Finding Focus in the Midst of Chaos, with David Roth

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast, but more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz. I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hello, Mike. How are you today? Pretty good. How about you? I am. I'm doing well. We've got a guest today. I want to welcome to the show, my friend David Roth. Welcome, David. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, David and I have known each other, I don't know, 15 years or so. We bumped into each other at lawyer conference years ago. David is the, I think he is the perfected version of the corporate lawyer I tried to be sometimes. And so he's had a long and illustrious career. He's worked for big, big law firms and in-house council for big companies and currently you're practicing corporate law in Texas. David is a member of the expert he labs and the thing about him is every time he shows up for one of the meetups and he says something everybody likes it's up in their chairs because he's a very thoughtful guy and I thought, you know, what about focus? So we've been talking offline about it and he brings a lot to the table gang. So we're happy to welcome a guest who's not selling a book. He's just here to tell us about focus and David, welcome to the show. Thank you. That's very kind of you, David. I appreciate it. Yeah. Well, I mean, 35 years in that racket, you've got to be focused. Focus and good at survival. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. The thing that I think people need to understand about the transactional lawyers, that's what you do is that everything is so detailed oriented. Like, million dollar lawsuits are fought over in the placement of a coma in a contract. And David works on very big contracts. And so he's got to have that. And I was thinking, David, when you first got started in your career, did you know what you were getting into in terms of the degree of focus you needed to bring? And what was like your wake up moment? They're like, oh, yeah, this is, this is important. Yeah. I thought I had an idea going in, but not really. Yeah. I didn't realize the speed with what you have to practice. And while maintaining that speed, being incredibly accurate, and that ranges from just the embarrassment of making mistakes in your documents to the coma that results in adjustment against your client for millions of dollars, which has actually happened. And you sort of live interior of being the one who makes mistakes. But on the other hand, that's how you learn as a young lawyer. So when you pick up work to do that, you know, that note you made about speed plus accuracy, to me, that is where something becomes a profession. Like I think about work that you do like my hobby would working. I bring perfection without speed to a hobby, because I can. But if I was a professional woodworker in order to make enough money to pay for my shoes, I'd have to bring that perfection with speed to make enough to sell, to make money. I think no matter whether you're an information worker or a woodworker, it's that combination that is so difficult. And I think a lot of people sacrifice focus and attention at the altar of speed. Yeah. That's a great point. It's very hard to do both. And that's why so many in the legal profession suffer from burnout and become addicted to substances because they constantly put the pressure on themselves to be perfect. And nobody's perfect. So you do your best and then you help each other fix mistakes. Yeah. And I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole. But when I, because I, for folks listening, I was a lawyer almost 30 years ago. I had up like four years ago. I never realized, and David, you may not realize either how stressful that job is until you set it down. Because I thought I was fine with it. I was like, yeah, I'm good at this. I like it, you know, I'm helping people. And then I got out of it. It's like, oh my goodness, I can't believe the crucible I've been in for the last 30 years. I mean, it really, you have to almost get out of it to realize how stressful that job is. Yeah. I'm sure I don't. My wife often points that out to me. Yeah. When I make comments about it not being that stressful, she sees the stress. And, you know, with just a little perspective, you realize that it's a hard pace for any human being. Yeah. David Foster, well, the story always comes to mind in that context of the two goldfish who are swimming and they see the older goldfish. The older goldfish says, hey, fellas, how's the water? And they have the little goldfish look at each other and say, what's water? Yeah. But either way, so you had your wake up moment young, early in your career. How did you adapt to that? I adapted to that by going on an endless journey of systems that were going to help me. The very first system I saw was a little older than me who was a mentor to me early on a academic career. He would keep a running list on the front page of the latest version of the main document. And that running list was the, you know, don't forget this. Somebody told you this. I want to make sure I check this type list. And I tried to emulate that and it was utter chaos. I ended up with lists and lots of places. So let me just understand that. So like you have different things you're working on as a lawyer. You've got the Smith contract and the Jones contract. So he had his task list attached to the front of each contract. So you'd pick one up and the list came with you. His list was synchrosync to him. So I am milleted behavior. Okay. It wasn't a shared list. But I soon began taking the same notes. I'd be in a meeting or on a phone call and somebody would mention something that I knew I needed to do in five days. That would go on the list. As I was drafting, things would come up and I'd put that on the list. And, you know, the next draft I'd copy what was left, that sort of thing. So there's a very analog system and very imperfect. Yeah. And just for clarification, I didn't say it early. Dave has got a little gray hair. He's been doing this gig 35 years, you and I are about the same age. So there was no internet. There was no cloud sync in back in those days. Correct. When I started practicing the older partners, we're complaining about the advent of the facts. Yeah. I kind of would complain too. And I was a new lawyer at the time. Okay. So that, you said that didn't really work for you. What did? So, then I started going on the journey and, you know, became convinced that it was all about having a system that completely captured all of my tasks. And I started out with things like, remember the milk, which was an early web-based task management system. And it'll become important later that one of the things that I like to, I don't remember, the milk was, it