Watch the YouTube video version above or listen to the podcast below!

Timestamps

• 0:00 - How do you think about prioritizing your time and how do you optimize your workflows?

• 4:19 - Timeboxing your daily calendar

• 12:04 - Alex's grab bag of time management experiments

• 20:51 - Limitations of yourself and the methodologies

• 28:26 - Mastering your craft and deliberate practice

Section Summaries

How do you think about prioritizing your time and how do you optimize your workflows?

In this conversation, Ruthi Corcoran and Dave Dougherty discuss their struggles with managing competing priorities in their lives. Ruthi mentions her full-time job, a podcast, side web projects, family, friends, children, and husband, which makes it challenging for her to balance everything. She acknowledges the potential of using technologies to optimize her workflows and time management.

Dave shares his experience of using agile methodology and creating sprint boards with post-it notes to manage tasks efficiently. He experimented with different project management software like Trello, Asana, and monday.com to keep track of ideas and interests. Dave also discusses the importance of recognizing his energy levels throughout the day and aligning tasks accordingly. Overall, they discuss strategies to be more efficient and productive while juggling various responsibilities and interests.

Timeboxing your daily calendar

In this section of the conversation, Ruthi Corcoran, Dave Dougherty, and Alex Pokorny discuss the importance of time management and setting boundaries to achieve a better work-life balance. Ruthi emphasizes the significance of understanding what is feasible during work hours and off-hours, as time is limited. She highlights the usefulness of time boxing to prioritize tasks effectively.

Dave shares his experience of blocking off specific chunks of time on his calendar, like "health time" at the end of the day, to transition into family time and ensure he is present and active for his children. He also talks about the benefits of setting clear boundaries for meetings and avoiding work-related tasks during personal time.

Alex discusses his approach to protecting his personal time, such as not having work email or Slack on his phone to avoid getting sucked into work outside of office hours. He emphasizes the need for unscheduled time, especially for creative pursuits, and recognizes the seasonality of his interests and activities.

Overall, the conversation highlights the importance of being mindful of time management, setting boundaries, and recognizing the natural flow of activities to achieve a healthier work-life balance.

Alex's grab bag of time management experiments

In this section, Alex Pokorny discusses various productivity strategies and personal growth techniques. He mentions using the Kanban method for home projects, saving completed tasks for a sense of satisfaction, and adopting a perspective check to manage changing life stages. Alex emphasizes the importance of personal growth activities, such as journaling to improve memory and gratitude practice.

He also talks about using Trello to manage and break down tasks into smaller, manageable chunks, and how dedicating just five or ten minutes to tasks can make a significant impact. Alex highlights the value of having a list of 10-minute tasks for quick productivity boosts.

Overall, Alex shares a diverse range of approaches to enhance productivity and personal development, providing valuable insights into managing work and personal life more effectively.

Limitations of yourself and the methodologies

In this section, Dave Dougherty and Ruthi Corcoran discuss their personal approaches to productivity and managing life's complexities. Dave emphasizes the importance of understanding life's changing stages and being flexible with systems and methods to accommodate those changes. He shares his preference for having a North star to guide him while being open to experimentation.

Dave also mentions trying project management software but finding that it didn't suit his needs in the long run. Instead, he focuses on identifying a few important tasks for each week and prioritizing them across different aspects of his life: health, career, family, and some leisure activities.

Ruthi reflects on the challenges of adapting her systems and routines after the arrival of a new child, acknowledging that life is always evolving, especially with young kids. She appreciates the discussion as it helps her to reevaluate her approaches and be mindful of the shifting demands of her family life.

In summary, the conversation delves into the significance of being aware of life's changing stages, finding individualized productivity approaches, and being open to adjustments as circumstances evolve.

Mastering your craft and deliberate practice

In this segment, the conversation centers around the idea of deliberate practice and mastery in various domains, using the analogy of playing guitar and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). They discuss the importance of continuous learning and pushing oneself to improve rather than just repeating the same tasks. Alex raises the question of whether they consider themselves masters in SEO and if they could mentor an apprentice.

Dave shares his experience with guitar playing and how he transitioned from a focus on technical skills to a broader interest in marketing and business aspects. He suggests that following where one naturally invests their time and passion can lead to more fulfilling paths.

Ruthi, while not claiming to be a master SEO, acknowledges her strong background in the field and her ability to teach and guide others. She highlights the importance of finding crossovers in knowledge and applying it to different areas, which enriches the learning experience.

Throughout the conversation, they reflect on the evolving nature of their expertise and the need for ongoing learning to stay relevant in their respective fields.

