Latest / Millennial Masters / Every tiny decision is costing you 🔋 Barry Cryan

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Every tiny decision is costing you 🔋 Barry Cryan · Millennial Masters

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: In business, we look to be clean, we look to be efficient, we look to cut costs.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: But actually,
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: there's one tax that is hidden and doesn't show up on any balance,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: which is the cost.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Every time we have to sit down and decide what comes next, a cost of 11 to 24 minutes.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every time we get distracted,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: every time we switch tasks,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: every time we get interrupted, there's a massive hidden tax there.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: What got us here won't get us there,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: because that's the point we start to plateau, we start to become a bottleneck.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: What can alleviate that?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's hired more people and it's maybe working longer hours.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's where Systems comes in because Systems allows us to tap
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: into those next levels without just having to work longer or work harder.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, the root cause, it's all those micro decisions stacking up.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a certain zone of genius and it's a struggle sometimes for people to get
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: as much time as they need within that zone.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So AI operators, it'll help them within the hours available.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: They can work through things faster, which can give them some extra time back.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the builders really that are going to be the ones That get
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: a massive competitive advantage over their rifle down the road or their marketplace.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because they can have systems that work in the background that allows them
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: to step back so they can spend their time and energy in their zone.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And for me,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: that's what This week's Millennial
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Master is Barry Kryan,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: who helps business owners stop work and decisions constantly flowing back to them.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Barry calls it the invisible tax.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Every interruption or quick question chips away at your attention.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Barry, welcome to Millennial Masters.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Where are you joining us from today?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Daniel.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Great to be here.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm coming from Sligo here in the northwest of Ireland.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we're relatively close compared to the interviews last week.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to get straight into it because this one's going to be
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: a really interesting conversation.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've written recently about the one-person business and how
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So this is getting closer and closer thanks to AI and the developments in that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: But also you've got this distinction between AI operators and AI builders.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm hoping you can explain that before we dig in.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to AI, I like to look at it within almost a couple of planes, a vision.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And AI operators are where most of us are at in terms of we're using AI
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: to basically help us maybe move through our day faster in terms of maybe responses
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: to emails,
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: helping us work through stuff, maybe building out maybe presentations or reports.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But it's essentially speed token.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's helping us to get to an outcome faster.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Where the AI builders really are...
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of allows us to step back out of the equation
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: AI builders are almost like the systems that will build the outcomes for you
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: in terms of automation.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most important areas for me and people I work with is the Arizona Genius.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a certain Arizona Genius and it's a struggle sometimes for people to get
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: as much time as they need within that Arizona Genius.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: AI operators will, it'll help them within the hours they're available.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can obviously work through things faster, which could give them some extra time back.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the builders really that are going to be the ones that are Get
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: a massive competitive advantage over their rival down the road or their marketplace
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: in general.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because what they can do is they can have systems essentially that work in
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: the background that allows them to step back out of stuff.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It could be invoice and it could be admin.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: It allows them to step back out of that so they can spend their time
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: and energy essentially in their zone.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that's what AI is all about.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's having the tools and it's building processes,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: systems,
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: automations in place to allow the leaders and business owners
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: to actually step back more and more and to take that reclaim capacity to spend it
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: in their own needs.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not just to help them work through paperwork faster.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's essentially release them from that stuff.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But in a lot of cases, they don't maybe really enjoy doing anyway.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in any business,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: the founder will have to do things that they don't enjoy and hopefully a lot of
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: the stuff that they enjoy.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you made this distinction now.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we know the AI operator is the one who basically uses ChatGPT or Claude to do
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: the same thing faster.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a way that feels productive?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: You think I'm going to use AI to respond to my email, but actually changes nothing underneath?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: for example,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: if I would use it in writing or to respond to my emails,
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I still have to do the same checking.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I still have to make sure that it's on track with what I need it to say.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I spend just as much time as if I would be doing it myself altogether from A to Z.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a trap?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think it is.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what can happen is we throw more against the wall and hope something sticks
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: in terms of the tools we're using.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to these tools, there's so many tools out there.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things we can do.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's on about Claude and ChatGPT and all the rest,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: but actually Is what you do the most effective route to the outcome
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: that you're essentially after?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, say emails as an example.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a certain outcome that you want when it comes to those emails.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's obviously replied to that person faster.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You want to have it in your style, your voice.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to spend ages having to maybe go back over it or redo it because it's not right.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's having the right tools for the job,
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: but using it in the right way for you and what your outcomes are.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I'd always start, people.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't start based on, okay,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: you know what,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: it'd be great if we could work through our emails faster,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: if we didn't have to do our emails or whatever it might be.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Where I'd always start was at the end in mind, okay,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: let's see how you want things to run,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: look and feel within your days, within your business.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Many hours you want to work,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: revenue, What I'd hope to be doing is reverse engineering back from that point.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then for me, it's the systems or the vehicle that will help you get there.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It could be ChatGPT, it could be Claude, or it might be a combination of things.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd always start with the end in mind to come back from that point,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: because that's going to be your most effective solution to the outcome that you're
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: after, rather than doing maybe what the guy down the street is doing.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: So what's one example where AI would actually remove the work that you would have
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: to do as a founder rather than just making it quicker?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there's never been a better time to be alive in terms of business right now.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So what are the kind of things that AI could do that means that we're not in the weeds?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for example,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose I'm on my own best example,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: content generation,
