Getting Dead Practical about To-Do Lists II: Overcoming Task Avoidance
This is the Happy Scientist podcast. Each episode is designed to make you more focused, more productive, and more satisfied in the lab. You can find us online at bitesizebiodot com/happyscientist. Your hosts are Kenneth Vogt, founder of the executive coaching firm, Vera Claritas, and doctor Nick Oswald, PhD, bioscientist, and founder of Bite Size Bio.
Nick Oswald:Hi, everyone. This is Nick Oswald welcoming you to this Bite Size Bio webinar, which today is a live episode of the Happy Scientist podcast. If you want to become a happier, healthier, and more productive scientist, you are in the right place. With me, as always, is mister Kenneth Vogt. In these sessions, we'll hear from Ken mostly on principles that will help shape you for a happier and more successful career.
Nick Oswald:And along the way, I'll pitch in with points from my personal experience as a scientist and from working with Ken. If you have any questions along the way, please put them into the questions box, and you will get a personalized answer from Ken or myself. Today, we will be covering the second part of our 2 part presentation on getting dead practical about to do lists. This one is about overcoming task avoidance. Ken will be leading this as usual, but first of all, Ken, I'm sorry I left you hanging last time.
Nick Oswald:It wasn't it wasn't to do with, having too many things on my to do list. It was, it was just a last minute family day at the beach. So I think I think we should do an excerpt on that, giving yourself permission to have fun. What do you think?
Ken Vogt:I like it. Yeah. I think that sounds fantastic. And somehow, we muddled through without you. We've got great production support here.
Ken Vogt:So, you know, Connor is once again our producer behind the scenes today, and he he, does great work for us. So to do list, last time, we talked about call it the practical side of it. Like, how do I how do I pick out a good system for myself? How do I how do I, how do I pick out what features matter to me? And then how do I pull the trigger and and start using it?
Ken Vogt:So here's the problem. If you did all that last week and you figured out which system you need and you and you got it, And if it's in required some kind of installations, required some kind of setup, you've done that. And then you get into it and you start to use it, and you find you don't use it. You you stop. You hesitate.
Ken Vogt:You you get distracted. You you do anything but follow your system. And you you're wondering what went wrong. I put all the effort into this already. I I did the heavy lifting, and I and I picked the right system for me, and this one should work for me.
Ken Vogt:It should be perfect, and yet I'm just not doing it. And so what happened? Well, the thing is that that system is a mechanical thing, and whether it's you're just using a, you know, a yellow legal pad or or you're using some some full blown project management system, there's the emotional part for you. There's the human part. Now I say emotional.
Ken Vogt:I don't wanna make it sound like, oh, you're just you're just being hysterical on how you're reacting to this. No. No. It's not like that. But you are human.
Ken Vogt:And I don't care how clinical you are. I don't care how much of a statistician you are. I don't care how much of a scientist you are. You're still human. And it's not a negative.
Ken Vogt:That's a positive. You're you're bringing something additional to this, and it can absolutely be wielded for the most positive possible effect. But when it seems like it's working against you, you gotta ask yourself, what now? So I wanna start off by considering this notion of old habits die hard. Before you had your system, your to do system, you did whatever you used to do.
Ken Vogt:And for whatever reason, you decided that wasn't working well enough, but it's familiar. And it's what you always used to do, and you must have gotten some kind of results. You didn't get a PhD because you don't get things done. Yeah. Obviously, you have been effective at getting things done.
Ken Vogt:It's just you'd like to be more effective. But having done something pretty well already, you're gonna have to let go of it. Those old habits, those things you've always done, I, you know, I always check my email first thing in the morning. I always I always write down this type of task, but I have never been in the habit of writing down that type of task. I always put all my my work related stuff in here, but I don't put any of my personal stuff in there because, you know, I'm at work.
Ken Vogt:I shouldn't I shouldn't be thinking about that or doing that, except that's not really how life works and vice versa. You know, you you can't spend all of your time scheduling, picking up the kids from school, and and doctor's appointments and all that, and ignore your work, you have to do all of it. So the first thing is to acknowledge that, okay, I have some old habits. And, you know, you've gotten this far in life into adulthood, and you've seen the power of habit. Habits can be can be so compelling, and not all habits are good, obviously.
