.jpg)
The Mel Lawson Show
I'm Mel Lawson, mum of 3, Founder and CEO of Bare Biology (a UK supplement brand). Basically, we talk about life. From psychology and health to self-development and spirituality, and much more. We have experts, we have fascinating guests, and we talk in a very open and honest way. We share our vulnerabilities and hope to entertain and inspire you, maybe make you laugh, and possibly help you experience some ‘aha’ moments along the way.
The Mel Lawson Show
Work Less & Achieve More With Slow Productivity | The Mel Lawson Show
There aren't enough hours in the day...or are there?
This week Mel is joined by producer of The Mel Lawson Show Liv Evans, to explore the concept coined by Cal Newport - slow productivity.
If you want to achieve everything on your to-do list without burn out, this episode is for you.
Book mentioned: Cal Newport's Slow Productivity
App mentioned: Opal
This episode is sponsored by Melanie's family-owned UK supplement company Bare Biology.
Welcome to another episode of the Mel Lawson Show. I'm joined today by our producer, liv Evans, who you may have met before, and we were wondering how to introduce her because Liv also works with me in my business. Spare Biology is our head of content, and then we realized, well, actually she is the podcast producer, so Liv is the producer of the show. So we're going to have a lovely chat today and a couple of things before we go into it. This podcast is sponsored by Bare Biology, which is the brand that I founded and I'm the CEO of, so please do check us out. And the other thing, if you could follow us on whatever, if you're on Apple or Spotify and, amazing, if you could subscribe to our YouTube channel, because it just helps hopefully monetize this at some point and make it more affordable for us to produce. So, yeah, I will dive straight in. So this episode is about how to stop avoid reverse burnout and I've got a couple of stats that I found. Yes, so according to mental health UK, they did a survey and this was, I think, last year and that more than 90 percent of adults in the UK have experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress at some point in the past year, and the number of workers forced to take time off work to look after their mental health is worrying. In quotes, um, one in five have had to take a break because of pressure or stress. Um, and one in four adults feel unable to cope with the stress in their lives.
Speaker 1:And my new hero is a guy called cal newport and he is an American brain box mathematician, mit kind of dude. He's also written loads of books and his recent book, which I've got a copy of here and we'll put in the notes, is called slow productivity, and I listened to a podcast with him and it was one of those podcasts where you just go oh, my god, I've already kind of already had thought quite a few of the things that he said, but I sent it to everyone on the team and said you have to listen to this, like that's an order. Um, this is going to change our lives personal lives and especially at work and it's called slow productivity. And he says there are three key principles, which are do fewer things, work at a natural pace and obsess over quality, and we'll go through each one of those and we've implemented this at work. Yeah, biology, and everyone is instantly less stressed. Do you think yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, I can speak for myself.
Speaker 1:Yes, how are you feeling?
Speaker 2:less stressed well, that's a big question. It's a lot down to the unnecessary pressure I was putting on myself to be accessible to everybody all at once. That kind of emails coming in, messages coming in lots of different and me feeling like I have to jump on it straight away, and you kind of get told it's kind of common sense. You know that you don't have to reply straight away. No one is telling you I need this right now, but it's that I want to get loads of stuff done and I want to be good at my job. But that isn't the way that you are good at your job by just jumping on things. So I think reducing that input from everybody else and then allowing times where I allow that in so I can just monitor how much I'm taking on, has meant my nervous system's just calmer. I'm not sitting there thinking, oh, there's a ping there and oh, like my brain's flitting, and that's a lot what Cal Newport talks about with your brain having to do multiple things at once. That's been the biggest game changer for me.
Speaker 1:It's like reducing that yeah, and he explains in detail that the one I listened to is actually on the Huberman podcast which is really good because Huberman, as a neuroscientist, talks about the neuroscience behind the fact that our brains are not able to flip from one thing to the other.
Speaker 1:They just can't do it and there's a lot of thinking and, I'd say, evidence, especially with younger people, that our brains are being rewired and are less and less able to focus and concentrate, because we have neuroplasticity so you can rewire your brain. They're being rewired badly, um, and I actually have a friend he's my age and very, you know, very intelligent woman's, got a literature degree and she told me the other day that she can't read books anymore because she can't concentrate long enough to read a book. So if we imagine what that's doing to children and people presenting with ADHD and obviously there are lots of people with clinically diagnosed ADHD, but it seems like an epidemic of inattention and unable to concentrate or focus and one of the things so A a that causes a lot of stress anyway, because your brain isn't meant to do that, but the way that we work and the way that the workplace is set up. An email is the worst culprit of this and we'll talk about that.
Speaker 1:Um, there's a software company called rescue time which, um, it's a bit like the app you're using which you're you're going to talk about, um, and it's one of those where you can stop yourself browsing the internet and using your phone and kind of stuff. So they did a load of research among their users and they found that people check their emails on average once every six minutes and for some people it's probably more than that and says a lot of issues there. Um, but I was thinking, if you think about other jobs that aren't desk based, and let's say you're a chef and your main job for that hour is to chop all the onions and the carrots and the celery, let's say, and instead of doing all your chopping every six minutes, you stop your chopping and you go and check something else maybe check the fridge or something, I don't know. It's going to take you so much longer to get those bits chopped and no other job would you keep stopping to do something else. But it's sort of totally ingrained, this email checking thing, and I know that email causes a lot of stress in our business, so we've we've looked at that. But also I don't know what you think about this, but and Cal Newport talks about this as people use email as a way to avoid doing the work, that's actually a bit harder to do.
Speaker 1:And so they start and they think, oh, it's a bit hard. Well, just check the email. And in the heads it's justified because, well, that's part of my job and I need to check my email. And often you find that stuff doesn't get done or it takes a long time. Yeah, partly because you never get down to it, because you keep checking your email to avoid doing it. But also, if you let's say, you've got to write a blog post or you've got to do a big piece of analysis or you've got to edit some video, yes, um, and then you get in the zone doing that and then you have to switch your brain out into something different. You're not going to do a very good job of it. So you get in this awful situation where you feel really busy yeah very stressed.
Speaker 1:You're not actually getting your work done to the quality you'd like and it's taking you longer.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah yeah, does that resonate? It does. The email thing is interesting because my job is creative, so I need to have big chunks of deep work, otherwise I won't get the creative input that I need. But I found that because my job also I deal with social media a lot, that means that I need to have boundaries in place because I need to be able to check social and then come off it and in that allocated time. And I think that when I did put the boundaries in with social email, I noticed how my brain was going more to email because it was that same dopamine effect that I was looking for of like I've had a message, like it was so odd because I've never felt that way about email before until I put the boundaries in with social.
