Excuse the typos, this podcast was transcribed by https://otter.ai
Mitch Simon 0:10
Welcome to another episode of team anywhere where CEOs, leaders and experts are building teams, companies, organizations, and amazing cultures
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 0:21
share how to lead from anywhere in the world. I’m your co host on the east coast. juden Bianca Mathis, and
Mitch Simon 0:28
I’m your co host on the West Coast, Mitch Simon. And we invite you to join us team anywhere.
How do teams maximize productivity while in a virtual environment? Actually, we’ve never been set up to be more productive. Today we speak to Jeremy redleaf, the founder of cave de cave Day is a social community where people from all over the world join together and get focused work done. The idea came out of Jeremy’s frustration to find time to do his writing and creative work. On the remote work teams of today. The good news is that people have the ability to find time to do focus work and can do it in the privacy of their own homes. The bad news is that many bosses don’t recognize how important it is to allow for an even mandate, focus time. I went into the cave a couple times over the last few weeks and found that I got more done in three hours than I typically get done in a week. You’re gonna love this episode with Jeremy redleaf. Hello, and welcome to another episode of team anywhere. I’m your host, Mitch Simon on the west coast. And we have Jenny Mathis. You’re my co host on the east coast and she has I think she’s under like 12 feet of snow right now.
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 1:51
Not quite that much yet.
Mitch Simon 1:53
Not quite. We will be there but but today we have we’ve got Jeremy Redleaf. On no coast, he’s actually an Arizona, Jeremy Redleaf, If you don’t know, he is a storyteller, entrepreneur. And closest to my heart. He’s a ginger. He is the head honcho at brackets creative, a co founder of cave day and the founder of odd Java nation. He makes films experiences and companies in service of making people feel more alive and many of you will recognize his voice as he does the voice of God again, on Sesame Street. Jeremy, welcome to the show. How are you? I’m doing great. I didn’t expect that intro you went deep? Well, yeah, I was I was, you know, deep, deep, deep within the internet to find that who this man is. And well, good. Welcome to the show. I just you know, we like to start off the show. How has the last the last nine months been for you in this pandemic? Never better just crushing it? No, I thought I thought I thought a positive experience overall, fortunately, did lose it does it? There’s a few people close to me early on, which was tough. But I’ve been working, you know, remotely for a long time. So I felt prepared for this. And and it’s been it’s been a great learning experience. And, of course, I’ve been very busy with with helping other people around the world adapt to this new environment. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself? I mean, obviously, when I looked on the internet, you’ve basically done everything that is possible, except I think walking on the moon, and you a little bit about your background, because you do seem to be a serial entrepreneur and a quite a creative. Well, you know, I tried to walk on the moon, but I just couldn’t get on the ship. I have a fear of fear of space travel. So it wasn’t for lack of try. Yeah, so so I’ve done a lot of different things over the years, which you which you high lit pilots highlighted. So these days, these days I’m talking about but by myself as an artist and entrepreneur and I have a company called cave day, which is how I think you you found me so cave day, we run we run daily, your focus sessions for a global community. And we also help teams that companies big and small, learn how to work more effectively and have a healthier relationship to work. We don’t like to talk about the P word productivity. We talked about having a healthier relationship to work. Great. And so thank you for that introduction on cave day. If I could take a crack at cave day because cave day for me is a lifesaver. I heard about cave day because Todd Henry on the creative, the accidental creative. You had sponsored one of his shows. And I’m thinking what, what you caveman cave day for me as a as an entrepreneur, as a creative as Oh, well. There’s a bird, you know, I have the attention span of a gnat. And what cave day is whether you are working for the man or the woman, you know or whether working for yourself. It’s this it’s this environment. meant, where people join together who are, who are serious about getting serious work done. Where there is this, let’s say group accountability, to dive in, and get the work that needs to be done. And it’s pretty much you, you know, for those of us who like to go off and in, let’s say go to the mountains or, or the the desert or the beach, and no one can go anywhere anymore. It’s kind of like, I am committed for the next hour or two hours or three hours. With this group of people who are, let’s say, cheering me on to get my work done. How did you think of this thing? Well, it’s sort of like the Hair Club for men. I’m also a client, right?
