Intentional Inefficiency Pt 2

In this episode we focus on pushing back against time scarcity by examining how we can design life for presence and depth. We will take a deep dive into all the ways we have practically pushed back against the current of productivity so that you can experience more of life in every moment.

Transcript

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Alright, welcome back to part two of our discussion. We left you on a cliffhanger. We hadn't really done that before, so I wanted to do that to see if we could get some viewership numbers. Really rolling in for the next episode. Leave the people wanting more Great marketing tactic. That's right. You may not do it, but just kidding. We got a little warm up too. Hopefully this episode will flow a little smoother. We're back in the groove. Got some reps in, uh, training camp's over. But I think the, the thing that I. Left us on a cliffhanger about a couple weeks ago, was just thinking about this idea of what you were saying of time abundance. So I wanted to pick up there before we kind of jump into some practical things that have been helpful for us or other people have ridden about that, that we found really good in this area of, okay, how do we push against this current? But I did wanna have a little, a little back and forth with you about this time abundance, because when I read that part of the, the book, when he's talking about that in 4,000 weeks, I just left myself being like, this seems like a cop out to me to say yeah. Like I'm thankful. Which sure there's a reality of like thankfulness, which does allow you to be more present. So that part I'm, I agree with, but then I think to just be like, yeah, my life's meaningful because it was astronomically low and like whatever I experiences, it's like that to me. I. For me personally, to get to the place where I'm looking for like purpose and meaning and satisfaction, it's hard for me to be like, that's a satisfying answer. And so I, I think for me as a Christian, this is where I really, where the gospel or the reality of like, the enjoyment of God really abuts up against some of the stuff I was reading in that that book, especially this, this concept of time abundance because there is, uh, an inherent drive in us to find satisfaction or fulfillment. And I think that's just the reality that we can either like kind of sweep away a little bit or we can actually say there is something that could actually potentially fulfill that. And I can actually run at it. With all of my energy and passion and desire, and that thing actually can be fulfilled. So I think for me as a Christian, like that's where I really rub against this idea a little bit because it's, it's kind of just a forfeits probably not the right word, but just kind of a stepping back of being like, there's a meaninglessness that's deep here, and I'm just gonna kind of say things are good because I got to be here at all, but I'm not gonna actually ask the harder question underneath, which is like, is there actually a sense that I could be fully satisfied or something that could be eternal? You know, like that's, that's kind of the part for me that, that I would push back on a little bit. I think, I mean, I could take it a couple different directions, so I, because I, I love the concept of it and the reason the. I think the main reason is, is'cause it, it takes the pressure off of like, I have to do thing, I have to, I have to achieve my bucket list, or write a book or become fame, whatever. Mm-hmm. In order to have been worthwhile in life. And I think for me, that's what it did. Is it, it made me realize like, I don't have to do any of these things for my life to have mattered and all, like, my life already up to this point has been enough. I've already, I've already checked off the box and now everything going forward is, yes, there still should be a purpose to it. There still should be kind of an intrinsic motivation to like, as long as I'm here, these are the things I'm gonna pursue. Right. And, and that's fine. So I'm not saying like, it should just be like, oh sweet. How's money? I'll do whatever I want. It's more of like. Yeah. These are the, these are the things on my heart and these are the things that I am excited about to move toward, and I get to do those as, but the amount of time I get to do'em, I don't get to determine and I'm not gonna try to worry about that. Yeah. And I, I think that's more of where I was coming from with it, rather than like,'cause I, I, I see where you're coming from. Like the meaninglessness of like, and the main way I framed it kind of almost maybe originally wasn't, wasn't great. In that sense of like, oh, just be thankful that you're here. But I, I think it takes that expectation and like, achieving your bucket list isn't the only thing that matters in life. And, and quite frankly, it doesn't really matter that much'cause whether you achieve it or not, who care? Like, like who cares? Yeah. So, so that's kind of how I took it. I think that's fair. I think just to do some active listening, I think what you're. Saying is like, it removes the, the checklist idea of life, of like always trying to look into the future and saying like, this would be a meaningful experience or this would be a meaningful experience. And just saying what I'm experiencing each day is something I can enjoy, pull fulfillment out of, and, you know, whatever happened, whatever keeps happening. Like, I'm gonna keep living within that framework rather than trying to operate out a framework of like, trying to set up your life in a