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The Checkpoints - Pulling It All Together Pt 2

We're gonna talk about the checkpoints that we need to build into our lives to help us apply rhythm or effectively before we do that. Do you guys have any thoughts or questions or about the last section? Yes, and people really sort of lit up because I think most people recognizes the organizations that you describe, how they should be. Nobody is actually experienced that they have a way that we're not going to get there. The question is, are we trending there? And it takes discipline and effort and the willingness The love of comfort is the enemy of greatness, right? So we have to be willing to do uncomfortable things in order to trend toward being great as an organization. The answer is saying, You know, when a team is comfortable enough to express dissent in a mature and professional manner. Some wonderful ideas can emerge from such arguments or from the overlap between the two viewpoints, actually from design. Deaver again, Diana J. Saying the key phrase here is indeed mature and pr...

ofessional, but I actually lost the coming, but somebody made a great deal Here is I'm sorry from Joe are saying there should be a billboard with the leader has to take the most arrows on it, and lots of people that came into volunteers said they'd make the billboard and they put it up in their off. Somebody wants to make that. We're trying to find a way to propagate that throughout the Interwebs because I do think I mean, okay, if you want to call yourself a leader, you have to turn on and see if anybody's following you. It's one thing to hold up a position in an organization. That's another thing that truly be a leader, to be somebody that others will rally behind and follow because you've proven over time that you can do what you say and there's trust in respect there. And if you want to free your team to be creative, if you want to free them to exercise their abilities, then you have to create that safe infrastructure. Now there's there's a massive UN safety in the work itself. Great, lots of risk, lots of failure. But they have to come from a position of safety organizationally, where they feel like I'm not gonna be shot under the table if I come up with a bad idea. Ray, you're going to defend me. I know that you're going to defend me because you've proven it before. The leader has to take the most areas. A leader has to go first. That's the only way to create that culture of trust and respect way we think. Is that the line again? I'm getting this fine line thing, but the point between, um I see the incredible value and making people feel empowered. So they taken feel expressive to do whatever they want in their situation, but also not. Sometimes I see that can lead to a little too much comfort because they the candidates and so gauging that the comfort where it's like, I want you to feel like you can, you know, go out and shoot the moon. But I don't want you to shoot every planet in the solar system. Absolutely right. Yeah, well, and I think that comes back to our expectations conversation. Great. There's Ah, there's a kind of Ah, um, I know what to call this other than like a fear matrix, right? There's a certain amount of natural fear that should exist in an organization, and that fear is if I don't deliver on my expectations. I'm gonna be fired, right? That's a healthy, natural fear. I should feel like there's a clear line of accountability. If I don't deliver, I'm gonna be fired. OK, but then there's a kind of fear that says, If I if I try something, if I take risks, if I experiment in the effort to try to add more value, I might be fired. That's a different kind. It's a different level of fear. And so what you want to do is instill in people a healthy sense of fear that listen, this is this is a culture of permission, a culture of freedom. I wanted to try things when you take risks when you experiment and at the same time, understand once those expectations air clear. If you don't hit them, you don't hit them consistently. You're not gonna have a job for very long because we need people here who are professionals who can get the job done. So there. It's not. When I talk about a culture of safety, I don't mean hey, anything goes and just bring, you know, we're not talking about Sesame Street here like we're I love especially when we're talking about. We're professionals in an organisation trying to accomplish something. So we need professionals. We need people who can get the job done. But what I'm talking about is that unhealthy kind of fear that resides above this intersection, where it's if I come up with a bad idea, my get fired. Well, no. People should feel free to come up with ideas and say stupid things and whatever. I mean, you have to say a lot of stupid things to get to the good ideas. The pressure people feel is I have to get it right the first time and nobody gets it right the first time. Well, I mean, you do sometimes, but it's pure luck when it happens, right? It's experimentation, failure, risk all of that. So we have to allow people toe have that kind of the healthy kind of fear, which is rooted in accountability but not the unhealthy. Does that make sense, sir? It does. I'm kind of thinking on most perspectives to because what about been in a situation where, um and I'm not saying anybody does this? Nobody specific, but like, I see sometimes where you're maybe somebody Who? Your asses. Ah, head of you or more senior, You You feel kind of walking on eggshells with them? Yeah, and so you're not kind of in the control of being in power you want? Empower yourself, But you feel like Oh, man, how do I What do I need to do to work with them? Better