Episode 11 - Mastery, Deliberate Practice, and Time Management Podcast and Video Transcript

[Disclaimer: This transcription was written by AI using a tool called Descript, and has not been edited for content.]

Ruthi Corcoran: So we've got a lot of competing priorities. I find myself having a lot of competing priorities. I've got a full time job. We've got this fantastic podcast. I've got a couple of side web projects. I have family, friends, and you know, top of that list, children, husband. There's a lot going on, and, um, sometimes it's hard to balance.

And I also know that there's a ton of technologies out there that I have perhaps not taken advantage of, um, to help solve some of the, um, you know, time constraint problems that we've got. So I wanted to get a sense from you guys of how do you optimize your workflows to be as efficient as possible, and or how do you think about prioritizing your time to make, to make the most space.

Or what's most important.

Dave Dougherty: So, you have hit upon one of my favorite pet topics. Um, I've spent the better part of 12 years figuring out. What works for me?

I should have written down the questions that you had cause now I've completely blanked on them. Um, but that's one of the unfortunate side effects of having too many things going on is at least for me, I find my short term memory goes to junk.

Um, so in order to combat that I've been playing around with, um, you know, agile methodology, having my own like sprint boards on my own post its of all the things that I should do, uh, before my, before my son was born, I was even having, like, I went so far, this is how nerdy I am. I went so far as to figure out during the workday, I can accomplish X number of sprint points per week. Uh, during my at home time, I have Y number of sprint points per week, which need to account for, um, housing projects, creative projects, um, all these other things. And I had completely forgotten I did that until recently I cleaned out a section of my office and I found the notebook that actually had the physical map that I had taped on the wall, you know, like I'd actually graphed it out. Like I went full nerd on this. And then, of course. You know, my son's born and I just didn't have time for that

Uh, so, um, in order to capture a lot of that other thing, a lot of the other things that I want to do, I have been, you know, I moved digital. So using things like Trello to do list, Asana monday.com, trying any, and all of these project management softwares, like for myself, just to keep track of. Ideas and things I'm interested in pursuing and, and things I want to, you know, look after, um, but then part of it too is, is figuring out the buckets of time in any given day and where my energy is at any particular spot.

Like there are particular times of day where I am better to be creative or, you know, there's like. Uh, hour, two hour spot in the afternoon where I just don't have a lot of energy mentally, physically. So, you know what? I'm not going to try to push through that. I'm just going to acknowledge that that's a downtime during the day and, um, leverage that to relax a little bit, meditate, or, um, you know, take the dog on a walk.

So I've thrown a lot of stuff at you. What, what rings true with, uh, what you were hoping to talk about? All of it.

Ruthi Corcoran: I think, you know, some of the things you talked about are having a good sense of what's possible during it during a given workday versus we'll call it the off hours is important because you've got only so much time.

Time boxing is such a huge tool for being able to say, nope, we're not doing everything or anything. And we get to keep the things that we do. Too limited amount of time. We don't, we don't have a limitless amount of time. And so I think having a good sense of this is what's feasible, um, helps combat a problem.

I often have, which is boy, I take on a lot and I like to say yes to things, which, you know, I recognize that's probably the 1st place to start is don't say yes to everything. And part of what makes that possible to say no is having a realistic understanding of what's possible in a given day. And then I think the off hours piece 2 is, is good to have to just clearly, clearly articulate.

Here's what's feasible in the off hours. I mean, off work hours. Right. And, you know, I know the times that. I have dedicated to the family and those are just off limits, right? We've got that in place. It's just a question of the rest of the time. How can I make best use of that? And to your point, the creative time is usually in the morning and it's like, gosh, how do I carve out space?

So that my creative time isn't being isn't being hijacked by. The fire drills of the day.

Dave Dougherty: So the thing that I've done, and I did this due to the, due to the pandemic, when that first hit, um, I blocked off chunks of time on my calendar for specific activities. So at the very end of the day. You will see a block on my calendar, my work calendar that says health time.

And that is either physical health or mental health. Cause some days you just have some days and you just need to stare at a wall. Uh, and come down, right? Like that for me is super important because it allows me to transition into dad mode. Because I want to be present and active. And whatever happened during my work day is not my kid's fault.

Alright, so, um. I don't, I don't want to bring that baggage to him. And I'm in a fortunate enough place that I can do that. I recognize that that's a privilege and a nice to have. To be able to do that. But, um, that's been a, uh, an important part for me is, um, not letting everybody else dictate my calendar, but actually blocking off, like if you're going to invite me to a meeting over lunch, you are going to be okay with me eating on camera.

