Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Leo

Okay. Hello everybody. Today I have the honor of being joined by, and correct me if I say your name wrong, Eran Katz.

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

Did I say it close? Oh, perfect. I nailed it. We can stop recording now. But this is a special episode because we'll be doing a little bit of coaching and trying to help Eran move through some things that are blocking him and move to what he wants to create. And so I'll read a little bit of a bio so you know who we're talking to here.

Eran is a clinical psychologist, father of two, and a husband in no particular order. He works in a private practice in Tel Aviv, Israel. He dreams of helping parents move from being confused and stressed out into a more confident and leading role in their families. It's so beautiful. This is why I created the Parenting Map, M-A-P, and the Apparently Parent podcast. My goal in life is to help as many parents as possible move from chaos to harmony and build an enduring, meaningful relationship with their children. Awesome. Well, welcome, Eran.

Eran

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Leo

How are you doing today, by the way?

Eran

Pretty good. So we have this time difference, right? I'm guessing it's early morning for you. It's evening. I'm just after dinner, and, you know, I have young children—10 and 6 years old. So it's like one of the peaks of energy in the day—dinner, showers, and all that. So, like, it's right in between that. But I don't know, it was a pretty nice day today.

Leo

Oh, that's so cool. And what, what does a normal day for you look like? Just out of curiosity, like, are you doing your clinical work most of the day and then getting some time with the family at the end of it? Tell me a little bit more.

Eran

Yeah, so I have my main job—my day job is my private practice, which I go out to. I don't work from home. I have my office, and I go there three and a half days per week. One thing that I really like about this kind of work is that I can choose my own hours as long as I have clients coming in during those hours. I prefer to work in the mornings and noontime, so I have afternoons at home with my family.

I also have a couple of days off from the office because I'm still writing my PhD dissertation, which I'm working on. So it really depends on which day you're asking me. Like today—it's a Thursday—I don't have any clients today. I had a swimming lesson this morning, which was awesome, and then I was home working on my paper. Then the kids came home, so it was a much more relaxed day.

Leo

Really cool. Okay, thanks for sharing. And so, you are creating something outside of your day job. I heard that there's the PhD, but also this Parenting Map and the podcast. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Eran

Yeah. So I've been practicing as a psychologist for, I guess, about 15 years. I started as a child psychologist—that's what I studied, clinical child psychology. Over time, I realized I work better with their parents or just with adults, not necessarily on issues related to children.

After I became a father, my eldest, who’s a boy, moved from being just a baby to a toddler, which was more challenging communication-wise. I started to become more interested in parenting. I had to figure out how to be the kind of parent that I wanted to be. I had some knowledge already, then I read more books and started to talk about it with colleagues and clients.

The thing that started to bud within me was this wish to really hone in on this issue of parenting and how I could use my knowledge, experience, and skills to help more parents. Then COVID came. We were home, and they were really young. So we were stuck at home for a couple of months at the beginning, and it was not easy.

Leo

You said your kids are 10 and six?

Eran

Yeah, yeah.

Leo

Got it.

Eran

I have a boy and a daughter. She was like two years old, and he was in first grade when it started. It was very challenging because it was a challenging time and a challenging age. I started thinking about creating some kind of resource for parents around the ideas I was learning and trying to implement within myself as well.

It started as an idea for a blog. Then I thought about a podcast. I wanted to create more workshops and courses online, which I figured could help me reach more people and help my family financially while helping others. Elevating my business to a different kind of work really resonated with me, so that’s the big, global project.

Leo

Got it. How much of that have you created already? Have you been doing a blog or a podcast? What’s been done so far?

Eran

It started as a blog, and then—I don’t remember when—I started the podcast. It’s called the Apparently Parent Podcast. It was originally the Apparently Parent Blog. The podcast ran for 60-something episodes, and then I had to take a break because I was really busy with my PhD work.

One thing had to come in front of the other. So I made this decision—I thought I’d take a break for a year from podcasting to really focus on my PhD work. One year became two. For now, in my mind, the podcast is on a really long break, but I want to go back to it. I also want to create the first course that I’d like to offer.

You mentioned the Parenting Map—that’s the framework I conceived for how I want to help parents. That’s the name of it, and it’s the gist of how I want to work with people.

Leo

Okay, I’d love to hear a little bit more about that. You might know already that I have six kids.

Eran

Oh, I didn’t know.

Leo

It’s a mixed family. We have two each from previous relationships, and then we came together and had two more. So it’s three boys and three girls, a blended family. But our youngest one just turned 18, so we have all adults. They’re not actually kids anymore.

For a long time, I’ve been joking that as a parent, my main job is to get them to adulthood—18, alive. And if they do that, then I succeeded. I have a 100% success rate—all of them alive at 18.

That’s a joke because, obviously, as you know, there’s a lot more to it. It’s not just making them survive. So what would you like parents to know that goes beyond just survival? Like, is there anything in the Parenting Map that you think is important to share? And obviously, you’ve talked for hours on a podcast, so we don’t have that long. Just give me the gist of what you think should be communicated to parents.

Eran

That’s a really good question. I think, if you ask any psychologist or social worker like me who works with children and their parents, they’ll tell you about parents who come into the office saying, “Fix the little guy,” or “Tell me what to do and what to say. Give me the tools. Give me the formulas.”

We don’t have those. It doesn’t work like that. I can’t fix the child for you because I see them for one hour a week—you’re there all the time.

It boils down to this: It’s your job to work on yourself. The Parenting Map is an acronym, but one of the main parts of the work is parents understanding themselves—how their minds work, what makes them tick, and what makes them untick, getting dysregulated. It’s about developing the skills to be more regulated on a day-to-day basis so they can be there for their children when the kids are dysregulated.

I think that’s the main thing. You’ve probably had this experience many times. Your kid is going through something, and you need to be there for them. You have to find the power within yourself to show up in the way they need. You have six kids, so you know how different everyone can be. It’s a delicate job of knowing yourself, knowing your children, and attuning to them.

That’s why I believe working with parents is the way to go—it’s not about working with the children themselves.

Leo

I absolutely love that you’re sharing this. And obviously, it’s a deep topic that you could go into for a long time. We’ll share links to whatever resources you have created or recommend.

I just wanted to say, I love that you’re focusing on this. As a father, I know the importance of it. When my kids are dysregulated, when they’ve got their stuff coming up, it often triggers my own stuff. My parenting moments that I’m least proud of are when I wasn’t able to deal with my own emotions in response to theirs.

I’ve gotten a lot better at that. This is a lot of the work I’ve done on myself. I’m not perfect, but I’ve definitely improved. The more I can do that for myself, as you said, the more I can be there for them in the way they need. And as you know, we’re modeling something for them—how to regulate ourselves.

And that’s something that’s not taught. In fact, the opposite is taught a lot, at least in the society I’m in. I think what you’re doing is so needed, and I just want to say thank you for that.

Eran

Thanks.

Leo

Okay, so we want to get into the difficulty you’re having around this. But because I think it’s such an important topic, I have to ask: If someone wanted to get started on this, are there resources you’ve created or that you’d recommend to others?

Eran

So, there’s my podcast. There are a couple of episodes where I talk about the role of the parent and what the Parenting Map is, at least in the beginning. People can always reach out to me. There are lots of books out there about parenting that I wish I’d written myself.

Leo

Any favorites you recommend to parents?

Eran

Anything written by Dan Siegel is a favorite of mine. He’s written a lot about the mind at large, but he has three or four parenting books he wrote with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, like No-Drama Discipline and The Whole-Brain Child.

If I were to create a gift kit for new parents, I’d include those two books: The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline. Those are fundamental.

Leo

Okay, I can already hear every parent listening to this clicking on Amazon and ordering those right now. I will be as well, so thank you for that. We’ll also link to Apparently Parent—your blog and podcast.

I think this is so important. I can see why you want to create not only what you’ve already created, but this course you have in mind. Tell me about how that’s going—creating the course so far.

Eran

It’s not really going. It’s going, okay. It goes a lot in my mind. As I said, I had an idea during COVID. I started trying to understand the online space of content and course creation, which I was clueless about. I went into this phase of trying to learn everything I could about starting an online business, creating courses, and getting paid traffic, while also feeling like I didn’t know anything about parenting all of a sudden. I thought I needed to read all the books.

So, I went into this constant loop of buying courses about creating courses and reading books about different parenting techniques. I think I really got better at reading parenting books.

Fast forward to today. Something happened in recent months—maybe because of the circumstances we’re in. You mentioned I live in Israel, and we’ve been in a war state for six months. Luckily, I live in the center of Israel, so it’s quieter where I am. But at the beginning, we had to disconnect from everything just to mentally survive.

I went into this place where I told myself, “This is something I really need to focus on.” I started taking the ideas I had scattered everywhere in my notes about the Parenting Map and consolidating them into one file. I’m kind of a visual thinker, so I laid it out visually on a canvas. Things started to make more sense to me, and that made me feel like, “Okay, now all these ideas that were all over the place are starting to take shape and form.”

I feel like I can start to offer them outside—to tell more people about them and create something they can use. So that’s kind of where I am.

Leo

That’s really good work. I mean, it sounds like, first of all, being in a war area—I’ve never been myself—but I can only imagine, you know, even if you’re maybe physically safe, just hearing noises. I have a friend who I think lives somewhere near you, and he was talking about how, daily, you can see rockets, and it’s just, you know, scary.

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

And so, even if you know you’re safe, your body responds in a certain way. I imagine that highlights even more how important emotional regulation is. When you’re in a state like that, there are going to be a lot of parents and kids going through a lot.

It sounds like that was really disruptive for you, but something in that made you decide to focus more and really get into, “Let me try and figure this out and put it together” mode. Is that true?

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

Is that what I’m hearing?

Eran

Yeah. And you know, I had more time on my hands because the children were out of school for some time, and we couldn’t go out to see clients. It’s kind of paradoxical to think that during that time, I got clearer on my goals somehow. It’s like the jigsaw pieces suddenly came together for me.

And maybe there was some kind of motivation—thinking, “I’ve been sitting on this idea for so long. If I’m able to create this, it will be good for the people who go through it, like my audience, my clients, or whatever I should call it. And also for my family.”

Maybe it was the suddenness of it all. Everything changed suddenly on a Saturday morning—October 7th. And it’s not the first time something like that has happened where we live, but not on that scale. I think the surprise of it, how everything changed from white to black all of a sudden, made me feel—without consciously thinking about it—that I have to do something about it. You just can’t wait for things to be fine, you know?

Leo

Yeah.

Eran

And so, maybe that’s what happened.

Leo

I know. Yeah, I can understand that. Sometimes people are faced with their mortality or the briefness of life, and it can be incredibly disruptive, but it can also be incredibly motivating or focusing. It’s like, “Oh, I don’t know how much time I have here, and I need to get this out. This can’t wait. What am I waiting for?”

The other thing I wanted to highlight that you mentioned earlier was how you got into “learn everything about online business” mode and also, “Maybe I don’t know anything about parenting, so let me read every book.” You joked about getting really good at reading parenting books, but it’s such a common thing.

I invite anyone listening or watching this podcast to check in with yourself. Are you feeling some shakiness about online businesses, platforms, or technology? Or about your ability, credibility, authority, or expertise to bring something forward?

Those fears, that uncertainty, are normal. But the way we often respond is to buy a bunch of books, take a bunch of courses, and look for the answers outside ourselves. That can become an eternal mode—always learning more because you’ll never learn enough from books and courses to feel confident.

That shakiness will never go away, no matter how much you consume. I remember talking with someone who wanted help with writing a book. I asked how it was going, and he said, “Oh, I’ve been taking courses and reading books—I’ve taken 20 courses on how to be a writer.” And I asked, “How many more do you think you’ll need before you feel confident?”

The answer is, never. You’ll never be able to take enough courses to feel confident in putting your writing out there.

I love that you shared that. It’s a good reminder to check in with yourself. Am I procrastinating on creating something by consuming more information? The answer is never more information. That’s not to say courses or books are bad—they’re amazing resources—but it’s just good to know.

Eran

Oh, yeah. My logic says that’s true, but there’s this voice saying, “Maybe you need to learn that marketing method” or “Maybe you need to check out this child development course.” It’s like it’s never enough. I realize it’s never going to be enough, and I just have to start doing what I want to do.

I also have to remember that I’ve already learned quite enough. But yeah, it’s like a battle between the logical part of me and the emotional part of me, I guess.

Leo

Absolutely. I totally get that. Okay, let’s talk about the struggle you’re facing now. Tell me about that struggle and how it’s going for you.

Eran

So, after I felt like things were falling into place in my mind, I laid it out on this canvas. I even started trying to outline what this course would look like. I started talking about it a little online—on Twitter.

There are people out there who know me as a psychologist. Some of them have consulted with me or asked me questions. I share things that happen with my children as a parent, and I got these reactions—like their ears perked up.

People said, “We’d like to know more about what you’re creating. We’d maybe even like to be part of it.” So, I thought, “Okay, maybe people would like to be part of it.” I said, “Let me know—DM me if you’d like to know more if I create this.”

I know that one way of validating a course idea is to gather a group of people, talk with them, and maybe offer a beta version at a reduced price.

In my mind, this is where I am right now. And it scares the shit out of me to actually go out and tell those people, “Okay, this is what I want to do, and I’d like you to pay me this much for it. Let’s work together.” That would make it real and tangible, and that’s scary.

Leo

Absolutely.

So, you did the canvas visualization, started outlining, and talked about it in public. You got some responses—maybe even some DMs. It sounds like where you’re stuck is committing to creating it in collaboration with them, using them as beta testers. You’re stuck on saying, “I am creating this, and here’s how much it will cost.” That’s where fear is stopping you, right?

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

Is that right?

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

Okay. So, let’s see. In terms of actually creating it, are you hoping to create it on your own, in private, without sharing it with people as you’re creating it? Or do you really want to do this beta tester mode but are just stuck there?

Eran

I think I would like to do the beta thing. I guess I have good ideas, but I want to run them by other people and see if they resonate with the way I talk about it or the exercises I can provide. I want to see if it has some potency and if it works for them.

I’ve done some of this without calling it the Parenting Map with my clients in private practice. I see that for some of them, things work. So, I’d like to go through that kind of group creation. I think that would be nice.

Leo

You’re already validating it, it sounds like, with your clients.

Eran

Not per se—or at least, that’s maybe my inner voice coming up, right? Because I never called it, “This is my method of Parenting Map—let’s do this and this.”

With my clients, it’s more like, “Okay, let me explain why your child acted that way in that moment. Maybe you can try this instead.” And in my mind, I’m thinking about the framework, but I never package it the way I would like to.

Leo

I get that. But you are validating the ideas, the methods, and the principles through your work with them. It’s just not as...

Eran

Kind of, a little bit. Yeah.

Leo

Okay. So, it sounds like actually working with people on these ideas isn’t the part that scares you. You’re doing it with your clients. It’s more about saying, “Here’s this thing I’ve created with a name on it and my name below it.”

Does that feel true?

Eran

It’s almost true. I think maybe it’s because I never called it the Parenting Map. I never said, “Let me teach you my framework. It starts here and goes there.”

Also, working one-on-one with someone for an hour a week in private practice is different. You have more time to get to know them, understand the nuances of their family, and tweak as you go along. That’s something I can’t do on the scale of an online workshop or course.

Maybe that’s why it feels different validation-wise. And maybe that’s also why the thing that scares me the most is, “I’m going to get a bunch of people excited, they’ll pay me money to go into this experience, and it’s going to fall flat. It won’t help them.”

That’s what scares me—I’m going to disappoint them. In private practice, we have more time to mull things over. It’s different, so it doesn’t feel the same to me yet.

Leo

It sounds like when you have more time with someone and you’re working one-on-one, you’re able to do things that prevent disappointment.

Eran

Yeah, more often than not.

Leo

If you’re not able to do that...

Eran

More often than not, yeah.

Leo

Yeah, most likely, you have ways to work with them and ensure they’re not feeling disappointed. But with people you’re working with who might be faceless or in a large group, there’s no way for you to work that same kind of magic.

Okay, so the main fear is, “It’s going to fall flat. It’s not going to work. They’re not going to be happy. I’ll be a disappointment.”

Eran

Exactly. Yeah.

Leo

Okay. I get that fear. Let’s see where I want to go with this... Just give me a second here.

Okay, I have a couple of lines of inquiry. Let’s take a look at that. Is that okay?

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

So the fear is, “It’s going to fall flat, and I’ll be a disappointment.” What actions—or non-actions—flow from that fear? If you believe, “I’m just going to fall flat and I’m a disappointment,” what actions would you take—or not take?

Eran

I would not take the action of creating content, telling people about it, or trying to get customers. I’d just keep doing other things, maybe things unrelated to this passion and dream of mine—like watching another Netflix episode or working on one of my papers. Those are important, but it’s a different thing.

Leo

Okay, got it. That seems pretty clear. What results will you get from that set of actions—or non-actions?

Eran

I may finish a Netflix series.

Leo

You’d feel accomplished, right? Finished it!

Eran

Let’s move on to the next one. No, yeah—but the result I want is to see my business dream come to life. I want to realize the aspirations I have for my family. That’s a crucial part of why I want to do this. I think it would let me do something I really believe in—something that matters in the outside world—and also make a really good difference for my family. And, you know, my ability to make sure my kids get to 18.

Leo

Yeah. So, seeing that, the fear leads to certain actions—or inactions—and then a set of results. Right? You finish the Netflix series, but you’re not doing these things that are really important and meaningful to you. This dream never gets realized within this set of actions and non-actions.

How does that make you feel afterward—after that’s played out as a sequence of events?

Eran

I think I feel awesome—when I do the thing, right?

Leo

Oh, I’m sorry. In this cycle, we’re talking about you not doing anything.

Eran

Ah, okay. Got it.

Leo

Yeah, so this doesn’t happen.

Eran

Ah, I see. Yeah, the opposite of awesome. I feel...

Leo

Which is what?

Eran

I just had this image of a deflated balloon in my mind. It feels like I’m deflated. There’s this voice of harsh judgment saying, “Look at you—you’re not doing anything worthwhile. You wanted to do this, you wanted to do that. It’s too late now. You’ve failed yourself.” It’s a really harsh voice, and it makes me feel like crap.

Leo

Yeah, got it. And does that voice, and the way you’re feeling—feeling like crap—reinforce any fear or belief about yourself?

Eran

I think it reinforces the belief that I don’t follow through. There’s this belief that says, “You have big ideas, dreams, and plans, but you just can’t follow through.” And I know, somewhere, that’s not entirely true, but it would give more weight to that belief.

Leo

But it can feel true at times, especially in moments like this.

What I’m noticing is, it might actually reinforce the original belief or fear. We can call it either one: “I am a disappointment.” Do you see what I mean? Where we started this?

Actually, I’ll paint it out since you’re a visual learner—and I imagine there are a lot of others like that too. Imagine there’s this circle. At the top of the circle, we have the belief or fear: “This course is going to fall flat, and I’m going to be a disappointment.” From that belief or fear, actions flow—or don’t flow.

So, moving down this side of the circle, you might watch Netflix or do anything other than work on this really meaningful thing. Then, on this side of the circle, the results would be: “I’ll finish the Netflix series, but I won’t do the thing I care about—the thing that really matters for my family.”

And then, after that, there’s a feeling: this harsh voice that says, “You never finish anything,” among other things. It reinforces an idea—one belief being, “I never get things done,” and the other being the original fear: “I’m a disappointment.”

That was a fear, but it’s also your belief. “I fear I’m a disappointment, and if I put this out there, it will actually get proven.”

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

Yeah. What are you hearing as I lay all of that out?

Eran

I’m hearing the existence of this core belief: “I might not be good enough, and I’ll be a disappointment—to myself and maybe to others who rely on me or believe in me.”

It’s just an icky feeling. I don’t have better words to describe it. It feels like crap to be the guy who disappoints and doesn’t follow through for other people—people who need me, who rely on me.

Leo

I hear you. And for anyone listening or watching, I want to highlight that this cycle is not a bad thing about Eran. This is something we all experience.

We all have some belief or fear, passed on to us as a “gift” by someone when we were younger. It could’ve been a teacher or a parent. Not to pick on parents—parents are doing their best with good intentions, but sometimes we hand our kids these beliefs.

So, there’s this belief: “I’m a disappointment.” From that, logical actions flow. If I believe I’m a disappointment, why would I work on the course? It’s terrifying. So logically, I’ll watch Netflix or do something else. And then, naturally, certain results flow from that.

This cycle creates reactions—feelings or voices—that perpetuate it. It’s an invisible system for most of us. It doesn’t matter if you’re a psychologist, coach, or expert. You can’t see your own version of it—it’s like the water we swim in.

Bringing awareness to it when it’s happening is key. From now on, if you notice yourself watching Netflix instead of working on the course, you might realize, “Oh, this is from my fear.” You don’t need to stop watching Netflix, but you’ll be aware of what’s happening and the results it will lead to.

Eran

It’s funny because I always tell my clients that awareness is the key. This is where we have to start.

Leo

Exactly. You’re doing good work—bringing that kind of awareness to others. It’s hard to see what we can’t see, even if we can see it for others.

I can see it for others, but not my own stuff—that’s why I have a coach. I really appreciate you being willing to model this.

So, within this system, nothing else is possible. One thing I encourage you to think about is: What’s an experience you’d like to have—outside of this system—as you create this course with beta testers? Something not contained within the system.

Eran

I don’t know. My mind goes to, “I want to help these parents who think I can help them.” I want to succeed in helping them, so I have to create the Parenting Map, create the content, and reach out to people.

I know it might work for some, and not as well for others, because people and families are different. But it’s tied to the thing itself.

Leo

So, looking at that—you want to work with these people, knowing it might work for some and not for others. But how would you like to experience that? What would be amazing as you create and share with them?

Eran

The moment when, after one or two weeks, someone says, “I have to tell you about this time this week where I did that—and it worked. Something changed for me and my child.” That’s the moment I’d love to see.

Leo

So there’s this moment of meaningful change.

Eran

Yeah.

Leo

I totally get that. Hmm... I’m still looking for your internal experience. It might be helpful. I’m going to try a different approach. Would that be okay?

Okay, let’s forget about this course creation for a minute. We’ll come back to it. What’s an experience of life where you feel really alive? It could be something that happened five years ago. It could be something you do on weekends. It doesn’t matter.

Eran

I think about playing—like goofing around with my kids. That’s the first thing that came up for me. When we’re just really goofing around, playing this unstructured game, and we’re in it together—it’s really silly, and everybody’s laughing.

That’s one thing. I’m also thinking about a specific place we visited as a family this summer. It’s in Italy, really beautiful. I’m thinking about these moments where I’m just sitting there with this amazing view and the sun is setting. And I don’t know why—because I’m not doing anything—but it feels amazing.

You really feel alive because you’re there. It’s so quiet and beautiful, and you feel connected to the place. It fills you up with something. That’s the other thing that intuitively came up for me.

Leo

So beautiful. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Speaking to the audience now—people listening or watching—what I was inviting Eran to do was to connect to some inner experiences that are really him in his essence.

Playing with his kids, I really get the sense of goofing around and unstructured play. There’s a sense of childlike play, and I get that when you’re at your most natural essence. That’s actually a big part of who you are—play. This is unstructured play, right?

As adults, we often structure our lives out of play, but you still let yourself connect to that with your kids, and that’s a beautiful thing. One wonderful thing about being a parent is sometimes kids give us permission to play when we wouldn’t have it otherwise.

Then there’s the other experience you shared—this place of beauty, family, nature, and maybe a sense of peace. What I was really getting was a sense of connection—a connection with everything around you, an interconnection.

These are two big parts of who you are at your essence—probably who you were when you were five years old. And we shut down that essence because we feel like we have to, out of fear, but that’s who you are.

I bet the people who love you most connect with your essence of play, peace, and connection—not necessarily when you’re in fear or reactivity, but when you’re just being who you are at your deepest essence.

Do any of those feel like they’d be amazing to bring to the creation of this course, with the people who are receiving it?

Eran

Yeah, I’m not sure how to do that, but I’ve been told many times that I induce some kind of peacefulness. I’m usually a mellow, almost passive kind of guy, so people feel comfortable around me. That’s a very important part of my job—people need to feel like they can trust me.

I want to help parents who are really struggling with their day-to-day lives and feeling shitty about themselves. Peacefulness is something they’re really seeking. If I can lend something of myself to that, that would be great.

I also think—and this might be the harder part for me—that I resonate with the playfulness of it all. I want to help people connect to their own playfulness, to test things out, and not take themselves too seriously.

I do believe parenting is the most important job in the world, but if you take yourself too seriously, you headbutt into rigidness, and that’s unhelpful.

I’m thinking about my journey as someone trying to create something. How can I implement more playfulness into this work?

Leo

That’s a great question. Any ideas come up for you as you think about that? It sounds like you’d like to have more playfulness in the creation?

Eran

I don’t know. I think it’s about finding a way to feel... because what is playfulness if not throwing things around and not really caring about the outcome—in a safe way?

You allow yourself to goof around, look silly, and act out voices or characters, etc. If I could get into more of a playful mode when I’m creating this thing, when I’m talking with prospective clients, when I’m teaching or offering coaching to a parent, maybe I wouldn’t be so scared that I have to get it just right—or else all hell will break loose.

That might be the antidote to that fear, in a way.

Leo

That’s amazing.

Okay, so we’re running low on time. Do you have a hard stop at the end of this?

Eran

I’m okay.

Leo

Okay, you have a few extra minutes.

I’d like to say a few things to bring us to a close here. What you were just sharing is such a beautiful possibility for you. This is who you are at your essence: play, peace, and connection. Those would be amazing things to bring to the parents you work with—but also to yourself as you create.

The one you’re really connecting with right now is play, and I think that’s amazing.

What I want to encourage you to do is notice when you’re in the old pattern, the old context. It’s the belief: “It’s going to fall flat. I’m going to be a disappointment.” From that, all the actions flow, the results, the self-talk, and the reinforcement of the belief that you never finish anything or get anything done—and basically that you’re a disappointment.

Just notice all of that with a degree of reverence. It’s like, “Whoa, look at what I’ve created to protect myself—and it doesn’t work.” It actually ends up feeling like more of a disappointment because you’re trying to avoid being one, but you feel worse afterward.

That doesn’t mean we don’t still try. So just notice it.

When you notice, “I’m not actually working on the thing,” realize, “Oh, there must be that fear there.” Self-talk is coming soon.

The noticing is the first thing, and bring a sense of love to yourself as you go through that. It’s really hard to break out of old patterns, especially if you’ve been using them for many years.

The antidote, as you said, would be to say, “I want play when I create this.”

You don’t need to get it right or perfect. Maybe you can bring a sense of goofy playfulness to the parents you work with. Be permission for them to play as adults—what a gift that would be! Talk about play, and encourage them to bring play to their own emotions and to their interactions with their kids.

Sometimes I’ll write a word like “Play” on a post-it note, put it on my computer, my bathroom mirror, or as my phone lock screen—whatever it takes to remind me.

When you practice play, you might feel, “Oh, I need to get it right,” which is falling back into the old pattern. But play is bigger than the fear of disappointment. Play doesn’t care about being a disappointment. It contains way more possibility.

You might think, “Maybe someone won’t get anything out of this,” and you can even bring play to that! There’s no limit to play.

Bring play to all of it—including the part you’re really worried about.

Eran

That’s landing smoothly and right on the spot.

I really like the idea of thinking about the essence of play and peacefulness. It resonates with me. The playfulness isn’t exactly my comfort zone, but I feel like it’s part of my essence. Acting on it and doing it isn’t in my comfort zone, but it’s not so far away.

I think that’s the bridge I need to walk on. I like how fear can be here, playfulness can be here, and I can move through, around, or with the fear—using playfulness. That’s something I can work with, which is awesome.

Leo

Amazing. I hope you’ll put this into practice and share updates with me.

Thank you, Eran, for being vulnerable and sharing the struggles you’re having. I also want to acknowledge you for being open to play.

What a beautiful possibility for you as a creator and for parents to see an adult being goofy, playing, and not being overly focused on results. It’s an incredible gift for parents and their kids.

The more you create, the more you’ll serve parents and kids. This is important work, and I’m so glad you’re willing to step out of your comfort zone and bring more play into your life and the world.

Eran

Thank you for creating this podcast and inviting people to work on something during the season—not just listen.

For me, my default would’ve been to not do this. So this is kind of play for me right now. I’m really glad I did it, and I thank you for creating this opportunity.

Leo

That’s so good. I’m glad you acknowledge that this was you stepping outside your comfort zone.

To anyone listening or watching, email me at podcast@zenhabits.net, as Eran did. I can’t interview or coach everyone, but I read every email. I’d love to do more of these.

Eran, I believe you’re doing meaningful work, and I’m so glad we had this conversation.

Eran

Thank you.

Leo

Okay, bye, everybody.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

* This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Hello, my friends. So in this episode, we're going to talk about reflecting and adapting.

Now, this is the end of season three of the Zen Habits podcast. In this season, we're talking about the Zen of Productivity. And so we've looked at a number of things over the season, from setting goals and intentions, building sustainable habits, simplifying your workspace and workflow, including some of the tools that I use, mindful time management, distractions, procrastination, stress, burnout, the inner state of flow, imperfection, gratitude, wonder, and joy in the last episode.

And so, at the end of the season, we are—as in this moment, actually—I'm reflecting a little bit on the journey that we've been through, and then I'm gonna talk about reflecting as something we will do to serve our productivity. So, there's a role that reflection can play, and then we'll talk about adapting.

We're gonna talk about some techniques for regular self-assessment and then adapting and evolving your practices over time. But as I reflect on this season, what I really want to encourage you to do is look back and see: What did you take from the season? What have you been practicing? What has worked? What is something you want to come back to?

Maybe you've taken some notes. Maybe you've been actually putting this stuff into practice. And if not, maybe there are episodes where you want to go back to re-listen, take some notes, and actually put into action. If you have been putting it into action, what have you learned?

I'm encouraging you in this episode about reflection to actually do some reflection. Sit down, take a good five to ten minutes, and think about what you've gained from your own practice, your own experimenting, your own exploration. And the purpose of that is really multiple—multiple purposes.

The first one is that we deepen our learning. When we set intentions at the beginning of something, that's all well and good, but then we need to come back to it and see: "Okay, I had an intention. How did that go?" So there's the intention, and then there's the actual trying to do something, and then there's the reflection at the end.

And so we can have an intention, like "I am going to do this." Then you try and do it. Then you look and see, "How did that go? Ah, I didn’t do it. Why not? What got in the way? What can I learn from that?" Or, "I did do it, but it kind of only went so-so." Okay, great. What can I learn from that? Or, "I did do it, and it worked really well."

Okay, amazing. What can I learn from that? So in this way, we are coming full circle—from the intention, to the doing, to the reflection—which will help us to learn from the experience. And without this, we actually miss a key part of the learning cycle: trying to understand, "What did I get out of that?"

What did I learn? How do I grow from it? And in learning, if you're trying to learn anything—let's say you wanted to learn a language, right?—it's really good to have a kind of pre-test before you even start learning. So let’s say you want to memorize ten words, right? And ask yourself before you actually start learning those ten words, "What do those ten words mean?"

Maybe you already know one from some cartoon you used to watch growing up—Dora the Explorer, right? Maybe others you can understand through, like, "It looks like this English word." Maybe another one you heard in a movie a long time ago, and then the rest of them you don't know at all.

So you're like, "What the heck does this word mean? I have no idea." But that's actually really important because you're creating the space where, when you go back or when you actually start learning, you'll be like, "Oh, here's this word that I didn’t know. I didn't know anything about. I see it again, and now I can actually fill in the meaning, fill in the information."

So the pre-test is really important, but the post-test is also really important. It actually has us try to recall something from our memory. And so if we take some time after we study something to try and test ourselves, it's going to reinforce the learning. So this is a really important part of the learning process.

And my stance about productivity is that it is a learning process. We are learning what helps us to actually show up and do our meaningful work, have the experience that we want to have, and create what we want to create. And this is not something that someone can just give us, like, "Follow these five steps."

We have to actually be willing to practice it. It's like if someone said, "Here are the five steps for learning to ride a bike or snowboard." Would you actually know how to do that after reading those five steps? No, you have to actually get on the bike or on the snowboard and practice it. Fall down, try again. Fall down, try again.

And so it's a learning process. And that is actually what we're practicing here. You can't just listen to these episodes or watch the YouTube videos. You have to take some notes, go and try it, and then review. So that's the role of reflection because productivity is a learning process and it always will be.

It doesn’t matter how good you are at it—there’s always going to be a new level. So I believe it's incredibly important, and I also believe it’s important in anything that we’re practicing, from mindfulness to habit change.

If you wanted to quit smoking, for example, and you're not doing reflection, you're actually missing out because reflection will let you take an honest look at, like, "Why did I fail today?" Or, "What came up for me that made me really want to smoke? What was working?" And if you miss out on that, you're actually going to make it much more likely that you're going to fail. Same thing with mindfulness. If you reflect back on, "How did I do with my mindfulness intention today?" you will deepen your ability to be mindful going forward.

So I highly recommend a daily reflection for whatever it is that you're trying to learn or practice. And that includes your productivity. So let's talk about some techniques for regular self-assessment. So the first one is what I just talked about: a daily review. Have a ritual at the end of each day where you pause and ask yourself, "How did I do today?"

How did today go for me? And this could just be checking off your to-do list and celebrating all of your accomplishments. It could be moving some of those tasks to the next day and setting some intentions for tomorrow. But I also encourage you to do some reflections. Give yourself some prompts, and the prompts can change over time to what will help you in what you're learning.

But an example of a prompt could be, "What got in my way today? What did I learn from that? And what’s something that I feel went really well?" If you ask yourself those three questions each day for a month, you will learn way more—way more than if you didn’t. And I don’t mean just like 10 percent more—I mean in the realm of five to ten times more. So this is huge. As you go along, you might ask yourself other questions. I wouldn’t recommend more than two or three questions each day. You could even just do one question a day: "What am I grateful for today?" or "What challenges did I overcome today?"

I'm going to give you a few more prompts, and you can see what resonates with you and what you’re doing right now.

Another prompt might be, "What is the spiritual practice that I need to do to overcome these challenges?" Spiritual practice would be one way to word it. Or, "What is the healing I need to do? How do I need to show up to overcome these challenges?" So you can choose which one works for you.

Another one is, "When I fall on my face in this way, what can I do to pick myself back up?" Another one is, "How can I get some help with this—some support?" Maybe I need accountability. Maybe I need someone to talk to. Maybe I need some encouragement. Maybe I need some love. Things like that.

Okay, so a daily reflection with prompts—two or three prompts that might change over time. Maybe just one prompt. A weekly reflection and intention-setting ceremony—let's say it's every Sunday. "What are my intentions for this week? How did I do with last week’s?" I encourage you to do that and share the reflections and intentions with at least one other person.

I actually recommend at least two other people because if you have one person and they drop off the face of the earth for some reason, you have a second. So always have at least two other people besides yourself. So a little triangle. Little triangle groups work really well as a minimum viable accountability group.

Two people can work, but if one drops off, then you're stuck. So if you have three and one drops off, call them back so that you still have three. But if they don’t come back, find a third. Always have three people that you’re going to report to every week, every month. A monthly review is also a good idea.

Set a reminder in your calendar to do a monthly review and set your intentions for the next month. And then, every December, I actually practice a thing called The Sacred Bow. We do this, by the way, in my Fearless Living Academy. If you're not in there, join Fearless Living Academy. In December, you can go through The Sacred Bow with me.

And that's a bow, as in you’re taking a bow to the year—a bow of gratitude, mindfulness, and appreciation. So you're appreciating, celebrating your year, learning from it, reflecting on it, drawing as much learning as you can, and then using those learnings to set your intentions and your structure for the next year.

So that’s every December. Those are the rhythms that I recommend—daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. Now, if you work with a team, you could follow those same ones. With my team, we do daily and weekly. Daily and weekly are our usual rhythms. For a while, we were doing every six weeks as well.

And that’s just to make it nice and complicated for you! But six weeks is a nice timeframe where you can set some intentions for the team, and then come back and review: "How did those go? What can we learn from it?" So these are some ways for regular self-assessment. I would also encourage you to be in a relationship with a coach.

Someone who is supporting you to actually do these kinds of reviews and help you see stuff that you can’t see for yourself. We can’t see what we can’t see. And so you really increase the power of this reflection if you have a coach. If you want to work with me, email me at podcast@zenhabits.net, and let's talk. You can also go to coaching.zenhabits.net—a website where you can read more about my coaching and apply.

Okay, so how do we use this to adapt and evolve our productivity practices over time? Hopefully, you really get it—what we're doing is learning from how things went this day, this week, this month, this year.