Ken Vogt:But here here's the tough one. When a habit has been good for you, those can be really hard to let go of. You know, you used to do it a certain way. Now your new system is telling you to do it different, but the back of your head is telling you the old system was good. The old system worked.
Ken Vogt:What will I lose if I if I let go of this? Well, it's it's it's kind of like, if you wanna swim across the pool, you're gonna have to let go of the side of the of the pool. You you have to get in there and start swimming. And, yes, when you let go, you have a little more chance of sinking below the water, but it's it's just a choice you've already made. And remember, if you've chosen a new system, you you went through this process, you have thought about it.
Ken Vogt:You have considered the impact. So now now you just need to get in there and start swimming. So that, you know, it it starts it starts with that. Put it another way, either you're gonna do your old habits or you're gonna change. If if you don't make the commitment to change, you will go backwards.
Ken Vogt:It's the opposite direction of what you've chosen here. And, yes, sometimes having made a choice, it was hard and it was scary, and you maybe even still scared about it. And you don't know what the future holds. I do know the results I get with my old system. I don't know for sure what kind of results I will get with the new system.
Ken Vogt:Well, if you like data, get in there and start creating it. Start getting feedback so that you will know what will happen. Now this is not so that you can set yourself up to shoot down the new system. But you do wanna see things in practice. Because at at the beginning, you've got your fantasies about, oh, it's gonna be so much better.
Ken Vogt:Everything's gonna be perfect. It's all gonna be so smooth. Probably not. It's it's not gonna be that straightforward. Get in there and start finding out where the rough spots are.
Ken Vogt:Where do you need to to dial things in a little more? What's missing that you didn't think of before, but now it's now it's screaming at you? Don't look at those things as as, alarm bells going off. They're not emergencies. They're just they're just information.
Ken Vogt:And now it's good to know that, alright. I need to I need to shore this up a little bit over here, or I need to I need to change something, additional so that this will work. Yeah. The objective always is you want it to work out for you. You have to have a system of some kind.
Ken Vogt:You know, whether it's it's, you know, super dialed in or whether it is more flowy, whatever it is, it's gotta be something that works for you. And give yourself a chance. Get in there and do it. Make some mistakes. Get better at it, because that's the other thing.
Ken Vogt:You everything you've ever learned how to do, you started off doing it without experience. So, you know, to ride that bike, you had to actually take a chance and get on the bike. And at some point, you had to pull off the training wheels and find out, can I do this or not? And everybody who's ever rode a bike, I've never met anybody that will claim they never fell down. We've all done it.
Ken Vogt:You fall down sometimes. And sometimes it really hurts, but probably, it doesn't kill you. Well, in fact, if you're here, it didn't kill you. Right? And it it'd be the same thing with this.
Ken Vogt:Now part of when we when we we chose a a system that would work for us, we chose something that would not lead to catastrophic failure. That's already kinda built into the system. The system is built that it can take some knocks. So have some confidence in it and have some confidence in your selection. You know, trust yourself.
Ken Vogt:At the end of the day, you've gotten this far trusting yourself. Even if you've doubted yourself, even if you've dabbled with impostor syndrome, which we've talked about several times in the past, the the fact is that you've come through. And in many cases, come through with flying colors, and you didn't give yourself credit. So give yourself a little credit that, you know what? You can work this out.
Ken Vogt:You can you can take it to the next level, and you can make a new system work. And it'll it can it will go more quickly if you get in, if you if you get engaged and involved. Otherwise, if you're hesitant and hesitant and hesitant, you're you're not gonna make any progress, and and then it's just you're just wasting your time, and you're slowing things down. So I will pause for a minute here and, let Nick, jump on in.
Nick Oswald:Makes sense to me so far. I'm just waiting for the bit about the, the avoiding the, you know, the demand avoidance thing because that's me. But no. This is, yeah, I I suppose one of the the main things is, though, I love look reading about these systems, figuring out what will work for me, and, and then setting them up, and off I go. And I use a version of Zentadon, or or I have set up a version of Zentadon.