If you don't want me eating on camera, uh, don't schedule a lunch, you know, or if it's in person, you're providing lunch. Uh, and if you don't want to do that, then. You're scheduling it at a different time.

So I don't get invited to lunch meetings.

Alex Pokorny: I decided to block during lunch, always on my calendar. So people have to ask, you know, they generally ask, like, Hey, can you move your 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock or whatever it is? And it's like, maybe, maybe not most of the time. I'll shift it around within half hour or something like that. But beyond that, it's like, no, I've got an appointment then.

You can move it just to try to protect those times. That was one of the main things. You know, I recently started a new job that I kind of put on my Kanban, same thing, do Kanbans as well. And I mean, we've got a whole list of them, how to protect myself, my rules, cell phone, et cetera. Like I don't have email, work email on my cell phone.

It was recommended when I first started. I don't do it. Same thing with Slack. I don't have that on my phone. Um, I just refuse it. I've seen so many people get sucked into their phones because it's so easy to. I mean, you're it's kind of doomscrolling really when you're just kind of flicking through your email.

But you can do that at any moment where your kid turns their back, you can always flick up on your phone and, you know, scroll through email and yeah, I mean, just got to cut that off. Plus most things, especially with SEO, 24 hour late notice or, you know, reply to something wouldn't change a thing. Yeah.

Even 48 hours probably still wouldn't really change a thing. Maybe you didn't know someone at most, but really the projects we work on are much longer term than that. So if someone's out sick and they're not replying for a day. Just as easy as you're not replying for, you know, eight hours to or 16 hours or 20 hours really doesn't make any difference on a project and kind of coming to that realization.

I think it's just kind of like kind of on the core pieces. Um, I definitely didn't have any rules in work life balance or life work balance. If you want to prioritize it correctly, when I started at an agency, um, had some friends actually do like an intervention being like. Where have you been? Like, you're just always working.

It was true because I was working literally Monday through Saturday. I was in the office every single day, six days a week. Sundays, I barely had off. I was right back doing it. And evenings, I was spending reading and learning information, which was cool. Great way to career growth, but great way to also kill social life too.

So coming with that balance and after kind of going through that. It was enough to kind of make me prioritize that a lot higher than I used to, um, which is why I'm really, really protective of kind of family time and off hours of being like, no, that's unscheduled because you also need unscheduled time.

Like today, if I'm talking about creative, you can't schedule creative, like. And it's not fun if it is, I mean, there has to be some boundaries there to just like scheduling every minute of the day. Humans don't work like that. I mean, you burn out getting stuck into, you know, 10 minute, 15 minute or 30 minute or even hour long, you know, blocks throughout your entire waking hours.

Hell no. No. Well,

Dave Dougherty: and you know, what's interesting about that too, is I've discovered through this process that, um, just like there's seasonality and marketing, there is seasonality into the things that I'm interested in doing. So like I have found, um, in the fall, I start getting an impulse to, um, to write more, so I will sit down and like towards the end of the day.

Uh, like make a cup of tea, sit down at the kitchen table and just do stream of conscious writing. Uh, and that is a activity that is basically fall winter. And then in the summer and spring, I have really no inclination to do that. I don't know why, but that's just kind of a natural flow. Um, so I just take advantage of that when, when it's there.

Um, you know,

Alex Pokorny: yeah. I gotta write that down because that's totally true. I was just thinking like, they're definitely seasonality. I mean, I also do kind of outdoor landscaping kind of stuff, gardening stuff. And of course, that's warm weather activities. There definitely is some season stuff too. I gotta, I gotta think about that.

Ruthi Corcoran: May is gardening month. That's it.

Alex Pokorny: Mm hmm. Yeah. That's a good one. I've got a giant list, Dave, of kind of similar things, of things that I've tried, um, not things I would say that I do on a regular basis. Some of them I do, some of them I don't. I don't know. It's kind of a grab bag, but I've got a pretty long grab bag.

So do you want me to run through that or do you want to share some of yours first?

Ruthi Corcoran: No, I need help run

Alex Pokorny: through the grab bag. All right. So Kanban. Absolutely. I do that for home projects because it's a great way for my wife and I to talk about priorities and say, you know, these are like our top 3 things and then there's everything else and things that we want to talk about or whatever else.

It's a post it. It's on a wall, but. We kind of keep it there. Um, I do. She and I kind of go back and forth. So she's a, an agile trainer. So the 2 of us are kind of in this world pretty hard. I mean, honestly, we had a Kanban for a wedding and it was actually awesome. It worked out really well, but. Um, that's kind of how in depth, like, or how invaded Angela is in our personal life.