Speaker 2:And then it was like my brain was looking for the next thing of like quick dopamine access because to allow my creativity to come in, I have to get bored. I can't be so busy in my mind that I don't allow any space and I think I've got a problem and probably a lot of people can resonate that boredom. We don't have much time for it anymore. And boredom they were saying in that podcast Cal and Huberman were saying like boredom is really, really good for your brain and that was the bit that really stuck with me is like I don't allow myself to be bored and I'm probably ignoring a lot of my good ideas because I'm not allowing the space to think them up, probably ignoring a lot of my good ideas because I'm not allowing the space to think them up. And it's all self-inflicted because you're not sitting there saying Liv, why did you not reply to my email 10 minutes ago? It's just this thing of like I wanna, I think for me it's like I feel more productive when I've cleared my inbox, cleared the DMs, answered every comment, given loads of tasks, like done lots of things. It's like lots of things, equal productivity in my head, that was what was drummed in.
Speaker 2:It's like if you're really smashing it and doing lots of stuff, but that's not actually the quality is like something again that we'll probably talk about, like quality over quantity, like what is the quality of that work that I'm just shoving out? Like, if I'm, if I allow myself time to do deep work and with the podcast there is a lot of that I have to like watch the whole episode and really concentrate, and I have struggled when I first started doing that, I was like god, this is like an hour of undivided attention, no phone, and my mind would go. I'd literally my my hand would do this and I'd be like what am I doing? My phone's not there, but it's like a. You're not even aware of it or I wasn't even aware of it. My hand would just automatically go.
Speaker 2:When I started to get a little bit bored or a little bit like, oh, I'm feeling a bit drained now, this is quite a lot of energy, my brain was like where's the closest thing to distract? And so, yeah, I resonate with a lot of it what you just said.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting once you become aware of the, so going to the phone bit a minute and it is tricky for you because Instagram and other social channels are part of your job. But I got really sick of Instagram Actually it was after listening to Cal Newport and he doesn't have social media, so he's not on there. And this was just over a month ago and I thought, right, I'm just going to do a month. I only really do Instagram anyway, because LinkedIn I hate so much, that's a whole other topic.
Speaker 1:So I thought, right, I'm just going to have a month of no Instagram, where I don't log in. So I moved the app to the back page of my phone, of all the thousands of apps I have that I don't ever use. So I just moved it to the back so I couldn't see it and I'd say, for the first few days, if I was in the car waiting for the kids or boiling a kettle, or I had a couple of minutes for a meeting was going to start and I thought, well, I can't start anything. That's when normally I would go have a quick look on Instagram and you can use the excuse of I'll just check our bare biology account and then you start scrolling and, like you say, my hand would almost physically move towards and I'd pick it up and I'd go, oh no, I can't, I'm not on Instagram at the moment. Put it back down. And then my brain would be thinking, well, what else can we look at?
Speaker 2:Zara app great, get that open right, it will do anything, won't it?
Speaker 1:ASOS quick yeah yeah, so I have to say I think I have bought more clothes recently. I love that. Instead of Instagram, I'm on the bloody Zara and that's the dopamine, right, yeah, and then it's click, click.
Speaker 2:Have you bought at least some nice things? Yeah, I haven't.
Speaker 1:actually, I've returned quite a lot of it Okay. But that denim shirt I was wearing yesterday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a nice denim shirt. H&m.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, but it is. I've become so aware of it so I thought that was really interesting in itself. That is really interesting. Obviously the kids sick to death me anyway, because they're revising fray levels, gccs, and I keep saying to them put your bloody phone away. You cannot revise with that thing sitting there buzzing at you. It's impossible. Um so, yeah, I've been driving everyone a bit nuts, but, um, I didn't miss it at all. I don't feel like I've lost out, yeah, um so yeah, I would if you can, and actually you, you manage it with, even though you have to be on there for work, you just have to put controls around it.
Speaker 1:If you can do a month off is surprising, and I've noticed that I am much better at concentrating since not using Instagram yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know what if you're using TikTok? Your attention span will be even worse even worse because.
Speaker 2:I that's. The app that I'm most addicted to. I say is TikTok, because it's and I had a word with myself because I was really annoyed that I couldn't get off it once I was on it and then I realized people were paid billions of pounds to keep me addicted to this app. So let me put boundaries in that I don't have to use my willpower, because once I'm on it, sometimes I don't even realize I've gone on to check Instagram and then suddenly I'm on TikTok. I don't even realize how I've got on there because my brain is just gone.
Speaker 2:Where's the next dopamine hit? And yeah, I've definitely realized that, like my attention span of books, so I haven't noticed it with my work so much, but with books, like to sit with no technology and read something that's on a page is really different, like difficult for me now, which that was the thing that was like I need to put some boundaries in now, because this is I need to read in my evenings rather than scroll, um, and I think a lot of people say, oh no, I don't. I know that most of us sit and scroll at least some point in the evening, or you're watching TV or you're multitasking in some way, and I think it's just about realising that, yeah, these people have paid billions of pounds to keep you on those apps. So there's an app that I've downloaded called Opal. It basically blocks the apps and you can create timings in the day that's like okay, from like 6pm till 6 am. I can't access it and you can put a really hard block on which is what I've done where you can't even snooze it or leave early. It will literally you have to delete the app to get it off.
Speaker 2:Um, and I use that for certain times and first thing in the morning I have a slot from like eight till half eight that I can just check if there's anything urgent, and then it blocks it again from nine till 12 pm. And that first slot in the morning where my brain is really potent and I've got a lot of ideas and I'm well slept and just all of that. I want to use that for those deep tasks that require my attention and productivity. And I heard that the first thing that your brain goes to in the morning to get a dopamine hit is what you will then do for the rest of the day. So if you wake up, first thing you do is look at your phone as you wake up.
Speaker 2:Your brain will then think okay, that's how I'm getting my happiness today it's it programs your brain to go that's the thing I want now for the rest of the day, whereas if you allow yourself to wake up for a couple of hours before that, you're less likely and you've done something else either exercise, getting outside sunshine, walk your brain will crave that more than the easier dopamine, which I thought was really interesting, and I can't think of the study right now, but I'll send it or put it in the show notes. Um, so I'm trying to actively do that because I use my. I used to use my phone for my alarm, so I don't do that anymore. I've just put stuff in which means I can't. Oh, I use my phone for my alarm, so that's the reason it's in my bedroom. It's like I don't need that to be an excuse.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, opal's, that's kept my boundaries in, because I actually do like social media. That's my problem, not problem, but it makes it harder for me because it's part of my job. So for that reason it's harder for me. So I've just put that boundary in. That means that I don't have to rely on myself being like no, I'm not going on it, but it's on my phone. I just know that it takes up so much brain power to do that as well. I'd prefer to just let someone else do it for me. Um, so that app I really recommend and you can do a free trial. Um, and yeah, I think the social media thing, because I grew up as a millennial, so I grew up before technology really, and internet hit. It was like dial up, whatever, when the my computer used to take an hour to load up and you'd say to people on msn, like be right back and then go and play outside or knock on your friend's door to play and then go back to the computer.
Speaker 2:And I read a quote the other day on instagram, funnily enough and it said we used to say be right back, because we were leaving technology.