Jeremy Redleaf 5:47
So four years ago, I had a big existential crisis, I’m, you know, I’m a writer, and director by trade. And I looked at my schedule, and I never had enough time to write I had all these little tiny bits of time, in my day, 20 minutes here, 30 minutes here. And it was just never enough time to really sink in and go deep and, and access my highest intelligence in that flow state. And I actually at that time, I thought I was just a slow writer, I thought I just, you know, didn’t have what it what it takes to write fast enough. But it turns out, I was just never writing for long enough. So So what happened was, I kind of, I came up with the idea, I blurted out, I need to take a cave day just sort of like came into my head, I made up some rules. And I went off the grid for a whole day by myself. And of course, it was transformational, but it was also really draining. So with two collaborators, Jake, Johanna, and Molly San Stang, an experienced designer and an designers designer, we created a social format. So like, what if we, what if it was energizing, if we did it together, and it turns out, it was energizing to do that together to really hold each other accountable, but also work together and prick together and, and push each other. And so we started doing them in New York as one offs. So we would do a whole cave day in New York on a Sunday for all our friends who said, Hey, I’m going to read a book. And they never wrote the book. And we said, Hey, come to the cave day, you’re going to you’re going to make some progress today on your book. We did that for about a year. And slowly, but surely, we started to do it more and more frequently, and we got to every day, and then people started hearing about us around the world. So we started doing them online for people all over the world. And then when the pandemic hit, we were able to shift everything online. So so you know, day one of the pandemic, we had, you know, eight to 10 hours of group focus every day. So we kind of finally hit this this long a goal of ours to have a place you could go any day of the week to be in that environment to to focus and access your full potential. Wow. Yeah, no, it is it is. It is brilliant. It’s a brilliant, brilliant idea. So let me ask you ask you a different question. And how have you How have you found? What are some of the things that you’ve done to be successful? To to be the I know, the the manager or the CEO, or the CO CEO, to run a remote company? Like what what is really worked for you? Because I’m assuming cave Day is a completely remote company. Yeah, we were currently on our in different states, we all started in the same state. But of course, that’s how it goes with teams and companies. And both of my co founders are young parents. So even more, so we had to learn how to how to function as a company, wherever we were, we have a little bit of an advantage in the end that we teach, you know, some of these skills. So we just said we should live the rules that we teach. So that was that that’s been really helpful, but we really just kind of, we’ve learned by trial and error. And we’ve, over time, we’ve developed more and more processes. And we’ve realized that anything that’s not clear or, or automated, tends to create slack. So a small example of that is, we’re having trouble making decisions quickly in our slack channels. And so we decided to make a voting channel where anytime you needed, you know, you need the thumbs up for both parties, you throw it in the voting channel, and they just gave a thumbs up. And so, and that’s as simple but it means, you know, it made all these little decisions go quicker, because people just knew where to find them knew that they had to give their thumbs up or thumbs down, and so on and so forth. So we thought we just over time, oops, sorry, move the mic. They’re hot mic. Over time. We found that that the more we did things like that, the more effective we became as a team.
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 9:22
This is built in. I’m sorry, Mitch, and this is built in to if, um, is this built into the actual cave day? Or these are the tools that you all have been using to run your business?
Jeremy Redleaf 9:37
Yeah, no matter what.
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 9:40
The reason I’m asking this, I have found so much that goes wrong, is because people are wondering, wait, wait a minute, why are we talking about this? Let’s refocus and just being able to say, everyone thumbs up or thumbs down on this Topic now then we move on, as you said Little but racket.
