The Offset Podcast EP018: Battling Burnout

In this installment of The Offset Podcast, we discuss those horrible feelings of being way overworked and becoming burned out. The truth is - video and film postproduction can take a toll on your physical & mental health and leave you feeling unmotivated, tired, and even potentially thinking about quitting the industry.  

Postproduction (like lots of other industries) can be hard work, full of stress, and long hours - but with a little work, you can battle burnout pretty effectively.  

In this episode, we share our opinions on fighting burnout and cover topics including:

• Why burnout is pervasive in video/film postproduction
• Hard work vs true burnout
• The frequent disconnect between managers & operators
• A plethora of time management strategies including day optimization, focus techniques, and creating approachable blocks of time
• Avoiding the procrastination snowball & multi-tasking
• Learning the concept of 'that's a tomorrow problem'
• Managing notifications and the stress caused by them
• Expanding your horizons by working in new genres and/or using new tools
• Finding a side hustle and new creative interests
• Learning how to build a focus & energy reserve 
• Understanding & managing stressful personalities 

If you enjoyed this episode please be sure to like and subscribe and tell your friends and colleagues to check out the podcast. 

Thanks as always to our sponsor Flanders Scientific!

Creators & Guests

Host

Joey D'Anna

Joey is lead colorist and CTO of DC Color. When he’s not in the color suite you’ll usually find him with a wrench in hand working on one of his classic cars or bikes

Host

Robbie Carman

Robbie is the managing colorist and CEO of DC Color. A guitar aficionado who’s never met a piece of gear he didn’t like.

Editor

Stella Yrigoyen

Stella Yrigoyen is an Austin, TX-based video editor specializing in documentary filmmaking. With a B.S. in Radio-Television-Film from UT Austin and over 7 years of editing experience, Stella possesses an in-depth understanding of the post-production pipeline. In the past year, she worked on Austin PBS series like 'Taco Mafia' and 'Chasing the Tide,' served as a Production Assistant on 'Austin City Limits,' and contributed to various post-production roles on other creatively and technically demanding projects.

What is The Offset Podcast?

The Offset Podcast is a semi-monthly (twice a month) podcast hosted by postproduction industry stalwarts Robbie Carman & Joey D’Anna - we’re professional colorists, educators, and polymaths in video postproduction and color. We’ve been told our detailed, informative, and easy-to-follow explanations of even the most technical subjects have helped people at all levels to improve their workflows, tackle their technical/creative problems, and even improve their approaches to business & client communication.

Geared towards postproduction industry professionals each episode feels like catching up with valued peers and is the perfect length for the average commute, lunch break, or to keep you company while you work.

01:00:00:00 - 01:00:23:01
Joey
Welcome to another episode of The Offset Podcast. This week, Robbie and I are going to be talking about something that just about anybody in post-production has experienced at one time or another, and that is burnout and fatigue. And how do you deal with it? How do you prevent it and how do you recover from it? Stay tuned.

01:00:23:03 - 01:00:42:18
Robbie
This episode is sponsored by our friends Flanders Scientific, who are leaders in color accurate display solutions for professional video. Whether you're a colorist, editor, or broadcast engineer, Flanders Scientific has professional display solutions to meet your needs. Learn more at Flanders scientific.com.

01:00:42:20 - 01:01:13:05
Joey
Welcome back everyone. I'm Joey D’Anna. With me is, of course, Robbie Carman. And today we want to tackle a subject that, I think anybody listening to this podcast that has worked in post-production is going to be familiar with and has dealt with at some point in their career, and that's burnout, overwork. You know, that that go mentality where it's just nonstop and you feel like, you know, sometimes it's just the stress keeps piling up and, you know, you get to a point where you're less effective.

01:01:13:10 - 01:01:23:07
Joey
So we want to talk about kind of how that happens, why it happens. And some of the stuff that we do and you can do to avoid it and improve it.

01:01:23:09 - 01:01:39:18
Robbie
Dude, it's a serious issue, I think, for, for our industry, I think, you know, worst case, people burnout, you know, talented people burnout enough that they leave the industry. Entirely because of the fact that it's just overworking them and literally killing them. Right.

01:01:39:19 - 01:01:59:05
Joey
I've seen exactly that. I knew a junior editor one time, and I worked with her for a while. And, you know, we trained her at my old company, and I honestly, she was one of the most talented people I've ever worked with. In terms of just, you know, raw talent, of seeing a story and putting it together.

01:01:59:07 - 01:02:09:21
Joey
And I think the industry just kind of worked her to death. And she ended up leaving and going to a completely different, career path. And, you know, that was a big loss for the industry in my in my view.

01:02:09:23 - 01:02:43:07
Robbie
Yeah, I think there's our industry. Not there's no better or worse. This is just for the worse. Has is generally set up and generally operates on the idea that, we are going to work people until they can work no more. And then we'll move on to the next person. Right. You know, a lot of times I think about like, you know, in landing and landing jobs and, and working with clients, it's sort of like, you know, you can work your ass off for them, but sometimes there's like a point where, like, they just they just, you know, they just expect a miracle sometimes, right?

01:02:43:07 - 01:03:13:10
Robbie
Oh, like, sure, we'll give you four hours to try to finish this hour long project or whatever it may be. And I think it is a pervasive thing, but I the where I want to start this conversation is, is kind of the why is it so pervasive. And I think that is largely it. Well, in part I think I can't say largely, I think in part it's due to the fact that the people who are often calling the shots in our industry are not the same people who are actually pushing the buttons in the industry.

01:03:13:10 - 01:03:37:03
Robbie
Right? So there's a certain disconnect a lot of times in many projects for managers not quite understanding the effort that's required to do any given task or any given job, at any given time. So it might be it might make sense to the manager, whoever's running the show to go, oh, well, they need 2 or 3 hours to do this when reality is a full day of work.

01:03:37:03 - 01:03:49:23
Robbie
Right? I think that's where it starts. There's a disconnect oftentimes between, the idea of budgeting for time and budgeting for effort, and there's a disconnect between what it actually takes. And that's where it's at.

01:03:50:00 - 01:04:05:09
Joey
It's important to know, you know, when you're when you're writing checks and you're the one, you know, holding the purse strings, not necessarily doing the work. And you recognize that time is money. Yeah. There's going to be an inclination to reduce the amount of time. And that's not always a good thing.

01:04:05:11 - 01:04:36:14
Robbie
Yeah. And I mean, I think that if you asked every operator whether they be an editor, colorist, mixer, you know, camera person, etc., they would always be willing to heard not always, but most of the time be willing to sacrifice a little bit of actual pay and cost for more time to do something right. I would rather have, you know, I would rather have ten hours instead of six hours to do something, even if it means I'm going from $400 an hour to, 375 an hour, right?

