Stitches & Picks S1:Ep 5 - Making Time & Prioritization
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Episode 5 - Making Time & Prioritization Video Podcast Transcript
[This transcript has been lightly edited to ensure readability]
Dave Dougherty:
- Today is the day we're going to talk about making time for doing what you want to do and how hard of a topic that is to actually implement within your life but so easy to talk about for longer than you probably should.
We both really enjoy this topic, so, this will be fun to, yeah, do a deep dive, so...
Kristen Juve:
- It is way easier said than done. And I think what was interesting about our last episode is we had set off our goals that we're going to do for the next week. And I was like, "I'm going to knit up to the armpit," right?
And I set aside time to do it. I have not accomplished my goal. I'm so close. I'm so close, but I have not gotten to my goal. And it was like...it's just a reminder of, like, no matter...sometimes even setting aside the time still doesn't get you there. Like, it's fascinating how it doesn't necessarily matter...
Better tools, better knowledge, and faster processes
Kristen Juve:
- Setting aside the time doesn't mean that you've done the right gut check of, like, actually how long it's going to take you to do something, especially when you're starting out. Knitting aside. Like, when you're starting out, like, looking at my Shopify website, I'm going, "Okay, I'm going to get this done." And then I sit down, and I start looking at it, and I'm like, "Oh, s**t, but I don't know the answer to this question. And then I've got this question because of this question. And I don't know how to..."
And then it's, like, overwhelming.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right, it starts feeling like a hydra because you just knocked off one head, and there's three more questions that pop up as soon as you [crosstalk].
Kristen Juve:
- Thank you for explaining that analogy because I was going to be like, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Dave Dougherty:
- You're not up on your Greek mythology? Come on.
Kristen Juve:
- You said hydra, and I immediately thought of Marvel.
Dave Dougherty:
- Oh, yeah. Totally different organization.
Kristen Juve:
- That's where I went with that. But that is essentially the same thing, essentially. The reason why they call it Hydra is because, like, there's always someone who fills the power or whatever. So it made sense. Suddenly, I was like, "Oh, my God, okay."
Anyways. So, I think, like, there's so much we could talk about on this topic. And it's not simple. It's not as simple as being like, "I'm going to set aside 30 minutes to get something done."
When you're starting on your own and you have no one who has the answers for you because it's specific to your business, s**t's just going to take longer.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, I remember when I first started doing video editing, I had a certain standard in mind that I wanted to hit. I had no idea how I was going to do that. Because just, you know, from graphic design...
Kristen Juve:
- Knowing you your standard was, like, extremely high.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, I had to figure out the graphic design. And then does this tool do it this way? It doesn't quite do it the way I thought it would. Do I spend the $300 to get the video software? No, I'm not going to do that right away, I'm going to figure it out with the free version just to...you know, whatever.
So then that added 12 additional steps, you know. And yeah, everything took, like, a week, I think, like, per video on the first...however many, and then, like, now, I bought the software because I finally sort of knew what I was doing and knew that it would be worth the investment.
Right. So, better tools, better tech, better knowledge, I'm able to, you know, do it in two days.
Kristen Juve:
- Well, yeah, and you didn't know what you didn't know.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. Yeah. But, you know, and I had to make space for that when I was trying to figure out, okay, this week, I'm going to do this, that, and then, you know, these are the other things that I have to do. And especially when you're balancing work, and then family commitments and everything else, it's...you have to be very productive in a small amount of time. And the amount of times that I've been up editing 9 p.m, 11 p.m, in order to have it done and then you got an early morning meeting...
Kristen Juve:
- Not advocating for that.
Dave Dougherty:
- I'm not advocating for that, but...
Kristen Juve:
- We're not, we're not.
Dave Dougherty:
- ...that's just the way it is, right?
Kristen Juve:
- Sometimes, to make the time.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. So, for example...
Kristen Juve:
- But I don't advocate.
Dave Dougherty:
- ...yesterday, I had my first meeting at work was 6:30 in the morning for a global call.
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, that's corporate life in the global world, I feel like, which not trying to knock on your...
Dave Dougherty:
- It was earlier than a normal meeting. You know, so that's one of those roll out of bed, you know, make sure you that have clothes on and jump on the call.