to make sure we're not on that level anymore. That Aiken give you the best I have to offer because right now I feel like it can. Yeah, I have never. And I would love somebody. Did this confirm this? I have never met anyone who's in a position of authority in organization who has had somebody come up to them and say, Can you help me understand? How can I have more value to the organization? How can I better serve the objectives and the mission of this organism? I've never had anybody who's the physician authority turn around the spots that you're fired, young man, or your fight, you know, for doing that. And yet people are afraid to do. People are afraid to ask a very simple question. Like how? How can I better serve the organization, right? We'll cut. Um, if you make it your mission in life to add as much value anywhere you can organizationally, things will turn out well for you over the long term, right? But we But we don't We shrink back, we're afraid we're afraid to take this risk, To have those conversations in my new book Die Empty. I told the story of a guy named David who was a manager who had set in his mind he wanted become creative director For this organization. It's a really, really big organization whose, like entry level copywriter and over time, it was his willingness to say yes, the opportunity, basically, at one point sat down with his wife. He said, Listen, I'm going to say yes to every opportunity that comes my way. Anything that seems worth while I'm going to say yes, and I'm gonna continue working my way into those more important conversations over time, right? And I'm gonna say no to the things that are getting in the way of that. And he just decided he was gonna do it. And over time he became involved in more and more important conversations because he was finding ways of adding value to those conversations. And then over time he trended toward being involved these products. When they started a new center for innovation, Who do you think they tapped to run that, of course, they tapped David because David was a guy who is involved in all these conversations, always looking for ways to add value. And just about a year ago, he was named creative director for this really large organization because he and is very young and nobody had ever taken that career path before. From this entry level copywriter to creative record. It just never happened. But it happened because he chose to say yes, the opportunity along the way and add value wherever he could. So my advice would be if you're in that place where you feel like, well, I can't approach the you want to be that pesky little dog. It's always yapping at the heels, saying, What can I do? Boss? How can I help boss rate like that kind of thing, where it's like, Okay, now you're just annoying me. It has to come from a place of genuine, you know, interest in the organization, but if you do that, if you seek ways of adding value and contributing, even in invisible ways. That nobody sees you will trend toward more valuable contribution. And I think your career will go well for you. That? Yeah. That helpful? Yes. Okay, good. Good. Let's see. There's something else. Okay. All right. So check checkpoints. We're gonna move on. Okay, great. All right. So check points. Um, I want to talk very briefly about what I call the three kinds of work on. This is something again. That cover. It's kind of forms the foundation for the new book. Um, there really are. There are three kinds of work that we that we dio as creatives as those who turn our thoughts in the value. And those three kinds of work are, um, the three kinds of work are mapping and mapping. Should imagine is strategic planning. Mapping is all the work you do before the work. It's figured out what needs to be done. It's, uh, whether it's looking at your calendar, plotting your objectives. All of those things are mapping. Okay, So and this is important. It's important to have some kind of strategic plan before you just dive into the work. The second kind of work is what I call making and making is actually doing the work. This is actually that it's the tasks you know. If you're a writer, it's actually sitting down and cranking out your word count right? If you're a designer, it's singing on pushing pixels. If your photographer is actually going out and doing the thing that you do, um, I'm so ignorant of photography. I can't even go beyond that. The thing that you do, whatever it is you do when you make photographs, it's doing that thing. But that's making its actually sitting down and doing the things that you plotted out in mapping face. OK, but there's 1/3 kind of work. We tend to think of these two. These are the two that we've focused on mapping the making of my map, and I make that I'm gonna be successful. There's 1/3 kind of work that we ignore. That's what I call meshing and meshing is all of the work between the work. It's it's things that we do, like developing and pursuing our curiosity. It's skill development. It's paying attention to the through line in our life. The trend line in our life. It's all of the ineffable stuff that forms the foundation for our works. We talked about these practices is possible to get these practices right and still not be putting yourself in a place where you're in a place of valuable contribution because your life and your work isn't bent around something that's meaningful, right? That you feel like is offering value mapping, making meshing. We have to get all three of these, right? We have to be doing all three of these in depending on how well we do this, we can fall in one of four profiles. So mapping, plus making minus meshing is what I call the driver. Okay, so the driver is really, really