way to constantly be able to do like the next thing or the next thing or the next thing to find meaning. Here's a, here's an analogy. It may hit, it may not, but like if, if I were to play in the NFL, okay. And I got drafted and I, and I was like, all right, my goal is I need to play 20 years in the NFL and I need to make three super bowls and win two, whatever. I feel like my whole goal would then be, like, everything in my life would be set up to be like, all right, I need to play 20 years in the L. Like, I need to make that happen. I would, but there's no guarantee, right? One hit could take me out. I might not be good enough for that long, whatever. And I may, I might miss the years that I, then I'll miss the years I have, rather than the mindset of, okay, I'm here. Let's make the most out of this year. Let's do everything I can this year. And if I get another year, awesome. Then I'll pursue what I can that year. And then if I get another year, awesome. I'll get a, I'm thankful for the years I've had, I'm gonna pursue another year, and if I end up getting the 20, great. But that's not the sole purpose and the sole goal. Right. So I think it just shifts the mindset a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think this is just for me, with my personality type, I have a hard time stopping at like the. You know, it's like if you have an elevator that goes underground, level two, level three, I have a hard time stopping at level two underground. I want to just mine it all the way to the core and just say, what is the, the deepest question we're asking here? And so sometimes with, with these discussions and then obviously my beliefs, it's, it's, uh, I always find myself kind of digging deeper to say, what is the actual existential question being asked by this struggle? And at least for me, when I think about this stuff, it's really a question of meaning, purpose, and, and outcome in, in a way to say, was there a purpose I was created for? What is the meaning of life in a sense of like, is there a way for that to be fulfilled? And then is there an outcome where I. Go somewhere based on that. Right. Well, well I think, and this gets a little bit into sports psychology actually. I think it aligns well is one of the things I talk to athletes all the time about is you can't control outcomes. So don't put your focus there. Put your focus on the, the, the task, like the minute to minute task and process that you're doing and, and focus your energy and attention there.'cause that's what you can control and that will ultimately, hopefully lead you to the outcomes you want. Right. That's a pretty basic sports psychology concept. And I feel like it's not much different than that, which is if I, if I work from a time scarcity mindset, I'm always aware of like, oh, I might be running out of time. What's the outcome I need to achieve? Mm-hmm. And I think the time abundance just flips it to, okay, what, what, what can I do today and in this season of life that's gonna like that I feel that purpose and motivation to do and to treat people, you know, in the best way I can. And if it ultimately. The byproduct is the outcomes that you're talking about. That's fine. But I, but not at the expense of missing And because one of the first things, concepts you talked about was we miss being present is not missing being present because I'm so focused on those outcomes because I'm so worried about running out of time. You get rid of, I need to achieve this outcome and just I'm gonna pursue this. If I complete it, I complete it. If I don't, that's not under my control anyway. Just like in a sport, it's not whether you're in control, whether you win or lose, all you can do is do the things you can control to the best of your abilities. And I feel like that's more of what it has helped me do from like a long-term life perspective process. Process outcome kind of difference. Almost a little. Yeah, I think, I think it's flipped it to just much more, okay, what's in my control today? And then do the best I can with that. And as many days as I get, that's what I'm gonna do. And whatever outcomes come from that. Great. That makes sense. So within that. Framework. Do you feel like there are some things that you have practically done in your life Oh, that allow you to push back? Like, I, I think at this point we've done enough theoretical discussion. No, I, I've done a ton. So I, I've, I have a, this is what, so let's get into the, this is what people find. For some reason, the most interesting thing about me, um, I, I have a lot. So one is I have completely abandoned clocks in my, pretty much everywhere. I don't have clocks in my apartment. I don't have clocks in my car. Our apartment when I got married. I probably should shout that out. Oh, yeah. We didn't even, we really just jumped right into it. Uh, I'm married. A lot's happened in the last year. Yeah. So she would, she would appreci that a big reason we have not had the podcast. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In case you're wondering. So we don't have clocks in our apartment. We don't have clocks in my car. I should probably clarify. Not because of that person. No, because of me. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, because definitely because of me. Uh, I've been doing this for actually two years now, which is kind of wild. I took the screensaver on my phone and made it black as long as the font of the time on black, so I can't see the time. Basically, I set up my entire world to only be able to see the time unless I want to. There's reasons for that. I think it disrupts flow state when you see time and disrupts your thought process.'cause then you start calculating how long do I have to finish this thing and before I get to the next thing. So that was kind of the, the heart of it. So you're definitely not a watch guy. No, I don't wear a watch, watch industry. No. Rolex is not gonna sponsor this watch industry is coming for us. But, so that's one very practical thing is, is I try not to disrupt my day as often as possible without time. Obviously there's moments where you can't, you know, it just happens and that's okay. But I want to, again, control the things that I can control there. One other thing that I've done this year that I've really liked, and I was gonna bring this up anyway, is I have set up my week with four days being highly structured. And I actually use, I still do it pretty task-based, but there's, there's a window of time right where. I, I have time, you know, to work out and to work on things for work and to actually work and things like that. And so it's, I, I structure it intentionally, and that's a little bit more for like, the things I need to get done are done. And then Friday through Sunday, I have set it up in a sense where I actually want things to not be time-based at all and to be very much what I call, like go where my energy goes. And so I've loved it so far because in the past I've tried to go one way or the other too far where I've like tried to structure every day where I've tried to unstructure every day. And I do think there's some value to structure, obviously. And there's, and it's been really cool because I feel like I have that efficient time, not efficient, but like task-based, like production, things that you just need to do in day-to-day life. Also paired with knowing, man, I have three days where I can really, truly go where my energy goes. And see where that takes me. And I, I've set up some boundaries around that, but most of, most of things in life are open. And it's been really cool so far and I, I, I would really recommend it. And obviously maybe not everyone can do four and three, maybe do five and two or something, six in one. But being able to experience at least one day a week that isn't structured by time is, that would be my challenge to people is to experiment with that.'cause it's fundamentally different. And it just, it just gets you outside your comfort zone to maybe think about things a little bit differently. There's a couple of piggybacks I'm gonna make here. One is, this brings up a really funny thing that I've talked to Shelby about doing with our kids every once in a while, which is a, a yes day, which is really the kid version of, of a not time constrained day, essentially. There's nothing on the calendar. Whatever the kid asks you just say yes to. So if Luca wakes up and he doesn't say anything about breakfast, I'm not prompting him to do anything. Right. So if he doesn't say anything about breakfast till 11, we don't eat breakfast till 11. If he says, Hey, can we go to the donut shop? We go the, you know, it's a day. That's not con because so much of kids' schedules are constrained by time. Right. And so that's one just kind of funny idea we've thought about. I think you're also getting into this idea of Sabbath too, which was something that came up in multiple of the resources, whether they were secular or religious. Because I think there's something so ingrained in us to need to rest and be removed from structure. Right. And time. So that would be piggybacking off what you said. I think something I would definitely encourage people to think about is removing yourself from structure or time or productivity for a day, a week at least. Yeah. Or at least half of a day or something. Yeah. Right. Where you're having a reset. I do wanna. Just mention this because I think you said this in your last comment, and I also wanna say it so it's, we don't get people thinking we're absolutely insane, but there, there's obviously benefits to things like advances in technology, right? Like it's, we're not saying there's no benefits in the world to these things, but what we're saying is unless you are intentionally trying to be the master of the current, the current will master you. Hmm. So let me give you an example. Shelby and I purposely only said yes to two things over the last year. Basically we do a young adult group and we just started doing premarital counseling for a couple. What does that allow us to do? What allows us to have, before when we were just doing our group, it means one night a week there's something structured. The rest of the nights we can essentially say, Hey, we're free. Come over. That is very important for developing deep relationships. Yeah. But that, what does that also take? Well, A, it takes you being intentional, but B, it also requires you saying no to a lot of good things. Mm-hmm. And I think that's where people really struggle with efficiency or productivity is say, oh, I wanna fit more in because it's good, it's good, it's good. And that's something I see in, I mean, we're almost same age people, probably three to five years younger than you in that 20 to 25, 27 demographic just saying yes to everything because there's so many good things around. Yeah. But then you end up in this thing where you're not deep, there's no deep anything anywhere. Well, one thing, and this is it's side note, but also highly related, is I think the social media era has made everyone highly aware of what's out there. Mm-hmm. And back in the day, you had two op one or two options. Right. And so there was no