But, um, she always had the idea of like throwing away when you're done. And for me, no, I like to have them saved. Like, so there's a done column that's very, very long. But honestly, that gives me probably the most satisfaction of any of these things. Because I've realized basically with any project, there's like, Basically four phases like there's excitement at the beginning might be stressed and pressure or personal excitement And then you get into it and then there's frustration because it's annoying and it lasts longer than you expect And then there's the relief because the project's finally over or you finally get it done and eventually there's this feeling of pride And that's like stage four.

Dave Dougherty: And that's like four years later. Yeah. It's a long

Alex Pokorny: time.

Honestly, every single project there was finally relief. Cause I'm like, Oh my gosh, the thing took so much longer than I expected. And I see all the imperfections with it. And I'm just like, you know, harping and kicking myself on these imperfections. And then eventually I realized like, That was a cool project.

I'm glad I did it. You know, pride is a delayed reaction. It definitely has a delay to it. Or there's the inevitable like part two of three, which is just this frustration relief. Oh, I got it done. No, there's still more. No, there's still something left on it. Two and three. That's a frustrating point. But that's true.

Work projects and personal projects and all the rest too. So it's like trying to give them, I mean, speaking of kind of a mental health, emotional side, giving them their space of being like realizing that the beginning of any project is going to be exciting. And then once you get into it, there will be a slog.

It doesn't matter if it's something you enjoy or not. There's a repetitive nature to it. The learning kind of curve or excitement or the initial kind of boost that you had is over. And then you have to deal with that frustration and then that relief. And then When looking at it in a project through that lens, is this thing going to be worth it to me?

And is it going to actually give me, you know, satisfaction at the end? Or is it just going to be more frustration than what it's worth? And honestly, any work project or personal project, you can judge it the same way, too. So, I kind of look at them being like, Yeah, it's going to be annoying, but I'm going to love it, and it's going to help me every day.

That's worth it, probably, doing it. But, enough on that one. I'll go through my lovely grab bag of things. Um, Armaduro method. Absolutely love that, especially whenever there isn't strong deadlines at work. I'm just trying to get myself into work, trying to get myself some kind of focus time, but also consistent breaks away to make sure that I'm not just staring at a screen, but I'm actually being productive.

Um, way, way better. Plus it gives me such a good realization of how long things actually take. It's amazing how many segments of 25 minutes something actually takes. Uh, template as much as I can, especially anything repetitive at work. I try to simplify stuff down. It's a monthly report. It's like five slides.

It's the same five slides. I'm not doing more than that. I'm just going to update those five slides. And honestly, no one really ever asked for more than that. It's a surprising amount of how just basic you can make things and they're still satisfactory or even, you know, meeting and exceeding someone's expectations.

So. And you set the expectation to be five, it's five. Everybody's happy with it. Um, personal growth is huge with me. I realized that I always need something of personal growth in my life. It doesn't matter if it's trying Duolingo for like the 50th time or whatever. If I don't have that, it is really hard for me to feel happy about how my week is going.

So, I just know that that's, I have to come up with that if I don't have it. I just always have to know of something to do like that. Perspective checks, especially with young kids. That one's huge because a young infant at home is way different than a young toddler at home. And as I am kind of working through those months, what I have for life and what's possible changes radically during that time.

I'm trying to remind myself. That life six months from now will be very different life. Six months ago, it was very different trying to like come up with that perspective because that's every project I judge again with that same lens of being like, I, my amount of time and what I can promise is radically changing month to month.

Dave Dougherty: To that point, I think there's something to be said about ages and stages, right? You, you brought up, um, you know, in your twenties being all in on your career. It makes sense because the investment you have there, um, will set up what you'll be able to accomplish for the rest of it, you know, um, I think it's, it's a worthwhile investment to go a little more in on your career in your twenties because the stage we're in now with the kids and the, the career, you know, you have some career growth, but really honestly, it's more about, you know, making it through the day with.

young kids, um, giving yourself some grace with that and not expecting perfection in every aspect of your life. You know, God forbid life is messy, right? That is a super hard lesson for people to learn. So if you're not there yet, focus there, uh, before trying anything else. I, yeah, for me

Alex Pokorny: at least. Um, the other one, so, uh, journaling.

That one's big for me because of remote work and COVID my short term memory is really, really bad. I used to when we worked in person and I can still tell you who said what, who sat where in particular meeting rooms about particular conversations from six years ago, which is ridiculous because I can't really tell you very clearly what I did last week at work.

And when I started journaling, suddenly I have it back again. Which is really nice. And that could be just literally a couple of sentences about how I feel that day or gratitude journaling, you know, pick three things that you're grateful for. That's it. Move on. That's the end of your journaling. But I mean, it can be so many different things, but just Reflecting back on the day and writing something down, I think is where the memory kind of kicks in by not ever doing that.