01:04:36:19 - 01:04:56:13
Robbie
Like I would, I just I would love to have that more time to do my job. Right. And I think there's also a disconnect in as and we talked about this in our, episode we did recently about the race to the bottom, you know, shrinking budgets, right? Yeah, I get it. Money is going down. But time is also going down, too, for the same amount of work.

01:04:56:15 - 01:05:20:23
Robbie
And that just is it's it's epidemic in our industry that that forces people who are like us and like others that we know, who always want to do a good job, who always want to put their best effort forward, to do so much effort to within the time and money that they have, but they end up just literally killing themselves and burning out because all these factors are against them.

01:05:20:23 - 01:05:40:20
Robbie
Right? And I think that it's not something that can be solved like a light switch. I don't think it's any one single person can solve it, but being aware of where it's caused by I think is, is a play. The other thing I just came to mind just a second ago, the other place, I think, where we're burnout, the reason that burnout happens.

01:05:40:22 - 01:06:02:06
Robbie
And I have to be careful with my words here, Joey, because I don't I really, truly don't want to offend people. It's not my intention. Right. But I actually and I and I'm going to I'm going to bring this home. I'm going to make this personal because I see it with my own kids as well. And I think that every successive generation has always had this feeling.

01:06:02:06 - 01:06:25:02
Robbie
But we work in an industry where there is hard work, right? Just like a bricklayer works in an industry where there's heavy physical labor or, you know, woodworker has to do whatever there's are there are industries that are hard, right? There are industries that are more. Then I sent you a funny meme the other day about, the the what was it?

01:06:25:02 - 01:06:48:10
Robbie
The, the worldwide global meeting industrial complex, right. There are industries that are more than just meetings nonstop, 24 hours a day. Right. Which non-self is probably hard to, but, I don't want to. I don't want anybody to not understand me clearly that post-production is hard. Even if you have a lot of time, it still requires a lot of effort.

01:06:48:12 - 01:07:14:01
Robbie
And I mention my kids because one of the things on my kids are essentially teenagers, and I work with them or talk to them about a lot, is that there is a difference between feeling that you had a long day and you were worked and you were tired versus being burned out, right? There is a thing I think that is pervasive now with,

01:07:14:03 - 01:07:34:16
Robbie
Well, you know, I just don't it doesn't I'm tired. It doesn't make me feel comfortable. I'm burned out. I need three weeks off. Right. And it's again, I'm not trying to make fun of everybody, but there's. But there is a fine line between getting people to to understand that hard work is required versus killing yourself to do that work.

01:07:34:16 - 01:07:36:00
Robbie
Does that make sense?

01:07:36:02 - 01:07:54:23
Joey
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's very important to, to kind of specify here because people will go to the opposite extreme and people will say, I only want to work seven hours a day, I need to have a two hour lunch. And, I expect the world to be handed to me. That's not going to work in, in any industry driven by finances.

01:07:54:23 - 01:08:20:09
Joey
Right? At the end of the day, hard work and success is what kind of separates the successful product or, sorry, separates the successful people from the less successful people. The people that put in more effort will go farther. But what's really important, in my view, is to be able to kind of manage your time target, get where you're putting that effort in.

01:08:20:11 - 01:08:47:13
Joey
You know, if you have a finite amount of effort available, you want to put it towards things that are going to be productive and move the project forward, not tread water on things that are going to get you burnt out. You know, if you spend the whole day doing tasks because of some kind of organizational reason or whatever that are just mentally exhausting you and you feel like you hate these task and it's not working and you're just it's not moving the project forward at all.

01:08:47:15 - 01:08:55:23
Joey
Yeah. You know, that happens a lot, in some workflows. And that can really burn you out fast for. For what? For what benefit? What's the point?

01:08:56:01 - 01:09:17:23
Robbie
Yeah, I think there's a, there's a certain attitude of and again, not everybody has this, but I think there's a certain attitude. And I'm seeing it with my kids that once once it does get a little challenging, whether it be challenging and sort of, you know, it's been a tedious thing, whether that gets challenging in the fact that you don't know how to solve the problem, because that's something that comes up in post-production on time.

01:09:18:01 - 01:09:54:10
Robbie
Here's a problem. What do I do? I have no idea. And then three, any time there is like, maybe some negative pushback from decision makers and clients, I think there's like, well, it's getting a little hard. I just want to give up. Right. And I think that's a solely that's a different thing entirely than burnt out, burnt, burned out happens to the people who do do the extraordinary efforts, who do do the entire process to try to make something happen and run up against a brick wall where almost it gives them almost, you know, in some case, it does give them panic attacks to return to that task and return to that thing

01:09:54:10 - 01:10:09:19
Robbie
because it is so trying. That's not I'm not talking about the people who get a little uncomfortable from a little bit of hard work. I'm getting to talking about the people who are worked to the grindstone, the people that are at the office until 2 a.m. and back at it at 7 a.m., doing that six days a week.

01:10:09:19 - 01:10:29:07
Robbie
Right? I'm talking about I'm, you know, I'm talking about those people who are dumped on by everybody else in their facility, in their office, because they know how to do something when it every. But there's 12 other people that could be assisting or doing their job. I'm talking about with the people who could benefit from workflow automations and working smarter, not harder.

01:10:29:12 - 01:10:32:22
Robbie
You know, it's those kind of people that I think are prone to burnout.

01:10:32:23 - 01:10:58:12
Joey
Yeah. And it's important to just kind of know there's a balance for this, and it's different for everyone. Everyone has a different tolerance of work life balance and hours worked, effort put in versus reward coming to you as in terms of, you know, billable hours and finances or, you know, more or less time available. That's a balance that every individual has to figure out on their own.

01:10:58:14 - 01:11:22:20
Joey
But I think some of the stuff that we can talk about is how do you best optimize for that balance, right. If you there's there's certain things and certain attitudes that you can take to these projects and to this industry that can make it so no matter what your ideal work life balance is, you're closer to it because you're managing your time better and you're being more effective.

01:11:22:23 - 01:11:43:05
Robbie
Let's start. Let's talk about that first one that you just mentioned, time management, because I think that time management is a key component to that feeling of feeling stressed. It's a key component to eventual burnout that might exist. And I, I often audit people by asking them some probing questions about people who are feeling burned out and burn stress.

01:11:43:05 - 01:12:05:13
Robbie
And it's like, okay, tell me about your day. Right? And inevitably and the description that they give, there is a lot of, sort of dead time that might feel busy, but it's not productive time. Right? You know, so you talk to people and you're like, okay, hey, maybe you should use time tracking software. There's some automatic tools out there to kind of get a baseline for you.

01:12:05:13 - 01:12:24:12
Robbie
Right. And I I've tried this myself because at times in my career I've been like, man, am I just dilly dallying? And I run out of time tracker. That and it's one of those tools that kind of like tracks what app you're in. And so for me, for you, you know, we should be spending, you know, most of our time in resolve or, you know, creative applications.

