199: Supercharging Your Productivity with Erik Fisher

Pete Mockaitis
Erik, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Erik Fisher
Well, thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m delighted to have you here because I was listening to your show Beyond the To-Do List back in the day before I decided to start this podcast, and we’ve been getting more and more guests questions about productivity so I think we’re going to have a ton of fun.

Erik Fisher
Sweet. I’m looking forward to it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’m intrigued, first of all, you have a bit of a history as a bacon connoisseur. I’m a bacon lover myself. What’s the story there?

Erik Fisher
Yeah, so I will say this, there’s probably two things as far as the internet goes that are just standard memes. One is cats, the other is bacon. Those things go hand-in-hand since the internet has been mainstream somewhere in the mid-2000 range, somewhere in there. Anyway, once social media took off, any kind of posting of the word bacon even, or pictures of bacon, just took off.

So I started doing that. I started to mark my posts with the bacon and so I got known for that, but what was funny was then I was getting people posting on my Facebook wall all the time saying, “Hey, have you seen this? Have you seen this?” And it got a little old, to be honest. And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, like I got branded as the bacon guy.” And I don’t need that. I’m busy. I don’t need tons of… I already have too many notifications on Facebook as it is.

So that was the story of that up until a certain point. And I still have bacon but I honestly have cut way back because it’s just not great for me health-wise.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, it’s good to set the record straight. And, likewise, my wife expressed concern when I was eating bacon almost every day, and so I, too, have cut back but I do savor the opportunity when it arises.

Erik Fisher
Yeah, I mean, hey, it’s tasty. It is awesome whenever it’s on something and, especially, in unique uses I’m all for it. But overdoing it and you’re pretty much asking for trouble.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Alright. So the story is now straight on you and bacon. And now can you share, for those who are not yet familiar, what’s kind of the ethos or the vibe behind Beyond the To-Do List.

Erik Fisher
Yeah. Well, I started it because I’ve always been interested in productivity, mostly because I needed it. I needed to figure out my systems, I needed to talk through stuff, I needed to study and learn up on it, and that’s what I needed to do in terms of having ADHD and being diagnosed with it, but not really finding that drugs were the answer. Those kind of made me feel less focused and more tired than anything.

And so I decided then, after I’d had some experience with podcasting and being a co-host on a couple different shows, to try my hand at doing a solo show, although it’s a solo show in name only because I’m talking with guests anyway most of the time. And the whole idea behind Beyond the To-Do List is this idea that it’s not just about productivity in the standard way of looking at productivity where it’s time management or calendars or email or project stuff. It’s all about all of it. It’s not just that stuff but it’s the fringe stuff. It’s the things that we don’t often think about have to do with sabotaging our productivity if we don’t pay close attention to them.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m intrigued. Could you give us an example of a fringe item that can just be destructive if we ignore?

Erik Fisher
Well, sure. So let’s go back to the bacon. Like eating horribly consistently is going to wear you down. And Michael Hyatt is one of the few people that really points this out        , is saying, productivity has way more to do with energy management than time management. You can manage your time pretty well but if you don’t have any energy or you’re not managing your energy throughout the day, throughout the week, and even seasonally, then you’re going to have no ability to do the things that you’ve been so good at managing your time about getting to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, that was actually something I absolutely wanted to cover, and so let’s talk about it now. Energy management, that’s been high on my mind. We had a great guest, Brad Stulberg talk about growth is equal to stress plus rest, and making sure you’re doing enough of that and good timing. So can you share with us what have been some of your discoveries in terms of the optimal approaches to managing the energy part of the game?

Erik Fisher
Sure. Well, I will say this, and I have been on a kick of this a lot recently. I even put out a solo episode about it where I was talking about it myself. But I feel like hustle is this word that everybody is using but nobody really…

Pete Mockaitis
I hustle well.

Erik Fisher
No, not at all. Here’s the thing. The word hustle to me, and if you look it up, it does say it like this. It states it, definition-wise, as a burst. So it’s a quick burst of speed. It’s hustling down the field. Well, the field has an end goal, it has an ending to it, and then you stop the hustle. So the word hustle, for me, is the equivalency of, “Oh, I have till the top of the hour to finish this task, and then I’m done. So I better hustle so I can get it done.” Not, “Oh, I’m going to hustle all the way through the rest of the evening, continuing to work and ignoring people and family and relationships and responsibilities as well.” I just think that it’s overrated this whole idea, the wrong sense of what that word is.