Kristen Juve:
- Or you just don't turn your video on.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, that's not how it works. So, yeah, it was...so, I started that, and then it was a block of four hours of meetings. So, my block of meetings ended at 10:30. And then I was up until about 12:30 a.m, doing video editing because I needed to have it done so that it could bounce to the disk and be fully rendered by the time I woke up so that I could upload it to YouTube so that I would have enough time to do that while I was getting the kid ready for daycare and all of that, right.
So, it was just...it was a bit much, it's not usually that way. But being adaptable and being nice to yourself is definitely something that I've learned along the way with this too.
Being adaptable and giving yourself some grace in order to keep going
Kristen Juve:
- Okay, those two things, you said, holding space, or, like, giving yourself grace, being nice to yourself. I didn't do that my first time around. When I just was in my photography business, I was so hard on myself about every little thing, that I killed it for myself. I'm the only one to blame.
I didn't get things done on time. And then I felt worse about it, and, like, anxiety and mental health aside, to, like, actual mental health, not just, like...the way that I was treating myself was not okay. And I think that's the one really hard part that in our culture in specifically the United States, the “American Dream,” the grind culture, the, what is it, hustle porn, all of that stuff is so glorified, that it's so hard for us to even realize that we're falling into that trap of being, like, "This is how I need to be, so, therefore, I should be this hard on myself. And I should stay up until 2:00 in the morning and then get up at 6 a.m. to help my kid."
And, like, da, da, da, da. And I'm not saying that...everyone who's done that and has been that dedicated thus far to their small business or whatever, like, good on you for doing what you got to do. Sometimes you don't have that choice, I totally get it. Sometimes you have this, like...you do have this unearned privilege where you don't have to do that as much. And I do think, like, that is why I keep my 9:00 to 05:00, because I don't know if at some point I want to have my business...that be my full-time job.
And I kind of need this privilege buffer. Maybe it's not a...I don't know how to...I need this buffer in order to figure out what the next thing is for me and what work makes me happy. And I know what, right now, makes me happy is this small business stuff because I like to experiment. But I also don't want to kill myself by telling myself that I'm not doing things good enough and that I need to stay up later.
And occasionally, that may happen. Like, this week, I knitted way more and I stayed up later than I normally do knitting. I did that. But I just...
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah I think so. One of the big things, for me, is just knowing yourself and having that insight. So like, if you're not fully there, then that's definitely something to work on. As much as...
Kristen Juve:
- That right there could be a whole 'nother episode because getting to know yourself and the mental health aspect is...it's a lifelong journey.
Dave Dougherty:
- Oh, totally. Totally. But I mean as it relates to this conversation. I know for me, like, I've had to set rules for myself where I cannot play guitar past a certain point in the night because if all of a sudden I hit some kind of an idea, I will be awake for another four hours. Because I'll be excited, the creativity will go, so I'll chase after it.
Because the creativity is there, and, you know, you get that rush of dopamine. Yeah, so it's just, like, I know, okay, if I'm going to be playing at, you know, 9:00 or 10:00 at night, it's going to be noodling, or it's going to be, like, dedicated practice, and that's it.
But most of the time, I try to avoid that so that I'm not tempting that, right? Because it will completely ruin it. I can't do the super-creative stuff really late at night unless I know I have nothing happening the next day.
You won't do what you don't prioritize - Scheduling activities on your calendar
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. And speaking of the creative aspect, I have found I absolutely need to schedule in creative time, where I just let myself be creative and I don't put out a goal. I don't put out a topic. I'm just like, "I just need to be creative," because it brings me joy, and every other part of my existence is better and more focused, and happy.
And actually, even talking about this, now I've realized I haven't been doing this lately, but I went through a stretch where I was doing it pretty consistently. And I've just been so caught up in other stuff. And, the last, like, two weeks, I've probably been more productive than I have been in, I don't know, the last couple of weeks before that, despite the fact that my daughter was teething and I was up in the middle of the night.
Because I actually blocked time on my calendar and then got the notification. So even if I ignore the notification, right, I was like, "Okay, I did set this time aside to work on, you know, not just the actual knitting, but, like, writing the pattern or checking up on its whatever." And it at least reminded me, and sometimes I didn't dedicate that full hour, but I could at least throw 15 minutes at it.