good at planning, so they're strategically planning. They're really good at making. They will knuckle down and get it done. They will. They will push for, But they're not doing all the little things between. They're not that developing your curiosity. They're not doing things like asking questions about why. Why am I doing this? Instead, they're just knuckling down. They're planning. They're making their doing. Their a driver, they're driven. They're driven by the task. They're being carried along by the work, but they're not meshing. And what happens to the driver is over time they find that their decreasing Lee, effective at meeting new objectives, are new problems at being effective in tackling them because they're not developing their skills are not preparing themselves, planting seeds in preparing themselves for tomorrow's obstacles. Instead, they're so focused on what's in front of them mapping, making that making. But they're not meshing, okay? And this isn't gonna work for us over the long term. Um, we could be good at making plus meshing, but we're not Minus mapping were not good. Map ings were not strategically planning. And this is what I call the drifter. And this, by the way, is me. This is where I tend toward left to my own devices. I tend to be a drifter. Meaning Hey, I love making stuff. I love writing. I love you. I love doing the stuff that is involved in my work and I love meshing. I will sit and obsess on questions all day long, right? I will think about my through line of my why and why am I doing this? Why is this important? I will do that all day long. I will follow my curiosity. I'll ask questions about how I'm engaging my work, all the messing stuff. I'm great at strategic planning, identifying a through line for my work. Not always my shot bright shining moment. So I tend to bounce from thing the thing project the project I tended to to get really excited to talk about, really get really excited about the project, Mel very. And we get to a point where it's like All right, well, it's kind of lost its brakes shiny lustre. So I jump to something else. And the problem with the drifter is they tend to leave a wake of half finished projects behind them, you know, or or maybe not the way for at least a couple. I do. I do. This is this is what I tend toward left to my own devices. If I'm not purposeful about mapping, making and meshing, okay, the third is after identify which ones I've done so far. Okay, so we could be really good at meshing and really good at mapping and not making IR to able to spell. Okay, Um and that is what I call the dreamer and the dreamer is really good at these big strategic plans. Look, I'm gonna build the next Twitter, and here's what it's gonna look like. I'm great mapping it out. And I have a through line of strategic plan. I've got it all, and I'm good at meshing. So I'm doing all the little stuff to prepare him, filling my curiosity, asking the right questions. I know my why I'm about my special purpose, right in my life. I've got my thing. I know what I'm doing, but they don't actually get around to doing the work right. They never actually sit down and make something. And they're a dreamer there, a dreamer. They have nothing to show for their efforts or little to show for their efforts there. Just about the talk, the planning and the meshing. But they're not actually making course. That's not gonna work for us, either. When we get all of these right meshing plus mapping, plus making equals what I call the developer. And that's not just by the way, that I don't mean obviously somebody who codes developer is someone who is their mapping. So they're strategically playing the work. They're actually getting around to doing the things and they're doing all the work between the work. They're asking the important questions. They're bending their life around, ah, through line that makes sense to them. They're following their curiosity. They're staying aware of themselves. Talk about this stuff in the next segment. But the developer is weaving all of the circumstances in their life together to meet the opportunities in front of them. And we have to be good at cultivating this mind, mapping, making, meshing, doing all of these kinds of work. And so we talked earlier about the practices and the rhythms of the creative process. Focused relationships, energy, stimuli, hours, right? The developer is somebody who's building those practices. They're developing their capacity that planting seeds today because they recognize that those seeds they plan today are gonna bear a fruit tomorrow. They're going bare crops tomorrow, rather than living in perpetual harvest mood like so many people are. They're doing all the little things in between to make sure that they're preparing themselves for tomorrows opportunities. By the way, problem, finding opportunity spotting is just as important as opportunity or problem solving. People who aren't a developer sometimes only spot opportunities on opportunity be staring them in the face. They don't see it because they haven't been doing the little things that it takes to prepare themselves to spot those opportunities. OK, meshing, mapping and making developer so question for the Internet. Specifically, which of these four productivity profiles do you trend toward you trend toward the driver. Which means I'm really good at mapping. I'm really good at making. But I'm not really good at doing this stuff in between to develop myself. Are you the drifter where you're really good at making and you're really good at meshing, But you're not necessarily a strategic planner, so you tend to bounce from thing to think. Are you a dreamer? You're messing and you're mapping, but you're not really