01:12:24:12 - 01:12:43:04
Robbie
Right. And I want to the couple times I've done this, I've been like, oh look at that. I didn't spend like 4.5 hours in a web browser. Oh, I've been on Facebook and Instagram and you don't really realize how throughout a day that that time adds up because, you know, let's let's put it in a, color correction terms.

01:12:43:06 - 01:13:05:05
Robbie
We have a show. Let's just say that show is thousand shots. And we have, you know, two days to do it. Do the math, whatever. You know, it comes out to like a minute or less, you know, per shot to, to get it done. Right. And so if you think about you're spending 20 minutes over here, 30 minutes over there texting, doing whatever that's putting the pressure on you.

01:13:05:05 - 01:13:23:10
Robbie
Now that time has gone from a minute or so to a shot. Now you got 40s a shot, 32nd shot 20s right. And next thing you know, you're woefully behind. And so I think one of the, biggest ways of avoiding this feeling of burnout and feeling more accomplished is to really try to work on the self discipline of focus.

01:13:23:16 - 01:13:41:10
Robbie
Right? And for me, I think I know, I know, I have to work on this harder than you have to work on it, because I think that once you have, you have the type of personality. I can't think about anything else until the task is accomplished, right? Me, I procrastinate as like a coping mechanism for the stress, right?

01:13:41:14 - 01:14:00:23
Joey
I was actually I was going to say the next thing is avoid procrastination because once I get I have the biggest problem getting started. Yeah, right. Like if I'm looking at a blank timeline of a thousand shots, yeah, I'm probably going to look at the internet for a while before I hit that first shot. And I'm probably going to do that longer than I should.

01:14:01:02 - 01:14:16:10
Joey
And I might sit on the couch and drink my coffee a little, little too long before I get going. Once I get going, I'll be in the zone. I'll have the music going. I'll be like shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. And I, you know, and then I have to remind myself to take breaks, right. Which we should talk about as well.

01:14:16:15 - 01:14:42:20
Joey
But like, yeah, procrastinate is like a snowball effect, right? It is. If you wait too long to get something started, like you said, your time per shot goes way down. So now you're stressed, now you're rushing, you're trying to catch up constantly, and all of that adds up and it adds up and adds up. So one hour of procrastination can end up being three hours of extra work, and that's going to contribute to burnout much more than.

01:14:42:22 - 01:15:03:09
Robbie
Yeah, you're, you're you're totally and I think I, I, I often experience that getting sort of thing too. But I often I think I'm like you where once you get into it you're kind of laser focused. I'm like, you know what? What's that kid's movie where it's like, squirrel? I'm like, I'm like, man, I'm like, you know, I'm like, oh, I got a text message and I'm distracted for the next 45 minutes.

01:15:03:09 - 01:15:14:12
Robbie
Or like, I'm like, oh, cool. This, thing just dropped for Home Assistant. Let me let me spend the next hour and a half, like, programing something in a home assistant. And I have a show sitting in front of me. Right.

01:15:14:12 - 01:15:34:02
Joey
So so that is also an essential, I think, time management technique that, that people don't really focus on enough, which is avoiding multitasking. Everybody multitask a little bit, but in most cases, multitasking is unnecessary and intellectually taxing. When you're trying to get fit.

01:15:34:02 - 01:15:50:22
Robbie
It's a far it's actually a fast right. You can you can shift between tasks, but you can't really. Your brain doesn't work in a way that you can actually do multiple tasks at the same time, like you call it multitasking, right? You say I'm multitasking, but what you're really doing is shifting quickly from one.

01:15:50:22 - 01:15:52:04
Joey
You're switching quickly.

01:15:52:05 - 01:15:56:01
Robbie
You're switching quickly. Right. So I think that's true from from an.

01:15:56:01 - 01:16:05:11
Joey
Actual front task switch. Right. There's adaptation. There is I'm I'm focused on this. Yeah. Oh I got a reply to this email. Let me read the email. Think about it.

01:16:05:16 - 01:16:06:02
Robbie
Now you're an.

01:16:06:02 - 01:16:24:13
Joey
Email okay. Oh and then another email just came out. Okay. Now I gotta get back to grading. Like, where was I? I gotta go back a few shots, see my contacts. So every time you do a major switch of task during the day, you're getting a kind of in and out transition. That's just adding to the total amount of effort.

01:16:24:13 - 01:16:44:18
Joey
And not everything has to be addressed immediately. That's that's another time management thing that I think we all lose track of because we have these stupid robots that beep at us and we just every email comes in like, oh, I got to respond to this right now. You almost always don't have to. And I'm so guilty of this.

01:16:44:18 - 01:16:50:23
Joey
Yeah, but sometimes you gotta like, let something sit for a while so you can focus.

01:16:51:00 - 01:17:09:12
Robbie
So let's talk about those things because those are all really good things. And the things that are on my list too, I have like 3 or 4, maybe five super straightforward ways that I combat this when it's really getting really getting bad. Right? And I've gotten better over the years because I used to make excuses for like, oh, it's all part of the process.

01:17:09:12 - 01:17:30:03
Robbie
And telling myself story is now I realized and it's just like, I got to do these things on myself. So number one, utilize, do not disturb type stuff. I think that that is I mean, I again I'm like squirrel, right? So the second I get a ding ding ding, you know, and it's really bad with like social media stuff, Facebook and Instagram and Discord and Slack whatever.

01:17:30:05 - 01:17:50:08
Robbie
Like utilizing some of that stuff to have your own time is good. Related to that, I often find myself. It's about like a level of time for dedication, right? So I I'm not. This is going to sound totally stupid, but I really do this. I will tell, I will set a timer or I will tell like Alexa or Google or whatever.

01:17:50:08 - 01:18:19:09
Robbie
I'd be like, you know, set a timer for X amount of time for like 90 minutes, right? And I try to make it through that entire 90 minute block by not getting distracted. And it almost becomes like a little contest with myself. Okay. Like I'm going to go 90 minutes without any other distractions and focus. And it's amazing that when I'm like, oh my God, look, I just got done in 90 minutes of focus rather than 90 minutes of going back and forth between different computers, social media, phone, whatever.

01:18:19:10 - 01:18:45:01
Robbie
Like if I just set a reasonable block of time to go, focus. Okay, now I get ten minutes off to go, you know, screw around with, you know, the internet or whatever. And that's another one third at my at my worst, at my worst, I have had to disconnect the internet from, my, my computer's momentarily. Right. I know that you're a big fan of the kind of, like, total air gapped workstation.

01:18:45:01 - 01:18:51:05
Robbie
And I think one of the benefits of the air gapped workstation is you're not no internet. Right? I mean, like.

01:18:51:10 - 01:18:57:07
Joey
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I all my internet's on a station, so if I need to go to the internet, I need to make a.

01:18:57:07 - 01:18:58:10
Robbie
Conscious choice.

01:18:58:12 - 01:19:04:08
Joey
In my chair slightly. And that does help besides all the technical reasons to do that.