But the point that I’m trying to get to is you have to take time off. You have to rest. You have to pause. And some people, especially entrepreneurs, are out there thinking, “Well, I have to work six to seven days a week. I have to put in my 60 plus hours a week or I’m not going to make this thing grow.” And the thing is is that if that’s the road that you’re taking, if that’s the path that you’re going to go down, then you’re going to end it much quicker because you will burn out.

So that’s the thing for me right now that I’m really focused on is the fact that I have to rest. Like, I cannot work all weekend after having worked a full workweek or more. I just can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. I’m useless. I’m cranky. I’m irritable. I then do poor work, so I’d rather put in four good days and take one day, and then two days or something. And I don’t do that necessarily, but, yeah, I try to block off.

I am being incredibly intentional now about my weekend time, and I actually even started a little bit early on Friday because we do some heavy lifting stuff on Friday, and then I kind of do a little bit Sunday night to kind of make up for that, and then I block the rest of that off, and I’m just like, “No, it’s my time.” I’m not even trying to stare at a screen. I’m trying to read or be face-to-face with people at that point.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Erik, I love hearing an impassioned stance on rest and its importance. I am right with you there. So I guess part of the rest ballgame is simply not just going crazy for seven straight days or 60 plus work hours in a week. What are some of your other sort of best practices and pro tips when it comes to resting well and strategically and smart?

Erik Fisher
Yeah, so I recently had a conversation with a friend, and I said, “Okay.” He and his spouse, they both are pretty busy people and they have three kids. And I said, “How do you guys take time off? How do you guys rest?” And he said, “Well, we play defense for each other when it comes to the kids over the weekends so that one of us gets more time at one point, and the other gets more time at the other point.” And they also try to take time where even if it’s not going to work out very well to do that coverage kind of thing, where they give each other at least like an hour or two of purposeful recharge time.

And that’s one of the other key pieces. It’s like you could not be doing something, and that’s great, and that’s not working, but some people don’t go all the way. I like to look at it this way. They plug the charger cord to their cellphone of their life, they plug it into their phone but then they forget to plug the other end into the wall and purposely, or purposefully, actually recharge. Just because you’re unplugged from work doesn’t mean you’re then plugged in to recharge through those life-giving activities or intentional non-activities that you have open to you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I dig it. And so it’s part of your mindset and your intention is sort of stepping into that kind of experience. So you’ve had David Allen a couple of times, as have we, an awesome guy. And I think he said something like there’s a world of difference when you’re having a beer to escape from your crazy or the stress, the mess around you versus having a beer like intentionally, purposefully, like, “This is the best thing I can choose right now, and I choose it.” And you rejuvenate deeply in that way.

Erik Fisher
Totally, yeah. And that’s a great way to put that. Yeah, it’s one thing to escape and it’s another to turn around and do a 180 and actually actively recharge. And the same exact activity could be – and that’s why you’ve got to know yourself, that’s why you’ve got to study yourself and the way you work best because that same activity could be done either way on that switch where you could either be not charging from it or charging from it based on your perspective or how you approach it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s so good. So a part of is just saying, “This is now the time in which I’m resting. Like the rest of the world can wait for me. I’m unavailable at the moment.” So that’s that. And then what are some of your findings in terms of the most effective rejuvenating powerful means of recharging?

Erik Fisher
Well, first and foremost, a nap always helps.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Erik Fisher
I am more of a napper now than I ever used to be. I used to hate them when I was a kid. I don’t think that I ever argued about it, like my kids do at least, but I know, and I’ve seen this, like my wife, Sunday afternoon, like she’d conk out for three hours or more if she could, and often does. And I am finding that I’m doing that more now, and even on a Saturday we’ll do the same thing.

I’ll technically lay down for half hour, 45 minutes, not to get too groggy. I’ll kind of have an alarm, or a sleep watch kind of alarm thing going on on my watch so that it’ll wake me up after 30 to 40 minutes so that I’m not into a sleep cycle and then just like groggy the whole rest of the day. And I pop up, get back into the sunlight, and I’m wide awake and it really rounds out some of the fatigue, if you will, from the workweek. And, again, I’ll do it on Sunday as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay. So, now, it feels great. What else?