was just a big list and it was up to you to customize it. Then I discovered GTD, like so many in our community do. And GTD seemed to have all the answers to me. Yeah. So I went on the GTD journey and I read the book, listened to the audiobook several times, went to a bunch of Dave Dallan seminars and a bunch of seminars that his coach has put on. And kept trying to perfect my GTD practice. And my GTD practice broke down in two ways. One, my lists. I was always chasing completing my list. And two, I wasn't very good at reviewing my list. And now, you know, later in life, I realized the reviews are everything. And I would even, you know, talk with David Allen when I had a chance in between sessions of a seminar and say, David, I'm so bad at the weekly review. How can I fix that? And they just kind of nod his head and say, yeah, that's important. Well, you know, that review thing, it's like a component to every system, a successful system at least. I feel like that's not just a GTD thing. Yeah. And I've come to learn that, but it's taken me time. Yeah. So part of my GTD journey was I tried all the software tools. And at that point in time, there was a new software tool coming out every month or every few months, you know, before Omni focused, there was Kinkless GTD and later on, there was things and in between there are a bunch of other GTD software and web based alternatives like to do us and like. And remember that app, I GTD, it had a short lifespan. It was in between Kinkless and Omni focus had this like neon yellow interface. That was when I first started getting into productivity was I GTD. I remember that very briefly. Yes. Yeah. You're right. There were so many. And they were all kind of like, yeah. They all looked pretty and none of them fixed my problems. And it became obvious to me that one of the biggest obstacles those. to my productivity was switching systems so often that it would feel really good to organize a new system and get it set up just right and get all your tasks in it. But it wasn't actually making me more productive at all. And I did that for a couple of few years. And then I finally realized, okay, you know, the switching cost is too high. Okay, so let's stop right there for a minute because I think that's a point that needs emphasis. The risks of system jumping. You know, this is a thing that I think our audience and the hosts are susceptible to, right? Because there's always another app with an additional feature that your current app doesn't have. And there's always this imagination that, oh yeah, if I just get that feature, then all of this gets easy. And I think that is the underlying driver of that problem. And I think the thing you need to realize is that it never gets easy. You just have to do the work. And you just need something that will get out of the way and let you do the work. And organizing the deck chairs doesn't change the fact that the ship is sinking. So, so you just kind of get on with the work. Yeah, and I think GTD generally was that for me. Yeah, it was a system that promised to help me organize all those desk chairs. And I'm sorry, all this deck chairs. And I think it became an impediment, but I didn't realize it. Real quick, I want to just chime in regarding the root cause of that, that system's jumping that you were talking about, David, because I think I had a moment of clarity when you were describing the balance between the quality and the speed. And I feel like you have to come to grips with that is a choice you must make. You can't have both, but the lure of the new tool, I think, is that you can. If I just implement the feature the right way, I can do the things that I'm doing faster. And they will be better. But that has never in the course of human history resulted in the payoff that we paint in our minds when we go chase the new shiny object. I think that's very, very true. And then GTD, because I know you and I were both big GTD people back in the day, but back in the day, the internet was in its infancy. And the input cycles were lower. I mean, the reason I complained about faxes when I was a young lawyer was because suddenly opposing council could tap on my shoulder at any point during the day, whereas in the first few years of my career, they could only tap on my shoulder with the telephone or when the mail arrived. And suddenly, I could be on my way out the door and get an ex-parta notice in the fax machine. And that I found annoying. And that was just the taste. Right. Now we have email and all these ways people can jump into our lives. And I just think GTD, the system gets overwhelmed when you have that many inputs coming to that person. I think so. I think that was my problem from the beginning and it just got worse over time. Yeah. The endless quest to capture all of your tasks. And that doesn't just include work tasks, which are easy to identify, but personal tasks and how your goals and your personal values interact with that. And what you want to be doing more of what you want to be doing less of. And in those days, I would promise myself I could do all the things that interested me personally, once I got all my work done. And as a result, I'd just end up with an endless list of personal things that I wanted to do. And the list was a source of sadness. Yes. Do you think though that that is a limitation of GTD? Because I think if David Allen were here on the call, he would probably tell us, well, that's why you do the weekly reviews because you can't do it all and you got to figure out what's actually worth doing. So it's probably user error. And I experienced the exact same thing with GTD where we just try to cram in more than we can handle. So is there a system on this planet where you don't have to worry about culling those things? Is that just like that where it's baked in and you don't ever have to think about that anymore? I think at some level, you always have to have to be willing to cut things, right? Absolutely. And make choices. Hey, one of the fun features of my robot task system I've been using lately is it tracks when something's been on my bench for more than three weeks. And it just demotes it. I gave it the authority. Like, okay, if I haven't dealt with it in three weeks, then it's obviously not that important to me. Take it off the list, right? But you've evolved with this stuff, David. Now, where did you go after after that experience? Okay. So where I eventually went and where I am today is a node plan, which it is a not so much a to-do app in itself, but it's a system sort of like, oh, forget what's the obsidian one. Obsidian. The couple of kids. Yes, but much more simple. Yeah. So its structure is that it's a folder full of text notes, you know, markdown style text notes. And it shows those notes to you in a daily view, weekly view, monthly