Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Do you recognize this in yourself or someone else: You're working hard. More than what's required. You're rxtremely busy, but at the end of the week, you're just not sure what you actually got done.
Yes, that really hurts. And eventually, you'll burn out. The solution? Getting productive as F...
Yes, that really hurts. And eventually, you'll burn out. The solution? Getting productive as F...
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (02:29) - Stress, burnout and productivity
- (08:06) - Keeping an inventory
- (08:26) - Waiting for list
- (10:54) - Fixing sleep with a list
- (12:00) - A not to do list & the endless backlog
- (14:47) - Weekly updates
- (17:58) - Context Switching
- (22:42) - Interruption
- (25:52) - Take control of your calendar
***
Connect with us
✉️ Newsletter: https://www.revletter.io/
Creators & Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Mikkel Plaehn, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
[00:00:00] Toni: everyone, this is Toni Holbein. You are listening to the Revenue Formula with Mikkel and Toni.
[00:00:07] In today's episode, we discuss how to avoid stress and burnouts by, and here comes, becoming incredibly productive and efficient while doing a job. Enjoy
[00:00:23] Mikkel: I just remember something. So you and I were just in Berlin speaking not speaking, actually recording an episode at a conference.
[00:00:31] Toni: also speaking,
[00:00:32] Mikkel: We're also speaking, but we're recording a live episode of this show at Project A's
[00:00:37] Toni: probably has aired already now. So some
[00:00:39] Mikkel: Yeah, who knows? But, but anyway, we're recording an episode there. And what I remember is we're basically standing backstage. Before we're about to go on and we're like, you know what? We should, we should bring on something
[00:00:53] Toni: You, you idiot.
[00:00:55] Mikkel: And I'm like, you know what? I could actually really go for a Coke right now. And it's the glass bottle. And
[00:01:00] Toni: Which is a cool thing in Germany, we have mostly glass bottles for the Coke still.
[00:01:03] Mikkel: And I'm like, you know what? I can open this with a teaspoon. And I just stand there. And all of a sudden, while someone is presenting, it's just quiet in the conference. And I do the, I just
[00:01:15] Toni: But really loud
[00:01:16] Mikkel: Oh yeah. Really loud. I was like, Oh no. Because, you know, usually in Germany also the beer is in glass, and same for Denmark at least sometimes, that's like the association, beer is like, oh no. Did that really happen? So
[00:01:30] Toni: I mean, yeah, I really like how you are really creating this cultural experience for everyone where people just know like, Oh, he must be from Denmark.
[00:01:39] He's just
[00:01:40] Mikkel: an alcoholic.
[00:01:40] Toni: just drinks beer all the time. He brought his own glass bottle from
[00:01:45] Mikkel: I think it's a nice break from these kids intros, which was another feedback point we got, which is People love it.
[00:01:52] Toni: They do, they do, but we talked with one lady about this, which was really funny. And she was like, you know, guys after I've now been listening to, I don't know, 20, 30 of your intros.
[00:02:03] I really know that I don't want to have kids anymore.
[00:02:07] It's like, I learned now that that is not anything I want to do in my life.
[00:02:12] Mikkel: And you know what? If you want to be truly productive, I kinda get it. I kinda get it. You get less productive when you have kids. That's just a fact of life. And you know what else? It can also be pretty stressful, which is the segue into what we're going to talk
[00:02:26] Toni: Yeah, I don't think anyone picked up on
[00:02:28] Mikkel: on that. No, no, no, not at all. Not at all.
[00:02:29] And I think before I forgot to hit record, what I was saying was I don't know about you, but I've experienced this with My teams with people in my network hearing kind of this this story, which is, Hey, I'm showing up at work.
[00:02:44] I'm putting in more than the nine to five. I'm in all kinds of meetings, projects. I feel like I'm doing so many things, but when the day or the week is done, I'm like, I hope no one ask me what I did because I just, I don't think I did anything. You know, that kind of sense of doing a lot of work, but not seeing anything come out of it.
[00:03:04] Toni: Or, or how other people call it, marketing.
[00:03:09] Mikkel: Well, I, I
[00:03:12] Toni: No, I know. I understand.