Erik Fisher
Hydration. Geez, I’ve got my water bottle sitting right here and I’ve already had, I think this is my third one today. So staying constantly hydrated, and I don’t mean like downing the whole bottle all at once because then you’re rushing off to the bathroom. But parsing it out throughout the day so that your body is actually using the hydration, it actually will use it instead of having excess, making you to get up and go all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, Erik, it’s funny. We’re talking about this right now, because yesterday, just because this is the kind of guy I am, I was digging deep into some studies about the impact of dehydration. And it’s intriguing how they didn’t find a statistically significant difference on everything they tested but they did on many things they tested. And all it took to invoke this dehydration was just a little bit of extra walking on a treadmill and the dehydration level was less than like 1% of their water weight. And I weigh about 200 pounds. Hey, we’re disclosing.

Erik Fisher
Yeah, I’m a little above that but not too much.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’ve absolutely had my weight fluctuate by more than 2 pounds from one day to the next. So it’s like, wow, it’s pretty easy to get dehydrated enough to sub-optimally impact your performance even if you think, “Oh, yeah, well, I’m having a sip when I’m thirsty. It’s all good.” I don’t believe it is all good, and I guess that’s a little bit controversial amongst some folks in the space.

Erik Fisher
Yeah, my take is if you’re drinking it, if you sense that you’re thirsty you’re already into the dehydration mode because your body is already passed a point of trying to tell you it needs something. It’s kind of like how you are low on sodium or some other vitamin in your body, and your body sends signals and you start getting angry. And it’s like you don’t have any control, self-control, over what you want to eat. You’re just like, “I’ve got to have something now. Feed me.”

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Okay.

Erik Fisher
So that lack of self-control is kind of the issue there. But, yeah, having hydration consistent throughout the day is more beneficial to me, your mileage may vary, than coffee. So take with that what you will.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, final thought on the energy point, let’s talk the caffeine side of the equation for a bit. Where do you come out on this one?

Erik Fisher
Caffeine is fine. I think that, for me, I’m finding in my testing, that having it from coffee, or at least too much from coffee, can get me in an anxiety type of a place way too quickly. If I take in a tea and go slower, I think that it lasts longer or its affects are drawn out and less shot to the heart.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Alright. So energy is so important. I’m glad we hit like right away. I’d love to get your take on when it comes to a productivity system, what do you think are just the essential ingredients or components that everybody “should” have up in there?

Erik Fisher
Sure. Well, before you go into – you know, a lot of people are asking me, “What’s the best productivity tool?” And what they mean by that is, “Hey, there’s a bunch of different task management apps, or different pieces of software like that out there, which one is the best?” And I don’t even like going down that road.

What I want to do instead is say, “For a task management system you have to cover a few different bases. You have to cover a communication component which, for the most part, is email, but that also comes in play with different social inboxes, or text messages, or even phone calls. People still use the phone, by the way. I still prefer it for a lot of things actually. So communication standpoint. A place to capture incoming tasks so that you have them in a place where you’re then ready to deal with them and assign them a time and a place and a priority. Speaking of time, you then have to have a calendar. So there’s that component.

And then outside of that, I don’t know that you really need much else in terms of a system other than making sure that it works for you and helps you to get done what it is you’ve either agreed to do by expectation and relationship with someone else, whether that’s a boss or a co-worker or a spouse or yourself, or you are able to be flexible enough and know where you are on the different things that you’ve said you would do and time and place and space and all those things, that when something new comes in you can pretty quickly take a look at it and triage it, and say, “Okay, how important is this new thing that’s coming into my system, whether it be an email, a phone, a text?” whatever, and say, “Oh, I know what to do with that without having to think about it too hard.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So you’re saying whatever tools you use, that’s what you got to have in play. Okay. Got you. And so I want to cover something that seems to be a little bit controversial when I’m working with folks. It seems that, in my experience, those who are not hardcore productivity enthusiasts like us will often sort of not have a dedicated task management application like an OmniFocus or like an Outlook task, etcetera, and they’ll just keep it in their email inbox or their calendar. I’d love to get your take on, for you listeners out there, are there some dangers in playing that game? Or is it all good?