01:19:04:10 - 01:19:23:15
Robbie
Yeah, totally. I think that I think that's a big one. And I think the, the other way that I think about this particular one and time management is that I especially when it comes, I think it's easier for certain types of tasks, but for like an initial pass on color grading, which I think is the most arguably the most important part of the process for us, right?

01:19:23:19 - 01:19:47:14
Robbie
Where I'm just trying to get from the first shot to the last shot, I often break down. I create metrics for myself that I'm like, okay, in day number one, I have to hit 400 shots or whatever, whatever the number is, right? And I look at my time and go, well, it's already 2:00. I am only at shot number 238.

01:19:47:16 - 01:20:14:10
Robbie
I need to start hustling or whatever. And I think that, you know, kind of setting, taxable. You know, approachable or, you know, goals that you can tackle in, in manageable blocks is another really good way of looking at it. Be like, okay, yeah, I can maybe screw around and stuff, but I have to accomplish this today and giving yourself some perspective on what you have to accomplish as a goal for the day is going to make it seem a little bit more approachable and make you feel accomplished.

01:20:14:10 - 01:20:16:16
Robbie
Honestly, when you get to that point.

01:20:16:18 - 01:20:50:19
Joey
Yeah. And you know, if you look at, you know, specifically color grading, right? We talk about working in passes all the time. You know, think of it as a sculpture. You take off the big pieces first and then you whittle it down and down and down and down. If you're being more mindful of your time and your lack of distractions or your distractions and you know, kind of a good idea of what pace you're working at, you might look at how you're doing your first pass and say, I need to do less per shot to get through this faster so I can organize my time better.

01:20:50:19 - 01:21:09:10
Joey
It's one of those things to kind of think, you know, you don't want to get hyper focused on one particular shot and start wasting time when you need to be moving the project forward. Because again, just like procrastinating, all that's going to do is going to push everything else down the line to be more added up effort.

01:21:09:12 - 01:21:42:13
Robbie
Agreed. I also find myself. When I'm at my worst with this procrastination and lack of time management because everything as you have discussed gets mentioned, has gets pushed to the back end. I often find that that back end becomes happens at times that are not my optimal time. So in other words, if I'm screwing around all day, the next thing you know is that I got all this work to do in the evening when I'm maybe not at my most focused best self anyway.

01:21:42:13 - 01:22:00:17
Robbie
Right. So I think another way of kind of trying to avoid some of this burnout and some of that stress is to figure out what your optimal all hours are and stick to those hours in a repeatable way. Right. So so for me, I know that in the morning when I first get up, like I'm just kind of a zombie, right?

01:22:00:17 - 01:22:32:05
Robbie
I need, I need like a good hour to 90 minutes to check email, surf the internet, have some coffee, kind of wake up, get ready to started. Whereas somebody like my wife, 7 a.m. and she is on and at 3 p.m. she's done 4 p.m. she's done. Right. So I think whatever that hour range is, I think it's important to figure that out for you, because if you're forcing yourself into time blocks, that you're not the most efficient and you're not the most focused, it's just it is wasted time, right?

01:22:32:05 - 01:22:46:14
Robbie
So if you're, you know, if you're finding yourself screwing around all day only to work at night, maybe you need to shift your day a little bit to be like, okay, well, I'm going to be more focused on the night and not try to force things in and get things out fast. Block your day out that way.

01:22:46:15 - 01:22:56:13
Joey
Yeah. And I think it's really, really, really important, especially in this world now where, you know, I work from home, you work from home. My commute is walking down the stairs.

01:22:56:18 - 01:22:57:01
Robbie
Right?

01:22:57:05 - 01:23:24:04
Joey
I think it's really important to maintain consistency even when you're really busy and when you're not busy. So I'm down here in the office at nine in the morning every day, whether or not I have something immediately to do at nine in the morning or not, I am up, I'm showered, I've got my coffee, and I'm at least here, you know, I don't always I'm not always busy enough.

01:23:24:04 - 01:23:36:18
Joey
But I need to just jump on the blocks immediately and start getting shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. But I'm awake. I'm here. I'm not like, oh, I don't have a lot of work to do today. So I'm going to sleep in and just relax.

01:23:36:18 - 01:24:03:16
Robbie
Diving one more level into that, though, I think that there is. So what I have determined for myself is that I really like we're recording this right now. It's 1:50 p.m. I find that from about noon 1:00 until about 8 or 9:00 is kind of my peak time, right? So realizing that I'm not sleeping in until 1:00, well, I should say most states, I'm not sleeping in the morning.

01:24:03:16 - 01:24:18:14
Robbie
Like, so what I what I've realized about myself is kind of separating different tasks for different times of the day. So where like I, as I mentioned, where I'm a little bit of a zombie need just want to sit and look at my iPad or whatever that first part of the day. It's not that I can't do work during that time period.

01:24:18:14 - 01:24:25:02
Robbie
Like if you say from 11 to 1, it's just that I know that that time period is for a certain type of work. So that's what I'm doing.

01:24:25:04 - 01:24:28:06
Joey
That's the brain dead work. That's that's on me emails, doing invoicing.

01:24:28:10 - 01:24:54:19
Robbie
Invoices, emails, you know, that kind of stuff. And not trying to force myself to focus in time that I'm just going to be wasted if I try to do a mind heavy focus task and a period of time where I'm not ready for that. And so I think that, you know, and there are far more knowledgeable people about this, and there's a lot of studies going on as we, you know, as we, you know, went through Covid and people were more work from home, a lot of efficiency studies going on where people are most effective and all that kind of stuff.

01:24:54:21 - 01:25:19:18
Robbie
But I think that if you kind of break it down how you work best and try to tailor your schedule and your design of that to how you work best, you'll find yourself being actually far more efficient, less prone to burnout, less, less stress. And I think the, you know, in general, the American work week anyway. And it's probably similar in other parts of the world, but here in the States it's just kind of a mess, right?

01:25:19:18 - 01:25:34:22
Robbie
This whole 9 to 5 kind of thing does not recognize that a lot of people don't work that way. Right. And a lot of people are not optimized to work that way. And so what I would tend to say to people is figure that out and, you know, see what the most efficient part of your, your day is.

01:25:35:00 - 01:25:49:18
Robbie
So the other problem, but it's related to what I just said, is I think you'll agree with this, that we tend to work in an industry where not everybody, but there are a lot of obsessive compulsive, detail oriented people. Right.

01:25:49:20 - 01:25:52:07
Joey
And I know what I'm talking about.

01:25:52:08 - 01:26:24:04
Robbie
Right? Right. That doesn't sound familiar at all. I have struggled over the years with kind of the, the bring it home even though I'm working from home, but mentally, the bring it home live with something outside of the working day kind of thing that initiates a tremendous amount of stress. I'll give you an example. We're working on a project right now that's a little messy, has a lot of, bajillion different deliverables now I kind of stuff.