Dave Dougherty:
- I have the same thing for workouts. It was like I have to prioritize my health because it's not something that I'm used to prioritizing. And so, yeah, I have a standing block on my work and personal calendars for, now's the time to either do a full workout, do some stretching, read an article or two, or just be better informed about, you know, what it is.
And just to your point, yeah, taking the time and doing that. You know, because you won't do it if you don't prioritize it.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah, I think that's exactly it. Like, I don't feel bad when I don't do the thing that my calendar is telling me to do because I'm making the conscious decision to go, "This isn't what's going to suit me right now." And yes, I'm acknowledging that I'm not going to accomplish my goal in this way. But I'm forcing myself to make that decision and then be okay with it.
And then say, "This is fine. This is how I know things are going to go." So it's almost like...it's a very in-your-face, like this-is-how-you're-operating-type situation.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. So, have you watched The Beatles documentary...
Kristen Juve:
- No.
Dave Dougherty:
- ...that everybody's talking about? Okay. So I haven't watched it yet, just because it's 12 hours of The Beatles.
Kristen Juve:
- I'm sorry, it's 12 hours?
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, yeah, it's a Peter Jackson film.
Kristen Juve:
- I will not be watching this.
Dave Dougherty:
- So but it's interesting watching...it's come up in a bunch of the guitar stuff that I like to watch on YouTube, some of the guitar channels, I mean, for obvious reason. But they were talking about, to your point, the hustling culture and the always be productive kind of thing, like, everybody has fallen into that.
And some of the ways that people are talking about watching them work in a studio, where it's like, you know, there's a guy over there laying on the floor, what are you doing? You know, like, why are you not...? They're taking chances and sounding awful. They're switching instruments, they're playing different things, they're talking, they're not doing anything music related, whatever.
And then all of a sudden, boom, here comes the intro to, you know, one of their most famous songs of all time. And it's like, well, that came out of nowhere. It's like, yeah, because they had the environment that enables them to be creative. It's not about just, okay, produce a track, produce a track, produce a track. It's, we trust you.
The record company is like, you know, "We trust you. You're the biggest band in the entire world. Just go do your thing." Right. And obviously, there are nuances to it, and there are, you know, layers for that particular record. But I think that was the big takeaway. And the thing that I think would be interesting to explore here is, you know, what are the action steps that you do to actually create that environment for yourself?
You know, are you the type of person that it's like, you have the calendar in chunks? So, you know, "I have 15 minutes for this, I have half an hour for that, I have an hour for that." Or what's your process?
Kristen Juve:
- I think this speaks to a larger point of something that you and I very much vibe on the same level, of, like, is the point just to cross off things on your to-do list, or is it to actually produce something that you love that's quality that makes sense for you that actually enjoying yourself at the same time?
And those two, I think there are so many people that I know in every sort of business, or job or career that are so focused on the, "Well, this is the list I need to get done." Because we're so used to just being like, "I just got to get s**t done. I just got to get s**t done."
And it's not about working smarter versus harder. And I feel like that's one thing that...I remember a vivid conversation between you and me in a cafe. And you were like, "You don't need to reply to that person." And I was like, "But yeah, I do." And you're like, "No, you don't, you don't report to them. You don't have to do every request that comes through."
And I was like, "But I got to do things. Like, I got to prove my value. That's how I prove my value, is just doing things." It's like, "No, you don't prove your value by just doing things. You prove your value for your small business, for your career, or whatever by doing the right things and saying no to the wrong things."
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, the thing that nobody really ever says is that strategy is knowing what to say no to. It's not what to say yes to. Yes is easy.
Kristen Juve:
- Yes is easy.
Dave Dougherty:
- What are you willing not to do? Right. And I think that's the same. You can take this to you know, your boss in your day gig, too, where it's like, you know, "We want you to do X, Y, and Z." "Well, I'm already doing S, T, R, U, V. So what do you want to drop?"
Kristen Juve:
- We're talking about prioritization.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, one of your favorite things.
Kristen Juve:
- I love a good prioritization conversation because I feel like there's never...it always applies. It always applies. You are making a conscious decision throughout your day about what actually are your priorities. Are you making yourself a cup of tea, doing some yoga, and reading a book in your free time? If you have free time. There are some people that very much have very real-world situations where they don't always have a ton of free time.
