740: How to Reclaim Your Time and Calendar with Rick Pastoor

Pete Mockaitis
Rick, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Rick Pastoor
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into your wisdom and hear about the book Grip and your startup Rise but, first, I think we got to go back in time a little bit. I understand there was a moment in your life when you received a letter from your mayor as a youngster, it made quite an impact. What’s the story here?

Rick Pastoor
Yeah, okay, so this story is about when I was…I think I was around six. And on my birthday, on my sixth birthday, I received a letter from the municipality, like the local enforcement. It said, “Thank you, Rick, for cleaning up for us.” So, as I was young, and I still do but I cared about the environment in the city, in the local neighborhood actually. So, I started cleaning up stuff when I saw it and then I brought it home, and then my parents had to take care of it.

And for years, I thought that this letter was real, like it was signed from the mayor. And then at age, I think it was 12 or 13, I once brought up this letter, like, “Hey, it was actually weird. Did I get this letter from this…? How did they do that?”

Pete Mockaitis
How did they know?

Rick Pastoor
And then my parents said, “That was fake. That was something that we made up.” So, actually, I spent years thinking that the people in the city actually cared about this kind of stuff, that they noticed me. And I think the reason for sharing this is that, one, I always have cared about the idea that there are some rules that can be helpful, can be ideas that we should care about to keep things in order, and that brings you something, some idea of like you enjoy being in a space that’s nice and neat. So, that’s one idea.

And the second is that, while this was fake, this taught me that noticing these small things that people do that are working well can have a huge, like years’ long effect, of how they perceive the world, how they think about themselves, and stuff like that. So, since then I have made it a habit to try to notice this stuff and reach out to other people and share it with them.

Pete Mockaitis
So, like, “Hey, I noticed this and it’s really cool. Thank you.” Like that sort of thing?

Rick Pastoor
I think that kind of stuff, and I think that, I don’t know if you’ve ever…of course, you’re producing this podcast and you do other stuff, people think that you get bombarded with messages all of the time. And, of course, you probably get a lot of stuff but, still, I also found that, like the book sold over, whatever, 70,000 copies here in Netherlands, and people think that I have like hundreds of emails.

Of course, that is like the number of well-written and thoughtful emails that you get that someone had researched you or someone that really took the time, I can count on one hand every week. So, it’s really easy to stand out in that sense. And I found that to be true also for the biggest CEOs of the world. So, it has served to me as a trigger to don’t hold back in terms of the stuff that I share, also the questions that I ask to this kind of people.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right. And you haven’t held back when it comes to discovering and sharing advice for working smart, productivity stuff. Can you tell us, what’s perhaps one of the most surprising and fascinating or counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about this game since you started looking into it?

Rick Pastoor
So, I think the biggest one for me is that the calendar is a really under-looked aspect for a lot of people, and that has a reason, I think. I’m a huge fan of what David Allen wrote in Getting Things Done, and that’s a big starting point for a lot of people when they think about how to structure their work. I found that in a time where we spend actually a lot of time in meetings still and we have a lot of things going on in the calendar, that sometimes there’s a disconnect.

And that’s where I struggled a lot a couple of years ago when implementing this, and I found a way of working around that but, actually, it starts with the calendar. For me, there was a big shift in terms of the level of sanity that I could achieve while doing something as simple as making sure that the calendar is an actual reflection of how I spend my time. Since then, that has been some kind of a message that I’m trying to preach to people around me and which ultimately led to writing the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, David Allen, for folks who are not familiar, he wrote Getting Things Done, which is fantastic, and we’ve interviewed him a couple of times, including toward the beginning – what a guy – before the show was big enough to be meaningful for his publicity. Episode 15-ish. Thanks, David.

And so, I recommend listeners check out his work. It’s so good and the general vibe being, “Hey, download all the stuff out of your brain. It’s for having ideas, not for holding them. Have them in organized lists. Know what your projects and next actions are associated with those projects and you’ll feel a sense of sort of freedom, and things will become unstuck in.” And it’s really true.

I think about it kind of like exercise. It really works and it’s also really easy to fall off the wagon and stop doing it because, hey, more stuff comes at us all the time, and so you got to be pretty vigilant and pick yourself up when you do fall.