discontent with God, I should be doing more, I should have done this career. And you also were complete blissfully unaware of the other options out there. And, and that is how our brain was designed. And now we're aware of every single possible option. And the people that are, that reap the benefits of those options will happily post it on, on online for you to see which can, if again, if not careful can breed, A little bit of discontentment can breed, I should be doing more, I should be doing this, or I could be doing this. And I think that's part of it too, is being able to see that someone's always doing something somewhere. And so if I am at home and unstructured time, I may, I might feel bad about it because I feel like I'm not doing enough with my life, whereas I, that's such a new concept for humans. So anyway, that's just kinda me. Well, Steve Magnus posted a article this week and he was talking about, it was like 72 hours without your phone. It improve your attention by X amount and then 10 days without your phone. I basically reset it and, but the point he was making is how much it hijacked our thoughts and what we think we should be doing and how efficient we should be and how much we should be doing. And again, going to these undercurrents, that's another undercurrent even in the bigger current, right. Of just kind of, of a toe current of social media. I think the other thing I was gonna say about how technology, how you can master it, is a mastering your social media, AKA get off as much as possible or curate it extremely well. Yeah. With restrictions around it. Yeah. But two, I'll give you one example of how we have used technology to make a huge difference in our house. We do Instacart. That a hundred dollars for that membership is probably the best$100 I spend every year because I take the task that makes my wife the most burnout and unhappy and I pay a hundred dollars for a membership. And someone else grocery shops for sure. It's a little bit more expensive, but that is a way to be like, okay, how can I use technology to make my life truly better versus how can I use technology to make my life worse? Which is being like so caught up in all the social media that you have this envy or you feel like your life's not meaningful or you feel like you're not doing enough. And it's like those, that, those are two examples of one what done well and one done poorly, where like us doing Instacart allows us to have more time together, allows us to have more people over. It allows us to cook for more people. Yeah, I mean, and just mentally she's so much more relaxed. Well, it goes, it goes to the concept, the, the famous concept of everything in moderation, right? It's, it's okay for some of these things for, for you to automate some things that, especially things that don't bring you any joy. Like for me that has always been cooking, which is why the, to our second sponsor, our second sponsor that needs to sponsors. But, but that was why it was like, cooking brings me no joy. It does, it actually uses up time. I'd rather be doing other things. And like, and there's a lot of other, and again, the investment wasn't that much bigger where I'm like, you know what? That's worth it for me. And so there definitely are some things that you can use it to your advantage. But the danger is our, our society's trying to automate everything. Everything. Yep. And that's where the problem lies. It's not that using one of one or two of the automations is the issue and they are sweet. Like, and that's the other thing is you actually appreciate those things when you're not automating everything because you're like, wow, this is really nice. I had one thought button, I forgot it. If you want perfectly cooked meals every night, imagine this. They show up at your doorstep in a nice prepackaged box. You put'em in your refrigerator, you get home from work one day, you pull it out, type in the number of your meal on your valla and hit start. You know, you have to type it. You can scan it. You scan it. It's that easy. It's that easy. No I, I think just what I would say to people on a practical level is do less. You have to, it's so intentional. Like it's not, the poll to do too much is so strong. The pull for busyness, which we've talked about in a different episode, is so strong that if you don't set very strong boundaries around your, funny enough, your time, basically protecting it so you don't have to structure it all. Yeah. It's gonna get filled. You protect the unstructured time. Yes. As weird as that sounds. Yeah. And then the other thing that I would say, just for, for me, in terms of what does it look like to practically do this, I think it's over and over and over again, prioritizing real in person, face-to-face relationships. Like I cannot tell you how many patients I see that have no friends, they have no real relationships, they have no real conversations with humans in person, in their house at all, or at a bar or anyway like, and that goes, sure, there's the automation. You don't have the interactions at the grocery store or whatever. And those are one type of interaction, right? That, that do make us human. But there's like that deeper level interaction where as everything's automated efficiency becomes more real. It's like we, we leave our house less and less. We do things outta the house less and less. We become more slothful in those things because we. We, we become less in tune with discomfort. Like anything that takes me out of like the me and my comfort and what I want right now, like waiting in traffic or having to meet