Jeremy Redleaf 10:05
Yeah, I mean, I think the ethos is built into the cave, right, we like to be really, really clear with what we’re what we’re working on what done looks like. And then ethos is transferred into the the workshops, we run for companies where we talk about things like how to have effective communication on your team, because what happens on teams is that, you know, most people need some time to do deep work with full focus, and then also have a lot of meetings and other things that they have to do that are in smaller chunks of time. And then there’s this always on culture of constant communication. So how do you how do you communicate with your team, you know, when you’re working in how to escalate if an emergency arises. So we’ve we’ve taken the ethos of what happens in the cave and transferred it to other sort of skills around running an effective remote team. And so those are the those are the skills that we’ve transferred over to our our team as well. Fabulous. That’s great. And I’m assuming you run these workshops, online. We used to do them, and we used to do them in person, but now we do them online, of course. And maybe one day, we’ll be back on the road. Yeah. Great. Tell me about the, the wins that you’ve had, as co founders, and some of the struggles that you’ve had as co founders, especially in in work, you know, you’ve given us an example already, but especially working across the country. What what works well, in the remote environment and what what doesn’t work. So well, the remote environment? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, all the tools we use, you know, can be used anywhere I’ve done where I was driving cross country last week, and I was in the front seat of my car, tethering my phone to my laptop, and I was able to do things for the company, and what a cool age to live in. Right? That that the tools we have can be used to allow us to be location agnostic. So that’s obviously the big, the big obvious value of working remotely. And the the value that is challenging to unlock sometimes is the is the value to have that time to go deep, and then get back and then report back to your team. So when we, when we talked about when we worked with companies before the pandemic, you know, all they, all they would say is always companies big and small, would say, I go home to do my best work, you know, I can’t do this open floor plan doesn’t actually help me focus. And I’m constantly interrupted, and I sneak into conference rooms when I can. But if I really need to focus I go home. So that is the opportunity in remote work is that is that there is that separation. So if you if you do have a team that’s conscious about how they communicate, you can find that time to to really do that, that juicy work that needs to get done. In terms of what doesn’t work well, remotely or not as well, as you know, I think it all starts with the fact that we have the cameras in the wrong place on the laptop. So it’s really hard to look each other in the eye, right? I’m looking, I’m not looking at you guys in the eye, but I put I’m looking I can’t see your faces. Now I’m looking at the computer screen and I can’t see your out, you know, you can’t see my eyes. So there’s this little slight disconnect that is so profound, like we we co regulate with each other. And because we don’t have that, that idi direct connection, I think it’s challenging to, to regulate your nervous system and to stay, you know, to once de energized long enough, you can’t do it. You know, if anyone’s been on a three hour zoom meeting, you know, it just ruins you for the day. And I think it starts with just the ability to have that sort of basic idi connection.
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 13:31
Well, I love that word co regulate, I’m going to steal it. That’s excellent. Have you found some little ways? I mean, I tried to do it. You know, I even say I end every class that I teach with everyone’s smile, you must smile and not letting you off. You don’t everyone smiles and they spend a course they start laughing. But little things to capture that. Yeah,
Jeremy Redleaf 13:58
it’s totally possible. I’ve seen I’ve had incredibly deep and emotional conversations over zoom. I thought, you know, in the cave, we’ve learned all sorts of different ways to make people feel connected, regardless of where they are in the world. What it takes is facilitation, and particularly aggressive facilitation, it requires the group dynamic or someone’s empowered to say like, we’re all going to do this thing now. You know, you know, so it can’t it doesn’t happen when you just you know, I went to a family holiday party on zoom, and there was no leader and it was just everybody talking to each other and it was so unsatisfying. You know, you need for you to strong facilitator for these things. It’s interesting because when Jenny and I met and we talked about the the new role of a manager or team leader, it was really facilitator cheerleader. And I’m wondering what are some other things that you would encourage team leaders who are attempting to lead their teams from from, from a little tiny camera to do to enhance the the connectivity and relationship the the the depth, the empathy For the team, yeah, for each other, yeah, that’s obviously taking the time to connect as a human, it can be as simple as just from one to five, how you feel as a human. You know, that’s, you know, as simple as that. And as deep as really taking the time to do, really fun thing, I forgot so many fun things that teams have done, they’ve been, you know, every week, someone does a tour of their house, you know, show and tell all these sorts of things that can kind of help us feel a little more connected. In terms of in terms of work, you know, one thing we recommend is obviously, working together. So, you know, we’re going to kill this one meeting a week, and we’re just, it’s going to be work session, we’ll do a little stand up the top. But now we’re going to for the next 30 minutes, we’re going to do the