And as we do that, what we’re going to notice is, like, "Oh, this thing keeps getting in the way." I keep opening social media first thing in the morning, and I get lost, and two hours go by, and I haven’t even started. So how do I overcome that? You might say, "Well, you know what? I’m going to commit to my trio group that I’m going to pick my most important task the day before."

Okay, so at the end of my day, I’m going to pick my number one most important task, and I’m going to do that before I open social media. And I will let them know if I failed or if I didn’t fail. So that would be a way to adapt to that particular blocker that you have. You might have a roadblock—something that keeps stopping you—and by reviewing it, you're like, "Oh man."

"I keep seeing the same blockers over and over again." So how do I overcome that? The technique that I just shared would be an adaptation. Now, it doesn’t have to be that adaptation. Maybe you make some ironclad commitments to people like, "Ah, I said I was going to have this portfolio done by the end of last week, and I didn’t do it."

So I’m going to do it by the end of this week, or I have to record myself singing a country song and post it on YouTube or Instagram or whatever. So you commit to your trio or your team that you're going to make this commitment and actually follow through on it. Then you hold yourself accountable for it.

Let them know. And if you didn’t do it, record that YouTube video or donate to a political candidate you really don’t love. Or whatever it is that would help you stay on that ironclad commitment. So that’s another example of something where you could adjust what you're doing so that you can hit that commitment.

So, some kind of ironclad commitment to others, some kind of commitment to start with your most important task and set that the day before. Maybe you decide, "I’m going to set my three most important tasks, and I’m going to do those three before I check my email." So maybe it takes you two hours to do those three tasks, and then you get into email, but that’s what works for you.

If you're like, "That’s actually not working," maybe you do the first one, check email for ten minutes, do the second one, check email for another ten minutes, then do the third, and then tackle everything else. Great! Maybe you decide, "I need to get on a focus session on Zoom or some other video call with at least one other person so that I can focus on this thing I need to do."

Maybe you need to write your book. "Let me get on a group with two other writers every day at 8 a.m." These are techniques you could use after you've seen what’s stopping you. Maybe you need to start your day with meditation. Maybe a morning workout will help. Maybe you need to have a paper to-do list and try that.

What you're doing is trying a series of experiments until you figure out what works. And what works for you this week might not work next month, so you might need to change the experiment. These are ways to adapt and evolve your productivity practices over time. Now, I don’t claim that the things I just said are an exhaustive list of ways to adapt and evolve, but they're examples—and hopefully, you can get that.

There are many ways to experiment with productivity practices. I'm not going to give you an exhaustive list—you can find many of them for free on the internet—but that’s not the point. The point is that when you notice, through this reflection process, what’s getting in the way, you can find a practice that might work.

Test it out, see if it works, and if it doesn’t, evolve and try something else—or maybe tweak that particular practice. Over time, you’ll find things that work better and better for you. And maybe those won’t work forever, so you might try something else. And so this is the process of adapting and evolving your productivity practices over time.

That’s what I’ve got for you in this episode. And that is the end of our season. I hope you've had a great season with me. If you have suggestions for what you'd like to see in season four, please write to me at podcast@zenhabits.net. I read every single one of those emails, or leave a comment on the YouTube version of this if you're watching the YouTube version.

Leave a comment and let me know what you want to see in season four. I’m reflecting right now on what I’d like to do in season four, and I’m open to suggestions. I’d also love to hear from you on what you got out of this season. It’s a way for you to reflect and share that reflection with me. It would be really meaningful to me.

So thank you, my friends, for being a part of this season. I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve loved all of your feedback. I’ve loved hearing from all of you. I want to keep hearing from you. And good luck with the evolution and practice of the Zen of Productivity.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Okay, so in this episode, we're going to talk about cultivating gratitude, wonder, and joy. And if you give me a minute, I'll explain why this is so important in this season, where we talk about the Zen of Productivity.

When we talk about productivity in general, the common dialogue is, "How do I get more efficient? How do I get more stuff done? How do I tackle all the hard things? How do I be more disciplined? How do I increase my output?"

Now, I know people listening to this podcast don't necessarily have that kind of relationship with productivity, but that is the general idea. And in fact, a lot of us have that mindset: "I'm not doing enough, and I need to do better. I need to be more disciplined and less distracted."

There's some truth to that. But what you might notice is that it's really focused on output and getting stuff done, forcing yourself to do things that you don't love. The problem with that is there’s no fun in it. There’s no room for joy. It's just about cranking out a bunch of stuff. So the underlying experience we have from this kind of mindset is just getting through things, not really loving what we’re doing.

At the end of the day, it’s like, "I got a bunch of stuff done, but it wasn’t everything I really wanted to get done. I still feel like I'm failing, still overwhelmed, still underwater, barely trying to survive." That’s not a great way to live our lives. If we repeat that day after day, we end up feeling burned out. And we talked about burnout, I think, a few episodes ago. Yeah, a couple, maybe three episodes ago.

But what if we could create a whole different experience? What if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could be productive, disciplined, and getting important stuff done, but have a completely different underlying experience while doing that? What if you could have any experience you wanted? The ones we're going to talk about here would be a sense of gratitude, appreciation for life and the moment, and what we’re doing—but also a sense of wonder and joy.

Now, you could put any words you wanted to describe the underlying experience you want to have—play, adventure, curiosity, magic, or even a sacred experience of divinity. You can have all of that. But for this episode, I’m going to talk about gratitude, wonder, and joy.

Okay, so let’s talk about that in terms of Zen practice. We’re also going to talk about how gratitude can boost productivity, which might seem counterintuitive to some people, and how to find joy in the process instead of just the results we’re trying to attain.

In Zen practice—now again, I’m not a Zen priest, teacher, or master, but I have been a Zen student and practitioner for the last 12, 14 years or so, maybe more like 20 depending on when you count when I started—so I know a little bit about Zen practice, but I wouldn’t say I’m an expert. Gratitude in Zen practice is about not taking each moment for granted.

For example, let’s say you’re sitting in meditation. It doesn’t have to be meditation, but let’s say you are. How can I, instead of taking this moment for granted, which might feel like the moment right before it, and the one before that—so it gets boring, and you're like, "Ah, I’m tired of this. Why don’t I go and check my emails or messages?"

If we start to take each moment for granted, that’s what Zen practice helps us wake up to—the fact that we are taking it for granted. We let ourselves get bored with each moment, just taking everything as the same, and we shut off our curiosity.

The idea of beginner's mind in Zen practice—Zen mind, beginner's mind—is really the same thing. The idea of beginner's mind is: What if this moment were the first moment you ever experienced? That’s the kind of freshness. So if you see an apple in front of you, you don’t think, "Oh, apple, I’ve seen thousands of apples before." What if it’s the first time you've ever seen an apple? In fact, what if you didn’t have the concept of apple? What if you could just see it with fresh eyes, and be like, "Whoa, look at this thing in front of me!"

That’s a sense of what beginner's mind is. Now, there’s a lot more to it, but we could say that’s beginner’s mind in a nutshell—or an apple core. What if we could see this apple with beginner's mind and start to really fully appreciate it? That’s a sense of gratitude. It’s like, "Whoa, look at what I get to experience." Not just an apple, but a breath. Not just a breath, but a moment where you are sitting in a quiet morning or in rush hour traffic. What if we could have gratitude and wonder for every single moment, just full appreciation of the present moment?

Now, this episode isn’t about Zen practice, but I wanted to touch on what that would be like in Zen practice so we can see that it could apply to anything we do. If I’m answering emails or writing something, or I’m washing dishes, I can fully awaken to each moment and fully appreciate the moment in front of me—thinking of it as fleeting and precious. That’s how we can really appreciate what we’re doing, and that’s the role of gratitude in Zen practice.

So how does this boost our productivity? Well, hopefully, you can see it gives us a sense of appreciation, gratitude, and maybe even wonder. It’s like, "Whoa, look at this thing I’m doing, this moment I get to experience." That’s wonder. And from wonder, we can have joy.

Cool, right? Hopefully, you can appreciate how it can change the underlying experience if we open our eyes to fully appreciating the present moment—including answering an email, responding to someone’s text messages, working on our to-do list, or doing our taxes. We can fully appreciate each moment with practice, opening up to it, and having a different underlying experience.

But how does that boost productivity? Well, if we appreciate the moment, first of all, we’re going to dread it less. Have you ever had the experience of thinking, "Oh my god, I have so much to do. I feel overwhelmed. I don’t want to do it. I’m going to go look at social media or watch YouTube"? There’s avoidance when we don’t look forward to something. And why would we look forward to it if it feels like the same thing we’ve done a thousand times before? Why would we want to do that? Well, we wouldn’t.

So dread, overwhelm, and avoidance all come with the territory of that other way of doing things. But if we’re like, "Oh my god, I get to answer this email to this person who cares about me and who I really want to connect with—amazing!" Or, "I get to move this project forward, and it’s going to serve people in a really awesome way, people I care about. I get to be of service and devote myself to making the world a better place."

That can light us up with gratitude, wonder, and joy, and make us want to do things. We start to move towards things with an attraction to them. It’s more magnetic in the sense of being drawn to things rather than the kind of magnetism that repels us. Usually, we’re in that kind of magnetism that repels—like, "Ah, I don’t want to do that again."

But with this kind of gratitude—full appreciation for each moment and every task we’re doing—we can actually start to want to do things. We can appreciate the deeper meaning behind it and feel lit up as we do it. Feel a sense of joy, and maybe play, maybe fun, maybe magic. All of this is available if we start to practice this way.

So it makes us move towards things, which is already a huge factor in how productive we are. But I think there’s more. When we fail to do something, let’s say I wanted to work on this project, but for some reason I got pulled away from it, and then I start to feel discouraged.

Discouragement is not a bad thing, but it might make me feel like, "I’ve lost motivation. I’m not working on something." So productivity drops when we get discouraged. Now, again, discouragement isn’t a bad thing. But what if we could sit for a moment and fully appreciate a moment of discouragement? It’s like this slumped-over, deflated feeling. Can we find appreciation and wonder in that moment of discouragement? I submit that it’s possible.

We can just be with that, and maybe we don’t get to gratitude, appreciation, wonder, or joy right away. Maybe we just have a sense of tenderness, compassion, and love for ourselves in that moment. But as we sit with that, we might start to notice there’s more to this moment than just the feeling of deflation and discouragement. I also have a breath.

But if I’m focused completely on the discouragement, I don’t notice the breath. Oh, and as I have a breath, I notice I have a body that’s breathing the breath. (A lot of B’s in that sentence!) I have a body that’s breathing the breath. And all of a sudden, I’m starting to appreciate the moment beyond just the feeling of discouragement. Now I might notice there’s sunlight in the room, air, or outside the window I can see blue sky and trees. And suddenly, I’m open to the wider moment rather than just the discouragement.

Now I can find a reason why this thing matters to me enough to actually start taking the next smallest step—and then fully appreciate that next smallest step. So coming back becomes possible when we start to practice this way.

Okay, so that’s how gratitude and appreciation can boost productivity.

Let’s talk about finding joy in the process, not just the results. To this audience, the people listening to or watching this episode, I imagine you understand that concept just as I say it—finding joy in the process, not just the results. That said, there might be one or two of you who are like, "Ah, I’ve never heard of this mind-blowing concept, Leo, give me the wisdom." So I’m going to do a little recap for those people, but then let’s talk about how to actually practice it.

A lot of times, when we take on a project, a task, or a goal, we’re looking at what gets done at the end. Like, "Oh my god, if I run the marathon, at the end I cross the finish line, and it's like, yes, that’s going to feel so good." That’s where we think the joy is.

And so we envision that. Then we start training for it, and we do the marathon, but the training and the marathon itself are just ways to get to that finish line. They're the stepping stones to get there, but they aren't that fun in and of themselves. What keeps us going is the idea of getting to that finish line and feeling that "hallelujah moment."

But that’s not enough to keep us going when things get difficult—when we have fears, get discouraged, or just want to stay in our cozy bed on a cold morning, or things are just feeling like a lot right now. The idea of that hallelujah moment at the finish line isn’t enough.

What we really need is to pull the hallelujah moment forward into right now. As I consider going outside, can I be like, "Oh my god, look at me—I’m a marathoner! I’m someone who knows how to put on his shoes because I learned it at five years old, thank you very much. I’m someone who likes to run, likes to go outside, likes to move his body. I’m someone who enjoys a challenge, enjoys facing discomfort, and expands himself."

And so, in this moment, as I start to put on my shoes and go outside, I can actually appreciate who I am. Even the act of putting on these shoes—which cost me $130 (actually, the ones I have are like $80, but still, they’re not cheap shoes). Look at the privilege of having these running shoes. Some people run barefoot—like idiots. No, I’m just kidding, I used to run barefoot. But I have shoes to put on, and look at these beautiful pieces of technology that I get to put on my feet to protect me and allow me to run comfortably.

And now, I get to go outside in my sexy running shorts and enjoy movement, find a new path, see what the birds are up to today. And so, on this run, I’m having hallelujah moments left and right. It doesn’t have to come only after crossing the finish line.

Now, I think that’s obvious with a marathon. But what are we doing on a daily basis? We’re getting through it instead of saying, "Oh my god, I have a freaking computer in front of me!" Remember the days when people didn’t have computers? I do. I remember when my uncle got the first computer I’d ever seen. I was like, "This is magic. When are we going to get one, Mom and Dad?"

It wouldn’t be for a few more years until we actually got one—we couldn’t afford it. But we got it. Nowadays, everyone has multiple computers—maybe a laptop, maybe a desktop at work, maybe a phone. Some people have computers on their wrists and rings, and in their cars.

We are gifted. So the idea here is to allow ourselves to really appreciate every moment, not just the outcome. Could you start to open yourself to that possibility? It’s a practice. We shut it down because that’s what we’ve learned to do over and over again. We’ve trained ourselves to shut down possibility, joy, and hallelujah.

What I’m encouraging you to do is find that in every step along the way—every step where you remember. And then, when you forget and you feel bad about it, find joy in that part. Make it hilarious how bad you’re trying to make yourself feel. Be like one of those drill sergeant tropes, yelling at yourself in a really ridiculous way, and find joy in that as well.

We can bring play, joy, gratitude, appreciation, curiosity, compassion, and love. All of these amazing things will transform the process of doing our meaningful work. They will transform who we are as we do our meaningful work, and I believe they’ll also make us a little more disciplined and productive, which is a nice thing.

Okay, my friends, I hope this was helpful to you. I will talk to you at a later date.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Hi everybody. Today, I am honored to be joined by a guest expert, and a friend of mine, Toku McCree. Toku is someone I met over a decade ago, around 2011 or 2012, something in that range. He became my friend, later my coach, and eventually just a friend. We were also business partners. He’s someone I consider a brother and a really good friend.

He was a Zen student as well, who lived in a Zen monastery for a while. He left and built a six-figure coaching business. He then started a thing called the Coaching Dojo, which trained coaches, and later Coaching MBA, which teaches the fundamentals of building a coaching business.

He’s now coming out with a book that I’m excited to dive in with him about. It’s for coaches, but actually, I think it has so much to do with how we’re living our lives and has some really interesting perspectives. So, I'm excited to dive in with Toku, let’s go into the interview.

Leo

All right, well, bringing on Toku. Toku, we go way back.

Toku

Way back.

Leo

Yeah. You've been a friend, a business partner, a coach, you know, just a colleague. We have so many different ways to describe our relationship, but now we can say you’ve been a podcast guest.

Toku

New aspect. My favorite aspect of our relationship was when we were in the motorcycle gang together. I really liked that. I like all the new shapes of our relationship.

Leo

Fellow Zen student would be another.

Toku

There we go, fellow Zen student. Yeah.

Leo

Also amazing-looking dude. I don’t have the beard, but we have similar hairstyles, and… no, we both look really good.

Toku

It’s that slick aerodynamic look.

Leo

Thank you for coming on the podcast, and welcome.

Toku

Yeah. I’m really happy to be here. It’s great to do this. It’s so interesting to be here and talk with you in this way, because I’m so used to just chatting on the phone and connecting. So, yeah, we get to keep some of that magic here, 'cause one of the things I love about our friendship is we always have such interesting conversations.

Leo

All right, we get to now record it and share it with others, which is a new thing for our conversations. So, the reason why I invited you to this podcast is because we were talking about a book that you’re creating, and I think it’s actually going to be launching soon. I don’t know. When is it launching?

Toku

It’s going to be launching in spring of 2024. So probably like February, February, March-ish.

Leo

Spring of 2025.

Toku

Right. Yeah. Spring of 2025. I can’t, I have not invented a time machine yet.

Leo

So we were talking about that just on a regular phone call and I was fascinated by the concept of the book. And then you were also sharing a little bit about how you came about the book and how you’re writing the book. And so I was like, “Oh, this is such good stuff. I want to capture it and share it with people.” And I think there’s a lot of wisdom and value in the approach you’re taking in the book itself, and I wanted to explore all of this.

And so that’s, that’s... So, you know, a little bit of this is going to be some shameless promotion of your book, but I have no shame in promoting things that I think the audience will really love. I wish I had a copy in my hand to wave around and say, “Look, this is what it is.”

Toku

I know I should have made a backup for you.

Leo

But I actually was an early reader of another book that you were writing, and I know the value that you bring, so I completely trust in what this book is gonna be.

Toku

Yeah. And I’m excited to share it. It’s something that I’ve taught about a lot over the last eight years. I’m finally putting it into, like, book format so people can use it and refer back to it. So I’m excited to do that.

Leo

Okay. So let’s actually start by just sharing a little bit about the book. Do you have a title already?

Toku

Okay. What is it? Yeah. So the book is called Coaching Beyond Yes and No.

Leo

Coaching Beyond Yes and No.

Toku

Yeah. And it basically is this… so I’m a coach, and I do executive coaching. I was Leo’s coach at one point and I worked with a lot of founders and entrepreneurs. But early on in my career as a coach, I realized that our industry, the coaching industry, has a big problem, which is that there’s a lot of complaints about the industry. People are always like, “Oh, there are so many shysters and so many bad people.”

And I wanted to be this force for positive change. So I took a lot of what I had learned and taught myself as a coach and started sharing with other coaches. And so the book comes from that. Like, I know there are probably a lot of not-very-good coaches out there, but I think that my experience of coaching is that coaching is this incredibly powerful tool that can really help change people’s lives.

And so I want to give those coaches that really care about the work they do, that have high integrity, that don’t want to do this fly-by-night, Instagram-fancy thing, like really want to help change people’s lives—I want to give them the tools to be successful. And I didn’t see a lot of people doing that out there in the space. So that's sort of the origin story of how I started to work with coaches and where is book comes from.

Leo

Yeah, and we haven’t mentioned the Coaching MBA and the Dojo and all of that, but you’ve actually been teaching this with coaches for years now.

Toku

Yeah, I’ve always been interested in, like, how do I—this is a question that goes beyond coaches—how do I do the work that I love in a world that doesn’t always value the things, or I don’t perceive always values the things that I value, right?

So my first career was in the music business, and a lot of the times, you know, it values expediency and fame. And I asked, “How do I show up in that world in a way that really honors the art form of music?” Well, at the same time, the industry is very different from that.

And so when I got into coaching, I started to ask, like, you know, there’s a lot of pressure, a lot of voices in the coaching world about like, you gotta do marketing, gotta use these high-pressure sales tactics, in order to get people to change.

And to me, it felt really antithetical. It’s like what I’m supposed to be doing as a coach is to empower the person in front of me to make the change they want in their life. How can I use manipulative marketing practices and manipulative sales practices to get them? Like, it feels totally wonky, right? Like, I’m going to trick you and manipulate you, and then you’re going to be really empowered to change your life. Like that’s totally wrong, right?

Leo

Yeah, bad start to the relationship.

Toku

Exactly. So I just got really curious, like, how do I… I’ve studied a lot of, like, sales and marketing. How do I take the things that I know work in that realm and make them really transformational?

And so the book is really about… I mean, the first part of the book basically deconstructs all these myths or ideas we have about how selling has to be, right? And then the second part of the book teaches this methodology that I call coaching beyond yes or no, which is really about how to have a life-changing conversation with someone.

Because ultimately, if you really believe in the power of coaching, or, you know, let’s say you’re a consultant or you do Reiki, or, you know, maybe you’re a guidance counselor—like, you’re having these life-changing conversations. How do you have that conversation in a way that’s really effective but also really honors the person that is in front of you?

And my experience of doing that is that, like, I’ve created a lot of success as a coach, I’ve signed a lot of clients, but I’ve done it in a way that when people get off the phone, hopefully, I’m not perfect, right? But when people get off the phone with me, they feel like our interaction was an interaction that really honored who they are, honored what they want in the world, and not like I’m using these tricks and techniques to get them to buy something, only then to help them, right? Like there’s no bait and switch, no, like, ends justifying the means. It’s like I’m trying to live my values through the entire process.

Leo

Thanks for sharing that. And, you know, having been a person in those conversations with you, I can attest to that. And for people who aren’t coaches, who are listening to this or who aren’t trying to sell anything, I promise you, we’re going to get to something that I think is really powerful for whatever you’re tackling in life. But I wanted to give a little bit of background to how you’ve been teaching this in the real world with coaches and then now how you’ve poured that wisdom into this book.

I have a couple of questions about that before we move on to the more generalized wisdom. First of all...

Toku

Can I say something quick about the generalized wisdom piece?

Leo

Yeah, absolutely.

Toku

I think what’s been interesting about how I wrote the book is the process I went through to sort of deconstruct what I wrote—what is the sort of common belief about a particular thing or how you have to do something, and then found my own path to do it aligned with my values. I think that process is really universal, so I’m excited to talk to you about that.

Because I think that while I applied it to this particular thing, which is sort of selling for coaches, I use it all the time with my regular clients who aren’t coaches. It’s like, “How do we take the belief of ‘I have to show up like this to be an effective leader,’ ‘I have to show up like this to be a good husband,’ or ‘I have to show up like this in order to get my school district to change’?” And it’s like, “No, actually, you don’t have to show up like that.”

If you look at how you actually want to be, and you show up in that way, you can be much more effective at getting what you want done in life and you feel better, right? You feel better in the process. You feel aligned in the process. So, while the book is about the specific topic, there’s an underlying philosophy that I’m excited to talk to you about.

Leo

Yep, that’s exactly what I was alluding to. Yes, thank you. Before we move on to that, I wanted to just ask a couple more questions or touch on a couple of things really quickly. So, Coaching Beyond Yes or No—I think you might’ve shared that this is it connected to the Rumi quote?

Toku

No.

Leo

No, it's not. Okay. In my head...

Toku

You mean, “The fuel beyond good and bad”?

Leo

Yeah.

Toku

No, it's not connected. I love that quote, though. So maybe it’s a subtlety, but no.

Leo

Okay, that’s what it evokes in me. Coaching beyond yes or no—there’s something beyond right and wrong.

Toku

Well, yeah, the title comes from this… I mean, it comes from the story of how I created it. Early on when I started out as a coach, I was really struggling to be successful. I’d read a lot of books, I read most famously The Prosperous Coach, which a lot of coaches have read. Parts of that book are great. I love how simple it makes the sales process. There are some things that it misses, but I think the fundamentals of that book are really solid, and I got a ton from it.

And so I was on this call with a woman I met at Camp GLP, which our friend Jonathan Fields used to run. He used to run this thing called Camp GLP. I met this woman there. She was like the perfect client for me. She was creative, wanted to start a business, and had a good job so she could afford coaching.

So I did my best, you know, and our coaching sessions were amazing. She was having all these insights. It felt really good. We got into the sales process, and I was like, “Okay, I’m proposing.” I really, really understood what she wanted, and I reflected that back to her. Then I described how we’d work together, and I said my price—which was not a lot of money at that time compared to what I charge now. And she got really scared and really nervous.

In my head, because I’d read these sales books, I was like, “Oh, I need to start handling her objections,” but it just felt off. Maybe there was a way that we had been having the conversation, but it just felt off. It felt weird. And I could tell, like, I felt like I was going to lose her. Like she was just going to say no.

And it wasn’t just that I was upset that I was going to potentially lose her as a client. I was just so excited about the things she wanted to do in her life, and I thought, “Man, it’s going to be such a bummer if she doesn’t do this thing.” I know it’s not on me, but I thought, “She’s got this opportunity to make this very clear commitment right now, and what if she doesn’t do it?”

And so that’s when I said to myself, “Look, what if I just kept coaching her? Instead of doing the sales techniques, what if I just kept coaching her?” The reason why the book is called Coaching Beyond Yes or No is because what happened after I said, “What if I just started coaching her?” is we started talking about the things she was really afraid of—like her fear of failure, what if she made this investment and I ripped her off? Or what if she didn’t do the work that I wanted her to do?

All these little fears that were actually stopping her from making this change. None of that stuff came up until there was money on the line and I was asking her to hire me. She had to make a commitment, right?

Before, it was just like friends talking about going on vacation—“Oh yeah, we’re going to go to Bali. It’s going to be great.” But until you go to book the plane ticket, it’s not real. So the reason why the book is called Coaching Beyond Yes or No is that I realized often this conversation we have after we ask someone to make a commitment can really be this incredibly powerful, life-changing conversation if we view it that way. That’s what I hope the book helps people see.

Leo

I love that. Thanks for sharing that.

Okay, so let’s get to the empowering context that you’re creating around sales. How did you arrive at this, and how can we generalize this to other parts of our lives? Let’s start with how you arrived at it for this book, and I think you’ve already touched on that.

Toku

Yeah, it started with this conversation I had with this woman. She ended up signing up and was one of my first clients at a higher rate. I started doing this same thing again and again, like, “Oh, I’m just going to keep coaching people no matter what happens.” I’d hear things like, “Oh, I’m worried I can’t pay for it.” And I’d say, “Okay, great. You want to talk about what that looks like?” or “It sounds like money’s in the way; let’s move money out of the way.”

What I realized was that as I started doing this and getting better, I kept meeting other people who were like, “I hate selling.” That was the thing. I think for all of us in our lives, no matter what job we have, there’s always that thing we say, “I hate dot, dot, dot.” I hate meetings. I hate Slack. I hate commuting. There’s always something. I started to notice in the coaching industry that it was, “I hate selling and I hate marketing.”

I thought, “These people want to change lives, and coaches are supposed to be really good at seeing things from your perspective,” but they were really stuck in this particular way of looking at the world, that selling is manipulative, greedy, pushy, high-pressure, selfish. And, what I saw was that in my sales conversations, I felt generous and kind and trustworthy, and I was being successful.

Most people feel like there’s a trade-off, right? You can either be high integrity and have good values, but then the world screws you over, or you can be sneaky and cagey and manipulative, and then you win, but you feel like crap about yourself.

In this one realm, I was like, “I don’t think you have to make those trade-offs.” And so, in my coaching, a lot of the times what I do with people is I have them identify whatever that thing is. Like, “I hate meetings.” I’ll say, “Okay, well, what is it about meetings that you hate?” They’ll respond, “Well, they’re really boring.” And I’ll ask, “What have you done to make the meetings more interesting?” or “How do you show up to the meetings? What’s your intention?”

What we start to realize as we have the conversation is that the barrier to them coming up with a solution or making change is often just the calcification of the belief itself. The idea or the story they tell about the thing that they hate calcifies that idea. And as soon as you say, “This thing is awful and will never get better,” then it’s never going to get better because you can’t think about it creatively at all.

And so, the first part of the book breaks these myths down, but I think what I would say to people in general is, whatever your thing that you hate is, start by writing out, “What are the things that I think are true about this that could just be myths?” For example, “Meetings have to be boring. Meetings are a waste of time.”

Then ask, “Are those true? Could we turn those into myths?” No, some meetings are really interesting. Some meetings are really, really helpful. So, it’s not that they have to be boring and a waste of time. They’re just a result of a choice that people make.

Leo

Okay, so with selling, it’s like, “Selling sucks. Selling’s boring. Selling’s dirty or manipulative.” And what you’re helping them do is to examine those myths they might have about selling. Then, what would be next after they identify the myths?

Toku

So then, for me, it’s helpful to identify where those myths come from. So, for example, in the book, the first part I talk about is: why do we think that selling is greedy? We start to look at, “What are those situations in which people sold to us where it felt greedy?”

One example I use in the book is how I like to go shopping at markets in Mexico and South America. I’m used to the American culture where the price is the price, and there’s no haggling, you know? But in other cultures, there’s like a haggling, there's a thing. And so, there's no prices on things. They are telling you the price. So, you don’t know if you’re getting the regular price or the tourist price. You're just not sure. There’s a feeling of, “I might get ripped off; they might take advantage of me.” That creates a defensiveness. It creates this adversarial feeling.

So, part of it is when I started to understand, “Oh, this is what’s going on, like why this feeling of greediness happens, because I don’t know if they’re making something up.” Then, part of what I need to do when I’m talking to my clients is be really generous but also forthright about what’s going on and how I work. I need to be clear about my price. I don’t think coaches should post their price online.

For example, with pricing, I never price anything that I sell as “49.99” because it feels manipulative. Psychologically, we think of it more like “4” than like “5.” But when I see something that’s “99,” I’m smart, and so are most people—they know they’re being manipulated.

So, when I quote my prices, they’re always whole numbers, like $1,000, or $450. I always try to use a whole, round number because to me that communicates, “Look, I’m going to be upfront about the price. I’m not going to try to trick you with a ‘.99’ or ‘.88.’ I’m communicating this really clearly to you.” So you feel that I have this honesty and integrity.

To me, I’d rather communicate that honesty and integrity with my pricing than try to trick people. So once you have these myths down, like “Meetings are boring,” for example, you start to look at where that idea comes from.

You might notice, “Well, I’m sitting in on a lot of meetings, and it feels like they never go anywhere,” or “I had a boss with a droning voice who talked all the time.” Or, “I was in meetings and it always felt like there were side conversations, and we are not really addressing the main thing.”

By starting to look at or understand, what is the behavior, what are the experiences that tell me this is true about this thing? and what would it be like to have these experiences, to create this without having those experiences.

In the book, I say, “What’s the antidote to this myth?” For greed, the antidote is honesty and generosity; for pushiness, it’s relaxation and spaciousness; for deceptiveness, it’s being very forthright and trustworthy. There are natural antidotes to these behaviors, but to find those antidotes for the thing that you hate, you have to identify the myth and then figure out where does the myth comes from.

We talk about in history like “Oh, this myth came from this thing that happened", and they were trying to explain an earthquake. So, they invented, you know, somebody throwing lightning down from heaven—that’s why there are earthquakes, the gods are throwing lightning at us, right? So, starting to look for the origins of the myth and understand them, because then that often becomes the ingredients to figure out what we have to shift about those particular things.

Leo

Okay, so I’d love to look at how to actually shift it. But I'm going to name, just for the audience, different places where I’ve heard people talk about their kind of, “I hate selling,” but in different places in their lives. I’d love for people to play along and try to see what’s true for you and what you could shift.

So, for habits, it can be like, “Ah, meditation is boring,” for example. or “Exercise is sweaty and uncomfortable.” It's just like, “Oh, it’s this thing that I have to do; I know I should do it, but it sucks.” There’s a lot there. So, there’s a bunch of things in that area. Often, another one that's really big for people who listen to this is finances. Like, “I hate doing my taxes. I hate doing my budget."

Toku

"I hate money. I hate dealing with money; it’s so stressful and hard and confusing.” Yeah.

Leo

Yeah. Let’s see, what else? You know, sometimes people have a hard time focusing on what they might think of as hard, important work. There’s this feeling of, “I know I should be doing that, but it’s really hard, and I feel like I’m not up to it, so I’m going to go play solitaire or watch YouTube or whatever it is.”

Toku

One thing I get a lot is, “Oh, I want to start a blog or write a book, but writing is really hard; creating content is really difficult.”

Leo

Yeah.

Toku

I had a woman on a Coaching MBA call, talking about how she had this idea that, “If I’m not on Instagram all the time marketing my business, I’m not going to be successful.” She went away to this retreat in Mount Shasta and came back, opened social media, and after a week in the woods, she was just like "I can't look at this"...

Leo

Gross.

Toku

So she started posting less, but what she did post was things that felt really authentic to her. She might see a pretty flower and post that, or share things that brought her joy. Her business grew because the way she was showing up on social media was totally different. It wasn’t like, “I’m doing the social media game and gaming the algorithm.” Instead, it was, “I’m posting things that are joyful and who I am.” People really responded to that.

There’s this common knowledge of what we “have to do” to be successful, and I think this is true with habits too. People have this idea of what it takes to create a habit—it tends to be rigorous, intense, and hard. And sure, sometimes you do have to be disciplined. But a lot of the people I know who are successful at changing their habits have a much gentler, fluid approach to the whole process.

And I think that’s a lot of what this book talks about in relation to sales. But the truth is, a lot of it’s just going, like, “Oh, this feels very try-hard. This feels very hard. How do I not make this so hard?” Right? And I think, often, when we think about habits or any kind of change, we fall into this dichotomy where it’s either, like, really hard and I’m nailing it with the 45-minute morning routine and the perfect green smoothie, or I’m just lying on the couch covered in ice cream, watching Real Housewives of Whatever. But actually, the real sweet zone is kin of in the middle.

Leo

Let's not disparage reality TV.

Toku

No, I love reality TV. I didn't disparage shows. I didn’t say anything about I’m Too Hot to Handle—because that’s my guilty pleasure.

Leo

Oh, is that it? Okay, okay. Mine is Love Island.

Toku

Oh, Love Island is good, yeah.

Leo

So, okay. You mentioned social media—I'll just add a side note here—I had a very disempowered relationship with social media for a long time. It was like this evil thing, you know, like Facebook was this thing unleashed upon the world, and I thought I’d never go on there. But then I realized, first of all, that was holding me back from what I was trying to create in the world. And second, why did it have to be that way? I was decided it was going to be that way.

So just to back up your point about social media, I decided, “Oh, it could be a place where I get to go and create, or be creative, or play, or serve people in a powerful way.” So yes.

Toku

Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m about to go back to Mexico City. I'll been living in Mexico City for three months, and one of the things I was reading online is that people in Mexico use Facebook for everything. We often look at places, like parts of Africa or the Middle East, where cell phone technology enables people who don’t have a lot of money to do banking or connect.

None of these things are inherently good or evil. It’s a lot about the context and how we choose to use them. What I notice about these “I hate” things, particularly in the coaching industry, is that coaches will say, “I hate that, that, that,” and then there’s this feedback loop. If people at your company say, “I hate meetings,” then everyone complains about meetings, and no one does anything to change the meeting culture at all. They just complain and complain.

Leo

So, if you’re in a meeting, you’re going to be forcing yourself through it, not enjoying it because you already know that they suck.

Toku

Exactly. And then, what’s it like to be in a meeting where everyone hates meetings, and no one wants to be at the meeting? That’s going to be horrible! Maybe it’s true your company has too many meetings, and maybe you can’t change the culture. But I was going to write a book at one point called No More Shitty Coaches. Then I thought, “Wow, what a crappy way to talk about the industry I’ve dedicated my life to.” Saying that all coaches are shitty.

So, I made a vow that day that every time I write to coaches, I’m going to thank them for being coaches. I’m going to tell people proudly that I’m a coach. I was talking with someone who didn’t want to call herself a life coach, and she said, “It gives me the ick.” I said, “I don’t love the term life coach either, but what if we just said it with pride? I’m a life coach; I help people change their lives.” It’s just a thing in the world, and we can start living it differently.

I don’t feel any shame or embarrassment over telling people I’m a coach because I love what I do. Sure, some people might think I’m cheesy and that what I do isn’t important, but I know what I do is important. I can stand by that.

So, if you’re in a culture where there’s this “I hate whatever,” one way it can start to change is for you to embrace the thing you hate and find a way to live into it. Or if it’s a thing that really does matter—like racism, for example—you’re allowed to hate racism, then leave that situation or change it. For these things that don’t have an inherent moral value, like meetings aren’t inherently immoral—they’re just meetings—I think there’s an opportunity to transform them.

Leo

What I want to reflect about the approach you’re sharing here is a couple of things. One is the freedom in it. We’re not stuck in the calcified beliefs you mentioned. In these examples you’re sharing, I really get that sense of, “Oh, I get to choose a different way of being in this kind of situation that, in the past, I might’ve chosen to hate or make really suck.”

And then the second thing I want to reflect on is the creativity. It feels like you get to write whatever story you want. And I just really love that approach.

Toku

Yeah, I think it’s really powerful. And for me, the reason why—even though the book is about sales—the opportunity it presents is, of all the things in the world, we have this almost universal agreement that sales is a “bad” thing. Almost everyone, except for salespeople, probably thinks sales is awful and they hate salespeople.

It’s funny because in the first part of the book, I tell a story about this guy—I keep wanting to call him Zach, but I think his name is actually Ryan. I had to ask my ex-girlfriend what his name was because I couldn’t remember, but I call him “the world’s best sushi waiter.” His name is Ryan. I thought his name was Zach at first, but I changed it to Ryan.