[00:03:13] I think, I think. All of this also goes a little bit along with some of the societal shifts that I'm at least seeing here in Europe where the idea is, you know, and I'm not like a workaholic. I don't I don't enjoy working like a lot or something like this.
[00:03:27] And I don't want to shame anyone into working a lot either, but what I'm seeing here in Europe happening is you know, people are asking for a four day week.
[00:03:37] Hey, why don't we just work, you know, 30 something hours? Or like, what is it? 20, whatever hours.
[00:03:43] Mikkel: And retire when we're 55? Yes
[00:03:45] Toni: and, and all of that stuff, basically kind of making the case more and more and more to like, Hey, you know, actually we shouldn't be working at at all.
[00:03:52] Mikkel: Yeah. But here's the crazy thing,
[00:03:54] Toni: actually, that's what we should be
[00:03:55] Mikkel: But you know what? The folks who live longer They actually also work longer. That's so anyway,
[00:04:01] Toni: no, there are all kinds of these, these things around, but you know, ultimately, I think when you peel this all back many of that has to do with, you know, burnout and stress and mental health and so forth. And I mean, you know, you and I, we've researched this deeply. We talked to, we talked to many psychologists, psychiatrists, priests you know, we, we talked to all of those people and, and then we came out of this and actually kind of realized if you, if you want to avoid stress, if you want to avoid burnout, if you actually want to get stuff done without burnout.
[00:04:39] Sacrificing your mental health. One trick is to just be more productive.
[00:04:45] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:04:47] Toni: And, and people are going to be like, okay, Mr. CEO, give me, give me the spiel. But, but we're serious about this.
[00:04:55] Mikkel: But I think it's also like, if you feel like you're unproductive, the solutions get productive. That's actually not the point. The point is, if people are nearing stress, burnout, the solution is not necessarily to work less.
[00:05:07] The solution can certainly be to become productive. And I think what I mentioned to you is, I, I like the comparison to. The conversations we had with KD I think Colin Cadmus also mentioned this on, Hey, if the quotas are too high, it's just not motivating. So lower them. Then you can start building momentum.
[00:05:26] And it can kind of also be the same effects here to say, Well, maybe you don't need to get all of those things done. You need to start getting some things done. So you build momentum, right? And it's just to give a very simple example of how that can help. At least remedy some of the, those, you know, stresses and burnout
[00:05:42] Toni: And, and I honestly think, so again, like we didn't, we didn't talk to any psychiatrists or psychologists, like just to be clear, right?
[00:05:48] So this is, this is
[00:05:50] Mikkel: But hey, to be fair, we both had an elective in psychology.
[00:05:53] Toni: Yeah, that's right. Check. No, but I, I think at least from my own personal experience it's usually not the amount of work that burns people out. It's usually not seeing any progress or not seeing any. Light at the end of the tunnel, not being able to achieve it, basically working your ass off, but still knowing you're going to fail.
[00:06:11] Those kind of things, you know, basically kind of having this feeling of a hamster wheel with lots of pressure. That, that,
[00:06:17] Mikkel: Sprinkling a terrible boss.
[00:06:19] Yeah, yeah, I mean,
[00:06:20] Toni: that's usually part of the recipe. But that's why I believe this is a big reason for people to burn out. It's probably not the only one, there are plenty of others.
[00:06:29] But I'm just saying, I think this is a big reason for people to burn out.
[00:06:32] Mikkel: I think it's also like, you don't necessarily have to be on the verge of burning out or stress stressing out, it could be that you're now in a valley or that you just wanna get some tricks to become more productive and we're certainly gonna get into that because there are some habits and rituals That you can follow. And we at least have, let's say two areas of focus. We're gonna hop into.
[00:06:52] Toni: Yeah, and how does all of that connect back to the bowtie and your go market efficiency?. Well, I can tell you, you know, we've been, we've been talking a lot about, Ooh, you know, this conversion rate. If you just get it a point up and do this seven times, boom, you're, you're going to be rich.
[00:07:07] Or, hey, this ACV over time and compound, just get a little bit up, churn a little bit down, discount a little bit this we've been talking about all of these efficiency things for a while, right? And if you go to the, All the way to the bottom of what efficiency also means it's not only, you know, changing a workflow around and being smarter about what you're doing, but also just getting more stuff done, right?