Speaker 2:Now we just, we never say that it's just on our hand like we're just always available and always accessible and I think that's why everyone feels so stressed. I know some friends that are like I'm so sorry I didn't get back to your message, like they'll really worry about. Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't. I didn't reply to you and I'm always like don't worry about that, like you need to reply to me, just because I've like entered your day with my message.
Speaker 2:That doesn't require a response straight away. I think we've got it drummed into us that we have to somehow. Or we're missing out if we don't, or yeah, there's a lot around it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess it's like you were saying earlier, you like social media. Yeah, I guess it's like you were saying earlier, you like social media. Yeah, and I mean, I, I, you know, although I did go back into Instagram last night, I told you and I was instantly like, oh, I don't want to, came straight out, but I did like it and it's like anything that's addictive. Yeah, you know, I like alcohol and I like crisps, um, but I, you know, I shouldn't spend all day drinking and eating crisps. I'm not going to feel very well. So it's just again. It's just about not excessively using these things, but it is really hard. As you say, they are built to be addictive yeah that is the whole.
Speaker 2:I understand human behavior.
Speaker 1:Yeah of them yeah, and the other thing I was thinking about with that. We'll come back on to the email and the other bits but our brains are obviously, they are part of our bodies, but they're in the same way as our bodies. If we feed them junk all of the time, they're going to get sick. So a lot of people are really addicted, obviously, to social media, but also to news apps and news feeds and just constant like yeah, there's always some new horrific, horrific headline. There's never anything nice in the news. Um, so if you're constantly feeding your brain fear, hopelessness, horrible stuff, horrible imagery, yeah, and then you're on social media and then you're looking at all this stuff you can't afford, or people's sort of so-called fake, perfect lives that you know, that make you feel shit about your life and all of that, and your brain's constantly getting that as its input, then you're going to feel stressed and unhappy. And it's the same with your body.
Speaker 1:If you just give it junk, junk, junk, junk, junk, it's going to get sick and feel rubbish yeah and I haven't been on a news app or seen a newspaper or listened to the radio or watched the news probably for about three years now. And I think a lot of people would say, well, how on earth can you be on top of current affairs? And you know you run a business. Surely you need to know what's going on?
Speaker 1:um, it's like well, I do know what's going on because people tell you yeah but I actually don't need to know what's going on because I can't do anything about any of it. So, you know, I used to get so agitated about all the shit that's going on and get really upset and feel physically, you know, agitated and heart rate would go up, adrenaline would go up, I'd be ranting about stuff and there's nothing I can do about it. No, and then, and then sometimes, you know, my husband knows better now, although he did tell me about a news story the other day and I said I don't want to hear about it, which is why I'm not on the. I'm not on that stupid news app that you're on right now.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, so did you hear about that awful thing that happened? It's like no, and I don't want to hear it because I don't need that in my brain and I don't feel any worse off and actually it frees up my time to read books and learn things and maybe just spend time outside or exercising or listening to music. Yeah, or so it's yeah, feeding your brain, nice, nurturing stuff, beautiful things. Go to an art gallery.
Speaker 1:Look at beautiful art and amazing human achievement nature yeah great books, learn, talk to people in person. Then your brain is much happier. So I think that's also contributing to this huge stress and burnout that people are feeling.
Speaker 2:Agree, and on that point, I think that on social, for me, being a creative, I need to allow time and space for me to come up with my own ideas and my own opinions. And on social media, your feed is curated based on what you're liking and what you're commenting on, so you're getting a very biased view. It's just the same stuff, I want to say same old shit. It's just the same old stuff coming through. So so I don't actually find much inspiration, like I like to be on top of the trends, but it doesn't give me. What gives me inspiration is talking to someone new, or finding a new experience, or reading a book or listening to a great podcast. I just say art, nature, going out and living my life gives me much more inspiration than a social app will ever do.
Speaker 2:And I was also finding that I was confusing what's my opinion or idea and what's just been fed to me, like what's been put into my head and what's my own idea. And until you move yourself away and create some boundaries, you don't actually really know Because we're all just consuming the same stuff. So you don't think up much original ideas as a creative by being on those apps. It's all just the same stuff that people are doing. So that was something else I realized is like you dilute your own opinions and view of the world. When you're just consuming everyone else's, it's really hard to form your own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't be creative in that and people often say that and I'll say it to you quite a lot. Oh, I had an idea in the shower this morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people get ideas in the shower or if they're on a walk and they're not listening to something, because that's one of the rare times now that we're not on a phone or watching something or listening to something and our brain then has an opportunity to go oh, here I am, oh, what about this? And you get these random ideas. Or you can suddenly solve a problem, or you suddenly look at something from a different perspective and you think, oh, like yesterday, I I'm going away for a week and I had too much to do and I was. There's this one particular piece of work that I know the team really need me to look at before I go.
Speaker 1:And I just thought I just can't. So I was like you're just going to have to pause that. And then I thought, well, actually two other people in the team could look at that. And it didn't cross my mind until I was just calmed down a bit and just I was just sort of I think I was driving somewhere and it was quiet in the car, I didn't put something on, and then it just pinged into my head you don't have to do it, they can do it.
Speaker 2:So the problem solving part of your brain also comes online.
Speaker 1:Yes, it kicks in and you know how some people say that they a lot of people. They end up in the night whirring through stuff and like the brain goes in and I feel like that's a lot to do with that's the brain's like all right, got a bit of peace, I'm not looking at something and getting having to absorb all this stuff because it's having to absorb it, process it, figure it out, file it away. You know, oh, do I? Should I be afraid of this? Are we in danger? Do I need to kick in your adrenals? Um, and then it goes. Oh about that thing. Been meaning to talk to you about yeah, yeah so, true, right.
Speaker 1:So I think if we can just take all that away and we'll come on to talk about how to do that work.
Speaker 1:And it's difficult. I really appreciate this and actually Carol Newport talks about this. If you're in a business and you're the only person who's thinking I would really like to chill it on the email and all the meetings and actually have time to do my work. If you're the only person thinking that and you're not in senior management, that's quite difficult. Um, but there are lots of people who are small businesses or solo business, freelancers, writers, creatives and actually mums.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, a lot of this applies to that great job of being a mum. You know, and I was a stay-at-home mum for seven years and I would get that overwhelm of I've got all this stuff to do and I'm not. You know, when people say I'm doing loads of stuff but I'm not doing any of it, well, and I don't feel like I'm really achieving anything. But I'm really busy and I'm really stressed out, but actually I'm not not feeling good about anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I used to feel that with the kids that I'd be rushing around and you overschedule stuff and you commit to stuff and then you're trying to get them from one thing to another and then you think, shit, I've got to get dinner and they just want you to sit down and play with them or read a book. I don't have time and I didn't have a phone then, so I think it's again. That's even trickier now, with kids and the parents then addicted to their phones as well. So again it's. It applies to every. It's not just at work, it's carving out time where you're not distracted and you do one thing properly and then you move on to the next thing yeah, yeah and something.