Nick Oswald:But then then then the real test is 1 is living it. And as you said, it's it's like the honeymoon period, isn't it? As you you find out what where it doesn't work for you and, you know, where it gets sticky for you and, yeah, and then you have to find a way to get through that and kind of personalize that, make that work for yourself. So
Ken Vogt:Right. And and that happens that happens in motion. Because we all have those times when, like, look, I wanna follow the system, but I have a really, really good reason why I'm not gonna follow the system right now.
Nick Oswald:Today. Yeah. The diet starts tomorrow.
Ken Vogt:Yeah. Exactly. I remember back in the day, this is probably before most of your time, there was there was this actress. Her name is Tody Fields, and she used to be on the the the daytime talk shows, and she was funny. She's a comedian.
Ken Vogt:You know? And she wrote a book called, I think I'll start on Monday, because she was quite overweight and and she, you know, and she really traded on that. It was part of her shtick. And and it was always about, I'm gonna go on a diet. I'm gonna go on a diet.
Ken Vogt:I'm gonna go on a diet. And, of course, she never does. And, the hilarious discussion about it just was ongoing. But it's always struck me to, like, wow. She can't go on a diet on Monday.
Ken Vogt:Her whole life is built around the fact that she needs to go on a diet. And, you know, you may find yourself doing stuff like that. And, you know, you gotta watch for that. You gotta pay attention. When am I playing this game?
Ken Vogt:There's a quote I wanted to to reference here from somebody, FM Alexander. People do not decide their futures. They decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures. Nice. Yeah.
Ken Vogt:And when you think about that, you realize, what has my habit been? Because the habit starts to take over. The thinking isn't happening anymore. Now this particular person who wrote this is an author and also was an actor, and he developed the a thing called the Alexander technique or the Alexander method. And it's it's very interesting, how that all worked.
Ken Vogt:It's a physiological thing, this the Alexander technique. It's basically how to have good posture, which mattered for a stage actor and, you know, matters in a lot of things. Now I'm not necessarily recommending the technique or recommending against it. That's not the point. But the point is is that he recognized that there were habits.
Ken Vogt:They were they even were downright physiological that impacted his output in his chosen field, and the same thing happens to all of us. Now there's 2 kinds of habits that I wanted to talk about here that that may may show up for you. It's your habits surrounding starting tasks and your habits surrounding finishing tasks. So some of us have a hard time starting. And once we get going, we're okay, but starting is so hard.
Ken Vogt:When you get you really need to look at yourself and go, what is happening in that moment? My habit is to avoid starting. Why? What's what am I doing? How do I do it?
Ken Vogt:What methods do I use to keep from starting? Do I use distraction? Do I start making value judgments about this is more important than that, and therefore, even though I chose to schedule this thing to do now, I'm not gonna do it because there's this other thing that's more important? Well, you know, it is more important that you do things to survive than that you have fun, you know, as far as long term viability. Right?
Ken Vogt:Except you do need to have fun sometimes. And if you never allow yourself to have fun because it's not about survival, you won't start things. So you you need to pay attention to when I'm not starting things. Sometimes you wanna dig into why, but other times, it's just just taking note that, hey. I'm hesitating to start.
Ken Vogt:I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put up with that. You don't need to talk yourself into it. You don't need to have a conversation in your own head. It's just like, I'm just gonna start. Just it doesn't matter why I wasn't starting before.
Ken Vogt:I'm just gonna start and just start, and then watch what happens next. You will find that it's it's kind of a flywheel effect. Once you get going, you're okay. You you've I think I mentioned the Pomodoro technique in our last session. You know, the idea that if you'll just commit 20 minutes to something, say, look, I'm not committing to finish writing this paper.
Ken Vogt:I'm just gonna commit 20 minutes into it. I'm I'm I'm then the first 20 minutes, all I'm gonna do is start working on a start working on an outline. That's all. In fact, I'm I'm just gonna start I'm just gonna start the outline. That's all I'm gonna do for 20 minutes.
Ken Vogt:After you're in it for 20 minutes, you ask yourself again, am I ready to commit another 20 minutes? And usually, the answer is gonna be, yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm in it. I'm and and I've got momentum, and you'll and you'll get going on it.