ever sitting down and acting out on your convictions and making something valuable. Or do you find that you're a developer where you're actually doing all of these? Well, this is what we all want and need to be, but I find that we have all of us have a weakness of something. We trend toward one of these or another. So that's a question for Internet world. We wait for the responses about you guys. Is there one of these that resonates, especially with you already identified, but the drifters for sure. When I follow Drifter Club, let's start a club that helped us not be a drifter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And where do you find? I mean, is there a certain place where you find that that takes, like, precedence in your life or that becomes the case? Can answered, Like, check all the boxes? Sure. Really, Really Dio jump around in my brain quite a bit, but I think that helps me understand things as a whole lot better. Like the whole system and little bits of it. Not fine tuning, but sure makes sense. Great. I think I'm a combination of messing and making. Okay, so I'm a drifter. You're the drifter to okay. Trying to be better. Yeah. You're just a rebel without a cause, man. Just a drifter. Maybe. I just don't think I'm good at mapping. And maybe I am. I don't know. Maybe you are Security. Yeah. And the thing? Yeah, that could be the insecurities, But, I mean, the thing is, like, everybody is I think, great at, you know, not great at one of these things are maybe maybe more than one of them, right? But to just be able to do the work, you have to at least be doing to be shakes, right? It's pretty hard to know I'm not really grated. Any of them. Well, you probably don't have a job. Yeah, you're probably fired. Brian, this is a tough one. Honestly, Um, developer. I could spot him from a mile away. Yeah, great. That's a coworker, for sure. Awesome. You can't be in our club, Mike. You can just come up. And you what? It's awesome. That is really great. And the thing is it If that's the case for you, it's probably because not is probably not just, Hey, I just happened to you know, it's probably because you have over the course of time, like you've kind of learned what works for you. And you figured out how to put yourself in that position when you say that's true, or, um, a little bit. I mean, I feel like more than being a developer, something I hop kind of from driver, a dreamer to drifter. At one time, I never feel like all three are always in sync. Yeah, but I can at someone if I'm doing to the third is always kind of. I need to pick that one up a little bit. Sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's nothing to it means it. This is not because science, right, this is Ah, this is observation All. And your mileage may vary a swell, you know? So the thing is, it's like these air tendencies not hard and fast rules. But these tendencies air pretty close to what really happens in the lives of most of the creatives that I work with. So, yes. So we've got some is interesting. Immediately posed the question. All the drifters suddenly answer Very quickly, though Dina J was a drifter, came every 1 22 drifter connect, David Drifters, Diana J. Drifters, all the jobs. And then the drivers broke up too busy doing their work. Yeah, retired, fail Marylou, Nancy D or Driver's coming in there. And then finally, we got some developers coming in, but they kind of very slow off the mark. But not very many off. Um, drifters. Jeff, there's definitely one without a doubt. But some people, of course, had to be difficult to say. They were bit of all three. So curio. So I would have expected anything else. Curio. So is a bit of all four wonder. What did you say? You know, I said that I think I am a driver and sometimes the developer developer. Absolutely. And so I think. Here's the thing again. You're over the course of many seasons of your life. You may tend toward one or more of these, and it's not like Oh, I am. I'm a drifters. We need to form a support group for drifters. It's not that it's Am I engaging in all three kinds of work and my making sure that I'm mapping some have time in my life for strategic planning. I'm actually dedicating time to do the important work that I'm required to do in order to be effective. And I'm doing all the stuff between some of the practices we talked about before and all of this, So I'm positioning myself to take it. Man, if you're doing all three of these in your trending toward developer, that's what you want to dio um, solution to the problem. Just which one of those are you most afraid off? Interesting. Which one of them are you most afraid off and then, you know. Yeah. Outstanding. That's great. That's a great idea. Which one of those are you most afraid of? Mapping? Mapping? Yeah, for me, that's the same. Yeah, absolutely. See, because you don't know if it's the right direction or not, right? Yeah. And once you make a decision, it's That's it. Decision parts that Baldwin stagnant waters security guard. See, everything goes back to Kierkegaard. That's great. Okay, so this is kind of background for what we're gonna talk about next over the course of the rest of the session, and then what we're gonna talk about in the final segment, which is great. Nice dandy. Fine. I've got lots of ideas, but how do I make sure I'm doing work that's personally meaningful and meaningful toe? Others as well. How? I make sure making a contribution. Um, so we're gonna talk a little bit about checkpoints s Oh, my wife and I, uh, we made the trip to France for our honeymoon. This is many, many years ago and we spent two weeks driving around France. Tough life. I know. It's been two weeks driving around France. And if you've ever