So, Ryan works at this sushi restaurant in Salt Lake City called Takashi, which is the best sushi restaurant in Salt Lake City. It’s actually a really good restaurant, and I always try to get him as my server. And every time I go in, I don’t know what I’m going to order because I’ll just say, “Well, Ryan, what do you like? What are you into?” And he just excitedly tells us about the sushi—like, “You’ve got to try this,” and explains what it is, why he likes it, and even the order to have it in. He just gets us so excited about sushi.

And what’s really cool about Ryan is that he’s 100% selling sushi. I spend way more money every time I go to Takashi when I have Ryan as my server. I order things I would never order on my own. But even though I’m spending more and he’s getting me to buy stuff I wouldn’t normally buy, I’m always super happy about it. I never feel pressured or like he’s taking advantage of me. He’s not slimy or pushy or greedy. He’s really, really generous.

But if you look at what he’s doing, he’s actually doing the things that really good salespeople do—he’s just doing it from this different place, from a different perspective.

Leo

Because he loves the sushi.

Toku

Because he loves sushi. It’s authentic. He believes in it. And, what’s more important, he doesn’t treat me like a paycheck. He treats me like someone else who also loves sushi—which I do.

Leo

Oh, that’s amazing.

Toku

And so we start to engage in this collaborative conversation about how I can have a really amazing experience at the sushi restaurant. And as a result, I do. And again, he benefits. Not only does he get a higher tip because I spend more, but I also tip him higher because he’s so good at his job, and the restaurant makes more money.

So, it’s benefiting them too, but my experience isn’t, “I’m being sold to.” No one wants the experience of being sold to, because we define being sold to as, “I’m being tricked, pushed, manipulated, or handled.” Instead, I feel enriched, connected with, and like he’s on my side.

The whole book kind of talks about that—like, how do we make sales, which is normally a very adversarial process, collaborative? How do we get on the person’s side and work with them to make a plan to change their lives? So for me, another step you can take is to start looking for examples where this isn’t true.

What I noticed is that a lot of times we have this complaint, and then we only see the examples where it’s true. Like, “All meetings are horrible,” but then we ignore the meetings we like. We’ll say, “Well, that wasn’t really a meeting,” even though we got together and had topics.

Leo

We’re filtering it.

Toku

Yeah, like, “Exercise is always sweaty and painful,” but then we’ll go to the trampoline park with our kids, jump on the trampoline, and have a great time. It’s not painful; we’re a little sore, but it doesn’t really bother us. But we discount that, saying, “Well, that doesn’t count—that’s not exercise.” And I’m like, well, I assure you, jumping on trampolines with children is exercise. It’s very tiring, right? Definitely exercise.

So, we tend to identify the negative thing and then look for all the examples that match it. One powerful thing to do is just look for examples where basically the same thing is happening, right? So, with sales, someone’s helping me make a decision, encouraging me to take an action that I might not take on my own, maybe because I have some limitation or block around it, and it benefits them financially. They’re going to make money because, let’s be honest, when we sell something to people, we typically make money from that.

I think part of the issue is when we try to pretend we’re not going to make money. Like, you are going to make money—that’s how this works. But you need to be clear that this doesn’t drive you; you’re actually driven by something else. So we look for examples like that.

For me, when I started writing the book, I asked, “What are situations where people are selling to me, but it doesn’t feel like sales?” Ryan’s a great example. I’ve also been to shops where people help me pick out clothes and find things I like. They 100% work on commission; they 100% make more money if I buy more. But it doesn’t feel like I’m being sold to.

So, when we find these other examples, we start to have models of, “Oh, how could we do this differently?” or, “What does it look like when this thing I’ve defined as bad, hard, or challenging isn’t actually that way?” I’ll pause there.

Leo

Okay, really—I love that. Finding “Ryans” is amazing, by the way. I don’t even know him yet, but I feel like I know him. So, I’d love to throw out a couple of examples and walk through them with you.

Toku

Sure.

Leo

So, here’s one. We might need to look at this one a little closer, but a common belief I hear is, “I’m not good at being consistent with things.” They have that belief, but there’s probably something underneath that. So, how would we start with that for someone who has that belief?

Toku

Well, we’ve got to start by understanding what it means to be consistent. For example, every living human being is very consistent at breathing—100% consistency, right? Or eating—also 100%. Well, there are some people, but for most of us, if we don’t have an eating disorder, we’re very consistent with eating. And we have a high level of consistency of talking to our friends. Like, right now, I’m playing Breath of the Wild on Switch. I have no problem with consistency there—I play a little in the morning, a little at night. I’m very consistent with it.

So, it’s actually not true that people aren’t consistent. It’s just that there are particular things they feel inconsistent with.

Leo

So, something where they might feel like it's more of an “ick” kind of thing.

Toku

More of an "ick". Part of it is looking at, “What’s the difference between the thing you’re consistent with and the thing you’re inconsistent with?”

For me, Breath of the Wild is really interesting to play, or I like eating. It's fun to eat. I'm actually a very consistent cook because I like cooking. I really enjoy the experience. So, if there’s something you’re struggling to be consistent with, you could start by asking, “What’s the myth I have around this that makes it unpleasant?”

So, what’s something your audience wants to be more consistent with?

Leo

There are a bunch of things, but let’s go with one I hear a lot: “I want to get up every morning and write.” Writing is a big one—very relevant to a book writer too.

Toku

So, one practice I use as a writer is called “morning pages,” from a really great book called The Artist’s Way, which I highly recommend. It’s an incredible book that actually integrates elements from recovery work, like the 12 steps in AA, because the author is in recovery. It’s this interesting crossover between creativity and recovery work.

So, the practice of morning pages is simple: you get up and write three pages. It doesn’t have to be good; it doesn’t even have to make sense.

Part of what stops us as writers is, “I don’t know what to write,” or, “What if it’s not very good?” Or, “I’m unclear in my thinking.” Because we have those feelings, we end up not writing at all. But with morning pages, anything you write is fine—even three pages of complaining about writing counts.

So, what’s cool about morning pages is that it breaks down some of the myths we have about writing, like “Writing needs to be good,” or “Writing that doesn’t produce something publishable is a waste of time.” It sort of flies in the face of that, because you just write.

My handwriting is so bad I can’t even go back and read my morning pages—it’s just chicken scratch, but I still do it. And when I do that, I get over that resistance and eventually get into the flow of writing. It’s like a lot of things—once you’re in the flow, it’s much easier.

So that would be one place to start: look at the myths you have about writing, like “Writing is hard,” “Writing has to be good,” or “I’m not a good writer.” And then start looking at times in your life where you actually enjoy writing.

I was talking to somebody today in our Coaching MBA, and she said, “I don’t love this. I don’t love following up with people.” I said, “If you went and had a really nice tea with your friend, and she bought you a really nice cup of tea, you’d have no problem writing her, right?” She goes, “You know, you’re right. I wouldn’t have any problem with that.”

So I said, “Then you have to make following up feel like that. If it feels like, ‘I’m doing a marketing thing and following up with people,’ it’s going to feel weird. So, how do you make it feel like you’re writing your friend a nice note after you’ve had tea? How do you make the whole experience like that?”

So, with writing, for me... my big transformation in writing came when I realized that I don’t write to produce; I write to think. The way my ideas get better—maybe it’s because I studied philosophy—is because I’m writing to make my ideas better. So, my goal with writing is almost never about producing something, unless I’m writing a book, which is why that gets harder. Most of the time, I just want to explore an idea on paper.

And once I do that, it becomes very easy for me to write because I’m not trying to produce a piece of content. I’m not trying to write to impress anyone—I’m just trying to think through something, and the writing helps me do that. That, for me, is the context shift that makes it easier to write, but you have to find your own context shifts for that.

Leo

Let’s imagine you do have a context, like, “Writing is thinking for me” or “Writing is a way to express what’s in my heart in the moment”, or whatever it is. As soon as you identify that, I'm sure it’s just like flipping on a light switch, and now...it just is that?

Toku

Part of it is then to notice when you slide into the old myth. It’s like with any change, right? "Notice when you slide into the old myth and then choose the new direction." So, part of it is to be aware of that. And then a lot of it is the way you show up to do that thing.

So you can give yourself a little practice or exercise: "Every morning, I’m going to write a stupid story. I’m going to tell a stupid story about my day." And the idea is you don’t feel any pressure to write a stupid story—no one’s going to read your stupid story. So then you just write it, and then you’re like, “Okay, I got that done.”

So part of it is to identify or create some sort of practice that helps you step into that mindset. So it’s not just that you think about it and change it. But for me, a lot of times, I’ll be like, “Okay, what idea am I trying to better understand right now?” and I’ll kind of write that or think about that, and then I’ll start writing about that particular thing.

Or I was writing a blog for a long time, and I got very stagnant. I was really struggling to keep writing the blog, and a friend—our friend, Phil, Phil Powis, the marketing wizard—he recommended that I start my blogs with a personal story, to tell a personal story. And I found that was a much easier way to start my blog.

Because then I was like, “Well, what’s something that’s happening to me that I want to talk about?” And that was just really easy. And then, often, as I was writing the story, I’d be like, “Oh, here’s the lesson in that story,” which was great for me because I was getting a lesson from my own story. But then other people found it really interesting.

But it just changed the context. Before, in my context of writing a blog, I was like, “I’ve gotta write a thought piece about something, you know?” And then I’d go read Leo’s blog, and he’s such a good writer, and I’d be like, “Oh, I can’t write like that.” Then I’d read Seth, and Seth writes these short things, and I’d think, “Oh, I can’t write like Seth.”

Leo

Can’t compare yourself to Seth.

Toku

Sometimes I’ll look at Malcolm Gladwell, too, and think, “Oh my god, I’ll never write like these brilliant people.”

Leo

What’s the myth there? “I have to be as good as them”?

Toku

“My writing has to be as good as all the writers I admire.”

Leo

Oh, what a bar.

Toku

Or, “People only want to hear from Malcolm, Leo, and Seth.”

I was actually realizing this when I was working on the book. I always had this idea of... you’re very good, you’re very pithy in your writing. You’re very economical. And I started writing my book, and I kept getting longer. I wanted this to be short, but it kept getting longer and longer. And I thought, maybe that’s just not the kind of writer I am. I do think there’s value in editing, but I realized in my teaching that what my students light up about is when I tell these metaphors. Metaphors are efficient in a way, but they paint a picture.

A lot of the value in my work is in translating certain concepts to make them easier to understand. I’m translating a lot in this book—these concepts from sales, which tend to feel adversarial or manipulative, to a context of transformation where you can really help change people’s lives. And so I use a lot of interesting metaphors when I do that.

The metaphors aren’t brief; I actually like to paint a scene. One metaphor I use is, when you’re selling with someone, it’s like you’re the mountain guide and you’re sitting next to them, and they’re saying, “I want to climb the mountain.” You say, “Cool. Why do you want to climb that mountain?” They say, “I’m going to see a Yeti, pet a mountain goat, and have a snowball fight.” And you say, “Oh, awesome. What’s going to be hard about it?” They’ll say, “It’s going to be cold. I might get scared because I’m afraid of heights, and we have to sleep outside. It’s dark, and an animal might get us.” You say, “Okay, cool. How are we going to work with those?” And then you ask, “Do you want to climb the mountain? I can help you.” That’s how a sales conversation can be.

It’s not super efficient, right? It’s not economical when I go into all those details, but I think that’s what people like about my writing. Part of the process has been realizing, “I’m not Seth, I'm not Leo, I’m not Malcolm. I’m Toku. I’ve got to write like Toku.” So I have to trust that what’s coming out of me is what needs to be there and notice.

There’s also a myth in there, like, "My writing needs to be different to be good." But actually, the best writing, when you read it, is that person’s voice and unlike anybody else’s writing. It’s the voice. There’s a way Mary Oliver writes a poem—nobody else writes like that. You can write in her style, but you can tell it’s Mary Oliver.

For me, there’s that myth that it needs to be like somebody else’s. And more and more, through the writing process, I’ve discovered: What do I want to say? Or, how do I want to write this? Of course, there are good writing techniques to apply, and I hone and work with an editor. But a lot of it has been self-discovery—what am I supposed to be saying? What does this art want to say? And that, for me, has been a way of deconstructing that myth.

Leo

Ah, I love that so much. Interesting side note—my pithy writing style was drilled into me. So it’s not actually something I realize I’m doing. I wrote for about eight years at a local newspaper, writing multiple articles a day with a limited word count. And when you have to write a lot every day with a limited word count and a limited amount of time, you learn to write very pithy—very short, very brief, and concise. So I can churn that out really easily now, but it’s not a choice. It’s what’s been drilled into me.

Toku

It’s the result of your training, right?

Leo

Exactly. Yeah.

Toku

A hundred percent. I was talking to my friend Matt, who wrote a great coaching book called This is Coaching. He told me, “Oh yeah, your writing’s poetic.” And I thought, “Oh, my writing is poetic.” But it’s different. And interestingly enough, my writing background was in philosophy papers. Those are not simple—they’re big, complex arguments.

You can see it in my writing; I actually have to edit out a lot of “ands” and “buts” because philosophy papers are these big, long treatises where everything leads into everything else. So my writing tends to flow into itself. The other thing is, I did a lot of creative writing growing up and wrote tons of poetry, especially angsty poetry as a teenager. So, of course, that’s what I got trained in—that was my style of writing. And naturally, that’s what comes out.

Leo

Okay, so let’s go back to the writing example. Let’s imagine I’ve identified the myths, and maybe I’ve identified a new way I want to show up for the writing.

Toku

Well, there’s one other step, which is this process of identifying what the antidote is or what the example is. So, the other place to look is: where are places and times where writing feels easy for you, right? Maybe it’s writing emails, or maybe you’re really good at writing thank-you cards.

Then it’s like, well, what’s actually going on that makes it easier in those situations? Because that’s how you start to find the antidotes. A lot of times, I know people who say, “I’m really bad at writing,” or, “I’m bad at creating content, writing blogs.” And I’ll ask, “Well, are you bad at texting your friends?” And they’ll say, “No, it’s really easy. I text my friends all the time.” Okay, so what’s going on when you’re texting your friends? They’ll say, “Well, it feels personal. It feels relatable. It feels like I’m just asking questions and being curious.”

Great. So how do you bring personality, that personal touch, into your writing? How do you bring relatability? What if you did your writing as if you were writing a text message to a friend, like a series of text messages?

There’s this guy, Young Pueblo—all his things are like little texts. I don’t know if he literally texts them, but they read that way. Or I heard The Prosperous Coach, for example, was taken from a bunch of little emails they’d written. So it was all email marketing copy converted into a book, which is why it’s so short—because it’s a bunch of little emails. You wouldn’t write a super long email.

So a lot of this is looking for places where writing is easier for you, and then asking how you can take the lessons or experiences from those places and apply it.

So, in the book, for example, I talk a lot about how, if you look at what you’d want in a traditionally good salesperson, you’d say a good salesperson is curious, they’re patient, they’re a good listener, and they ask great questions. Well, what does a coach do? A coach is someone who’s curious, a good listener, and asks great questions.

So, it follows that coaches should be really good at sales, right? But they’re just not applying their skills correctly. And so the book basically talks about how to use your skills as a coach to do this—what I call “creating commitment,” which is another way of selling.

For most people, my guess is there are skills they have in one part of their life that would make this other thing a lot easier—they’re just not applying those skills appropriately.

Leo

Okay, so let’s imagine you’ve identified that, and I start to practice it. Let’s say I develop a morning writing practice and I start showing up. You mentioned bringing awareness to slipping back into the old myths, but a lot of times when people practice this, there isn’t that awareness. Instead, it’s just, “Ah, this feels really hard, and I don’t like doing it,” and they reach this conclusion: “This isn’t for me. I can’t do this; I should stop.”

What would you say to someone who’s feeling that way, which is probably a lot of discouragement, because it’s the opposite of what they wanted to feel?

Toku

I do think that if you can do it, it’s much easier to make a commitment like, “I’m going to write in a way that’s not hard, and I’ll notice when it starts to feel hard.” That kind of setup is helpful. You know, every time I sell, I ask, “Where in this process does it feel adversarial, like me versus them?” Then I think, “How do I make it not adversarial?”

So, there are some principles. In the book, one of my principles is, “Always get on their side.” If you ever feel like you’re not on their side, figure out how to get there. It should never feel like, “I’m trying to get you to buy, and you’re trying to defend your money.” That’s messed up. Instead, it should be me and you next to each other, looking up at the mountain, saying, “Do you want to climb the mountain together?” And they might say, “Yeah, but I don’t know if I trust you as a mountain guide.” So then, “Okay, great. What would you need to trust me?” That’s the kind of conversation we’re aiming for.

What I think people do is, they don’t address the underlying myth; they just try to push through. They think, “Writing is hard, but I have to do it anyway,” rather than asking, “Why do I think writing is hard, and how do I make it more enjoyable?” The first sign of struggle can actually be a cue for curiosity: “Okay, why did this just get hard again?”

If you set up some accountability or ask yourself, “Was it hard today? What made it hard?” that level of curiosity is great. But if you reach the point where you want to quit, the first question I’d ask is, “How can I get support before I quit?” Often, when we’re ready to quit, we’re so wrapped up in our own story and perspective that it’s very hard.

Leo

Hard to see, yeah.

Toku

Whenever I want to quit something, the first thing I do is reach out and get support—just talk about it. That’s one place to start. Then it’s like, “Okay, how do I not quit but also change this?” I think that’s a great question.

And, you know, there are all these things people suggest, like making a deal with yourself to write for five minutes. But I thought, “How can I completely change this without quitting?” Let’s say it’s a morning writing practice, and I’m supposed to do morning pages, but I hate them. I think, “They’re a waste of time. I don’t want to do morning pages.”

So, what do you do? What if we completely change it? Like, every morning I’ll write a haiku. Or a silly story about a dog every morning. You just come up with ideas. And if you notice, “Oh, I can do that,” then you just do that, right? A lot of this is about how, as we start to change our lives, we come up against homeostasis.

There’s a great coach, Sean Phillips, who has this diagram of a circle, where everything within it—good and bad—represents our comfort zone, our “known zone.” Outside that circle is discomfort and the unknown, but it’s also where all possibility lies. As we move away from our normal, we get closer to discomfort because we’re nearing the unknown. So, there’s a natural desire to reset and go back.

Often, when we feel the most uncomfortable and want to quit, we’re right at the edge of our comfort zone—on the verge of something new. It’s natural to want to go back. But if you can stay close to that edge, or at least not go back as far, you’re closer to the change you want to make.

And again, I think often our solutions to these myths become myths themselves: “I have to do morning pages every day,” or “I have to write like Leo.” Or if I’m going to finish a book, I think, “I have to write consistently every day.” For example, I was working on my book for a month in Mexico, then came back and had a program launch, so I stopped writing the book. I had this idea that if I can’t write consistently every day, it’s not going to be successful.

If I have that attitude, I’ve already failed because I haven’t been writing consistently the last two weeks while doing the launch. Or I can go “Well, os that actually true?” I know people who come back and forth to their projects. Maybe the thing I have to do is just not quit writing for really long periods of time. Two weeks is fine; a year, not so great. So, is that true? What if I just start writing the book again? How do I change it so I don’t have to quit?

Leo

Okay. Well, we’re actually out of time, even though I could talk with you about this all day long.

Toku, I just want to say thank you. This is a valuable set of lessons, a valuable perspective shift that I think can be applied anywhere. If you’re someone who’s trying to sell something, this is really valuable, but no matter what you’re resisting, no matter what you’re feeling some ick about, this is really valuable.

So, thank you for bringing this to us, and good luck with this book. Definitely let me know when it’s out in spring of 2024—no, 2025.

Toku

You’re going to have the book, Leo. I went back in time and published it.

Leo

I’m holding it in my hand now. I’d love to share it with people. I’m excited for you.

Toku

Yeah, I’m excited as well. And I’m excited for coaches to have this technology. Really, anyone who sells anything and wants to do it in a way that doesn’t feel adversarial and crappy—it’s great.

And yeah, for me, I’m just happy that the book’s going to be out there. I want it to be successful, but ultimately, I realized this phase of my life is about making cool stuff. I just want to make cool stuff and get it out there.

Leo

Amazing. Well, thank you, Toku. Thanks for being a guest and taking the time.

Toku

Thanks for having me on, man. It’s always great to talk to you.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Hi, my friends. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about embracing imperfection. So hear me out for a minute. I'd like to explain why this is such an important topic in the Zen of Productivity season. That's because this trips us up, and perfection can have us frozen or feeling really discouraged. But it is a part of everything that we're doing here in the season and in our meaningful work.

For some people, perfectionism is a protective mechanism. It's a way to keep ourselves from getting criticized or feeling really bad. So we use the idea of trying to get it just right or good enough so that people can't criticize it. But that really freezes us up, as you might know if you're a perfectionist. It makes things really hard. It means we work way harder than we need to, things take way longer, and often we don't put anything out there if we can't get to perfection—this bulletproof, uncriticizable kind of output.

That makes it really, really hard. But you might be someone who doesn't have perfectionism. There’s another way this shows up, which is that we will fail sometimes. We’ll make mistakes, look bad, not finish a project, or miss a deadline, and that failure can also really trip us up. It has us feeling bad about ourselves, criticizing ourselves, feeling discouraged, or like giving up. So whether you have perfectionism or not, the same kind of mechanisms play out.

What I’m encouraging in this episode, and we’ll dive into this further, is embracing the imperfection that's a part of everything we do. It's necessarily a part of learning, growing, taking on challenging work beyond what we already know how to do, stepping into the unknown, leadership, relationships, and more.

Let me talk about perfectionism because it shows us a little bit about what we’re talking about, and then we’ll talk about how to actually embrace that imperfection.

Perfectionism is a protection mechanism, right? It’s something people often learn from an early age because they got criticized or felt like they did something wrong. That was scary and felt unsafe. So, to keep themselves safe, they learned how to try and make good decisions—really good outputs. Like, doing an amazing job on that school report, getting really good grades, or creating artwork that's incredible.

And the way they often do that is by working really hard, spending a lot of time on it, and keeping at it until it gets to the point where it’s good enough that people can’t criticize it. Sometimes that gives them a lot of praise, so it actually serves them. They might get good grades in school, win awards, or get praised by people for doing an amazing job at certain things. But that doesn’t always help them because now they're like, "Oh, okay, I just need to work really hard, and then I’ll get that praise," right?

Then they work really hard, and maybe they’re not getting praised. Or maybe they are, but they’re afraid that next time they won’t. So they have to work harder and harder. This protection mechanism works to some degree and gets them a lot of benefits, which is why it gets reinforced. But then there’s the fear of those benefits going away if they fail.

At some point, they can’t get to that point anymore. Sometimes they're afraid. They're working on something and it’s like, "I actually can’t tell if this is going to be bulletproof, criticism-proof." When that happens, they just won’t do anything. Perfectionists will have something drag on for a really long time if they don’t know if it's good enough. If they're learning to do something they don’t already know how to do, that’s what happens—they won’t feel good enough.

Now, of course, they’ll do a lot of research and a lot of work to try and get there, but that will freeze them up. So perfectionists often end up with something that really matters to them, that has a lot of uncertainty and involves stepping into the unknown, but they can’t succeed at it, or they don’t know if they can. And so, they get frozen.

So what if you're not a perfectionist? Well, we can see some of the same things happening. You might say, "I don't need to be perfect, but I do need to try and not make mistakes for whatever reason." And then when you do make a mistake—which of course you will—you might put it out there. Unlike the perfectionist who wouldn’t have put it out there, you might put it out there and then it fails. You get criticized, you made a typo, you missed a deadline. This is going to happen if you're putting stuff out there when you don’t know exactly how to do something, which is all learning, all challenging and meaningful projects.

We’re going to fail at something because we’re stretching, reaching, and we don’t know how to do everything. It’s part of stepping into the unknown. And when we do, it’s going to feel really bad. This is why perfectionists have their protection mechanism in place so they don’t have to feel this. But if you don’t have that protection and you fail—which will happen—you’ll feel really bad about it.

So, what do we do about that? The effects of that are like, "I got burned, and I'm not going to try that again." Instead of perfectionism, you just don’t try. You don’t take on new things. You just give up.

So, what do we do about that? I’m going to share a little bit of a meditation you can do, a practice, and then I’m going to share some approaches.

The first thing is a meditation. Let’s imagine that you actually did something that failed, or you missed a deadline, or made a mistake—some kind of imperfection, right? I’d love for you to just take a moment—maybe this happened to you recently—and just sit. Close your eyes if you like, and breathe. Just sit with that mistake, missing a deadline, or whatever it is that you did. How does that feel in your body?

What you might notice is that it might be some fear, an ache of some kind, a tightening of some kind, maybe a little bit of hurt. It’s usually not that intense, but sometimes it can be. However intense it is though, it’s just a feeling—a set of sensations in the body. And what you can do is just allow yourself to feel them.

Imagine if it wasn’t such a bad thing. It’s just like an ache, or a tenderness, or a tightness—maybe all of those. If you breathe deeper and rest your attention on these sensations, this is what you might call "being with this feeling." Just keep breathing and imagine that this could be a spacious, peaceful experience in the middle of this.

Could you find something to love about this experience? That can be a challenge, so don’t worry if you don’t get there, but just keep practicing that. And that’s all—that’s the whole practice. So imagine you actually practiced that, or maybe you just did right now. Peaceful. You're sitting with the feeling. It’s not even, after a while, after you’ve done this five, 10, 15, 20 times, it becomes not such a big deal.

Maybe you’ve practiced it a hundred times. Imagine then—it’s not a big deal to feel this mistake. Like, "Ah, maybe there’s a sense of I messed up, a sense of inadequacy, a sense of I’m not good enough." And that’s okay. You can just let yourself be with that feeling, breathe, and it doesn’t have to be such a big deal. So that’s the first thing.

Now I want to talk about some approaches that I think are helpful. First, a lot of you might have heard of the Japanese term wabi-sabi. This is a Japanese cultural idea of imperfections being beautiful. Let’s say you had an aged desk, and there’s a stain from a drink from 10 years ago, and over here there’s another stain. There are scratches, and there’s a sense of imperfection to the desk. It’s not new and perfect, but aged and beautiful.

The idea is that things have chips and cracks in them, things have discoloration or wear, a sense that the person who made it didn’t do it in a factory-perfect way but by hand. These imperfections are actually quite beautiful. They add texture to an object.

But if we look beyond the idea of an object being imperfect but beautiful, we can see that everything can be like this. All of life has little chips and cracks, little aging and weathering, a little texture. We do, as people, and every experience does. That’s something to embrace because that experience becomes unique, not just rote. It’s a new experience that we can fully love. The same is true of every person. Every person has some kind of wear and tear or imperfection that makes them who they are, and we can learn to love that.

With that idea of wabi-sabi in Zen, what if we took that to our work? The work itself is going to have flaws, but it will be made more beautiful and unique because of those flaws. Of course, if we need to, we can fix those flaws and work on the messiness of it, but it isn’t ever going to be "perfect." In fact, it already is. That’s an idea that can help us embrace imperfection.

There’s another aspect of imperfection that’s important: this is how we learn. We stumble and fall, and we learn from those stumbles and falls. I think every one of us gets that intellectually—we know that’s true. We learn from our mistakes. But we don’t embrace that attitude as we’re in our learning process, which we’re always in. If you’re taking on a project, trying to change a habit, or trying to work with people, you are in a learning phase.

And that is how you’ll learn. What can we learn from all of these imperfections, these mistakes, all the things that happen? Think of it as part of your growth. I want to encourage that as well.

There’s wabi-sabi—that things are beautiful and unique because of their imperfections—and the idea that mistakes are things we can learn from. If we have these ideas, it’s okay to make mistakes. I’m going to try things, make mistakes, and fail sometimes, and then just learn to sit with the feeling of failure. But then, what can I learn from it? What beauty can I see in it?

Okay, so if you can take this approach, then everything you do—an email, a report you write, a blog post you write (if you're me)—you can do it and put it out there. I’m not saying don’t ever proofread, but it doesn’t have to have a lot of stress to get it perfect if you have that approach. Things start to flow. Your productivity and output start to flow. Your ability to respond to messages and emails starts to flow, and that becomes a much easier way of being if you can embrace the imperfection.

I'm going to share a couple of ideas that extend from this. One is the idea that we could bring play into our work, into our productivity. Play doesn’t have the idea of getting things right. Play is just like, "Let me try things. Let me have fun with it. Let me explore and be curious. Let me do this and see how it works, and that and see how it works, and try this because it feels fun." This is a way of working and working together that can be quite beautiful if we allow this idea that we don’t have to get things perfect. Embracing imperfection could be embracing play.

I want to also contrast play versus getting it right. Try and notice when you get stuck in the idea, "I need to do it the right way. I need to get it right. I need to do it so that it is right." That rightness that you're trying to get to is perfection. That's the ideal. That's your expectation. That's the ideal goal you're shooting for in the output. But what if you could shoot for that goal, but there is no "right" way to do it? You know, sometimes there might be, but for a lot of times, it’s like, "Let me just try it this way." If I were to write a blog post, is there a right way to write a blog post? I would argue no. There’s just a "Leo way" in this moment. That’s the way of writing that blog post, and there isn’t a right or wrong.

Instead of getting it right, which is one thing over here, I can just play. Another way to do it over here, instead of play, is just to choose from the heart. What would I like right now? How would I like to do this in a way that feels really nice for my heart? What do I want to do? What do I want to choose, versus needing to get it right?

Play and choosing from the heart are two things I want to contrast with getting it right. If we embrace imperfection, what that means is we can play, we can choose from the heart, without needing to get anything right.

Finally, if you're trying to stick to something long-term, like a habit or a long-term project, you will fall off the path. That’s an obvious one. It’s like, "Oh, I wanted to exercise five days a week, but last week I only exercised once for some reason, or I missed all of them because I was sick, or I traveled, or I had visitors, or whatever." Falling off the habit is a part of habit creation. It's part of it, but we think there's something wrong with that.

So, embracing imperfection in that case is just starting again and learning from the falling off, but then embracing the idea that, yeah, falling off is part of it. That’s true not only of habit change but also of our projects. If you're working on a project, falling off the project is a part of the project itself. Embracing imperfection means reminding yourself that falling off is a part of the process.

Okay, that’s what I’ve got for you today. I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, please write to me at podcast@zenhabits.net, or if you're watching the YouTube version of this, put a comment below. I'd love to hear questions, reflections, and ways you're working with this, or struggles that you have. All of it is welcome.

Thanks, my friends.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Okay, so in this episode, we are hitting the heart of this season. We're talking about the Zen of productivity in this season, and what we're trying to do is get away from the traditional approach to productivity, which is: be disciplined, crank out a bunch of things, optimize your systems and routines, and really get good at just producing a whole bunch of stuff.

Now, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but that's not the approach we're taking here. In this season, we're looking at the Zen of productivity, which is an inner state. Zen is not a productivity system, and I want to make sure that's really clear.

Every time I talk about the Zen of productivity, what I'm really talking about is: how do we find balance in our inner state? How do we find peace? How do we find compassion so that we can do the thing we are here to do—our purpose in life, which might be helping others? In the work that I do, I’m here to try and help as many people as possible.

Given that, how do I actually apply what I've been learning through my meditating, Zen study, and Zen practice, so that I can actually deliver my purpose? The key to that is your inner state. This is something that is often ignored. When we talk about how to get more productive, how to get more on task, how to get more focused, and all of that, we ignore the most important thing in that discussion, which is our inner state.

Imagine that you had an inner state that, to simplify, is either open or closed. Open is like, "Oh, I feel in love with life. I’m feeling wonder and gratitude. I’m feeling love for the work I’m doing and devotion to my purpose." These are examples of openness. It’s not an exhaustive list. I’m just giving you a sense of what openness can feel like. For example, if I’m out in nature and feeling in love with this moment—that’s openness.

Now, closed is when you've closed your heart, tightened your body, and are putting on the brakes. For example, if someone is aggravating you, typically what we do is shut down in some way to protect ourselves. So, there's an inner state of closedness. If the world is overwhelming us—the number of tasks, emails, messages, and all of these things—that overwhelms us and shuts us down.

If we’re frustrated, if we feel hurt by something someone else has done, or if we feel a sense of burden—"I have to do all of this stuff, and I feel like I can’t, but I have to force myself"—that is a state of closedness. I’m contrasting two different states. I’m grouping a bunch of experiences together, but in general, we’re either open or we’re closed.

Of course, we can be somewhere in between. This is not a black-and-white, binary situation, but let’s just pretend that it’s binary so we can have the distinction between open and closed. I think it’s a useful distinction, even if it’s not 100% accurate in how it describes reality.

So, open or closed. Now, give me a task to do. Change the inner state. If I’m open, that same task can be something I take on with a sense of enthusiasm, optimism, and a feeling of, "I can’t wait to do this because it’s serving something I really care about." I might have a sense of possibility and opportunity.

That’s how we might approach a task from the open state. Now, let’s imagine that we’re closed for whatever reason. Maybe we’re really stressed, not getting enough sleep, or feeling battered by life. Now we’re closed, and you put the same task in front of me. Now the same task is going to be a struggle.

I might not feel up to it. I’m going to avoid it, procrastinate, and distract myself. I’ll go to things that are easier, or to my favorite comforts. Or I might take it on but feel like I’m forcing myself. It’s like trying to force something through a closed tube. Imagine you have a hose, and it’s twisted, and you try to push water through it. Think about how much pressure that takes, how much force it takes to get the water through that closed opening. But now imagine the opening is open, the hose is unkinked. Now the water flows much easier.

The same amount of pressure can make the water flow with ease. That’s what we’re talking about—the inner state of flow. "Flow" can be defined the way it’s defined in popular psychology, as a state where you’re immersed in a task, feeling challenged at the right level, fully devoted to that task, focused, and in it.

It’s what happens when you do something and lose track of time, where hours can go by. That’s the state of flow, as it’s often described. But it can also be, as we talk about here, the state of an unkinked hose. Things can just flow much more easily.

When we can unkink the hose, when we can be in an open state, productivity is a byproduct. It’s not the end goal. It’s a byproduct of being open. If we’re open, we can have the hardest conversations with someone. If we’re open, we can exercise with a sense of delight. If we’re open, we can take on the biggest challenges with a sense of opportunity—"This is hard, but I’ve got this."

When we’re closed, it becomes an uphill battle. It’s swimming upstream. It’s exhausting. We can do it; we might be able to do the same amount, but it’s going to be so much more exhausting.

This is the secret: If you can get yourself to an open state, everything becomes easier. Now, I’m not saying you have to be in an open state all the time. That’s impossible. We’re human. We get closed sometimes in response to stress, hurt, frustration, all of that. So, we get into a closed state. But if you can get into an open state, everything becomes easier.

The same task, the same set of tasks—if you had five, ten, fifteen tasks, it becomes a lot easier. It doesn’t mean you crank them out faster—not necessarily, although you might. It’s not about the speed; it’s about how much energy it takes. Do you have to force yourself, coerce yourself to do something, or do you do it with a sense of gratitude, like, "I get to do this"?

That’s the difference. This is the hidden secret that most people don’t even realize. They don’t acknowledge that they are in a closed state. They just see the pile of things they have to do, and they force themselves to do it. That ignores the fact that you are in a closed state, and it’s going to take a lot more energy to do it. In fact, you might just resist it for a long time and then judge yourself for not being strong enough, disciplined enough, or whatever it is enough.

That’s what happens—we’re in a closed state, trying to force ourselves, and it’s exhausting. We have a sense of burden and overwhelm. This is actually the state most people are in, most of the time, and it makes everything harder.

So, what can we do about this? How can we get ourselves into an open state more often, maybe even on command? That’s not so easy, so I’m not trying to say that’s a guarantee here, but it is a possibility that you could get yourself into an open state.

The first thing is, you have to recognize: What is my state right now?

One of the things you could do is put an important task in front of you and say, "I am going to work on this important task." Then ask yourself, "How open am I to actually doing that? Do I feel the opportunity in it? Do I see how this is going to move something I care about forward in a meaningful way, even if it’s a small way? Do I see that this is serving the greater purpose, vision, or mission that I’m on? Do I see how this is helping myself and others? Do I feel alive in relation to doing this?"

If the answer is no, and I’m feeling a sense of burden or resistance, or "I don’t want to," that’s okay. We’re just noticing that my state is not open.

So we just notice. What I invite you to do is be in the practice of feeling. What does open feel like versus closed? Are you feeling open right now as you listen to this? Or are you feeling closed? Do you feel like taking on challenges? Do you feel the opportunity and wonder in life? If so, you’re in an open state.

Just notice how that feels. Start to tune into what openness feels like in the body.

Then, when you’re in a closed state, when things feel like a burden, or you feel frustrated, resentful, or too exhausted to take things on, notice how that feels. It’s not that one is better than the other. It’s not good versus bad, right versus wrong. We have enough of that in our lives. We’re just noticing what is.