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent a huge amount of time, like, coming up with content, generating ideas.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: But now I've built,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: using AI,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: a content idea generation machine,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: where again, it's Reverse back from the outcome that I want.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I take myself out of the equation?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I have a machine now that will actually take my calls with people I speak to on
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It could be clients.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: It could be people that need help or a certain area.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what it does is it'll scan those calls for ideas.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: It could be like
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Reoccurring schedule with a video editor.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And all I'm doing then is to sit down and he's like uploading this.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking through it.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: That used to form a huge part of my weeks and ultimately my months.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Content, it could be LinkedIn, it could be video, it could be edited.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But now there's a full bank of content that I can just talk through.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Even when it comes to maybe LinkedIn or other things,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: it'll actually take that content, it'll actually schedule it for me.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So again,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: it's taken me out of the equation,
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: it's taken somebody else out of the equation because it was a VA that used
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: to actually do it for me.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now AI allows me to actually completely step back out of that and allows me
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: to spend my time providing that value to people in terms of,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: okay, sitting down and recording the videos.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: AI can actually do
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: that right now as well.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still not just comfortable with that in terms of AI clones and all the rest.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I still prefer to record my own stuff.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that will be definitely my part of the equation.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be keeping it for another little while.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I know you talk a lot about,
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Barry, So when I often sit down with people's
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of the first things is I'm almost scanning for the number
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: of micro decisions they're making across a day, across a typical week.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: What I've been finding with a lot of those types of business owners,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: way too many micro decisions that they have to make to create a specific outcome.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everything becomes a micro decision, what to do, how to do it, when to do it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is that's the ultimate bottleneck in the business
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  SPEAKER_00: because there's only so many decisions we can actually make and get right
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: for ourselves, for our team.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because what that does is the business grows and gets more complex.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: The number of micro decisions stack and gets more complex.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we add people, maybe we have new processes, new products.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is if systems don't scale at the same pace,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: all those additional micro decisions end up just right back to you.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's what sucks us into the business.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's what keeps us working longer hours.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's essentially what actually costs us within the business because there's
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: a point when what got us here won't get us there.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because essentially that's the point.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We start to plateau.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: We start to become the bottleneck.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: What can alleviate that?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's hired more people and it's maybe working longer hours.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's where systems comes in because systems allows us to tap
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: into those next levels without just having to work longer or work harder in order
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: to do it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, the root cause, it's all those micro decisions stacking up.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we want to alleviate, just using better systems.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you call this the invisible tax, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: What is that tax in real terms besides the more time spent into a business?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: You said, you talked about this plateau.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean that you can only service so many customers or you can only reach so many people?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things and many more.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a great question.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's something I like to call the invisible tax.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: In business, we look to be lean, we look to be efficient, we look to maybe cut costs.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, there's one tax that is hidden and doesn't show up on a balance sheet or a report.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going back to those micro decisions,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: like every time we have to sit down and decide what comes next,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: a cost of 11 to 24 minutes.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Every time we get distracted,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: every time we switch tasks, every time we get interrupted, 11 to 24 minutes.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a massive hidden tax there.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: 11 to 24 minutes.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you think even that happens three times a day, which for many of us, it's more than that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's up to an hour a day.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's five hours a week.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's five working weeks of time a year.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'll give you an example of sitting down with a guy you work with.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we looked at what his hourly rate has worked.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: We calculated basically his turnover divided by 2,000,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: which is roughly 40 hours a week, you could say.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: His hourly rate was about 2,500 euro an hour.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we showed him actually the kind cost associated with losing all that time from
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: that hidden tax.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was costing them easily over 100k, conservatively over 100k a year alone, just him.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Actually,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: if he was able to redirect some of that reclaimed capacity and actually put it back
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: into working on specific areas within the business,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: actually that 100k could be working much, much more actually to him in the business.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a massive cost we're paying there.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's an opportunity cost as well.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You touched on it there.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're paying that tax over and over again.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's an opportunity cost with the things that we're not getting to,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: things that we want to do, the things that we're just having time for right now.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It could be business,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: it could be new products,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: it could be maybe working on the business,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: it could be spending time at home with the kids and so on and so forth.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we're paying a massive tax there.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And again, What's the root cause?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's micro decisions.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to your team,
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: when it comes to stuff routing back to you, deciding what to do, when to do it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have to manage all the other stuff in our life.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: The email that pops in,
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: the WhatsApp, the urgent thing, the client that needs something at the last minute.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is all those things stack up in our day.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is the tax we pay.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are like, you know what, it's not that bad for me.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even 15 minutes a day lost is an hour a week.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's one working week at time a year.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now someone said, here's one working week at time now.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: You go and work on business for that week.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: What could we, what could we all do?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's massive.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Our time is our money.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't realize it was only when I calculated that for that guy,
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: he was like, oh my God, I didn't, I had no clue.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we're losing.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is actually where I'm spending most of my time in the business.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that was his light bulb moment to actually buy in, actually start changing things.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: So what's the kind of tiny decisions,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: these micro decisions that a lot of business owners ignore
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: because they feel too small to matter, but they add up in a day?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it could be everything and anything big and small.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you have to make decisions.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the email pops in.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do I respond to it now?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do I delegate it?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Will I just leave it and I'll come back to it later?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or will I action it?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or...