Speaker 2:As you were speaking then I was thinking about what you're saying about at night, and I think in the past that's when my negative thoughts would have come up and like so I think also, when you first start doing this you, it might be very uncomfortable because you might have never given yourself space to process. If you had a difficult conversation with somebody, we tend to just go that was awful, okay, what can I do?
Speaker 2:now distract myself so you're probably going to have stuff that come up sometimes in those boredom elements of your life where you're like I don't want to deal with that, let me find the nearest distraction again. But that has to come out at some point, and most of the time, for most people it is at night because, as you say, it's the only time your brain's gone. All right, I'm going to give you that to think about now, because you haven't allowed me to. So it doesn't always feel like. It's not always like oh, this nice idea.
Speaker 2:It's like it could also be stuff that you've been putting off thinking about, or maybe there's a difficult conversation that you need to have but you're not, and all of that kind of stuff comes up or can come up in my experience. So I think it's just tolerating that a little bit, because the more that you practice it, the less intense it's going to be when you have those moments, because you won't have like I don't know a year's worth of stuff. You'll just have the day um, because I've definitely sat there and questioned like what am I doing on this floating rock and how, what am I going to do? And I'm like 80 and I haven't done this thing. It's like all these things I don't give myself time, it's because my brain's catastrophizing it, because it's like trying to get me to listen, it's trying to get your attention yeah yeah, so also wanted to caveat that, because sometimes I've sat with myself it's not actually comfortable.
Speaker 1:I'd rather do something else right now yeah, well, I mean, it's rarely at night you're having loads of great thoughts no, it's that time of night where it's like God, existential crisis mode. Yeah, yeah that is, and people do, you know, myself included. You find a way to distract yourself, to not think about that.
Speaker 2:I hadn't really linked that. Like when you said that I thought, oh, because sometimes I have trouble sleeping and I wonder if it's because those days I haven't had the pockets of time so my brain kicks in later on in the day. It's just like because I was a bit inconsistent, my insomnia, and I'm wondering if it is because on those busier days where I haven't had those moments to go, oh, we just process that for a sec. It's like those days where I'm normally then wired nervous system is a bit adrenaline and I'm lying in bed going and all the thoughts are racing. So actually.
Speaker 2:I could build in a pocket of time before to just be, because my instant reaction is I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. Let me distract myself from thinking about it.
Speaker 1:So actually, yeah, taking might have stumbled on an amazing discovery there. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That might be slightly life changing for me. Thanks for that. That's all right.
Speaker 1:Well, it just occurred to me while we were talking, that that's, that is the time. That is the time, I think, that's where meditation also comes in.
Speaker 2:You're really good at that right now.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not. Do you know? I've realized and this might be helpful for other people I generally only get it done if I do it first thing in the morning and I have to have complete silence, nobody else up or around, and so if I get up early enough and I know that there's no one around and when, when the kids are going to school, they get up at 6.15, so I have to get up at 5, 5.15 to do it and then if I don't think, oh, it's all right, I'll do it later or I'll do it between those meetings.
Speaker 1:But actually, yeah, but again, instead of being on your phone, even five minutes, just sitting because I do find it hard to meditate but just sitting and breathing with your eyes closed. So yesterday I had a couple of difficult meetings and I was feeling the adrenaline and I was thinking, oh, that's right, I've got five minutes, I'm going to put my it's called coherence breathing, we'll put a link in and five minutes and it just calms your nervous system down and gives your brain a minute to just not be. But yeah, I think, yeah, I, I'm an occasional insomniac as well and it's yeah, maybe it's something before bed.
Speaker 2:I think giving yourself that like maybe noticing it when you get into bed. Okay, it's a busy day. Tomorrow, like today, is quite a busy day for me, building a bit of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But also, did you find meditating easier coming off apps? Has meditation been easier for you to concentrate?
Speaker 1:on yeah, possibly yeah, I think it has actually that's interesting. Yeah, because I've really struggled.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I've struggled to be able to switch my brain off for long enough to be able to get into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's interesting but that is part of the exercise of meditating, isn't it? So you said something earlier about being bored, and no one can bear to be bored anymore. You instantly reach for a phone. That is the ultimate boredom killer isn't it, and actually something we always did with our kids which I do recommend to new parents is we never let them have anything in the car that's interesting, so they had to be bored in the car god, that sounds awful to even me and I'm not a child, but that sounds great, yeah well, that was my childhood and I'm fine.
Speaker 1:Yes, because you look out the window and you imagine, and I used to go off into these imaginary worlds in my head.
Speaker 2:I used to watch the rain on the window and then one drop would go into another drop and I'd do races with the raindrops.
Speaker 1:Right, perfect. We with our kids used to play a game. You each picked a supermarket If it was a long drive to Scotland. We did many when they were young and who saw the most lorries? Yes, and then it would get really competitive. And then you'd see a lorry coming and be like let it be Waitrose. I love that, yeah. Adding up numbers on number plates yeah, also.
Speaker 2:It's so much fun to be had, but then that's connection, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you talk to each other and you play a game or we'd listen to music and everyone got to pick a song, which we don't do now because Oscar always picks some drill Grime and it's really vile. But, yeah, boredom. In Cal Newport's book he talks about a couple of writers and famous writers, and writers are well known for taking themselves off to very remote places and on their own where they have sometimes no electricity.
Speaker 1:We've got a friend, actually, who has a little cabin in scotland and he wrote a book and he just went off like bear grills, off grid for months on end to finish his book. And he talks about one guy and I can't remember who it was now, but, um, oh, he had to write an article and he spent days and days and days just lying on his back looking at the sky, which would drive most people now, most people would go mad. But he had to allow that time and space and you would think, well, you're wasting time. What are you doing? You should be busy. You should be doing stuff. Yeah, wasting time, wasting time.
Speaker 1:But actually if you're trying to produce something, especially a book, something creative, or I I don't know if you're a mathematician and you're trying to solve a problem, you need the space and it can take days and weeks of just nothing for that to come. But in this era of always on busy, busy, busy, you know whenever you see someone oh, busy, yeah, really busy, but good. Yeah, really busy, but good. That's the default answer, isn't?
Speaker 2:it. Yeah, I've said that.
Speaker 1:I catch myself doing it, I think don't say that it's really annoying.
Speaker 2:Don't say really busy, but good.
Speaker 1:Busy but good. Yeah, really busy, good. Busy but good. Yeah, I'm really busy. Um it's. You know, if you said to me I need to take a week to lie in the garden, look at the sky, to come up with ideas, you know, I'd like to think that I would be open to that, but that's it's great that you would be open yeah, don't get any funny ideas. No, but I no but.
Speaker 2:I think that sounds like hell to me, to be fair.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting, isn't it, that we don't value. That brings up anxiety for me. Yeah Right, I think you should try it.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, yeah, but I feel like even just two hours doing that Exactly yeah. Would probably be really valuable. Like just not having any input, because even when I go for a walk, sometimes it's like I'll use this time to listen to a podcast that you've sent, it's still not silence.