So right now, if my state is closed, what does that feel like in the body? Start to tune into that state. It’s not just one kind of sensation in the body that defines open or closed. We’re not so binary as that. But there might be a group of experiences that you can group together as "open," and a group that you can group together as "closed."

I’ve mentioned some of the experiences, and we have labels for those experiences. I’ll mention those labels again. So, in the group of experiences we might call open, we have opportunity. We have possibility, like, "Oh, I see the possibility in this." We have hope, optimism, a sense of aliveness, excitement, adventure, and curiosity. We have a sense of opportunity—though I think I already said that. Excitement, purpose, love, compassion—these are things we might group into the open category.

Then we have things we can group into the closed category. Anything where it’s frustrated, burdensome, overwhelmed, or sad. Sad is not necessarily always closed, but often when we get sad, we start to close. You can be sad and open. You can be hurt and open. You can be angry and open. But we tend to tighten the body and mind in response to these things. Fear is another one that can actually be very open, but we tend to tighten as a response to fear.

Just notice: What does it feel like when I’m feeling afraid? We tighten in the body—in the torso, the jaw, the fists. We tighten against these things. Our nervous system also responds to these things, so we can say when I’m in the kind of fight-or-flight nervous system, that would be a closed state. When I’m in the calm, open kind of nervous system, that would be an open state. So the parasympathetic nervous system would be calm. I’m not feeling activated in terms of fight-or-flight—that’s the parasympathetic state, which corresponds with open states.

Okay, so we want to recognize it, and then we want to learn more about how it feels. That could actually be a practice you take on for a few days, or even a week. Just noticing: What does open feel like, and what does closed feel like for me in my body?

If you’re in a closed state, you might think, "Ah, I need to fix this." But actually, before you shift the state, I want to encourage you to befriend the state. That’s step two. The first step is recognizing what state you’re in and starting to learn more about it. The second is to befriend it.

This could be something you do for those few days or a week, where you’re noticing and learning what open and closed feel like. Could you befriend the closed state? If you’re feeling a sense of burden, we might think, "Oh, I shouldn’t feel this." If you’re feeling a sense of victimhood—"Why does life have to be so hard?"—slumped over, discouraged, these kinds of feelings are closed.

Instead of judging them and thinking we need to fix them, we can befriend them. That means, "Oh, it’s okay that you feel this way. This is a part of being human." Could I bring some curiosity, some compassion, some love to this?

As you listen to those words, the things I encourage you to bring to the closed state—curiosity, compassion, love, a sense of gentleness—are actually open states. We’re bringing openness to our closedness, not to fix the closedness, but because it deserves some openness, just like anyone does when they’re feeling closed. If we had a loved one who was feeling closed, wouldn’t we want to bring friendliness to them as well? Compassion, love, just a sense of accepting presence, with warmth, like, "You’re okay as you are, and I’m just here with you, not needing you to change."

Just like we might do for a loved one, we’re going to do the same with our closed state. It’s not something that needs to be fixed or changed. What if we could just be in that state?

In Buddhist traditions, this would actually be a tantric practice. We’re opening to a state we normally think of as negative, befriending it, and not needing it to change. Don’t equate "tantric" with sexual—although tantric practices can be brought to sexual activities, they can be brought to anything: anger, sadness, grief, pain, fear, and all of these might be closed states. Could you bring a sense of acceptance, friendliness, welcoming, love, compassion, curiosity, even gratitude to your closed state?

That’s something I would encourage you to practice for at least a week. You’re noticing and starting to understand how your closed state feels and bringing this open, welcoming practice to it for at least a week. If you can do that, you’ll be building a foundation for creating openness in your inner state for years to come.

But as long as you think that the negative states—closed states—are things to get away from, to push out, to force, to not like, or to say, "I shouldn’t be like this," as long as you're doing that, you’ll have a much weaker foundation to build openness on.

That’s what most people do. They want to get themselves to a state of openness—they might call it peace, compassion, love, or whatever—but they’re trying to do that by getting around their closedness, pushing it away, saying, "I don’t want this. I need to go to that. I don’t want chaos. I need peace." That’s what people try to do—get to peace by extinguishing chaos, pushing it away, almost with violence against it. That’s not how we create peace.

So, my encouragement to you is to spend some time, at least a week, maybe two weeks, maybe a month, just befriending the closed states. If you can do this, you’ll be transforming your relationship to the closed states and to a big part of yourself because closedness is us.

It’s not a thing we don’t want to be. I mean, we might not want it, but it’s not like, "Ah, I don’t want to be closed. I don’t ever want to have that state." It’s a part of who we are. It’s like saying, "Oh, I want a tree, but without the leaves falling off." No, that’s part of the tree. Of course, there are some trees where that doesn’t happen, but we’re talking about trees where the leaves fall off. It’s like, "I want the tree. It’s beautiful. I want it to change colors even, but I don’t want the leaves to fall off and look dead."

Okay, that’s not how the tree works. We’re accepting a part of ourselves when we befriend this.

If you do that work, what I will promise you is that the closed states will last for a shorter time. Now, we don’t want to do it for that reason because that’s trying to get rid of the closed state. But what you’ll find is that as a result of befriending the closedness, it doesn’t stick around as long. That’s because we’re allowing ourselves to feel it without needing to get rid of it. It’s okay to feel closed, burdensome, victimhood, frustrated, full of complaint, negativity—all the things we don’t want. We don’t like those things in others, but we can start to befriend them in ourselves. We allow them to happen, and they don’t stick around as long.

If you can do that, you’ll find yourself able to move into an open state much faster, and the closed state relaxes. That’s what happens—this closed opening, this tightened opening, relaxes, and all of a sudden, it becomes open. It relaxes because it feels safe to do that. It doesn’t feel judged. It feels befriended. It feels a sense of love and acceptance, and then it starts to relax.

Then what happens is, you might close again. You bring some friendliness to that, and it relaxes. It closes, and then it relaxes. It becomes almost like breathing—not necessarily the same pace as breathing, but closing and opening, closing and opening. It becomes something that’s much easier. When we don’t want to exhale, we only want to inhale, like we only want openness, not closeness. We don’t want to exhale, well guess what? We have a hard time breathing because the exhale has to happen for the inhale to happen. But we don’t want to, so we try not to, and we’re making it much harder to breathe.

So, what if we could just relax and allow ourselves to open and close at a much more relaxed pace?

If you can practice with this, what you’ll find is you’re able to get to an open state much easier. Then, all of the things you want to be more productive with—things you want to focus on and move forward with a sense of focus and purpose—that becomes a lot easier.

Practice with this, my friends. Share with me how this goes for you. If you have questions, I’d love to hear them. If you have struggles, I’d love to hear them. But if you have progress, if you have learnings from this, I would love to hear them. Email podcast@zenhabits.net if you want to reach me—that goes to my inbox directly. Otherwise, comment on the YouTube version of this below.

I would love, love, love to hear from you—how this goes for you, what you're learning, what questions you have, what struggles you have. I wish you the best of practice with your closeness and your openness.

Thanks, my friends.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Hello, hello, hello. All right, let us talk about managing stress and burnout. Before you tune out, let me tell you why this is such an important topic. The things that lead to burnout—stress, overwhelm, and letting yourself get exhausted—are under-noticed.

Because they're under-noticed, we don't prevent burnout before we get to it. We don't prevent this feeling of exhaustion, of feeling really dull about life and our work, not being excited about taking it all on. We don't recognize all of that before we get to that point. Or even when we're at that point, we often don't recognize it.

These underlying causes—the things happening within us—actually have a bigger impact on productivity, procrastination, and everything we're talking about in this season. They have a bigger impact than we realize. So, hear me out. Give me at least one minute to explain that, and then decide if this is going to be an important topic for you to listen to in this episode.

I think people want to get to the tactics, but they’re skipping over these topics—stress and burnout. Burnout is the point where you've already exhausted yourself. You’re already like, "Ah, I can’t do any more," and your body and mind shut it all down. Like, "I just cannot keep going."

There’s a point where you just have nothing left, and you just can’t keep going. But that’s already way too far. If you want to run optimally—if you want to run the engine of your body, your mind, your life—optimally, you won’t even get close to that point because that's like, imagine if you owned a car and it was an amazing sports car, right? A Lamborghini. I don’t know much about cars, but imagine it’s a Lamborghini. And you run it without changing the oil, without attending to the engine, without doing any routine maintenance. You just keep running it and running it, driving it 24 hours a day without any maintenance, without letting it rest, without anything.

You’re going to run that thing into the ground, and not only will it eventually crash and burn, but for a long time before that, it’s not going to be running optimally at all. If you want your machine to run optimally, you need to understand the things that lead to burnout and stop them. Deal with them way before you get to burnout.

Burnout means that you’ve been running thousands of miles too long without actually addressing the underlying issues. So, what we’re really talking about here is not just how to prevent burnout (which is way, way down the road), but actually how to run optimally. If you want to run optimally, then this is the episode for you.

So, what are we talking about? Burnout is that end state. But what are the things that lead to burnout? The main thing is stress and tiredness, right? Stress. We work really hard. We stress ourselves. Stress, in and of itself, is not a problem. We want to stress ourselves, right? We want to be pushing into discomfort, into uncertainty, working hard, and challenging ourselves.

If we don’t have challenge in our lives, we’re not going to grow. We’re not going to learn. We’re not going to do anything interesting. We’re actually going to shrink ourselves. So, if you don’t want to shrink your life, then what we want is some challenge. We want some stress.

It means that we’re actually pushing ourselves to challenge. But we have to recognize that stress has a response. If we stress ourselves, we can actually get stronger from that stress. It’s like working out. If I lift weights, I can actually get stronger from lifting the weights. Or I can injure myself.

So, lifting a weight can have two different possible responses: one is that I get stronger, and the other is that I hurt myself. The difference is, am I overdoing the stressor, and am I letting myself recover?

For example, lifting weights—if you lift something really heavy, if it’s too heavy, you’ll hurt yourself. If you don’t give yourself enough rest, you won’t get stronger; you’ll get weaker over time. So, what you want is the right amount of stress and the right amount of recovery, not just for working out but also for the work you’re doing in your life.

This is what we want—to recognize that people overdo the stress. They’re lifting too much weight, and they underdo the recovery. That’s what leads to burnout. We don’t recognize the symptoms. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to overdo the stress sometimes.

What we need to recognize is, "Oh crap, I overdid it. I need to let myself recover."

Again, going back to physical training, let’s say you were training for a marathon, and you did a really hard run. The next day, you’re completely exhausted and sore, you can barely walk. Well, you overdid it. That’s not necessarily a problem if you recognize that you overdid it and give yourself more recovery time than you normally would.

But the problem is, if we use this analogy with our work and our lives, we’re doing the really hard run. The next day, we wake up sore and tired, we can barely walk, and we’re still doing the regular thing we would do without giving ourselves that kind of recovery.

That’s the problem. It isn’t that we’re overdoing it; it’s that we don’t recognize we’re overdoing it, and we don’t recognize that we need recovery, so we don’t adjust our load.

I think it’s helpful to talk about physical training because I’m really into it, whether it’s strength training or running or sports. It’s okay to stress ourselves, to overload ourselves sometimes, but we want to recognize the symptoms. In the case I’m talking about, it’s being super sore, barely able to walk, feeling really tired, or irritable.

If you were an athlete, or you had a good coach, your coach would tell you, "Hey, take today as a rest day, or just do a really easy walk, or a very, very slow jog, but don’t push yourself today. Go easy, back off for the next couple of days. Maybe do a little harder tomorrow, but nothing intense." Then, once you’re recovered, you can start doing hard stuff again.

So how do we take that and apply it to work and everything we’re doing in our lives? Well, recognize: what is my stress load? Am I taking on a lot right now? Great, that’s totally okay. But how am I feeling the next day? If I’m feeling exhausted—sore could be one thing, but it could be that my brain feels drained, I don’t feel like taking anything on, I feel irritable, easily irritated by other people or the world, I’m not feeling as energetic or excited about my life or my projects—if that’s the case, then I need a little bit of recovery.

What could that look like? It could mean giving myself a full rest day or a self-care day. Go get a massage, take some naps, do something with friends that feels regenerative, recuperative. Go to have a spa day. I like to get a massage once in a while. Another thing I like to do is go to a place that has saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs, and cold plunges. I like to do that, and it’s super relaxing. I feel restored afterward.

I don’t do that every day, but when I do, it really replenishes me. Another thing I like to do is go out in nature. Another is to just take some rest time and maybe read a bit more. I’m not saying I do zero work on those days—maybe I do a little—but I give myself a break. I might work fewer hours. I might move some calls if I need to. I might hang out with people who make me feel good and not stressed.

I lower the commitments, lower the stress, and increase the recuperative, regenerative activities—nature, space, peace, and rest. These are really good things for me. I like to have hot tea, take a hot bath or a hot shower—these things are good for me. Maybe go for a swim if there’s a swimming pool, lake, or ocean nearby.

Honestly, I will take naps. So, the day after stressing myself, maybe I need two days like that. Sometimes, I’ve been working really hard for several weeks in a row, and I recognize that I need more than a day or two. I need a whole week. And I also build these kinds of rest times into my year.

I might have a couple of months that are either full-on rest months where I don’t do very much at all, or they’re half, where I don’t do a lot of calls in those months. Maybe I do more writing than anything else, and that’s restorative to me. A couple of months are built into my year—June and December are the months that I take. But you might think for yourself, what would be a year-long structure that would really serve you?

Even in the other months that aren’t June and December, what can I build in there? Do I take weekends fully off? Do I stop working at six o'clock, or seven o'clock, or five o'clock, or whatever would be helpful for me? Do I take breaks during the day on a regular basis?

These are things I think about, and I encourage you to do the same. What are you going to do to help make sure you're getting the right recovery for the amount of stress that you have? And how do you recognize how much stress you're putting into it? Are you constantly stressed and running yourself into the ground every day? Are you working 12-hour days, 14-hour days, those kinds of things? Are you shutting off your computer or getting away from your phone at night, or are you constantly plugged in? Do you have any kind of social time? Do you do anything alone where you have space, where you’re not working but actually have some alone time?

Do you have recuperative time with others?

Think about these things and figure out what you need. There’s no fixed answer here where I’m going to tell you, "Here’s the formula." Of course, we all want a fixed formula, but that’s not how this works. We have to learn how to respond to our individual needs.

What you need to do is a cycle of experimentation. So, what that means is every week and every month, have reflective time. In fact, I’d say even better is every day. So, some reflective time either in the evening or in the morning. If you can do it daily, great. If that's too much, then at least have one day a week—Sundays or Mondays, something like that—where you reflect: How am I feeling right now? Am I really stressed out? Am I feeling overworked? Am I feeling overloaded? Do I need more rest? And if so, how can I take responsibility for that?

A lot of times, people think, "Oh, I can't rest because I have so much to do." If that's the case, take responsibility for the fact that right now, you don’t feel like you can rest. And that’s either your own fears or your inability to let others support you.

For example, if it's your fears—you just cannot shut off, you cannot say no to things, you cannot reduce your commitments because you're afraid that if you don’t, something bad is going to happen—then look at that. That's your own fears. How do you calm your fears so you can actually say no to people? So you can say, "Hey, you know what? My plate is actually too full. I need more space." Or, "No, I can’t do that." Or, "I need to shut off at a certain time every day."

So, those are fears. The other thing is being unwilling or unable to let people support you. Do you have things on your plate that you can ask others to do or say no to? Do you have things that you’re taking on that others could help with? We often don’t want to do that because we’re worried about overburdening others, or asking for help, or even admitting that we might need help.

But that’s a broken model—to say, "I have to do everything on my own, and I can’t ever admit that I need help," as if needing help is a weakness. Actually, asking for help is an act of leadership and an act of generosity. It’s leadership because leadership isn’t doing everything yourself. It’s inviting others to be on this project with you, to help make this amazing. So that’s leadership.

And then, generosity is like, "You know what, if I take all the tasks and I don’t let anyone else do it, it’s kind of like saying, 'I’m the only one who’s able to do this, and you guys can’t.'" What if I share the journey with you? What if we could all row this boat together, grab an oar and paddle together? That’s actually an act of generosity. I know that when people let me help, I feel really good. I feel like I’m contributing in some way. Why would we want to stop others from contributing?

So, fears and not letting others support you are the things that keep us from giving ourselves the recovery we need.

The next thing I want to talk about is how we can recognize the signs. What I'd like you to do as you listen to this is check in with yourself right now. How does your body feel? How does your mind feel? Does it feel excited about life? Does it feel rested? Does it feel open, spacious, and peaceful? Or do you feel overwhelmed? Do you feel super stressed out? Do you feel run into the ground? Do you feel frazzled? Do your nerves feel frazzled? Do you feel irritable?

Do you feel super tired and exhausted? Do you feel dull and not excited about things? These are some things to ask yourself. As I’m asking you to check in on yourself right now, just notice—what are the symptoms? What are the signs? There’s nothing wrong with having them, but what if you could check in with yourself more often and just do a little bit of a pulse check, a temperature check, an oil check for the engine?

That’s what we’re doing here—we’re getting some vital signs. How is my outlook on life right now? Do I feel excited, joyful, full of wonder and gratitude? If so, that usually means you’re well-rested and recuperated. Or do I feel like, "Ugh, I’m a victim, everything is a burden, I feel not excited, everything feels dull, I feel tired, I feel drained, I feel frazzled, my nervous system feels fried, I’m easily snapping at people?" These are signs that I’m not well-rested, that I’m overstressed, and I’m not letting myself recover.

Then I just need to notice that and adjust. If you had someone training you, they would ask you these things and then say, "Okay, here’s how we’re going to adjust your training plan. You’re going to have a lower load today and tomorrow, and then we’ll check in with you in two days and see—can you increase the load from there, or do you need more rest?"

So, your coach would do that, but I encourage you to be your own coach. Check in with yourself daily. When you feel overloaded, adjust the load for today and tomorrow, and then check in the day after that. You might need more than a day or two of rest, and that’s okay. We give ourselves the amount of rest we need until we're back to at least a decent amount of battery charge, and then we can take on the world. That’s what we’re looking for—do you feel ready to take on the world, take on challenges? Then you’re in the place you want to be.

But if you're constantly running yourself into the ground, you won’t be able to take on challenges. You’re lowering your resiliency. Stress can actually increase our resiliency over time if we manage the stress load, don’t overdo it too much, and give ourselves recovery time. If we do that, stress increases our resilience, and that’s what we want.

We don’t want zero stress, where we're reducing our resilience. If we have zero stress in our lives, we’re shrinking our lives down. We’re actually reducing our resilience over time. What we want is more resilience by being willing to actually stress ourselves at an appropriate level and then recover. By doing that, we increase our resilience, increase our capacity to take on challenges, and actually improve the capacity of our engine so that we can do more. We can take on more in the world. We can learn more. We can love more. We can play more. But definitely, we can bring the full force of our life into whatever we’re facing.

That’s what I’m encouraging you to do—check in with yourself more regularly. Adjust your load so that your resilience is increasing instead of decreasing over time.

That’s what I’ve got for you today. If you have questions, please email me. If you're listening to the audio version of this podcast, email podcast@zenhabits.net—I get that in my inbox, I read every single one, and I reply to a lot of them. If you're watching the video version of this on YouTube, which I highly recommend because I look amazing, put a comment below and let me know if this helped you, if you have questions, if you struggle with this, and what your struggle is. I'd love to hear. I reply to every comment—even if it’s sometimes just with a heart emoji or something like that, I reply to every comment.

Have an amazing day. Please take care of yourself. Get yourself to full capacity, increase your resilience over time, and feel pumped and psyched about life.

Thanks, my friends.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Hi everybody. So, today we have a special guest, an author named Oliver Burkeman. Oliver is someone who wrote a book that I really loved, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. And Four Thousand Weeks refers to the idea that if we live to be about 80 years old, we've had about four thousand weeks in our lives.

And so that really helps us to see that our lives are finite. And then to confront that limited human lifespan and how little time we really have, and actually embrace that. And he says that that’s the key to living a fulfilling and meaningfully productive life. It's a beautiful book. I sent it to my son-in-law as a Christmas gift.

And Oliver's now come out with a new book. I have, what do you call that, an advanced copy called Meditations for Mortals. This is not actually how the book looks — it's pretty nice looking now in the hardcover. But I really like it because it takes that idea from Four Thousand Weeks and leads us through a four-week series of meditations. A series of things to read, reflect on, and put into action. On being finite, on taking action, and a lot of other things. So, dealing with a lot of the things that we deal with in our lives.

I'm really excited to dive in with him. He's an awesome guy — intelligent, funny, and British. So, you know, pretty refined.

Okay, let's go talk to Oliver.

***

Leo

All right, Oliver, it is an honor to have you as a guest on this podcast. I'm a big fan of yours, and I'm so glad you said yes to coming on. Thank you.

Oliver

The feeling's mutual. I feel like I've been reading Zen Habits-related things for a very long time. Not to make you feel old, like I feel.

Leo

Don't worry. I have embraced old as a beautiful thing. So, yeah, I was telling you before we started recording, your last book—was it Four Thousand Weeks?

Oliver

That's right. Yeah.

Leo

Yeah, Four Thousand Weeks. I gave that as a gift to my son-in-law, who is in a phase of his life where he's really trying to focus on what matters and not waste so much time. And so I thought it was such an important book along those lines. I just wanted to say thank you for writing that.

Oliver

Oh, thank you for gifting it. I'm always interested in the concept of, like, does that kind of advice, when it's given from your father-in-law, land well or not? I'm sure you have a great relationship with him, but even so, it's interesting.

Leo

Luckily, he took it pretty well. Yes. Actually, any kind of self-improvement, productivity, or self-help, you know, the type of stuff that falls under that umbrella... I'm not trying to pigeonhole your book.

Oliver

No, no.

Leo

But anytime you give a gift like that, there is a danger.

Oliver

Right, you don't want to give the book that says, like, "How to sort out the chaos of your miserable life" to somebody.

Leo

That's right. "How to stop being such a huge mess."

Leo

So, here's something I'm interested in. That book—when did it come out? Two or three years ago?

Oliver

Yeah, 2021.

Leo

Okay, so a few years ago, and now you've got a new book coming out. I have it in my hands, so I'm one of the lucky few. Meditations for Mortals. And so I'll show this here. You know, this might sound like a little bit of promotion, but I'm actually glad to promote things that I think people in this podcast will really benefit from.

You went from Four Thousand Weeks to Meditations for Mortals, and I could see that you dove deeper into themes that were very present in the last book. But I'm curious for you, what had you write this book? How did you go from that book to this book? Tell me a little bit.

Oliver

Yeah, sure. So, the first thing I find myself saying as the book goes out into the world is that it's not a book about meditation, right? If I'm sort of arrogantly borrowing a tradition, it's not so much the Buddha's as Marcus Aurelius'. I guess it’s meditations in that sense—thoughts and insights, maybe.

For me, the focus of this book, as you say, really looks at those same broad issues of human finitude and limitation, and how we can come to terms with that, and even benefit from embracing that. But for me, I think this book is about going from the state of knowing what it is you want to be doing with your life, and the things you want to be including in your day, the ways you want to be showing up in the world, and actually doing it.

One of the things I found in the aftermath of writing Four Thousand Weeks was that writing a book about time and our experience of time and productivity and efficiency, I really had a strong feeling of like, "Okay, I think I've understood something important here." But it doesn't follow that you're going to live differently. And I think that was even true for some readers who said, "Okay, I really benefited from the perspective shift, but then what?"

So, I wanted in this book to really address this question of action and how to sort of rescue the idea of action from productivity culture and hustle culture and all the rest of it, and explore whether there's a way to embrace ideas of peace of mind, presence, calm, and stillness that are consistent with doing stuff. Because it's important to do stuff, and it's okay to be ambitious and want to do stuff. That's really the territory in my mind.

Leo

I love that. Okay, well, I want to dive into that theme, but before we do, you mentioned a word, and I’m going to say it wrong because I’ve only seen it written until you just said it: finitude?

Oliver

Right.

Leo

Is that the right way to say it?

Oliver

I think so. Several people have accused me of inventing this word. I certainly didn’t. But it’s just the state of being finite, right? So that’s what it means. I think it’s finitude.

Leo

Finitude, okay. It was a big theme of your last book. I’ll confess, I haven’t fully read this book yet, but it seems like it’s a big theme of this book. Tell me how you hit upon that as a theme for yourself.

Oliver

Wow. I mean, obviously—and I’m sure you know this from the inside—anything that looks like advice writing is, on some level, a record of the author’s own struggles, maybe even the advice they need to hear as much as anybody else. We can talk about that, but I don’t think there’s any problem with that, actually. It’s just not always admitted, I suppose.

For me, the finitude thing is really a long, slow process of realizing that wherever I go wrong with how I’m using my time, or where anxiety and worry has consumed me, one way of understanding what’s going on in my life and other people's, is a sort of attempt to not feel what it means to be a finite human. An attempt to not fully inhabit our state of being limited in time, limited in control over that time, limited in how much we can understand anything or other people.

To sort of push against those built-in limits, trying to get to this place where I would finally be on top of everything or know what I was doing. But it’s always in the future, of course—you never actually get there. And how that sort of struggle is really the core of a lot of mental and psychological suffering.

So, sometimes people say, "This is a book about death and mortality." Well, sure, all of this is true only because we die, but there are other people who've done really great amazing writing on, literally, death and mortality. I think of the distinction of finitude being more like... it is what is to be alive given that we die, rather than focusing on death as it were. That's the core of it for me.

Leo

Death is a real limit for all of us. What I hear from your books is that you embrace that limit. You have the idea that there's a limit here, so let's make use of these limits.

Oliver

Absolutely. And I think that one way of understanding all sorts of pathologies of time—procrastination, impatience, anxiety, worry—all the things we would like not to be afflicted by, is that they are all attempts to deny those limits. They're efforts to maintain this fantasy of one day not being in this position. The psychotherapist Bruce Tift talks brilliantly about being “claustrophobic, imprisoned, and constrained by reality.”

The big discovery for me, which I have to keep on making again and again, and which is at the core of this new book, is that actually just completely or even partially admitting defeat and surrendering that struggle is not only more in tune with reality and a path to peace of mind, but it's actually a path to getting more meaningful stuff done.

Because you're no longer distracted by this futile struggle to do everything or feel completely in control. And suddenly it's like, "Oh, wow. Okay, I can just launch interesting projects, commit to relationships, go on trips, and I don’t need to wait for the time when it’s all going to feel like I know what I’m doing."

Leo

Yeah, I'm still waiting for that time. It’s interesting, talking about embracing these real limits. I remember hitting upon a similar idea years ago. I called it “haiku productivity,” because the haiku has a limited number of syllables. You can't write pages and pages of a poem. The constraints force you to choose. I found power in that—forcing yourself to choose, realizing that we only have a certain number of hours in a day. There's power in willing to curate.

Oliver

Yeah, no, exactly. And just to say, when it comes to our situation as humans, you’re already choosing anyway. It’s a question of doing that consciously. A lot of what I’m pointing at is the empowerment that comes from more fully recognizing how things already are. So, it’s not about me saying, “Hey, you should only do one thing at a time.” It’s more about saying, “Do you see that, by definition, you already are only doing one thing at a time?" And what can come from stepping more authentically into that.

Leo

Beautiful. Okay, so taking these realizations of our limits and deciding to choose, and then actually putting it into action. I’d love to dive into this. You know, one thing that was funny when we were looking at what to talk about in this podcast, you put a note to the table of contents of the book as a good place to start, and I read it, and I’m like, "Oh my God, there’s so many topics here that are so incredible." I don’t think I can actually cover all of it, so we’re going to have to choose.

Oliver

Yeah.

Leo

So, here’s how I’d like to start with this. You talked about, you know, the writing that we do, in large part being advice for ourselves, and I love that. You know, you talked about Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations"—from what I understand, it was advice to himself, right? Just reminders of his own mortality and how he wanted to live life.

So in that sense, I’d love to hear how this book is advice for you. And specifically, what I’m curious about is: what struggles do you have around putting this stuff into action? Where, you know, this book is good advice for you?

Oliver

Yeah. So, there’s sort of two levels to that that come to mind anyway. On a high level, it’s been a really interesting and important thing for me to realize that all this good stuff about psychological growth and change and, hopefully, you know, getting better at doing life in some way, is just an ongoing, open-ended process that really requires endless reminding. And to feel no shame about the fact that you fall off the wagon and get back on it, and that that’s just the system working, rather than you not doing it right.

So, the structure of this book, which is in four weeks of short, daily chapters... I don’t really imagine I can control how people read it, but one way you could read it is a chapter a day, for a month—just a short chapter each day in the morning, maybe. It’s designed to have that feeling—to be a sort of “retreat of the mind,” is the phrase that I use. To be something that keeps going at these themes and sort of wears its way into you, under your skin. And so, the structure of it is advice for me, in the sense that embracing that way of doing things is important to me.

Leo

I love that.

Oliver

Then, in terms of the four weeks, they’re loosely designed as a journey that I think I’m on myself. The first one, the first week is called "Being Finite." It’s about confrontation, really, with just the stark facts of what it means to be limited.

The second week is called "Taking Action," and it’s about taking bold and meaningful action in that situation of being a finite person.

The third week is called "Letting Go," and it’s about all the different ways in which actually a crucial part of this is unclenching and getting out of the way of action. So, not making it happen, but letting it happen, the idea that actually a lot of action happens—and the most meaningful things happen—when we allow them to happen naturally. The problem is that we’re in their way with our controlling tendencies, rather than needing to work up the motivation to do them.

And then the fourth week is called "Showing Up," and the implication is that’s the culmination of this journey—to participate more fully and vividly in life. Anyway, that’s a long way of saying, it’s week three that is my problem.

Leo

Week three. Okay. That’s the one I wanted to ask about anyway!

Oliver

The letting go. Definitely. I’m sure I’m not alone among your audience in being someone who is, historically, in my life anyway, definitely intellect-first, brain-first, trying to schedule things right...

Leo

No, I think you’re the only one!

Oliver

Yeah, maybe it’s just me that's just a freak! And to sort of take that top-down idea, and of course, it’s got this very deep undertow of like, "Well, I must do this. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be justifying my existence, or things will go terribly wrong if I’m not really clenching the steering wheel the whole time."

So yeah, that’s where it’s really advice to me. I mean, it’s advice to me in all the weeks, but some of the weeks, I feel like it’s advice that I have managed to internalize. And then there’s parts where I’m still very much internalizing.

Leo

Okay, so let’s dig into this week a little bit—the letting go theme. You talked about a lot of times action flows naturally if we get out of our own way. So, what are some of the ways not only you get in your own way, but like, how we tend to get in our own way? And like, how does that actually work? Because it’s very counterintuitive that letting go will actually let action flow a little bit better sometimes.

Oliver

There’s a really lovely observation, which I quote in there—each of these days has a quotation at the top of it that is closely related—and there’s a quotation in there from the Zen teacher Kosho Uchiyama, who says—I’ll see if I can get this right—“Life, completely unhindered by anything, manifests as pure activity.”

The starting point here is the idea that everything we either understand or intuit about change being constant, and the world being an interconnected web of people and energies and everything, you know, all points to the idea that if you can relax your grip a bit, it isn’t the case that you’ll just end up sitting on the couch all day doing absolutely nothing.

Things want to happen through you. That’s sort of the nature of human psychology, and maybe it’s the nature of reality in some deep and spiritual way—I don’t know. And so, I really think it’s important to see how often the problems we have in building what feels like a meaningful life are really through—it’s not the absence of something, namely motivation or energy or something—it’s the presence of a sort of barrier.

So there may be people who experience, for example, procrastination as just a sort of absence of any energy or motivation. But I think it’s pretty clear, at least for a lot of people who are troubled by that, which is, you know, ultimately everybody, I think, is troubled by some version of it. It’s some emotional struggle that’s going on. It’s an inhibition. It’s something that you’re doing that is getting in the way because your standards are perfectionistic, or because you think the stakes are so high that you don’t dare to act, and there are a hundred different reasons. But they all have that idea of standing in the way.

A couple of concrete examples. There’s a chapter in that week about how difficult it can be—ironically, for a certain kind of person, of which I am one—to allow the possibility that what you’re doing, some challenge you're facing, might be a lot easier than you expected it to be. So, Elizabeth Gilbert has this line about how you have to be willing to let it be easy. And then Tim Ferriss has this sort of question, “What would this look like if it were easy?”

And in all these cases, it's quite scary for a certain kind of person, I keep saying that—a somewhat neurotic, somewhat controlling, somewhat anxiety-inclined person—to actually ask, "What if this were easy?" Or, a related question when it comes to productivity, especially: “What do I feel like doing right now?” Not what the productivity system dictates that I must do, but like, “What do I actually feel like doing?”

And I’m not claiming that you can go through your whole life never doing anything you find somewhat unpleasant. But it’s really quite subversive, I think, for a lot of people to actually allow that possibility. And yet, it makes total sense, because if you do desire to do certain things, what a shame to have a productivity system that is based on systematically suppressing that when you could be co-opting those energies, you know, and letting them power you forward.

Leo

It’s so opposite to how we’re trained. We’re trained to do what we’re supposed to do, not what we feel like doing. It’s like we’re trained from a young age out of that.

Oliver

Yeah, I go on a little rant at one point about the focus on a lot of personal development stuff, about taking decisions that your future self will thank you for. Right? This is like a big deal. And it’s not bad advice—I’m not saying that’s all wrong. But I do think that deferring gratification is what that’s about. It’s like being good at the famous marshmallow test, right? Where you can resist one marshmallow because you’re going to get another one later.

This is all good stuff. But I think that at least for the kind of people who are drawn to that kind of thinking, it’s pretty likely that your problem is the opposite, right? And I certainly think that’s been my problem in life, earlier. Deferring gratification too much, turning your whole life into this kind of relentless grind towards the future point at which you get all the marshmallows and never eating a marshmallow. Which, you know, it’s a sugary snack, so it’s not a great example I suppose.

But if the meaning of life is metaphorically to eat marshmallows, then spending your whole life acquiring them and never getting to the eating point is just as much of a mistake as being so completely irresponsible with your time that you're storing up trouble for the future.

Leo

Yeah, it’s almost like we are taught that tool to delay gratification at a young age, and then every time we see a problem that we don’t know exactly how to solve, we apply that tool. And so we’re applying it pretty much all the time.

Oliver

Right.

Leo

So we never eat the marshmallow. I love that idea.

Okay, so relaxing and letting go... letting things be easy is another thing that is actually not what we're taught. We’re actually taught to devalue what’s easy and only value things if they’re really hard. And so it seems like if you decide “Okay, I’m going to let this be easy”, that's a scary thing.

Oliver

Right. And it has this moral layer, that I think really gets in the way, where we feel like we need to justify our existence on the planet on some level—and I talk about this in another part of the book—it’s the idea of "productivity debt." The idea that you wake up in the morning and you feel like you haven’t quite earned your right to be here unless you get through a certain amount of output in the course of the day.

And that’s associated also on the easiness question with the feeling of effort. It’s pretty easy, and it works in both directions. If you do something in 20 minutes because it comes naturally to you, and it’s no effort, you demean it and think it’s not valuable. So, people who have a natural skill for something are very often prone to not respect that skill because it does come too easily to them.

On the other hand, we’re prone to think that if you spent the whole day really effortfully doing stuff, then that stuff must, by definition, have been useful and meaningful stuff. But maybe it wasn’t, right? And maybe a better day would have been spent, you know, putting in a couple of hours of work and spending the rest of the day at the beach.

Leo

It’s the wrong metric.

Oliver

Right. It’s the wrong metric. And we’re doing it a lot of the time because we’re seeking this state of—it’s quite a religious idea, really—we’re trying to save our souls somehow through our work. It is specifically the religious idea of the Protestant work ethic that has done so much damage to Western culture, anyway.

Leo

Okay, I love all of this. Thank you for sharing all of that. I can relate to a lot of it.

The next part I want to get into is... there's a couple of things here that you touched on...trying to see which part. You'll just have to tell me...

Oliver

No, it's fine.

Leo

Some common problems that people I talk to face a lot, and I’d like to just get your take on them. We're going to do the opposite of your book—your book spaces out this kind of learning, and I'm going to try and cram it all into one podcast.

Oliver

Yeah, it’s very important to be as efficient as possible in life.

Leo

Exactly. We’re going to put as much value into this podcast as possible.

Oliver

Optimize, optimize, optimize.

Leo

I love that we can touch on this, and people can actually go through the journey in your book. By the way, I have an advanced reader's copy, which I’m not allowed to sell—it’s very clear—but I think I can give it away. So, I’m going to give this book away to one of our readers. Is that okay?

Oliver

It is, although I think we now probably have a—I shouldn't make this promise on the recording if I can't back it up—but I think we now have lovely hardback finished editions. And I think we could arrange for a reader to receive one of those, but maybe don’t hold me to that until I check with the publisher.