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: What will I do?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now there's a call coming in.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the middle of something.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Will I answer it now?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Will I come back to it?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's the person looking for?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: How long are we going to be on?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Every single small thing massively adds up.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even all the small things.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It could be bigger decisions.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your team needs answers for this, that, the other.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're coming to you.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're interrupting you during your day.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's essentially too much routing back to you in one shape or form.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Even when it comes to your team, they don't have maybe decision-making frameworks.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they don't have systems themselves or playbooks that they can follow to create
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: the outcomes.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they don't essentially trust themselves that they actually have the answers.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: For example, one of the rules I use with a lot of clients is the 1-3-1 rule.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have a team member coming to you.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're not coming to you with problems anymore.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're coming to you with solutions.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the problem?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a dream.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's three potential options here to solve this problem.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there's that one problem.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Out of those three, what's the one thing you think actually we need to do here?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's a tool in the toolbox that reduces micro decisions.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But guess what?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: When people get used to actually doing,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: let's say the likes of that,
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: people build a certain confidence in themselves
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: and actually they realize they actually have the answers.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So now what we have is a process where people come back to you just a bit less
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: and less and less because that muscle for them is growing and getting stronger.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Other example, I've learned a guy who's an engineering company.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And his team were just,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: especially in morning time between 8 am and 11, 11.30,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: huge amount of people flooding back to him,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: questions, queries, how do you move this?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: How do we solve this?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a problem over here.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we went one simple change to his day.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: We created two open door slots in his day.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Unless there was a fire, nobody could come to him outside of those open door slots.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we framed it as a positive thing in that,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: we're creating these open door slots for you and the team because I want you coming
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: to me with these issues and questions and queries.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: But my open door time is between this time,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: this time in the morning, this time, this time in the afternoon.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: We funneled all those micro decisions to windows in this day,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: which actually it was more like instead of 10 queries and questions in the morning,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: it was one planned interruption with those 10 questions.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So now we've reduced 10 micro decisions down to one.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're not, we're taking away that task switch and cost.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: That invisible tax that we're paying.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, when this team comes to them, it's not 10 questions anymore.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like four, maybe five.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fraction of what it is because guess what?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: People start to solve their problems themselves.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the right systems and it's the right tools for both the leaders and
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: the listeners and others.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Another massive one is the friction.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about that.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about how it stops you because I can kind of like see myself into it,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: but I want to break down the mechanics of that.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we have hundreds of options when it comes to, what are we going to do?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've all these big things, maybe the project we haven't quite got to yet.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: We've got emails, we've got a call, we've got to get back to.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: When we come in in the morning,
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: there's a huge amount of friction to get started because we have
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: to actually sit down and decide, actually, where do we...