driven in Europe specifically in France, especially in the countryside, what you will discover very quickly is it's not at all like driving in the United States. Not that it's any worse. It's just a lot different. And the reason I say that is because there are very few signals that you're still headed in the right direction when you're driving. A so matter of fact, most of what you experience is driving. And then you come to these things called roundabouts right. And in these roundabouts they'll be like 20 signs pointing in the direction of different cities. And it looks like if you're going to tour ago this way, you're going to Leon go this way. But when the Paris go this way and you're just driving and you have to pay attention, and if you miss a turn off, you could drive 20 miles and never know that you're on the wrong road because there aren't little road signs saying, Oh, this is Route 19 or whatever like we have in the U. S. You said to pay attention to the signs. Well, the same thing kind of applies to our life and our creative process. We have toe have check points in our life in our world that to keep us a line to make sure that we don't get too far off course. Because if we get too far off course, then we have to course correct. It gets really challenging. So if we have these checkpoints in our life on a regular basis, a consistent basis, it helps us align the practices we talked about to make sure that we're funneling our focus, our time, our energy in the right places. And we're not getting too far off. A couple years ago, do this orienteering exercise with a team and it was this process where we took a compass and we would take This comes. You have these directions these instructions we had to follow in order to, you know, in order, Teoh, get to the objective. And so it will say, like, you know, go 45 degrees at 20 paces or whatever. So we do that and say, you know, go 37 degrees at 50 paces and we do that. And after about two or three turns, the person I was paired up with. We were pretty far away from everybody else. And there is this huddle of people who were over in this other place. And of course, my thought was all those poor unfortunate people. All of those people have screwed up. And we're the only people of this entire team who's in the right place. That was my first thought. Of course you're being the eternal optimist. And of course, what happened is we had gotten one minor instruction wrong at the very beginning, and that little instruction led us pretty far off course. And after two or three com pounding turns, we ended up, you know, dozens of yards off from everybody else. The same thing happens with the checkpoints. If we get too far off over, that will compound over time, and then it is a major course correction later announce of preventative action Today is better than the pound of corrective action later. Okay, so that's what the checkpoints do for us. So there are three checkpoints that we're gonna build. The 1st 1 is a weekly checkpoint, and this is obviously how often weekly Very good. Yes, So it's a weekly checkpoint and we're gonna build this into our life once a week. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the practices in our life on a weekly basis and ask, Are the practices that they're in my life right now there because I'm growing stagnant. Are they there Because I am making assumptions about my work. Are they there because I'm actually, they're actually contributed to my work and my flow. The things I'm being tasked with never gonna do a monthly check point when this is going to be a more holistic view of our work. We look at the upcoming month that we're gonna ask ourselves. Are the practices that have planned for this month going to be contributed to my effectiveness? Or are they just think that I'm carrying along. We'll talk about what that means in a minute, and then we're gonna do a quarterly checkpoint. Now a lot of people ask, Why don't you do a yearly checkpoint? Right? I've found that a year is a long time between checkpoints. It's it's too long. I mean, so many things change very few of our jobs in the same a year from now as they were today. So I find about once 1/4 is the right timing toe. Have those big picture conversations with yourself about how you're working on what you're doing, so you're gonna have all three of these checkpoints built into your world. So let's talk first about the weekly checkpoint. So this is the most tactile of all of the checkpoint. So what that means is this is where you're really going to get into the nitty gritty, the nuts and bolts of the practices we talked about earlier. So as we talk about focus, the first thing you're gonna ask yourself is a What are the projects I'm working on this week be? Do I have challenges defined for those projects? Have I established a project strategy and do I have a creative strategy that I'm working off of For every single project that I have? Are there multiple challenges within that project that I'm working on this week? What are my big three for the week? That's it. That's another big question. What are my big three for the week this week? Specifically, Are there the same as they were last week? Or have they changed? By the way we talk about the Big Three, it's not just your job. It's anything that's on your mind. You know, there are times when my Big three is one major work project and two things I'm trying to figure out for my family, because if it's on your mind, it's on your mind and it doesn't do you any good to ignore it, right? Your mind doesn't between a work problem and a family problem, it's It's on your mind. It's on your mind. So you're better off just to put those in front of you and say, These are the