Erik Fisher
So when I said you need a place to capture stuff, like that’s the place. I think that it’s dangerous. Here’s a thing. Like it doesn’t have to be software. It could be literally, I mean, you can go old school, you can literally have a day planner or some sort of handwritten tangible analog system when it comes to this. The issue here is just making sure, again, to not let balls drop or to let things slip through the cracks. You have to put things in the right context. You have to put them in the right place on the calendar, or in the right place in terms of a file folder that you know that you’ll come back to at the appropriate time in the right context. Those kinds of things.

And then, again, that’s what a digital system is so good at. It’s being able to say, “Hey, remind me about this thing on this date,” which is either the day it’s due because it’s a quick and easy one, or ahead of time because I know how I am and I’m going to need it like a week to work on that thing so it’s ready and done and completed before that due date, so to speak. So it really is all about knowing how you best approach these things yourself personally.

It’s not about the system. And, again, so here’s my real pitch when people ask me, “Hey, which productivity task, is it OmniFocus? Is it Nozbe?” And I just say, “Honestly, they’ve all got free demos. Go try them out and see which one works the best for you user interface-wise because the only one you should be using is the one you’re going to actually use.”

Pete Mockaitis
Right. Agreed. Okay. I’m with you. I’m with you there. And so when it comes to thinking through these systems and the set of tools, what, in your experience, do you see people kind of get off track the most often? Like is there a commonly-occurring mistake or error or frustration point that folks bump into and what advice you have for that?

Erik Fisher
Sure. Well, again, the way it breaks down, or the way that the breakdowns happen is just neglect. If you have a system in place, even if it’s minimal, at least keeping up a minimal system is better than nothing. Because, think about it like the oil in your car, having it changed every certain amount of time, they say 3,000 miles or whatever. And if you just suddenly decided to stop doing that for three months, six months, nine months, and you start hearing clanging or things are running a little bit like wonky in your car, you’re like, “What is that? What’s going on here?”

And then you realized, “Oh, my gosh, I’m way overdue for an oil change.” Well, that’s what happens with these systems. We let something drop. It’s not that we let something drop. It’s more so that we just let the system drop. We trust ourselves a little bit too much instead of taking a quick peek and saying, “What’s on my agenda for this day? What’s on my agenda for this week? What’s coming up in terms of vision-casting for the next month and the next few months so that I know what’s coming, and I can sit and deal with it?”

And I highly encourage people to even take five minutes at the beginning of the day, at least, and five minutes near the end of either the workday or the real day, the end of the day itself, sundown, whatever you want to call it, to do this. And then take maybe a longer stretch once a week to kind of map out the following week. I find this is hugely beneficial.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. So let’s recap. During those five minutes, what are the key things you’re knocking out or the questions you’re asking yourself?

Erik Fisher
So I take a look and I say, “Okay, have I overloaded this day first off?” Because if I do I’m not going to get it all done. I’m just not going to. So what I try to do is make sure, “Okay, first and foremost, check the calendar. What’s on the calendar that must be done today? Is there something in the timeline today a monumental moment where I have to be somewhere at a certain time, whether it’s physical or digital?”

And once I know that then I say, “Okay, if there’s something there that’s – if there’s a two-hour meeting, okay, I’m not going to get as much done the rest of the day because probably I should be prepping for that meeting beforehand. I may have some follow-up to do after that.” Half my day is already shot. So what one other most important thing, that’s either already on my tasks list for that day, can I do? Or are there a couple of bunch, a couple of smaller things that I can knock out and feel like I can get some quick wins.

And, especially, have I overloaded the day? Because if there’s stuff here that’s too much for me to get done today, and I don’t get it all done, and I carry it over to the next day, and just keep letting that stuff carry over, then I’m going to start to feel worn down, like I’m not getting things done. I’d rather have a small list of a few things and get them all done, and end the day saying, “Ah, I checked it all off.”

And, again, there’s a rhythm and there’s a muscle memory of this to an extent where you do this often enough and then you stop putting as many things on days and you kind of let them breathe a little bit, and you get more of a natural rhythm to, “Oh, okay, so I see on this day I’ve got this and this. So what’s one thing I could do that day aside from those, this one thing? Okay, and then that’s a good day. I’ve accomplished three major things.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. And so I think that is often the case, and I get into the cycles of, “Ah, this feels great, and I’m rocking.” And then into cycles where it’s almost like I’m just not honest with myself. It’s like I put it on the list and really it didn’t belong there and I didn’t take careful allocation of likely time and energy required versus time and energy available.