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: So much to do, where do we even start?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you should know what to do at any given day and time,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: why it matters,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: and how it connects you to the outcome you want at the end of the day.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things we build in to course create people's plans throughout
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: the week is something called the daily shutdown.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: One of the key purposes of that is so they are so clear and specific
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: about exactly what that first thing is that they need to nail early in the day,
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: first thing when they sit down, so they can come in and slide into that first
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: What I do is in tandem with that,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have a 90 minute focus block at the start of every day,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: where they are to work on one or two on the business type tasks.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like the eat the fraud concept.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: They come in and they can slide straight into that task.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's no friction to getting started.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So what we do is, like in finance circles, we talk about paying yourself first.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: What we're doing is we're paying ourselves first with our time of that first 90 minutes.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So there isn't a meeting there somewhere.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to decide about whether it gets stuck into emails.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's a 90 minute block in your calendar.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: We treat it as importantly as if it's a client meeting.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: They sit down and they just get stuck into it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: That takes a huge pile of friction out of the way.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing what to do and when to do it,
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: it's a massive thing because there's always more to do than time,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: no matter how well we're set up.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So what would be, say, one of the first practices?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: The first place I'd always start is we just do an audit.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I built a GPT that will actually track their time over a period of, say, two weeks.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for anyone else, it can be as simple as a timer.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Every 30 minutes, your timer goes off.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: You write down what you've done.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Time goes off, you write down what you've done.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you stack that over a minimum of a week, but ideally two weeks.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then what you can do is you can rate them all.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And a score of one to ten.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ten on the business type task, revenue generator, one, the opposite.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And on an energy level.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ten, high energy, really enjoy doing this.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: One, it drains me.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love if I could just give it to someone else.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then what I want people to do is I want them to look back through those tasks.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing is, what are the repeatable type tasks?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Emails is the classic one.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Communication type tasks, Whatsapps, getting back to people.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: What are the other ones?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Admin type tasks.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Quotes, invites, and maybe some of that other stuff.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there's repeatable things we do.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: What's one of the repeatable things I do?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Say it's marketing type stuff, social media type stuff.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So what we want to do is reduce the amount of steps and the amount
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: of marketing you have to make.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So say for me, I put out a new video every day, for example, on Instagram.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've come up with the idea,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: build the script, set it up, record it, get it edited, all the rest.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's six, seven different steps there.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Six, seven different steps by 30, 30 days in the month.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like over 200 different actions or micro decisions I have to get right to get the outcome.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: But instead what I do is I have one block once a month where I batch a lot of that together.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I've reduced 210 actions down to about seven actions or micro decisions.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I've taken a whole pile of friction out of my way.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what I do is I build what I call power blocks and that's what I recommend
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: in power blocks where you can batch similar type tasks together into windows
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: where you can reduce the frequency and you're taking out that invisible task
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: of setting up and starting something new every time.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: One of the simplest,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: most efficient ways you can do that is think about the communications type stuff
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: in your day.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your time, like how much time do you spend on emails, communicate, get back to people.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Research shows that most people spend like 3.5 hours on average on emails.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think take out lunch and break, that's like half a day.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a huge amount of time.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: But what are we doing?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's an email now,
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: which is another email has popped in and we're dipping in and out
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: of emails constantly throughout the day.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'll be saying is batch those into power blocks maybe twice a day.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: You hit and blast through all your emails,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: getting back to people,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: communication type stuff,
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: because you're creating a cleaner runway throughout the other periods of your day.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a cleaner runway to get the more important stuff done,
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: but you're actually more efficient at doing the emails and that kind of stuff
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: as well.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I do the same for admin.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Admin or any of those other repeatable things.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that will become really clear when you can look at that actual log that you've built.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be taking similar type tasks together, blocking them into your calendars, power blocks.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even think about that social media.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think about the emails until it comes time for me to do that one thing.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how much more efficient we can do.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are we also doing?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: We create more space and capacity in your day now as well because emails and admin
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: and all these other things aren't just a drip,
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: drip, drip, drip, drip through your day.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're falling into windows in here, which gives you more capacity and more free space.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're big on interruptions,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Barry, because you say that when you get interrupted, you lose your focus.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: When you restart a task, you move in between.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said yourself, a new email comes in.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've done it in that power block hour.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: But say a client responds to you,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: are you going to wait until like the next power block or the next morning to respond
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: to that email?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: How do you tackle that interruption?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not an interruption to me because notifications are off.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Turn them off.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Golden rule is my emails are only during doors those times.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if someone has to wait a couple hours or the next day, so be it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: If it really is that important, somebody will find a way of getting a hold of us.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: For example,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: a guy I was working with,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Going back a couple of years,
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: it was only into maybe a month or two of working together.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually,
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: he said,
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: actually,
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: the real reason, Barry,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I came to you was I lost a contract,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: worked a million and a half, would have kept my guys in work for over a year.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, what was I doing?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Emails, I was calling back to everything.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I was doing all these little bitty things.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't nail down the one big thing that would have helped us the most.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I see all the time.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Our client,
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: our team,
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: they don't thank us for getting all these little busy and always respond back to
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: an email if we don't get the product out the door or shipped or delivered on time.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Our team don't have a job in six months.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: No one thanks us for all the other stuff.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: So again, it's such a recalibration ourselves.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: We can look at it as being more selfish for ourselves,
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: but I feel it's being selfless because that's how we can better serve our clients.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we can better serve our team around us.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: it's just sometimes it's calibrate the way we're thinking,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: just a little shift in mindset because we don't have to be always reactive