creative problems I'm trying to solve right now, once you come to what you think is a pretty good idea, pretty good solution market often put something else on there. OK, but what do your Big Three for the week this week? And as you look at your weekly schedule, this is your one opportunity to say, Where do I have chunks of time where I can cluster work together? Where do I have chunks of time where I can I can put some some idea time together? I can put some tactile time together, right so you can do that on a weekly basis you can look your meeting schedule. You look your expectations and say, Hey, I have two hours on Wednesday afternoon. That's gonna be my idea. Time this week, that's what. I'm gonna sit down and come up with ideas for my most important work, right? We're Saturday morning. We have nothing going on. That's what I'm gonna do. Unnecessary creating. That's what I'm gonna do. Whatever a side project I'm working on, that kind of keep keep my well filled. But those things won't happen if you just wait for them to happen in the cracks and crevices, you have to sit down on a weekly basis and plan for the Okay, So that's what the Weekly focus is about is what problems am I solving and what's my big three for the week? Those the primary things need to focus on relationships on a weekly basis. Who's in my life this week? Who am I going to meet with this week? Um, who is not represented on my calendar that I need to reach out to this week? Is there someone that I need to connect with because it will help me be positioned to be more effective, right? Look at all the relationships in your do you have a one on one this week? Do you have a circle coming up this week? What you gonna do to prepare for that? Look at your meetings. I have meetings coming up this week. What I need to do to prepare. So I'm bringing value to the meeting. Are there questions I need to ask in advance of myself so that I'm not just stepping in, but I'm bringing some of bringing energy to the man bringing ideas. So look at all the relationships that you're gonna have this week with people Energy. What needs to be proved out of my week this week. What is there right now? That's in my schedule that I need to say. I thought at the time this is gonna be a good idea, but that needs to go away because I have something else that's going on. So on a weekly basis, sit down and look at your calendar. Like your task list, all the things you're charged with and say maybe not the best week. Teoh, clean out the swimming pool or without Ray. I mean, because I have a big work project. Or maybe this is the perfect week to do that. But think about your energy, you know, and think whole life. Look at all the commitments across your entire life and ask, What do I need to do? The better position myself. Um, stimuli. When is your study time gonna be? This week. What resource is are you gonna work through during your study time? Have you done that yet? If you haven't done that, what do you need to do to get those resource is so that you're ready for them when you're doing your study time. My study time, by the way, is about an hour. Is the century of an hour a day? The first hour of my day. Every day I get up, I do the same thing every day. Do 1/2 hour reading half hour of processing, writing whatever. That's the very first thing I do. And I do mawr more study throughout the court. It's kind of kind of what I do on behalf of clients is I'm always staying ahead of things and thinking in helping introduce new ways. So that's kind of a function of my job now, but just on my own. For my own benefit, I spend the first hour, hour and 1/2 of my day studying thinking, writing that. So what is that going to be for you and when is it going to be? And what you going to do during that time? We talked earlier about curiosity building stuff. We talked about preparing for challenges and we talked about the stuff That's just the mental vegetables. So what's that going to be for you this week and then weeklies relates toe hours specifically, Where is your time going this week? When are you gonna do unnecessary creating in your week? This week? Where you gonna do idea time? We talked about that earlier. Where you going to do the things that are effective? Effectiveness. Focus not just efficiency focused. Okay, so that's the weekly checkpoint. If you do nothing out of this session, but sit down on a weekly basis for 20 minutes and ask yourself those questions and build those practices intentionally into your life, put them on your calendar. Make them I will not compromise kinds of commitments on your calendar. I guarantee. I guarantee you you can come knock on my door. If it doesn't work for you, I guarantee you will see a trend line toward more effectiveness in your life. You will have better ideas more consistently when you need them. If you do those things, okay, monthly. The monthly check point. Once a month, you're gonna take a more holistic look at your work, and you're gonna go through the same process. This is This will take a little more time. So about once a month, your weekly checkpoint could be supplanted by a monthly check point. And you can kind of work that altogether, but typically takes about 60 minutes to do this. And you're gonna look at your focus areas for the month. One of the projects that are coming up next month. What are the things that are on the horizon that I need to start getting ahead of? Can I define the project strategy? The creative strategy now, for things that are coming up over the course of the coming months of that, I'm better position. It's not catching me off, garlic. Oh, yeah. Today is the day we do that thing. You're getting ahead of it. You're preparing your mapping