Speaker 2:I'm still walking with, so I'm consuming. We are in a society where we are just taught to consume and I think we think about that in like a spending way. But it's also what we're, the information we're taking in right, and we're just consuming and consuming, and consuming. We're till we're full up and we've got no space for anything else because our brain is just full. So, yeah, I mean, if you want me to lie in a field for a week, I'll do it.
Speaker 1:Give it, go some amazing idea yeah but it's true, yeah so we don't allow so, bringing us nicely into the work piece and what.
Speaker 1:What we're doing at work, um, is blocking out space time in our diaries every week, where we I mean cal newport calls it deep work, so we've adopted that phrase, so that's one of his phrases that he's he's used. But, yeah, doing the hard work, the deep work, the thinking work, where you don't check your email at all, you don't check your whatsapps, you don't go on social media, you literally are just doing that thing and not just you know. There's the pomodoro technique, which is quite useful sometimes, I think, for really boring things that you've got to do and you're just like I can't bear it and you think right, I'm just going to set a timer for 25 minutes, I have to do as much as I can in 25 minutes. And then I'm just going to set a timer for 25 minutes. I have to do as much as I can in 25 minutes, and then I'm allowed a five minute break and sometimes that works, but actually you need two or three hours to really get into it.
Speaker 2:I was going to say is there not some science behind how long it takes you to get into that flow state?
Speaker 1:Yes there is when you're in a task and how long it takes you to get back into it if you come out of it to check an email.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's like 20 minutes to get back in so actually in that method you'd have five minutes of deep work and then you'd be out of it again, right?
Speaker 1:so we have um. So there's a couple of things. So here's three principles are do fewer things, work at a natural pace and obsess over quality. And one thing about the do fewer things I thought it was really interesting quote from his book which I really relate to it's a good sign when your book is full.
Speaker 1:I know it's full of tabs, yeah we see, I had time to read this and tab it up because I wasn't on Instagram, so this is what I did in my more my morning sort of coffee time, instead of scrolling on, yeah, stuff, um. But it's this, um, yeah, this tendency to take on too much work and, as a small business entrepreneur, we're small business, medium business, medium medium.
Speaker 2:We're pretty small, team wise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, businesses maybe, I don't know, yeah, probably medium, but anyway, we're not a big, no corporation. Um. So he says, um, small business entrepreneurs exist at that point of maximum sustainable overhead tax. That seems to represent the worst of all configurations, as it maintains the pain of having too much to do but keeps this pain just manageable enough to avoid reform. And that's exactly how I think a lot of us felt a few weeks ago. But because I can control my workload, because I'm the boss, yeah, but it was always at that only just manageable level. And then if something else comes in, that's then you get that horrible. Oh, I can't do all of this and something has to give. And the panic. And we've always been very good at not working long hours, not working weekends, we don't communicate outside of work hours, it's all it's. Actually, I think we were already quite far down that road anyway.
Speaker 2:Encouraged to take holiday.
Speaker 1:Take holiday and, I think, largely driven by the fact that I am not a workaholic and I don't. You know, I like to have free time but also have children, so I can't be working all of the time, so, but we do. We get excited about ideas.
Speaker 1:That's what it is you and I specifically we're probably the worst, yeah, yeah get an idea and then, because we're small, we can go, yeah, let's just do it, like the podcast is a good example. And then so you go, yeah, let's do that. And then you haven't really looked at your workload for the next couple of months, can you actually fit that in? So then it takes up space in your head because you're thinking about it. Then you have to delegate out tasks for that project to other people in the team.
Speaker 1:So then there's a knock-on effect, and so what he explains in the book is the way most businesses are run, is work gets pushed on to people, and that's where email, I think, is really tricky, because what happens is people have stuff to do and then they think, oh, I need something from that person. So they ping off an email to that person. So then they've pushed some work onto that person and then that person has to then take that on, and then you get a lot of pinging back and forth and clarification. And then someone else gets brought in and then you're managing. You're not actually doing that work. You're then just managing this pinging back and forth of emailing.
Speaker 1:So one thing we've talked about is, instead of doing that, we have one day a week where we're all together face to face and we run through all the stuff that we're doing at the moment, so we're not emailing each other back and forth. Yeah, and what work do we have in the next three months? Can we do anything else? And if we can't, then that has to wait until we can do it yeah and that's been really good, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, that has been, because it just it's managing the time that we think things are going to take as well. Because with the podcast it was like, yeah, let's do it. It's like actually, when I calculated the hours that I put into the podcast now it's like half of my week, yeah, to like do the kind of guests and the feeding back on the footage and the all of it. It was like half my week when when we first said yes, that I was like, yeah, it'll be a couple of hours yeah, yeah, top bosh it out but it's like when we actually because we also want to do things really well we forget that actually a lot of that takes time.
Speaker 2:So I think that's been a really helpful thing because it means I can do the bits of my job really well because we've gone, I'll park that and now when something comes in, I'm not thinking how am I going to fit that in? It's like, do I have time to fit that in what needs to be parked so that that can come in if it's urgent, or does it just have to wait? Like that's a really nice perspective to have, which I think is quite rare. I think so. Um, yeah, because I've never worked somewhere I mean I haven't really worked in marketing before this job, but just in my other jobs it was just like you just need to stay to get it done, even if it is like till 9 pm, and it's just like I don't think that's a way of working. You come in the next day and it's like you're not, your brain's, just like I don't think that's a way of working. You come in the next day and it's like you're not, your brain's all fuzzy and you're not able to have any space to do anything, and it just doesn't mean you have quality output, you're just chucking stuff out. So I think that's been really helpful as a team.
Speaker 2:And just on the messaging whatsapp for me is the most distracting over everything else, because on social media I've got all of my notifications turned off, so I have to go into the app physically to see the notifications. I have everything switched off WhatsApp, on the other hand, because it's my personal and business that are in the same WhatsApp, I just get pinged with everything because I have to have it on for business. So if something's urgent we tend to ping it. We've also stopped that. So I've said to people now if you want to contact me and it is really urgent, you need to message me. Which people are, like god, I don't use what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:I message anybody like a text message because it feels more like then I know you definitely need me or call or call me it urgent, because I will turn the notifications off on WhatsApp, because I had to have them on before because if a work thing came in, but my friends are also messaging throughout the day and it's just very distracting. So that, on top of everything else, if you're a WhatsApp person, maybe like get an app that tells you how much time you're spending on it, because that's the access thing. It's like you can't just ping me stuff and expect me to do it straight away, like what it needs to be, like an email of a deadline, like can you just quickly check this for me? It's like those things have reduced, because then I was like, oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll quickly check that yeah, and then I'm in something else. Yeah, and you were doing something else, and then yeah yeah, and those protective of that now yeah, so we're all. So yeah, from a practical point of view, if people are wondering, it seems obvious but all notifications off? I don't have any on at all. None, um, nothing pinging onto your screen calendar notifications, that's perhaps the only thing I have is one, so I don't forget. Oh shit, I've got a zoom meeting now, but it's just one yes and it just pops up um.
