WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.200 Welcome to the second part of Making Work Effortless. 2 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:09.680 Now, the point of these two modules together is to help you take 3 00:00:09.680 --> 00:00:12.900 your essential tasks and make them feel effortless. 4 00:00:12.900 --> 00:00:17.160 Today, I want to talk about a big idea of 5 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:19.720 how sustainable excellence really 6 00:00:19.720 --> 00:00:22.320 comes from working in a restful state. 7 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.100 Now, that may sound like a contradiction, 8 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:27.220 but that's because for most of us, 9 00:00:27.220 --> 00:00:29.760 we feel that if it's our essential work, 10 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:31.760 it also has to be exhausting, 11 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:33.780 it has to be like all out. 12 00:00:33.780 --> 00:00:36.060 But what if that's not the case? 13 00:00:36.060 --> 00:00:38.180 What if the opposite were true? 14 00:00:38.180 --> 00:00:40.860 As we reframe this in our own thinking, 15 00:00:40.860 --> 00:00:42.140 we can find, for instance, 16 00:00:42.140 --> 00:00:48.120 that research shows that leaders who master effortless execution, 17 00:00:48.120 --> 00:00:50.940 constantly outperform those who rely 18 00:00:50.940 --> 00:00:54.020 on willpower and grinding through the challenges. 19 00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:58.060 So today, we're going to cover three practical frameworks to 20 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:03.440 really help you step into that effortless or restful state. 21 00:01:03.440 --> 00:01:05.720 So I want to get into those three, 22 00:01:05.720 --> 00:01:07.120 and as we go through those, 23 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:10.560 I want to make them as practical as possible for you. 24 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:15.320 So the first one is to create rituals through coupling. 25 00:01:15.320 --> 00:01:17.040 So what's coupling? 26 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:18.920 We talked a bit about it last week, 27 00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:21.160 that coupling is when we connect 28 00:01:21.160 --> 00:01:23.600 something we love with something that's essential. 29 00:01:23.600 --> 00:01:26.400 So we take an activity we love, 30 00:01:26.420 --> 00:01:30.340 connect it to some essential activity that we do. 31 00:01:30.340 --> 00:01:31.580 So when we do this, 32 00:01:31.580 --> 00:01:34.180 when you couple your essential activities 33 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:36.660 with elements you actually enjoy, 34 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:40.500 you really transform necessary work into 35 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:44.540 experiences that actually energize you rather than deplete you. 36 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:46.380 Rather than feeling drained, 37 00:01:46.380 --> 00:01:50.380 you end up with more energy after the event than before. 38 00:01:50.380 --> 00:01:54.700 So the reason for this is that joy in us and 39 00:01:54.700 --> 00:01:57.560 restfulness are two powerful work 40 00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:01.900 modalities that take your work to the next level. 41 00:02:01.900 --> 00:02:07.760 I think most people think of joy as a happiness that happens after a happy event. 42 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:12.880 But what if there can be a general joyful state and a general restful state? 43 00:02:12.880 --> 00:02:16.120 This is what high-performance people learn. 44 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:18.920 So to do this, I want to give you two practical steps. 45 00:02:18.920 --> 00:02:21.240 One, start a list, 46 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:25.700 call it a joy list and just start to observe the things you love to do. 47 00:02:25.700 --> 00:02:30.140 So simple things like music or specific locations, 48 00:02:30.140 --> 00:02:33.300 favorite beverages, textures, scents, whatever. 49 00:02:33.300 --> 00:02:35.100 Things that just bring you joy, 50 00:02:35.100 --> 00:02:37.300 that lift your mood throughout the day. 51 00:02:37.300 --> 00:02:41.540 It's interesting how it can be the tiniest little things that do that for us. 52 00:02:41.540 --> 00:02:46.100 So being aware and being intentional about a list is really helpful. 53 00:02:46.100 --> 00:02:48.260 Just keep that on your phone or something, 54 00:02:48.260 --> 00:02:52.000 make a joy list and just start to keep that together. 55 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.880 Then the next thing is to strategically 56 00:02:55.880 --> 00:03:00.120 couple one of those joy items with one of your essential tasks. 