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: and always on.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is a better way and actually the benefits from a far away is any negatives
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: that we might have in our mind.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned one of the things that a lot of people do is when tasks pile up is
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: that they hire more people.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: But then you can easily end up in this situation.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Again, something I've written about and heard from lots of founders that
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: the team still needs you for everything.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: All these micro decisions that you mentioned.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can try and put processes in place or simply ask, come with solutions, not problems.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And even that landed me in a time trap.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I see it a lot.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's people listening here that know that feeling.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've hired extra people and actually we're still as busy as I was.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still putting in the same hours.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's actually going on here?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's more micro decisions that has been stacked within the organization.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't given people the processes they need.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'd always say is, okay, we optimize, systemize how things are right now.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then at that point,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: you have a much clearer idea,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: a much clearer vision on actually who do you need here?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have hired,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: or if you're about to hire,
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: or you have team,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: what I'd always be saying is they need playbooks that they can run off.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because without playbooks,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: they're always making my decisions about how to do things,
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: when they're going to do things,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: who owns it, why it matters, how does it tie us to the outcomes.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'd always have, say,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: my own team, clients, I'd always get them to have playbooks for all the repeatables.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And again, when you actually track your time, it becomes more clear what those are.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I built A GPT will actually track how the task has been done.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: It'll build out the playbook in real time with a screen record of how it's to be done.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you can do that very quickly and simply use the likes of Loom.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Take a screen.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're already doing the task.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your team is already doing tasks.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why not take a Loom video of it?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, of course, your screen, all you're doing is you're talking through how you're doing it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can run that through the likes of Claude or Chattuck Tea,
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: and it will actually build you out a playbook, a step-by-step.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then they can, it's almost like your Bible.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about the repeatables within your business,
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: quickly and easily, actually, you could build up a stack of these playbooks.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now your team is operating off these checklists, these processes.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about brain surge and think about airline pilots, They are so capable.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You really couldn't find better competent professionals.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what do they do?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: They all have checklists that they operate off to create a predictable outcome.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why should we be any different?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever read the book,
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Checklist Manifesto,
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's so,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: so powerful to have a processing checklist in place because that's
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: the only real way you can create predictable outcomes.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happens?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your team needs you less and less and less and less
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: because now they can run their own processes.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now they can understand how to create the outcomes you're after.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Even decision making frameworks.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now the guy is working with his team kept routing decisions back to him
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: for like one guy came to him.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have to go via Hoover.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: All these little things.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: So he just tracked actually what was happening.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: We built decision making frameworks for his team
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: so they could actually make decisions up to a certain level in his absence.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: That took about 80% of the queries and questions coming back to
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: that one decision-making framework.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So again, AI will be your buddy here.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: One of the hacks I love with Cloud or ChatGPT is that just get to talk to it
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: and get it to act as a decision-making framework expert.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Interview me and ask me the questions that you need the information about
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: to help you build a decision-making framework for me and my business.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's so, so powerful actually what it'll come up with.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually handle a decision-making framework to your team,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: train them on it,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: and now there's a process that they can actually follow to prevent stuff right back
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: to you.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So systemization,
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: be it processes,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: be it decision-making frameworks,
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: be it systems,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: whatever it might be,
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's what keeps us out of the needness,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: the questions, the queries, and so on and so forth.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also what allows things to run far more smoothly,
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: far more smoothly within the
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: business as well.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: So you create these processes or write down these processes.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: You get AI to interview, I agree, and kind of like break them down.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: It can be super practical.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Nick,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: another previous guest,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: was explaining how He doesn't go on calls to respond to answers from his staff.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: He documents it,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: the question adds it to a wiki or an operating system brain,
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: whichever way you want to call it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time,
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: when you hire new staff or when you start hiring your first staff,
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know from my experiences,
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: one of the first traps is that you think,
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: well, if a job's worth doing, worth doing it yourself.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then you don't allow that space for the employee or the colleague
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: to take ownership of the task.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what has to be true before you can actually trust the team to own more of the doing?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: I get that a bit in terms of, look, it's quicker if I do it myself.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: But again,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: that's a repeat tax you pay over and over again because to hand over a process
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: to somebody and get it right,
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: it's a one-time thing,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: whether you could be paying that tax every day if it's a daily task or every week
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: if it's a weekly task.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Mind shift maybe at a certain point.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: We can look in the cold,
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: hard light of day of what those tasks are,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: how valuable they really are to your business in terms of like,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: say that guy, his time is worth two and a half thousand euro an hour.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that somebody that would pay 20, 30 euro an hour could do.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's a massive gap and that's all that he has to pay now.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're all initial steps that doesn't get the person doing it right,
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: but just allows you to kind of shift your mindset to actually,
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: it's not, I have to do this.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I have to delegate this task.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: This has to happen.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it just allows you to free them to do it because Our business is our baby
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: and we want to hold on to it and we want to hold on to our baby tight,
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: but it just allows you to release the grip a little bit and hand it over and
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: to trust that that person will do it,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: that the next level then is having the documented process first.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you do,
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: you can step back out of it and all you're doing then is