Speaker 1:I have no sounds on anything, so any like boingy noises or swishy because an email's come in, switch all of that off, um, and just have times of your day where you check email. Yeah so, and we have a timetable that we've done. We have our own individual timetables. We try and marry them up a little bit so people are waiting a long time I'm doing deep work when you're having meetings.
Speaker 1:That's not going to work. So we all agree, we have meetings on a certain day and you have. You know, I check emails between 12 and 1 on a Monday and then, if that's the kind of everybody knows, that, um, you're not going to get an immediate reply, but there's no expectation of one either, and then you're not constantly checking your emails, checking your WhatsApps and, like you say, the WhatsApps have reduced because we save those bits for meetings when we're in person and we talk to each other, which is always much better anyway.
Speaker 2:It's so much better. You get stuff done way quicker when you speak in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so also, there's no misinterpretation, there's no. You know, I can be quite blunt on whatsapp just because I'm don't have time to fluff it up. And then some of the more junior, younger members of the team I think they know now but might think, oh no, she's annoyed with me. And then they'll spend an hour thinking, oh no, she's annoyed with me, what have I done? So all of that sort of goes as well. So I think everyone's already very quickly feeling they're getting more done. Yes, paradoxically, because I think that's the thing, it's this, and again this really beautifully explained in the book is that this way of managing people who are working at desks has sort of been adopted from factories. So when Henry Ford famously brought in all his kind of systems and processes and kind of started that whole thing might have been someone else anyway most people think it's henry ford yeah and it was called productivity.
Speaker 1:How much? How many little bits to go on the gear stick are you producing a day? And we need to produce these many, and we measure that because that is actual physical output, right? So then that's been used to measure human work. And then you bring in email and Slack, which thankfully we don't have.
Speaker 2:We don't adopt.
Speaker 1:Slack. We're never having Slack. So Slack, but no thanks WhatsApp. So they're the big ones. Um, that is a way for people to show productivity. Oh, I'm busy, I'm emailing you. Oh, I'm emailing you. Oh, I'm messaging, I'm busy I'm busy. I'm busy, yeah yeah, and it is a source of productivity, but it's he calls it pseudo productivity, where you're not actually producing any work and then you get you're spending so much time on that, and then meetings we've reduced our meetings loads, especially for some team members who are meetings all day, every day all day, every day, and it's like when do I do my work?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, yeah, and then you're trying to squeeze bits of work in between meetings, um, so yeah, it's a really bad measure. It's a really bad way to measure, um, people, and I think also now with remote working. You know, I used to do this thing.
Speaker 1:I don't care if my old bosses are listening where you'd leave your jacket on the back of your chair right, yeah yeah, and my and I'd leave my glasses on and I'd have my computer sort of on yeah and like, and then I'd bugger off it's like you've gone to the toilet or something. I'd just gone to the loo, but actually I'd buggered off for an hour to go outside because I'm so bored and fed up and hated, hated all my jobs um.
Speaker 2:Mel's old bosses are listening yeah, screw you not all of you, not all of you your london corporate days my london advertising days.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that was a little trick you know, so I mean, and during um, my kids did it, a lot of kids did this during um lockdowns, where they'd turn their zoom camera off or their microsoft teams and they, they wouldn't even be there, and then they'd occasionally come back and go yes, madam, like so people want to prove they're working by oh, I'm here, I'm responding to you straight away. Yeah, and it's really insidious, and everyone's in this trap and as and bosses think well, how do I know if they're actually doing something? But actually we know, I know if, if, if you guys are doing stuff, because, yeah, there's no outputs, yeah, and there's nothing to show at the meetings and nothing gets done yeah, and you'll know then nothing's being done you don't need to be emailed about it.
Speaker 1:No, it's being done or have you messaging me all day long? To show that I'm working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just really dumb, but also what you were saying then about the output being the measure, so like the productivity measure being like this is the amount you're doing. What it made me think about is like when did we stop like kind of assuming that thinking is part of productivity?
Speaker 2:Like it's not an output. It's like you're allowing processing to happen and that is so productive and actually that can save you so much time, because then you're doing stuff properly, the idea is better and you're not going oh, I've done all this work and now it's a bit meh, like you've actually felt something great. But I wonder how many bosses are like oh, I don't waste time doing that, just get stuff done. I actually want to ask you a question. Go on, if there's like founders or people that have started a business maybe have a small team listening, why should they adopt this way? Like, what have you noticed in your team? Why should they do this way?
Speaker 1:thinking oh well, I mean, you just said one of the reasons, which is you're employing people for their brains and that think humans are so creative. And you know, obviously everyone's loving ai not particularly myself but if you think of the things that humans create, there are insane, yeah, insanely brilliant. And that's what. If you're a small business and you've got a team of people, you want them to come up with really good ideas or solve problems or think of a new way of looking at something. Otherwise, you just end up and so many businesses do this is you just end up doing what all the other businesses are doing and it's really formulaic.
Speaker 1:So, from a consumer point of view, all brands, a lot of brands, seem the same and you get the same sort of stuff and we've done an exercise recently, yes, with an agency that's working with us on our tone of voice, which is marketing, speak for how we sound as a brand, how we talk, and they showed us a slide of the things that health and wellness brands say and we were like we sounded the same, we sound the same, we all sound the same we do and we thought we were being really clever and out of the box and thinking outside the box.
Speaker 1:It just we realized in that moment that one slide, yeah, we were sounding the same yeah, and I think that came a really good time as well, because we'd all recognize that we need to spend more time thinking, doing fewer things but doing them better, and then, over time, that will have a bigger impact on the business and and we're less stressed, it's like, and we're less stressed, I mean, if I could synthesize synthesize is that the right word? Yeah, yeah, summarize your question why. Why do this?
Speaker 1:you'll have a less stressed team and they'll produce better work and your business will do better because you'll be producing better stuff yeah and better quality and original thinking um that's.
Speaker 2:That's the reason to do it and you'll also have fun while doing it yeah like your job satisfaction from an employee perspective.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you feel the same. We have a lot of fun, yeah, like I think a lot of us can take the kind of humanness out of stuff because we're just like almost becoming robots chucking stuff out and it's like how can you have a really good conversation? That actually the silly, weird conversations are normally where the good ideas come out. Best performing stuff comes out is when we've sat in a room and gone. We actually have space to like I'm not stressed, I'm going to go into the room and I actually feel creative and funny and silly yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I can think of some cool stuff rather than going in and being like god, I just need to think of something.
Speaker 1:That's a really awful place when you try and think creatively no, when you're stressed, the bit of your brain, that's the sort of primeval bit of your brain.