someone at their house or whatever it is that makes my life less efficient, I don't want to do anymore. And that's something I love. I've always said on this podcast that I love about endurance exercise. What is the main thing that endurance exercise teaches you every single day when you train, it teaches you how to be uncomfortable and how beneficial that is for your life. Hmm. Like that is the most important lesson that, that someone could learn in some ways. But I saw an interesting statistic recently that in the gospels and the part of Jesus' life that's recorded, about 33% of his time is spent at like a meal. Yeah. Like, just that should, whether you're a Christian, non-Christian, atheist, or religious like. There's something to say no matter what you think about Jesus, like that 33% of his recorded time is in a deeply relational state, which is eating together. This is, well, I, I wrote an article on this, I, I wanna say a year and a half ago or so. And what's interesting, and this is not even a religious note, it's just more of a historical note, is like, if you had three years on this planet to make an impact, would you travel by foot, spend time eating meals, and like literally just be in no rush no matter what, and then like, go off by yourself constantly. And it's like he did all those things and that's, and it's, it's really eye-opening to see how unhurried he was and how that is just the antithesis of our culture is. And obviously me and you try to model our life after, after that as much as possible. But even again, even if you're a secular, you know, philosophy or religion like that is, mental health studies would back that up too. Right? Exactly. Like, like that is just something to strive for of that, that presence by your, just that off that solitude. Um, the one thing that I have been doing where since we're talking about time, I guess it's sort of elated, is I actually try to walk slow. That, which I actually give this advice to athletes sometimes, which is crazy, but it sets the tone so much Yeah. For your day and for the task you're about to do if you walk into it at an unhurried pace versus that fast walk that we all know what I'm talking about, where you're kind of like, ru you're kind of trying to almost act like you're rushing in and like, oh, you know, I'm, and. That it sounds so small, but that has been one of the biggest practical changes, like one of those really small things that makes a big, big impact. So if you're going like, what's the smallest change I can make with the biggest impact? I would say slow down. Slow down. How you, how fast you walk. Like that would genuinely be my one piece of advice. I would say be bored. There's a, there's a quote about boredom and it says it's an intense reaction to the deeply uncomfortable exposure or experience of confronting your limited control. And I just love that idea of, of it. It takes some purposeful decision making to be bored enough to actually let your mind wander and to think about the reality of like who you are, the choices you make, the life you live, but there's also a creativity that comes out in boredom and not having your mind filled and that all fits into that unstructured time like. Two. We are so constrained and structured and busy and trying to be efficient and getting so much stuff done that most people, I would challenge you to think about the last time you were bored enough where you could just start journaling and like random thoughts with flow out that are connecting all these things you've learned or thoughts you've had, or struggles you've had. When was the last time you actually had enough space to allow you to do that? Chris is when he tried to go out in the woods. I was gonna say, yeah. I, I don't know. I'm, I'm sure I've told this story on here, but like, it was one of the coolest, it it was, it was such a strange experience where I brought, where I went out to the woods in a cabin and I brought nothing. But really setting yourself up is a very strange person I know, but I'm not, it's so strange because I'm not like that at all because you have no time on your phone. I know people, you cook on a microwave. Yeah. Thing. Yeah. And you, you're about to tell a story. I've got some quirks, but like, what's people like? If people didn't, if I didn't talk about these things, people would think I'm the most nor like I'm a normal person. Yeah. But I do understand if you are like, what the heck is wrong with this guy? What was really interesting about that experience was I brought nothing except a pen and a notebook. And I had, it was supposed to be 48 hours. We know it got cut short, but it was about 24 hours. And I did two things because it was the only thing I, three things, the only thing I could do was at first I journaled and then I prayed for like three hours because there was no one else to talk to. Right. And it was like, I can't remember the last time I've done that for that extended period of time. It was literally like a relief because I'm like, so, you know, I need someone to talk. And then, and then I slept. That was it. Those are the three things I did was just kind of lay there and thought. Or prayer journal some until my hand got tired and sleep and it's like, man, it was so, I had never, like, you have to actually physically like rip off everything in order to have that experience, which was super normal to have and I would argue very important part of life. Mm-hmm. That we've completely terminated. Well you, this is kind of going down rabbit hole. Eradicated was the word I was looking for. Yeah. That has nothing