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: a higher level is inspecting what you expect.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you hire a person that you feel is right first.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: You have to release them then.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is the playbook, this is the process.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: You give them that level of trust.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: You start looking at them at the level you want them to be.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not the level you want them to be.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have to release them to it.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: But you still retain an oversight because you're inspecting what you expect.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you release them, you have the right person in place.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have a process for them, a playbook for them.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Really, I see it all the time.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot go too far wrong.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: You really can't, especially when you're up here still inspecting what you expect.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not in the weeds of it all the time,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: but it could be specific KPIs that you're checking in.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: It could be progress.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: It could be one-to-ones.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: But even at that, it allows you to step way back out of it.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like a muscle to get stronger.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: The more you do this, Daniel,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: the more you see,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: actually the world hasn't ended because I gave this one thing away.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then you see progress and that builds the muscle and it gets a bit stronger.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And also you're now looking for the next thing that you could move off your plate,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know, because you start to believe and trust in the people you have around you.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: They have the right tools to actually engage with us and create the outcomes that you want.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a difference then between empowering people and just leaving them
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: to their own device.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of making a decision,
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: you might have the SOP or the process for it and it might even include
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: a decision framework.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you would find that even with all those things in place,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: staff would still need reassurance that what they're doing is right
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: and they would still come back to you for that micro decision that you are trying
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: to get off your plate.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: How do you tackle that when everything is in place and you still get the question?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I tackle it with silence.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: This used to happen quite a bit with him.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: All I got to do was I just got him to sit silent.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd get awkward.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: He'd be stopped in the corridor, maybe something like that.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: He'd be like, I'd get awkward.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then he'd say nothing.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually they're like, oh yeah, 1-3-1-Roo, 1-3-1, or maybe some of the other tools.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the easy thing now is just to give the person the answer.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: What you're doing is you're giving them the fish all the time,
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: and then they don't go fishing themselves then,
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: or they don't trust themselves with fish.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: So again, you give them the tools, and then you have to give them a bit of space.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why people talk about open door policies.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be talking about closed door policies, and that might seem controversial.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: But we create windows when our day where people can come to us.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: When they come to us, they need to come with solutions rather than questions and queries.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's reinforcing to say, look, John, I can help you with this.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you need my help, you shout and I'll be there.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, I believe in what you're doing.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: You have the tools to do it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I trust in you.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I'm paying you to do.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And let that sit with them.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee you when you just reinforce that just a little bit at the start,
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: people will get it.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing they'll do is start building their trust in themselves.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not people are bad or people, you know, just want to put the monkey on your back.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Actually,
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: people don't have the confidence and trust in themselves that they're going
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: to do it right.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part that I was referring to, yes.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it just allows them.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Look at them and talk to them at the level that you want to see them at.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then give them the space to actually grow up into that.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, grow up into the space that you're creating for them and reinforce them in the right way.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And don't take the easy option to give them the fish.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Always get them fishing, get them fishing.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that ultimately is what you're paying them for.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as I said, The vast majority of people are well capable and really competent.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And most of that group will do a really good job for you if you just empower them
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: and show them that trust.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that will come back to your tenfold if you do.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, say you've put everything in place.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: You have the assistants in place.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: You have a couple of staff, maybe two, three, four, whichever level your business is at.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if you start...
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: When I say replace it, I don't mean that you're not needed.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean that AI is going to do your job for you,
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: but it's just getting you into that zone of genius.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a zone of genius.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we need to be spending the most time.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: AI for me is just a tool that enables us to spend as much time in that zone
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: of genius as possible.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the questions we often get a bit like that, Daniel,
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: is when we start our business,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: We can't really hire a lot of people or do what a more established business can do.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So where do we start?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, it comes coming back to what you've tracked.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: What are the low value, kind of low energy type tasks right now?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: How could we maybe use the power of AI to eliminate them,
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: to automate them, or to even just reduce the time we spend on it?
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the other side of it is, We can't use AI for everything either.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's still stuff that people have to do, for example.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you still have to check it.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do you use anything, any AI output without checking it?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you have to, yeah.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's certain things.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's still human involvement.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: It may get to a point in the future where you don't have to check save and accounts
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: and stuff like that.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: But right now, absolutely, you need to check that work right now.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I was working with him.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: His invoice was a really convoluted process.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was taking him four hours every week because it was so convoluted.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, like, there's no way I can do this.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: No way another person could even do this.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: I have to do it.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't do it because he just didn't have enough time for it.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And cash flow issues weren't just coming behind him.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: When we mapped it out, again, we just tracked how it's currently being done.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're able to run it through AI to create a process that automated about 90% of us.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: We reduced that four hours down to about 20 minutes.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the other step was, okay, he still needs to do that 20 minutes.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where we didn't want to just hire somebody for like, okay, 20 minutes work.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: He had someone on his team that could actually do this.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Virtual assistants.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's virtual assistants
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: that will do this for a fraction of your hourly rate
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: and do it really well.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'll be saying to people that may be starting off in business.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yes, we can automate, but you can use it.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Where do we need active people?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd always be using it as virtual assistants for the likes of that type of stuff.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can hire someone for 10 hours a day,
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: for an hour a day, Five hours a month, doesn't matter what it is.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: So what we've done is, again,
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: we tracked how the task has been done,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: we built out an AI-powered playbook,
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: and then we handed that over to a virtual assistant that could do the thing
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: that he wanted done, how he wanted it done for a small fraction of his hourly rate.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on the country, depending on what you want them to do.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: But you could divert a virtual assistant for nearly anything from bookkeeping