01:26:24:06 - 01:26:43:15
Robbie
And I'm sitting on the couch last night and it's like, I don't know, maybe like 1115. I'm watching and I'm watching the news. And this idea just pops in my head of, like, man, I should you know what? I think I mess up that sleep. I should go downstairs and, like, fix that sleep and re-upload the file.

01:26:43:15 - 01:27:06:15
Robbie
Right. It just goes to what you said something can always kind of wait, I have and I do that occasionally, and last night was a bad example, but I have tried to force myself into this attitude of it doesn't always have to be fixed immediately. Right? Yes. And that my, you know, nobody at 11:00 at night is going, hey, Rob, you need to fix this.

01:27:06:20 - 01:27:31:20
Robbie
They might say something the next morning at 8:00 in the morning or 9:00 in the morning, but they're not seen for it right now. And so I think having, some sort of boundaries of what your workday is and bringing kind of work home with you is a is also a way of battling this. Right? Like once you once you leave the weather, even if that computer's at home, once you leave that computer desk, turn it off as much as possible.

01:27:32:01 - 01:27:45:01
Robbie
And the way that I've only way, only way that I've been able to do that recently is by also not looking at email after hours, because I, I was going.

01:27:45:01 - 01:28:13:19
Joey
To say the one thing that everybody that works in post-production ever. Yeah. If I could say one possible piece of mental health advice to give you is turn off frame.io notifications because they come in tiny little bits, tiny little spurts. So if someone's watching something and they're just writing notes casually, you're going to feel like, oh my God, I'm getting picked apart because it's email, email, email, email, email turn off.

01:28:13:21 - 01:28:23:12
Robbie
So this is a funny little this is a funny little inside baseball story for our audience that we had hooked up our Frame.io. Oh, notifications to slack.

01:28:23:14 - 01:28:26:21
Joey
And also mute slack.

01:28:26:23 - 01:28:57:11
Robbie
I, I was like I was messaging Joy be like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And it was because every single time somebody commented on anything we were getting these dings right. Ding ding ding ding. And you're absolutely right man. Like managing that your notification I just generally say managing your notifications can also help largely with that, that that feeling of being stressed and overwhelmed and burnout because you know, what do you have this with?

01:28:57:13 - 01:29:15:14
Robbie
You have this great phrase, I'm sorry I cut you off, but you have this great phrase that I've really tried to internalize. And then I really try to tell other people, I'm going to say it right now, and this is the best phrase that you say, that's a tomorrow problem, right now. On the surface of it, a tomorrow problem sounds like you might be procrastinating.

01:29:15:16 - 01:29:40:14
Robbie
That's not when you that's not when you, you personally use that phrase. You use that phrase at a moment when you know that you are going to be operating suboptimal with the least amount of efficiency, and at a time of day where your immediate response to it or your immediate action on it doesn't really affect the outcome one way or another.

01:29:40:14 - 01:30:10:15
Robbie
Right? So it's your method, which I've tried to adopt of reducing the mental overhead and reducing that mental load by going, nope, there is no good reason that this has to happen immediately. I don't have to drop everything and run. This can happen tomorrow morning. Now you might prioritize it as the first thing for tomorrow morning that you do, but you're not at 1030 or 11:00 going to leave your family, get out of bed, or walk off the couch or whatever and go do that thing, which is something I've learned from you and I.

01:30:10:15 - 01:30:11:18
Robbie
I greatly admire.

01:30:11:20 - 01:30:28:14
Joey
It and a few things about that. Let's take the Frame.io example. This this legitimately happened to a semi recently. It was one of those things where Robbie was on a project. He was getting a pile of frame.io notifications, and he would look at them like tangentially and be like, oh no, they're crazy. They're they're tearing up the whole project, whatever.

01:30:28:14 - 01:30:37:05
Joey
And I'm like, nope, turn it all off. Wait until, you know, you can look at all the notes in context as a whole, right?

01:30:37:07 - 01:30:37:13
Robbie
Yeah.

01:30:37:17 - 01:30:57:14
Joey
Because if you go in right now and start addressing these notes one by one, one, you're tired, you're probably going to look at it again tomorrow and just have to redo the work anyway. And two, it's probably not nearly as bad as the amount of emails makes it sound. And then, sure enough, like the next day you look at the pile of notes and every other note is, oh, that shot looks really good.

01:30:57:16 - 01:31:17:09
Joey
Then the note of like, can we take out a tiny bit of blue here? And then another two notes of, oh, I love this scene, you know. So I mean, granted, not all projects happen like that, but sometimes what looks like a mountainous pile of stuff at the end of the day with fresh eyes is much, much, much more approachable.

01:31:17:14 - 01:31:48:01
Joey
So yeah, I don't consider that procrastination. Like we both said, I think procrastination is is the enemy of productivity. But there's a difference between procrastination and optimization, right? You know, I get this all the time too. Like I have I have done, you know, I like to work on cars and motorcycles. Right? Right. I have spent hours and hours and hours underneath of a car working on something really, really difficult and just banging my head up against the wall and nothing's working.

01:31:48:01 - 01:31:55:01
Joey
I can't get that one bolt out, I can't do whatever, and I will just walk away the next day. It's a two second job.

01:31:55:03 - 01:32:11:15
Robbie
No, those are all those are all great points, man. And I just think that no matter how you cut it, realizing when is a good time for you management, minimizing the distractions and working in a, you know, blocks that are you can tackle in an easy way to make you feel feel like you're making progress is a good thing.

01:32:11:15 - 01:32:38:07
Robbie
And I think at the end of the day, with that kind of general idea of time management, you're right. It's going to be a little different for everybody. But I think that you can minimize the feeling of being overwhelmed by breaking things down into smaller tasks and blocks, right? Whether that's a time block, whether it's a task block or whatever it is, anybody is going to be intimidated about a feature film with 400 deliverables, right?

01:32:38:07 - 01:32:51:08
Robbie
That's going to that's going to scare, you know, scare anybody. Right? But if you break it down into nope, I got through the first act in the time frame that I said I was gonna get in the first act, check it off the list. Accomplished. You start looking at it much more as a lot of checks are on the checklist.

01:32:51:13 - 01:33:10:11
Robbie
Rather than a lot of unchecked things. Right. And that that really can kind of kind of build your mental space there. Now shift gears here for a second, because I think that we've that time management is a way to fight this. But I think that if you're already kind of in that zone of everything is doomsday, everything sucks.

01:33:10:11 - 01:33:28:21
Robbie
I'm burnt out or whatever. It can be hard to shift the the mental gears out of that, right. I'll give you a case in point. Years ago and I'm I'm not picking on you because I think it was a really it's one of the only times where I ever felt you said this. So succinctly. And it was it was amazing.

01:33:28:23 - 01:33:51:23
Robbie
You had been in a, in a zone where you were doing nothing but spots and a specifically cut down after cut down after cut down of spots. Right. It was like Tuesday, Thursday, 5 p.m., 6 p.m.. Right. And you were just feeling like completely, completely overwhelmed and with just God, I'm I'm in. I'm just I'm just a machine.

