had stretch it out over two years. The text was concise, it was focused, it was clean. I'm absolutely convinced that a two year deadline would've reduced a bloated, unfocused mess knowing myself, I'm convinced of that. Or it would've been 18 months of procrastination, worrying, self analyzing every decision about what should be in the book and what shouldn't. And then a, a mad six month scramble to get it on time. Anyway, it was good work. Plus I didn't have this monster project hanging around my neck like a millstone . For two years. I added 17 months of creative freedom to my lifespan, literally. So getting that book done in seven months was possible, even if I didn't know it was possible at the start, but it required focus and attention and discipline, focus, attention, and discipline. What hack did I use to keep that focus and discipline to prevent myself from being distracted and wasting time? Something called the Pomodoro technique. P-O-M-O-D-O-R-O. And that's a lot of o's. You can Google it. It's a well-known technique. It's a simple one. I learned this as I was writing the book, and it's a simple way to focus on what's important, the key from being distracted and getting things done. And this is how it goes. The Pomodoro technique uses timed intervals of focused work, followed by short breaks to improve productivity and mental agility. The first thing you do, choose a task you wanna accomplish. In my case, it was writing a book. Maybe the specific task was a chapter or a section. The second thing, choose a working space with no distractions. No tv, no people if possible, no internet. Switch your phone to airplane mode so there's no notifications, no checking email, no Instagram, no distractions, period. If you're internet addicted, don't laugh or people like this. If you're internet addicted, turn off the wifi in your house or your office. I'm serious. Next thing, set the timer on your phone for 25 minutes, then put the phone on your desk out of reach. This 25 minute interval is called a pomodoro. Work on that task for 25 minutes with complete and total focus. No distractions, just focus for 25 minutes. Anyone can do this when the alarm goes off, stop what you're doing and take a five minute break. If there's more work to do, complete another Pomodoro. Reset the timer for 25 minutes and focus again. Rinse and repeat. Four Pomodoros, make up a set. And after a set, take a 20 or 30 minute break before starting again. This is so simple and it's so effective. I use it all the time and you won't believe how much you can get done in a shorter amount of time In my conversation with Chase Jarvis, and that would be back in episode 73 if you wanna check it out. We talked about his latest book, never Play It Safe, which I will link to in the show notes. And he was describing how debilitating being distracted really is and how being able to focus and direct attention was the new superpower. He went on to quote Andrew Huberman, professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine, as well as a host of a fantastic podcast by the way, where he says The ability to focus in direct attention is the distinguishing factor between those who will succeed in any endeavor and those who won't. The Pomodora technique is not only a great hack on getting things done more efficiently, but it's a great training on how to focus and how to keep from being distracted all the time. Now, if you wanna waste a lot of time and do crappy work, I can't think of a better way to accomplish both than multitasking. Just say no to multitasking. There's an excellent book by Dave Crenshaw titled The Myth of Multitasking, how Doing It All Gets Nothing Done. I'll link to it in the show notes with the others. And in the book, Crenshaw cites research that confirms what I always believe to be true. And that is multitasking is a myth. We can do multiple things at once, but the way our brains are wired, it only can focus on one thing at a time. So you can do two things simultaneously. You'll just do 'em badly. Remember when this was something of prospective employee might actually brag about or put on a resume, I'm a multitasker. It's not multitasking, it's task switching. You're just bouncing from one unfinished project to another while not actually accomplishing anything. To quote Seth Godin , a woodpecker can tap 20 times on a thousand different trees and get nowhere. Yes, stay busy. Or you can tap 20,000 times on a single tree and get dinner. Say no to multitasking and say yes to singletasking. The next productivity hack, or let's, let's call this one a productivity enhancement. It's a little nerdy, but it's incredibly effective chronotypes and energy matching. Now, a lot of information here comes from Daniel Pink's book titled When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. And of course, like the other books, I'll put a link in the show notes. Well, here's the basic gist of it, and I believe this and I schedule my work around this idea. A chronotype is essentially your eternal biological clock that influences when you naturally feel alert or tired. Particularly with regard to mental energy and cognitive ability. There are two basic chronotypes. There are larks. They're basically morning people, and most people, including myself, fall in this category. So for them, the mornings are when they experience peak mental and cognitive energy. This is the best time for analytical work focusing and decision making . In the afternoons, they experience a trough where mental energy and alertness are in decline. This is the best time for administrative and routine tasks that don't require analytical thinking. Then they have a recovery period. This is a second wind of sorts, usually late afternoons or evenings, this resurgence of mental alertness and energy not as strong as the morning peak energy. However, coupled with the mental fatigue, the experience at the end of the day and a loss of inhibition are the best times for insight, creativity, and brainstorming. Pink in his book emphasizes that about 75% of people follow this pattern while about 25% are in the