So, when you talk about the calendar and the disconnect, was the disconnect you’re referring to is your calendar is not actually truthfully reflecting or displaying what you’re doing with the hours in your life? Is that the disconnect?

Rick Pastoor
Yeah. So, there’s basically two things. One is that if you have a sense of the project and the tasks that you need to accomplish to get these projects done, there’s two big things that I found that I needed to add to make the system work. And one is to make the connection with when something is going to happen. Of course, what David was saying is that there are a certain set of contexts where a task can be executed well, and then you just start off with this list. But this list is endless, of course.

Pete Mockaitis
It really does get big. I’ve got 1800 items in my OmniFocus inbox.

Rick Pastoor
Exactly. And I have the same, and I feel that, when I was discussing this with people, it gets really overwhelming and it never gets done, and especially in a time where there’s no clear, like, I’m opening the door of my office. I walk in and then I walk out of there at 5:00 p.m. There’s no closure anymore. So, we need some boundaries. And if they are not there anymore in the physical world, we need to build them in our digital world and in our own management of how we manage time. So, the sense of, “When is it done?” It will never get done. Our work is never done.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true.

Rick Pastoor
So, artificially, we need something, and I found that in the calendar. So, that’s one. And, two, I found that there’s a disconnect between where I am now and where I’m going with this. And, for me, that’s like David is describing this in “Getting Things Done” with the different levels of height that you’re looking at your life, like different thousand-foot levels, and I struggle with implementing this.

Like, “How does this link to my day-to-day stuff?” So, you have your weekly review, of course. But how does this map out over the bigger things? And that’s the second ingredient that I added in the second part of the book. It’s basically sharing how I do my quarterly goal-setting, annual review, and stuff like that, how do I keep all this stuff in place. And, again, that’s the link to, “Okay, I know where I want to go but when will this happen?” Well, I’m making the link to time again on this level.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so that’s a great point in terms of “When does the work get done? Never because it’s endless.” And I find, maybe just to pause there for a moment, I find that to sort of emotionally that’s difficult because I really like to win and to feel like I’m winning, and I really don’t like to lose or feel like I’m losing. Not that I will bite your head off if you beat me in Monopoly or something but I would prefer to win.

And so, it is even more so with sort of my projects, my goals, the things that I’m trying to accomplish. And so then, I guess I’m curious, how do you know, whether it’s the course of a day or a week or an hour that, “Hey, even though the work is endless and always coming at me, I can declare victory. I have checked the box and kind of call this a successful day or week”? How do you get there?

Rick Pastoor
Well, if you zoom out, I think a big part of the way that we live, the stuff that we run into, is getting comfortable with the fact that the time on this planet is limited. And that means that we will find all kinds of ways to think that we have an endless opportunity to change stuff, to fix stuff, to start with things, to do stuff.

And I think, ultimately, being really aware that this day has so many hours, and, thus, forcing me to, upfront, decide how I’m spending it, and then making sure that that at least happens, will give me – and that’s what I found – this gives me fulfillment because this gives me a sense of, “Hey, I’ve mapped this out and this is what got done.” So, that’s one perspective of looking at it.

So, that’s like mapping it out again onto time, does not only force me to figure out when I’m starting, but also when I’m done. And that gives me this in-between, these small milestones, these small runs, like small days within the day where I can say, “Hey, I made this within the hour. I’m even faster, or I’m a bit slower, so I need to adapt.” So, it gives me these check-in points in the day, so that’s one.

And two is “What’s the alternative?” The alternative is that we assume that we’re not living with the fact that time is limited to us, and we never really get close with this. Well, that gives a false sense of opportunity. And, also, how do you prioritize if there’s no boundaries? So, in that sense, bringing that as close to the day as possible, so not thinking in a year but also in a day, really force me to make the tough decision, tougher decisions, on, “Okay, is this what I’m planning now, is it really worth my time if I look back on this?” Well, most of the time I need to swap things around a lot, actually.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s intriguing. So, that question, “Is this really worth my time looking back on it in the future?” So, in terms of like is there a specific articulation of that question or maybe that’s just it right there? like, I think, “A year from now, will I be pleased that I interviewed Rick in this moment?” So far, the answer seems to be, “Yes, Rick, nice work.” And so, that’s just all there is to it or are there some more nuances or layers?