Ken Vogt:And that becomes a habit. If you get in a habit of acting of taking the first step, you'll find taking first steps is easier and easier and easier. Now the other side of that, do you have a habit of not finishing tasks? You get excited, you get involved, and it's like, this is getting detailed and boring. And now there's other these other shiny things I wanna start, and then you start the next thing and start the next thing.
Ken Vogt:And all of a sudden, you've got all of these unfinished things sitting around. Well, how do you motivate yourself there? Well, by starting finishing. You that is treat it like it's a new project. It the new project has come from where I am now to where I wanna go next.
Ken Vogt:That's that's always true. That never stops being accurate. So the point of all this is to take a look at your own emotional barrier here. I have a hard time starting. I have a hard time finishing.
Ken Vogt:Maybe both. Who knows? But to just acknowledge it. Okay. This is how it is, and this is just an emotional thing.
Ken Vogt:It's not it it's not a systemic problem. It's it's you know, I mean, if you lack things, you know, I need more information before I can start or I need approval or what you know? Well, fine. If there are practical things, then then make that the project. The project now is to get approval for the project.
Ken Vogt:The project now is to get get the data I need for the project. Fine. Just just start looking at it that way and taking taking that next step. And then you wanna start rewarding yourself emotionally. Praise yourself for look at look at me go.
Ken Vogt:I started. Or look at me. I finished it. I'm I'm isn't that great? You know, I'm worthy of something.
Ken Vogt:It's and it is more than okay to reward yourself in some way for having successfully started or finished. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It's I'm gonna reward myself by going and getting a latte. You know, I'm and, you could reward yourself like, when I finish this, I'm taking a family on vacation. You know, sometimes the reward needs to be big, and the motivation of that potential reward is there for you, and it will help you to establish these habits.
Ken Vogt:And I'm sure you know people that are are really good at getting things done. And and you watch them, like, how do they do that? They they did it the same way that I'm suggesting you now. They got in there and started doing, and then it got to be such a pattern for them, such a habit that they just never stopped. And, of course, they got the rewards of the success of taking action, and and now they have that as a kind of a a a substructure underneath it all.
Ken Vogt:Like, I know I'm gonna get some satisfaction when I start this. I know I'm gonna get a big payoff when I finish this. Start using those things and stop ignoring that you're acting emotionally. You're a human. You're gonna have emotional reactions.
Ken Vogt:Sometimes they're avoidant, but other times, they're they're moving you toward things. Use that stuff. There's there's nothing wrong with with drafting on an on another, you know, another person. Somebody else succeeding, start following them. If if somebody else is getting a lot done, start getting a lot done to match them.
Ken Vogt:You can use competition that way in a positive sense, and it will and it'll help you move forward. Okay. So now let's talk about this from the negative side. Sometimes we look at, look, I got this great system and I've implemented it and I'm using it properly, but other people keep getting in my way. I'm getting interrupted all the time.
Ken Vogt:And sometimes it's like, well, I'm being interrupted by peers and okay. That's a problem. But I'm getting interrupted by my boss. I can't ignore that. I I can't just say, well, I'd get more done if my boss wasn't in my way all the time.
Ken Vogt:Your boss has reasons to be in your way. Actually, so do your peers, but, you know, you we we can't pretend that's not not gonna happen. So if you plan your day in such a way that you have no room for interruptions, well, you're you're not planning properly. Now there it may be that you just need to plan 6 hours worth of work in an 8 hour day, and maybe that solves your problem. But maybe that's not how it is.
Ken Vogt:Maybe it's when I get interrupted, I'm I'm just totally taken off track, and I have to have to go down another road. You you do still need to acknowledge that that is the lay of the land. If if if it's such that you just can't take it anymore, then maybe you do need to change the lab you're working in, change the the way you're doing work. But for most of us, that's not really the answer. It's not a matter of, well, I just don't feel like it.
Ken Vogt:It's just too hard. You're doing work that's hard. You've been doing work that's hard, and you've been doing work that's hard for many years to get to the level you're at. Hard work isn't the problem. In fact, you've gotten a lot of satisfaction from doing things that are hard.