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: to accounts to social media to marketing.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's how do you get more time than that's only a genius?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we really keep the barrier of entry low?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the most powerful things we can do, actually.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because now you have so many... That's the step-by-step breakdown that you were talking about.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the low barrier of entry, right?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: Low barrier of entry.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: We have a playbook that allows them to do it the way you want them to do it.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: But it's low cost.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's low risk as well because you can literally hire them for two hours and see how it goes.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can hire them for a month until you build a relationship and get to know them,
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: make sure that they're doing it at the correct standard,
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: they're the right person, all the rest.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there's such a low barrier to entry now to move that stuff off your plate.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to be sitting around on a beach with the feet up.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's the dream.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: The business owners actually come to me, they all say, actually, I want to work.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoy it, you know.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is the dream for some as well, of course.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's How can we take that reclaimed capacity now and actually do something really good with it?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a new business idea.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: It could be charity work.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: It could be redirecting that capacity into working on the business.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: It could be spending time with the kids, the family, taking extra holidays.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's taking that reclaimed capacity now and doing something really tangible with it.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just, because again, work expands to fill a dime.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: We free up an hour.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: We could fill it up fairly, fairly quickly with something trivial.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it's getting that reclaimed capacity back.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's redirecting into the areas.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: that time lag that we talked about earlier,
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a massive step because it allows you just to see what those things are
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: for you.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because even an hour extra back for you,
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: again, a week, it's one working week at a time a year, all massively adds up.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And also the other thing is it's one less hat you need to wear.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you can just close down that extra tab on the browser of your mind and it's one less.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole window with like 70 tabs as it is for most of us.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you basically want to be productive for the rest of the stuff
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: that you don't fully enjoy, but take your time with the bits that you do enjoy.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: What do you see founders still getting wrong about productivity then?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: The biggest thing for me is they try to manage their time better.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: That makes things seem bad.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: But people are using the same tools we're using 20 years ago, 50 years or 100 years ago.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: When you try to manage your time better and get more productive,
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: what happens is you can get more efficient, okay, and you make safe some time.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when you apply the power of systems,
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: what you're doing is you're applying leverage to what you do.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to spend an hour of working harder and maybe longer to create the same outcome.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: I could use a system.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: I could use a process.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: I could use AI.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: I could delegate the task and not do it at all.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we get into those next levels within our business.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not by working harder or longer or being more efficient,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: but the 12 hours we're already working.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: What would be an actual good sign that AI is changing the way your business runs?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have the example from your business where you created custom GPTs
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: to help you create processes or get back to clients.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's the sign that you track?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Besides getting an hour back,
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: a day, or is it like a minimum amount of time you want to get back?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes you can spend a week building this automation for a task
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: that takes 15 minutes a week, and you could just do it the way you did it before.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: What I typically do is measure baseline.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: We see what's happening right now.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: We see 40 people's time and energy is spent, but we also
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: do it again.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: At milestone points down the road because we want to make sure that we're doing
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: the right thing, but we also want to make sure of progress.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: And again, progress is addictive.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: When we see that progress,
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: when we're seeing that difference in how we're doing things,
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: it allows us to manage better because we're measuring better.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing it allows us to do is it gives us that 10,000 foot view
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: that actually we are heading in the right direction here.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really difficult sometimes when we're still busy to see actually have
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: the changes we made made any difference or not.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's measurement.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Measurement is such an important thing, a key milestones.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no one-size-fits-fits-all.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: It could be for someone,
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: it could be an hour a day,
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: it could be an hour a week, it could be, you know, 20 hours a month.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody tuning in realises they are still the operating system or
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: the business is too dependent on them, what would you tell them to fix first?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my capacity engineering framework, the first part of it is the S. It's a filter.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing I always look to do is put a big filtering system in place.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because the filters was going to filter out that wall of noise.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: People, texts,
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know, emails,
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: calls, all that noise that we talked about earlier, that cost us that invisible tax.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: 11 to 24 minutes every time.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to do is get rid of that invisible tax straight away.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because that does a couple of things.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Number one,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: there's a very kind of hidden benefit of doing it,
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: is we start to calm our nervous system.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people right now these days are at flight or flight response
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: because it's all reactive.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: This thing, that thing popped up, something's over here.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we don't have something to react to, we're almost looking first.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we check our phones so much.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can check your inbox,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: which has zero emails,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: and you'll sit there and just like refresh,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: pull to refresh, just waiting for something to happen then so you can react
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: to it.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: So by filtering that noise,
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: doing some of the things like we talked about, for me, it's notifications off.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's funneling.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Power blocks into your calendar for emails, calls.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: It could be routing calls in a certain direction if too many
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: of those calls are still coming to you.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a member of your team, it could be a virtual assistant, an AI assistant.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's filtering that noise down as a start point.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's those open door time slots we have so people are coming to you drip,
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: drip, drip through the day.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because what happens when you do that,
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: it's almost like you just feel straight away like you have more time.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: You do have more time.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: You feel calmer.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: You feel more in control.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system starts to calm and get out of that flight or flight response
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: that it's most likely in right now.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your head is clearer.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have more energy.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing it does is it allows you to relax.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Start getting back to yourself again.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Start getting back to the person that you were in terms of energy,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: in terms of the ability to focus,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: in terms of getting your joy back for the business.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: It starts actually to bring all those sort of things back into your life.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: When you combine that with the actual invisible tax that we take out there,
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: People make huge savings just by doing those things alone,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: just by actually filtering that noise right down.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it always does.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because think about it.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can have the best systems in the world,
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: but where are you going to get the time to work on the business?