Leo

Well, I just really like the idea of passing on books. I read them, and then pass them on. So I’m going to give this away to a reader. And if you want to give me a hard copy to give away, too, let me know. So, if you want a copy, email me at podcast@zenhabits.net. I might give you one.

Okay, so here’s a problem that people get a lot. This is going to be really basic for you but a lot of people this. I have a million things. I’m overwhelmed because my to-do list is never-ending. I took a break over the weekend, and my inbox is flooded. I have so many things to respond to, and it just feels like I’m trying to keep my head above water. So feel free to just take that as a going-off point.

Oliver

How to respond when one is in that situation. And it's not that basic. I mean, it's basic, but I get it. And actually an ironic thing I’ve found—it’s a lovely problem to have—but because Four Thousand Weeks did better than I expected, and now there's this book, it’s like I write all this stuff about handling overwhelm, and then I get more overwhelmed putting it out there. And I’ve had to really sort of learn my own lessons again.

So, one is always dancing between perspective shifts and techniques and methods. And I actually think—I have a whole thing about how I think the perspective shifts are ultimately the more practical and actionable things. So I’ll start with that.

I think that when you’re really overwhelmed with a large amount of little stuff in that way, that’s the moment when it’s incredibly easy to think to yourself, “Okay, all these ideas about being chilled out and making choices and being calm are great, but first of all, I’ve just got to get all this email out of the way.” And it’s like, “This will be an exception few days—I’ll just get back in control.”

And, you know, there are people who can do that in a calm way, but for many of us, I think that is really the first wrong step, right? That’s a mistake. It’s right then, in the middle of the overwhelm, that it can be really helpful to stop and take a breath and see that, while it might be an unusual moment in terms of your email inbox, basically what we’re dealing with here are infinite supplies of things. You’re not going to get to the end of the emails or the to-do’s or anything—that’s not how it works for finite humans.

And so, if it is important to address yourself to, for example, email, then the spirit in which one can—and I try when that happens to address myself to it—is not one of, “Let me tighten all my muscles and furrow my brow and really try to get through to the end and then stop.” Because of course, the other thing that happens with email is, you know, half the people you reply to reply back to you. So, it doesn’t stop.

Leo

By the time you’ve done two more emails, the responses are coming in.

Oliver

Exactly. So, a very simple and obvious way to do that—and I’m not telling anyone anything they don’t know, but maybe re-contextualizing it a little bit—is to take a time-first approach and to say, “Okay, 20 minutes of focus on my email, then a little walk around the block, then another 20 minutes of focus on my email.” Something about thinking in terms of little portions of time, I think, is a good and simple way to sort of reframe away from that kind of conquest mode.

And then, I think the other thing is to really try to tune into that question of, “What would I like to do right now?” When you’re in a real psychodrama with this stuff, it can feel like, “Okay, I just don’t want to look at my inbox.” And I’ve done this—you know, you avoid it, and you make the problem worse because you just don’t want to go there. And you think, “What I actually want to do,” you tell yourself, is like, “surf social media,” or, you know, just zone out, whatever.

In fact, if you get a little bit quiet and relaxed and tune into that thought—"What do I want to do, really?”—very often what happens is, “Okay, well, maybe actually what I really want right now is to go on like a 20-minute stroll around the neighborhood and just sort of reset.” And then you come back and say, “Actually, I would like to address myself to some of those emails.”

I think the really extraordinary thing that I find is that when you really deeply connect to that question of what you want to do, you find that actually you do kind of want to be a responsible member of society, and pay your bills, and keep your promises to people, and answer emails.

Leo

It’s not just fear-based.

Oliver

No, exactly. And understanding that what you're doing is swimming in an infinite sea. You're not drinking down a glass of water that you’ll get to the end of. You're just swimming in an infinite sea and applying your energy and attention in the way that seems wisest at that moment.

There’s a whole other interpersonal level to this. A lot of what's going on here, a lot of the time, is the thought that other people are mad at you or something. And that can happen because people are in jobs where if they don’t respond quickly to all their emails, they get a lot of grief. But there is a role here as well for like.... don’t go exaggerating your own importance or the degree to which the world's going to collapse if someone doesn’t get a response to an email for another hour or two, because it's probably not going to.

Leo

Yeah. Well, there might be some truth to it. We take that truth and exaggerate it. It just turns into a big fear of like, “Ah, everyone’s going to be so upset with me.”

Oliver

Right. I think it’s important to be sensitive to the fact that, like me—and I think you are—people with an extraordinary degree of autonomy over how the day goes. And there are definitely people in much sort of tighter situations when it comes to having to be responsive to email. But even there, you don’t have to bring this existential layer of like, “I’m not a good person if I don’t get through all this.”

Maybe in a much more sort of down-to-earth way, the terms of one’s employment are such that you have to answer all emails from a certain person or category of person. But you still don’t have to feel like you didn’t earn your right to exist if you don’t do an impossible amount of that.

Leo

Okay, beautiful answer. Thank you for sharing that.

I’d love to go back to this book, but the angle I’d like to look at it from is: the phase where you were writing it. I’m sure it was a few months ago, at least. So you’re in the phase of creating this book, and in it, I’m sure you’re facing some of the same problems that you’re writing about.

Oliver

Oh, yes.

Leo

And so, I’m curious, of there was anything in the book that you employed to actually create the book? I’ll stop with that question. There’s another thing I have, but that’ll be the follow-up question. Yeah, anything that you used to create the book.

Oliver

Yeah, totally. This is a really on-point and perceptive question because when I say that I’m writing advice for myself and I’m talking about action, obviously trying to write a book is a big creative action where all these issues come up and it becomes very central in everything we’ve been talking about.

So many of them, but I will say, just on the letting-go front. It sounds a little bit like I’m bragging or something, but Four Thousand Weeks did quite a lot better than I was expecting it to do and has been read by quite a lot more people than I would ever have imagined. That led to a completely predictable, very cliched kind of freeze response, right? Where you sort of think, “Oh my God, I’ve got to...".

Firstly, there’s that thing where if you meet a standard, that then becomes the minimum standard that you’ve got to meet next time, which is very oppressive. And then you also just think, “If I mess up this time, lots of people are going to be watching who previously weren’t.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, whose book "Eat Pray Love" was a success on a much bigger scale than anything I’ve ever written, has written very vividly about this. I might not be on anything like her scale, but the feelings are quite similar to the ones she expressed. It's like, "Millions of people have read 'Eat Pray Love', I can't write another book for millions of people, I've got to write it for one or two people."

Leo

Thanks for sharing this, by the way. I think it’s little talked about. I know Elizabeth did talk about it—I’m saying it like I know her, you know, me and Liz. But it’s important to hear about, and I think we can dismiss it as, like, “Oh, those are good problems to have,” but they’re real problems.

Oliver

Absolutely. Both are true—good problems to have, right? Still real. And, one of the things that got me past that phase was doing all sorts of free-writing exercises. You know, where you just set a timer, keep your fingers moving, and cover the page. Of a sort that, honestly, I had always been really disdainful of. I’m like, “Oh, they’re for amateur writers, and I’m a professional. I just sit down and do what I need to do.”

That willingness, in an early stage of this project, to just make a mess on the page—I say early stage because it didn’t remain just a mess on the page; it went through a lot of thinking and reconceptualizing and then work by some brilliant editors—but the willingness to do that, even when literally nobody was ever going to see it, was a layer of... I feel like I’ve, in many ways, gotten past being a cramped and anxious perfectionist. But no, it turns out there was really another level there which was I was still expecting that the first time I sat down to write a sentence, it should basically be a coherent and good sentence.

Leo

That’s fascinating. I don’t think this is talked about enough, but what you’re talking about is exactly what someone faces when they first start writing. Like, “I can’t make a mess. It has to be quality stuff.” Which, as experienced writers, we know that doesn’t make any sense, right?

Oliver

Right. Yeah.

Leo

So they’re facing that, and the exercises to get them over that. You’ve overcome that, and now at this new level of success, it comes back, and you use the same tools.

Oliver

Totally, yeah, absolutely. There’s always another level of that kind of problem. There’s a book called "Deep Free Writing" by a writer called Steven Lloyd Webber, which was very significant at just the right moment. He writes about doing 24-hour free-writing marathons, where he and a friend booked a motel room, took their computers, and just wrote for 24 hours.

Something like that will really snap you out of the idea that what you’re writing has to be good from the start. He’s talking—and I experienced this—about a switch from saying, “I’ll sit at the computer, and once I think of something good to write, I’ll write it,” to saying, “I’ll sit at the computer and write, and maybe one or two of those things will be good.” The idea that you write before you’re confident that there’s any particular good idea to write is a very powerful reframing.

Leo

I love that. So that actually got you over that perfectionist mindset, like “I need to write something of the same quality and to that standard.”

Oliver

Yeah, and I think what came out—I hope—is of the same standard in some sense. But I think it’s more conversational and more candid. It’s more direct and less of a writing performance, as it were. And both styles have their value. I’m not repudiating the last book; I just think this was the next thing that needed to come out of me.

Leo

I love it. Okay, here’s the follow-up question I have. You talked about having some freedom over your time, which is a beautiful luxury to have. But it can also come with some difficulties. Having so much freedom over your time can actually be a difficulty for a lot of people.

I’m curious, for you, someone who is working with finitude and some of these concepts—in the phase where you were writing this book, what did your days end up looking like? Were you writing every single minute of the day? Were you eating marshmallows and going to the beach? Tell us more.

Oliver

Well, we live these days in sort of quite remote hills of Yorkshire in Northern England, so actually the beach isn’t that far—it’s about 45 minutes away. But it’s not the kind of beach people on the Pacific time zone imagine when you say beach. It’s a sort of windswept and freezing beach.

I have a lot of freedom in the middle of the day, basically. But we have a seven-year-old son, and I’m part of the family. A lot of becoming a parent for me has been about understanding both the limits of my control over my time and the surprising benefits of not having that control.

But yeah, there’s a big chunk of most days when I do broadly get to decide the order that things go and where I am when I’m doing them. And I also write about this in the book. What it always comes back to, at least in the good times—there are definitely scattered times when I’m not focusing enough—but what it always comes back to in the good times is three or four hours of really proper, good focus on the main thing that I’m doing, the writing.

And that’s not just writing. It could be walking around up in the hills, making notes, or drawing little nerdy diagrams. All part of my writing process. But it’s not an attempt to do that for ten hours a day, even when I have ten hours to dictate how they go. It’s a gradual recognition that even at the most sort of deadline-approaching, high-stress moments of a project like that, it doesn’t actually help to go all-in for hours and hours and hours.

There’s an academic, Robert Boice, who might have come across, who’s done all sorts of research into academics’ writing habits—university professors—and found that the people who actually produce the most are the ones who make writing into a modest part of their daily routine and don’t just say, “Well, okay, three hours are gone, but I’m on a roll, so let’s keep going as long as I can.” Because you are sort of reinforcing an impatient, rushing urge there. A feeling that you need to get to the end of it. And there’s something very powerful about putting in a few hours and then stopping, even if you don’t quite feel that you want to stop.

And then, as one author whose name I’m forgetting right now—she’s a female novelist whose name is escaping me—has written brilliantly about how, when you stop that period of focus, if you possibly can, you should go for a walk, take a shower, or just not go to your emails. You should leave some little gap. That’s when you’re probably going to get all the best ideas of that session—they’re going to pop up at that point. So, I try to work that way. On a really good day, it’s three or four hours of focus, a walk, and then more administrative things.

Leo

How would you decide what your stopping point is? If you have this idea of wanting to stop before you’ve fully used up all your creative energy, how do you determine it?

Oliver

Well, you can do it with timings. I sort of alternate. Sometimes it’s just, “I’m going to do that many hours.” I guess I alternate partly based on where I am in a book project. Once you’re really at the stage where you’re writing a lot of stuff, I think it’s incredibly helpful to have little outcome goals.

In the book and elsewhere, I’ve referred to them as “daily deliverables,” which is a wonderfully soulless corporate phrase that I actually think is quite helpful because it bleeds all the drama out of it. It’s, “Okay, what’s your deliverable? Off it goes on the conveyor belt.”

And that doesn’t necessarily mean you finish a chapter or something. It could be the structure of a chapter or the brain dump of a chapter. It could be all sorts of more intermediate things. But having a notion of what completion would look like and being able to say, “Okay, yeah, there it is, printed out and sitting on the desk,” that’s really powerful for me.

Leo

Surprising benefits of not having complete control over your time. That's something that you said. Can you share a little bit more about that? I’d love to hear.

Oliver

Yeah. I mean, I think this is a lot of people’s experience of parenthood, but I think it comes in other walks and areas of life as well. It’s not that you're surprised most people enjoy being a parent. It’s that you're surprised that actually, the part where you don’t get to determine exactly what you’re doing at each point of the day is part of the enjoyment very often. Because there’s a sort of sense of being a part of something bigger and being synchronized with the rhythms of, you know, a newborn baby.

That’s long enough ago for me, I think it’s even longer ago for you—that particular intense moment of, like, you really just... when the baby needs feeding, the baby needs feeding. When the diaper needs changing, the diaper needs changing. There’s something... it’s not always pleasant work, but there’s something very freeing about just falling into line with that. Which, again, is something that people find in more traditional religious communities that have those kinds of temporal rhythms, and all sorts of areas of life.

Also, there’s just the much more blunt fact that—and this is a separate section of the book—to define something as an interruption, to say, “I’m not going to be interrupted for the whole of the next day,” is to decide in advance that what you plan to happen is definitely the best thing that could happen for you and the people around you.

Which is a little bit kind of, again, it’s trying to be sort of godlike, when actually a limited human is what we are. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t try to ring-fence a few hours for focus, which is what I was talking about before. But not struggling to ring-fence every single hour is very useful, because it actually just makes interruptions worse, right?

If I’ve decided that from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. I must do this, and no one must interrupt me, it’s a lot more disruptive if my son then comes into my office and wants to talk than if I’m not adopting the attitude that that would be a terrible thing.

It doesn’t mean you have to stop focusing and just be interrupted if you’re in the middle of something important, but it does mean that, you know, you can maybe turn to the person who’s interrupting you, look them in the eyes, and say, “I actually just need a few more minutes on this before I turn to that.”

And, you know, it’s all kind of fluid, and it works nicely. Then you’re back to what you were doing. The point is just that very specific mindset of, “Okay, this is my schedule for the next few hours, and anything that happens that doesn’t exactly accord with that is somehow a problem.” Well, it might be a problem, but it also might not be.

Leo

Yeah, absolutely love that. It reminds me of when I started meditating, and I was like, “I’m going to be focused and meditating,” and anytime someone would interrupt my meditation, I’d be so upset. And I realized that that was the point of my meditation.

Oliver

Right. There’s a quote in that section of the book from C.S. Lewis—obviously writing from a Christian perspective—but he says, I’m paraphrasing, something like: "It’s incredibly tempting to define everything that happens in life, all the interruptions, as somehow a violation of your own real life." And then he says, “In fact, of course, the interruptions are precisely one’s real life, the life God is sending one moment by moment.” And I think that, whether you have God in that understanding or not, it’s a really important perspective to balance the one about, “These are my focus hours, leave me alone.”

Leo

I think that’s a really good place to end. You mentioned the word “soulless,” which is you embraced a soulless technique which I really love. But I think it’s so interesting because the way that I read you, it’s bringing the soul back into all of this.

Oliver

Well, that’s lovely. If the stuff I’m writing is doing that, I’m thrilled.

Leo

And I want to thank you for that. You’ve changed the conversation around productivity, and using our time, and what we’re tackling in life.

Oliver

Well, thank you. I think we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, of whom you are one, because I feel like, ever since I was writing my Guardian column back in the day, I was drawing on and quoting from you. So, it’s really excellent to get to have this conversation at last.

Leo

Oh, beautiful. I will take that credit and also any royalties that you want to share with me. Oliver, thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back to, I think, a festival or a literary festival? I appreciate you taking the time to actually talk with us.

Oliver

Thanks, Leo. It’s been a real pleasure.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Okay, so in this episode, we are going to be talking about overcoming procrastination. This is a big topic, as you might know, because procrastination is something that so many of us want to overcome, to deal with, to finally be rid of.

In this episode, I'm going to talk about how to understand the roots of procrastination. We're going to talk about some mindful techniques to combat that procrastination, building habits to stay motivated, and then coming back to this practice when you've fallen off and the importance of that. Okay, so that's what we've got for you this episode. Let's dive in.

So, procrastination. Before we get to the roots of it, you know, I'd love for you just to reflect. Like, is this something that's present for you? Are you someone who struggles with procrastination? Another way to think about procrastination is avoidance. We're avoiding something that we're feeling something about because procrastination just feels like, "Ah, it's this thing that I am. I'm a procrastinator. I suck."

But actually, what we're doing is we're avoiding something that has some fear, some resistance, something difficult for us. Maybe it makes us feel overwhelmed. Maybe we're afraid that we're going to fail or look bad or just do a terrible job at it. So it has some kind of fear, some kind of uncertainty, some kind of difficult emotion in it. And so we avoid it.

I think that's actually a useful thing to think about. Rather than procrastination, which is just a judgmental word, avoidance can also be a judgmental word, but it's a human thing to avoid things that we're afraid of, right? We all do that. So maybe we can have a little bit of compassion as we think about this thing that we all do.

And so, if we talk about the roots of procrastination, what we're really looking at is: what are we avoiding? If the thing that we are procrastinating on is something that we want to avoid, then why? What is it that we're avoiding? And I've already kind of touched on it, but what we would say is that there is some kind of bad outcome that we're afraid of, that we think is dangerous, right? I'll give you a few examples so you can see what I'm talking about. So the roots of procrastination are the roots of our avoidance, okay?

One example is, let's say I have a big paper to write, right? I need to write a paper, and it's big, it makes a big impact on my grades. Let's say I'm in college, right? So I have this big paper to write, and I've been putting it off for weeks, but it makes a big impact on my grade. And, I don't know if I'm going to do a good job at it. If I knew I was going to do a really good job, then I'd be like, "Oh yeah, no problem. I'm going to just sit down and crank it out." But I'm not sure if I'm actually going to do a good job. So I'm going to feel some uncertainty about that, like, "Ooh, am I going to do a good job?"

That's one thing. I don't know how I'm going to do with it. I don't know maybe how to do it exactly. I don't have all the steps written out, and it's not really clear to me. Maybe I don't have the skills or the knowledge. There's some kind of uncertainty about how to do a good job with this.

That's one really important element—there has to be uncertainty. If this is something that we know how to do, like I'm just going to wash my coffee cup out, well, I know how to do that. I've done it thousands of times. So I can do that with a lot of confidence. Of course, there's still uncertainty there—maybe I'll crack the cup, but I'm not too worried about it because I've done it so many times before that I have a lot of trust in myself and a lot of confidence and certainty. This is an easy task that I know how to do. I'm pretty sure how it's gonna turn out—a clean cup that's wet. Okay, so there has to be uncertainty there. All the tasks that we avoid have some kind of uncertainty.

The second thing is that it has to have uncertainty, and one of the uncertain outcomes has to be something that really impacts our ego and our identity. I say ego without any judgment. We all have a way we view ourselves, that we want to be viewed as—to ourselves or others. We're worried that this is going to impact that.

So in the example of this paper, not only do I not know how the paper is going to turn out—am I going to do a good job or not?—I don't know how to do it, so there's uncertainty there, but failing at this paper is going to impact my identity in some way. Maybe others are going to see that I'm not good at this.

Maybe it's a subject that I want to be seen as good at. Let’s say it was English, right? I want to be seen as good at English for some reason. So I'm worried that this is going to turn out in a bad way, and that's going to impact how others see me with regards to this subject. Not only is there uncertainty, but I'm also going to have fear about how it's going to turn out.

That was one example, but we have countless examples. If I do this and it turns out badly, I’m worried people are going to see me as a bad parent, right? They might not think I’m smart, and I want people to think I’m smart. They might not think I’m competent, and I want them to think I’m competent. They might think I’m lazy, and I want them to think I’m a hard worker.

We have a way we want people to see us. And then, one of the uncertain outcomes will negatively impact that. And it's not just how others might see us—it's how we see ourselves. If I want to think of myself as smart or competent or a hard worker or strong and capable, not needing others, independent, self-sufficient. And if I somehow fail at that, then I might see myself in a bad way, and I don't want to. None of us want to see ourselves in a bad way.

So, this is the root of procrastination and avoidance. We are facing a task that has some uncertainty, probably a pretty decent degree, and it will impact our identity in some way. We will be seen as something bad.

I used the example of a paper, but actually sometimes it's just like responding to a message or an email. It might be a small thing like that, like responding to this email. It takes me two minutes, but I don't know how the other person is going to perceive my email response. In fact, they might see through the way that I'm trying to perform. They might see through the way I'm pretending to be and see that I'm actually not as smart, capable, hardworking, or strong as I'm trying to project.

It's not that we're all just pretending and we’re not smart or capable. It's that we are actually trying to prove something to others or to ourselves or both. I'm trying to prove my smartness, trying to prove how capable I am or knowledgeable or whatever. And by trying to prove these things, we risk failing at it and being shown to be otherwise, again to others or ourselves or both. That is the root of procrastination and avoidance. It's in every single thing that we do.

So understanding that is really the key to how to work with this. Because what people try to do is they try to just tackle the action. "You're not doing your work? Here's how you make yourself do your work." Well, that approach is basically coercion.

When someone's like, "I just need to get freaking focused and disciplined and get on top of things and follow this new system or technique or plan," they're really saying, "All I need to do is coerce myself into it. I need to shame myself, beat myself into it. I need to force myself. I need to be freaking disciplined every day. I'm going to wake up and shower in cold water and drink something really terrible tasting, do this really hard meditation and do this hard workout, and I’m going to be super disciplined. Then my whole life is going to be disciplined, and I’m not going to have any procrastination."

I'm being a little bit extreme and facetious with those examples, but actually, those are not that extreme for some people. That’s exactly the approach that people are taking. And the idea there is “If I can get really hard on myself and force myself to do everything, then I won’t procrastinate anymore.”

And, to some degree, that works. We can force ourselves to do a lot of stuff—until it doesn’t. We can't force ourselves to do everything all the time, forever. There’s only so much forcing that we can do, and eventually, we're just going to stop. You might already be in that place where you’ve stopped forcing yourself, and you're just tired of forcing yourself. We don't say it that way, but that's actually what we're feeling.

So we’re just like having a really hard week, month, or year because we can't force ourselves forever, right? Trust me, I’ve done a lot of forcing. I forced myself to run several marathons and a 50-mile ultra marathon. I'm not saying that to brag, but I know what forcing is like. It’s painful, it’s hard, it's exhausting, and eventually, you reach the limit of it.

When people run marathons or ultra marathons, they rarely reach the limit of what their body can do. They reach the limit of what their mind can force them to do—how much pain their mind is willing to force them to take. So, if you stop running in an ultra-marathon, it's not because your body can't do it, rarely. I mean, once in a while, we’re actually injured, but most of the time, your body could probably go twice as long as you’ve gone. But your mind can't force you to go through that much more pain. So there’s a limit.

So, if forcing ourselves is of limited use (again, I’m not saying it’s of no use; I think we could actually use that to some degree), then what are some other ways to tackle this? We're going to talk about some mindful techniques.

The first one is just to recognize, "Oh, I have some resistance. I'm avoiding right now." We don’t want to recognize we’re doing it. We try and tell ourselves a bunch of stories or rationalize things and say, "Oh, it’s totally fine. I can do it tomorrow." There's some truth to it, of course—every lie we tell ourselves has to have some truth so it can seem legitimate—but actually, it's a lie. We're lying to ourselves.

Yeah, of course, you can do it later. Of course, you can do it tomorrow. Of course, you're busy. Of course, all of these things. But what you're really doing is you're saying, "I'm not actually having resistance here. It’s just okay to do it later." But let's be really honest with ourselves. You are feeling some fear, some uncertainty, some resistance, and some avoidance. So be really honest with yourself.

This is not about beating yourself up. This is not about guilting yourself or shaming yourself or making yourself wrong for what you're doing or not doing. It's just about being honest. "I am feeling some fear here. I'm feeling some resistance. I'm avoiding." If you could just do that, you’re already ahead of the game.

When I talk about mindfulness, this is just bringing awareness to what's actually happening. If you can recognize that, now you can actually do something else. Recognize, "I have resistance. I have fear. I have avoidance right now. In this moment, I am actually avoiding something." Okay, great. Now you've done that, what else?

By the way, you can practice that all day long and start to notice, "Oh, there are four things I’m avoiding today. Look at my email inbox. It’s full of things I’m avoiding. My task list? Full of things I’m avoiding." I'm feeling fear and uncertainty about all of those things. You don’t even have to identify what the fear is. It's just recognizing that it’s there—it’s just fear.

Okay, so what can we do after that? First of all, we can pause for a moment. It’s like a little meditation where you just notice, "What does that fear, resistance, avoidance feel like in my body?" If you notice it, it’s a tightness, and sometimes a tenderness. If we just notice that, it’s a tightness and a tenderness. Tight, like your body clenches against the fear, like, "I don’t want to do it." And then there’s a tenderness underneath that, like, "Ooh, I’m not sure if I can actually do this or if I’m going to be seen as a good person or not."

We can just be present to that. If you can, just breathe and even give it a little bit of kindness or friendliness—again, you can imagine that this is like a little kid who’s scared and you just want to give them a warm, loving hug. That's all they need—just a warm, loving hug. We're doing that too with this feeling in our body.

So you can do that, just for a moment. Then next, once you’ve done that, just turn toward the task and try and see what the opportunity is here. What's the possibility of doing this email or this task that you really want? Why is this even on your list? What would be amazing about this? Because we look at the uncertainty, we look at the negative outcome of, "This is going to make me look like I’m weak, lazy, or stupid," and there’s truth to that. But that’s actually not as consequential as the possibility of what could happen.

I could actually not just prove myself strong, smart, capable, or whatever, but I could actually help someone here, and that's worth risking my identity. In fact, if I just embrace that sometimes I am lazy, sometimes I am stupid—I'm not always smart, right?—then I can embrace it. There’s actually multitudes in me. There's a wide range of possibilities in me.

Sometimes I am weak. I can be weak. Just admit, sometimes I am all of those things. And sometimes I’m strong and smart and capable and all of that. I'm all of that. And sometimes I might not be the way that I want to be, but that’s part of who I am. So we can just admit that, yeah, we contain all of that and be present to the possibility.

These are some mindfulness techniques that we can use to actually deal with avoidance and fears and uncertainties. But there can also be some techniques that help. So, these are the habits that I would encourage you to have.

The first habit that I have is, when I’m resisting something, I recognize it and then I make a commitment to someone else. I make a declaration. I make a commitment that I will finish this by a certain date—maybe by the end of today, maybe by the end of tomorrow, by the end of this week, or by the 15th, whatever it would be. I make a commitment to someone else, and then I hold myself accountable.

So I would highly recommend that you hold yourself accountable—make a commitment and hold yourself accountable. Even if you fail, just own up to it. If you do that, if you hold yourself accountable and make commitments, you will start to move through your resistance. It's not that you're not going to have resistance, but you'll move through it.

Another technique I use is focus sessions. So, actually getting on a Zoom call with someone for an hour, let’s say, with one or more people, and saying, "Here’s what I’m going to do this hour, and I’m going to focus on that for this hour." Maybe it’s one or two things. Then that person tells me what they’re going to do. We go on mute, we work for the rest of the hour, or half an hour if that’s all you have, or an hour and a half if you want to, or two hours. By the end of the session, we get back off mute, and we check out and say how it went.

So, this is a focus session. I have this in my Fearless Living Academy. We have focus sessions—practically more than one every day. If you want a built-in focus session, you can come and do this with us. I lead one every Thursday that you can join me in, but there are other people who lead other ones, and I sometimes join those as well. So, focus sessions would be another habit or technique you can use.

I also do daily accountability. I’ll make a short list of what I want to do each day, and at the end of the day, I tell my team or my coach or someone who I’ve committed to how that went. That would be another thing that really helps.

The final thing that I do is, if I’m really resisting something, if I have this big resistance, I cut the thing into really small chunks. Maybe just five or ten minutes of it. I say, "All I have to do is five minutes, and then I can take a break and reward myself with whatever it is I wanted to do—a YouTube video or whatever." So I do five minutes, I do the YouTube video, and that makes the next five minutes easier to start on because I’ve just done five minutes.

Through this, I make the resistance go down, and it becomes easier and easier to do it. So I do five minutes, maybe I do five or ten minutes the next time, maybe I do ten or fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, and all of a sudden, I’m moving through my resistance.

Okay, the last thing I want to share is about coming back when you’ve fallen off. If you're someone who is usually really good at this—you're really moving through all of your resistance and being productive—and then you fall off and have a really bad week, let’s say you just have a really bad week, which, you know, I did last week, actually. Last week was unproductive. I had a lot of resistance, for whatever reason. Maybe there’s a lot going on in my life.

When that happens, you recognize it, and then you can start again. All you want to do is just start with a blank slate. Forget about last week. Maybe there’s stuff about last week that you need to process, or maybe there’s some learning from that. Great. But then start fresh, with a day-one kind of mindset. So it’s just like, "I’m starting today."

And from this, what you want to do is just say, "Okay, what would I like to do this week? If this week could be amazing, what do I want to do today to make a good start towards that?" Really get off to a good start. And, again, use the five-minute technique, which is, "I’m going to do five minutes, take a break, five minutes, take a break." Eventually, you're moving through your day really well.

Another thing that helps with that is to talk to other people about it. Just let them know, "Ah, last week was hard for me. I was facing a lot of resistance, doing a lot of avoiding, and this week I’m really going to try and start again." Let yourself have that almost New Year’s resolution energy, like, "I’m starting again, and I’m feeling excited about it."

If you can let yourself have that, it becomes easier and easier to get started. That's a skill you can practice—just keep coming back when you've fallen off. It’s not that you should have kept going; it’s that, "Oh, I get to practice coming back."

Okay, that's what I've got for you today. I hope that was helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know at podcast@zenhabits.net, if you're listening to the audio version of this, or put them in the comments on YouTube if you're watching the video version of this.

Great being here with all of you. I will talk to you later.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Zen Habits podcast. In this season, as you know, we're talking about the Zen of productivity. Productivity is about creating an impact and really being able to focus and bring our full selves to anything that we're taking on. But what gets in the way is distractions—resistance, fear, and uncertainty. In this episode, we're going to deal specifically with one of those obstacles, which is distractions.

I'm sure you're familiar with this obstacle. This is something that I think is universal. It falls into the realm of social media, it falls into the realm of notifications from messages, getting lost down a rabbit hole of Wikipedia or YouTube. Distractions are abundant, and they're everywhere.

We have distraction machines in our hands, in our pockets, and where we work. We work in a full field of distractions. So, how do we actually deal with that so we can create what we want to create and have the impact in the world that we want to have?

We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about some common distractions, we're going to talk about some mindful techniques to minimize those distractions, and then something I think is really important: creating a focused work environment. So, let's go over all of these.

First of all, common distractions. We're not going to go too deep into this because I think you're probably aware of the most common ones. The most common would be our phones, specifically all kinds of social media. By social media, we can talk about anything where there's a feed, where there are updates that are constantly coming in.

Messages would be a kind of social media—WhatsApp, Telegram, text messages, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat. But also things like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix—these might not always be thought of as social media, but they definitely are. Reddit is another really big one.

So these are some common ones. We can lump them into social media, but they're not the only distractions. News—we might think of news as a good thing, but it can be a distraction. Your favorite website that has a blog, you know, Zen Habits can be a distraction. You might have a tech website you like to go to—Hacker News, the New York Times, or whatever your favorite sources of news or information are.

These might not be bad things necessarily, but they can be distractions. Even email could be a distraction. We might think of email as productive, but if what we want to do is focus on, let's say, writing something, and we're doing email, then email becomes a distraction.

What you might notice is that the things themselves aren't bad. YouTube is definitely not a bad thing. Podcasts, blogs—these are all things that I create, so I don't think any of them are necessarily bad. But it's the fact that we use them to get away from the thing that we want to be focusing on.

So really, anything could be a distraction. I could use food as a distraction. Exercise could be a distraction. Learning can be a distraction. Conversations with real people in real life can be a distraction if we're using them to get away, to escape, to distract ourselves from the main thing.

The main thing is: What did you decide you want to do today, this week, this year? What's going to have the impact that you care about? If you haven't identified that yet, then everything is a distraction because you're distracting yourself from figuring out the main thing.

The main thing is: What do I actually want to focus on? What's the big thing? It may not be just one thing—it could be several. But today, I want to do this one thing, or these two or three things, that are going to move me forward in this project that has the impact I want to have, or in these several projects that have that impact.

Maybe you have several things that are your big thing, but if you've chosen to do this one right now or today and you're distracting yourself by doing a bunch of busy work—taxes, budget, email, chores, cleaning your kitchen—then that can be a distraction if you're using it to move you away from what's most important.

So when we talk about common distractions, obviously phones and social media, and things on our computers, notifications—these are all common distractions. But actually, there are so many more that we don't think of as distractions, but they are because they're moving us away. Productive things—getting organized, decluttering our lives—these are amazing things. In and of themselves, they're not bad. Conversations with someone we care about—great. But I'm distracting myself with this conversation if I've chosen to do something else.

Now, maybe I decide mindfully that this is the most important thing—taking care of this person who's in a crisis is the most important thing right now. And so I consciously decide this is the most important thing, and I'm not using it as a distraction. That can be the case. But if you find yourself constantly procrastinating on a certain task or project, constantly going over here to take care of this emergency, then you're actually letting yourself off the hook, most likely.

It's hard to see that. If you have questions about this, feel free to email me at podcast@zenhabits.net or put a comment below the YouTube version of this podcast. Let me know what you think might be a distraction. Do you have a question about it? Do you need help? Getting a coach who can be outside of you to help you see it can also be helpful.

Okay, so how do we minimize these distractions and how do we create a work environment? What are some mindful techniques?

Actually, let's reverse this. Let's talk about a focused work environment. I think that an environment conducive to focus, that reduces distractions, is really important because our minds will just kind of... If you shot off some fireworks in this room, I’m going to pay attention to that, right? Our minds will go to distractions.

Social media, other apps, websites, and tech things are really good at distracting the mind and calling our attention, saying, "Hey, you want to be moving into this." They’ve perfected the art of it. So all of these things are calling for attention. If you have a thousand things calling for your attention in the environment you're in, you will pay attention to them.

If our work environment is filled with distractions, we're fighting a losing battle. It's like saying, "Oh, I'm trying to stick to a diet, but all of my favorite, most tempting foods are surrounding me. I'm just going to be really tough about it." You can do that for a little while. You have a limited ability to withstand those kinds of urges, but eventually, you'll cave in.

So why make it that hard on yourself? Why not get rid of those tempting foods? Put them outside of the house so they're not constantly making you drain your willpower, constantly making you resist, until finally, you give in. You can see that example with food. It's the same thing with distractions. If they're all around you, constantly calling at you, you can resist them for a little while, but you won’t be able to do it for very long.

So how do we create that focused work environment? Well, if you have a phone nearby, turn it off or put it on airplane mode and put it in a drawer or turn it upside down so it’s face down. Make sure there are no notifications, sounds, or buzzes—turn off any notifications.

On my phone, I like to turn off pretty much all notifications, other than the phone if I'm waiting for a call. But otherwise, message notifications—I will have them on, but there’s no sound, no buzzing, no vibration. I don’t like those kinds of things because if I'm talking with someone or trying to work and the phone is buzzing or dinging, I can't focus. So I like to silence the notifications. I like to put it on airplane mode, and/or put it into a drawer and not look at it.

On my computer, if I’m working, I also turn off notifications. You won’t see things popping up while I'm doing this podcast, writing, or doing anything. I turn off all notifications. If I want to check my messages, I’ll do it after I’m done with this task. If I want to check my email, I’ll do it after.

So, notifications—minimize them, silence them, block them, go into airplane mode, whatever you need to do to turn that off. I actually don’t think notifications are useful in most cases.

Okay, so notifications and the phone. If you want to not have distractions on your phone and use it productively, let’s say you want to read or you have books on there, or long-form articles saved on an app, airplane mode really works well. Also, not having apps that are going to call to you—messaging apps, sure, but what about deleting all the social media apps? I actually think you could delete all social media apps.

If there are certain websites you go to—let’s say you deleted Reddit, but you still go to the Reddit website—you can block those sites. In both Android and iOS, they have settings to block websites. You’ll have to Google it, but you can block websites if they’re calling to you a lot. If you’re like, "Ah, I deleted Facebook, but I’m constantly going to Facebook," or, "I deleted something, but I’m constantly going to the website," block the website so that even if you try to enter it into the browser, it stops it. Of course, you can always undo all of these things, but taking them out—it’s like creating a moat.