Ken Vogt:So, you know, don't run away from that, but acknowledge that this is how it is. Now some folks are in a chaotic environment just by nature. You know, if you're an emergency room doctor, literally, everything you encounter is an emergency. Yeah. That's a tough environment, and it's not for everybody.
Ken Vogt:But for the right people, it is absolutely the right environment. So if you're finding that having an environment that has a fair amount of chaos is actually good for you and actually motivates you and actually energizes you, great. Accept that motivation and energy, but also accept the impacts of it and see it. And and then start asking yourself, how can I how can I mitigate this? What can I do to make this easier?
Ken Vogt:Maybe not even easier this time, but next time in the future. What what can I what can I put in place that will help with this? And it may be that you you set up a team so that you can offload some of these these emergencies on others. Maybe it's a matter of of preempting things, seeing in advance. This is this kind of problem keeps popping up, and I can make it pop up less if I take these steps.
Ken Vogt:And then maybe you need to work it into your system that I've always got this fudge factor available. I you know, that that when I need it, I can pull it in, and it won't create chaos. So, you know, everything that you're promising about delivering on has got room so that if something else pops up in between, that it won't won't crash and burn your project. Alright. Enough about outside influences.
Ken Vogt:Now let's talk about inside influences. One of the things that that stops us more often than anything else is fear, and we often don't want to acknowledge that. We think, well, fear is kind of a childish thing, and it's irrational, and that's not who I am. I'm an adult, and I'm a scientist, and and I'm a logician, and I'm and I'm a capable person. Now to claim though that you never are made afraid by anything is disingenuous.
Ken Vogt:It's not realistic. So when you have fear, you wanna acknowledge it. And when I say acknowledge it, I don't mean engage with it. We're not having a conversation with the fear. We're merely just looking and going, oh, look at that.
Ken Vogt:I'm afraid about something. I'm afraid I won't get this done. I'm afraid this project's gonna fail. I'm afraid that somebody is going to gonna get in my way. I've you know, whatever the fear is, acknowledge it.
Ken Vogt:Because the fact is, if you have fears about things that are getting in the way of you accomplishing tasks, those fears are not gonna just vanish. And you can't just treat them as if you're talking to a child like, look, there's no monster in the closet. Don't just that's silly. Stop thinking that. If you've ever tried doing that with a child, it doesn't work.
Ken Vogt:You can't just poo poo it and push it away and pretend it's not there. What you have to say, look at that. There is fear there. And with no judgment, it's like and it's not stupid to be afraid, and it's not it's not lazy to be afraid, and it's and it's not, you know, it's not timidity that's making you afraid. It's just something is causing that to pop up.
Ken Vogt:So acknowledge that it's there. Because if you don't, it's gonna keep trying to get your attention, and it will and often you've probably have noticed this. You don't pay attention to something, it amplifies. And we've we've had this kind of experience just with they say something physical. It's like, you know, my knee's a little sore, and I ignore it and I ignore it.
Ken Vogt:Now my knee is really sore, and now my knee is injured. You know, there was a escalation there, and in each step of the way, you didn't acknowledge the problem. If you will just the the earlier you can acknowledge that fear is is welling up, the better off you're gonna be, the more likely you're gonna deal with it. And I when I say deal with it, I don't mean stopping and making some intellectual choices about what's what's to happen. When you acknowledge fear, it gets internalized.
Ken Vogt:The the not the fear itself, but the acknowledgment gets internalized, and you will start you will find you will start to deal with it. It'll start happening. Okay. I will you'll get in front of this. Because if that first time you look at you look at your system, it's like, oh, no.
Ken Vogt:I I I have to prepare for the Monday morning meeting, and, you know, I don't wanna work on the weekend. Well, great. Now that you know that. You're right. I need to schedule something for me to do on Friday, so I'm prepared for Monday's meeting.
Ken Vogt:All that because you acknowledge the fear. If you just push the fear away, it'll it won't be there until Monday morning rolls around like, oh my god. I'm not prepared. And, no. I'm here I am on the speaker stand.