right? That's what you're doing. Also. What are the Big three are the big three? Are there three big things right now that you need to be focused on this month? Relationships. Look at the upcoming relationships in your life. Look at the people that you're planning to meet with. Ask yourself who's there and who's not there. Is there anybody you need to reach out to? You know, maybe a mentor or appear so. But you need to reconnect with When is that gonna happen? This month? Um, also. And this is a little sticky to talk about this. Is there anybody that's on your calendar right now that needs to go away. Are there recurring meetings that you have that you're looking at your saying? I don't get anything out of that meeting we put down the calendar. That was a good idea at the time. But that is just now a wasteland of wasted opportunity, wasted energy waste, you know, Does that need to something need to go away on your calendar? Okay, So look at your month and ask yourself those things. They're people who are just like psychic vampires. Really? There people were just coming. Suck all the energy out of your life, right? You need to get rid of those people. That sound. It sounds terrible to say that, but listen, you're probably that for some people to So people come to you and say I'm sorry. I'm gonna you know, whatever. So and that's fine, but you don't have room for that in your life. Okay? So who needs to go away? Energy. What needs same questions? What needs to be pruned from my world that I have coming up this month and you can think more holistically on a monthly basis. Right? What needs to be pruned from my world needs to go away. Um, And then again, whole life. What commitments? Air coming up this month. And what do I need to do about that? To make sure that I'm managing expectations from a whole life perspective. Stimuli? Same question. What projects? Air coming up. What kinds of resource is do I need to funnel toward those projects that I'm getting ahead of my work? So I'm not waiting for the last minute, right? And what kinds of purposeful experience am I gonna build into my life this month? what kinds of outings other things am I going to do in my world to make sure that I'm positioned for success and then finally, hours on a monthly basis, asking yourself, Where am I going to do unnecessary creating what kinds of projects I'm gonna take on thinking effectiveness, not just efficiencies that relates to this upcoming month. When you're looking at a month, you can start chunking your activities and your efforts in a way that makes more sense when you're looking at a week. Sometimes it's hard to figure out where all these things going to go. When you're looking at a month, you have a lot more room to move things around. Okay, that's why it's important again to have the weekly and monthly check point and then the quarterly checkpoint every three every three months, um, are too good at math every three months, you could have a quarterly checkpoint. What this means is blocking off and people when I say that, sometimes they kind of roll their eyes Like, uh, this used to be a two day process for me. I would block off two days. A lot of times I have to do on the weekend. It's two days of planning the upcoming quarter. Thinking about the by the way, this could be an afternoon for you. You know, it could be like a Saturday morning or something. It doesn't have to be this big, intense effort, but the quarterly retreat for me was a huge, huge contributor to the especially the early work. Early research I was doing was trying to game attraction figure out. Where am I going with all this? It's huge, hugely contributed to that. So if you can actually block off a day and tell your family and your friends your peers to say I'm going away for a day because it's gonna make me more effective in this upcoming quarter, do it. You can't do it, work around it. It's fine. Um, several people have told me they is blocked off a morning or a series of blocks, so when you relate, when you're doing your quarterly checkpoint, you do a little differently to take a piece of paper you gonna write, draw a line down the middle, and on the left hand side you're gonna ride out all of the work related commitments. You're gonna be responsible for in the upcoming quarter. Any projects there coming up, things that are going to be on your plate that, you know, are just over the next hill. These are all the things coming up on the right hand side. Same thing with your personal commitments. So what are all the things in my world that air coming up in the next quarter? And you're gonna sit and you're gonna consider each of those And you're gonna ask yourself which of these things needs to go away? Which of these things are the most important? Which of these things need challenges right now? Do I understand what I'm trying to do with each of these things, right? You're trying to establish areas of focus, See if you can make some connections between different projects that are coming up. Hey, if I cluster these things together, it's gonna help me actually gain some some time on the back end. So maybe I'll spend time working on these three projects this week, and, you know, because you're dealing with larger chunks of time, you have more room to move things around. Okay, Relationships again. Same question. Whether you're one on one's gonna happen. When are your or your head head's gonna happen? When are your circles gonna happen? Who needs to be in your life? Who needs to be removed from your life? Those are the big important questions. Energy. Yes, Uh, for the circles, I guess, within a specific company Are you saying you should meet with circle the same people? Like if you get a circle around your