That's when I start to lose days, but it's also then harder and harder to see progress, you know, harder to see differences. So again, that personal growth thing kind of kicks in, um, Trello. Absolutely. Um, There's a podcaster bloggers reading, but they're talking about five and ten minute tasks saying, you know, instead of, you know, doing the laundry being this insurmountable multi hour experience, it's throw stuff in the washer.

That's five minutes. Take things out of the washer and put in the dryer. That's five minutes. Taking things out of the dryer and folding them. Maybe that's 30 minutes, but you can fold part now and fold half later. So taking those bigger, harder, you know, obstacles that we have on a routine basis and then trying to chunk them up and then realistically saying, hey, I've got five minutes.

What can I do? You can do a lot. You can do a lot in five minutes. And I even have a Trello board that is simply just 10 minute tasks, which are a whole bunch of little random things that I keep thinking about. Like, Oh man, I got to throw that stuff in the attic. Or, you know, I got to quick move this and sweep this or something like that.

It's 10 minutes. It's five minutes. It's not long to actually do any of those things. So those are helpful when I'm looking to do something or trying to be productive You don't have a list. I literally have two more post its to go, man. I got a lot of these cities. Well, let's, let's,

Dave Dougherty: let's save it for another episode.

Yeah. Right.

Alex Pokorny: Um,

Dave Dougherty: I think you bring, you know, you, to your point, you bring up some good points. The, the big thing for me is that, um, the ages and stages piece, the let life be messy. Um, which I know, depending on personality type and childhood trauma, that could be problem for some people. Um, but also like for me, when I hear you talk about like the pompadour method or like the 10 minute tasks, I start getting nervous because I just, I can't be that detailed.

I need to have a North star that I'm going towards knowing full well, that'll probably go off track a little bit, but then I'll snap back, you know, towards it. And then, you know, Um, I'll get there eventually. Um, for me, it's, it's not the, okay, I have eight hours, so I can, you know, estimate six projects in these eight hours.

It's, I'm doing two or three projects. Um, I know I can do probably two or three things really well each day. So what are going to be those two or three things? Um, and only do those. Because then if I'm constantly adding things back in, I don't get the time to appreciate the fact that I've accomplished the three things I set out to accomplish.

I don't get the downtime to reflect on that or to feel good about it. Um, so I largely don't. You know, um, so, and the other part of it is allowing yourself time to experiment, right? Like, you know, one of the reasons I, I said, it's been a 12 year journey is because it is, it's, it's a journey. You have to figure out what works for you and what, you know, you listen to a lot of podcasts and stuff on these people of like, you know, I have this system and this methodology and, you know, buy my journal to do blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, okay, cool. That works for you. That works for some people, but I have to do it. I have to figure out my way because I'm not, you know, like I said, I can't do five minute tasks. I would go insane. I have such a hard time switching between. Um, minor tasks, like I have to sit and chunk out large bits of time because that's the only way that my brain works is I need to go deep on something in order to get it done to the level that I'm satisfied with.

I cannot do like 15 minute meetings, jump to a task, 15 minute meetings. I would go insane and I would be a nervous wreck. So, you know, you get a half an hour or an hour meeting with me. Full stop. I don't do these 15 minute things unless they're in the hallway. No, I can't. But that's my own mental, my own mental thing.

So, Ruthie, you've been, you've been sitting quiet. I'm interested in knowing where you're at. What are you doing? What have you tried?

Ruthi Corcoran: I can't say all of the above. I've done a number of the things that you guys have listed in the past. I think the big takeaway from the discussion I've been hearing is Really that ages and stages piece, which to your point, Dave, we each have our different methods and our different systems in place.

And I think I had a pretty decent system in place, but enter new kid kid too. Right? And that just got. That shakes the whole world and all of a sudden my like nice 5 to 7 minute morning sort of thoughtful reflection on the day goes out the window because she's up earlier than the other one. And so then now we have to adapt and think about it and overcome.

And so I think a lot of what I am feeling right now is just that. Those shifts have happened and I haven't taken the time to sit back, reflect and realize, oh, there's been some major shifts, which have disrupted majorly. A lot of the systems I had in place before. And so this has just been helpful to think through.

Okay. What is it that I need to think about differently? And keep in mind, it's going to change in a month because. My schedule and my life is revolving a lot around my children and they change month to month. It's, I mean, it's both amazing and also hard to keep up sometimes. So that's been just really helpful to hear you guys talk about those and man, I've got the scrum book here on my desk and I'm not even using a Kanban board.