Ken Vogt:Now what? You know, then fear is then fear is really debilitating. So just deal with it when it's small and when it's early, and you'll find you're gonna have a lot better time. Another thing that happens is have you ever noticed that sometimes you start doing things, and maybe even in the past, they used to be useful, but for now, they're not the best use of your time. But you just can't stop.
Ken Vogt:I have to finish this thing. You know, I I used to do this all on notebook paper. And even though I've got a system nice online system, I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep doodling on this notepad until I finish. And then you're not gonna use it. You're gonna use your automated system, or now you have to transfer what's on the notepad into the automated system.
Ken Vogt:Why? Why do you do that? Well, it's because it's familiar and it's comfortable, and we are definitely drawn to things that make us comfortable. And there's nothing bad about that. But, nothing generally bad about that.
Ken Vogt:But in the specific instance, there are times when you gotta tell yourself, I don't wanna pursue this dopamine hit of creating this manual list. What I wanna do is start getting my dopamine hits from following the new system. And, again, this is the installation of new habits, and you've gotta break the old habits too. So it's not just a new habit has to start, old habits have to end. And that's you know, we've talked about addiction to dopamine in the past too, and it's I mean, it's a real thing.
Ken Vogt:We all do it, and and we're all being compelled to do it. I mean, our phones are doing it to us. Our all these systems and social media have been designed to attack us that way and to to wrangle away our own dopamine response. And, you know, in the past, we had an episode on on, going on a dopamine fast. It's a it's a good idea.
Ken Vogt:Every once in a while, you just need to stop all of that. Turn off all the devices, if that's what's causing it for you. Turn off the television if that's what's causing it for you. Stop listening to podcasts. And I'm not saying forever, but give yourself a breather.
Ken Vogt:Give yourself a break. And when you find yourself going back to an old habit, just stop. Don't have a conversation with yourself about it. Don't don't engage it. Just like we don't engage fear, don't engage your compulsions.
Ken Vogt:And we all have compulsions. Don't don't beat yourself up about it like, oh, man. This means that I'm I'm an addict, or this means that that, you know, I'm psychologically imbalanced. No. You're just human.
Ken Vogt:We all have these compulsions, and they're satisfying in short term. And we we will miss that satisfaction. We will we will wish we had it. It's okay. You can you can forego a satisfaction, and it's gonna be okay.
Ken Vogt:Forego that satisfaction, move on to the next thing, and you will find something else will replace it. And you'll find you get more resilient, that you can go longer between meeting periods of satisfaction. Because if you have to be satisfied at every given moment, you you know, you're gonna act in a very childish manner. And I say that in, you know, in the most professional sense. Right?
Ken Vogt:It's not that you're gonna act like a 2 year old, but but you're not gonna act like the professional that you that you truly are. And and it comes down to facing what's really in front of you. One other thing. Do you find sometimes you don't follow the system? Because I'm just not gonna.
Ken Vogt:You can't make me follow the system. I don't care if I put it in place. I don't have to. I I'm fully in charge of my existence, and I can do whatever I want whenever I want. It's freedom.
Ken Vogt:Right? I mean, freedom is great, and freedom freedom is important. In fact, freedom is a source of your free thinking, which is, just a critical critical skill to have as a scientist. But you need to recognize when you're acting in rebellion, when when you're jumping out there and and you're just just being a rebel without a cause like James Dean here on the screen. If you're gonna rebel, do it with purpose.
Ken Vogt:If you're finding it's just just a short term satisfaction thing, that's that's not a very compelling reason to engage with it. So I'm not telling you to stop rebelling. In fact, rebellion is really necessary in science, but make sure you do it on purpose and and with purpose that you're gonna you're gonna get something of value out of it, not just short term satisfaction. So once again, Nick, I I'll let you jump in.
Nick Oswald:No. I I'm writing down here. So this is this is definitely an Achilles' heel for me, this one, because you get, I'm just looking at well, the things you wrote down, outside influences, fear, compulsion, and rebellion are all ways that you stop yourself following that system or stop yourself from getting past the the honeymoon period and and into the become proficient at running that system. Mhmm. Yeah.