57 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:03.560 So the second part called matching with 58 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:07.840 essential tasks is we want to find the most challenging one, 59 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:09.560 to go with the most joyful one. 60 00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:11.080 So try to rank them in terms of, 61 00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:12.560 well, yeah, this gives me joy. 62 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:14.200 But this first part, 63 00:03:14.200 --> 00:03:17.880 sitting in my leather chair with a glass of wine, 64 00:03:17.940 --> 00:03:20.820 and with my favorite music in the background, 65 00:03:20.820 --> 00:03:23.260 now that's really high joy for me. 66 00:03:23.260 --> 00:03:27.300 Okay, what essential task can I put to that? 67 00:03:27.300 --> 00:03:31.900 So Cal Newport, when he wrote the book Deep Work, 68 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:34.780 actually shared about using that exact approach, 69 00:03:34.780 --> 00:03:36.700 that at night after the kids had gone to bed, 70 00:03:36.700 --> 00:03:38.720 I think he said it was 10 PM at night, 71 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:41.740 he would sit down in his leather chair with his glass of wine, 72 00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:43.980 playing his favorite music, 73 00:03:43.980 --> 00:03:46.340 he would then start writing articles. 74 00:03:46.440 --> 00:03:48.600 Because that was essential to what he did. 75 00:03:48.600 --> 00:03:51.600 And so as you think about that, 76 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:54.640 try to match the most essential tasks 77 00:03:54.640 --> 00:03:57.600 with the ones that bring you the greatest joy. 78 00:03:57.600 --> 00:04:00.560 Okay, the second framework, the second idea, 79 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:03.260 so that first idea, again, just to reiterate, 80 00:04:03.260 --> 00:04:07.120 was create these rituals through coupling. 81 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:09.360 So again, a ritual consists of two pieces, 82 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:10.480 something that brings you joy 83 00:04:10.480 --> 00:04:11.780 and something that's essential, 84 00:04:11.780 --> 00:04:14.280 and we combine them to create a ritual. 85 00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:16.140 So take something from your joy list, 86 00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:17.680 something from your essential list, 87 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:21.160 connect them together, that creates a new ritual. 88 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:25.320 So start creating rituals that connect those two things 89 00:04:25.320 --> 00:04:28.080 and try to match their intensity. 90 00:04:28.080 --> 00:04:31.640 The second big thought here is to think about 91 00:04:31.640 --> 00:04:35.440 working from rest, not towards exhaustion. 92 00:04:35.440 --> 00:04:39.140 So we work from rest, not towards exhaustion. 93 00:04:39.140 --> 00:04:41.800 You know, we have to reframe our minds 94 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:44.640 that if we're really taking our career seriously, 95 00:04:44.640 --> 00:04:46.440 if we're really in on this, 96 00:04:46.440 --> 00:04:49.540 then we will be all in, overbooked, overworked, 97 00:04:49.540 --> 00:04:53.300 overscheduled, you know, at the point of exertion 98 00:04:53.300 --> 00:04:55.260 or even overexertion. 99 00:04:55.260 --> 00:04:57.500 But what if that's not actually the case? 100 00:04:57.500 --> 00:04:59.900 Because that's not sustainable to you. 101 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.640 to the organization you serve. So sustainable high-performance leadership 102 00:05:04.640 --> 00:05:11.160 means approaching these essential tasks with renewable energy rather than 103 00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:17.320 depleting yourself through overexertion. So here are two ideas. One, establish 104 00:05:17.320 --> 00:05:22.280 daily recovery boundaries. So what's a recovery boundary? Well a recovery 105 00:05:22.280 --> 00:05:28.240 boundary is to not do more today that you cannot completely recover from 106 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:33.240 tomorrow. So don't do more today then you cannot completely recover from tomorrow. 