things we’re talking about together, and we’re going to check in at the end, that kind of cave like accountability. And then, and then it’s, it’s being respectful of people’s asynchronous work, right? That this is the, the big, the big opportunity here with remote work is to really allow people to have more flexibility for when they do things. So especially for the people that are parents right now, you know, you know, if you can allow them the flexibility that when they do their work, it can lead to a better quality of life. So, you know, I have just thought I was doing a presentation for a team yesterday and, and the woman said, you know, they told me that I need to need to be even more online and more of respond to emails even quicker so they know that I’m working you know, and that’s, that’s, you know, that doesn’t take advantage of what of what the remote configuration provides. I was wondering what are what’s some of the feedback that your your regulars because regular caveman or cave woman, cave day? What are your What are your regulars? What are you hearing from them? And it you know, is like, Oh, my gosh, I just wrote the great American novel. I just got a Nobel Peace Prize. I you know, I solve world peace. What is what is some of the outputs that you’re finding? Yeah, well, you know, before the pandemic, our, our regular cave, people were, you know, freelancers, entrepreneurs, artists, people that had control over their time, some new moms, and even they could choose when they could hop onto a cave. When the pandemic hit. We had all sorts of new kinds of workers, people that have you were working nine to five jobs, and we’re now at home and just struggling to focus. So we had to adapt the product and also and adapt who was for and people are doing all sorts of amazing things. We have a ton of books coming out of the cave, we now have some Emmy winners and Oscar winners in the cave. People people are launching businesses. People are beating resistance on projects that they’ve had on the shelf for 510 years. Yeah. Yeah, what’s really exciting is a lot of people are coming and doing a hybrid thing. So you know, one of our Caitlin says three Sprint’s three hours three, Sprint’s they’re going, you know, one for me too for them. So I’m going to work from I’m going to work for the man for two for two sprints. And then I’m going to work on that, that, that cookbook that I’ve been saying, I’m going to do forever. And so you know, what’s really exciting is using the cave, not only to get your focus worked on the urgent work that you’re required to do for your, you know, your day hustle, but but really people that are coming to also make the time for their passion.
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 18:08
Jeremy, I’m getting a sense of that your platform is flexible to do both of what I’m going to ask, which is you have people from all walks of life that can hop in to a cave. And you might also be asked to do it for an intact team.
Jeremy Redleaf 18:30
Yeah, yeah, it’s a, it’s a pretty flexible format, anything that you can do. So we talked about mono tasking as the opposite of multitasking one task at a time for a specific specific period of time. So anything that you can do in a mono tasking way can be done in the cave. You know, if you look into a cave, you’ll see someone illustrating in a notebook someone doing pottery, once we had someone cooking a chicken, you know, it really, you know, it’s in, you know, in any given cable of people in 15 different countries. It really, it’s pretty universal. You know, it’s for anything that that requires that kind of deep focus. Wonderful, great. Three. So one of my favorite quotes. So Jocko Willink. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s, he’s actually here in San Diego. And he, you know, he talks about discipline equals freedom, discipline equals freedom. And my experience, has I hopped into a cave I think was two weeks ago, once once I heard Todd Henry mentioned, mentioned this and once I found out about you, and I swear I got more done in three hours than I would have gotten done the entire week. Really? Yeah, cuz it’s like, what am I gonna do now? Because Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but I got nothing to do seriously with that free thing. And I was wondering what is your What is your perspective around discipline equals freedom? And have you found that all of your customers found that? Yeah, well, I you know, I grew up in a hated rules. I was kind of a rebel. You know, if I took the Gretchen Rubin And archetype quiz as a kid, I would have been, you know, a rebel, or, you know, I won’t follow any rule that I don’t understand or don’t agree with. And so. So it was only an as an adult that I realized when I wasn’t getting the output I wanted or the outcome I wanted, that I needed to look at, you know, look in the mirror, and then look at what my role was in this. And, and as an adult, I really found that freedom in, in discipline, and because I don’t like the word rules, because the rules loaded for a lot of people, we like to say constraints. And so, so yeah, I’ve built a boat, you know, both with cave day. And also with the accountability group, we run a cafe, a lifestyle around constraints. And and yeah, the the opportunity there is, is is, what if the key you know, you know, back in the day, cavemen only worked about three or four hours a day? And what if we can find that again? What if you could do your full day’s work? And half the day? What would you What would you have more time for? What kind of work life balance could you have? Then, you know, I really think that, that working smarter, and working with more intensity can really allow people to reclaim that sort of middle middle class lifestyle in the age of distraction, you know, you know, the the dominant culture wants us to always be on and the dominant work culture is about always being on and always being responsive. If we don’t fight back, we’re gonna we’re gonna be, you know, you know, tweeting away our lives.