view, quarterly view, or a free form view. And you can make of it whatever you want to make of it. And when I say it's simpler than obsidian, I tried installing obsidian a couple times. And, you know, for me personally, it wasn't a welcoming interface. And it just didn't attract me in it. You know, I didn't know where to get started. And I didn't want to create something that was that complicated. One of the things I've learned over time with all the system jumping and, you know, all this pursuit is that I like simple systems and simple pieces of software that I don't have to invest a lot of time. Warning and becoming an ninja at. And node plan just hit me perfectly because I could start with the form of the daily note. And I can take my notes in there of my meetings and my phone calls. And as you go and node plan, if you want to capture a task, you hit asterisk and then space and write the task. You don't have to keep it on a separate list to you. You've just captured that task wherever you are. See, so it might be in your daily note. If you're taking notes, it might be in your weekly note or quarterly note if you're doing a review. But all those tasks can live wherever you want them to live. And then there are filters that will show you all your open tasks, all your daily note open tasks. That's where the thing. And when it comes to the review, you know, a step in the review doesn't have to be assembling everything in the right place. And that just hit me perfectly. Yeah. And we did, David was a guest on Mac Power Users. I don't know a couple of years ago now, David, where you shared your kind of node plan journey. And I'm glad you're still on it. We'll put a link to that in notes. We did a full review and an interview on that, which actually motivated a lot of Mac Power users to switch over to node plan. So many so that I heard from the developer afterward. Yeah, I really enjoyed that and I have actually made personal friendships as a result of that. And still hear from people and always happy to help people who are making the journey. And you know, give them my honest assessment if node plan is a good tool for them or if it's just the way my brain works. Yeah, I am right in the middle of the two people, other two people in this episode. Mike is a died in the wall, sitting guy. You're a hundred percent no plan. And I can see real benefits to both of them. And I can't make a mind. I'm going to figure that out. I think this year. But the, let me validate David's, you mentioned that obsidian was not a welcoming interface. And I completely agree with that. So even as the quote unquote obsidian guy on this episode, I don't blame you for choosing a choosing node plan. I had this the same reaction when I first opened the app. Like it was too complicated immediately quit and deleted it actually was ready to move on to something else. Eventually I came back and yeah, I've dialed it in and created all those those workflows. But sounds like with node plan, you found the sweet spot. So are you committed to this now or do you still find yourself trying to jump between different apps and systems? I'm extremely committed. I had made the decision to stop jumping before node plan and I was on things for a while. I'm in focus for a while before that. But I I see notepad as being the one place for me, at least for the rest of my professional career. It continues to be the just write app and David mentioned the developer, Edward. He is about the most active developer I've ever seen, releasing new versions, I think kind of monthly cadence with great new features. And one of the things he's done that truly may assist me is while he makes it more and more powerful, he doesn't make it more and more complicated. If you want just to open a node plan and start typing things in the daily note, that's the interface and you never have to know about things like templates or cross links or anything like that. If you're the type who wants those things, they're all there. I've tried things like cross links and backlinks and forward links and that adds complexity for me that I'm not looking for. Search works just fine, but it's there. That said, I'll recognize that Obsidian is the peak app in this category and that if you want a system that is highly customized, there's nothing like it. - I want to take credit for pulling Mike back to Obsidian because I remember having that conversation with you like Mike, you really gotta do this. - That's true. - I think, what have I created? - Where did you go Mike? - I think he was really on research. I'm like, "No, I can't have Obsidian Mike." - Yeah, so I think Joe Bueleg was trying to get me to use Obsidian for a while and that's when I downloaded it and deleted it and I was like, "Nah, forget this." - Yeah, Rome was the first place that I got the value of the connections between the notes, but they weren't actually notes and that was one of the friction points moving back to Obsidian was, well now these are all files and I gotta figure out where are the boundaries between things? 'Cause with Rome, you could just keep drilling down as many bullets down as you wanted to go. But once I got that realization, which absolutely David, you can take credit for an assistant in that department, that's kind of when it took off for me and I started seeing how these things could contribute to the way that I was making things. So both my productivity and creativity workflows kept layering things on top of it and the rest is history. - And if you're looking for like, assistants with like Cloud Co-Work, both of these apps are the ideal apps for that because they both have their data models, just they folder full of markdown, full of files on your computer. So the data is portable, it's easy to use, and an AI can get into it and modify it very quickly. So you're both on kind of the ideal app if you wanna try and get help from Cloud Co-Work, which is a big thing right now. - Yeah, I was going to shamelessly plug your robot field guide tool, which I've been deep into and having Cloud get data from Note Plan, Surface Data, that may be lurking in the shadows and help me create a daily note that sort of lays out everything that's on my calendar, all the tests that are lingering, all the tests that are created recently, everything that has a deadline. So my Note Plan has gone to a level in recent weeks. - Yeah. - I'm having a blast with it. - Yeah, it's fun. The reason I built the course around Obsidian, 'cause I didn't want customers to have to buy an app in Note Plan is you pay for it, whereas Obsidian's free. But honestly, let's we finish that workshop series. I've decided I'm gonna spend a month or two running my robot data out of Note Plan and then make a decision, but the fact that it's a native app, the fact that it's a small indie developer, there's a