And I think that that’s a big part of the game, is just, man, being real with yourself and acknowledging that it’s not all going to be done. I don’t know it almost make me think about people taking a hard look at their credit card debt or something. It’s there. It’s there.

Erik Fisher
Oh, it’s totally like that.

Pete Mockaitis
And you can’t pretend it’s not, so what are you going to do about it in making the hard prioritization calls? So if you’ve got any takes on that I’d love to hear it. In some ways, I think maybe it’s just going to hurt no matter what. It’s like the dismal signs of economics. There’s more we’d like to do than we have resources to do. But when it comes to prioritization, how can we make it hurt a little bit less?

Erik Fisher
Well, I don’t know that I can make it hurt any less. I can say this, that if you’re thinking on a macro level or you have those macro-level thoughts down somewhere that you can revisit them and say, “Oh, my gosh, I just feel this day is shot. Like it’s only 10:00 a.m. and this day is shot. What am I doing the rest of this day? I don’t know.”

That you can pull that out and look at it and say, “Okay, I know where it is I ultimately am wanting to get to, and even if I don’t fully remember or haven’t really pick up my task management system or whatever, and I don’t have anything else on the rest of this day, like what is something? Let me pick one of my goals and just see if I can pick like something, one small piece of that and work on that and just check it off.”

The other route that you can go with that when you have one of those kind of days is just say, “Alright, I know I’ve got a list around here somewhere. Of all those little piddly things that I can just turn on some music that’s going to lift my mood and do that instead. It doesn’t require my full attention. I can shred some document.” People still do that I think.

I can back up my laptop. I can charge my batteries. And you’ve got all those different things, and suddenly you’re like, “Oh, yeah, I can clean my desk off.” Suddenly you’re feeling better because of the music or even have a little tablet with some Netflix playing. Go ahead, cheat a little bit. That’s fine. And do that and then get some of those other little things.

Again, a lot of times it’s a lack of momentum and it’s feeling that feeling of lost-ness is maybe also partly you cry, saying, “Oh, yeah, I didn’t really rest,” like we were talking about earlier, and it creeps in like this horrible mood.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good. Yes.

Erik Fisher
So I’ve had to do all those things.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s very nice. Thank you. You’ve got a world of content you’ve created when it comes to improving focus and decision-making. Can you share with us some of your biggest insights you discovered there?

Erik Fisher
Yeah, focus is a huge thing for me, and I’ve had to, even in part of my weekends where I’m trying to unplug and not even do work. I’m basically not even trying to do anything. I’m trying to stay off. For all the benefits of social media that there are, like I’m trying to just stay off of it completely almost when it comes to the weekends.

And that’s more of a training my mind, that’s almost like a – Cal Newport when I talked to him recently, he said, “You know, most people now, they’re standing in line at the grocery store and they’re waiting. And so we have trained our minds to have the default response that if we are waiting for something that’s wrong and we should pull out phone and distract ourselves, and get a hit of dopamine off any app we can.” And what I’m trying to do is essentially detox my brain from that so that I don’t have to do that and I can actually have a less wired, or less Wi-Fi even, brain.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, that makes great sense and I know Cal has some great thoughts about being bored and why you need it and it’s helpful and it’s good stuff, so that’s fantastic. And what else?

Erik Fisher
So then what I try to do from doing that and putting that into practice and having that be part of my weekly ritual, I’m trying to pull that then back into my week whether it’s in the evenings when we let the house go dark and we start to close the blinds and the windows, and lock the doors, and we get to a certain point, and screens go off for everyone, and it’s now either board game time or it’s reading time, different things like that. And that’s more of a family thing and even individual if nobody’s around. Like I try to do that myself anyway.

So that then, bringing this back into the specific productivity world and how focus – essentially think of all those things that I just talked about as me doing either mental body building or mental cardio. And so now my mind, whether conscious or subconscious, has the ability to pause and focus and pay attention to things right in front of me when it’s necessary. And I can do that easier because the strength of my mind to do that has been built up.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so then this makes me think about mindfulness stuff as well. Are you up on board there?