[00:07:28] I sometimes have the saying, work harder and smarter, you know, why? Why work less after you worked smarter? It's like, why don't you do both, please? And and here it's really about getting to that higher efficiency by, you know, structuring your day in a better way by, you know, as a result of that being more productive, getting more stuff done.
[00:07:48] And actually also as an outcome of that, maybe having a better sense of accomplishment or being able to achieve the things you want to achieve. Which, you know, there are many other things that happen here, but which might be one ingredients of you being less stressed.
[00:08:03] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:08:04] Toni: That's what this is about.
[00:08:05] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:08:06] And I think the first section we're going to hop into is basically keeping an inventory, right? Keeping an inventory of tasks, to dos, etc, right? And I think you'll find a lot of advice out there. We certainly had a few pieces in our ebook on strategic rev ops with Mallory Lee and so on. One of the things I picked up on very recently was from Lenny at Lenny's Newsletter or Lenny's Podcast.
[00:08:26] Lenny's Newsletter or Lenny's Podcast. And he talked about keeping a waiting for list, which is something that's always been tricky when I've reflected back on my own work. It's like, well, I forgot that I'm waiting for the design for something and that can come, you know, and bite me in the ass later or who is it that I'm waiting for in this other piece.
[00:08:46] All of a sudden it can get very blurred when you're doing a lot of things, you have involved in a lot of projects, actually keeping tabs on who are you waiting for to deliver stuff can get very difficult.
[00:08:55] Toni: Yes, I mean, the, the obvious thing is always to keep a to do list. I think people have a to do list, right? And, and what's the purpose of the to do list? Well, it's not needing to have the text on your brain to keep remembering the stuff that you should be doing, right?
[00:09:10] Kind of, you have it written down, you don't need to worry about it. It's there. And you know, my take on, on this you know, keep a waiting list or keep a waiting for list is actually
[00:09:22] I tend to solve it in one out of two ways. Either, you know, I'm waiting for something and keeping it on my to do list, which is like then cluttering the to do list and I'm like, well, no, I actually don't need to do that to do because someone else needs to do that to do.
[00:09:36] Or I'm removing it and then I actually, then I need to add it to my mental tags and kind of keep track of it, right? If you have a new column in your Kanban, I don't know if people do it like this. I do it like this. That is then called, you know, waiting for, you kind of have a nice little parking spot, you can check in once in a while, you don't need to keep it ahead of your top of your head.
[00:09:56] You don't need to clutter up your, your to do list. You have it right there. It's super easy.
[00:10:02] Mikkel: what I did in some cases when it was really important, I would know that there's a certain deadline and I would actually, no, I would, I would put in a task in my Google calendar a few days before to say, Hey, did person X. actually shipped this to me?
[00:10:16] Because if not, then I could nudge them and there was still time left. It wasn't a, hey, I expected to get this today and now we're delayed. No, no, you could proactively actually do something about it. And I think that's also a good way to work with a waiting for list. It is to not wait for the due date and then nudge people.
[00:10:33] It is for you to be in control of the things that are being produced. Ultimately, that's what we want to achieve. We means that you actually get. The stuff done in a timely fashion
[00:10:43] Toni: Yeah, but I also think it's kind of trying to reduce the overhead that needs to happen in your head,
[00:10:47] Mikkel: yeah for sure, like and it made me think about so I got that exact advice of keeping a list next to your bed.
[00:10:54] When I took an entrepreneurship course and ran a business with my flatmate and best friend, my problem was I couldn't sleep. As soon as we went to bed, I had a million ideas and tasks and stuff that were just like floating around in my head. So I got very terrible sleep and it wasn't until I recalled that advice of having basically a notebook and a pen next to the bed where I could just write it down.
[00:11:18] Because as I started doing that, I could actually let go of it. It also spilled into just, I will say, regular work. So if you're in one of those places where. You know, you're really tired, you lie down in bed ready to get some rack time, and then you can't because work just appears. At least one thing you can do is write it down on the list there.