107 00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:38.760 So when we put these boundaries in place that sometimes means putting work off. It 108 00:05:38.760 --> 00:05:44.680 sometimes means stopping early or maybe even you know taking a nap if it's 109 00:05:44.680 --> 00:05:49.240 necessary. And you know we've we found out that you can actually build the 110 00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:54.080 science shows that you can do micro recovery moments. You know in between 111 00:05:54.080 --> 00:05:58.720 important tasks doing something for five or ten minutes that isn't you know 112 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:03.800 that's just a switch of just a micro recovery often helps with this recovery 113 00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:09.080 process. So these are called recovery boundaries and we want to set recovery 114 00:06:09.080 --> 00:06:14.720 boundaries for the day and then we also want to establish that these micro 115 00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:19.360 recovery moments throughout the day. And as you're thinking about this it's also 116 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:24.840 important to start to recognize your own fatigue signals. Many of us have been 117 00:06:24.840 --> 00:06:30.880 trained to ignore these fatigue signals. When you're feeling fatigued it's easy 118 00:06:30.880 --> 00:06:35.320 just to ignore it and take it as a lack of self-discipline. I've just got to 119 00:06:35.320 --> 00:06:38.920 drive through this. I've got it whenever you find yourself grinding through 120 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:43.040 something, forcing yourself through something, this is the opposite of what 121 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:47.080 we're trying to get to. So stop yourself. Hit the pause button. Think about what 122 00:06:47.080 --> 00:06:53.680 you're doing and you know notice that real work works best when you're all in. 123 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:59.360 Meaning that you are restful and there's a boundary. You're in your zone. So this 124 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:04.440 whole idea now some research shows that you might even need to take a 20 minute 125 00:07:04.440 --> 00:07:09.840 nap if you've actually got to the point of fatigue. And a 20 minute nap you know 126 00:07:09.840 --> 00:07:14.600 is I know not always acceptable in most organizations. If you work from home 127 00:07:14.640 --> 00:07:19.240 that's obviously easier. When I was running my software company it was very 128 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:24.600 regular for me almost every day to lock my door. I had a sofa in my office and I'd 129 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:29.080 go lie down and for 20 minutes I just take a power nap. And I learned to do 130 00:07:29.080 --> 00:07:32.840 them. In fact I learned to do them in five to ten minutes and I was amazed how 131 00:07:32.840 --> 00:07:37.480 refreshed I felt. And a lot of people say well if I did that I'll be groggy. You 132 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:42.680 may be doing them too long. So power naps are just going down for an instant and 133 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:47.520 coming straight back up. It's amazing how refreshing that actually is. So we 134 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:53.160 don't we have to learn. So you need to stop pushing through a mode where you're 135 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:59.720 in diminished capacity. So restore it first then carry on. And the third idea 136 00:07:59.720 --> 00:08:04.320 around the third sub point around this is so part of this working from rest not 137 00:08:04.320 --> 00:08:10.040 towards exhaustion is that we must develop a sustainable weekly rhythm. So 138 00:08:10.080 --> 00:08:15.160 in the same way we set daily boundaries we're now also setting weekly 139 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:20.560 boundaries. So you don't want to do more this week that you cannot fully recover 140 00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:26.600 from next week. It's such a powerful idea because and Greg McKeon in his book 141 00:08:26.600 --> 00:08:29.520 Effortless really gets into the nuts and bolts of this. So if you want to know 142 00:08:29.520 --> 00:08:35.360 more that's a great resource to look into. So what we do is we alternate 143 00:08:35.400 --> 00:08:40.720 high-energy essential work with low demand activities. You know I think a lot 144 00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:44.880 of times people give their best time to their worst work. We've talked about this 145 00:08:44.880 --> 00:08:49.320 before. You know getting up first thing you do is email. But if first thing in 146 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:53.680 the morning is your low period in your day then doing email is a great idea. If 147 00:08:53.680 --> 00:08:58.680 it's your high performance time if it's a high intensity time for you do not be 148 00:08:58.680 --> 00:09:04.960 doing low intensity work. So it's just this level of intentionality and being 149 00:09:05.040 --> 00:09:11.000 clearly observant and giving yourself permission to take cognitive control. 150 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:16.760 Take control over these daily and weekly rhythms for yourself. Because we know 151 00:09:16.760 --> 00:09:21.200 already that leaders who work from this restful mode rather than towards 152 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:26.200 exhaustion make better decisions. They inspire confidence in others. They 153 00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:31.160 certainly can sustain their excellence for long periods of time without burnout. 