Okay, so that’s the phone. On the computer, same thing. You can create site blockers so that you don’t go to those websites, and you can say, "I’m going to have site blockers until 6 p.m." That’s when I can actually go and look—from 6 to 7, I’m going to go look at all those sites. But I’m not going to do it before 6 or after 7.

You can set up some times that work for you so that you can get a taste of those distractions, but they’re at times you’ve decided on intentionally. I actually think that can be really helpful, especially if you're going to certain sites a lot.

I also think having certain times for different things, like I mentioned—6 to 7 p.m., as an example, could be the time when you go and read all your news websites and social media. But you can do that for messaging, too. You might have certain times when you go and do your messaging, or if your work app is Slack or Microsoft Teams, or whatever it is—Asana, Jira—you might have certain times during the day when you go and check the messages and go through it all.

I actually like to go through my work app messages twice a day. That means I’m checking, but I’m not checking constantly. My team knows I’m not always on there. I do my email several times a day, but not all day long. I do my messages several times a day, but not all day long. I make sure that I am checking them at least once a day, if not several, but not all day long. I block off times when I’m going to be doing those things.

Then for the rest of the time, I block off time using full-screen mode. If I want to write, I’m in full-screen mode with my writing. If I want to take notes or brainstorm, it’s full-screen mode. If I’m going to record something, I close everything else out, clear out my desktop, and I’m just here recording—that’s all there is.

So that’s creating a focused work environment. I highly recommend full-screen mode for writing or any other kind of creating.

Let’s talk about some mindful techniques. Once we’ve created this full-screen mode, the first thing is to have some kind of intention. What am I actually going to focus on? If you don’t know the intention, you don’t know if there’s a distraction.

If you’re doing email, is that a distraction, or is that productive? Who knows, unless you have an intention? If you say, "Right now is my 30 minutes of email," you set a timer, and you have an intention—this is what I’m going to be doing—then you know that this is not a distraction, and going to check your social media is a distraction. If, instead, you said, "Right now is my time for writing, and for the next 30 minutes, I’m going to be writing," and then you go check your email, then you know email is a distraction. So, have an intention.

The second thing is to have a commitment. "I’m going to do this for 30 minutes. I’m blocking off a chunk of time, and I’m going to do this for the next 30 minutes." That’s a commitment. So there’s an intention, and then there’s a commitment. If you can stay accountable to that commitment, that’s also a really good thing. Mindful techniques start with intention and commitment.

The next thing is noticing—the mindful technique of noticing. Am I focused on this thing, or am I off doing something else? If I’m off doing something else, I just notice, like, "Ooh, I’m off doing that thing," and then I simply come back. I might breathe. I might notice I’m feeling some overwhelm or some anxiety with this particular task, feeling some fear. So I can breathe and be with the thing that’s coming up that makes me want to get away from this thing and distract myself.

Because distraction is simply an inability to be with the emotions that come up for you when you face this task, this thing you want to do. You want to have this difficult conversation, but then, "Ah, right now I need to go put out this fire," because you're dreading or fearing this difficult conversation.

Something comes up and you're like, "Ooh, I need to get away from that." We don’t realize this "Oof" part. What if we could realize, "Ooh, I’m trying to get away from this thing. What’s showing up here for me emotionally, in my body?" It's like, "Ooh, some anxiety." So, we can breathe and be with that anxiety, bring some compassion to it, like, "Ooh, you’re okay. You’ve got this." Then, turn toward the thing for at least a few seconds—maybe 10 seconds, 20 seconds. Can you write one paragraph? Can you do it for a minute? Can you do it for two minutes, then let yourself distract, and then come back?

That’s a mindful technique for dealing with distractions. With practice, we can notice more often and be with our anxiety more often, but it takes a lot of practice. I encourage you to set intentions, commit yourself, and then commit to practicing with the urges, the anxiety that comes up that makes you move away, notice when you do so, and then come back and practice being with the anxiety that’s stopping you.

Create a focused work environment. Shut down all of the notifications, turn on site blockers if you need them, and go full-screen mode. Then really be fully in with the thing that you've chosen to be fully in with.

That's what I've got for you. I hope this helps. I will talk to you later, my friends. Bye-bye.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Okay, so today I have a beautiful, special episode for you with a guest expert, Mike Vardy. Mike is someone who I met well over a decade ago — probably 15 years ago — in the productivity sphere. He’s a productivity expert, he’s an author, and he’s a coach. He has 15 years of experience in the field of time management and productivity.

He has a great blog and a podcast. The podcast is called A Productive Conversation with Mike Vardy. Highly recommend it. I'm actually on there, so you can go and check that one out. But he's interviewed all kinds of experts, and he himself has written about productivity from many different angles.

He does a thing called time crafting. He has a book called The Productivity Diet. And one of the things I love about Mike is that he isn’t just about how to get really efficient and churn out more and more, and work the most optimal way, but instead about doing what matters most.

And so, I love his approach, I resonate a lot with it, and I’m really excited to dive in here with Mike.

***

Leo

Okay, well, welcome Mike. Great to have you on the podcast.

Mike

Leo, thanks for having me. It's been a long time coming, I think, for both of us to have another conversation.

Leo

Yeah, you know, for people who are tuning in, we just had another conversation right before this, before I pressed record for your podcast. And it was basically just like a refresher 13 years after our initial podcast conversation.

Mike

Yeah.

Leo

Is that right?

Mike

Yeah. And it was right after a conference that we went to—the first ever World Domination Summit. You and I had known each other for, you know, a couple of years, I think, prior to that, and it was just the first time we had a chance to actually meet. And then we just picked up.

It is really interesting to listen to older conversations from when I did before I do, you know, my current podcast, A Productive Conversation, but that was back when I had a podcast called ProductivArty, which was kind of my play on productivity. I've had a history of doing that—playing with that word. And now I have a whole new way to play with that word that I’m sure we're going to get into.

But yeah, it was interesting just to hear our thoughts from well over a decade ago, to see what’s changed and really what hasn’t. So, thanks for popping on and doing that. And if people want to hear that part of the conversation, they can check out my podcast A Productive Conversation.

Leo

Yeah, we'll link to that. And I just want to thank you for, first of all, hosting me 13 years ago, but also just continuing this conversation. In our conversation, you talked about how consistent I’ve been, but you’ve actually been incredibly consistent, you know, in this conversation about productivity and, really, what's underneath it at a deeper level.

So, I just appreciate your consistency, and I'd love to dig into what’s changed for you over the years.

Mike

Well, you know, first off, thanks for that, I appreciate it. It is interesting when, as life progresses, your attitudes change about these kinds of topics. I mean, when I started, I had a five-year-old daughter and my son was basically a newborn. And now, as we’re recording this, my daughter’s off to Montreal for university and my son starts high school tomorrow.

So, I’ve gone through that season of being essentially the stay-at-home dad while running a business. I mean, again, my wife is incredibly involved, obviously, but they would see me all the time, right?

So, I’m about to embark on a whole new adventure of “Oh, wow. Now the nest is half-empty at this point.” And, I’m waiting for my son to be the guy that says, “Hey, I want to go to Vancouver this weekend.” I’ll say, “Great, let’s go to Vancouver this weekend.” And then he’ll say, “Oh no, with my friend’s dad.” And then all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh, okay.”

But what I think I’ve noticed over the years, for me specifically, is—and you alluded to this during our conversation as well—is the strength that I have and the resolve I have in a lot of the things that I’ve talked about over the years, just has gotten more galvanized over the years.

Like the example of, I remember having someone say, when I talk about theming your days, “Oh, that seems too rigid.” I’m like, the thing is, productivity has always been very personal, and the rigidity is only as much as you want to give it, right? You know, by putting constraints in place—again, this is something I learned from Steven Pressfield, when he talked about using the foolscap method for his book—if you can contain an entire story on a foolscap, that’s what you should do. If it goes beyond that, you need to condense it.

So, by creating and having those constraints, what I realized is that those constraints actually help me. So, if I have a themed period of time, whether it’s a day or a period of time during the day, that gives me a forced function of, “This is what I should be doing at this time of day,” as opposed to, “I’ll just do whatever”, right?

So, we do need those kinds of constraints. And to befriend them rather than fight them, I think, has been a huge part of what I’ve been teaching, but also something I’ve needed to embrace more fully. Because, you know, we have the comparison stuff that shows up—like, “Well, this doesn’t work for this person,” or someone saying, “This will outright not work.” We’re all human, so I would take that as a bit of an affront, a personal attack. But over the years, I’ve become more hardened to that—probably not the best word—but I’ve become more confident in what I teach and the work that I do.

And it’s managed to stand the test of time, which is what gives me that resolve, that ability to say, “Hey look, people have been theming their days, time crafting, doing all that stuff over the years, and whether it’s focusing on the app within or your approach, then taking it to an app, that’s far more beneficial than just going into an app and figuring it’s going to solve the problem for you.”

So, I think that journey has been important. Plus, understanding that every part of the journey has its own season, and the journey is really what we’re all about here. There’s no endgame. I mean, there’s nothing more frustrating to me than when people are working towards—and you’ve talked about the whole “no goals” idea—when people get to the end and they’re like, “Well, now what? Now what?” Well, the journey is the now what!

Leo

Absolutely.

Mike

Right? So, to me, that’s been another thing I’ve leaned into a bit more over the years. And then there’s the whole idea of what productivity actually means, but I’m sure we’ll get into that.

Leo

Well, actually, let’s get into that. We had a conversation 13 years ago, and it wasn’t the start of your productivity journey, but I’m wondering, has your idea of what productivity means changed from 13 or 15 years ago, or beyond?

Mike

Yeah, it has. I don’t like the term “productivity” anymore. I think it’s broken. I think that we've—and I wrote an essay for Joshua Becker’s Simplify magazine about this, maybe two years ago, called “The Path to Productiveness.” And, I believe we should be trying to get back, now that we have enough technology and things that are actually able to do things for us, that they should do. Frankly, AI could be a huge benefit in a lot of areas. But it should allow us to do things that only we can do.

I want to get back to—not the activity of producing—but the state of being productive. So I want more of a state element. And I prefer the term “productiveness” over “productivity,” which is actually the precursor of the word.

Leo

Wait, say the term again?

Mike

Productiveness.

Leo

Productiveness. Okay.

Mike

So, “Ness” is a state. “Itty” is an activity. So, the suffix at the end—like, productivity—is the ability to produce, especially in abundance, is what the dictionary phrase is. So, we’ve kind of said, "Hey, productivity is about making a lot of stuff." That’s really essential, like just cranking—again, back to cranking widgets—right? Like, get stuff out there. Whereas productiveness is more the state of being productive. So, it’s more balanced between quality and quantity. Whereas I believe that productivity has shifted largely towards the imbalance, where it’s more about how much you do, make, are, than the quality of that.

And I’m not suggesting that we forsake quantity. I mean, there’s a great story in, I think it's called "The Practicing Mind" by Thomas Sterner, where he talks about the Yamaha piano factory and then the Japanese piano maker. The Yamaha factory has to crank out so many, and the supervisor has a quota and all that stuff. Then the author goes to interview the Japanese piano maker, the artisanal maker, and he says "When do you finish your work for the day?" He goes, "Well, when I decide I’m done." And he goes, "Well, how many pianos do you make a day?" He goes, "Well, whatever I manage to get done during that time." And then the author says, "Well, what does your supervisor have to say about that?" And the artisanal maker goes, "What’s a supervisor?"

There’s no—and again, there’s no right or wrong way here. And that’s another big distinction: there are some elements where you have to crank up the speed, right? There are certain elements, but AI is definitely helping with that. But I think that we’ve gotten away from quality. We’ve gotten away from that. And that, to me, is why productiveness is the way forward, as opposed to productivity, because it’s a state, as opposed to the activity of.

Leo

Okay. I love that. So, let’s dig into that a little bit. Tell me more about this state. For you, what is the state like?

Mike

It’s very much like a flow state. But what I appreciate about it is it’s more of a contextual flow or a modality flow than an activity flow. So, for example, I talk about this in "The Productivity Diet"—the idea of, which is the book that, you know, has been taken a while to get out there because I have a lot of things to say, and drawing a line in the sand was really tricky with this one.

But the idea behind it is that if I, let’s say, theme a day, right? So today, as we’re recording this, is my administrative day. So, my overarching focus goes toward all of those administrative tasks across the spectrum of my life—work, home, all that stuff. Which means my brain goes automatically not to "What day is it today? What am I going to do today?" which is a very open-ended question, and our brain hates open-ended questions. The primitive part of the brain goes, "Well, I don’t know, what should I do? I could do whatever I want."

But by having the answer to "What does Monday mean? What’s the definition of it?" I can say, "Well, what day is it?" "It’s Monday." "What’s the theme for today?" "The theme is administrative tasks." "Okay, what administrative tasks am I going to work on?" It narrows down my focus. It narrows down the tasks. So, in essence, I’m in this state of flow, with this theme in mind, as opposed to getting into a state of flow with a project in mind.

You’ve written books—you know what that’s like. It can become very myopic, and then it almost becomes like this ruthless level of productivity. I talk about the three realms of productiveness. There’s ruthless, there’s reckless, and there’s reasoned. If you get so myopic on something that everything else gets ignored, then those things start to fall apart, right? Personal stuff falls apart. Other projects start to fall apart. Not many of us have the luxury of saying, "I’m going to focus on this one thing, and that’s it. This one project, and I’m done." Right?

Then there’s this idea of reckless productivity, which is more based on how the list is sequenced. You’re just going through the list like this, or how you feel. It’s very emotional: "Oh, I should do this. I should do that. Oh, that’s the loudest." And then all of a sudden, the same thing happens, but you’re scattered, you’re overwhelmed in the moment. Whereas with ruthless, you’re overwhelmed only when you come out of it. You’re like, "Oh no, I have all these other things. What did I do? I shouldn’t have done this."

Reasoned is kind of a balance. "Hey, if I have this theme..."—and the theme could be "I'm going to focus on this project, this is what I do this day, my overarching focus for this day is this project", and you can lean into that." Or maybe it’s a time of day. If you’re a night owl like me, if I'm writing a book, later in the day is probably my best time.

So, it’s really about just cultivating this state of making the paths that I follow very simple. So I can go, "Oh, I’m a night owl, so therefore I’m not going to do any heavy-lifting stuff early in the day. It’s administrative tasks on Monday, but it’s still 9 a.m., so I’m going to do some low-energy administrative tasks."

And all my tasks have this easy categorization, whether it’s in an app—using tags or labels—or on a paper bullet journal, where I put an up arrow next to high-energy and a down arrow next to something that’ll take five minutes or less. I put a five around it with a circle. I can quickly recognize those things, so that my primitive part of my brain, the oldest part, goes, "I don’t want to do this." "Well, it’ll only take five minutes." "Well, how do you know?" "Well, see this five? This five says five minutes. So you only have to"—"Okay, fine."

It’s this constant battle between the higher reasoning part of our brain and the part that just wants to do any of those Fs that we’ve talked about, you know—food, fight, flight, all of those things. You’re in this constant tête-à-tête with these two parts of your brain. And, what time crafting does, and what the pursuit of productiveness does, and really the path of productiveness, is kind of like guide you.

You can go off and do side quests if you want, but ultimately you still have this thing that you can rely on that says, "Okay, well I’m tired. What can I do when I’m tired?" "Oh, Mike from months ago said these are all the things I can do when I’m tired. Let’s go down that path." That’s essentially it.

By the way, Leo, that’s how we operate anyway. Like, it really is. We often like… So all I’m doing is giving it a framework, and then people can follow that framework. And again, you can theme seven days of the week, you can theme one day of the week, you could use all five attention paths that I talk about. You could use one of them. It’s very much a modular system. That’s why it’s called time crafting.

So, for me, what I’ve noticed—and I guess this is probably the biggest thing—is, you know, you learn over the years that to say to somebody, "You should never check email first thing in the morning" is a classic. It’s an absolute. And there’s no such thing as absolutes. So for me to say, "Hey, you should never check email first thing in the morning," and then there’s this customer service rep that goes, "That’s the main part of my job." So already you’ve lost me.

Or when someone says, "I work from home all the time, and I just block out my calendar with a no-meeting day," you’ve got this one person saying, "There’s no way that my boss is going to go for that." So, you know, there is this nuance. And I think that’s ultimately what productiveness offers—the ability to add nuance to the equation. Because that’s the world, the world is nuanced.

So, when we try to make it black, white, left, right, we have these polarities that are pulling. You end up not getting a lot of the right things done. You end up checking off boxes. Maybe someday you check off a lot, maybe other days you don’t check off that many, but then at the end of it, you’re asking yourself, "Well, why did I check off these boxes in the first place? Did I check off the right boxes?"

And I think with the way that I’ve crafted this framework, it’s allowed people to say, "Well, I didn’t check off 30 things today, but I checked off 18, and nine of them were really, really important. So I’m glad I did that." And thanks to this guidance, I was able to do that.

Leo

Okay, let’s… so many questions. Let’s see. Let’s talk about that. So, it sounds like besides just the state of productiveness, there’s also a kind of awareness of like, "This is actually what I want to be focusing on. This is what I want to be using that state for." And so, let’s talk about that. How do we, in the system that you’re teaching, know that we’re focusing on the right things? Like, "This is the stuff that I actually want to be productive with"?

Mike

Typically… I mean, the hardest part initially is the idea of capture, right? Which is something we all learned from David Allen, the Getting Things Done days, right? Like, "Get it out of your head and in front of you in some place that you trust." And I think that’s where this all really starts, the trust aspect.

We don’t talk about that enough. We talk about next actions, we talk about, you know, if you’re in the Getting Things Done parlance, the horizons of focus. But ultimately it’s about trust. And if you’re not cultivating a capture habit, then what happens is there will be this sliver of doubt. This sliver. And you can’t give yourself a break on that front until you’ve actually established trust.

It’s kind of like when you meet somebody for the first time, you go on that first date, there’s no trust, right? Like, you’re kind of taking a chance, but then over time, trust gets established. I mean, you’ve been married a while, I’ve been married a while. Now, trust is there, right? When you break it, that’s a whole other thing. And you can break trust with the frameworks that you’ve got as well, but you wouldn’t take your foot off the gas, necessarily, in the early stages of building trust, because you want to make sure that it’s there.

So, I think the biggest thing is capturing things in a way that makes sense to you is the best way, initially. So, when I say "makes sense to you," you need to… "Okay, I’m going to have a notebook with me wherever I go. I’m going to use reminders on my phone. I’m going to use Todoist." Whatever that looks like. I obviously will provide guidance on that when I work with clients, but there are lots of people out there who tell you how to capture things.

The biggest thing is you get a lot of clues that way, too. So first off, when you capture something, you want to activate whatever you capture. And activating it is basically by putting a verb in front of it. And Leo, I mean, how many people don’t put verbs on their to-do list to start things off? Like, this is fundamental stuff. It’s like, if they just put "bill"—well, do they pay the bill? Do they call about the bill? What’s the… Or just a phone number, a random number, right? So if you put, "buy milk," guess what? You know you’ve got to buy milk.

You want to give your brain as many breaks as possible. And interestingly, when we start there, you can start to see some of the patterns. Like, "I do a lot of buying of things." Well, maybe I need to have a thing called "errands" that I want to have as an attention path. That’s an activity type. So today, on Saturday, when I have lots of time, I will go and look at the "errands" attention path and go, "Oh, well, here are all the things I need to buy." And then you can add other layers to it. Like, "Well, this is not a good day to buy it, but you have your default day," as opposed to, "Well, I’ll just get to it when I get to it."

Other things you can look at—and this is where I normally start with people is: Are you more of a calendar-driven person, or are you more of a to-do list-driven person? And it’s a pretty simple, basic quiz where it’s like, if you put all your stuff in your calendar, including tasks, chances are you’re a calendar-driven person.

So, that’s where I’ll start with theming, like, "Hey, well, we look at your days of the week and notice that, oh, Monday you have a lot of meetings. Okay, so you’re going to be able to get any deep work done that day? Probably not. Okay, so Monday should be your administrative day, like it is for me, where you focus on these little things that you know you need to get done in between meetings, so that way you’re directing your attention to where it needs to go."

For me, Wednesday is a podcast day. The reason I came up with that is because, number one, there are no holidays on Wednesdays, right? I work from home, my wife occasionally works from home, but on Wednesday, she’s not home. So I looked at all the days of the week and said, "Wednesday is the day that I do my podcast." And then I geared everything over time so guests can only book on Wednesdays, I do all my production work on Wednesdays.

So, you’re basically creating this neural pathway. And, essentially, if you’re a to-do list person, you’re going to have very little on your calendar or only appointments on your calendar, and then your to-do list will tell you what to do. This is where: "Are you more of an early riser?" "Yes, I am." "Okay, great." So, which tasks are your high-energy or high-intensity tasks? Maybe put an up arrow next to those on your to-do list. Or, "Oh, you’re using something like ClickUp? Great. Create a tag called 'high-intensity' or use flags, right? Like, the red flag means high intensity, and the orange flag means—again, this is where personal preference comes into play.

But then you can look at your list and go, "Oh, these are the things I need to do before noon, and these are the things I need to do after noon." And once you get one of those things going, all the dominoes start to fall. Because people will realize, "Oh wow, I’m at my best early in the day, and my list tells me when to do this stuff," or "My calendar tells me, 'Hey, this is when I should be focusing on this stuff.'"

And then we start adding other elements like, "Okay, well, you’re in between meetings and you’ve got 30 minutes. What do you do?" "I check my email." "No, no you don’t, because email is going to send you down a hole. Is that where you want your attention to go?" "No, I don’t." "Okay, well, where do you want your attention to go? What’s your daily theme?" "Oh, it’s administrative." "Great. Let’s look at your administrative tasks then." And that should be your default, not email. That kind of thing.

Leo

So, you’ve talked about capture, and you’ve talked about theming, and I’m trying to see if there’s anything in between there where you say, "This is the direction I want to be on this year, this month, this week."

Mike

So basically, when we’re talking about time crafting, there are three critical elements to it: time theming, attention paths, and reflective practice, which is what we haven’t gotten to yet. Reflective practice is probably—again, it goes hand in hand with the capture habit—but it’s the stuff you do after the fact, right? It’s often like the after-action reports that our friend Charlie Gilkey talks about from the military. They do things like that, like, "After you’re done, this is what we talk about."

Journaling is one of the most undervalued and underused elements of cultivating a great relationship with time and managing that relationship. Not only that, but cultivating productiveness. Because, at the end of it—the day, the week, the month—whenever you’re going to do this, and you could do all three: journal at the end of the day, have a weekly journal, have a monthly journal. And it says, "Did I do the things I set out to do?"

By the way, theming can help with this because if you’ve got a daily theme for Monday, at the end of the day, you ask yourself, "Did I do most of my tasks associated with the daily theme?" "Yes, I did." "Great." "No, I didn’t." "Why?" Right? So this introspection, this reflective practice, is something I highly recommend. And when you build a capture habit, of course, you’re already capturing things, so it’s a lot easier to go into that once you’ve started to build a capture habit.

But to me, reflection comes before and after every action. You reflect before you do something, it might be a very minor reflection, and then after it. Sometimes it’s like, "I did a great thing," or, "Oh my God, I wish I didn’t do that." Right? But the thing in between is the devotion of time to it. So the devotion of time to the action is critical.

Because if you know that you need a lot of time to work on something big—like a big goal, or you want to work on a book, or you've got this course that you're building, or you just want to plan an amazing family vacation—the amount of time you devote to that will ultimately, depending on your level of concentration, will make the outcome, the quality of that experience, better. So the reflective practice is you being honest with yourself and saying, "Am I doing the right things at the right time?"

I do an annual planning thing where we talk about, and again, speaking of theming, we have what’s called the annual axiom, which is kind of like your slogan for the year or your mantra. Mine is "Reason my path, refine my pursuits, and respond with purpose."

So, when I’m putting projects, goals, etc., through that lens, I’m like, "Okay, is this the right thing to do? Is this reasoned? Am I applying reason to this? Yes. Okay, great. So this does make sense." "Am I going to refine my pursuits? Is anything going to have to be removed or downplayed to do this?" "Yes, okay, permanently or just for this month?" "Well, the monthly theme this month is to focus on promoting your book." "Okay, so everything else gets downplayed. That’s fine, as long as I know that."

And then "Respond with purpose." Well, if I’ve decided that the book promotion in September is key, or October, and I’ve minimized everything else so I can focus on that, then responding with purpose is naturally like, "Yes, Leo, I will gladly appear on your show," or, "Yes, I’ll..." So, it makes it easier to say those things, and then you can, again, craft your time accordingly.

When I work with people, we start with the basics: daily theming, the five types of attention paths, but then over time, it's like "Okay, do you want to think bigger? Let’s talk about your annual axiom, let’s talk about monthly themes." Most people when they come to talk about this stuff or they're interested in this stuff, they are coming from a place of, "I need results quickly, I need to get this done fast, I need this to get done," you know, what have you. So, their problem is just getting through today.

Then, eventually, it's like "Okay, let's talk bigger." By the way, people can approach time crafting from the other element too, where they're like "You know what? I really have these massive goals that I want to accomplish," or, "I really want to make sure that my year ahead..." Because, as we're recording this Leo, my year just started. I start my year in September. At least for now, while the kids are still in school. We'll see, maybe they'll go to my birthday.

But the bottom line is, you can actually start with, like, "I want the bigger annual axiom stuff. Then I'll choose my monthly themes based on that. And then I'll choose my daily themes based on that." So, there’s kind of a top-down or bottom-up approach that you can take to any of this.

But a lot of it is just fundamental, simple stuff, right? Like, capture, use verbs. You don’t have to have a fancy app. Just, "Oh well, I’m a night owl, great. So, what can I do after 4 p.m.?" "Oh, these are the things." It’s about removing friction from your choices. Once you do that, everything else, as long as you trust the system and trust what you’ve been doing, it makes it a whole lot, I wouldn’t say easier, but it's simpler. Because, simple and easy, as you know, are not the same thing.

Leo

I still have so many things I’m curious about. I don't think we have enough time to cover all of it. Your annual, you said annual axiom, right? And you shared the one you're on this year. How do you come up with that?

Mike

Typically, I think about… I used to use alliteration. So, I actually used to use Chris Brogan’s three words for this, so I’d choose words like “focus...” And then eventually, as I embraced meditation more—especially TM, transcendental meditation—I wanted something that was more like a mantra, right? And three words can be a mantra, but I wanted something that had more power to it.

The one I had before this one was “Whatever it takes, no matter what.” It came for me just watching The Avengers movies, and they’re saying, “Whatever it takes, no matter what. We have to solve this problem.” And I thought, “Okay, let me write this down.” So, I will often... we talked about this in the flashback episode—the idea of comedians. Because I came from a comedy background and did stand-up and improv. I have a hard time not paying attention to things that I can then bring into my own field to discuss, metaphorically.

And I think that comes from me just like—comedy is making the extraordinary ordinary, and the ordinary extraordinary—so when I’m watching a film, or TV show, or reading a book, I will go, “How does this apply to managing one’s relationship with time?” or “How does this apply to productiveness?” And that’s kind of what happened with “Whatever it takes, no matter what.” Now, the one I chose last year, and it’s also the one I’ve chosen for this year, so I've kept it two years in a row, I actually asked AI to help me with it this time.

Leo

Oh, cool!

Mike

So, I'm like, "These are the things that I really want to make sure that I don't overcommit." Because, again, when I talk about overwhelm, there's overcommitment, there's overchoice, and there's overload. And, any combination of those can lead to overwhelm, and your overwhelm heightens based on, you know, are you overloaded and overcommitted? Well, guess what? You're going to be overwhelmed. If you're overloaded. You may not be as overwhelmed, but it's a warning signal.

So, I want to make sure I stay out of that. But I also want to make sure I make wise choices. And, to me, reason is the balance between logic and emotion. It's the middle. Logic is, again, we go back to that idea of being ruthless that's very logical. "I've got to get this thing done. I've got to focus on this thing." But then again, you're not taking emotion into account. Recklessness is when emotion is running the ship. You want to have reason in there. So, I'm like, "I want reason to be a part of this thing."

And then purposefulness, because that's really what—and again, we alluded to this a bit in the flashback episode that we recorded—is this idea of... As my kids have gotten older, and this really only dawned on me probably in the last few weeks, it's like, "Wow, one of my kids is now moving on their own, and my role has shifted. There's this time that could now be a vacuum if I'm not careful with it. I'd better have some purpose for that, right?"

Because the thing is, we often fill time with things that have—again, I've said this before, I'm like, you know, what is it? Attention without intention... I'm going to butcher this because I've said it so many times before. So, attention without intention is directionless, because you're kind of scattering your attention. Intention without attention is powerless, right? Because you're not directing it.

And there are different layers of attention, right? There's noticing, and then there's... I touch on this in the book, the idea of noticing, then focus, and then concentration. So, I'm like, I want to be able to... When it comes to purpose, that to me is a level of concentration.

So, I basically was asking ChatGPT-4... I just took it to ChatGPT-4 and said, "I want to come up with something that I can say quickly and easily that encapsulates not just work, but life stuff." And after a back-and-forth conversation, knowing full well—and this is a good example of where it can be helpful—that it's got confirmation bias coming out the wazoo, right? Because it's you. You say, "What do you think of this idea?" and it will say, "It's a great idea!" It won't tell you that anything you've said is bad unless you tell it to.

We probably went back and forth for about 15-20 minutes. Just me dictating, and it coming back. And we came up with this, and I was happy with it. So again, it's not like I took the messy first draft that AI throws out there. I kind of went through it. And when I do these retreats with my members of my community—we call them the "Ready Retreat"—that's one of the things we sit down to do. Like, "Come up with your annual axiom. Here's some ways you can do it. Think of words that resonate with you. Think of this." And, you know, if you've got a favorite sports team, maybe you want to use something like theirs. Or, like Nike with their "Just Do It," right?

There are lots of different mantras and axioms and slogans out there. Make one for yourself. And a lot of people will, when they do this, choose one word. One word to represent their year. Or they'll choose an entire sentence, or they'll go with the three words. But that's kind of where it starts.

And then once I have that annual axiom, then it's like, "Okay, well, what should I dedicate my months to? How many monthly themes should I have, and what would those projects be that I would want?" Well, does—oh, you know—"work on time crafting in Notion," right, as an example. Well, does that fit into the annual axiom? Reason my path? "Well, yeah, it makes sense. From a reason perspective, Notion's the most popular productivity app out there right now. That makes sense. Okay, great."

Refine my pursuits. "Can I afford to drop other things? Am I willing to drop it? I don't know." Respond with purpose. "Oh my goodness, Notion's overwhelming right now. Maybe I need to take a step back." Just those things alone help guide me. So again, if you're taking that top-down approach, the annual axiom would be where you'd start. Then you'd go to your monthly themes, and then you'd likely go to daily themes. And then attention paths kind of fill in the blanks. "Hey, I'm tired. What can I do when I'm tired? Oh, wow, it just so happens that I can do a really quick thing for this bigger, larger monthly theme project," right?

Leo

I think my next question—I'd like to go back to the state of productiveness, because I think that's a really fascinating approach. And so, you've talked already about some ways to set up that state, you know, with theming and a lot of other things you've mentioned.

But I'm curious, is there a way... Like, one of the hardest things for people is to enter into the day that they've planned for themselves and get into that state of productiveness. So, I'm wondering if you have anything around that, about how to get into the state as you start your day?

Mike

Well, I think that the bookends to a day are really important: your morning and evening routine. I'm not a fan of planning my day first thing in the morning. And again, daily theming kind of helps with this because my brain wakes up and goes, "Well, what day is it?" "Oh, it's Monday. What does Monday mean? Oh, Monday's admin." And then it kind of helps predefine what the tasks associated with that day will largely be. And remember, it doesn't mean that you only do administrative tasks on Mondays. I don't just do that, but it's my overarching focus, and that's what theming provides.

But by having kind of a bulletproof morning routine and a bulletproof evening routine—and what I mean by that is, you know, you want to make it small and compact, right? So, you don't want to have like a seven-step morning routine. You don't want to have it where it's dependent on, "I need to be in my house for this thing."

So, for example, if you're going to journal first thing in the morning and you're traveling, you may want to make sure that you have something portable, like a journaling app, like Reflection or something like that. Or maybe you're going to use Apple Notes or whatever. Or maybe you've got a little journal that you bring with you everywhere you go, which is totally fine.

For breakfast, I will typically have a smoothie. Well, if I'm in a hotel, I don't have my smoothie machine, but I can go down and get a smoothie because they're generally pretty easy to find. So, to me, if you have a small, compact morning and evening routine, your brain goes, "This is familiar. Now let's go into the unfamiliar." And the unfamiliar isn't really all that unfamiliar because you have predetermined, essentially, "Okay, well, what today will look like?"

Well, the night before, I prepared. Whether it was at five o'clock before I left the office, or if it's me, I do this evening examination where I write my journal entry, I plan the next day, and I, of course, highlight the tasks that are both related to the daily theme but also maybe some that aren't. Like, "Oh, I need to get to this today, and I know it's not related to the daily theme, but I'm going to do it." And I'll use an attention path to kind of make sure I get there, whether it's a priority level or what have you.

But to me, it's like, if you don't have those morning and evening routines—and I think they're both equally important, perhaps even the evening routine is more beneficial, because it allows everybody to get out of bed in the morning and hit the ground running, no matter what time you get up—I think that allows you to get into that state a lot simpler. Because you've got familiarity, and you've got to trust in not only that routine, but whatever that routine leads to.

So, for those that are like, "I don't know what my day is going to look like," well, you plan it the day before. And if you have a daily theme, it makes it easier. If you don't, then you still prioritize. You could use any method you want: Getting Things Done, the Ivy Lee Method, which is like choosing six things—whatever it needs to be. And then, when you start the day, you've got it ready.

I used to—actually, I don't do this anymore—but I used to write a letter to myself every night that would be like, "Here are the things. Mike from yesterday, who is now dead and gone, Mike today, you're susceptible to distractions, so here's what you need to work on." And that's what I would do. A daily planner essentially does that for me now, the daily driver that I use.

But beyond that, I mean, that's kind of what gets you into that modality. And once you... I hate to say it, but the repetitive stuff, while not necessarily the sexiest of things, it does keep you on the straight and narrow more often than not. And it's that framework that fosters the freedom that you have, right?

And that to me, when people say, "Oh man, that's really rigid. You have the same morning routine and the same evening routine?" I'm like, "Yeah, but it's kind of like when you turn on a computer. It has a system of protocols it goes through. Then you shut it off, and it has a system of protocols it goes through at the end." I just want that same kind of freshness when I start my day.

And I mean, part of that—I don't care what you put in your morning routine or evening routine—but I think if you've got a seven-step morning routine, one of those steps, if not more of them, will fall apart at some point. So, by having like three, that might be the way to go, right? Because that's what habits really are. I mean, routines are really just habits stacked upon one another, right? That's really all they are.

So again, having that familiar will help you deal with... you know, the certainty will help you deal with the uncertainty that awaits you every single day. And then when the day is done, that certainty will help you close out the day because you know, "Hey, at least I know at the end of the day I get to write my journal, I get to make my lunch for the next day," and these things kind of set the table back to zero.

Leo

Okay, so you've a couple of times now talked about this, you know, one objection that people have to theming, for example, or structure, is the rigidity of it. And I think that's a really interesting thing I'd like to touch on because a lot of people really struggle to stick to theming or structure or anything that feels rigid.

You've talked about some of the benefits of it, but how do we, if I'm someone who struggles with that, is there a way to, I guess, open myself to that or create a shift so that I can just trust that kind of rigidity or theming?

Mike

Yeah. So for me, again, the idea of theming is super helpful in this regard because it doesn't just tell you what you can do if you have a wide-open schedule, but it also creates constraints just by the definition of the way your life unfolds anyway. So let me use an example. Let's use monthly theming as an example.

Leo

Okay

Mike

So, December. If I'm working with someone or talking to someone, and it's like, "Well, what's your monthly theme for December?", they're like, "Oh my God, I’ve got so much going on in December." Like, "Well, what's certain in the month of December? What happens in December no matter what", people will say, "Well, the holidays."

Okay, great. "How much does that take out of you?" "Well, yeah, you know, all of a sudden it's two weeks of December gone." I'm like, "So will you really be able to focus on something big during that month?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I don't think so." "Okay, great. Well, what are some of the things that go along with the holidays? Think of some stuff." "Well, family, friends..." "So, relationships, right?" "Yeah, you know, that's part of it."

So, what if your monthly theme for December was just to focus on relationships? Send those cards out. Connect with some colleagues. If that's your monthly theme, then you could just do something every single day for that, and know that you are living up to that theme. Plus, you're not overwhelming yourself with this major project that you know you're not going to be able to do because of the holidays.