to do with efficiency per se. In some ways it does, but it is actually almost impossible to, unless you leave your phone. If you have your phone, you're not, I was let me finish my sentence. You're not separated from the world. In full if you have your phone with you. I was hiking 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado. I still had cell phone service most of the time. Right. There were like small portions where I did, but now they have the satellite thing. If you really need to text someone, it'll connect to the freaking satellite, which is crazy. Great for SOS, right? I mean, right. But not so good for disconnecting. Yeah. And we are so limited in our ability to push back against all of the hijacking that they do of our psychology through all the dopamine hits and all this stuff that I think unless you leave it and you really have no access to it, or you put in one of those boxes where you can't get in for a certain amount of time, like it's so hard to disconnect. And so you have to make an intentional choice either like, I leave my phone at home as much as possible now because. I've just accepted. I'm a highly disciplined person and I still don't have the self-control to disconnect from it long enough to actually get to the state I need to get to, to have creative thoughts or whatever it is. Yeah. Every psychologist agrees you don't stand a chance. Yeah. If you have it, you don't stand a chance. You, you just aren't wired. We're not built our brain, our brain is literally stands no chance at overcoming the stimuluses that are presented to it. So the only chance you have is not having it present. Yeah. Which is, so it's very smart to do so. So I think on a practical level, you brought up the time, so trying to create unstructured time. 1, 1, 1 other. Keep going. Yeah. So I know this is my last thought. I think is, this is one concept I teach to, to athletes or just if you wanna get good at something, don't make your, your session time-based. Make it task-based because time-based you will naturally try to Parkinson's law, you'll naturally try to fill that space. And so I use this in my own life. Like if I'm writing or I'm reading or I'm working out, I always make it task-based. And however long that takes is what it takes. I will set an alarm if there truly is a deadline, like I will set an alarm to like cut me off. But that way I don't have to check it. Like I know that that'll go off when it goes off, but I find so many people being like, oh, we're, we have practice for two hours? And it's like, could you have done that in an hour probably? Or did that practice need to last two and a half hours to get what you needed to get done done? And, and so I hate that time-based practices and, and sessions in those worlds. Um, which is why I hate time-based jobs too. I mean, I know some of them need time-based jobs. Some of them's need to be, I get it and I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole. But the more you can make things task-based. The better. And it gets you out of this cycle of just trying to fill time. Parkinson's law is a true thing and if you're not aware of what it is, it's you will fill the amount of time that you are given with that task. Since we're doing fun education, Hofstetter Law is a nice, uh, addition to this, which is tasks always take longer than you expect them to take, which are two good principles to keep in mind. It's like you'll fill the time and realize like when you plan your day, if you're, if you're trying to plan a bunch of stuff, everything's gonna take longer than you expect it to. It's weird about that one. It's I way opposite. I understand that's a lot and I know what it is a thing, but like, I literally do the opposite. I, I always think things are gonna take like two hours and they take like 45 minutes. That's just'cause you don't want to do anything. So, I don't know, maybe that says a lot about me, but I think that's all my thoughts. We should get you on like a home improvement project and see, see what your report is. Yeah. Yeah. The thing is I know, I think, I know it would take me forever'cause I. I think I factor in my laziness. Yeah, that's, that's good. Well I've enjoyed this discussion. I think we've left with some awesome points. Just to recap, in case you just wanna skip to the end you know, you brought up trying to remove time, creating intentional sabbath or unstructured time trying to master the things, the productivity or efficiency elements. Having one or two or three, I think maybe even picking one to five things where you're like, this is something I really don't enjoy and there's a really good fix for it, for a reasonable cost. Like that could be a great way to practice mastering these things. Yeah. You know, like I said, we use Instacart. Chris uses valla. There are obviously a multitude of other things you can do. You know, mine is prioritizing deep relationship in person, face-to-face over meals often as possible. Those are gonna be things that are meaningful and actually build real connection. Actually put meaning and enjoyment into your life. And then you guys can ponder the, uh, philosophical discussion at the beginning. That one's deep water so you can tread into that at your own discretion. But hope you enjoyed this, this two part series and we've even enjoyed being back. I can't believe we actually revived it. I thought, I thought we were on life support there for a little while, so I'm glad we actually got back on the mic and I think it went pretty well. We'll see. All right, we'll see who listens. See you guys next time.