lot of reasons there for me to be very attracted to it. I'm gonna just withhold judgment for now, but I also like everybody else. I just don't like the way Obsidian looks. I've tried so hard to make it look good, and I just don't. This episode of the Focus Podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/focused to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code focused. Squarespace is the place you go to to build a website on the internet. It's the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. We've all got a thing, and your thing needs to be on the internet. And the way to do that is at Squarespace, whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid, all of that in one place. The value proposition for Squarespace is an easy one. It's powerful, it's easy, and it's affordable. I have hooked up so many friends and family and business associates with Squarespace when they wanted to get started with a website, and they always thank me later, not just a few days later, but years later. The first thing you need with a website is a good design. Squarespace has got that handle for you. They have what they call blueprint AI. It's their AI-enhanced website builder that lets you quickly and easily build a site bespoke to your business. Just inputs and basic information about your industry and goals. Plus, they have those great professionally designed award-winning website templates. So no matter how you want to start this process, you're going to end up with a great looking website. The other thing you want with a website is to get paid, and from consultations to events and experiences, you can showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Think built-in appointments, scheduling, email marketing tools and more. All of that's there for you with your Squarespace account. Plus keep everything cohesive with on-brand invoices and get paid easily with online payments. Sooped and that's they've got you covered at Squarespace. Don't take my word for it, go check it out squarespace.com/focused F-O-C-U-S-E-D for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the code focus to get that 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com/focused with the offer code focused to get that 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the focus podcast. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the focus podcast and all of really. Either way, that's not what we're here. What I want to talk about is this evolution of a guy who's doing GTD hyper tracking, who says, "No, what I really need." 'Cause you said this earlier in the interview, you said, "Well, it was important for me to understand that it's a bunch of lists. What is your thinking about task management and management of projects now having gone all this journey?" - My thinking is that it remains incredibly important to keep track of details and deadlines and all those things that I was writing on the front page of the latest document and that node plan is a place that lets me do that very easily wherever I am. So I'm feeling more secure than ever that I'm not dropping items. And that gives me a lot of confidence and helps me feel very comfortable in my skin. 35 years of practicing. Well, it helps a lot too. But that doesn't mean you can kind of ever let down your guard and the stakes just become higher as you move further in your career. But in my productivity journey overall, one of the things that happened about the same time as I started using node plan is I started hearing you and Mike talking about personal retreats. And the idea appealed to me greatly and I read everything that you put out and everything that Mike put out and they were slightly different versions of similar concepts. So I spent some time saying, okay, I'm going to do a personal retreat. What am I gonna do? And trying to come up with a hybrid of the lists that you had both made available of the questions you asked yourself. So now I'm years into this journey I've struggled with the reviewing part all that time. And I come across the personal retreat idea and it appeals to me for a lot of ways. But I wasn't thinking specifically, okay, this is gonna help me fix the review problem. So I start with the quarterly reviews which is kind of backwards from the way most people do it. Most people start with a weekly review. And I found a place to go away. I had prepared my list of questions and I went through them and hand wrote it that first time and found it incredibly transformational. because it wasn't about organizing my tasks and it wasn't about doing things. It was about figuring out what my roles were, figuring out what my values were, who I wanted to be versus who I was, where the things I said I wanted to be or the things I said that I was weren't the way other people perceived me or on careful examination I perceived myself. And what came out of that was focus on relationships that needed attention and that I'd just been able to neglect, focus on parts of my life that needed attention and I'd been able to neglect and sort of a holistic view of who I was, what I cared about and what I wanted to do. And now suddenly the tasks didn't feel so overwhelming because I had some general direction and I had some idea about in the next 90 days what's important enough that I want to focus on. And I won't say that I was perfect at it the first time. I felt so incredibly good at the end of it, so cathartic, but the true revelations came much later after I built a practice of doing this. And I'm not perfect at the practice, sometimes my quarterly reviews, they're six months in between, but I've gotten to the point where I feel the desperate need to do a quarterly review. If I haven't done one for three months and I feel the loss of control and the loss of perspective, so it becomes very important to me to schedule the next one and to find time for it. If I'm in the middle of a huge transaction or something like that, there's just no way I can go away even for a couple days and get that done. But I find a way to do it and I do it at least three times a year I'd say. Oh, that's awesome. That gave you that effect. I think you're not alone for people who are willing to put the time into this. You do get a transformational hit. But one of the things you said that I think really stand out is suddenly the list weren't a problem because you knew what the important list were. And I think that's the problem that plagued so many of us, especially in the age of software and cloud synchiness, that the list gets so long that we just try to make a dent in it somewhere every day and that that feels like drinking saltwater. It doesn't give you any nourishment. Whereas if you have knowledge deeply in your guts of what is important, then the list isn't scary. It's just the place you go to find the