Another example: what happens every April 15th in the United States, Leo?

Leo

Taxes. Our favorite day of the year.

Mike

And in Canada, it's the 30th, right?

Leo

Okay.

Mike

So, April is tax month. Now, people say, "Well, I'm going to make April my tax month." But I'm like, "Isn't tax narrow? Is it too narrow?" Because when you pick your themes, you don't want to make them too narrow, but you also don't want to make them too broad. Because if it's too broad, then you don't end up doing, you know, you have too many things to choose from. If it's too narrow, you don’t have enough.

So, I'm like, "Well, here's the thing: taxes, if you're doing them in April, April 1st is—now you are now giving it your overarching focus—you only have 14 days to get all that stuff together. If you have an accountant, you don’t even have that much time." So we start to walk through it, and I'm like, "What if April was just finances? What if it was a broader appeal? Taxes are part of that, but you want to get your financial house in order." "Well yeah, but when do I focus on my taxes?" I'm like "What if you did something for your taxes every single week starting today? Just 5 minutes, 15 minutes."

So, all of a sudden, we start to add elements of time crafting to it, where they're like, "Oh, this is a 15-minute task", but what day should you do that stuff? "Well, I should do it every Monday." "Okay, great. So, you're going to do something related to your taxes every Monday because that's your administrative day." "That's all right." "Okay. Well, what other administrative tasks do you have?"

So, all of a sudden, we start to unpack this stuff. And because we’re working through the details and not going broad, they’ll say, "Oh, I have all these administrative tasks." And I'm like, "Yeah, what other tasks are there?" "Oh, there are these, these, and these." "Well, what if you dedicated a day where your overarching focus were those administrative tasks? Wouldn’t you be able to...", and they are like, "Yeah."

And, again, going back to the idea of family stuff. I have a family day, and people will say to me, "Why do you have one day that you dedicate only to family? Shouldn’t you dedicate every day to your family?" And I'm like, "Yes, but I know I won't." They're like, "What? That makes you...?" I'm like, "Listen, how many times have you forgotten to do things because life just happens?" But by having something like, you know, a family day, when my kids used to come to me and say, 'Dad, can we go see a movie?' they would eventually just say, 'Dad, this Saturday can we go see a movie?' And they knew what the answer would be: Yes, because that's my family day."

But family didn’t just amount to time spent with family. I also broadened that to be friends, and I also said, "Well, any household stuff would happen on a Saturday." Why am I doing that household stuff? To help the family, right? So basically, the rigidity only exists until you put yourself inside of it. And that's what I try to do. I say, "Okay, well, when's your birthday?" "Well, my birthday is in July." "Okay, so maybe July should be your self-care month." "Oh my God, I never thought to dedicate... shouldn't I give myself self-care every single day?" "Yeah, but do you?" "Well, no, not really." "Well, what if you did?"

So, it becomes this way of progressing through life as we're on this journey with time. Because again, I don’t like the term "time management" either, Leo, because time moves on whether we want it to or not. How can you manage something that moves on with or without you? You can manage your relationship with it, though.

And so, by applying personal preferences to this framework, this approach, it allows you to decide how deep you want to go, how rigid—lack of a better term—you want to be. And for some people, it's like, "I want to theme one day a week on this project and that’s it." Okay, great. Or, "I want to just follow the attention paths of energy, because I struggle with... I have a traumatic injury, and I need to look at my energy levels as a way of making my way through time." Perfect. Here’s how you do that. Or, "I have a lot of meetings, Mike, and I don’t really have a chance to catch my breath." Well, great. What if we use increments of time to give you a sense of, "Hey, this is going to take you five minutes. What are all the five-minute tasks you can do?"

And so, it’s just about building this. That’s why it’s called time crafting, Leo. And that term comes from when my son and I were walking to school one day, and he was trying to explain how Minecraft worked to me, and it's just adding layers, adding different elements. And it's not like you can out of nowhere, when you first start playing Minecraft, build the most amazing structure. You have to take time, you have to gather materials, you have to get better at it.

And that’s kind of how this all works. So, if someone’s asking me, that’s why life hacks... like, "What’s the life hack?" Oh gosh, you know, the term "hack" means to cut without care. So, do you really want to cut your life without care? I don’t think you do. So, it’s more about sustainable, consistent practices, which put you in that state. Because I'd rather be in a state of productiveness than to be in this activity of doing, because that’s where we can get tripped up. That’s where we end up doing the wrong things at the wrong time.

So, it's not a magic pill, it's not an overnight thing. Which is why in the book, "The Productivity Diet", people are going to assume out of the gate, "Oh, it’s like THE diet." I’m like, no. The term diet is not like a crash diet; it's a sustained... well, you know enough about this, Leo. Like, it’s a sustainable diet over time. A diet is not about a crash or a quick win. It's about a lifestyle choice.

And that's really what productiveness is. It's about making a choice about making your way through time, aligning your intention with your attention as much as possible for as often as possible or as long as possible. And you're never going to get it 100%, because balance is not 100% either. And balance is not 50-50 either.

So, to me, the rigidity shows up when you don't slow down and take thoughtful introspection as to "What does my time really looks like. What do my days really look like?" That’s where people go, "I can't do this. Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous." Or, they try to do it all at once, which we know doesn’t work.

If you try to apply all the principles of Getting Things Done all at once, something's going to break. Every single time, something breaks. So it's about just adding layers as you make your way through time that will allow you to craft your time in a way that works for you.

Leo

I love that. You’ve mentioned your book, which I think by the time this episode comes out, the book will be out.

Mike

Finally, this has been a long time coming.

Leo

Well, we’ll see if it actually comes out.

Mike

No, it’ll be out, it’ll be out. I’ve promised it long enough. I had a Kickstarter campaign that was supposed to have it out earlier, and there was just... So, it’s called "The Productivity Diet: A Practical Guide to Nurturing Your Productive Potential". And again, I bring up a lot of these elements of time crafting in it. There are recipes I touch on.

Basically, the way I look at this book, Leo, is it’s kind of my... I wouldn’t say swan song to productivity, but to the term, for sure. Because if you follow—you know, if you cultivate your own productivity diet by using some of the things I bring up in the book, then you will be on the path to productiveness. You will be in more of a state, as opposed to this constant, like, again, cranking of widgets or feeling overwhelmed.

You will be able to make your way through time as a partner with time, as opposed to trying to manage it. And you will be able to feel like you're truly being productive, as opposed to doing productive.

Leo

I love that. So, we’ll put a link in the show notes to that book. And I think we’re also going to link to a free book that you’ve given, which is "The Gift of Time".

Mike

Yeah, so it's... we’ll put the link in there. It’s mikevardy.com/freebook, I think, is what it is. Or gift—I can’t remember which one it is.

Leo

Free is always a good thing.

Mike

Free is always good. And that's a book that I wrote a number of years ago. It kind of explains a bit of... it probably is some of the genesis of all this stuff. It’s so funny when we go back and look at the work that we’ve done over the years, the stuff that kind of stands the test of time, and then the other stuff, you're like, "Man, this didn’t last. Like, I shouldn’t have written about Newton Mail so much," or something like that.

But yeah, again, it’s a pleasure to be able to keep talking about this stuff. Because, someone said to me, especially when we were talking about COVID, I mean, COVID-19... it didn’t hit as hard as I would have thought because time still was moving on. So, in essence, when someone said to me, "Well, you're always going to have something to talk about because time... you know, we always have time." I’m like, "Yes, but is it the other way around? Does time always have us?" Because, I mean, we're gone, time will continue to flow. So, to me, yeah, there’s always going to be something to talk about, write about, share. And this book is just one of the ways that... my hope is there will be many more to come.

Leo

I love that. I look forward to it, because I know that whatever you put out is amazing. I really appreciate the value that you’ve given us today in this episode.

Mike, thank you so much. I’m looking forward to your book and everything that you do going forward. I think we're going to be having this conversation for at least another 13 years, hopefully a lot longer.

Mike

Yeah. Thank you, Leo. This has been a treat. And again, it's always great to connect with you, so thanks for having me.

Leo

Thanks, Mike.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode. In this episode, we're going to talk about mindful time management. Remember, we are in the season called the Zen of Productivity, and time management is a part of productivity. Productivity is really about how we make the most of our time so we can have the impact we want.

It's not about being perfect. It's not about churning out the most number of widgets. It's about actually making the impact we want. To do that, we need to manage the time we have each day. Each day is fleeting and precious. We don't have a lot of them here on this earth.

That might sound pretty trite, but it's why this is so important: mindful time management. Of course, we don’t actually manage time. Time passes like a river. So, that's one way to look at it. But the other thing is, how are we making the most of the time? How are you using it?

How are we taking the time we're given and creating an impact from that time? Let's talk about that. And you know, if you have other things you’ve done that I don't talk about here, great—share them with me. Put them either below in the comments of this video, if you're watching it on YouTube, or if you're listening to the podcast, send me an email at podcast@zenhabits.net. I get every single one of those emails. I read every single one. I don’t reply to every one, but I reply to most. So send me your time management tips that work. Maybe you have some systems or a book you'd like to share. I'm always down for that. But this is what I think is important.

So, I’m going to talk about a few different things. One is a Zen approach to managing time. Of course, I don’t speak for all of Zen Buddhism, but I’m speaking from a particular Zen student’s perspective, based on what I’ve been learning. We’ll also cover techniques to stay present and focused. Then we’ll talk about how to avoid multitasking and embrace single-tasking.

We’ll talk about structure as it relates to time management and what we can learn from Zen forms and structure.

So, let’s start with the Zen approach to managing time. First of all, there isn’t one strict Zen approach. It’s not like there’s a rigid formula. But something I’ve noticed is there’s a schedule. If you go to a Zen monastery or any kind of Zen center, they will have a schedule. The beautiful thing about a schedule is that it’s not about creating a rigid life where everything is perfect. It’s about saying, "This is the time we start meditating," or "This is the time for meals." When we structure our day that way, everyone is on the same page. We can all practice showing up on time and dealing with whatever comes up that makes us unable to meet that commitment. A schedule is a shared commitment.

Let me share a couple of things I find really interesting. One is about being on time. My teacher, Susan, has a teacher named Reb. Reb’s teacher was Suzuki Roshi. "Roshi" means respected teacher. His son, Shunryu Suzuki, wrote the book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. That’s my lineage—he’s one of my ancestors. Reb, my teacher’s teacher, was studying under Suzuki Roshi. Reb tells a story about how Suzuki Roshi got really mad at a group of students, including Reb, for not showing up on time. Even though there was a mistake with the bell ringer—the person who rings the bells to let everyone know they have 10 minutes to get to the zendo (the meditation hall)—people didn’t take it seriously. They looked at their clocks and thought, "It’s fine, I’ll get there later."

I’m telling this story badly, but the main idea is that Suzuki Roshi, who was so calm, got angry at his students. He didn’t physically abuse them, but he gave them a little whack to wake them up.

What Reb took from this was love. Suzuki Roshi cared so much for his students, had so much compassion, that he was waking them up. His lesson was: when the meditation starts, you should get there before it starts. You should be 10 minutes early. You need to do what you need to do to leave your room and get there on time, so you are early and not late. He saw this as a compassionate teaching, even though it might look like anger or frustration.

I really love that teaching because it made me examine my own relationship with being on time.

I’ll tell you another story. My teacher, Susan, shows up on time for everything. At the time, I had a habit of showing up a few minutes late—three or five minutes. I’d say, "Oh, I’m sorry I’m late. I set off at the wrong time, and I didn’t want to rush." She told me two things. One was, "You can move quickly without rushing." I appreciated that because it showed me I could move faster toward the meeting place without rushing. I knew I was late, but I thought, "It’s fine." But she taught me, you can move quickly and still be fully present in the moment.

The other thing she taught me was about commitment—showing up on time and not being loose about it. I’d think, "It’s okay, she won’t mind if I’m two or three minutes late." But now, when I show up for my teacher, I’m ready a minute or two before. I wait until the right time, and then I start.

I’m sharing this with you because a lot of us have a different relationship with time. The Zen approach, as I’m summarizing it (again, I don’t speak for all of Zen), is to hold to our time commitment. Show up on time. Leave earlier, so you can be on time.

Another teaching she gave me was about learning when you need to leave to be on time. She learned to count back, saying, "I need to leave 20 minutes before the meeting to be on time." She learned in her body that 20 minutes before the meeting was the time to start moving.

So, she learned to count back the time, which is a different relationship to time than most of us have. A lot of us have a loose relationship with time, like, "Oh, it’s fine. I’ll do my writing later, even though I said I’d do it at 8 AM. I’ll get to it in the afternoon sometime." Or we think, "I’ll show up to this meeting, but it’s okay to be a few minutes late. They won’t even notice—they’re so busy with other stuff."

But that’s not really showing up for our commitments. It’s not being fully committed to what we agreed to.

You might think that mindful time management means letting go and not being stressed or attached, and it does—but it also means not being too loose. We can be really tightly wound when it comes to time management, or we can be way too loose. I would say the Zen approach leans toward showing up for those commitments as solidly as possible.

Now, of course, we’re human. We’re not perfect. We’re going to make mistakes, and things happen. But for the most part, one of the most important things is showing up for that commitment.

The other thing is structuring time. If you go to a Zen monastery or Zen hall, they will have a schedule: this is when we eat, this is when we meditate, this is when we clean, this is when we do whatever else we do. Each thing is set. It might be different on different days, but the schedule is posted online or in public spaces. So, everyone knows when things are going to happen.

Your life might not be that simple or clean, but what if you could start to schedule your life like that? What if there was a regular rhythm, and everyone you work with or live with knows the rhythm? I think that’s an interesting idea.

Again, you don’t have to exactly follow that, but I wanted to share it.

Okay, let’s imagine you started managing your time with a schedule and some commitments. "I’m going to show up for my writing here. I’m going to meditate here. I’m going to exercise here. I’m going to do meals here. I’m going to meet with my team here. I’m going to hang out with my partner or kids here."

So, you schedule these times and have these commitments. Now, within those commitments, we can practice staying present and focused. Let’s talk about that next—techniques for staying present and focused.

First of all, when I show up, I am present and focused on what I’m focusing on. If I say this is writing time, then I’m not going to focus on email, text messages, or social media. I’m focused on writing. So, if this is the scheduled time for writing, the practice for being present and focused is to really give myself over to this commitment to write and do nothing else.

Nothing else in the world exists during the time I’ve committed to writing. Of course, we’re not going to be perfect at this—everything I’m talking about assumes that. But what if we could practice showing up fully for the thing we said we would do? If I say I’m going to check email, I’ll open one email and be fully present and focused on that email until it’s done. I’ll reply, send it, put it on my master task list, or archive it, and then move on to the next one, being fully present with it. One thing at a time.

This is called single-tasking, also known as unitasking. I also like to call it "full-focus mode." I sometimes refer to it as "full-screen mode" because in some apps, you can press a button, and it goes full screen—that’s all there is. What if we could do that with everything?

As I’m recording this podcast, I’m not checking my phone. As I’m driving, maybe I’m listening to music, but I’m not making phone calls or trying to get stuff done while driving. If I’m talking with someone, I’m not talking to them while also checking messages.

Now, if I need to check messages, I might say, "Hey, I need to take a break to answer some things. Would you be okay with us pausing for five minutes?" Then I can be fully with my messages, and afterward, fully back with the person.

So, I can switch tasks, but it’s an intentional switch. If I’m going to change something, I’ll state it to the person or to myself: "I’m going to take a break from writing to get some water, stretch, use the restroom, and then I’ll come back in 10 minutes." That’s an intentional switch. It’s not just switching on a whim.

That’s what I recommend. How can we be more intentional about moving from one single task to another? If I’m eating, I’m just eating. If I want to read, I just read. If I want to watch TV, I just watch TV. I don’t watch TV while I’m on my phone. A lot of people do that—watching TV, but not really watching it because they’re also scrolling on their phone, messaging people, or looking at social media. They’re only half-watching the show. They might glance up or hear some things in the background—that’s multitasking.

But what if I decided, "If this TV show is worth putting on, I’m going to be here with it. If this person is worth spending time with, I’ll be fully with them, not just sitting next to them while scrolling through my phone."

I’m not saying you can never have your phone on next to someone, but it’s about being intentional. Am I spending time with this person right now, or am I messaging?

This is something that rarely happens these days with our phones and socializing. We often multitask, but it pulls us away from staying present and focused. It will happen, and that’s not a problem. What I’m suggesting is to notice when you get pulled off, just like when you’re meditating on your breath. You’re going to notice when you’re planning your day and think, "Oh shoot, I’m not on my breath anymore." You simply come back to it.

In the same way, if we’re trying to focus on our breath, count our breaths, and then we start planning our day, we can notice that and come back to the breath.

A technique for staying present and focused is to notice when you’re checking messages, when you’re on social media when you thought you were going to write or check emails. You can notice that without beating yourself up. Just come back, take a breath, and return to your intention.

Okay, to close, I’m going to talk about Zen forms and structure in our day. Zen forms are similar to what I was talking about at the beginning of this episode—there’s a schedule and a commitment. These forms are created for a reason. We don’t make them to be perfect or just to be disciplined. We do them because the forms show us where we’re getting pulled.

Let me give you an example. In the type of Zen meditation that I practice, there’s a form: you sit cross-legged, and there are different forms for that. But you also hold your hands in an oval shape, with the fingers of one hand on top of the fingers of the other, and your two thumbs touching. Your hands form a circle, or an oval kind of circle, and your thumbs lightly touch.

If you watch the video, I’m actually showing it. One hand rests on top of the other, and the thumbs just touch. The touching isn’t hard pressure, but it’s also not slouching—it’s just touching lightly.

Having this form isn’t about having to do it perfectly every second of meditation. It’s simply the form we aim for. If we’re not doing that—let’s say our hands are fidgeting—we can notice that because there’s a form we’re meant to follow. Then we can say, "Oh, my hands are fidgeting. What’s going on here?" Maybe there’s some anxiousness or thoughts we’re dealing with.

It’s not that having thoughts or fidgeting is bad. It’s that, because we have a form, we can notice when we’re not following it. That gives us the chance to notice and then practice coming back.

If you’re doing the kind of meditation where you follow your breath and count your breaths, that’s a form. You follow your breath, count to ten, and then start over. If your mind wanders, you go back to one. This form helps you see when you’re not following your breath or counting. You can notice what’s happening with your mind—"Oh, I’m worried about that meeting later,"—and then come back.

Through this, we can see our mind’s tendencies and our body’s tendencies. For example, "I’m slouched over. That’s a sign of tiredness or laziness." Not in a judgmental way, but as a way of noticing. Then we can get curious about that, and if we want, we can return to the form.

This isn’t about judging yourself for not being perfect. It’s about having something to notice. In Zen, the forms I’ve mentioned are only some of the forms—there are actually a lot. There’s a specific kind of eating ritual during some meditation retreats. There are chants, prostrations, walking meditation forms, and even bowing to another person when you pass them. There’s a meal verse that’s said before eating.

There’s a lot of structure. Showing up on time is a form. These are all ways of committing to practice in a certain way. If we don’t show up on time, we can say, "Oh, what’s going on here? What’s causing me to not show up on time?" Maybe it’s a feeling of being loose in my commitments. Maybe I’m not taking them seriously or I have some kind of delusion that it doesn’t matter.

That’s how forms work in Zen. They show us our mind’s tendencies, patterns, fears, and attachments.

In our daily lives, we can create structure. "I’m going to write at this time. I’m going to do this at that time. I’m going to report to other people at a certain time." That’s accountability, which is a form. If I don’t report, it shows me, "Oh, I’m not taking this seriously. I’m not committed." I can investigate what’s going on.

If I do report, but the accountability says, "I haven’t been meditating or exercising or writing," it helps me see where I’m falling short of the structure I committed to.

When we talk about structure, people often think it’s restrictive, but I actually think it’s a powerful tool for understanding ourselves—where our attachments are and where we get pulled off course. It helps us practice with all of this.

How do we bring this into our lives? I’m a big fan of having a calendar and blocking things off. I’m a fan of having a form where I start each day by reviewing the calendar and then making a plan for the day based on what’s on my task list and calendar. Then, I stick to that plan as much as possible and notice when I’m falling off.

I also make a plan and commitment each week and month, sharing that with others. Holding myself accountable to those commitments helps me move forward and create the impact I want, without being too loose or too tight.

That’s what I’ve got for you today. I hope this was helpful. Next week, I’m going to talk about dealing with distractions. We touched on that today, but it’s a big enough topic to dedicate a whole episode to. I’m looking forward to that.

Thank you, my friends. Have an amazing rest of your day.

Thank you for listening and watching. I really appreciate you. I’ll talk to you later.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Hello, my friends. We are back for another episode of this podcast season. In this one, we're going to talk about simplifying your workspace and workflow. And when I talk about workspace and workflow, I'm also going to talk about some tools and systems that I use.

Now, that doesn't mean you need to use them. There isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of thing, but I thought I'd share with you as we talk about the workspace and the workflow. So, productivity systems and task systems and note systems, and other things that I use—we'll talk about that towards the end of the episode.

But first, we're going to talk about decluttering your physical and digital spaces and why that's important. We're going to talk about creating a minimalist work environment, and then how to streamline our workflows for some efficiency. Then we'll talk about tools, systems, things like that—things that I'm excited to share. So, let's dive in.

Okay, so the first thing is decluttering your physical and digital spaces. Now, when I talk about this—because our season is focused on the Zen of Productivity—we're talking about workspaces. But obviously, this can apply to all of your spaces in your life, you know, your kitchen, your bedroom, and your living room.

But let's imagine you have a place where you do your work, right? A physical space. And then there's a digital space. So right now, I'm on a desktop computer recording this, and I do some work here. I also have a laptop so that I can move around. I like to move around. And that's a digital space.

I have a phone—that's a digital space. But also, they're all connected because they are all online. So, I might use web apps, and so the web and web apps are also a digital space. We have all of these spaces where we do our work, not just the physical but all of these digital spaces.

And they can either be conducive to productivity and focus and creating the impact that we'd like—our creativity—or they can distract. They can be conducive towards other things that we don't want to be doing. And so, it's not that there's a good and bad way to set things up.

There's not good and bad activities like, you know, watching YouTube is bad. No, you're obviously watching YouTube if you're watching the video version of this podcast or looking at my YouTube videos, and I actually think that's a good use of your time. So, it isn't that these things are bad, but it's like, "Am I actually setting myself up for the impact that I want?"

And I think that decluttering both the physical and digital spaces goes a long way towards that. So, we're gonna talk about decluttering. But let's talk about if we had a minimalist work environment. So, let's talk about your desk space, your physical space.

If you look around—let's say you're sitting at a desk right now, and I am—so I'm looking at my desk and I'm looking at the floor next to the desk. Right, so there are two flat spaces: the desk and the floor. Now, you might have more—maybe you have, you know, cabinets, you have shelves. But for the most part, I have two main flat surfaces around me.

And I like to keep those flat surfaces as clear as possible. Now, in this particular moment, I have, you know, a container of water. I have my phone right here. And I have a light so that I can look handsome, and a microphone. And other than the computer, there actually are things on this flat surface, but if I'm not recording, I will move this microphone out of the way.

I will move this light out of the way. I will often move my phone out of the way. In fact, I'll do that right now. So, I'm taking the phone, putting it into a drawer, and closing it. Now, that's gone. Cables—I like to kind of wind them up if I'm not using them. And so I might have, as I'm working on this computer, for the most part, if I'm not recording, a flat computer—a desk space with nothing on it but the mouse, the keyboard, the computer, and my glass of water or coffee or tea.

That is a minimalist workspace in terms of this physical desk. Now, that said, sometimes you might see stuff scattered around, and I recommend that everything on your floor be taken away as much as possible. Now, maybe you have a desk or a filing cabinet or a trash can.

So, I'm not saying there should be nothing on your floor except for your desk and your chair. But right now, actually, I have nothing on my floor but my desk, my chair, and the things you see behind me, which is a bookshelf and a little altar behind me with a plant and a Buddha statue and a little reminder of what I'm practicing.

So, there are some things here on this floor, but there aren't a lot. I don't have clutter. I don't have paper. I don't have books. I don't have little things that I forgot to put away. And I'm not saying that I'm perfect. But as I look around, it's calming. It is conducive to the focus that I want.

Now, imagine that I had a million things all scattered around me. It is hard to keep your mind on this because the way that the human brain works is that a lot of different things attract our attention. And so, that's tough to have an environment like that and have focus.

Of course, there are people who can focus with a lot of distractions. You might look at how your mind works. For me, I work better if I clear my space. So, related to that is the digital desktop behind this thing that I'm recording right now. So, if I close this window that shows the video, "Hi, Leo, you look good," and then some notes—I have a notes app open.

Now, I have a pretty clear desktop. I do have a few files on there, and I'm going to put them away right this second. So, these are files of recordings that I've just made that I'm going to upload. Once I upload them, I delete them, and they're gone. But right now, those are waiting to be uploaded.

So, I put them into a folder called "upload," and that is now in a file, and now I have nothing but a beautiful sunset picture on my desktop—a desktop picture wallpaper that's just beautiful. And so, when I open up my notes app, I have the notes app, but behind it, there aren't a ton of files.

So, I recommend that as well—have a system for filing away things that are on your desktop. Now, a lot of people use desktop icons to remind them of what they need to do, and I don't recommend that. If you're like, "Oh, I'm going to leave this here so I remember that I need to do whatever," I don't recommend that.

What I recommend is creating a note that has all the reminders that you need—a note or a task app or some reminders on your calendar or a reminder app. Use something else to remind you, not things that are cluttering your desktop, because that actually does not work that well.

If we have a million icons on our desktop, we won't actually remember to do all of those things. We're worried we won't, so we leave them there, but that actually clutters things up. So, what I recommend is coming up with a simple filing system. I have folders for work and personal and learning. And then in work, I have different projects, and I will just put all the files in there.

I also have a financial one, and I have a few files in there. I have, in financial, folders for each year. So, I might have some things—some files saved for my taxes for 2024. I'll throw them in the 2024 folder. Sometimes I just don't have time to file things, so I create a "to file" folder, and I just dump everything in there and put that in my documents folder.

And then I've set a reminder, let's say for Friday, to go through and file all of my "to file" folders. Or I might have a regular day where—that depends on the time of my life—but sometimes I'll do a reminder. Sometimes I'll be like, "Every Sunday is the time to clear out the 'to file' folder."

So, have some folders to file things and then have some other way to remember what you need to do other than the things on your digital desktop or your physical desktop.

A lot of times people will leave papers lying around because they're like, "I need to remember to do that." I think that's a bad system. If you have papers, I like to scan them and put them in my "to file" folder. Or I do the thing on the paper, and I trash it—I'll tear it up and trash it.

So, if there's a bill that I need to pay that I got a piece of paper for, go and pay it online, trash the thing. I might do that immediately. Or I might have a "to-do" physical folder, put everything in there, and then do it on, let's say, Friday or Sunday—set a reminder, pay all your bills on Friday, and then put that file folder somewhere else so that the file folder isn't my reminder.

And I think that's actually a big problem that people have is they use their file system for reminders. Are there physical things laying around them, or physical or digital files laying on the desktop as reminders? The other place that that happens, as you might know, there are a couple of other places.

One is your browser. You might have a thousand browser tabs open. And, you know, I've been as guilty of that as anybody else. A thousand browser tabs open, and those remind you of things you need to do. And I think that's a bad system because, again, there's a lot of distractions.

So, what I recommend is save those tabs, you know, bookmark them all at once or bookmark them into folders and be like, "This is a project where I want to remember where to get all of these files, and I'm just going to put them all into this bookmark folder called, you know, 'book project.' Another one called, you know, 'learn Spanish project,' or whatever it is that you want to do."

So, that's one way to do it. Just create some folders that have all the bookmarks in them so you can close those tabs. And if you find yourself with more than, let's say, four or five tabs open—maybe you've got 12 open or three dozen open—take a few minutes and bookmark all of those tabs and put them into folders so that you don't have to have them all open.

And then set some reminders on your task system, calendar, reminder system that will have you remember to go and do those things.

What I'll often do is take the URL, the web address of the page of a task that I have to do—let's say I need to file this tax thing, and I have the browser tab open so I can remember that—I take the URL, I put it in my task list, and I say, "File this tax thing on Friday." I don't know why I keep using Friday. Well, Friday is often the day that I use for finances.

So, I will close all my tabs that way. When I have that many open, I put them into my system for remembering things and not use tabs for that. And then the other place that that happens is your email inbox. Email inboxes are often basically reminder systems, like, "Oh, I need to remember to do this thing."

So, you've got a bill in there, you've got a thing to do for Fred or Martha. And so, you leave them in there because you're worried if you don't leave them in the inbox, you're going to forget. So, what I do is the same thing—I take it out of the inbox, I put a reminder in my task system, and then I star or flag, you know, star that email and archive it.

And so now, if I need to find it, it's in my starred emails, but it's not in my inbox. And that way, I can actually clear out the inboxes. I reply to things and archive them. Or I put them on my task list, star it, and archive it. And that's how I clear out my inbox.

Now, my inbox isn't always clear. Sometimes I'll get it down to three emails—I don't like to go to zero too often. Sometimes I go to zero. But I'll get down to three emails and I'll be like, "That's clear enough. I've got other work to do." But sometimes it's got 20 emails in there or 25 or 30.

That's because I haven't had the chance to go through my inbox. But when I do, I take the tasks out of there, and I put them in my task system. And so, in this way, I have one list with all of my reminders. There aren't physical reminders laying around in my workspace. There aren't icons on my desktop to remind me about things.

There aren't tabs open to remind me about things. There aren't emails in my inbox to remind me about things. I clear all of those out and put them into a task list. And so, this way, I clear out all the things, and I simplify and minimize my space. I declutter it. And then what I have as an actual minimalist work environment is a task list.

I'll talk about how I actually work with that in a minute. I have a calendar, which I only open, you know, maybe two or three times a day. I don't use it all the time. I do have an email inbox, but I use it as an actual inbox, not as a reminder or a task system. I have a work inbox as well. And I do the same thing—I don't use that as a reminder system.

I use it as an inbox to look through like, "What's come in in the last day or two? What do I need to reply to? What do I need to keep in my task system?" And then I have a notes system, and the notes system I'm going to go over in a few minutes. But often, I will do my writing in that app—it’s called Obsidian.

I'm probably going to do a whole video on YouTube for Obsidian at some point because I think it's an amazing app. But yeah, I use that for my notes, but I also use it for writing, for thinking, for project planning, and brainstorming. And so, I do my work in Obsidian. In Obsidian, to keep it minimalist, I close most of the tabs there, and I just have one main note open.

Or I go into focus mode, which closes all of the extra things, and I just let myself fully be there and write. Now, you don't have to use Obsidian, but I do recommend a full-screen mode if you're going to write or create or code or do any kind of focus work. Full-screen mode—so your entire screen is taken up by this one document or one thing that you're working on.

I know some people need two or three documents open because, let's say you're coding—you need this here, and you need this here, and you need this here. So, fine, have three documents open side by side by side so that you can work on all three at once. But that's different than having things with different tasks open at the same time.

"I need this window for this, this window for this one." Now, there are different things that you're working on and you're switching between them—task switching. And the one that I mentioned where there's three tiles for one, you're doing one project, one task—you need those three for that same task and you need to switch between them.

For this task, "I need to code this module," right? To do that, I need this, this, and this open. So, that's fine. You don't need to only have one document open at a time, but you're doing one thing at a time and only having what's open that's needed for that. So, in terms of a minimalist work environment, I really recommend just focusing on one thing at a time—one task list, one note, one email inbox.

That doesn't mean you don't have other things that you switch to. If I go to my email inbox and I need to put that on my task list, I go and switch to the task list, put it there, and then I go back, empty that out, and go to the next one. But I'm making my way down the email inbox, and then I close it.

I go back to my task list, prioritize there, and pick something, and go to the note that I'm going to work on that in. And so, in this way, I'm doing one function at a time. Am I working in an inbox? Am I organizing my tasks? Or am I actually doing work?

And that's what I recommend—figure out what is the function that I'm doing right now, and can I just fully be in that? If I'm writing, just be in the writing mode. Be full screen in the writing mode. If I'm clearing out my inbox—great. You could have your task list open because you want to pour things into that.

But don't have your inbox open and your messages open and your other browser tabs open where you're going and switching between all of those at the same time. I don't recommend that as a way to create focus and to have a, you know, Zen productivity kind of approach.

Okay. Let me talk about the tools that I use. I have a few main tools that I use over and over. Let me take a sip real quick.

So, I use certain tools, and I love them. The tools that I use are a task/note system, email inbox, and that's mainly it. I also use a browser. So, we'll talk about that as well. Let's see, what else do I use? Of course, there are messaging apps. I use a messaging app called Beeper that combines Telegram, text messages, and my inboxes from LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter all in one app—Beeper.

All the messages in one place. I use Zoom. Yeah, so those are some of the extra tools I use. But in terms of the main productivity tools that I use, the main one is Obsidian. Obsidian is a note-taking app. I don't get—this is not a sponsored thing. I don't get paid by them. I think it's actually a free app.

You can pay—the one thing you can pay for them, and I actually pay for this, is $5 a month for syncing. Now, you don't have to pay for their syncing. You can sync your notes between different devices on Obsidian, iCloud if you use all Apple products, or Dropbox would be another way to do it without having to pay for the sync system.

Now, I pay for it—one, because I have now an Android phone with Macintosh computers, and so it's just, for me, I found the easiest way is to pay them for their syncing. And second, I think they're a great company. I want to support them. So, I use Obsidian. Now, I have used every note-taking app possible.

I'm going to list a handful of them just so you know that I'm not lying. So, I've used Apple Notes, Google Keep, Google Docs. At one point, I used OneNote from Microsoft. I used Evernote for a long time. I was an Evernote enthusiast. At one point, I was using Bear, which is an Apple-only program—beautiful little program. I used Bear, Drafts.

Then at one point, I got super obsessed with Roam Research, which was a game-changer—Roam Research. But then I found Obsidian, which loads faster, is local in Markdown files, and private. And so, I liked those things about Obsidian, so I switched to Obsidian. I got obsessed with Obsidian—it's an amazing app. I think it's great.

And again, I'll go into that in a separate video—how I use it. But Obsidian—then at one point, I'm like, "Oh, but there's this new app called Tana." Tana is actually such a powerful app. I used it for a while and was super excited about it. But then I switched to Lazy.ai, which had some other cool things, and then Supernote, and then Notion, which has been around for a while.

I got super into Notion for a while. I've used WorkFlowy. Okay, so as you can see, pretty much every major note-taking app I've used. And there's probably five or six more that I've used that I didn't mention. Yeah, I would say those would be the major ones that I could remember off the top of my head.

So, I've used every single one. And I went back to Obsidian. What I did—I realized that all these notes apps had my notes in different buckets, and I spent, you know, the good part of a week—my spare time, not my work time—my spare time moving all of those notes over from all the different notes apps into Obsidian.

So now Obsidian is nearly complete. There's a couple more things I need to sort through, but nearly complete. All of my notes are in Obsidian. There's keyboard shortcuts that you can add in there. You can work really fast. You can make it look beautiful. But this is going to sound like an Obsidian ad, but I love it, and I use it for note-taking. I use it for a daily note.

So, there's a daily note feature where you can—I do a little journal. I do my task list for the day and my log—that's it. My journal is just notes that I want to talk about, you know, life and reflections. My task list is, "What am I going to focus on for today?" And then when I'm done with those tasks, I move them down to the log: "I did that. I did a workout. I did my meditation. I did this or that." And so, those are the three things I have on my daily note.

Now, I have a master task list. This is where if I take things from my inboxes and all these different places, I'll put them onto the master task list. And I'll just have this long list of things to do. I might break it up, like, "Here are the priority ones. Here are the next ones. Here are the later ones."

But basically, I have a master task list that has all of my tasks on it. And then each day, I go in there and I'm like, "Ooh, I want to do these five today," and I move them over to my daily note. So, that's my simple productivity system. It's one master task list in an Obsidian note, and then I pull it into my daily note.

And if I didn't finish some of those tasks, I'll put them back on the master task list for tomorrow. In fact, I might even make a little note at the top, "Tomorrow, make sure you do these three that you didn't do today." And then I might add a few more things in there so that when I start the day tomorrow, I've got my list already—I just move that into the new daily list.

So, that's what I do in terms of notes and tasks. Again, I'll go into Obsidian in a separate video, but I think you can use any notes app for what I just talked about. You have a place with all of your notes that you can quickly open and save. You have a master task list, and then you have a today list with a log, a journal, and the tasks that you're going to do that day.