And I feel ashamed of myself.

Dave Dougherty: So to be honest on that, don't, I spent. I spent all of January trying to get all of my projects into a nice, neat, to do project management software. And it was great. I felt awesome. It was scheduled and, and I had all of these nice things of like, I'll give myself a week to do this thing.

And then I got to March and I realized I wasn't opening up any of

Ruthi Corcoran: it. That sounds like a Gantt chart, Dave. I think you just need some post its.

Dave Dougherty: But even with that, I think it's a good exercise because I did that exercise because I felt like I was going in too many directions. So I brought everything back in to prioritize what is important to me, what I wanted to accomplish for the year.

That's why it was in January. Like this is going to be my North star for the year. Um, I want to accomplish these, you know, three to five things. Warren Buffett has a, a method that people will quote. If you want to go look that up where it's, you know, right. Five things are 25 things that you want to accomplish circle five of them and say no to the rest, you know So you might look into that if you have a hard time saying no Because then it's that nope.

These are my five things. You have to do a really good pitch to convince me to do something else Or to get rid of one of my five Um,

yeah, it, I had that nice chart, um, and that nice setup and it's nice to have a laundry list of things that I want to do and, and I'm still interested in, but really, honestly, it goes back to, for me, it goes back to that. What is the important thing this week that I'm accomplishing? And then I devote my week to accomplishing that.

In different sections of my life. So there's health, there's career, there's family, um, and that's about it. Maybe some, some fun time. I might have some video game time or some guitar time. Um, that's it. Maybe. Maybe.

Ruthi Corcoran: I think of all the video games we used to play and I think, how did I possibly have time for all that?

And then I remember that was

Alex Pokorny: hmm. Mm hmm. It's a sacrifice of sleep if you want to keep it up. Okay.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah. Having a sleep disorder, uh, kind of helps cause then you won't sleep for five hours a night and, um, you know, you can get a lot done when everybody else is sleeping,

Ruthi Corcoran: stop sleeping. Okay, great. All right, Alex, what you

Alex Pokorny: got? Oh yeah. Your topic let's switch. Yeah, so this was kind of an interesting one. Um, can I say it was from a random recording of a homily that someone sent me a section of. It was a really random thing I was listening to, but it was interesting. So this priest who's been playing guitar for 30 years.

And he is worse today than in his second year of learning guitar. And the reason he's worse is because while he's been playing for 30 years, and technically should have passed his 10, 000 hours probably a while ago, he only plays a little bit on the weekends. And he only basically now plays the songs that he likes to play.

He's not learning anymore. And that's the big difference is in his first two years of learning guitar. He was always doing this push the envelope practice, you know, trying to figure out, you know, what are the limits? What does he not know? Practicing scales chords you name it and now he doesn't do any of that He just keeps replaying the same songs that he's been playing probably for 25 years Probably got stuck on the same ones after maybe five years, right?

And those church

Dave Dougherty: songs are really only like five chords maximum. So it's not, it's not that hard of a song.

Alex Pokorny: Actually, the guy's in the metal. So there's some different chords that he's probably playing that he's, um, but it was a really interesting thought because there's the 10, 000 hours and it's not 10, 000 hours. It's, and that's, I mean, there's a lot of questions of whether or not. That's enough for the right amount or whatever.

But it's a question of, is it 10, 000 hours of deliberate practice? And I'm going to mix in one other piece on top of this, which for a while there, I got into some random shows. There was a BBC show, some people trying to do job changes and like graphic designer to become a blacksmith or something. And there was all kinds of trades and all these different trades had this apprentice journeyman master kind of set.

And for almost all of them, about five years. Could be a little bit more than that, but some around there, which is pretty close to this whole 10, 000 hours thing kind of place. And actually right around with that as well, which is kind of interesting. So two questions, are you a master SEO? Could you take on an apprentice?

And do you see yourself as just playing the same songs or are you putting into lower practice?

Dave Dougherty: So let me do the very marketing thing and, um, answer your question with an anecdote that seems unrelated.

Alex Pokorny: Um,

Dave Dougherty: So it's interesting, the topics we're discussing today, um, are very related to the last podcast I did, where it was balancing work life, side hustles, and everything and family life and all of that, um, and in one of the episodes where we talked about this, I referenced one of my favorite Great. YouTube channels, which is called That Pedal Show.

And it's two British guys talking about guitar pedals and guitar effects and amps and in such a nerdy way that only the diehards would watch it. And it's great. You know, it's the type of content where if you're not into it, your face would gloss over and you'd be like, why would anybody watch this? But for me, it's awesome because they're testing out all of the pedals that I wouldn't have the money to try out.