stuff that actually is important enough to do. Exactly. And to make decisions about the stuff. So question for you, you mentioned that it was a transformational cathartic, like lots of very nice words there about the process. But you also mentioned that sometimes you don't get to do it because you're in the middle of a transaction or something like that. I'm not a lawyer. So I don't know the exactly what a day-to-day workflow looks like. But it seems to me that you struggle with one of the things that ends up being the reason why people believe they don't need to do this, which is I'm just responding to the things that are coming down the pike that I have to do today. Anyways, so is getting away for a day or two to think my deep thoughts about the future actually going to make any bit of difference. What would you say to somebody like that? What is the difference that it made for you? Yeah, it makes a huge difference. One of my favorite things is a lawyer in Calgary posted on social media that so is being a corporate lawyer just getting an email every eight seconds until you die. And that's what it can feel like when you're deep in the transaction. And you're just constantly being reactive. You know you've got the list and you've got to get the list done, but you're also easily distractable. And when I go in these reviews, I'm pretty disciplined about telling people I'm going to be unavailable that I'm not going to be checking email, that I'm not going to respond. You know, I may respond in the evenings after I'm done for the day. I may just leave stuff that isn't pressing her urgent until I return. And the people around me have gotten used to that and understand that. And they do a good job covering for me and helping me truly be away. And I try to do the same for them. You know, they're not all going on personal retreats. You know, just when they're going on vacation or they have a family thing, I want them to be able to separate. And you know, I try to model that value and I try to support them in that value as much as I can. And that's something that came out of my personal retreats, realizing how important that is and realizing how important that I model that behavior and that I respect that behavior and others. In addition to the culture setting though in the office, what does the personal retreat do for you in terms of how you do your day-to-day work? How is it different after the retreat versus before? Yeah. After the retreat, I'd say I have a better perspective at the 10,000-foot level of what the next quarter looks for like for me. And of course, you can't always see much beyond a few weeks, but you think you know what it looks like and how to put those pieces together. I've also got some things that I've taken from the retreats that are the most important things to me to get done. And you know, that can be doing something that's uncomfortable for me like business development or some of my favorite things that have come out of my weekly review are I have two golden retrievers and one is very demanding of attention and the other is more quiet and I realized the quiet one needed more attention and more intentional attention. And I started doing that and she and I are as close as two beings can be now. She's my shadow and I think she's living a much happier, more fulfilled life. And you know, that sign that's very important to me. There was a quarterly retreat where I realized my wife and I weren't vibing. And we've been married for 33 years and incredibly happy together. And just recognizing that and having a discussion about it helped us fix it instantly. So the things that come out aren't just organizational but they're this is what I'm going to work on. And more recently, you know, I've come to the realization it took a long time that I was putting off so many personal things I wanted to do, so many things I'm interested in like AI and tech and all that until my work was done. And I don't want to do that. So I started carving out an hour a day on my calendar. And saying, this is what I'm going to do those things. And I'm going to put on my calendar so people see that I'm busy. And I'm going to protect that hour as well as I can every day. And every day, again, an hour out to do something I want to do. You know, it could be learning a piece of software. You know, it could be just catching up on things. It could be following rabbit holes because I love to follow rabbit holes and that feeds me. I can read Wikipedia for hours and hours. You know, what what I'm going to do with that hour usually comes out of my quarterly retreat as well. And I added a second hour at the last retreat for AI. And that that consists of two things for me. One is learning AI and being better at AI and staying current because I feel like in my profession that those who don't are going to quickly fall behind. And you know, I like the idea of being someone who's proficient in it and helps others along and things like that. But you know, it's also fun for me. So when I'm doing AI, sometimes I'm just doing cloud co-work stuff. The other side of AI, though, is I think it's fascinating and I think it's changing our world. And I think there are some predictions that are going to come true and some that aren't going to come true. But you know, when I consider things like how it's going to affect young lawyers who in their first five, five years of practice are working hard drafting documents and proofreading and checking references and things like that. If they let the AI do that and they don't understand why the AI is doing that, they're not going to get to the point five years on where people are willing to pay them for their perspective and their advice. So how do we reconcile the two of those? So I spend some time reading and thinking about that and my plan is to eventually start journaling about that and I view that as sort of writing personal blog entries to myself and you know eventually maybe that'll lead to a public blog but in the near-term it's scratching that itch for me and it's giving me some practice. So just the idea that I needed to carve out those two hours. Well and that's you know what you described to me is someone who's chosen to live an intentional life. Things that are important to you, your dogs, your career, the development of technology. I think that's all stuff that you've chosen to put at the top of the list which gets back to that thing with the lists. There's so many, there's so many things on it but you have found the magic sauce for you to not let that become an overwhelming thing because you know what's important. Yeah that's so right and it took me a long time to get to this point and I'm really happy with where I am right now. They're not alone brother, you're not alone. It's tough. I feel the same way. It's like it took me a long