So, I do that as my task and note system. Now, there's another app that I use. I hesitate to recommend it because it's a power user tool, and it's called Superhuman. It's for email. So, I use Gmail as my main email. And if you want to email me and send me some thoughts on this podcast, send it to podcast@zenhabits.net. It goes into that email—that Gmail that I talked about—so it'll go into my Gmail, but then I don't use Gmail as my main place to actually do email.

I use an app called Superhuman. It's not new. It's been around for, I don't know, five years or more. But it's a power user tool. It has keyboard shortcuts—I can do things there way quicker. I like the interface better than Gmail, like 10x better. The problem is it costs like $30 a month.

So, I'll give you a little secret. Don't tell Superhuman. If you pay for that $30 a month for a little bit and then tell them you want to cancel because the price is too much, they will often lower it by at least half—possibly more. I don't know. They'll lower it. So, I actually don't pay $30 a month because I've gone back and forth, and I'm like, "The price is too high."

So, I asked them, and they lowered it. Don't tell them I said that because they might raise my thing up. But that is what I do. So, I use Superhuman—still pretty expensive for a monthly payment—but I've switched back to Gmail probably five times. And I just don't like using Gmail that much. It's okay. But in terms of actually processing through my inbox as quickly as possible, I go through Superhuman super fast using keyboard shortcuts and stuff like that.

And so, I'd actually never touch my mouse. I go through, and I can empty out most of my email inbox in five to ten minutes. Then I move out of it. I don't like to stay in the email inbox. And because of that—because it's so important for me to be able to process through a bunch of emails quickly and get out of it—I pay for Superhuman.

So, I hesitate to recommend it. It doesn't make sense for most people to pay that much money for an email app when you can get a free Gmail or your mail—you know, your Apple mail, you know, Microsoft—those kinds of things. They're free. So just do that. The systems that I'm talking about here—simple ways of emptying out your inbox—they work just as well without Superhuman.

But if you like to use keyboard shortcuts, if you're a power user, and you like to plow through it really quickly, then Superhuman might be worth it. You might try it out. I don't have a code. I don't get paid for that. I think there is a referral code. I'm not going to give it to you. I'm not here to make any money off of any of these recommendations.

If you use Superhuman or Gmail, there's a workflow that I use that I'm going to talk about really quickly. Again, I might do a whole video on this, but the workflow that I use is I start at the top, I open up that one, and I press reply. If it's a thing I need to reply to, I do a quick reply, and I send and archive it. It's my Gmail set to send and archive, so I press send, it archives, and it moves to the next one.

Maybe the next one I don't want to reply to—it's just a notification that I don't need. I just press E, and it's archived. The next one comes up—pops up—because it goes to the next one automatically. And I press R to reply, type my reply, and Command + Return—Command + Return sends and archives it and moves to the next one.

So, in this way, I just type, you know, E to archive, R to reply, Command + Return to return, and I type my reply, and through those few shortcuts, I move through my email inbox. I archive it or I reply, send and archive. The only other thing that I do is I will take that task, put it in my master task list, star it with an S, and then press E again to archive and go to the next one.

And through those just, you know, I only mentioned like four email shortcuts, I process through my inbox very quickly. If you don't get a reply from me, it means that there's probably more that I need to do than a quick reply, and I put it in my inbox—on my master task list—and so I'm going to get to it at some point.

So, if you want a reply from me quickly, ask a simple question. If you have a long task, it's going to go on my master task list, and it will take me a little longer. But that's the system that I use for my email inbox to process. I do the same kind of thing with my work system, which we use for the team—we use a system called Asana.

If you're a yoga person, it's Asana, but Asana pronounces it Asana. And that's a messaging and task system for work. So, we use that for the team, but I actually don't use that as my master task list. When I get assigned something in there, I actually take it and put it into my master task list—just copy and paste.

And so, that's the system that I use for my email inbox. Again, I don't highly recommend Superhuman unless you like working with maximum efficiency keyboard shortcuts, and interface—like, a nice-looking interface—matters to you because you can do those same shortcuts on Gmail. There's a bunch of actually other stuff you can do in Superhuman, which I'm not going to mention in this thing, but they matter to me because once in a while, I need to do a quick thing using keyboard shortcuts, and it's amazing.

So, I do that. What else is there? Those are the simple tools that I use. I've given you some workflows. I talked about a minimalist work environment. I think that's all I have. If you have more questions, feel free to share them with me. I'm going to do some YouTube videos on these specific things, but I hope that this helped.

I kind of went into the weeds there. I went a little bit deep into workflows and tools and systems, and I hope it wasn't too confusing. I hope it helped. I will talk more about mindful time management in the next episode, and I hope this was a useful deep dive for you.

Thanks, my friends.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Okay, my friends. In this episode, we are going to talk about building sustainable habits that will support your productivity, support the meaningful work, the meaningful projects, and the impact you'd like to have in the world.

So, we're not talking about habits in general like, "Oh, how do I wake up early?" Although that might be one of them. "How do I eat more vegetables or, you know, go for walks more?" We're not just talking about habits. We're talking about sustainable habits that will actually create the impact that you'd like to have.

Productivity is a very vague word, and in this season of the Zen of Productivity, we are using it as an umbrella to talk about a lot of things. But in general, what we're talking about is productivity as finding a way to show up for the meaningful work that we want to do, to have the impact we want to have.

And so, productivity is like, "How do I actually, you know, work through my task list or my project list so that I can actually have this impact? How do I face my resistance and focus and not get distracted? How do I work with commitment, accountability, goals, and intentions?"—which we talked about last week.

How do I do all of these things so that I can have the result that I want? Not just so that I can churn out more, not just so that I can feel like a better person by not being lazy.

That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about having an impact in the world that you want to have. I want to put this course out into the world, this podcast out into the world, so that it can have a positive impact. I want to do this thing for my children, my team, so that they can have better lives and things will be easier for them.

I want to do this project out in the community so that it can improve the lives of my neighbors. I want to do this thing for my family so that, you know, they can have a good life.

So that's what productivity is—actually being effective and showing up and facing all of our stuff so that we can have a meaningful impact. We can achieve the goals not just to check off lists but to have a meaningful impact.

And so, what we're talking about today is how do we build sustainable habits that will help create that?

It's not just about, you know, to-do lists and calendars and all of that stuff, although we will talk about that later in the season—we're going to talk about that in the next episode, I believe. But today, we're talking about how to actually build sustainable habits that support that.

So, let's talk about habits as they relate to productivity, and then we'll talk about how to build and maintain sustainable habits. I’ve worked with habits for, you know, nearly 20 years now. I’ve taught habits, I’ve written books on habits, taught courses, and worked with coaching clients on habits.

So I know a ton about changing habits. I’ve changed so many of my own. So, we're gonna talk about how to build and maintain sustainable productivity habits but also how to use mindfulness to reinforce positive habits.

And then I'm going to talk about something that's really underrated when it comes to habits, which is the practice of simply coming back to the habit when you've dropped it.

Okay, so what role do habits play in productivity? This might sound like a really obvious thing for you, but I think it's worth a discussion. Habits are something that we build as a sustainable thing that will happen repeatedly—let’s say daily—so that when we wake up, we might meditate and then make our plan for the day.

For example, right? Maybe I want to journal and then make the plan. So, we have these habits that, if I do these on a daily basis—doesn't have to be daily, but daily would be a really common one—if I do these on a daily basis, it will help me to get to where I want to go.

So, for example, if I build the habit of walking, that will help me to have the health that I want. Plus, I'll be out in nature more. That's also another thing that I want. Plus, you know, I get to walk with my friend and connect with someone I care about. So, this daily walk is a habit that will lead to things that I actually care about.

So, what we want to do is reverse-engineer our goals so we can figure out what the habits are that will lead to those goals.

For example, if I said, "I want to finish a book by the end of this year." Okay, great. What habit do I need to create to make that book happen? And it might not just be one; you might think, "Oh, obviously a writing habit, right?" Yes, obviously a writing habit.

And maybe there's others. Maybe I want to do a pre-writing habit. Maybe I want to do an editing habit. Maybe I want to meditate beforehand so that I can let my nerves calm down and I can feel open as I go into the writing.

So, you know, there might be some other things that support that, but the main habit is obviously a writing habit. And so, we want to think, "What habit will lead to the goal?"

So, let's take a couple of other examples. A podcast is a great one, right? "I want to record two episodes every day until the season is done, and that's my habit." Okay, great, I need to do that.

Actually, before that, I need to plan the episodes. Maybe I need to write out some notes and think about it. So, maybe a second habit is, "I want to go for a walk in the morning where I reflect on the topics of the episode and then write down some notes after the walk."

So that's actually two little habits—a walk and some notes. And then, in the afternoon, I'm going to set up my microphone and record two episodes that I just reflected on in the morning.

So, you can see there that I have a set of habits that are actually going to lead to me having the impact that I want, which is, "I'm going to put this podcast out."

And so, that's what you want to do—like, what are the habits that will lead to that? Now, if you're having trouble with that, comment on the YouTube version of this podcast. So, if you're not on YouTube, go look at my beautiful face. Put a comment below and say, like, "Here's my goal. What habits do I need?"

But what I want you to do is not just ask, like, "Tell me what habits." I want you to make a guess. "So, here's my goal. I'm thinking these are the habits. What do you think, Leo?" And I will answer every single one of those.

If you don't do the work of making a guess, I'm going to ask a follow-up question. You're going to force me to ask the follow-up question, even though I've already asked it. "What do you think might lead to it?" So, take a shot at it.

Some habits that lead to goals would be a writing routine, a recording routine, a coding routine—if you're making an app. Another habit would be a focus session with other people. So, "I'm going to do a daily focus session with one or more people where we get on a video call, say what we're going to do, and then do it on mute. At the end of the hour or two-hour session, we're going to say how it went." So, that's a habit.

Another habit is to do a daily meeting with a team member. So, let's say you're doing an app, the two of you code. So, you have a coding habit and then a daily meeting where you get clear on where everybody is, what issues there are, and what needs to be done tomorrow. So, that could be a habit—a meeting habit. Or I get on a call with someone every day where we talk over these issues. So, that's a habit.

Other habits, as I've mentioned, are meditation and walking. If you want some way of reflecting on things or clearing through your emotions, those can support the project. Journaling would be another one. Therapy, getting a coach—these are all ways of breathing exercises, another one.

So, these are habits that support the main habits. Planning at the beginning of the day can be a habit. Waking early, if you need a little bit more time for writing, I've done a YouTube video on how to wake early, so go look at that if you'd like. Zen Habits Official is the channel—the official Zen Habits YouTube channel.

If you want to look, just search for Zen Habits—you'll see my amazing face on there. But I did one on how to wake up early, so if you want that habit, go look at that.

These are some of the habits; there might be others, but those are the ones that come to my mind.

Okay, so how do we build and maintain these habits in a sustainable way?

The first thing is that I encourage you to do it at least once a day—no more than five times a day. Five is stretching it. So, I would really only shoot for once a day, one habit once a day in the beginning, and then you can add to it, build on it.

So, for example, if you wanted to do three habits, start with one for the first week. The second week, you can do the second habit; the third week, you can do the third—or maybe wait another extra week and then do the third.

This way, we're not trying to do three things at once. We want to really let ourselves do this one habit and get that going.

And only once we feel like, "Oh yeah, I did five straight days of that or seven straight days," now I'm going to do the second one. But if you're struggling with the first one, scale it back.

And so, that's the second idea—not just doing one at a time, but doing it as small as possible.

So, let's say you wanted to do a meditation habit—two minutes. I actually did another video on the meditation habit—how to meditate. Go look for that video. But I have a method for building a sustainable meditation habit, which starts with two minutes a day and then you increase it slowly.

If you want to do a writing habit, start with a 10-minute writing habit, and then build on that two minutes at a time if you're able to keep it going.

So, 10 minutes is not that hard. Sit down, block out everything else, and say, "I'm going to do nothing or write. Those are my only two options for 10 minutes." And so, you can just sit there and be like, "I got nothing." But eventually, what you're going to do is, "Okay, let me write down a few words. Let me write down a couple of notes." And then you start to get into the flow.

And that's really what we want to be doing—not just starting small but letting ourselves get into the flow of it.

If I want to write, let me just try and write, you know, a couple of sentences the first day, the second day a paragraph. And what happens is this flow starts to come out.

If you want to record things, record yourself just saying gibberish, like, "I don't know what to record right now." Record that and throw it away. The next time, record a few coherent sentences, then throw it away.

The next time, record something that's like halfway decent, and then send it to someone—a good friend who's not gonna judge you—and be like, "Don't really watch this. I just want to be in the practice of sending it to someone."

And then just get into the habit of making videos and sending them to people, and eventually, it's going to flow. And now you're ready to make the ones that actually have lasting value.

So, build habits one at a time, slowly building on that, starting small, and then letting it flow.

I like once a day as a rhythm. On a daily basis, seven days a week is ideal. If you can't do seven days a week, do five days. So, every weekday would be an example. And this gets you practicing daily. But it's not so overwhelming where you're like, "I need to remember something 10 times a day."

That's too hard. But if you're like, once a week, it's going to take forever to build up the reps to make a habit. So, daily is a good idea. If you're feeling a little bit ambitious, twice a day. So, like, let's say a 10-minute writing habit twice a day, a 10-minute coding habit twice a day is one thing. Now you've already got a coding habit—great. Just try and make it more regular, right?

Okay. Make sure you set reminders and have some accountability.

So, somebody else to be accountable to, even just one person. If you'd like some accountability with habits, come into my Fearless Living Academy. Fearless.zenhabits.net is the page to look at more information and sign up.

But at Fearless Living Academy, we have accountability for habits and courses on habits. But have some kind of accountability and some kind of reminders.

Okay, now let's talk about positive reinforcement for habits.

I think there are ways to use rewards. So, let's say I get a treat, you know, a cookie after I meditate. I think that's amazing, right? Or a hot cup of tea after my meditation. You know, a cup of chai after my writing session.

Chai is amazing, right? So, I'm going to do my session, and afterward, I get myself a cup of chai. So, I think that's great. You reward yourself afterward.

Positive reinforcement works with habits way better than negative reinforcement—like, a thousand times better. A lot of times, people will use negative reinforcement, like, "If I didn't do it, I'm going to be really harsh on myself and embarrass myself and do all these mean things to myself."

No, that's not how we reinforce habits. We do it positively.

So, we tell ourselves, "Good job. You meant to do 10 minutes; you did 30 seconds. Great work, actually doing 30 seconds. I'm really proud of you. And I want to celebrate that. And tomorrow, let's see if we can do another 30 seconds or more."

So, we want to just encourage every little movement approximately towards our actual habit. Positive reinforcement is really good, but a lot of times, people want to do positive reinforcement after the habit. I actually think doing it during the habit is the way to do it.

So, the way we would do that is, "Oh, I'm here, showing up and sitting to do my writing. How can I make this an enjoyable thing so that the activity itself is rewarding?" And the way we can do that is through mindfulness.

So I can be like, "I'm going to try and bring a sense of curiosity and adventure to my writing session." And I'm doing it, I'm like, "Ooh yeah, this feels a little bit adventurous. I'm facing my fears. And ooh, what is that like? There's my curiosity. What would it be like if I gave myself a prompt, like, 'What would a monkey do if it were in a robot on the Ganges?' I don't know." So, you can kind of make up something silly and be curious about it.

So, it's playful, adventurous, curious. And as you're doing it, you're really letting yourself experience the mindfulness. It's like experiencing that kind of way of showing up and enjoying it, like having a little bit of wonder, a little bit of savoring of the moment.

And so, this kind of mindfulness of savoring and enjoying the present moment as we do the habit is positive reinforcement as we do it. I still think, you know, play some nice music as you do the habit, have that cup of chai—but have the cup as you do the habit, not afterward, or coffee or tea or whatever you like.

Chai, by the way, is the word for tea.

So, okay, let me finish this episode by talking about what happens if we miss a habit.

And in this one, as I mentioned, this is an underrated skill for habits, and it's the practice of simply coming back—simply coming back to the habit after you've dropped it. This is underrated because people think, "Oh, when I form a habit, I'm going to do it. I'm going to be disciplined. I'm going to stick to it." And they have this idea of how the habit's going to go, which is a rigid idea. "It needs to go well."

But we don't build into our framework, our mind model, the idea that it could be messy.

You could do three straight days and then miss two days, and then do two straight days and then miss a day, and then do five straight days and then miss a day, and then do 30 straight days and then miss a day and feel super disappointed. So that's actually how it often goes.

Now, it doesn't have to be like that. It could be, "I did 150 straight days and then I missed a day, and that caused me to miss 12 more days because I was so discouraged." That's often how it goes as well.

And so, there's not an exact way it's going to go, but we want to broaden the range of how we think it's going to go. And then that allows it to be more anti-fragile, that we are more resilient when things don't go the way we thought.

We're like, "Oh, actually, I did think it could go this way. It wasn't what I was shooting for. Obviously, I'm not trying to miss a day, but that was included in my idea of how habits go. So I knew this was a possibility. And now all I have to do is start again."

As simple as that. "All I have to do is start again." And if it helps, shrink the habit down. If you were doing 30 minutes of writing every day and you missed a day, do 20 minutes the next day.

If you missed two days, do 10 minutes the next day. If you missed three days, do five minutes the next day. So we want to shrink it down so that it's really easy to start again. We want to start back as simply as possible.

I'm going to give you an example of how this works in meditation.

A lot of you have meditated on the breath before, and one common instruction is to count the breaths. There's one breath, there's two breaths, and so you count either on the in-breath or the out-breath, right?

And so it's like, "One, two, three." And then when you catch yourself thinking, you're like, "Ah, I was thinking. Okay, come back." Now you start back at one.

And people will often get frustrated. It's like, "Ah, I have to start back at one. I was just on seven. Dang it. Now I'm back on one." But that's because they have some idea that they should be on seven, and seven is better than one.

But what if one was just as important as seven? And if you come back to one, it's like, "Okay, cool. One is also great. Now I'm at eight. Okay, cool. Eight is great. But now I'm back to one because I thought about something. Thought about how great eight was. Now I'm back to one. One is also freaking great. So is two. Let's celebrate ones and twos, because ones and twos mean we came back."

What if we never came back and we just thought for the rest of the meditation? There are no more ones. You know, that's not something to be mad at ourselves about, but the idea that that could happen. And then instead, we just came back to one.

That's a celebration-worthy event. We came back to one.

And that's what I'm saying with habits. Yeah, you could get a streak going of 150 straight days, but if you miss a day, start back at one and celebrate starting back at one, because that's an amazing thing.

So, I encourage you, as homework, think about what habits are going to sustain the intentions and goals that you have, and post it in the YouTube comments, or if you're listening to the audio version of this, send me an email at podcast@zenhabits.net.

I would love to hear from you. I might not reply, but I promise you I'll read it. It'll go to my personal inbox. I will read every single one. I will be thinking about you and be grateful for you for listening and replying to me.

Thank you, my friends. I will see you in the next episode.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.

Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

***

Okay, here we are in episode one of the new season. The Zen of Productivity is our theme, and in this episode, we're going to talk about goals and intentions, which is something that we always want to discuss at the beginning of a project, a task, taking on a habit, or anything big and meaningful.

We don't want to just start off down the path without having some idea of where we're headed. So, we're going to talk about that in general. I'm also going to bring in the role of Zen in this discussion. I talked about the Zen of productivity, but this is going to be about the role of intentions in Zen practice.

And how to work with attachment—also being too unattached. We're going to talk about productivity versus happiness, differentiating between goals and intentions, and how to set meaningful and mindful goals. So, these are some of the things we're discussing in this episode. But before we do that, let's talk about intentions for this season.

The Zen of productivity. I mentioned that in the intro episode, episode zero—go watch or listen to it if you haven't yet. But in this episode, I want to talk a little bit about what our intentions are. Why call it the Zen of productivity? Is it just like, "Let me just be zenned out and chill, dude"?

That's not what we're shooting for here. What we're shooting for is to bring this intentional, mindful approach to our meaningful work—to what we are trying to take on in this world, to the impact that we're trying to have. So it's intentional and mindful. This is the intention of this season: we are trying to be intentional and mindful about the season itself, about each episode.

That's my intention. And I'd love for you to check in with yourself. How does that sound—to bring intentionality and mindfulness? Now, that doesn't really encompass all of what Zen means, but those are some of the key aspects of Zen that we are bringing into productivity. This discussion about productivity doesn't mean we're not going to try and talk about some of the best tactics for productivity, like how to get super disciplined and focused, how to create good habits, and all of that stuff.

So, the tactical side of it—the tools and systems—we will talk about that. But we're not just going to talk about tactics for the sake of tactics. We're going to do it with intention, to serve the place that we are trying to get to. And so, as I talk about that for the season, let's talk about that in this episode.

The first thing I want to talk about is the role of intentions in Zen practice. You might think, "Oh, Zen is a goalless practice." In some aspects, it is. There's no goal in Zen meditation. Your word for Zen meditation in general is "just sit." Just sitting. So, the idea is a goalless meditation. I'm not trying to stick to my breath. It's objectless in some ways, and it's not about trying to get somewhere. So, in some ways, Zen meditation is goalless. But that said, it's not without intention. We sit with intention. We have an intention in our practice, in the world, and in the study that we have.

Zen is actually very intentional, even though the meditation itself can often be (not always, but often) a goalless meditation. There is still intention in the practice and study of Zen. Let me talk a little bit about that. You don't have to be a Zen student, but I think there are some interesting things about that as we talk about intentions and goals here at the beginning of the season.

So, what is the intention of Zen meditation, study, and practice? Well, there can be any intention that you want it to be, but in general, one of the usual intentions of Zen practice is to be mindful and present in the present moment. So, we're not necessarily thinking about, "What's my day going to be like today or tomorrow or in the future?"

We're not stuck in the past. As much as I can, I'm fully present here in this moment. So that's an intention. That doesn't mean you're always going to be fully present in the present moment. That's not a reality. We're human. Our minds will wander to what we need to do later in that meeting coming up, or what so-and-so said to me yesterday.

Our minds will wander, but we have an intention to be as present as we can, to practice showing up and being present in the present moment. The intention doesn't mean that we are definitely going to do that all the time. We're practicing showing up in the present moment. And as we practice showing up, we're starting to change our default state.

It's a habit that we're creating. Although we don't want to get stuck in a rut, Zen actually lets go of old predetermined habits. But to keep things simple, we are practicing showing up as present in meditation and in our lives. And so that's an intention, and we are practicing with that intention. We are practicing with that intention.

It's not the only intention. Zen isn't just about being present. I say "just" in quotes because being present is a freaking amazing intention. But that's one of the intentions. Another is compassion—learning to feel compassion for all beings—is one of the key intentions in Zen meditation and practice.

You might not be practicing that in every single moment: "I'm compassionate for all beings" or even compassionate for myself or this person in front of me who's being obnoxious, right? We have an intention, but we might not be practicing it at every moment. But that's an intention—to access our natural, open compassion.

And that's a natural state for all of us—that we are naturally compassionate if we don't get triggered into our reactive state. So, we are just returning to that state. Another intention for Zen practice (and this is not all-encompassing as in this discussion) is to let go of our idea of ourselves—who we think we are, our identity.

As we do so, it actually allows us to be more present, fully in this moment, and more compassionate. So, these are some intentions in Zen meditation, practice, and study. Again, it's not about being perfect. It's not that we're going to do that all the time, but we set these intentions and then remind ourselves of these intentions.

Part of the reminder in Zen practice is that we make some vows in front of others, and we ask them to hold us to those vows. Not that we're going to be perfect, but they are reminding us of the vows. So, the other people who we are practicing with—what they call the sangha, the community of practitioners—they're there to remind us.

These are important things about reminding ourselves of our intentions. So that's the role of intentions in Zen practice. Now, there is a much longer discussion that we could have about that, but I wanted to at least touch on that here as we talk about the Zen of productivity. And I think that those elements that I just described in terms of intentions are important. Now, you don't have to have those exact intentions.

Be present, be compassionate, let go of the idea of ourselves. You don't have to. But you might think, "What is my intention for the work that I'm doing, for the productivity that I'm trying to create, the discipline, the practice, the habits, the impact that I want to have? What do I want?"

It's not that you have to be perfect.

We often shut down what we want because we're worried we're not going to be able to do it. That's an obstacle that we have to work with. "Ah, I'm not going to actually do it. So, I'm just not going to set myself any intentions." That is shutting down our deepest desires of our heart. And I think it's understandable.

I've done it many, many times. Like, "Ah, I'm just not going to want anything," but it isn't actually how we operate as human beings. We want things to happen. And if we really want to access our hearts, our deepest intentions, and desires that come from the heart, we have to be willing to let ourselves want it and then be willing to have some heartbreak when we don't get it.

And then practice being with that heartbreak. That's a part of setting intentions—"Oh, I'm going to actually fall on my face and feel embarrassed." And then we just practice with that. That's where we can bring some compassion and some presence, and letting go of our ideas of ourselves is just showing up and practicing with the heartbreak, with our disappointment, with our embarrassment—all of the things that come with setting intentions and goals, with having desires and listening to our hearts.

Okay, so let's differentiate between goals and intentions. And I'm not intending, in this distinction, to say this one is good, this one's bad. I actually think both are useful, but it's really good to differentiate and distinguish between them so that we have some ideas of how to work with them.

Intentions are like, "This is what I want to do. This is my intention." And intention can be, "This is how I want to show up. I want to show up and be present and compassionate," would be an example. Or, "I want to bring my full devotion to everything that I do." Or, "I want to show up with power and stand in my power," or "be a freaking goddess," or whatever it is that you, you know—a leader.

"I want to show up in this way." That's an intention. It's how we want to show up, how we want to practice, how we want to do things. Like, "I want to bring creativity and magic into my writing sessions." The way we want to create the experience of what we're doing—these are some things that embody the idea of intention.

Intention encapsulates all the things I just said. Now, a goal is more of an outcome. It's a destination. And you might think, if you've read anything that I've written in the distant past on goals, or you might have listened to other things on Zen and goals, you might think that means it's a bad thing.

It's an outcome-based thing. It's a destination. For example, I might say, "I want to walk while feeling the earth fully beneath my feet." That's an intention. But then I might set a goal, like "I want to hike up that mountain." That's an outcome. I want to get to the top of that mountain. That's a goal.

The way I want to walk on the path is my intention. Now, we can use them interchangeably if we want. "My goal is to be fully present as I take every step up that mountain." And "My intention is to get to the top of that mountain." You can do that if you want to, but the distinction I'm making is that intention is how we're showing up and practicing in the experience, in the process.

So, it's a process-based thing, whereas a goal is an outcome or a destination. And I actually think both are important. In Zen, we often don't work with goals. It's like, "Ah, I want to be perfect in my meditation, show up and count to a thousand breaths." Like, that's not a thing that we do in Zen meditation.

But sometimes there are goals, like if I say, "I would like to take these vows as a Zen priest." That's a goal. And you might even just tell that to your teacher and be like, "I have a goal of taking vows as a Zen priest." It's a goal. There's nothing wrong with that goal. If you say, "I want to sit in this meditation retreat."

Sashin is what they will call it in Zen. "I want to sit in this week-long meditation retreat." That's a goal. Now, I might have intentions for when I'm there, but there's a goal of "I want to actually go to this retreat and sit through it." So, it isn't that it's absent from Zen practice. And even if it were, I still think it's useful.

So, how do we work with that here in your projects? I've gotten into a long discussion about goals and intentions in Zen practice, but let's take it to a practical level. How do we actually turn that into meaningful and mindful goals? What I encourage you to do is to set both an intention for how you want to show up and a goal.

Where do you want to end up? For example, let's say you take a project: "I want to make some videos for YouTube," or "I want to write a book," or "I want to make an app," you know, whatever it is that you want to do, right? So, "I want to make an app." Okay, great. That's a goal—to have this app done by the end of this year, December 31st.

Okay, that's a goal. It's an outcome. And I actually think there's something powerful about that because it calls you to show up. If you just said, "I want to show up every day and code, but with creativity and joy in my heart," that's an intention, right? "So, I'm going to show up every day and code with creativity and joy in my heart."

Well, who knows if and when that project will ever be done, right? Maybe you'll be done in 2050. Maybe you'll be done, you know, never. Maybe you'll quit after four days. Who cares, right? Because there's no goal as long as you're showing up and practicing. Well, that's great, but it doesn't actually create anything.

It doesn't really call you forward when you're facing fears, which we'll talk about later in the season. How do we actually face our resistance, our uncertainty, our fears? Well, if you're taking on a meaningful goal, a meaningful project, you are going to have resistance, uncertainty, and fears. And if you just say, "Oh, I just want to show up and code, and be super present when I do it," great, but you're not actually going to be called forward when you face those fears. When those fears show up and confront you, and you're like, "Oh," and, and so I actually think setting a goal—by the end of this year, by the end of October, by the end of June—I am going to have this outcome done. Set a stake in the ground and say, "That's where I'm going."

And that is a powerful way of showing up. So, I encourage you, as we start the season, to think about what is a meaningful goal. It's not just a goal to pick a number, pick a date, pick a thing, but something that will be meaningful for you, that will move your life forward, that will have an impact that you care about.

What's a goal that would actually be amazing? And you're going to be like, "Well, I don't know if I can do that." Of course, you don't. We will get to that when you get there. You know, if you fall on your face, but what if you could be willing to set a goal, even if you might fall on your face? That's my challenge to you.

That's courage. That's a willingness to step into the unknown. So, that's a meaningful goal. Now, what about the intention? Well, as I do this, I want to show up with adventure in my heart. Or maybe curiosity. I want to bring compassion or love. I want to bring play into this.

Okay, great. So, you have this goal to finish it by this date, and you're going to bring play into it, or whatever it is. Divinity. I want to bring spirit. I want to be power, a leader, brilliance. So, some kind of way of showing up or practicing. I want to be super freaking disciplined, whatever it is that you want.

So, an intention for how you're going to show up. And that intention will empower you to get to that goal. If you show up with adventure, you're much more likely to get to that goal. And not with a sense of burden and should, but actually like, "Ah, this is freaking amazing." So, I encourage you to set both a goal and an intention.

I'm going to talk about a couple of other things here that I think are important before we finish this discussion. One thing is a "should, I have to, I must"—like, "This is what I should be doing." This is actually how most people take on goals. And this is actually why people get turned off by goals, accountability, and structure, because the way that we've done it in the past is saying, "Oh, here's the goal."

That means every day there's this thing that I should be doing. I need to be, or I should be, or I have to be doing my writing from this time to this time. Right. So, I've set a goal, and I'm setting some structure, and now that's something that I have to do, or I should be doing.

It's another way that I'm going to fail myself and should myself and force myself, coerce myself. And that is not fun. That's a boring way to do stuff, but that's actually how we do everything in general, for most people. So, shoulds and have-tos are not what I recommend for goals and intentions.

What I encourage is for you to show up in a way that feels amazing. "I want to be creative as I face my fear and resistance." So, I'm not doing the fear and resistance because I should, but because I want to bring my creativity into the world, into this particular session. We're bringing our heart into this—our joy, our caring into this.

The reason why I'm doing this, the intention behind all of this, is to actually have a meaningful impact. So, I actually encourage you to think about, like, "What's the intention that you have behind the impact—not just how you show up in the sessions, but why do you want to have this goal come out in the first place?"

What lights you up about this? What would be an amazing thing for you to do for others, or for yourself, or for the world? And that's an intention behind the goal. There's a reason why that comes from the heart, that makes us feel like this is meaningful. It's not just productivity for productivity's sake, but because I actually care about the impact that I want to have. This goal is meaningful not just because it's another thing to check off so that I can be a good person or feel adequate in the world, but because I actually want to make a difference. I actually want to have an impact that's positive in my life, in this person's life, in five people's lives, in the community, in the world, something.

It's going to matter in some way that you care about. So, that's what I really encourage you to do. And that's where I encourage you to come from as you do that daily session or whatever it is that you're going to do. Find not a should or a have-to, but a "I want to, I care about this. This is from my heart."

That's my assignment for you. If you want to take on an assignment—not a should assignment, but like, "Ooh, do I feel lit up by that idea?" So, set a goal that has a meaningful impact that you care about, and then set an intention that aligns with that impact. "I want to have this impact on people. I want to do this because it would be compassionate for them."

So, show up every day, every session with that same compassion. Align the intention with the meaning behind the goal. Okay, I'm going to share one last set of ideas before we close this podcast episode. And this is about attachment when it comes to goals. So, people usually have some kind of level of attachment when it comes to working with a goal.

And it's either too tight or too loose. So, too attached or too unattached. And what we're looking for is a middle path. So, let's talk about too attached. This is one that you're probably familiar with. It's like, "Oh, I need to do this goal, and I have to force myself, and I'm going to do this no matter what."

So, you're super committed, and you will run yourself into the ground to make this happen. That's an attachment to a goal. It's not just like, "I feel committed to it," but "I feel anxious that it's not going to happen." This is the thing that leads to burnout for a lot of people. If you're doing a physical goal, like, "I want to run a marathon,"

Too strong an attachment to a goal will have you injure yourself because you're like, "I have to do this training every single day, and I'm not listening to my body. I'm overdoing it because I'm attached to making this goal, even though my body is saying, 'Hey, slow down a bit. You've got a little bit of tenderness in your tendon there.'"

Maybe slow down and give yourself a little bit of a rest. "No, I need to—I'm attached to this goal. I need to do my training session," and then you get injured. Well, that's with a physical goal. But what about other goals, like a writing goal or making a video course, or an app, or starting a nonprofit, or whatever it is that you want to do?

Well, if you're too attached, you will burn yourself out because you're not actually working with resistance. You're forcing yourself from a place of shoulds. So, this is a tight attachment. And you can tell that because you're not prioritized. You're not giving yourself rest. You're not having fun. You have a sense of burden and coercion in doing this.

That's a tight attachment. A loose attachment is like, "Yeah, I want to do it, but I don't really care that much about it. Why should I? You can hear it in my voice, right? It's like, 'We'll see.' And, 'Not today.' 'Why am I making myself suffer?' And, 'Yeah, I can do it later.'"

So, that's too loose. It's like there's no attachment, and we become unattached when we shut down our hearts from caring. What happens is we just don't show up when there's any kind of resistance. "Yeah, I know I should be doing that writing, but eh, I'm going to go out and play video games, play with my kids, do whatever."

But what I'm not going to do is show up for this commitment and face my resistance. So, that's too unattached. What we're looking for (and we can work on this more as we go into the season) is a middle ground where I'm not tightly attached and I'm not too loose. How can I work with my goals, my structures, my commitment, my intentions, so that I'm showing up but not forcing myself?

It's not like "I have to." I'm not burning myself into the ground. I'm actually caring about how I show up. I'm paying attention to, like, "Does my body need some rest?" but I'm also working with the commitment. And I'll give you an example with my own Zen teacher. And so, she said with meditation, we can get to the point where we don't want to meditate right now.

It's just like, "Oh, it's uncomfortable. And I want to just get up from the meditation seat and go do something else." So, if we just let ourselves get up, that's too loose. You're just letting yourself give in to any urge. But if you force yourself to meditate for an hour, and the whole time you're suffering, and you're sweating bullets, and you're like, "I'm going to be hardcore about this," that is not healthy.

That's too attached. And so, what she said (and this is something that I've taken to heart in various ways in my life), she said a middle way is: The first time you want to get up, don't get up. Just notice it. It's an urge to get up, but don't do it. The second time that you want to get up, notice the urge, but don't get up.

The third time that you want to get up from the meditation seat, notice the urge and then let yourself get up. So, that's a balance, and I really love that because you worked with it a couple of times. You were committed, you were working with this intention. But you didn't force yourself too long. You gave yourself a little bit of commitment, but it wasn't like, "Ah, I'm going to run myself into the ground."

That's the kind of middle ground we're looking for. So, I encourage you to find your middle path as you work with your goals and intentions. That's all I've got for you today. My homework for you, if you decide to take this on before we talk about how to actually put all of this into action, is to set a meaningful goal for yourself that actually matters to your heart.

Something that you can work on in the next three or four months as we do this podcast season, and set an intention for how you want to show up that is aligned with the meaning of that goal. The impact that you'd like to have is like, "Oh, I really want to do this so I can inspire people." Okay, show up with inspiration.

"I want to do this to bring adventure to kids' lives." Okay, great. Thank you. Bring adventure to every session as you create this for them. So, our intention lines up with the meaningful goal, the impact that we want to have in the world. So, find that for yourself. Do some journaling, share that in the comments here.

If you're watching the YouTube version of this, if you're not, go watch the YouTube version because I've got a beautiful freaking face. And then, if you're listening to the audio version, you can also just send me an email at podcast@zenhabits.net. I love getting emails from you. If you have questions, send them to me. I can answer them in future episodes or videos on YouTube.

I love hearing from you. So, put a comment below the YouTube video or send me an email at podcast@zenhabits.net. I read every single one. I reply to most, maybe not all. And I love every one that I get. So, thank you, my friends. I will talk to you in the next episode.

***

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.