And they have a particular approach that I can learn a lot from, but I don't. I would never choose the tones that they get out of their equipment, and I would never choose the guitars that they would choose, because I play different styles, I want a different sound, but the concepts I can apply to my own sound, which they would never choose for themselves.

Um, I bring up that channel because one of the guys, Dan has a video about, um, being as good as you want to be and why he never had to be the best guitar player, right? Because he, especially with guitar playing, if you go on Instagram or you go on Tik TOK or any of that, you have a lot of these bedroom guitar gods that are amazing technicians.

Right? But, okay, cool. You can, you can play a zillion miles an hour. Have you written a song? Have you stood on stage? Have you done the next step of trying to play with other people? Or are you just the technician? Because that's the first half of what it means to be a musician. It's not just to play. It's about being able to communicate and express yourself in the context of the moment with the other musicians.

So if you're a solo singer, songwriter, that's great. That that's its own thing, right? It has its own, um, requirements of being able to strum and sing at the same time. And you express more through the words and the vocals than you do your technical abilities on, on the instrument.

So it's part of it for me, at least is a, it is the deliberate practice because if you're just noodling around, you're never going to actually become a master in something, right? It'll just be the kind of generalist. Um, but. You need the deliberate practice to truly master it and to be able to express yourself within the context of whatever it is you say you want to master, because then you can differentiate yourself, um, from everybody else that's out there doing the same thing.

Um, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll embed that video in the show notes. Uh, it's worth, it's worth a watch, even if you're not into guitar playing, uh, his logic for why he, Doesn't need to be the fastest player or the best player. He just wants to continue to explore and get better at the things he's interested in, uh, is good enough for him.

Ruthi Corcoran: I think that's a really good framework for, for what I've been thinking about, which is

master SEO. I don't think I'm going to claim that title. I have a very strong background in SEO and I'm sort of a solid stockpile of information from which to draw. And I'm keeping up on sort of what's happening in the landscape overall, but perhaps not the very technical details of what's happening. Um, because I need to, I need to get on stage.

I need to be using that for that knowledge and. Applying it in different ways, um, and taking on an apprentice. I can, at this point, I'd say I'd be able to take out an apprentice to get them started, get them on the right track. Um, but then in terms of being, um, highly knowledgeable about the very technical aspects and some of the, the shifts and how we do a lot of technical SEOs, I, I'd have to brush up a fair amount, um, in part because it made the choice not to continue Going down that road, but instead figure out, okay, well, how does search fit into the larger landscape?

And where when do we need to pull that lever versus other levers? And what are the trade offs we need to make as we're thinking about our web and our marketing technology ecosystems?

Dave Dougherty: Yeah, I have a similar thing. That's one of the reasons I thought of that that pedal show video Because for me my experience with the technical side of things I wanted to explore that. I wanted to learn that, but then the further I got into it, the more I realized my brain doesn't work this way, like up to a point it's good, but I can't spend all my time talking about.

Um, server errors and, you know, client side loading and like, you know, I can, I can follow that and I can make the recommendations around that if I need to, um, but that's not what makes me excited about doing marketing, right? That's more for me. That's more of the dev side. We can debate where, where that does fit.

Um, but I remember. Going from a technical SEO developer meeting to the next hour, having a meeting with two sales guys. And my very first thought in the second meeting was, Oh, I miss the bullshitters. I want to be with the bullshitters,

you know, cause there was a certain energy and a certain vibe to, to the sales guys that you just weren't. And in the dev world, and that's, that's great. Everybody has their place, right? Just like the, just like the, um, the workflows and the time management, you need to figure out your own place and your own way of doing it.

Um, and I answered the questions for myself. With technical SEO, um, and once I did, that was good enough for me,

Ruthi Corcoran: you know, I think I'm finding probably the most value at this point is, is finding the crossovers in the knowledge that I have and applying it elsewhere. And so, in that sense. It's there is a there is a piece of it that's doing the same things in the sense that it's got that sort of stockpile of knowledge, which does need to be refreshed on on a reasonably regular basis because technology moves.

But then it's sort of more interesting on the deliberate learning side to see, okay, how does this apply to other areas? You know, how does my knowledge about SEO apply to the advances in internal search functionality, for example, or. Or 2, I don't know how we might use, um, some of what we do in, in search and the evolving like, how do we apply that to other areas of of marketing or life?

What do you think? And

Dave Dougherty: Alex. Yeah, I was thinking, is there somewhere you were trying to lead us to or where are you at with this

Alex Pokorny: question? Yeah, it was just kind of the general question. I was I mean, I've been since hearing about it I've been definitely reflecting on it myself of putting in that deliberate practice That's the piece that I've been kind of focused around was am I just going through my week or am I trying to learn?