time and I think you know I can do it all and try and define some hack or apple script I could write to make me do it all. That's not the way it works. David one of the things that I really admire is your ability to get away three times a year and a lot of people do this. I do them from home more than I do away and that's not by design but just you know life and I really want to make more of an effort to get away for these. I found the little tiny homes up in the woods by my house. I can go that so there's places I can go. How do you get yourself to motivate it enough to literally go away for days at a time? When I first started doing it one of the suggestions that I think both of you made was find a way to tack it on to another trip. Yeah and I was traveling a lot for business in those days so I'd find a way to get there a day earlier a day or two earlier or leave a day or two later and I'd take advantage of the hotel room I was in and do it there. When I stopped traveling as much then I would you know kind of just kind of pick a place that was easy to get to and find some place where I could go. I had you know some free nights at hotels that came with my hotel credit card so I would use one of those and you know that would be perfect as long as I had a good desk and a good chair that I could sit in. It was the perfect away place and I could go you know maybe explore the the city I was in at night as a break from the process and you know just a way to think about how the day had gone but also recognize the fact that I was exhausted because doing a retreat well is exhausting. Yeah and more recently my wife and I started living in two cities we live in Houston most of the time but we have an apartment in Austin and that was an offshoot of the pandemic we wanted another place to go because we're getting cabin fever and so now I have that as a place I can go anytime and be by myself for a couple days which is really nice. Guys I I'm gonna admit I've started a crazy project. Are you familiar with the Inchoridian by by Epic Titus? He's like he's one of the old I think he was really one of the founding Stoics but he wrote a thing called the Inchoridian and it was literally in Greek that means the handbook and it's a very short I I should go get it it's over there but it's like it's a tiny like you know 50 page little book with little nuggets in it. I've had a live your life and I started writing my own Inchoridian about three months ago and it's got like my guiding principles it's kind of an offshoot of Sparkio. It's the idea of like what what is how do I what's the operating system how do I you know associate with you know vague concepts in the world and you know what what is it that gets me working and pointed north and so I started writing it and I was thinking as you're talking I need to take like three days and just go finish that like in a hotel or a cabin or something something entirely for myself I wasn't even going to really share it with the world that I was working on this because the whole thing sounds so pompous but it's been a real fun process and I think I need to go up to the mountains to finish my Inchoridian. Well I feel like that's great context for your robot assistant when it's helping you decide what to put on your list for the day. Yes and no I mean so the robot part I don't give it a lot of like judgment over what to do it can give me a list and I make my decision. In fact if you look at the operating the skills because I've told it this so many times it's like coded into its skills that like my job is to give him a list not to you know nag him about this or that thing and so it really is not a brain in the process the the stuff it does do that helps me is like if I don't if I leave something on too long an auto kind of demotes it and does a few things like that but in general I don't give it much authority. If the robots become sentient they will kill me early because I am completely rude to them and don't really respect their judgment at all. Well I feel like robot assistant field guide 2.0 that doesn't require sentience in the equation but just understanding what you like what you don't like how you think. Oh yeah it could be valuable. Yeah it does know my roles in my RIT statements and you're right it does know that stuff. Another great source is your read wise I'm a big user of read wise and you know have you know how many thousands of excerpts in there. Yeah and there's a read wise MCP connector to cloud co-work so have it read what you've saved and ask what it thinks about you and what's important what you think is important. Oh that that reminds me someone like a year ago was showing me what I considered to be one of the first useful applications of a of an LLM where he took a picture of the bookshelf behind me and it analyzes the titles of the books and it's basically like roast my friend based on the books in his collection. That's awesome. Yeah those those AI based roasts are incredibly accurate in my experience. It was a little bit uncomfortable. Yeah. Well I think it's David I think it's great. I didn't realize how much the retreats had impacted you but you did say it also cycled down for you once you started doing the quarterly that you have now got to a more regular practice with the weekly as well correct. It did you know and once you do a quarterly review it becomes very important to do a monthly review of what came out of your quarterly review. Yeah and make sure you're doing it and make sure you're on track from the monthly review then then the weekly review. I sort of modified to the way I wanted to do it. It's not so much a complete list of everything I've done in during the week or you know a preparation session for everything I'm going to do the following week but it's a chance for me to reflect on generally what I'm doing generally how I'm feeling. That sort of thing and one of the things I've been doing lately is dictating that into an LLM tool like Clifft and then having Clifft organize my thoughts for me and edit it from there. And lately the dreaded daily review which is really task focused. The Clod Co-Rick MCP has been helping me with that and I have it interrogate me and ask me questions which draws me out and makes the process a lot more fun. All right we've been talking a lot about focus but let's be real here. We're all nerds. We're all tempted by shiny new objects so you got anything new and exciting you're playing with David. You put EDC in your pick every day, Kerry and that to me is a trigger phrase because I love EDC. I always want to know what people carry and what they do. This one is not new but it's in my pocket right now. It is the Leatherman Ark that says Max Barky on the side. I had him engraved it on me. I've had this like three years now. I carry it with me everywhere and