second chronotype , the night owls, where they experience these stages in different order with their peak coming later in the day. To optimize your mental and creative energy and become more productive, you should try matching the tasks with the appropriate times of day. For me personally, mornings are for analytical work focus. The Pomodoro technique and writing that works best for me. I'm much more productive in the mornings. The afternoons are off peak . So I schedule routine tasks like answering email, cleaning my camera gear from the last expedition, keywording your images in Lightroom. Now , why would I want to waste the peak productive morning hours, the times when I have heightened mental energy for something routine and banal like keywording that's incredibly wasteful and unproductive. Or conversely, why would I schedule writing or analytical work in the afternoon during an off-peak cognitive trough again, so unproductive and a time of day when you're also most prone to making errors. Just a side note here, a study in the Journal of American Medicine found that anesthesia errors during surgery are far more likely to happen in the afternoon than the morning, and doctors find fewer polyps during afternoon procedures compared to the morning. Something to consider if you're planning surgery, doctors are human too. Then in the evening, this is the creative resurgence. This is when I'm most likely to do image processing. Why heightened mental energy, mental fatigue, loss of inhibition. The left brain let's down its guard little and let's the right brain take the wheel for just a little while. And when I'm doing image processing, I'm trying to recreate the best I can, what I was feeling at the time, not necessarily what I saw or what I was thinking, but what I was feeling. The evenings are perfect for this soft music. Maybe in the background, no lyrics, just music, maybe a glass of wine maybe while I relive a beautiful experience in nature or an exotic location I visited recently with my camera. Again, you could take a deeper dive into this topic by reading Daniel Pink's book titled When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. Be sure to check out the show notes. And lastly, to optimize your time and become more productive. Follow these instructions. Automate and delegate. Automate the routine. I'm gonna say this three times. Automate the routine, automate the routine, automate the routine as much as possible. Email automation, set up filters, templates, schedule email to reduce time spent on correspondence. Social media scheduling. Use tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to plan and automate content posting. And that goes for newsletters as well. All your financial management should be automated, all of it. You can use systems like QuickBooks to link your bank account to automated transaction recording, automated invoicing, expense tracking. There's all kinds of apps now that can scan receipts and automatically categorize expenses. And this is the bare minimum that you should be doing in automation. Selectively use AI to perform routine tasks as well, and then delegate. And this doesn't mean that you have to take on employees. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it unless your business really gets big. Taking on employees creates a whole new set of problems and creates a bigger drain on your time. Stay lean and mean is my mantra. But sites like Fiverr, they can do coding, design work, logos, website creation, maintenance , uh, alterations, WordPress. I've had them do audio engineering work for this podcast as well. And the prices are extremely reasonable. You're hiring a freelancer, a contractor for a very specific job. You don't need to be doing these things yourself, let someone else do it. My photography workshops, I used to operate my own. And do you realize how much work, the logistical work that goes into this? I suspect many of you who are listening do know <laugh> . You have a website that constantly needs updating with the newest offerings, client correspondence, invoicing, collecting deposits, collecting remaining balances, paying vendors, getting proper commercial use authorizations for operating in national parks and public lands, hiring guides and outfitters scheduling and all that occurs before the workshop even begins. So in 2018, I gave all that up. I delegated that work in a way. I partnered with MCH workshops, the top, the the Premier Photography workshop and expedition company in the world. And I lead and teach workshops for them. What an honor, really, because it's a first rate company all the way. But look at how much time was liberated by letting them do all that work that I just described. Am I making less money? Net as a result with workshops slightly, but look at what I've gained in invaluable time. Look at the new projects. I've been able to start as a result. And that would include this podcast too, by the way. It was only a win-win for me to work with this amazing company for one, and have the time and freedom to pursue other photography projects and classroom teaching. I've partnered up with Kel One for all my classroom and video classes. Do I wanna spend hours and hours creating my own instructional videos, learning new video editing software, spending hours and hours behind a computer doing all that editing. That's crazy. Kelby won another first class organization that I'm proud to work with. Another win-win for me, delegation, automate and delegate. Liberate your precious times. You can do what you do best. Create. Okay, so that's all the time we have for this episode. I hope it was worth your precious time in listening, you can check out the show notes for the links to the books I mentioned in this episode, as well as mute workshops and tell one all great resources. And look, if you have the chance and you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and Amazon or whatever podcast platform you use to listen and leave a rating or review. Thank you and thanks for listening. Here's the truth, adventure and Passion, boys and Girls. See you next time.