Erik Fisher
Yeah, that word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Mindfulness, to me, means being aware, and so I will go there. I don’t do a ton of… like I’m doing my own version in a sense of meditation and mindfulness and practicing that by all those things that I just said. And I think I’ll go there a little bit further and deeper as time goes on but I’m kind of reclaim… it’s almost like my mind got flabby and I’m slowly moving more towards getting it back into peak performance.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I like that peak performance. That’s my language. Well, so now, I want to hear, you’ve interviewed nearly 200 people on Beyond the To-Do List. I’d love to hear if there have been just a couple of ideas, nuggets, takeaways, quotables that just made you go “Whoa!” in terms of just being transformational and hard-hitting.

Erik Fisher
Yeah, there’s been so many, and so actually one of the things that I really enjoy doing is going back and listening back to my show. I actually just did that. A little while ago I went back and listened to one, a couple of weeks ago, that was from a year ago, and it was the author Rob Bell was on. And he was talking about his latest book at the time, was How To Be Here.

And the whole thing about it was being present, maybe being mindfulness and other component of that, if you want to call it that. But one of the aspects that really, and one of the reasons I revisited it was this idea that he brought up about craft versus success, and that people often feel stuck in the place that they’re at vocationally or relationally or a number of different other ways because they’re looking at it from, “Am I being successful in this?” versus the approach of having it be a craft.

And even Jeff Goins recently, well, his string of interviews now, has this thread going through it as well, that the energy spent on something, even if that thing isn’t the thing you should’ve been doing, in the end, isn’t wasted because you’ve been gaining experience and been gaining practice and experience in that area.

And so somebody who’s, say, they’re “stuck in a job” right now that they don’t really want or don’t really enjoy, that’s not a wasted job. One, you’re getting a paycheck so that’s great. But, two, aside from that, having a craft mentality and approaching it from a mastery perspective and being able to really kind of say, “Okay, how can I hack this? How can I be the best at this even if it’s not the thing that I know I’m going to do forever?”

And then to take that forward. It’s just a matter of, one, a matter of character. But, two, it’s a matter of how much more equipped is that person moving forward when they really do get to those other things that they’re more meant to do, that their calling and so forth. Because not all of us at this point are going to be doing the same thing for the entire rest of our lives. The world is just not that way vocationally as much as anymore as it used to be.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you. Well, thank you. Well, tell me, Erik, is there anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Erik Fisher
No, I’m good. I feel good.

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Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Good. Well, then let’s kick it off. Tell me a favorite quote, something you find inspiring.

Erik Fisher
Yeah, so a college professor of mine – funny, it plays right off what we’re just talking about. A college professor of mine, it’s his quote and he said, “Wherever you are be there.”

Pete Mockaitis
I like it. Thank you.

Erik Fisher
Yeah. So his name is Jerry Pattengale, and it was profound. When I heard him, I’m like, “Whoa.” Yeah, it hit me. It’s like, “Wait. So right here in class where he’s saying it, I should be present here in class and be fully here and not worrying about what else is going on elsewhere.” Now zip ahead 20 years plus and you’ve got all the FOMO, the fear of missing out, and all those kinds of things, and that’s like, “Yeah, we still really haven’t gotten that down yet.”

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite study or experiment or a bit of research?

Erik Fisher
Well, so I just talked with Jon Acuff and he has a brand new book out which I love, it’s called Finish, and it’s giving yourself the gift of done. So it’s all about finishing the goals that you set out for yourself. And he has done, he actually got a lot of research done from the book from somebody who’s doing like, I don’t know, a Ph.D., something or other study. Anyway, and they wanted to do it on these 30-day goal groups that he was doing.

It was actually 30 Days of Hustle. At which, again, short period, 30 days I’m going to hustle on this one thing for 30 days. Totally acceptable use of the word, by the way. But he was saying, “Okay, setup your goal, figure out what it is you’re going to work on for these 30 days.” And one of the most interesting things that he found, or was found from the group, was that the people, you would think, when they start in on these 30 days, like what’s the day that you think that most of them would quit working on their goals? How far did they get?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, well, my guess is four. Day four.