01:33:51:23 - 01:34:09:12
Robbie
I just I just, you know, whatever. I spit out widgets every day. Right. And I think it's really easy for all of us to get into that zone where we feel like we're working on the same kind of project. I often feel that, like, I, I get really kind of in my zone with the same sort of toolset, the same sort of approach.

01:34:09:18 - 01:34:25:08
Robbie
You know, it's like I often joke, like, sometimes I can break things down. It's like, let's game of game saturation next. Right. Let the game of game saturation next shot. Right. So to me one of the the one two ways of kind of breaking that if you are feeling already burnt out is to expand your horizons a little bit, right?

01:34:25:08 - 01:34:47:07
Robbie
In terms of, you know, kind of the genres that you're working on. So if you are doing a lot of long form, try some short form, right. Opposite. If you're doing a lot of short form, try some long form. For me, a lot of the revelation often of that feeling comes trying new workflows to wear like, new tools, new detail, new effects, new, color management pipeline, whatever.

01:34:47:09 - 01:35:11:08
Robbie
Doing things differently than the way that I have been doing them kind of gives me a mental break sometimes and makes me feel like battled, the repetitive of things and feel like, oh, now I have a new way of doing something. This is cool. And I just found that to kind of be a way of, of, of becoming engaged again with what I'm doing by working on something new.

01:35:11:10 - 01:35:20:17
Robbie
Now at the same time can be a little scary. You got to manage that. Like, I've never worked on this type of project or I've never used this kind of tool, but I think it can help with that kind of thing.

01:35:20:19 - 01:35:45:01
Joey
Yeah. And I also think that that goes into something I, I firmly, firmly believe in. And that is while we've talked about being efficient with our time. Yeah. During the day you do need to walk away a little bit. Whether that is no, I am going to try a new technique on something. I've been meaning to experiment with, something unrelated to this project or I.

01:35:45:02 - 01:36:09:08
Joey
I'm a big, big advocate of getting out of the office to actually go eat lunch, hopefully outside or somewhere. You know, it's not a huge time sink to do that, but it makes your overall day so much better, at least in my case, that just getting out of the office once or twice during the day, whether it's to get a coffee or get lunch and you do it at efficient times, right.

01:36:09:08 - 01:36:10:20
Joey
So we talked about, right.

01:36:10:20 - 01:36:11:22
Robbie
You just delivered. You just.

01:36:11:22 - 01:36:12:17
Joey
Delivered yourself.

01:36:12:19 - 01:36:15:23
Robbie
You delivered 20 files are waiting for feedback. Great time to go out.

01:36:15:23 - 01:36:27:11
Joey
Yeah I got through act one. Great. I'm not going to get a cup of coffee. Yeah. I'm back. Yeah. Start fresh on act two. You know, that's one of those time management things that I really believe in. It helps me a lot.

01:36:27:13 - 01:36:48:01
Robbie
Yeah. And I think related to the idea of trying different genres, different tools. I also think that like one of the ways to kind of build that spark in a lot of people to I would say it kind of like vertically integrate yourself into the process a little bit more. Right. And you've seen this a lot with, oh, the classic term for this is the predator, right?

01:36:48:01 - 01:37:15:18
Robbie
The editor who's also the producer. Right, who's now taking over roles. I think there's a lot of leeway in post-production to do other parts of the job, if you want. Now, of course, that can come with dangers of doing too much and biting off more than you can chew. But I have often found that when I'm feeling a little burned out, a little stressed about where the workflow engaging, slightly different, and that could be, you know, with our workflow, that could be like Joey feeling burnt out.

01:37:15:18 - 01:37:30:07
Robbie
Can you handle the button pushing on this? I'll take over the admin or whatever. Right. Or it might be something where I'm like, dude, you do the color. I'll do all the on. Like, you say this to me all the time, I'll do other online. Rob you do the color. Like it kind of breaks you out of the mold of what you normally do.

01:37:30:12 - 01:37:51:16
Joey
I love doing online editing, and because that's kind of my background and, you know, every so often, two when we get into these, the stuff that's like right on the edge of what the colorist is doing. Yeah. You know, advanced blurs, composites, stuff like that, you know, being able to just be like, I'm going to focus on this for a little bit because it's an interesting challenge that can that can really get you back into your zone.

01:37:51:20 - 01:38:12:19
Robbie
Well, you know, this podcast is a great example of something like this for us, right? Where yeah, we like to blab about x, y, z all the time and share it with the world. But this is also a creative, you know, a creative outlet for us. Oh yeah. Walk away from the, you know, the, the, the the tedious tasks that we have to accomplish.

01:38:12:19 - 01:38:26:16
Robbie
Like when we're done with this recording, we're both going back to pushing buttons and resolve. But this gives us that hour or two of time away from that to kind of create things. And, and so I think that, you know, another way of saying that kind of vertically integrated is like maybe find a side hustle for you, right?

01:38:26:16 - 01:38:52:15
Robbie
Like I am constantly amazed by how many people are really good at a lot of things, but only think that they're good at one. Right? And so, you know, like, you know, maybe you're an editor or maybe you're colorist. Hey, maybe try your hand at doing some tutorials, maybe try your hand at doing some speaking, maybe try your hand at whatever, like something that is tangentially related to what you do, but you're still good at, is a great way.

01:38:52:15 - 01:39:13:11
Robbie
Music has always been that something like that for me, right? Where it's like it's a creative outlet that I feel like I'm still making. I'm still creating. I'm so using my using my artistry, but it's just enough separated from what I do as my core competency day to day, that it feels different enough to kind of break that mental, you know, the synapses that are going, don't do this anymore kind of thing, right?

01:39:13:11 - 01:39:16:16
Robbie
So, it's a good way to handle it as well.

01:39:16:18 - 01:39:21:22
Joey
Yeah. For me, I've got a thousand of them. Not all of them make money, but some of them cost money.

01:39:21:22 - 01:39:36:14
Robbie
And what they don't, they don't have they don't have to make money, right? I mean, I don't think I want, you know, a side hustle I think implies it's like a, it's a, it's a money earning kind of thing. And certainly money is a motivator for a lot of us in terms of whether we do something or not do something.

01:39:36:16 - 01:39:59:23
Robbie
But I think there's also doing side stuff just for the passion of it to break the, you know, the yin and yang aspect of it. Right? Doing something that is not the same thing that you're doing every day. And I've always looked at it to me like, you know, over the past 25 years, there's the creative work, there's training work there, speaking work, you know, and these things all kind of feed one another.

01:40:00:01 - 01:40:16:18
Robbie
And it gives me the flexibility of any certain day where I'm like, man, I'm really not feeling sitting at the desk all day doing grading work. I can work on some tutorials, right, or whatever. It gives me a way out to still me moving the ball forward. Still be making some money, but working on something that's a little different too, which is interesting.