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can still get interrupted, distracted, emails, calls.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's all this sort of noise in your life.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really going to happen.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to happen.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's filtering that noise down as a starting point.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: Barry.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want to leave everybody with some practical tips.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what you said was that you have your notifications silenced most of the time.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's on your computer as well as your phone.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: No distractions.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: For example, LinkedIn can send you a notification every time somebody is breathing on there.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these apps and platforms are designed just to distract you
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: from everything else you're doing.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: So are there any notifications you keep on?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's your practical system that I can do?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example,
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't keep refreshing my Substack notifications every single hour
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: because I get easily distracted.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I have called our bubble method.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's where we want to eliminate possibility for it.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because with the best willpower in the world,
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: like sometimes people tell me,
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: but Barry, look, the notification comes in and I don't look at it.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just keep working.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very good like that.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: But even just hearing that notification, it's fractured.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're making like a decision.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Will I get it now?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Will I not?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Will I keep it till late?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, whether you even think about it or not.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing is I'd be blocking like digital distractions.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's the B.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all notifications off, all of them off.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: All of them off.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: If it's important enough, somebody will get you.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody will phone you.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: Get away.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: All notifications go off.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'd always rearrange my phone as well so that when I open up the phone,
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: the first screen on my phone actually is like the four
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: or five key apps I probably use every day.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: I delete all social media off my phone.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: I use social media.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not harming or disciplined enough to say, oh, I'm so good at social media.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't go down that rabbit hole.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: I can use it.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: But like, again, we talk about reducing steps.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: I add friction to things like that, where now I deleted Instagram, Facebook.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: I need to use it for work on different stuff,
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: but I have to log into the browser on my phone or desktop to get in,
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: which means that extra step means I don't normally do it.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do it unconsciously.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Anything like that is a really conscious decision, which means I rarely do it.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: So again,
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: when I open my phone,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: it's not cluttered with notifications, apps, all that other stuff.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: One of the key stuff I might need.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Notifications are all off.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: The other things is like things we talked about, where there are sorts of noise coming from.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: I always say it's not that you don't do it, it's when you do it.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's having those windows in your day when you can.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: What I do is say whatever time every day,
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I go into my emails,
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: I check my phone,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: WhatsApps, Slack messages, LinkedIn messages, all those other things.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Instagram.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: I go through them all.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: I blast them all.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have a playbook there.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: They go through one at a time.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hit them all in that window and then I get back out.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say for people is don't start what you think you need.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Start with a little bit time that's a little bit shorter than that.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think, geez, I probably need maybe an hour for all this stuff.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Send for maybe 45 minutes.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: I always said, don't run into the perfect.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Start with that and then you can tweak it based on how it runs for you.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: Always start with something though.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Start with say a block in your can,
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: it could be half an hour, it could be 45 minutes, morning and afternoon.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or you funnel all those communication type stuff into that window.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then I go through my process, depends on how many emails I have.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: I start there, then I move on to the Instagram and LinkedIn and all those other messages.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I almost gamify it as my little timer going off there, it's 45 minutes.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I gamify it, how many of these can actually blast through in 45 minutes?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I've set a little mini deadline on myself as well on it.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And often through, I get it through way quicker, you know.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a massive focus.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a challenge.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: Park it again.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's a challenge.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: You get the dopamine rush from doing that challenge rather than checking
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: the notifications themselves.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely I do.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's my little timer there in the background.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: It goes off.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have a little timer there I set for different time periods.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that is my challenge, yeah.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it does actually help with those little mini dopamine hits.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: My day is not a constant dopamine hit of everything, but that, yeah, it does.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it does.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a nice little reward.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: I like this idea Barry and I think you convinced me to try
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: So what I will also do is make sure that I silence all my notifications around
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: that block.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if anything is going to take anything away from this episode, it will be this.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Filter the noise.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: Filter the noise.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for some of your tips and tricks and advice, Barry.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking forward to report back to anybody listening how this went out for me.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel, it was a pleasure.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in all the way to the end of this episode.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's where you'll get all the latest features and new episodes straight
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: to your inbox every week.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Catch you next week!