Speaker 1:I can never remember what it's called, but brain yeah, some people call it the monkey brain or the lizard brain, and I can't remember the name, but everyone probably knows what I'm talking about. If you're stressed out, that bit of your brain takes over, which is all about survival, and it cuts off all of your non-essentials. So from a physical point of view, it cuts off reproductive systems, digestion, um, and the bit of your brain that can that does the thinking, the creative piece, is switched off. So, business owners, if you're putting your team under pressure, you know when you see those kind of clips of like, um, uh, people in magazines, in sort of new york kind of setting in an office and there's some kind of bitch editor going right, I want ideas, I want ideas, guys.
Speaker 1:And then everyone's like, oh my god, okay, what about an article about women who eat their own poo for their gut bacteria? I've just made that up. Actually, it is a thing not eating it, but putting it up your butt. That's a whole other subject. Anyway, um, you can't think no of ideas like that. Yeah, it's allowing, and sometimes we see we have really random conversations. Then we get a little nugget of something. That's the thing. Oh, there's the thing.
Speaker 2:And it's productive because we haven't sat there and been not ourselves and very corporate and go right, this is what I just have no one else to be creative. In those environments I become really uptight. I'm going gonna say the wrong thing. Actually, when you say the wrong thing, it's normally the right thing. It's like a different way of thinking. So, yeah, I think it's interesting that founders listening know they're like benefit, because it does take a bit of practice putting it in as well, because you think you are going against the grain of everyone else. There's a lot of people that will think, no, that can't happen because productivity will drop and it's not about that. It's being productive in a different way. Um, but it is against the grain. So you're going to have some people being like what you're doing? What slow productivity, what's that?
Speaker 1:it's not even a thing, and I think, if you're an employee and you're thinking, oh, I wish we could do that. Take that podcast episode, we'll link it to your boss, put it in your slack and say whack it in the slack, listen. I'd really like you to listen to this, you'll get better work out of us yeah and sell it to them in that, in that way.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I, I just think it's nuts the way people work and so many people with burnout because they're expected to be pinging emails back and forth. You know, responsive straight away, which let's talk about that as well.
Speaker 1:Actually, that being accessible responsive and and always responding straight away um, and then they don't have time to do their work, and then all the other shit that you've got to deal with in your life, and if you've got children and you've got to get them places and pick them up from school, and all those things that we have, it's not just work, um. So one of the other things he talks about is reducing your to-do list.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which also really helps.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm a big fan of that. In general, when I'm feeling really stressed and overwhelmed, I write my to-do list. I think, right, what can I not do? And also it's really hard to prioritize when you're stressed out, and we've seen this in members of our team.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Where they start doing stuff and you think why are you doing that and not that thing? That's actually way more important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've done that before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's when you're stressed you can't prioritize.
Speaker 1:And actually yesterday, as you know, I was feeling a bit stressed and at lunch I was talking to bit stressed and um, and at lunch I was talking to my husband about it and he said, okay, well, what are the really important things? And I was like I do know how to prioritize. Getting all defensive don't mansplain me. He was actually trying to help and he's like, no, but it's actually helpful to talk it through. Yes, so we did talk it through, um, and actually there was one thing which is one of our products which we're releasing a variant of soon. I thought I've got to get that off to print and I have to do it at the moment because our production manager's on maternity leave. And I thought actually, no, that could actually wait a week, thinking about it and I hadn't done any prep for this podcast, but this was a priority because we'd paid yes, we've paid the team for the team who you can't see but are behind all the cameras and the studio and we'd blocked it out and had to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it felt like, oh, podcast, that's not that important, this is more important. So, yeah, I think, if we kind of summarize it, carve out time to do hard work, deep work, whatever you want to call it, proper work, actual work, actual work, yeah, actual work. Times of the day where you email have everything switched off, agree, when you meet and use those meetings product productively to run through what you're doing and save on the emailing back and forth also meetings take prep, which is something I've realized also yeah I turn up to meetings and I'm like hi, hi, oh, I think I've got this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what we're talking about. What?
Speaker 2:we're talking about and what I've realized is I need the time. So I try not to have meeting after meeting after meeting, because I need time in between to prep for the next meeting. Otherwise I'm still in the last conversation. I can't go from one to the other in the last conversation I can't go from one to the other. It's just not a good use of my time and also it just you do just need like an hour to prep your list. What do I need to go through in this meeting? How can I get the most out of this meeting? That also takes time. So also not underestimating that to get the most out of something you need to have prep time beforehand yeah that's a big part of it yeah
Speaker 1:and time to think that's something I'm taking away from this podcast. Yeah, time to think if you're, if you're one of those people and I've been that person and especially if you've got kids, uh, and especially when they're young and they look at you and they go, mommy, will you play barbie with me? And you're like I can't, I don't have time, and then you feel like the worst person in the world, um is just carve out time for those things and do those things properly in that time. And actually, and if you've got children, 15 minutes is often all it takes for them to feel that you've given them some of your attention and just park the household chores, put your phone away, um. So yeah, um, is there anything else I feel we wanted to cover that we've been loving about this whole process?
Speaker 2:I do. You think the thing that I'm having to change is just a narrative around work. So I grew up in my 20s in that kind of like girl, boss, hustle culture that was like you're not, yeah, you're not doing enough and you're not achieving enough. And it's also that stage where you're building your career so you want to like, come on, I'm gonna do all this stuff. Then in my third turning 30, something happened where I was like do I need to keep really like whipping myself because all I'm doing is burning myself out? So I need to keep really like whipping myself, cause all I'm doing is burning myself out.
Speaker 2:So I think it's also like taking time to maybe sit and think about what, what work, what ideas you have around, and stories around work and productivity that you have, cause you need to rewrite them. For this stuff to like sink in, you need to kind of sit with yourself and be like what does that actually bring up for me? Like when do I feel anxious about being slow and what does that? What am I telling myself around that? I think for me it was around worthiness. I'm not worthy if I'm not putting out a ton of stuff. So I had to sit with that.
Speaker 1:So I think that's the thing that I would try and do to like allow all this stuff to sink into your life properly you have to get kind of real with yourself about why you're doing that in the first place and I am a very ambitious person and I don't feel that this in any way is slowing me down or dumbing down that ambition. I actually feel like I'm doing better work you're doing a lot and yeah, I'm doing a lot yeah, I'm not burnt out, no, and, and I do look after my health and nutrition and all that stuff and sleep, which?
Speaker 1:is your kids and all that's really important. You can't that. That is you know. If you're feeling burnt out, you need to look at your nutrition and sleep as well, primarily, and tell your boss if it's a boss making you feel burnt out, to lax it and read this book yeah, but yeah, you won't become less productive. No, that word, I think, has been sort of you know it's not good, it's got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it means different things, different people, but you will actually do better work and you will go further and you will be less stressed yeah, and you have people around you being like how are you doing all of that? Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, yesterday I did have a bit of a wobble but that's okay and that's okay and I told you all I said listen, lax it on the stuff you're sending me, yeah and I actually really like your email response or reply.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I stole from my friend it's like I'm a.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm a mum, I also like to try and fit in exercise. I might not reply straight away, like it's you saying, like setting that expectation. I'm a mum, I also like to try and fit in exercise. I might not reply straight away, like it's you saying, like setting that expectation. I'm not going to respond to you straight away, yes, without having to over explain it all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually we didn't talk about that. But people, we feel we have to respond to people, yes, all the time, and it's not just work's whatsapps, personal life, group chats. Once you get out of the mindset that I need to reply straight away, um, and let, obviously, you know, use your logic for something urgent, um, you just it takes such a pressure off and I do recommend leaving any whatsapp groups that get on your nerves.