Rick Pastoor
Yeah, I think this is also a part of a habit, and I think you and probably a lot of listeners might be familiar with the idea of doing a weekly check-in with yourself in the form of a review or, like in the book, I call this a Friday recap and expand on that a little bit. But, in a sense, I think it’s key to be aware that, without dedicated moments to sit down and reflect on certain time skills, these insights won’t really appear out of thin air. We need to work on that. We need to spend time on mulling this over and thinking about this stuff.

And, for me, the answer is also a structure where I no longer have to decide that I’m going to do it but it’s part of the structure so it happens. Like, it’s not something that you negotiate with, just like you’re not negotiating the fact that there will be a New Year’s Eve, like this is just what’s there. Like, in that sense, it should be something that’s just part of the deal.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, intriguing, so I like that. So, it’s just there, it’s just in the structure. And I guess maybe, from like a discipline motivation perspective, the first few times probably does require some will to do it, but then it’s just sort of like, “Well, Fridays at 11:00 a.m. is just when the recap happens. That’s just kind of what happens. That’s just it.” And so, is it just that simple after a few reps, then it’s there?

Rick Pastoor
I think, ultimately, there are two ways to look at it. One is there’s the really habit-forming approach where you’re looking at the technical parts of how will habits get formed. And Atomic Habits is, of course, a great book, if you want to dive into a lot of details around how you get to self-motivate instructions. There’s also the other angle of “What kind of value does this bring to my life?” And I think, again, for me, what I’m doing on a quarterly level where I’m taking this is one or two evenings, and on a yearly level, one or two full days to think about “What happened in the last year and how will this next year look?”

Those are the times where the value of this weekly sessions really sinks in but I also see this as if I skip it a week, and then the next week I feel I’m actually a worse person for it if I’m not doing it. And I think that’s where the rubber hits the road, and I experience that, that there’s something lost if I’m not doing it. And that’s where I feel this is not a trick. This is not something that I do because I feel like I really experience that stuff will fall apart if I’m not doing it.

But, of course, there’s also a connection between, “How do you make this super simple?” And we have the tendency to make things more complicated if things are not working, and I get that. Like, we bring in more complicated software if things are not but, actually, what really works is the other way around. If things are not working, take at least one piece of the puzzle out and then try it again. Like, make it simple instead of more complicated.

Pete Mockaitis
That reminds me of BJ Fogg’s work in Tiny Habits, like, “How can I make this easier?” is sort of like the master question. And I think that’s dead-on. Well, so I want to talk about the book “Grip” and some of the productivity experiments, but we’ve already sort of teased a little bit about sort of like the daily plan, the Friday recap, the quarterly, the yearly. Can you just give us a couple kinds of key guiding-light questions that you prompt yourself with at each of these intervals?

Rick Pastoor
Okay. So, on a weekly level, I’m thinking about, “Hey, what happened in the last week? What made me proud? What went well?” And then, “What are some of the things that did not go as well as I thought they went?” But, also, on a weekly level, it’s way more tactical, it’s way more like I’m tapping each item in my calendar to see if there’s any loose ends. Like, I follow the structure that also David Allen brought us, like, “Hey, go over each project and make sure that there’s a next action,” like there’s a basic checklist.

And then if I move to the quarterly level, I’m specific on using quarters because a month is way too short and a year is too long for setting any type of goals, so that’s why I’m using quarters. Also, it links really well with how a corporate structure works so you can also fold in your work plans a lot easier. And then I’m asking questions like, on the level of one goal, “So, how did my goals go? Did I manage them? And if not, why?”

On category level for each quarter, I have a couple of questions around, “Hey, like in my work, what kind of stuff do I actually want to spend my time on if I’m purely reasoning from my own perspective?” But, also, shifting towards more personal questions, like, “Hey, think about your friends, think about your family. How do you evolve in this, in this network of people? And what do you bring to each of these members of your family, friends, and group around you?”