passion me with the same people, it helps. It helps to do that because you build trust within the group and you start to develop an understanding people's likes and dislikes. Nothing becomes stagnant, you know? Yeah, shake it up. But yeah, it helps to have the same people getting together because you kind of get to learn each other's Proclivities and interests in all those kinds of things. Okay. Yeah. So very helpful. I mean, think about when you get together with a group of people for the first time of the party, and there's sort of awkward you're standing around like, What do you do with this? Is what I do. What do you do? You know, it's just kind of, but once you break through, that barrier becomes easier to talk about work. Um, stimuli. What do you need to build into your world this quarter? What's coming up three months from now that you need to get ahead of now. Same question. And what what questions do you have? What kinds of curiosity exists in your world that you're gonna pursue this quarter? And how can you find the more resources toward them hours? Same questions we did before. Where you gonna do unnecessary creating time? What are those big projects that you would like to do? What? The project you've dreamed about doing? Is there anything that's on that sort of? I cut it out of my life list that you want to reincorporate this quarter. And then something I learned from my friend Lisa Johnson. She said that we need to build time into our world to dream. And I do that with my quarterly checkpoint, and I always encourage others to do the same. Make a list. And this is the practice that she told me, make a list of the 50 things that would blow your mind if they happened in your world. What if What if thesis If these 50 things happened, in my work, I guarantee. And she told me this You You'll get to about number 15 and number 16 and you'll start being No, I think I'm out. That's the extent of my dreaming. 15 things, that's all I can think of, right? But then if you give it some time, you'll start to notice. Okay, Well, maybe there are a couple of other things or some other things that you so make a list of the 50 things will blow your mind. Now, my wife and I did this several years ago. We sat down, we made our list. We got toe like number 23 before we start getting stumped. When we started doing more of those things that we wrote on our list, I would say a full 2/ or maybe 3/4 of them have have now happened right on going a lot of personal seven on that list for me was like write a book and have it published. But, you know, launch of business through a You know, all these things that seem like a time Like while these would be really major dreams if they happen, have actually happened. And I think there's something about once you put your energy behind something and you start identifying something concrete and saying this, Yeah, this is something I want to aspire towards All of the other Resource is in your life. Start aligning around, making those things happen. So take some time in your quarterly checkpoint to dream and just make a list of here All the things I would love to see happen. It's funny again. Your creative resources and energy will become aligned around that. Okay, we need checkpoints in our life in order to stay align so we don't get too far off course and we will have to massively course correct. And in the next section, we're gonna talk about the next part very specifically. How do we stay out of a place of stagnancy? And how do we bend our life around work that is meaningful to us and valuable to the world? How do we build a body of work that we can be proud off? So that's going to go with the next section. Looking forward to that, it's amazing. Told her the Chapmans have been alive because once we sort of categorized everybody they were then asking questions. We're having removed categories. Those who were dreamers didn't want to be dreamers. Those drifters don't want to be driven. Maybe when we come back, we can actually talk about Absolutely. Yeah, and I'd be happy to address that. Now we have the time. I don't know if we're up against the way our little bit, but we'll definitely take coming up. Come back as we are going to go to a 15 minute break now and you've already touched on some of things. We're going to cover what we can cover in detail when we get back. Yes, and we come back. I'm going to talk a lot about some of the content in the new book and die empty. How do we build a body of work with me? Proud of? How do we drill down on that through liner? That contribution we uniquely have to make and how do we avoid becoming stagnant in life? And what are some of the ineffable forces that cause us to become stagger? We talked about the assassins of creativity. Once we've dealt with all of that, we can still be coming up with a lot of ideas. but not be doing work that we find personally meaningful on valuables. How do we avoid stagnancy and get our best work out of us every day? Fabulous. And so many of the things you've touched on have definitely resonated because people are saying yes, they spend all their time in meetings, none of which are productive. And so they're looking for ways to reveal able to change that. I think, really at something we can all identify with. I've got some great comments. Thank you. As always, 3 18 media is saying This has been a great session. I'd be furiously taking notes. We don't take notes by the course on Digital Skillet. I love that name. Todd is a very good presented with a lot of good information, some great feedback there, and Marilu is saying it's happy to know that I'm doing right in some areas. But glad to have some come across this class to add to my tools of being more effective