Speaker 1:That, yeah because then you feel somehow obliged to join in and so yeah, people shouldn't have access to you and expect a response.
Speaker 1:I actually don't think people do think that no, I think we think that ourselves yeah they'll think I'm rude, or they'll think I'm ignoring them, or they'll think I'm not on it, especially in a work thing. You know, if I whatsapp someone on the team, yes, they might think, oh, if I don't reply straight away, they'll think I'm not on it or I'm slacking off, or we all create that story in our own heads it's also something that I'm practicing is this thing of even when I'm in a meeting and somebody asks me a question, you just take a pause for a second and think about the answer.
Speaker 2:You don't have to like instantly and actually there's more like. I think it's more intriguing when somebody like sits and actually thinks about what they want to say before they say it. They're like what are they going to say? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Like they must be really good at what they're going to say. Before they say it, they're like what they're going to say.
Speaker 2:Do you know? I mean, like they must be really good what they're going to say. Yeah, so it's like not feeling like you have to just jump hot, because that's also not productive, because then you think out loud and you're like, oh, I kind of, and then people start waffling well then people like what do you mean? You just be like can I just think about that for a second. I'm just gonna think about the answer. Have a little chat between yourselves and then come back to me yeah you can also do that in that, but it's with the whatsapp.
Speaker 2:For me personally, it's my codependency trait that comes out of I need you to be okay with me. So I will respond to you now, so you're not annoyed with me. And then it's playing into that narrative just they don't. If you're in the middle of something and your phone goes off, just don't read it. Yeah, just turn it face down, just go like yeah yeah, or put it in another room, it's like them in and they're not meaning to.
Speaker 2:They're coming into your day you don't have to respond at that moment no I also think about people that walk and yeah that's so bad for your brain right, I've tried.
Speaker 1:I'm trying actively to get run over doing that yeah, stresses me out.
Speaker 2:It's so easily done. I still slip into the habit of doing that. If I have my phone buzzed in my pocket, I'm quickly like, as I'm on my route, something it's. I think it's so bad yeah, turn the buzzy off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you don't know, that's what you also look so much more confident walking into rooms when you haven't got your phone on you, like I went to that event at the weekend and I thought my phone is not allowed to be in my hand at any point during this event, even if it's awkward, because it looks like you're awkward. So I wanted to walk in and be like right, who am I making eye contact with? Who can I chat to? It like improves every area of your life when you're not attached to this thing.
Speaker 2:That's buzzing like it's not your energy is not going to be as you walk into a room, people, if people see you scrolling your phone, sitting down and looking a little because they're not going to come and say hi to you no they're going to leave you to it, thinking you've got something going on, whereas if you walk into a room all open for conversation, you might meet someone that sparks a business idea, and then you could have been whatsapping your team, pinging off loads of stuff, and actually chatting to someone will get more of an idea of what you need to do next yeah, I was just thinking.
Speaker 1:As you were saying, then if you're in the middle of something, people don't always read the situation it's. I think it's pretty obvious when someone's concentrating and they're working yeah normally at home. He's my door's shut headphones in don't come in um, but it's kind of that equivalent people wouldn't come in, burst in and tap you on the shoulder and go hey, look at this meme, right, they'd go oh, they're busy, I'll wait till later but because you, you're just flinging it over whatsapp.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they don't know what you're doing, so it's not their fault. But just don't don't. You have to, you have to just not have. I just have my phone face down and just it's actually not that difficult.
Speaker 2:And try not to apologise for not responding. Sorry I've taken so long to get no.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just don't respond when I people get used to that, then it's true, I don't need to Just thinking about the ooh finger thing, which sounds really dodgy on the podcast. Yeah, and if you're not watching, I'm doing like a. It's like you know. When you're not watching, I'm doing like a. It's like you know when you're trying to get someone's attention from across the table and you do that kind of like finger in the air thing yeah and you go, oh and you go.
Speaker 2:Oh, I used to do that a lot at the beginning of my career with Mel, because she was sitting opposite me and I was learning and I'd go oh, I've just had this idea and it would be like, and you just said so, the finger thing just needs to stop because, like, because I'm in the middle of something, I think I said stop, ooh, fingering me ooh fingering me, which sounds yeah, that sounds like it deserves to be on a different podcast.
Speaker 2:But, um, yeah, it was like this thing that we stopped doing even back then. Yeah, which was I'm in the middle of like some deep work, and then, if someone does that, it then takes me 20 minutes to get back into a flow. Yeah, so we try. Well, we're pretty good now at respecting each other's space and actually I'm the same as you. Now I can't have anyone yeah, you're actually militant. I'm really it's like you know, what's that me?
Speaker 1:I don't bother what's up in you.
Speaker 2:I'm much now because I know I won't get off because, yeah, because I just can't, I have to have the boundaries in, otherwise it just I get so stressed, but then you're like much less stressed than you, I'm less stressed and I'm getting so much more done yeah like, if you told me this time last year, I'm gonna last summer in fact when you were really stressed.
Speaker 2:If you said we're gonna do a podcast, I think I would have just been rocking in a corner somewhere, like I was at that stage when actually nothing's really changed work-wise, my mindset's changed and we've done lots of different ways of working. So I can take it on because we're not like. A lot of the stress that I used to put myself was actually stress I was putting on myself as well sometimes it's not always coming from the top.
Speaker 2:it's like how can I do more, improve myself? And it's like no one's asking you to do that and actually, by doing that, you're bringing around the thing that you're most worried about, because you're then stressing yourself out that you can't do stuff. It's like by worrying about it and trying to do it and force it, you're actually doing the thing that you don't want to do. So yeah, if you're going to take anything from this podcast, it's just like slow the fuck down.
Speaker 1:Yes, Just like what I want to say and just take a bit of time to think, yeah, and don't just jump jump from one thing to the other, one thing to the other. So, on that note, I think that's a good place to end, yeah, so, um, yeah, we will put all the links in. Yeah, I really recommend that podcast episode because obviously he came up with all this brilliant way of articulating this and does it a lot, but I've just hatcheted it, um. So, yeah, thank you for joining us. Please follow us on Apple Spotify, wherever else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, subscribe on YouTube if you're watching.
Speaker 1:Subscribe on YouTube if you're watching or even if you're not watching. It's just really helpful.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And we will see you on the next episode.
Speaker 2:See you then.