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 21:25
Yeah, no, Jeremy, it seems to me, um, you know, if you listen to all the wonderful neuroscience stuff that has come down, you’re really training people’s brains, you’re creating a forum, a context for the synapses in their brain to regroup. That’s what I’m listening to this, I’m just bubbling all over. I want to go in I want to experience that and, and I’m tired, I can see some people who psychologically have trouble focusing. Yeah, well, this just been revolutionary for them.
Jeremy Redleaf 22:08
It’s, it’s definitely rewarding to see to see people have that kind of reaction. Let’s go back to that word co regulation that you mentioned earlier, you know, what we are talking, you know, what we are talking about, on one level is, is that, you know, hard work that that matters is often existentially challenging, right? And our brains are wired to to avoid existential challenges. So if I’m reading that, if I’m reading that, that next great novel, and I don’t know the answer, my brain goes, Danger, danger, escape, escape. So so what we’re, you know, we’re, by creating environment, we’re all in this together, and we’re sharing, you know, we prompt people to share some of the vulnerability what’s, what’s going on for them. As they do their work, we’re allowing people to, to co regulate and stay out of that danger zone, stay out of that hypo arousal or hyper arousal, those states that get us out of our ability to, to function and tackle the work we need to do. What else? Do you have any? you have any thoughts about how this? How cave day how putting yourself in a cave in this limitation for three hours, how that is actually expanding and enhancing people’s creativity? Because it does sound like a dichotomy? Yeah, well, you know, as a creative myself, I often need to give myself the space to stare at the wall. And to not to not worry about the outcome, right. And it’s often hard to book that time in, in one’s life, adult life. So you know, the structure of the caves, and the structure of a sprint at a time, allows people to say, I’m gonna take a sprint just to just to journal or to open up the brainstorming session, you know, no, no, no requirements. And then I’m going to stay longer, I’m going to, you know, I’m going to take, you know what I’m going to put, I haven’t made any progress on my screenplay, I’m going to book the three hour k for tomorrow, and I’m going to work on it the whole time, no matter what. And so and so what that does is it just forces you know, you to work longer than you would alone, much like when you you know, work with a trainer or go to a workout class, you work a little longer, right, you sort of put yourself in a situation where it’s gonna force you to go a little harder. So I think with creativity, it’s oftentimes it is that it is that time and that ability to stay with the discomfort and just kind of, you know, allow those, you know, interesting patterns to emerge in one’s brain, which don’t always happen right away. Right. And so what’s your what’s your message to team leaders? Who, who don’t get this yet? and leaders who really want their people to be productive and engaged? What would be your suggestions for them? Yeah, well, you know, I talked about working out a little a little bit ago. And I think that’s the, the metaphor we like to use. So we’ve learned over time that there is a smarter way to work out right. There’s an training, there’s ways to maximize the time we do we get in the gym. And there’s all that sort of research around work and, and it doesn’t jive with an always on culture. So really just inform yourself about the research about what it takes to do successful knowledge work. And and if your team isn’t designed to to create room for that, maybe there’s something that that you could do to create a culture of focus of values focus. And, yeah, I’ll stop there.
Mitch Simon 25:32
So, the question is, you began cave day before a pandemic? We’re now in emic, God willing, 2021, we’re coming out of a pandemic. Are we going to be, you know, are you suggesting that we need to have a remote, let’s say solitary experience, in order for us to be productive moving forward, what what has this time taught you? If a real estate consultant or a CEO are coming about how to design the work, place of the future? Or the work environment of the future? What would be your? What would be your consulting there? I don’t have a big check right now. What do you got?