[00:11:36] I think that's super
[00:11:37] Toni: By the way, there's so many viral LinkedIn posts that happened in my head just before I was sleeping and falling asleep, that I was like, wow, this is so awesome. Easy peasy. This, I cannot forget this. I wake up the next morning. The only thing that's left in my head is like Oh, there was something really good that I couldn't forget, but I totally forget what it was.
[00:11:59] Mikkel: like, you
[00:12:00] Toni: And it's like, you know, for these kinds of things, yeah, you kind of need to have that, you know, this notepad next to you to just, you know, help your brain to not try and remember this by kind of going on and on and on. Right. I think another one from, and this is like a Charlie Munger, like BFF you know, deceased BFF of of Warren Buffett keep a not to do list.
[00:12:21] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:12:22] Toni: Like, very clearly, people say like, oh, you need to have a priority list, but still there's a a task that needs to happen where you kind of prioritize this all the time. And he's just making this easier for himself by just, you know, throwing stuff
[00:12:34] Mikkel: out. Yeah, saying these are the ones we have to avoid at any cost.
[00:12:38] Toni: like, I don't, I don't want to see this ever again. And then you can go all Eisenhower and stuff and be like, oh, can I delegate this or whatever? It's like. You know, whatever you want to do with this, but just, you know, try and remove some of the overhead of like you needing to process again, Oh, this task that I kind of de prioritized last time.
[00:12:55] Should I, should I be prioritizing this now? No, it's like, fuck it. I'm not going to touch
[00:12:59] Mikkel: Yeah, so this is like the endless backlog, I kind of want to call it, right? And I had this with some of the teams where I was like, we had certain things that, yeah, we needed to probably do it. And it kept on staying, kept on staying in the backlog. And the backlog appeared very large as a result.
[00:13:15] When in reality, we should just have said, hey, you know what? This task. No, we're not doing it. And if anyone came and asked, we could say, Hey, Toni, thanks so much about asking about that task. We're not doing it. Here's why. No, no,
[00:13:30] Toni: Toni, thank you so much.
[00:13:31] Mikkel: I would say F you. You're a moron. We're not doing that.
[00:13:36] Forget about
[00:13:36] Toni: thank you, Mr. Bossman. You just added another entry in our not to do list.
[00:13:41] Mikkel: Think, I think that is like, that is one of the reasons you want to do it is back to like the mental load you mentioned. Imagine having a backlog that's just 100 tasks, but 50 of them are reoccurring, not doing tasks, just cut them. There's no reason for them to then stay there, right?
[00:13:59] It's, it's unnecessary pressure on yourself. I think the last piece maybe I can add on task is. You also want to look at batching some of the things. It fits basically into the next thing we're going to get into, which is context switching, actually. But I think you want to make sure as you capture some of these tasks and create your lists, some things are naturally going to belong together.
[00:14:19] And you want to make sure you ideally take those in batches, because it's just going to be more efficient for you. And then usually for me, what it means is, I will have a feeling for what realm of work do I just not want to do today, period. And then there's a batch of tasks where I'm like, yep, I'm not touching that at all, but there's another batch that I select to do that will give me some energy and, you know, it's kind of a good thing.
[00:14:43] Toni: And so one thing that I really liked that you picked up is, you know.
[00:14:47] you
[00:14:47] know, sometimes Mikkel picks up new tricks. So one thing is that,
[00:14:51] Mikkel: I forgot about this.
[00:14:53] Toni: you, you actually at the end of the week, you write a this week, next week email to me.
[00:14:57] Mikkel: me. Yeah.
[00:14:59] Toni: Well, sometimes you're lazy.
[00:15:00] Mikkel: And I ask
[00:15:00] Toni: and, and
[00:15:03] what
[00:15:04] would a marketing professional do in a week?
[00:15:05] And then it's just like, boop.
[00:15:06] Mikkel: What can I say that I didn't do, but he would believe that
[00:15:08] Toni: Exactly. Reviewed this blog and no and this is really a quick email. I sometimes feel. It's four bullets for this week, three bullets for next week, or something like this. And you know, on the one hand side, it's a little bit of a report. Like, hey boss man, here's my report to you, what I achieved.