Erik Fisher
Okay. So you’re being generous, and it’s actually day two.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Erik Fisher
So as soon as the work starts, like they’re realizing, “Oh, what did I get myself into?” And you would think some of it, well, my natural guess was maybe about halfway, and the reason is because, as soon as they started off and they maybe kind of got off on the wrong foot or something, they quit because they felt like it had to be perfect. They had to make it every single day in the 30 days perfect to accomplish the thing. When, in fact, just making forward momentum, and this is the other thing he talks about, is cutting your goal in half. Some people say, “I’m going to lose 10 pounds.” He’s like, “Okay, cut that in half.” They’re like, “Five pounds? Alright.” And then they ended up losing seven.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Oh, I like that. In consulting that was often a key adage. If the client is not budging on your recommendation, make your requested sort of change and proposal smaller. And I think it’s just perfect to just keep shrinking it until your resistance is like, “Well, shoot. I can do that. Fine.” Awesome.

Erik Fisher
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite tool? This is your chance if you want to fire out all your favorite software things that everyone asked you about for you personally. You can do it, or someone once mentioned they had an apple butter maker they liked, but a tool you like.

Erik Fisher
I’m going to go with, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but I’m going with Focus at Will. Have you heard of that?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I’ve used it before and I dig the tunes although I had a little trouble. I don’t know if it’s my phone or what, making it kind of play smoothly without…

Erik Fisher
Oh, yeah, yeah. So, one, I’m a lifetime member to Focus at Will. And, by the way, I should probably explain what it is. Focus at Will is not necessarily music. It’s compositions scientifically-created, but it does sound like music, so don’t get me wrong. It’s not just bleeps and bloops. It is actual music but it’s composed to eliminate the fight or flight mechanism in your brain. So, again, this is another one of those things that I will pull up on my computer or on my phone. It’s gotten way better than it used to so I encourage you to try it again.

Specifically with headphones. It always works better with headphones because it gives you that nice soundscape inside your head and it really works with binaural type beats and everything like that. There is science behind this, trust me. And so what it does then is it allows you to then take a full hour or more at a time and really focus and actually stick to the task at hand much easier.

If anybody wants to learn more you can check it out at BeyondtheToDoList.com/focus or it’s FocusatWill. I forget which one it is. Try both those links. You’ll find either the podcast where I had those guys on, or the landing page for where you’ll learn more about it, so go to both.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, great. And how about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours that’s effective?

Erik Fisher
I, right now, am making sure that my workout clothes are downstairs as well as my keys, and my wallet, and my workout shoes, and all that stuff so as soon as I get up, I do go hydrate in the kitchen and grab my water bottle, sit down, drink that, put my stuff on and then head right out the door first thing in the morning.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. And is there a particular nugget or piece that you share, an Erik Fisher original quote that seems to really kind of connect and resonate with folks, they’re re-tweeting, note-taking, etcetera?

Erik Fisher
My favorite that I have written of mine, I hope it’s from me, I’ve always said it, is, “Good ideas come from many ideas.” And that’s not saying there’s not bad ideas. But I think bad ideas can sometimes be combined with okay ideas and even mediocre ideas. You can get a stew of different levels of ideas and bring some components from some of them and then come up with a really awesome or great idea. But, again, good ideas come from many ideas, so you’ve got to cultivate that idea or brain – I don’t know – dump or brainstorming sessions as often as you can.

And, again, this is another reason why you want to have something like maybe an Evernote or a system like that where it’s like, “Ooh, that’s a great thought.” Pull out phone or pad and just write it down and capture it.

Pete Mockaitis
Agreed. And, Erik, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Erik Fisher
Head on over to BeyondtheToDoList.com for the show and you can find all my other contact information there.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or parting call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Erik Fisher
I would say take a look and write down what it is you’re doing. Like catalog your time for a day, or actually even more like a week, and just write down, “Okay, I did this from this time to this time, and this from this time to this time.” And outside of that, sit and take five, 10, 15 minutes and write down all the things that you are doing, categorize them, all that kind of stuff.

In other words, take stock, take an inventory of your tasks for your job and then take a long hard look at them and say, “Okay, which ones of these do I really enjoy? Which ones of these do I don’t think I need to do anymore? Or which ones of these can I delegate or call into question with somebody above me or with a co-worker and maybe see if we can swap or figure out a different way to approach these?” I think that’s the initial catalyst that starts to get things to be fun.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Well, Erik, thank you so much for taking this time and sharing your wisdom and expertise. This has been a ton of fun and I hope that you just keep rocking and rolling and crushing it with Beyond the To-Do List, and all you’re up to.

Erik Fisher
Awesome. Thank you so much. I’m really enjoying it.