Nick Oswald:So for me, they they all play a part depending on what the, on on what it is, really. But, that thing about the the the dopamine hit is is quite compelling because you go for that. You go for dopamine.
Ken Vogt:Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:You know, that that's what you're programmed to do. So if you can make the dopamine hit about having your inbox at 0 or or ticking the ticking the the thing off the list or whatever, that is, I guess, is is that the way is that the the goal sort of thing or or or a way to get this to take advantage of your programming here to make it Yeah. To work.
Ken Vogt:And it it can't be just a, you know, something as gross as inbox to 0. Because one day, that is a very good goal, and the next day, it's not a very good goal. So we have to be a little more nuanced about it. We have to choose we have to choose where we're getting our dopamine hits from, and we usually aren't. And that really is the big shift.
Ken Vogt:So start start being the chooser instead of just being the recipient of the choice, and and that can make a big difference for you. You know? And, you know, you mentioned we talked about fear. We talked about compulsion. We talked about rebellion.
Ken Vogt:A lot of folks will hear those three things and go, I don't like the sound of any of those, and I don't I I don't like to even be associated with that. But you can look at the flip side. Like, what if I'm courageous? And what if I'm free thinking? And what what if I am in charge of my own existence?
Ken Vogt:You know, you can you can look at this from that positive standpoint and use that to motivate you. Some people, it will be very motivating that the negative is motivating to them. You know, they wanna push away from that. Other people wanna push toward the positive. Or it's a mix of that, and and maybe it's it's dependent on what's happening for you in the moment.
Ken Vogt:Right now, I'm avoiding a negative, but tomorrow, I'm I'm happy to pursue a positive, then use them both.
Nick Oswald:I just had a thought of 22 parallel parallel things, meaning tools that work or that help with that. Mhmm. One was and I'm sure it's from Jason Fried. The, what's that book he wrote wrote? He wrote 2, didn't he?
Nick Oswald:One of them.
Ken Vogt:He's the CEO of 37 signals. Yes. He's actually written a couple books.
Nick Oswald:The second one, whatever his second one was. But he talked about having, that your goal should be able to get to the stage where you can have guilt free fun. Yeah. And that should be your aim is that you feel that everything's under control enough that now you can just you don't have to carry it with you for the rest of you know, once work is finished.
Ken Vogt:Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:Now now it's time to go and have some fun, and you don't have to feel bad about it. Yeah. And, you know, rather than, you know, rebellion, you go, no. I'm gonna take some time off and, without doing all this stuff.
Ken Vogt:Yeah. But you kinda feel like system and yes. Right. You can't make me kinda thing. Yeah.
Nick Oswald:Yeah. You kinda feel a bit guilty, though, though, about it. So you don't really get the benefit.
Ken Vogt:Right. So it's And and for some folks, you need to schedule in your pleasure. You need to schedule the coffee break. You need to schedule the vacation. You need to schedule the time to to read for pleasure.
Ken Vogt:That needs to be in your to do system. You know yourself. If you need that, get it in your system. Now for some of us, we don't need that. We'll we'll we'll do those things fine.
Ken Vogt:But but if you're somebody who's been nose to the grindstone, shoulder the wheel for years now and often academia did that to you, you gotta you gotta allow yourself to schedule pleasure, and it's it's productive for you to do so.
Nick Oswald:Yeah. And the other thing I was thinking of as well is using a bit of brute force to get yourself out of your normal thought pattern when it comes to approaching what you need to do, you know, when you you sit down. And one of the really good one is there's one, it's it's like an inspirational video, where you just watch. It's meant to be that you watch it at the start of each day, and it just kinda gets you a bit pumped. I used to have one of these, and I had, like, the, the, the Rocky theme tune on it and stuff like that.
Ken Vogt:It's pretty good.
Nick Oswald:You just kinda get ready. But this one is it's an a Tony Robbins one.
Ken Vogt:Mhmm.
Nick Oswald:And if you can you can find it on YouTube. It's called now I am the voice. And the idea the idea is that you sit down and your brain just starts going, oh, I hate doing this. Oh, we've got so much to do. And and it's kinda and it just goes on autopilot.