[00:15:29] But I
[00:15:29] yeah, but on the flip side, what I think it is doing for you, and I'm just guessing it's a little bit like when people are journaling. You know, their journal at the end of the day, Oh, what was good?
[00:15:41] was bad. You know,
[00:15:42] You know, let's write it down. Let's kind of say what I'm grateful for and so forth.
[00:15:46] Just to kind of bring it back up to you that, Hey, there's plenty of stuff you should be happy about in your life, right? There's this week, next week thing is actually a, wait a minute, what did I actually achieve this week? Which is difficult for marketing professionals to answer. It is, right? But basically kind of sitting down going through this one by one and saying, actually, we achieved this, we achieved this, and so forth.
[00:16:07] I think that's great, like an achievement. If this list is small, you kind of also feel like, oh, shit, I think I need to change something here a little bit kind of because there's a little bit of this, you know, second party validation happening, right? And then the next week thing is basically, you already now on a Friday.
[00:16:25] Think about what you need to do Monday, instead of having that kick in on Sunday night. Yeah. Right. At least that's what I'm seeing the benefits are. I'm not
[00:16:33] Mikkel: I think it's also like, if you want to pick up running, the best way to actually do it, find a running mate.
[00:16:40] Because then you have someone to keep you in check and accountable. And this is kind of for me to a degree what it's doing. It is a ritual that forces me to reflect over what happened this week. Did I actually accomplish what I set out to do?
[00:16:54] And then reflect over what is actually important to get done next week.
[00:16:58] And then you're basically then the running mate when I'm sending it to you that helps me stay accountable because I don't want to get caught in a Hey, what happened? You said you were going to do this and now it's just like completely off the radar or what? Like that's kind of some of the things that it forces you to kind of look at.
[00:17:13] Hey, I said I was going to do this, so I better darn go and get it done. And if not, we can at least talk about it, right? Uh, there are side benefits, which is obviously some transparency around what are the priorities, but it also is an opportunity for whoever you're creating that list for, by the way, to chime in and say, Hey, actually, Why are we prioritizing this thing?
[00:17:34] It's not important. There's this other piece and then you can have a conversation around it,
[00:17:38] Toni: It's so fun. So this is an email, right? This is a
[00:17:40] Mikkel: it's an email. Yep.
[00:17:41] Toni: And sometimes you kind of maybe do this in your commute back home or something like that, right? But the
[00:17:45] The fun fact from my side is like, I never compare week over week emails.
[00:17:49] It's like, Oh, he said, he's going to do this. And then he didn't do that at all. I never checked
[00:17:53] Mikkel: No, no, no. No, you don't do burndown charts on my behalf. Maybe I should.
[00:17:58] Toni: should.
[00:17:58] Mikkel: So let's talk about another piece. Now we talked about taking inventory, creating lists, all that stuff. Let's talk a bit about context switching.
[00:18:05] Toni: Bit about Yeah. So again, I The ultimate idea about list keeping, like building lists and so forth.
[00:18:15] I think the ultimate idea is about reducing overhead, in your
[00:18:20] brain.
[00:18:21] Reducing the tax on all the things you need to keep track of to organize your life, right? Kind of, that's why you have this list. And I think then there's a very, very big other piece that is probably responsible for, I would say, 40 to 50 percent productivity drop off for some of us,
[00:18:41] all of us, but for some of us.
[00:18:43] And I think this is context switching. So Elon Musk isn't as popular anymore as you know, as he used to be,
[00:18:49] Mikkel: back in time and take something from when he was
[00:18:52] Toni: Yeah, well, you know, anyway and I'm not sure what he said, you know, he has this weird, you know, mind virus stuff bullshit but I think he said about context switching that is kind of a the mind frayer or something like this.
[00:19:07] Basically referring to it as like going from A to B to C and then back to B and back to A and so forth. This is what's not only making it difficult for himself to be productive, but it's basically fucking his brain. That's basically kind of how he's thinking about it. And, and I very much agree with that.
[00:19:26] You know, I don't run, I don't know what, five big companies at the same time. So, I mean, I can't, I can't, I can't say the exact same thing here, but I think context switching you know, it's the same on a big scale and a small scale. I think context switching is. A problem for your SDRs, it's a problem for your AEs, it's a problem for your CEO.