Am I trying to really push what I do know? Am I like what? Where am I at basically with that? There is some of this, you know, going back to their earlier topic about, you know, where does it fit in my day? Where does it fit in my life? You know, am I putting the energy towards this or am I not? And I would say at different weeks or even different months, yes and no.

I mean, the answer kind of changes, but. There's also these pieces that I can always feel like are gaps and I'm trying to always fill that knowledge and try to learn a little bit more. And it might be a hard topic that I just don't have a whole lot of personal interest in, but it's something that kind of the greater realm of SEO.

So therefore it's something I want to learn to kind of complete that mastery element. And those elements are always changing too. So it's hard to keep on top of those, those different pieces. So at what degree do you, or are there particular kind of, kind of different flavors of SEO that you focus on? You know, content versus technical.

I mean, there's a lot of different sides to it. Local search. I wasn't doing local search for quite a long time, but trying to get back into that to trying to pick up, you know, what are the latest and man, things changed quite a bit in the time that I used to do it. And then I used to keep on top of it because I still had some interest in it.

And there was a long period of time where I didn't keep on top of it. And. A lot of stuff changed during that period of time too. So it's a, there's a moving target aspect to it as well. So that's why I don't think there's ever a best, but it's more of a mastery element. And then there's that reflection of mastery that I always have, which is, can you teach it knowing it as one thing or thinking, you know, it is one thing, but can you teach it and with a new job, I'm definitely back into that kind of teaching mode a lot more frequently now.

Yeah. It's, it's been an interesting one to kind of reflect on of, you know, what topics do I feel very confident about teaching? Which ones do I not? Why, why don't I, what am I missing? So that's kind of our, where my head's at,

Dave Dougherty: really. Yeah. Do you guys listen to, um, the Scott Galloway podcast, the Prof G podcast?

Alex Pokorny: No. No.

Dave Dougherty: Okay. I've recently been getting really into it. Um, he's a New York times, not New York times. New York university professor and, you know, multi entrepreneur guy. But he, um, he has a saying of, you know, the, the worst advice people get is follow your passions. Um, he said, no follow where you're investing your time.

Um, which goes back to our earlier conversation of, you know, where are you naturally finding yourself, investing your time, um, and go for that, right? Because you can say I'm extremely passionate about guitar playing, you know, that was my, one of my gigs, you know, coming out of school. I went to school for, you know, mastering the craft of, of guitar playing and music composition and audio engineering and all of those skills.

Um, but when it came down to it, I was. The signs were there that I was always the business guy in the artistic projects that I was in. Right. I was the one that was interested in setting up the long term goal of like, all right, we'll play these local shows. And then we have a goal of five years from now playing this particular festival and here are the steps we need to do to get there.

Right. Um, that particular mindset has helped me get into marketing and has helped me be, um, um, moderately successful on the business side. Right. Um, But it, in reflecting on that, it really was the, I found myself doing more of the marketing activities and enjoying doing more of the marketing activities than learning another cover song to be able to play the bar band gig.

Like, I hate learning cover songs, and that's a major component of playing live music these days. Which puts me at a massive disadvantage because I don't care if you want to hear free falling for the third time. I'm not going to do it, you know?

Um, so yeah, finding, finding where I was investing my time and tripling down on that and prioritizing that.

Alex Pokorny: I was focusing

Ruthi Corcoran: on what Dave was saying and I completely lost the thing that I wanted to say, which is really important. And that's how we should be listening, but it's a real bummer when you're trying to answer a question on a podcast.

Dave Dougherty: Well, I think we have

Ruthi Corcoran: Dave singing free falling and trying to imagine that as part of the outtakes. That's what I got stuck on. So if I think of what it is that I was going to respond to, I'll let you know, but I'm going to leave it at that image.

Dave Dougherty: Yeah, I think we, um, Clearly in, in this episode, I mean, it's an important episode, um, kind of a sidestep from what we've normally talked about, but I've, these are topics I definitely spend a lot of time thinking of and definitely enjoy talking about, and you can tell from a lot of the pauses, uh, that we're, you know, thinking about it as well.

If you have your own ideas on this, please email us. You can find our, our, uh, enterprising minds podcast at Gmail in the show descriptions on YouTube, uh, or the podcast player. So email us with your thoughts, ideas, what's worked for you. What's not let us know. And, um. We will see you in the next episode after you like, subscribe and share this current one and uh, see you on the full time.

Cheers. Cheers.