Ken Vogt:And and
Nick Oswald:it's the same every time. And this thing is about just giving yourself, you know, as I think it's 7 minutes long or so. 5 or 7 minutes long. And the the idea is just to give yourself 5 minutes to get into the zone of actually, don't listen to that bumbling voice. That's not your voice.
Nick Oswald:Now you see what you want to happen. And as you get into the habit of doing that, the idea is to do it every day. But as you get into the habit of doing it, that gets stronger. Your ability to say, no. This is what's going to happen.
Nick Oswald:Consciously say it rather than to let the script tell you what's the or the videotape that's running in the background all the time. Rather than not telling you what's gonna happen, then, you know, that that's the idea of the, of that video. So that helps you use a bit of brute force to kind of shove this in the right direction.
Ken Vogt:Sure. And you might some folks may be listening to that going, oh god. Tony Robbins, are you kidding me? Like, well, what do you need? Do you need to be Carl Jung?
Ken Vogt:You know, if it works, it works. You know?
Nick Oswald:If you read the life story of Tony Robbins, then he he he has whatever you else you think of him, he has been able to motivate himself. So I would
Ken Vogt:definitely millions of others.
Nick Oswald:Yeah. I would definitely listen to him on motivation. Yeah.
Ken Vogt:Yeah. So, I mean and, you know, it doesn't matter who that is. There are people that the, you know, they they give them to the limelight, and sometimes they fall out of it. Sometimes it's just because they're in the limelight. They're getting shot at all the time, and all you've heard all you hear is all the negative stuff about them.
Ken Vogt:You know, look at what works. Look at what's getting resolved. Yeah. And and go from there. Yeah.
Ken Vogt:Yeah. And and you don't have to apologize for it. You know, you don't have to broadcast it either, but if you if you wanna start your day with I am the voice every day, it will not hurt you.
Nick Oswald:Or or the rocky theme tune. One of them.
Ken Vogt:Yeah. Yeah. Or or whatever. Yeah. The the rocky and bow
Nick Oswald:winkle theme tune, whatever you wanna do. You know?
Ken Vogt:And it's funny how some of those little things, it's not that they're motivating for everybody, but they are for us. We have some connection to something. If you find something like that that works, don't be ashamed. You know? And, again, you don't have to make it a public thing.
Ken Vogt:There's plenty we can do in private that moves us. You know, there are people that that meditate every day. There are people that pray every day, and we look at it. Oh, come on. Really?
Ken Vogt:You know you know what? It's working for them, and they're getting results. And they're getting measurable results. So you we can't argue with the data.
Nick Oswald:Definitely. Well and and you and as a scientist, you shouldn't just assume what the data is gonna be for you. You should go try
Ken Vogt:it out
Nick Oswald:and get your own data set.
Ken Vogt:Well, I like that. So so there is something that I wouldn't have thought to say that the scientists in the room did. So good for you.
Nick Oswald:There you go.
Ken Vogt:Alright. Well, that's what I had to had to say today. Anything else you wanna add, Nick?
Nick Oswald:Okay. No. I think that that is really good. I mean, I I do love the when we hit upon this a few episodes ago and decided to come back to it, that it's one thing setting up your system, and there's so there are a lot of systems out there for getting organized and and staying staying motivated and, you know you know, for organizing your tasks mainly. But then there's all these things that stop you from stop you from executing the system.
Nick Oswald:That was kind of like a, okay. I see. I don't need another system. I need to figure out why I don't do this system well. Exactly.
Nick Oswald:The system I've got is pretty good, but I but I still have quite a lot of chaos, and it's because of this stuff. And I and I didn't realize until you'd, popped that up in that few a few episodes ago. So Yeah.
Ken Vogt:Cool. Alright. Excellent.
Nick Oswald:Alright. So thank you everybody for taking the time to join us. And, and, if you've enjoyed it, please subscribe to the Happy Scientist on your favorite podcast platform. Leave a review. That'll help other people to find it, and, of course, tell your friends so that they can also benefit.
Nick Oswald:So we will be back with another episode in a few weeks. Until then, good luck in your research, and goodbye from all of us at Bite Size Bio.
Ken Vogt:Bye.
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