[00:19:48] It's like, it goes across the whole thing,
[00:19:50] Mikkel: I think, was it Jack Dorsey who founded Twitter and square Square, so I also recall when he resigned from Twitter to focus on Square, this was kind of, if you read between the lines, also part of the rational, right? Hey, it's.
[00:20:06] It's very taxing on him as an individual, and thereby also the team, to switch between those two very
[00:20:11] different
[00:20:12] Toni: Yeah, and so what is an example of context switching? So let's just say, as an AE.
[00:20:18] You are, you know, having a negotiation call late stage with a deal, and then you are expected to do outbound calls directly after, right? With a workflow that kicks off and so on. As an SDR, you're, you know, researching, building a list, building kind of a sequence, doing some calls. All of these things are context switching pieces.
[00:20:41] And I think what people underestimate is. They think context switching is, okay, there's a bit of a break basically in your brain or that, that isn't as efficient as it used to be. And then you're very quickly, you know, five, 10 minutes into your new tasks, you switch
[00:20:58] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:20:58] Toni: your brain kind of flicked over and now you're super productive with the other
[00:21:03] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:21:04] Toni: But I think that's untrue. I think what really happens is that depending on the task. You probably have, so I can't put this into numbers, but you probably have a way longer ramp up
[00:21:16] Mikkel: Yeah
[00:21:16] Toni: to the new task than you're thinking right now. And I mean it in like, five to 10 times longer than you think right
[00:21:22] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:21:23] Toni: Meaning this could be an hour of time. That you need in order to ramp back up to full productivity on this other piece you know, compared to previous, right? And that, that is the big problem. That's the issue.
[00:21:35] Mikkel: a good example is if you're, imagine you're sitting in a library and you're researching a subject, doesn't really matter what the subject
[00:21:43] Toni: I'm sure all of our listeners
[00:21:45] Mikkel: They go to the library. They even know what it is. No, but like a physical library, as you usually have in
[00:21:50] Toni: You
[00:21:52] Mikkel: have
[00:21:52] a couple of books open notes, et cetera.
[00:21:54] And then you get a question on a different subject. You now need to go down the aisles. Find the book on that place, answer the question, put it back and return to your seat. The challenge becomes, wait, what book was I looking in? Was it that one? What line did I make it to? Did the page fold over? What, what was it I just read?
[00:22:14] Did, what about the note? Like, just think about that kind of rebooting.
[00:22:20] It is actually very difficult when you think about it. I have, I've had it sometimes where it's like, you know, I got a slack message and I answered the message and I was like, wow, I was about to do something really important. And I have 50 tabs open in Chrome plus these other tools.
[00:22:36] Where, what was it I was about to do? You know, that takes a bit of time sometimes to kind of do. So.
[00:22:42] Toni: And I think that's the, that's really kind of the first issue here. Sometimes people think context switching is like, Oh, you know, I'm now running Twitter and now I'm running Square.
[00:22:51] You know, that's, that's surely a context switch, but a context switch can actually just be, you know, triggered by an interruption. An interruption can be an email appearing, a Slack message appearing, something that you suddenly feel the need to, you need to react to, or like a LinkedIn, like update or LinkedIn ping or what, you know, all of these different places, there are possible sources of interruptions.
[00:23:15] That's actually how you need to think about this. And While I think all of us are starting to be way more aware that, oh, you know, those, those notifications, maybe you should tune them down. It's not helpful for me. What people don't realize is, I feel 90 percent of the people listening to us probably have a open office workspace kind of
[00:23:36] Mikkel: setup. Yeah.
[00:23:36] where
[00:23:36] Toni: where you have 50 people in the same room.
[00:23:41] And guess what? Something happening, you know, someone smashing the gong,
[00:23:45] Mikkel: yeah,
[00:23:46] Toni: Or someone having a loud conversation next to you, or someone having a loud sales call next to you or someone coming over, tapping on the shoulder, hey, can I real quick do whatever? All of these are also interruptions. All of that is, you know, is the same problem as a Slack notification.