So, going over these set of questions, zooming out on a quarter level and also on a yearly level, you see that gradually, like it moves from more technical to strategic “Where do I want to go as a person?” in a sort of sense.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right. Well, so let’s hear, it sounds we’ve already hit a lot of it. But what’s sort of like the big idea or main thesis behind your book Grip, which will soon be released in English to us Yankees? And let’s hear about some of the intriguing productivity experiments that are inside of it.

Rick Pastoor
Yeah. So, basically, what I’ve done is I brought a guide that I would’ve found super useful if it was my first job, and it contains a structure for having a better week, and that starts with the three components: calendar, task manager, email/communication, and this Friday recap or weekly review. That’s the first part of it.

And based on what I found missing is that there’s a lot of books and ideas that zoom in on one of these specifics and give you a really helpful tool. But how does this fit into the life that I have to manage? There’s a lot of stuff going on. And how does this fit into the Slack channels that are also there and WhatsApp that’s also there? I need to deal with this. How do I make this happen? So, that’s the first part of the book.

And then, of course, the second part builds up on top of that with the goal-setting. Like, goal-setting, to me, is like a lot of people get mad if I start talking about setting goals.

Pete Mockaitis
“How dare you?”

Rick Pastoor
Yeah. They have this instant negative response because people are using goals in a wrong way. Like, they’re used on them, not with them. It’s like something that gets managed for them.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you. “Here are your goals, Rick. For this quarter, you will be doing these goals.”

Rick Pastoor
Exactly. It’s more of a stick. And what I also hear is that it’s something that is spoken about a lot, like you discuss a lot at work, and then, ultimately, of course, a couple of weeks in, you get completely different directions. Like, we’re not able to stick to them as well. So, of course, it brings in a negative response. So, my goal was to give you something that you can actually play with that brings you something as a person.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. And so, you’ve done some experiments, huh? Let’s hear some of the results.

Rick Pastoor
Yeah. So, one of the things that I love, and this is not rocket science, but one of the things that I’m a huge fan of is “How can you break things down to the point that you do them today?” And this is something that I’ve seen work for a lot of people, but, of course, we have these big dreams and big ideas.

And, ultimately, what I found, one of the first things that I’ve done aside from the main job that I had as a startup back then, is that I found that it was hard to do a specific type of research in a team, and people were always saying, like, “Yeah, we need more time to do research,” and complaining, basically, about, well, the decisions that were made.

And then I thought, like, “So, okay, how can I break this down as much as possible?” We were building a new version of the onboarding of one of the apps that I was working on. And onboarding meaning, well, the pros of signing up and then getting a new account. So, then I thought, “Okay, what can I do every single day? Well, let me review one specific onboarding for another app, and then write a brief blogpost about it, and then post that.”

So, ultimately, after a month, I had quite a collection, actually, of work which were super simple to do. Like, it was precisely in my circles of stuff that I found interesting, that I’m good at, that give me a good feeling, and also had a good mix with, and add to stuff that we were doing at work. So, this is one example, which ultimately led to writing an article for A List Apart, which is one of the blogs that I still am a fan of for years, which I find super exciting.

So, then one thing leads to another. That also led, ultimately, to the second Fuller Project which was writing a newsletter for every single day of, that was, 2016. And that led to, ultimately, writing the book because I had this material. And then, of course, ultimately, people started asking me, like, “Hey, how do you manage this?” Well, then I point back to the starting point, which is just writing for 15 minutes a day. And that, we all have time for. So, I think that was one of the experiments that I started with super small, and then, well, kept on improving and kept on building upon, which is one of the core things that I still do every single day.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so fun. And I’m just imagining in your workplace, like, “Oh, boy, Rick is the onboarding expert. Like, he’s the master of onboarding.” And it’s like, “Okay, so I signed up for an app a day and wrote about what happened when I got on board for 15 minutes, and I did that for 20 days, a total of five hours. And now I am like the all-mighty onboarding….” Well, I’m just sort of making assumptions that this…

Rick Pastoor
That is fair. No, that’s basically completely fair but, also, as soon as you start, as soon as you do this yourself, you start looking at the other stuff that gets published, gets written, and people get idolized for with different eyes because, sure, there are some things that are truly a ton of work, of course, but a lot of things are also a culmination of tiny bits and bytes every single day. And if you know that, then you also know that, like if you publish hundreds of podcast episodes, like you did, people start asking you, “How do you actually manage this?” “Of course, one episode at a time.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right, yup.