154 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:35.280 This is such a powerful thing and you may be looking at this and say well 155 00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:38.840 these feel like tweaks. Actually as I think as you get into it you'll find out 156 00:09:38.840 --> 00:09:43.560 it's a lot more than tweaks. It stops us hitting those fatigue moments where we're 157 00:09:43.560 --> 00:09:49.280 just exhausted, tired and just grind through. So no more grinding through. Take 158 00:09:49.280 --> 00:09:53.840 active steps even if it means delaying what you have to do for 20 minutes. Take 159 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:58.920 a power nap, reset and go and do really powerful work. Okay so we've talked about 160 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:07.920 Two key ideas. The first was how do we create rituals through coupling? The second was practice 161 00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:15.560 working from rest, not towards exhaustion. And thirdly, we eliminate complexity by starting 162 00:10:15.560 --> 00:10:20.760 simple. A lot of stress comes when we are trying to tackle a project that seems complex. 163 00:10:20.760 --> 00:10:25.640 We touched on some of this when we were doing Thin Slicing on innovation. But under this 164 00:10:25.640 --> 00:10:30.360 section I want to talk this more down to your everyday work, not necessarily new and 165 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:36.400 innovative things that you are doing. What I found is sometimes a project feels large. 166 00:10:36.400 --> 00:10:43.520 And when it feels large, here is a secret. Ask yourself, what is the minimum event? What's 167 00:10:43.520 --> 00:10:49.520 the smallest baby step I can take? So your first baby step, some people call it the first 168 00:10:49.520 --> 00:10:53.480 obvious action, whatever you want to call that. The first baby step. What's the simplest 169 00:10:53.800 --> 00:11:01.800 step I can take first? And start that. And then you introduce a second idea. Do 10 minute 170 00:11:01.800 --> 00:11:08.800 microburst. Now these two are incredibly powerful for getting yourself into a project you are 171 00:11:08.800 --> 00:11:15.560 avoiding because of its complexity. And the way to do that is, what's my small baby step? 172 00:11:15.560 --> 00:11:20.520 I think we used the analogy before that if I have to reorganize my garage, or I have 173 00:11:20.520 --> 00:11:24.720 to build new shelves and organize all my books, and I have to go and buy new shelves 174 00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:29.800 or build them or something I was going to do in my home, the first step wouldn't be 175 00:11:29.800 --> 00:11:33.720 to draw up a plan. The first step would be to go and get the measuring tape and measure 176 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:39.720 the wall. How big is the space? And then stay doing this for 10 minutes. What happens after 177 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:46.400 10 minutes is you create an automatic momentum that builds naturally and you'll find yourself 178 00:11:46.520 --> 00:11:51.800 moving into the harder and harder parts. It'll feel effortless. And with a little bit of 179 00:11:51.800 --> 00:11:58.480 practice you can really master this idea. And so what happens is you don't get intimidated 180 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:04.880 by large obstacles or complexity because you're immediately looking for what's the first 181 00:12:04.880 --> 00:12:10.800 baby step? Start that microburst for 10 minutes and I'm out the other end. So that's what 182 00:12:10.800 --> 00:12:17.320 I wanted to share with you today. As you're making your essential work feel effortless, 183 00:12:17.320 --> 00:12:23.080 it comes down to these three things. Once again, create rituals through coupling. Remember 184 00:12:23.080 --> 00:12:30.080 ritual has something from your joy list connecting to something on your essential task list. 185 00:12:30.800 --> 00:12:36.200 And then work from rest, not towards exhaustion. Setting daily boundaries and weekly boundaries 186 00:12:36.400 --> 00:12:42.040 And when you hit fatigue moments, take 20 minutes, take a power nap, recover and go 187 00:12:42.040 --> 00:12:49.040 at it again. And thirdly, eliminate complexity by starting simple. That simply means what's 188 00:12:49.400 --> 00:12:53.880 the first baby step, the first obvious thing you need to do? Do it for 10 minutes in a 189 00:12:53.880 --> 00:12:58.280 microburst and that will create the momentum to get you through that bigger project. Well 190 00:12:58.280 --> 00:13:04.640 I hope you find these really practical and enjoy making them part of your normal working 191 00:13:04.640 --> 00:13:05.640 memory. Enjoy!