[00:24:03] And actually there's been a lot of research on it. Sure. Yeah. It's cool. Flat hierarchy, all of that stuff, but actually open office spaces is not good for productivity. What they actually have found out that room of six, you shouldn't be completely alone, but a room of six is the optimal space you know, a pod that works on the same topic, same, we could
[00:24:24] Mikkel: So instead of a cubicle, you have a cubicle for
[00:24:26] Toni: Yeah. You have a box, you have a container. No, but basically kind of people working on the same context, you will because they've, because of collaboration, need to be able to access each other really quickly. That is actually the perfect setup. And if someone wants to go to them and kind of do that, that only happens so often so you reduce the noise from that.
[00:24:46] Mikkel: Yeah, I think that kind of makes sense. I think it's also like, I mentioned to you this fallacy of reaching in box zero. as well. And I've been upfront at least with you about it that I don't really do email. I'm sorry. If you really want to reach out to me, don't email me.
[00:25:03] That's just, I'm sorry SDRs. And probably now I'm going to get more phone calls and LinkedIn messages, but that's just at least how I operate because I figured out that for the most part, There's rarely anything in there that's critical for me to pick up on. There's rarely. Like, there will be things I will need to do, like invoices and receipts and blah, but I'll do that on my scheduled time, which is either when I show up for work in the morning or when I leave in the afternoon, which is also classic advice to kind of box when you work on those elements.
[00:25:34] I think Slack is a little bit of a different beast, but the, the classic there would be a do not disturb or just close it down. I tend to do that a lot when I'm from home. And it works out. I don't do it in the office because then it just turns into a, okay, now I tried Slack. Now I'm just going to go
[00:25:46] Toni: okay, Yeah. The, the other thing I think in terms of context switching.
[00:25:52] Take some control of your calendar back. And the way I have done this in the past, very successfully so actually, is by a way of creating no meeting blocks. And everyone's gonna roll their eyes like, Oh, I tried this, Toni, it doesn't work, the book over. Let's kind of talk through this real quick. So instead of what I'm not a big fan of myself is to say like, okay, Wednesday, no meeting day.
[00:26:14] Sometimes I actually enjoy meetings. So maybe I want to have a meeting. I don't know. But basically what I started doing is I realized that my most productive time where my, where my brain muscle Your brain is, you know, in that sense for creating focus, it's really just a muscle that you need to kind of, you know, work out basically my, my, my brain is actually best to focus on something.
[00:26:36] In, in the morning, like that's where it's best and you know, some people confuse us with us because no one is in the office and it was, no, no, it's not about this is from 8. 30, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, depending on, you know, who drops off kids up until 11. 30 when there's Danish lunch. Basically this is my most productive time.
[00:26:53] This is where I can get actual stuff done, right? And I have for a while, and I'm going to do this again now, basically blocked out all my mornings. When my mornings are blocked out, you know, this is time, creative time for LinkedIn, for content, for whatever. Or for like, Oh, I really need to rework the sales pitch or I need to do something, you know?
[00:27:09] And, and that is great. So what happens then as a consequence? Because you know, I'm busy guy the rest of my day, then in the afternoon is completely blocked with, you know, recurring meetings or new meetings that are going on. So what happens when someone just needs my time? Well, number one they look at my calendar, they realize, ooh first time I can kind of have a 30 minute check in with Toni is in a week and a half from now.
[00:27:36] But this thing is a little bit more urgent than that. So then they look again. It's like, oh, okay. So here's those blocks, those meeting
[00:27:46] Mikkel: fake blocks.
[00:27:47] Toni: So let's, let's violate that. But let's ask them first.
[00:27:50] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:27:51] Toni: Right. Which is almost all I want
[00:27:53] Mikkel: Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:54] Toni: because then instead of just being booked in and then need to show up and, you know, ooh, you know, he declined the meeting.
[00:27:59] What an asshole. They can ask me like, Hey, can I book over this block? And then it's like, well, what is it? And then they tell me, and then they say, yes, I'll say no. And that's a really great way to create a filter for for what is actually important, what is not important. Right. Kind of. That's one great way.