01:40:16:18 - 01:40:34:06
Joey
Yeah. And that all comes back to, you know, optimizing your use of time as opposed to just, you know, playing whac-a-mole with your time. Right? I need to do this. I need to do this. I need to do this. Take it in as it comes. Right. If you if you sit down and think about how to optimize your time, you'll you'll do better across the board.

01:40:34:06 - 01:41:13:07
Joey
And one thing I think it's really important that not a lot of people talk about when the subject comes up. Right? Because it's very easy to say you need to have a work life balance if you don't, it's the company's fault and they're bad. And you know, you need to, you know, again, everybody has a different ideal work life balance and that has consequences both on their life and their work, you know, but also if you can optimize your time to avoid burnout, like we've been talking about, when the time comes up, where a project is a absolute mess and you need to hunker down and work the 12 hour days, 14 hour.

01:41:13:07 - 01:41:16:09
Robbie
Days, because that's going to happen. It's going to happen completely.

01:41:16:11 - 01:41:26:20
Joey
Pushed to your limit. You're ready to do that because you're not burnt out by your day to day, and you can still be the hero for your clients.

01:41:26:22 - 01:41:51:03
Robbie
So the Olympics just happened this past month. I know you're not a big sports Olympics guy, but there was something that, hit me, in the Olympics that I think is relevant to this discussion. I was watching the sprinters. Right. And then in the heats before, like, you know, as they're getting, you know, going from quarterfinal, semi finals, finals, you know, you often see these elite athletes like they'll pull up a little bit at the end of the race.

01:41:51:03 - 01:42:12:04
Robbie
Right. To kind of conserve some energy. And that's exactly kind of what you're saying or hinting at right. Is that like if you go full on, full out all the time, you're just inviting that you're not going to have your best when push comes to shove when you really need it. Right? So realizing a little bit too of like, you know, I've said this before in other ways, like, not everything is art.

01:42:12:04 - 01:42:27:15
Robbie
Sometimes you just got to do do the project and move on. Not not let it consume you is the same thing. Is that sprinter right there are certain projects where it's just like, no, I'll do this project. I'll do it to the best of my ability. I'll do a good job. But you don't necessarily for a lot of reasons.

01:42:27:15 - 01:42:45:20
Robbie
Budget, schedule, whatever. You're not necessarily having to do that, that full on extra gear, if you will, you know, in car terms. Right. And I think that's a really good point that you make, because there are projects that you're going to want to, for whatever reason, push it extra far. Maybe it's a project, a passion project, or a friend of yours, a love.

01:42:45:21 - 01:43:03:14
Robbie
Maybe it's something that's really paying a lot of money. And so you want to do you know what, I don't know? There's a lot of things that could do that. But having some reserve, I think is a really important part of this. And to that other end, the flip side of that same coin, joy, is that I do want to stress that no matter.

01:43:03:14 - 01:43:31:12
Robbie
And I said this at the top of the episode, we do work in a hard industry, and there are people that are going to push you and I think one of the other things, the last thing I have to discuss today is dealing with the personalities that contribute to stress and to burnout, right. When I first graduated college, I went to go work at a, very large, network for I lasted about a week.

01:43:31:14 - 01:43:53:08
Robbie
And to be honest with you. And there was a manager who will go nameless. Who but who's infamous in, the DC, TV world who day number one. I had literally gotten my key card and was like getting the tour of the facility started yelling, you! I can't even remember what it was like something, but I'm just yelling, right?

01:43:53:10 - 01:44:15:03
Robbie
And our industry, unfortunately, is full of a lot of those personalities, right? People who think that by belittling you, by yelling that you, whatever, like they're going to get there, it's like they think they're like football coaches, right? Somebody they watched a movie some time where they saw like some guy giving a motivational speech by yelling at somebody.

01:44:15:05 - 01:44:33:09
Robbie
There are a lot of people who just break down on that kind of thing. Right? And just clothes off and won't give their best effort. And I think that all of us can try our best to kind of, to identify and eliminate a lot of that behavior in our industry because at the end of the day, we're making movies, we're making TV.

01:44:33:12 - 01:44:51:19
Robbie
Like we've said this before, it's not open heart surgery. Nobody's going to nobody dies. Nobody's going to die from anything like that. And the people who treat it like that are a little bit toxic. They they are they they contribute to a lot of people, myself included, sometimes feeling overwhelmed and that kind of stuff. And I just don't think there's a place for that in our industry.

01:44:51:19 - 01:44:52:18
Robbie
I think that more.

01:44:52:18 - 01:45:13:19
Joey
No more time. Best thing you can do to to slow that down and to stop it from happening is to not do it yourself. You know, when you're in a position where you're managing other people or you're interacting as the leader of a project, you know, just take that into effect and, you know, don't don't do that kind of bad management yourself.

01:45:13:21 - 01:45:29:05
Joey
And that will set the example. But you can't. Or another thing to really remember is you can't always control what other people do or how they act, but you can control if you really internalize it. And, you know, take it as a slight, some people just jerks.

01:45:29:07 - 01:45:45:00
Robbie
Yeah. And, you know, sometimes, I often, I often think about this. And you, you've said this to me a lot. My wife has said this to me like other people I care for a lot have said this to me is that sometimes you just got to give people the benefit of the doubt, right? Like, you know, somebody might be barking at you because you know what?

01:45:45:02 - 01:46:00:17
Robbie
Whatever they had, they had, that morning, they had an argument with their, their their partner or their spouse or whatever, or they left the house and they're in a really crappy mood, and now you're just getting the brunt of it, right? Sometimes you just kind of have to let it roll off of the other shoulder. If it's a repetitive thing, that's different.

01:46:00:17 - 01:46:23:16
Robbie
Like if it's happening time and time and time again. Well, but sometimes people just have bad days. And sometimes you just shouldn't, shouldn't internalize that kind of stuff. And I think the same thing, you know, goes for, feedback, you know, comments on email, that kind of stuff. You just have to remind yourself sometimes if you're feeling edgy and feeling like you're right on that case of burnout, whatever is that.

01:46:23:16 - 01:46:31:12
Robbie
Sometimes people don't really mean what they your interpretation of what they said. It's not really what they meant. Tone was not implied. All of those kind of things.

01:46:31:14 - 01:47:12:08
Joey
Yeah. And it's funny because, you know, we've all been that person, I think at one point or another in our career, and we like to think that it hasn't happened. But if you're self-aware at all, you can probably look back at the times and say, hey, I was out of line here. I remember I was one coworker I was working with for one particular week that he started this week, and I'm still very good friends with him, and he's very talented guy and we get along great, but he thought I was the absolute worst because he started the week I came back from my son being born, so he was like, first day was

01:47:12:08 - 01:47:25:20
Joey
my first day back at work with my first infant child and hadn't slept in two weeks. And oh yeah, by the way, I decided to quit cold turkey. Quit smoking cold turkey the day David was born. So yeah, you are.