Rick Pastoor
One step at a time. And I think we underestimate what we can do if we do this for a longer period of time, which is super powerful, I guess.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s true. Well, I would stop myself from ranting about how when you Google something, all 10 results look suspiciously similar often, not always, but often. It’s like, “I know what you’re doing, everybody. I know what you’re doing.” And it irritates me. Anyway.

Rick Pastoor
Are you saying with that that you feel that these types of habits are causing this?

Pete Mockaitis
No. I’m just saying when you look at a body of work with a different set of eyes after producing something, it’s true in that I know that there are SEO articles out there saying, “Google something, look at the top 10 results, and then repackage them. And, hopefully, your domain authority, or whatever, will push you to be on the top results. Now you get some traffic.” Well, thanks, you’ve made the world no better, and I find that annoying. That’s my hot take, anyway. Not super relevant.

Rick Pastoor
No, I get what you’re saying, and I think what is true in that is that if you use any type of these kind of hacks to make yourself do stuff, it also matters what you then do, of course, and the direction matters. And I think this is also why I love the saying of Stephen Covey, “You can run up a ladder as fast as possible, but if these ladders are set against the wrong wall, why are you doing it?”

Pete Mockaitis
Exactly.

Rick Pastoor
“What’s the ultimate perspective?” And I think this is what happens in a lot of stuff that you can just copy and paste tips and tricks. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, well, the combined effort of small steps every day can really surmount to a huge body of work that a lot of people will recognize, but that’s not the goal, that’s not really the goal. The goal is like, “How can you move this mountain for yourself?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, and I guess, fundamentally, it just feels more generous and loving in the world. Like, you’ve created something that is truly useful as opposed to something that’s just useful for your own sake, like, “Okay, hey, I managed to get some clicks but I’ve made the world know better,” is just kind of sticks me the wrong way.

But, anyway, bit by bit. Also, another thing I want to say about that, I remember back in my consulting days, when we were fresh recruits and we would look at people building these elaborate Excel models, and they showed us an example, like, “Oh, hey, yes, so here’s something I made,” and people are like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s insane. There’s like 50 different sheets and they all interrelate and you can automatically update one assumption and it flows into all these other places.”

And it was just like wildly intimidating but then they always said the same thing, it’s like, “Well, hey, this didn’t start out that way. One day we set out to figure out this one thing.” And they said, “Okay, so we had a very rough one-sheet thing.” And then we said, “Well, hey, actually there are some really dynamic assumptions working underneath it.” So they said, “Okay, so I made two other pages to reflect that, which then linked to the first one.”

And they said, “Well, there’s another section of things.” And so, again, it just sort of builds bit by bit. And then, when it’s unveiled in its entirety, whether it’s a whole book or a glorious Excel model or whatever, it’s like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s insane. I could never do that.” It’s like, “Well, no one can in one day. It grows up bit by bit, and then it becomes something awesome.”

Rick Pastoor
Yeah, I do want to add to one of the previous things that you mentioned on “Is it actually worthwhile what you’re doing?” That I do tend to believe that most of these does not happen out of malintent or out of purposefully making something that’s not useful, or just useful for yourself. I think, ultimately, we do want to build or make something, most people, that is, in some way, deeply useful for, one, ourselves, but also for others.

And I think if there’s, in your life, no structure around “How do you gather insights that help you course-correct? Who is your sounding board, in that sense? Who are the people around you that can speak to you about this? Who do you use as a sounding board to reflect on how kind of ethical and moral choices you’re making? I believe that this is also a hugely important part where you can, one, stand out from the pack, and, two, can have huge effects on the direction that you’re following.