[00:28:16] I think another piece that I found. When you create this scarcity in your calendar you know, people also start to kind of think about, well, okay, I can wait one and a half weeks, or I can ping him and try and kind of squeeze this meeting on top of his work block. Or maybe, you know what, maybe this is a long Slack message or maybe it's an email or maybe it's a Notion page I want to share with them or, or whatever it might be, creating kind of an async situation where this then becomes a task on my task list, but I can work on it whenever I want to.
[00:28:51] Right. And, and that trick,
[00:28:54] like,
[00:28:54] let's, let's be clear. You will not get your, your, your, all your early hours of the day. You know, for yourself to work on. It's, it's just not going to happen, but basically kind of what you're doing with this is you're creating your own you know, expectation to do some deeper and focused work, which is great, but he also creating a little bit of a barrier to entry for other people to kind of, you know, blast into this and, and kill it.
[00:29:18] Mikkel: it. I was also just reflecting over there are some folks who naturally will have more scarcity in their calendar. Usually the higher up the ranks, the less time. And one of the things you can do, and this is probably going to be the last little tip and I've done this at least a couple of times is, you know you're going to have to meet with that person about some project you're working on, or report, doesn't really matter.
[00:29:39] And rather than booking the person in when you're done and ready to review, you book the person ahead of time, because that becomes a forcing function for you to actually complete the work, right? And I think this is an easy way for you to win one to two weeks at the end of the day, because those folks, they're going to be busy.
[00:29:58] Toni: I call that management by meeting.
[00:30:00] Mikkel: Yeah, yeah. But
[00:30:01] Toni: Basically, and kind of my take on this is if you schedule the meeting, you basically have created a deadline now. Yeah. That just will be very uncomfortable to move. Yeah. And you know, once the meeting is, you know, you can say, ah, deadlines are for like, you know, this is super not important.
[00:30:17] Yes, it is important. It is, you know, creating an actual deadline urgency. helps to move things along, especially if they're actually important and you know, putting, if it's an internal deadline, you know, you don't need to deliver to a client or customer or something like this, then there's always internal deadlines, always kind of fluff, right?
[00:30:36] But you can use some tricks like creating this meeting with a couple of folks that show up to create like, oh shit, this is, yes, it's an internal deadline. And yes, I could go in and kind of move it.
[00:30:49] I, you know, let's just get it done.
[00:30:50] Mikkel: And I think, so this is like back to the running, running mate example, right?
[00:30:54] There's one important piece in this. Usually if it's folks who are more senior, you don't want to day of or day before move the meeting, period. Like then you're going to look like an idiot. As soon as you know, that meeting is no longer. You know, a solid one you can deliver on, then you move it. So it becomes one, right?
[00:31:14] Because at the end of the day, if you're the one booking it, it is also something you're doing to kind of, you know, manage yourself by meetings or what, what do you call it? Right? So, I think it's totally legitimate to also push it when, when new information appears, but you just don't do it the day before or day of the meeting and, you know, risk looking like an amateur.
[00:31:31] Toni: amateur.
[00:31:31] So, and I think this were like, for us, the main things we have used in our, in our professional is kind of keeping lists, duh. But then the other piece really is try and proactively be first of all conscious and aware, but then work against context switching. I honestly think for my job, in my world, context switching is probably creating 40 to 50 percent productivity loss, like every single day.
[00:31:54] And that just that just sucks,
[00:31:56] Mikkel: Yeah. So you go from producing very little to almost nothing in your
[00:32:00] Toni: That's it. It's like half a LinkedIn post per
[00:32:02] Mikkel: No, that's the C Suite thing. Like you don't produce anything. You don't produce anything. It's
[00:32:07] Toni: just, I just yelled at people. What are you talking about? And I do this very efficiently. Okay, folks.
[00:32:13] Mikkel: let's yell at some listeners here and kindly ask them to like, follow,
[00:32:20] Toni: Subscribe, love, hit, you know, send it to your mom, send it to your grandma
[00:32:24] Mikkel: rate this show 10 stars. We would appreciate that. 15 stars. Yeah. Yeah. We would appreciate that.
[00:32:29] Toni: And thanks a bunch for listening everyone, have a good one, bye bye.