this is the ultimate EDC tool. You want to pair of pliers in your pocket, you want a knife, whatever I got it all and I grew up being a Swiss Army Knife kid. You know some of you guys me one was a kid, but as I got older, I found Leatherman and I am 100% invested. So totally unrelated to focus, but all you got to do is say EDC to me and I'm going to start talking about my pocket knife. Nice. Well, I do have EDC. I'm actually going to let David go first though before I share mine. And I have mine just because I've kind of gone down a rabbit hole here. But David Roth, what do you got? Okay, I love EDC. I'm obsessed with the topic and the videos and the like. And that's weird because my objective is not to carry anything. I have matching setups at my house, my office and the apartment in Austin. So the scanner matches, the printer matches, and I have a MacBook Pro in each location. And I recently decided that I needed to update, upgrade my MacBook Pro because two of those were still M1 MacBook Pros and they were functioning fine for everyday tasks, which was, which is amazing to me. You know, they're going on six years. But I decided I needed the AI bad boy. So I bought one of the new M5 MacBook Pros loaded with memory 128 gigs of memory, four terabytes of SSD and it screams. And now, I can't wait to upgrade the third one, which I think I'll do when the M6 MacBook Pros come out spasily later this year. And since I was doing that anyway, I went ahead and upgraded my MacBook Air, which I had done some damage to the old one. So it was a good time to upgrade it and throw in a MacBook Neo just to see what it was like. And I think the MacBook Neo is really cool. I think it's going to be a great computer for, you know, 90% of users may be 80% something like that. I was a little nervous at first because it was doing all the indexing and things that it needs to do as a new computer and it felt a little slow. But that was the last time it felt slow for me. Where do you see the gap between MacBook Neo and MacBook Air? Like, are there things on MacBook Neo like, oh boy, that's a lot easier on the air? Yeah. The main gap is memory that the MacBook Neo tops out at 8GB and for somebody like me, I want more for that light carry around computer. It doesn't have to be 128GB, 16GB is fine. But I don't, I don't want the ceiling on a new computer. I buy to hit me as soon as I fear that it will with 8GB. Yeah. All right. Well, my EDC journey actually starts at sponsor games where they split you up into teams. And we had to record using a sure MV 88 USB-C microphone that you plugged in like USB-C port on your phone. And I realized while I was there, I was having trouble getting it to stay connected to my phone. And I had the standard Apple silicone case. Not, it was looking kind of ratty. And I was like, there's got to be something better out there. So it started with the the Ridge base camp orange iPhone case. And then once I got this, I realized there are a whole bunch of other Ridge accessories that go with this. So I've also not bought a new wallet in about 20 years. They make a base camp orange MagSafe wallet, which clips under the back. So I got that one. And then I also got the, yeah, the, they've got a battery pack basically like a MagSafe battery pack that is a 10,000 milliamp hour that I can just keep in my bag when I'm traveling. I've been traveling a lot. I've been using that battery a lot. And this one is again orange and small and fits in my bag very nicely. So I kind of went all in with the Ridge stuff, but really like it. Yeah, that was going to be my question. I've looked at that stuff. I never used it. So do you like it? I do. I do. I mean, I've only been using that a week or two. The wallet, I was coming from a standard like buyfold wallet where you open it up and you pull your cards out. So it's taking me a little bit to get used to the design of this because it's basically like some elastic that holds the thing together. The big thing I was really worried about was the RFID blocking. It's got got that, but you kind of have to like take a bunch of stuff out and then find the one that you want. So it's a little bit more cumbersome to get stuff in and out of your wallet. But I don't go in and out of my wallet all that often anymore. I'm using Apple Pay for stuff, you know, so not that big a deal. Also, it's about a half to a third. The size of my previous George Costanza wallets. That's really nice. Yeah. We've got a thing in California now where you put your driver's license on your phone. So I could theoretically just carry it. But I've got this fear that yeah, I'm going to get pulled over or something and they're going to like throw me in the Poke because I don't have my ID on me. So I can't help but carry it with me still. Yeah. We don't have the the IDs yet, but even so I don't don't pull the license out all that often except when I'm traveling. So and it's got a really strong MagSafe magnet to it where like it's not coming off the phone once it's on there. And I feel like just having both of those together when I'm traveling is going to be nice rather than going through TSA. You got to throw your stuff in the bins and things like that. I'm always scrambling trying to remember what, okay, what did I actually take out? What did I keep in my bag? I think you just cost me some money. Yeah, we do that. We do that. So what are we reading guys? Yeah, I just finished reading the book Apple in China, which I think is one of the best books about Apple I've ever read. And what I found really interesting about it was not only the detail about Apple's dependence on China, but about the effect Apple has had in making China a sophisticated manufacturer. And it's sort of a relationship where they both leveraged each other and said, "Hah." And the modern world we live in is influenced very heavily on both sides. Yeah. I heard back from somebody because we covered that in the labs and someone said, they argued, somebody with knowledge of China said Apple isn't the reason China is so great at manufacturing. It certainly helped, but they would have been good at it without Apple. So I wonder if that part of the book is true, but it definitely is as interesting the way that that relationship became so entangled over the decades. Yeah, I don't think it's the only reason, but I think China learned from manufacturing cars for other countries, how to build the most sophisticated electric vehicles in the world and from manufacturing, solar panels and windmills, how to build the most sophisticated alternative energy components. So I think it goes beyond Apple, but it was an interesting view. Yeah. You recommended a fiction book as well. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. I don't read enough fiction, but I had heard a piece about the book tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by Gabrielle Seven. And I downloaded the audiobook and went in cold and just absolutely loved this book. It's about the relationship between two people who meet as kids and into their adulthood. During the middle part of it, they become partners in a video gaming company. I'm not a huge gamer, so I haven't experienced a lot of the more complicated games, but it's description of the worlds that they create in a really well-done video game was just mesmerizing and beautiful. And the whole book, I think, is terrific. I don't think you have to want to read a book about people who are in the video gaming industry to enjoy it. And I can't recommend it enough to anyone who's looking for a great read. Oh, Mike, there's another fiction book for you. Yeah. Trying to get Mike to read more fiction. What about you, Mike? My book this time is sort of a hybrid because it's a Patrick Lensioni book. The six types of working genius. Are you familiar with Patrick Lensioni? I'm not. Okay. So he's a business guy, but all of his books, the first part is a fable, and the second part is kind of unpacking the model. So it's a made-up story, but based on real events, I guess. And so the six types of working genius is the most recent one that he's written. It's actually kind of the thing that he's leaning into now recently. He's got a company called the Table Group where you can take this six types of working genius assessment. And it breaks you down into one of these different styles. The styles fit together. If you want to have a high-functioning organization, the idea is that you get people where this is kind of their unique ability, their strengths, right? You put them in a position where they can leverage that. And you put the right people in the right places. You got people across the organization that fit those different roles instead of a whole bunch of people who approach problems the exact same way. And that ultimately leads to a better faster, more excellent work is kind of the thought there. So This book is interesting. There's an assessment that goes with it. My background with the family business is in like assessment and skill building systems for emotional intelligence. So every time I hear the word assessment, I go into it a little bit cringing because my basis on like what is a valid assessment is like 40 years of research and 140 doctoral level papers and books. And none of these have that sort of research basis. It's sort of like, hey, I figured this out one night on a four hour whiteboard session and I created a model and a quiz about it. And it's a little bit of that. There's some places where I feel like it falls down a little bit. But the general idea is pretty good. And it's an entertaining read. That's the thing about Patrick Lenzioni is he makes these boring bland business topics a lot more approachable. And with the the fables that he tells you can kind of see how it would play out before he gets into the boring mechanics of how it all works. Excellent. Well, I've got a book I'm really excited about. I'm happy to share it with a focus audience. It's called The Score and it's by C Thine Wynne. Mike, have you ever heard of this book? I have not. I feel like I've heard the title, but I saw the name and definitely don't recognize that. It is excellent. So he is a, I believe a philosophy professor, but his his idea about this book is the way we allow the metrics of a thing to determine our values around a thing. Like one of the examples he uses is law schools. There was never a law school ranking system. So when people were looking at law schools, they will, this one is more focused on teaching you how to become like go into a community and help under privileged people. That's like the big focus or this one gets you a Supreme Court in clerkship or it's like schools had different focuses, but there wasn't a ranking. And then one of the magazines, I think it was a business review or something started ranking the law schools. And then everybody just chose the law school with what was the highest ranking. And then the law schools looked at how they were ranked and they changed all their metrics to teach students or to solve for what the ranking was based on. And suddenly we're not making good decisions about what law school to go to and the law school curriculum is actually changing to match the ranking. And it just goes through how in life a lot of things we do, it's very easy for us to adopt a ranking system and allow that to get in a way of doing our best work. And I thought it was really insightful. I'm not done with it yet, but I can already recommend this book. Another example he uses is when he first got started in his career, he loved big questions, somebody who's in the philosophy. But then he got once you get in academia, you know what the websites are that rank the best schools. And then you have to write the papers that get the best ranking to get you to the best schools. And suddenly he was writing about stuff he didn't care about, but it would get him ranked higher. And I think this is something we can all stumble into. And I just found this book with ideas that were very insightful. He is also a gamer. So he can trust her at the book how games have scoring systems that allow you to, you know, play the game like the rules of monopoly or whatever. And you have to follow those. And so you adopt that scoring system. But in the context of a game, it allows you to be more free, you know, especially if you play a game not to win, but to enjoy the experience. But it's just, I'm rambling, but this is a good book. And I would recommend it to literally anybody. I, uh, I don't know why this isn't getting more attention because I think it's an excellent book. Nice. Okay, gang. Uh, we are the focus podcast. Dave, I don't know. Do you have somewhere anybody could go if they want to keep up with what you're doing? Not really, I guess. The closest I have is, I have a personal website called bits, not atoms. Donette. Excellent. And, uh, yeah, it's got a short bio of me links to my professional bio. And, um, I just created a now page recently. Yeah. And if you wanted like to do a merger and acquisition and BiApple, Dave could help you with that. Like I said, where the focus podcast, you can find us at relay.fm/focus where you can, uh, check out links from the show notes. You can also sign up there for a deep focus, which is the ad free extended version of the show. We would love to have you join that in deep focus today. We're going to be going deeper since we've got the no plan guy here on the obsidian guy here and just talking about general how those apps work together or how they differ. That'll be fun. I hope we can stick around for that. Thank you to our sponsor today's Squarespace. We'll see you next time.