Jeremy Redleaf 26:19
I’ll give you this, I’ll give you the cheap answer. So, you know, so we’ve seen, you know, a lot of people in their, in their mid career have have taken this opportunity to move out of the city, right, they have one kid, or they got two kids, and they were they were making a work in the city, and they’ve moved into the middle of New Jersey, I’ve seen, I can’t tell you how many people I know that have done that. And I don’t think those people are coming back to the office every day. So I think a lot of teams are going to have to, are going to be forced to work with the hybrid model. So you know, we’d like people to be here, there’s certain times people have to be here. But there’s also we’ve we’ve learned that we can actually work remotely and get the things done, we need to get done, that that environment was always has been for a while reserved for the high level worker into in the tech world, right, I know a lot of high level, you know, people that have been moved to Hawaii and still work on their team. But now the mid level worker is going to be able to do that, and probably every worker, it’s probably going to be just a perk of, of certain kinds of companies. So so so that’s the, the main place we’re gonna start is we’re gonna have to, we’re gonna have to make hybrid work. And so if you’re going to design office, you know, obviously, it’s got to have the right tech in the right configuration, you might want to move a little bit away from the open floor plan, give people a little bit, a little bit more private space to do what they need to do, but also have video calls with the people that are not there. And, you know, it’s, we’re gonna have to find ways to trust each other, even though we can’t see each other. So, you know, in the traditional workspace, you know, you look like you’re working good job, you know, I’ve seen I’m seeing output, you might be checking Facebook for two hours a day, but fine, you’re here, you know, I get to tell the story that I’ve managed to well, and you’re, and you’re doing your job, and the output is there. So, you know, a lot of managers, a lot of managers I think, are afraid to, to not be able to see their workers. And so that’s when we start to get these weird expectations for for when they’re not in the office of how they need to prove that they’re working. And we really need to, you know, move that move towards that sort of, you know, results oriented, work environments, and also having really clear okrs, and really clear what what growth looks like. And and the last thing I’ll say, as if it takes it requires a different skill set. So there’s a real, I think there’s a real art to, to working remotely, and making people feel your presence on your team. You know, it certainly can be about the timing of messages or how you communicate, how you share when you’re, when you’re off the grid for a little bit of time, how you share about how you work, we encourage people to create a document that just sort of explains how they work, what their life is, like when they work best, what kinds of work they try to do, which kinds of day how to escalate an emergency. So it really is a skill set to make your team feel you and make and make your in especially if you’re the person working from home, and you’re your co workers or in person, how are you going to make yourself feel enough belonging, feel enough psychological safety and feel engaged enough with the other people that you’re not with in person?
Ginny Bianco-Mathis 29:27
Yeah. And so I thought, Wow, she just said so much incredible. When you said I loved the distinction you made, and I hadn’t seen it with that set of glasses before that. You’re right up to now you always hear about the owner, the CEO, the founder going off to Hawaii and and still running the company. But now the whole middle of companies can do the same thing. Well, that I’ve got it. I’ve got to think more about About that, that is. And then the skill sets are very different. And I’ve already came to this realization and wanted to even talk to you or about it, which about, there’s also an obligation a learning for the remote worker, it’s not just the leader, I’m all one with, if your leaders not doing it, then you need to do it. If your leader hasn’t created a way to come to a decision quickly in the meeting, maybe you can introduce that. Maybe you become the facilitator, without it being formally announced. So a whole set of skill set? This is this is really exciting.