Like, if you’re listening to this and you don’t have an answer to this, you don’t have a way to think about this to deconstruct these issues, you’re not course-correcting. And that’s when you’re missing out, I believe.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s well-said in terms of if you don’t have something, some guideposts or values or people to bounce things off of, and you just go down an optimizing shortcut-y pathway to maximize something, you’re going to get into some gross results. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard a conversation with Bethany McLean and Seth Godin, and one of them said that, “If you continually split-test A-B, what gets better results and clicks, a website, it will always devolve into porn.”

And I don’t know if that’s true, but there is a kernel of truth, I think, to it in terms of like what’s more exciting, like, “Hmm,” in terms of capturing a click, if it’s more clickbait-y or provocative, it does tend to, in the short term, get more people curious enough to take a look. So, yeah, that’s a great point about zooming out and getting the broad perspective. But I want to zoom back in.

So, with calendars, you noted a disconnect and you’ve taken it to a whole another level here in terms of you’re not just using your calendar a little bit differently. You have raised $3 million, I see – congratulations – to build a full-blown new bit of calendar software. What’s the scoop here?

Rick Pastoor
Yeah. So, if you think about when you do your best work, if you think about when you want to be focused, when you want to have your meetings, you will probably have some idea, and your listeners will probably have some idea, too, otherwise, you won’t be listening to this. But the question now is, “Okay, think about the rest of your team, think about your teammates, think about the people you possibly manage, the people that you interact with within the company, you probably have no idea or maybe you know, “Okay, this guy is working mostly late shifts. This is not a morning person.” Okay, but that’s as far as it goes.

With Rise, what we want to do is not just build the calendar as an Excel sheet that you fill in but, actually we want to fold these signals into a calendar as we’ve actually done in the last year. We built a scheduling engine that takes this stuff into account, so personal profile, but also the meetings and stuff that you’re attending already. And if you request a time, like, if you say, “Hey, I want to meet for one hour with colleague A, B, and C in the next week,” we will schedule that on a time that’s saving as many focused time minutes as possible for the whole team on average.

So, that’s the biggest thing. We don’t just want to build a pretty calendar, which is something that I think we do, but that’s not the décor because the gist of it is we want you to be in and out, but actually want to help you preserve as much time to focus on what actually matters but also actually have better meetings because they are scheduled at times where you can perform at your best.

And that’s something that’s also linking back to the book but also in how you structure your week, is that we arrived at this, in a time where we just assume that we perform on this very same level on Monday mornings as Thursday afternoons, or at least we expect that of ourselves. Well, of course, that’s not true. And the same is what we’re doing in a year, like on a scale of a year. We just assume and expect from ourselves, from our team, that we perform at our best at all times. Well, that’s not how nature works.

So, there are times where we are just not so focused as we could possibly be, there are times in a year where we need to re-energize. And I think those are things that we actually know that are proven by science, that are backed by research, and stuff that we want to fold into this engine to make sure that you no longer have to think about this stuff, but actually have a calendar guide you to having better days and better weeks.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s certainly intriguing. I guess I’m wondering if there are low-importance meetings that you can schedule for people’s least juicy times. Although, I know if anyone hosting meetings likes to think of it as low importance, but sometimes they might. It’s like, “Hey, these are just the updates that we’re obliged to do by law or something.”

Rick Pastoor
There’s one way to think about that, and that is there is no way for a team to set any type of guardrails about how much time you spend in meetings. So, there is basically just saying, “Hey, can we put it in this week or not?” Like, that’s what we are thinking about. So, that’s also hard to think about more weeks because there is just so much data to consider if you think about just scheduling in a meeting.

And you say low-priority meetings, well, like we know this but it’s just too big of a mental hurdle to think about the other possibilities, but that we can do. So, what happens in Rise is if you schedule a meeting, and the meeting loads for a team, it crosses the boundary that you set as a team, it will suggest, “Hey, possibly move this to next week.” And in a lot of situations, that’s fine. Like, there’s a lot of stuff that can wait.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess I’m curious then, in terms of for our own selves, and maybe Rise does some of this, what are the best times to work? And to what extent are there universals versus individual personal preferences? And how do we masterfully deduce those and work with them?