01:47:25:20 - 01:47:27:03
Robbie
You were a delight.

01:47:27:05 - 01:47:38:12
Joey
I was not a delight. And I, I'm glad eventually I kind of evolved out of that, but, like, a little bit of self-awareness can go a long way to to fixing that.

01:47:38:16 - 01:47:56:05
Robbie
I think that I think that goes both ways, too. I think that, you know, I have said to clients and I've said to you personally some times where I've whatever I've gone off the deep end and I've been like, really like upset about something or whatever again, slept on it, you know, a little distance from the actual issue.

01:47:56:06 - 01:48:17:07
Robbie
And I think it's, it's while it's, it's important for the person who is, you know, who might be, you know, that manager I talked about earlier yelling at people. I think it's just as important that if you make a reactionary kind of thing or you get upset about it, that you do that same level of apology or, you know, stepping it back to and go, hey, you know what, guys?

01:48:17:09 - 01:48:35:06
Robbie
Sorry. Yesterday I just didn't have a lot of sleep. My, you know, my family, whatever. Whatever the issue is, I'm sorry for the way that I'll try not to make that happen again. Goes a long way from just assuming that everybody just assumed that you had a bad day, right? Like, just actual verbalizing that sometimes can go a long way because everybody's been there, right?

01:48:35:06 - 01:48:40:14
Robbie
Like everybody's had problems at home or issues, you know, whatever. Saying that sometimes goes goes a long way.

01:48:40:14 - 01:49:01:07
Joey
So, yeah, you know, you got to make sure you're not always right about everything forever. Right? You got to be able to, to, to to kind of move your brain a little bit and because if you, if you hold on to the stressors that happen day to day, oh, this project didn't go how I wanted. And I was really upset about it.

01:49:01:11 - 01:49:15:15
Joey
And I'm going to be, you know, but heard about that forever. All you're doing, like we've talked about basically for this entire episode, is you're stacking it up and it's going to add up at the end when you don't want it to.

01:49:15:17 - 01:49:38:01
Robbie
We create a lot of stress for us, and I think the people that I admire most in this industry look at things as they come to them. This is a problem I have to tackle now. They're not looking 30 steps ahead at the potential problems. They're not project ING out of what the problems may or may not be.

01:49:38:03 - 01:50:01:08
Robbie
They're not telling stories to themselves about all the disasters that may happen. And I think that, you know, as an industry and operator, as we we tend to do that a lot. We go, what if, what if, what if, what if instead of just tackling the prob, the problems as they're right in front of us? And I think that being kind of present in just tackling the things that are right there goes a long way to managing that stress too.

01:50:01:10 - 01:50:26:16
Joey
Yeah. So like last thing I'm going to say is like we've kind of touched on if if I could summarize my thoughts on the entire like ecosystem of issues here, it is that, yes, working in post-production is hard. Yeah, it's going to take a lot of effort. The people that do put in the effort are the ones that are successful, and sometimes you do need to push, right.

01:50:26:16 - 01:50:52:03
Joey
You do need to buckle down and go the extra mile and really kick ass on a project. And the only way to really make that happen is if you can manage your time and manage your emotions and how you work with things like procrastination and time management and dealing with burnout, you need to actively prevent those problems from getting worse and worse and worse.

01:50:52:04 - 01:51:17:18
Joey
So when the time comes where you really need to be on your game, you're ready. And everything we talked about makes a difference. But thinking and consistent like we talk about consistency with hours, consistency with techniques, consistency with how you deal with things. I think consistency is a very big driver in how you can kind of achieve the work life balance that you want to have.

01:51:17:19 - 01:51:48:06
Robbie
And last thing I'll say is just finding a confident that you can talk about with this stuff too, right? That somebody like, you know, it's funny because my, my wife Catherine makes fun of me sometimes because, I sometimes share more about the stressors in my life with you than I do with her. Right. And I've always been like, well, it's it's not like I'm not trying to, like, cut you out of my emotional in my emotional food chain here.

01:51:48:06 - 01:52:19:06
Robbie
It's just more of like, if I explain why something drives me crazy. That's a super technical thing. God, these people always deliver mats that are named this way or whatever. Like she's going to go, that's stressful. Whereas you might go, oh, that's such a pain in the butt, right? So it doesn't matter who it is really. And maybe you have multiple people, but finding, I think, a confident, a confidant, that you can describe some of these things too is important because, you know, there is some level of stress relief through solidarity, too, where people who are like, oh yeah, I get it.

01:52:19:06 - 01:52:38:23
Robbie
I understand what you're going through, and I understand that pain. But the, you know, kind of the difference between empathy and like sympathizing, right. Like, you know, somebody in the trenches can really get it and really go I sympathize, man, I've been right there before with you and understand that problem. Whereas somebody maybe not in the chain goes, they can empathize, but they might not really get it.

01:52:38:23 - 01:52:57:13
Robbie
And so, yeah, finding that person is important to some good stuff, man. Well, hopefully at the end of the show you're feeling a little more relaxed, a little more ways to manage this, the stress of feeling, you know, burned out or whatever. You know, if you do feel like you're getting burned out, I'm going to echo what Joey said earlier, too.

01:52:57:15 - 01:53:16:08
Robbie
Downtime is a good thing. I have found that, time space can kind of cure a lot of problems, you know? And also sometimes, you know, there are situations that are untenable if you find yourself in a situation that is completely untenable and you've tried to do everything within your power to fix and make work, sometimes it's just not worth it.

01:53:16:08 - 01:53:35:08
Robbie
You know, your mental health, your physical health, all those things are, trust me, are a lot worth a lot more than, you know, making a TV show. And so, you know, deal with these things as they come. Be conscious in your approach, be conscious in your management of time and emotions and that kind of stuff. And hopefully it will help you feel a little less stress.

01:53:35:08 - 01:53:54:07
Robbie
So good stuff. As a reminder, everybody, you can check out this and all of our episodes on YouTube. Just search for the offset podcast. You can also find us on YouTube by using our Handle the Offset plan. And if you're on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you can do the same thing. You can search for the offset podcast for present on those platforms.

01:53:54:09 - 01:54:09:23
Robbie
And lastly, a lot of people don't realize we do have a website for the show, just, offset podcast.com. And on that page we have a submission button. So if you have an idea for a show that you'd like, topic that you'd like to see us cover, feel free to use that comes right to us and we'll consider it for a future show.

01:54:10:00 - 01:54:27:14
Robbie
As always, thanks to our editor, Stella for helping to put the show together. Big thanks to our pals at Flanders Scientific for being a sponsor of the show. And thank you to you guys for checking out another episode of the Offset podcast. Remember, wherever you find the show, please subscribe and like so. I'm Robbie Carman for The Offset Podcast.

01:54:27:16 - 01:54:29:01
Joey
And I'm Joey D’Anna. Thanks for watching.