Mitch Simon 30:46
Yeah, and I love to pick up. Go ahead. No, what I love Jeremy is is is how much design this conversation is just how much design is involved. Or the redesign of both the leader, the the organization and in the worker. Yeah, it definitely requires a new lens. And the last, the one more thing I’ll add is that, you know, I think all humans and definitely all workers do need to feel like they belong. And, you know, it’s really easy. When everyone’s in person, the office, this is the place I work. These are the rules of engagement, there’s the coffee, this is my team, my desk is right here, you know, I belong here, this is part of my identity. And so when when a worker is working remotely, or if we have these hybrid teams, we’re gonna have to be a little more attuned to what it takes to feel like you belong. My wife works in a traditional work environment, and they’ve been sending each other gifts, all pandemic, you know, and when the mail comes in, she gets a package from her one of her co workers like face lights up, you know, we have to really think about, we have to really acknowledge that we all need to feel that belonging and that is definitely harder when you’re not in person. Right, this has been awesome. Is there any question? We should have asked you? Me that we haven’t? Oh, man. I mean, you know, I have to I think I think that was great. Is there any other question you want to ask me? I think I think it’s good. I mean, it’s, you know, my only obvious is Why are you in Arizona? But otherwise, no, i think i think i think it’s good is definitely a lot of value. Yeah. I guess maybe what more we can do is sort of like just some quick tips for for worker, you know, yeah. Yeah. What are some quick tips? Yeah, so if anyone wants to just level up their their work, when they’re working from home, we have a bunch of quick tips that we like to give. So first one is getting your phone out of sight when you’re working. Research shows that if your phone’s insight, even if it’s turned off, it can temporarily reduce your cognitive performance, how crazy is that these things are so powerful that even when off, they can impact how we how we function. So and they’re obviously Of course, I don’t need to tell you that they’re designed to, to steal your focus and so so just take that ticket off the table. And if you find that you’re you can’t really manage your your ability to work on one task at a time, use a technology blocker, there are tons of both free and premium and freemium versions, that that you can use to just take the ticket off the table of when we like, is called freedom, it’s it’s been around the longest and works on all your devices. And you can just say, for this two hour session, don’t let me go to my my inbox, my Facebook, anything, you know, our lizard brains can’t be trusted. And there’s no there’s no shame in that it’s actually really powerful to, to acknowledge that and to use technology to, to overcome it to transcend your limitations. Make sure you’re hydrated, people don’t realize the power of water, even a 2% dehydration can reduce your cognitive performance. And, and there’s there’s no definitive research about how long the brain can focus for. But we haven’t seen anything that says that the brain can focus content consistently for more than about 52 minutes on one thing fully. So your brain does need to break you do need to manage your energy throughout the day. So be really, really conscious of taking breaks, you know, breathing, stretching, all these sorts of things, doing something that energizes you either mentally physically or you know, emotionally in between works work Sprint’s and if you’re working with more intensity, you’re gonna feel better about breaking. I think the workers don’t feel great about breaking because they’re never quite working hard enough. And then the last thing is to be to be mindful that you that everyone’s energy dips throughout the day. There’s a great book called by Daniel Pink called win that talks about the different prototypes of work. And so, you know, two thirds of people, you know, peak in the morning and then have a trough over after lunch and then recover at the end of the day. night owls, you know, experienced that in the reverse order. And so start to learn when you were when you know, when in the day is the best time for you to do different kinds of work. When you’re the most awake, you should do those, those more challenging cognitive tasks. And when you’re when you’re dipping, that’s a great time to move to app and stuff. So the more you can design your day to work with your energy, the more the more satisfied you’re going to feel because I know when I try to turn around when I’m just like, you know that, you know, 3pm comes around, it’s just it’s a losing battle. So to know that I can work with on a more
Jeremy Redleaf 35:09
something that’s more suited for that time feels really great.
Mitch Simon 35:13
Great. And I want to give a fourth one and if you had three but, but what I what I’ve experienced is another plug for Cave day is, when you start your week, and you spend three hours in a cave, you feel so confident for the rest of the week that you can produce. I don’t know if some of your subscribers have said that have seen that. But I felt okay. You know, because again, my my personalities is all over the place. Like I now know, I can use that discipline to get things done. And because of that, that that is going to be such a much more productive week. So my my word to, to Team managers who many use the Monday like, let’s all get together, let’s all power up. It’s like, yeah, let’s all get together. Let’s power up. And then let’s tell our people now for the next two hours, don’t talk to each other, you know, put yourself put your heads down. Let’s get stuff done. Because I do think that that just that that that burst of confidence at the end of the week leads you to be more productive at the end of the week. Jeremy, this has been just killer. Fabulous. I’m so glad to the case.
Yeah, like me right now. But thank you so much for your time for your dedication for putting products like this and and the other products that you’re putting out there into the world. And let’s see, where can we find you and where can we find your products? Yeah, thanks for having me. You can find more about cave day caveday.org We are at caved in all the interweb places. And I’m at Jeremy Redleaf on all the interweb places. So come come find us. Alright, Jerry, thank you so much. Ginny again. Thank you so much. And we’ll see you next time in another episode of Team Anywhere
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