Rick Pastoor
I think, roughly, there are – and this is not rocket science – roughly, there’s two types. There are the morning owls and there’s late nights, the people that perform better later in the day. And I think if you take those as archetypes, you can split those, again, into two groups but, roughly speaking, there is half of the population that really wants to have their focused time early in the day, and have their meetings maybe a little bit to start around 11:00 in the morning or just after lunch, and then continue into the afternoon.

And there’s another group that prefers to have their meetings in the morning, so to get them done, and have their peak time around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., and then continues later in the day. And, additionally to this, there’s also a group that is really productive in the evenings, while there’s no distractions, there’s no things going on. What you do see is that you can ask yourself if that happens because of the distractions, or because they are truly more productive at that time.

So, I think that’s an interesting thing that program to impact especially in the next couple of years when people are and will be way more experimenting with disconnecting the work, the usual work times, and figuring out more. But if there’s no construct of an office anymore, and if you can let go of the times more, like you need to appear at 9:00 in Slack and then disappear from Slack at 6:00, what will happen to our productivity if that’s truly possible? But, in a sense, I see two big groups. So, either one in the morning or in the afternoon to focus.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Well, before we hear about some of your favorite things, can you give us maybe a top do and a top don’t in the realm of calendar, task manager, and communications?

Rick Pastoor
Okay. So, a top do would be, one, make sure that what you do is reflected in this calendar. So, one, that’s meetings, but, two, after that, preparation time, processing time, travel time. Those are three that are very often overlooked. And, of course, you are not the person that is not preparing their meetings, but all the other people are. But we can actually set a good example and make sure that we have the preparation time booked in, otherwise it won’t happen.

And then, connects to that, make sure that what you’re actually working on, so all your tasks, two biggest tasks that need to happen should be in the calendar, that’s what I absolutely believe. That gives a signal to the team, that gives a signal to the people that try to book something in, but also it’s a huge thing for yourself to see a notification pop up and say, “You need to work on this right now because now there’s no excuse anymore.”

So, I’m really saying, make sure that what’s in there, that’s also something that you’re not negotiating with anymore. So, it’s really something that you should actually do. So, that’s really the do part. And the other two parts is what you already mentioned. Like, you should not use your brain for storage. Of course, that’s a mantra that people hear on this channel a lot, but that’s really something that you should not do because you should use your brain as a working memory to focus on what’s at hand.

And then the final one from me would be schedule time for communication, and let that happen at a set time because, one, that’s a skill. Communication is something that we value, like we’re not cutting it out, but very often, what happens, of course, we do our chats and our email while on the go, while we’re, I don’t know, in line in the grocery store, and, of course, we’re not reading things well, we’re not having our full attention. And, of course, stuff runs off the rail with that because we’re not reading. So, I would suggest book off time, like block off time in your calendar to do this communication. If we really value it as part of our work, it should be there.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Rick, now, can you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Rick Pastoor
My key quote that I return to is the one, of course, from old president Eisenhower, there’s stuff that’s urgent but not important. Most of the things that are urgent are not important, and most of the things that are important are not urgent. And I’m paraphrasing a little bit, but that’s something that, like every day, is challenging me so much to really think about. If someone puts something on my plate, is that truly because it’s…like should I accept this because it really fits where I’m going? Or, do I do this because, well, really someone else requests this of me?

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

Rick Pastoor
Okay, so the one that I find really intriguing is still this study that’s about how much time do we need to return to our tasks when we are disrupted by something, or when we’re disturbed by something. And there’s a study that’s often quoted, which is that we need – what is it now? 24 minutes? 23 minutes?

Pete Mockaitis
I was thinking the Microsoft study, 24 minutes. You got something fresh for me, Rick?

Rick Pastoor
No, no. We all talk about this study. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel that I need this amount of time to return to the task, but, still, we talk and think about it, and we use this to, I don’t know, take certain directions in how we shape our day. So, I feel this is something that I hope, in the brief, like short time, near time, we will discover that there’s actually something else happening.

And how can we, in a world where so much is happening around us, and we’re disrupted a lot, can we find a way where we’re not dependent on our own discipline so much to get done what needs to get done? So, there’s these paradigms where, of course, if you look at deep work, for example, where…and actually part of Rise is built on top of that, you need as many undisturbed blocks of time to really do work that’s important.

And that’s the idea that most of us start from. But the question is, “Is that something that…can we invent something that really breaks with this pattern that allows us to combine both the fact that we are available instantly, with the fact that we can produce meaningful work if we are still, like in a way, connected and sometimes interrupted by something?” That’s something that I’m fascinated about.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Rick Pastoor
One that I re-read a lot is one of the earliest productivity books, and that’s How To Live On 24 Hours A Day. I don’t know if you know it. It’s a really thin one and I think it’s 1907, something like that, that it was written. And I love it because he’s basically describing that we tend to focus our work in like eight hours a day, and we have like around eight hours of rest, and then, still, there’s quite a lot of time left.

And he’s basically saying, “Okay, if we can, instead of focusing on how can we make these eight hours at work more productive, if we think how can we meaningfully spend those other eight hours, that’s, of course, a 2X improvement,” which is really hard to do with incremental, really small changes in, I don’t know, our day-to-day software and our to-do list and our hacking our kind of stuff. And I think this is, to me, a really useful reminder that I need to be conscious about, or can be conscious about, this other segment of my day as well.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Rick Pastoor
Yeah, well, the calendar is an easy one for me. Like, for me, that’s something that I begin the day with and end the day with. I’m actually on the first version of Rise now, which is really nice, and I’m connected to that. I’m also a huge OmniFocus fan, so that’s my go-to task manager.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Rick Pastoor
Favorite habits will be, for me, we have been doing a smoothie every single day for, I don’t know, 10 years. Every morning, I make this.

Pete Mockaitis
What’s in the smoothie, Rick? We have to know.

Rick Pastoor
It’s all veggies. And we started off, and I think this is, again, is something that like you have to ease in a little bit because, like I have some friends that drink this stuff that we make, and they’re like, “What are you drinking because this is disgusting?” But I do feel that, while I cannot prove this, that this has a lot of long-term healthy effects on my energy during the day, but also long-term what kind of stuff do I consume and do I get the proper amount of nutritional value in my body.

So, we started off with a lot of fruits, and then, over time, gradually replaced fruits by more vegetables. And that has been something that, I would say, something that the longest running habit that I’ve been doing.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, let’s see, like this morning, what was the recipe in terms of the vegetables?

Rick Pastoor
Yeah. Okay, so there is the fruit that is in this is unpeeled bananas, because in the peel of a banana, there is most of the fiber, actually. So, I wash the banana, and then I put it in. There’s – what is it? – linseed, I guess – how do you call it? – in there. There is carrots, there’s spinach, there is kale, there is…let me check. I have to also translate the words in my head so I’m looking. Avocado?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Rick Pastoor
Yeah, it’s the same, huh? Avocado, yeah. So, avocado is in there. And for flavor, I use cacao, is it in Dutch?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cacao? Chocolate?

Rick Pastoor
Chocolate, but, of course, the pure biological version, which is in powder. And spirulina.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s something.

Rick Pastoor
And that’s it. And then water, and that’s it.

Pete Mockaitis
There you go. Cool. All right. And tell us, is there a key nugget you share that seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote back to you often?

Rick Pastoor
Yeah. So, what they’re saying is the first thing that they discover when they start to put in the work in the calendar, saying, “I have way too much on my plate. So, how do I…like, give me a tip to compress it all in.” And, of course, the answer is there is no way. Like, there is no way that’s happening, and that’s actually the exercises you should go through because now you start to see that it will never all fit, and you need to make the decisions that matter.

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

Rick Pastoor
I’m quite active in Twitter so that’s where I’m sharing the stuff. So, that’s @rickpastoor on Twitter, and that’s also where I refer to my newsletter and the other stuff that I’m working on, and that’s the place to find me.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Rick Pastoor
I would say that being diligent about how you spend your time, not only on a weekly basis, but I would challenge the people, especially from this podcast, to also spend time on the longer horizon, and not just following what’s offered in the workplace, but consciously thinking about what your system, your structure there, because that’s where you find the real impact.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Rick, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck and fun with the book and with Rise and all your adventures.

Rick Pastoor
Thank you so much for having me.