Or are you, like, telling yourself that you have so much to do, but you're really just walking in circles, telling yourself you have a lot to do and you're stressing out about it? That's a conscious decision. It's not a conscious decision, but it turns out to be a conscious decision the more and more you do it, so.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, not to choose is to choose, so…
Kristen Juve:
- It's your priority. Yes, to not choose is to choose. What's your priority? And yes, at first, getting in that behavioral pattern, I like my little buzzword of behavioral pattern, my therapist would be so proud of me right now, of thinking about, like, hey, what actually is important to me, what's my priority? That becomes a muscle that you train, and it becomes less of a strain and stress to do that over time the more you do it.
And then you start doing it in all aspects of your life, not just your 9:00 to 5:00, not just your small business, but your relationships and how you treat yourself and all of that stuff. And you fall out of it, especially the shorter amount of time that you've used that muscle, you'll fall out of it way easier, and you have come back to it, but it gets easier and easier each time.
Dave Dougherty:
- Like, for me, with working out, I have the same patterns over and over again. I go way too hard because I'm overly competitive. So when I hurt myself...
Kristen Juve:
- I used to do that, too. You injure yourself or hurt, and you're like, "I don't want to do this."
Dave Dougherty:
- So then it's, like, a six-week recovery. And then I have to get back into it. And then this last time, it was last year, I, like, hyperextended my Achilles in my right foot. And it is still bugging me, like, off and on. And so, you know, it's the, okay, I can't go as hard as I want, I'm just going to adapt to it, maybe I just do all, you know, upper body stuff today instead of, you know, my ankle, but then focusing on the hips and whatever else.
Yeah, and just having that adaptability into it. I think one of the things that are baked into what we've talked about but we're not actually, like, stating it, right, is if you know that you want to build something, you will have to make time. Because you know it is important to you, that your current situation is not what you want.
Kristen Juve:
- At least the way that you see it currently, yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. And I mean, it could very well be that, you know, you try something, you start something, and you take those learnings and you bring it back to what it is you're doing during the day.
Kristen Juve:
- And that's legit.
Dave Dougherty:
- And that's totally fine.
Kristen Juve:
- That's how I got a job in corporate, so.
Dave Dougherty:
- That summarizes my entire career thus far.
Kristen Juve:
- Totally worth it.
Dave Dougherty:
- …Having my own sandboxes so that I can have the creativity that the organizations won't allow me to.
Kristen Juve:
- No one's going to tell you no.
What are your pockets of time to get things done?
Dave Dougherty:
- Exactly. So, yeah, and just taking stock with that. What is it about the situation? You know, what is it that motivates you to move forward on it? And then how do you go about your day? What are the pockets of time?
Because I feel like most people feel like they don't have time to do anything, and that is complete and utter crap. Because if they were to write down in a journal like you do, you know, for, you know...
Kristen Juve:
- Also, you should write things down in a journal.
Dave Dougherty:
- It works for some people.
Kristen Juve:
- Process your feelings.
Dave Dougherty:
- If you were to look at what you spend your time on, right, you will find pockets of opportunity, like...
Kristen Juve:
- Scrolling TikTok for an hour. Worth it? Maybe.
Dave Dougherty:
- I have mixed feelings about that.
Kristen Juve:
- Same. Same. Also, I joined TikTok this week, so, same.
Dave Dougherty:
- I think that falls under the you're educating yourself on the channel.
Kristen Juve:
- That's what I'm going with right now.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, justify it that way. Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- Yep, exactly.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, but, you know, like, I have friends who, they, "Oh, I want to do this, but I just don't have time." And, "Oh, have you seen this movie? Have you seen this show? Have you been watching this?" And I'm like, "Okay, well, that's where you're spending your time."
Kristen Juve:
- There's nothing wrong with that. If that's what you want to do. What do you really want to do? Just be...like, I'm all about being honest with yourself. Like, be brutally honest. I think that is really hard for people in general to do, but I feel like Minnesotans and maybe Midwesterners, a little extra hard.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, we have our own culture, that's for sure.
Kristen Juve:
- As a person from a far-off land.
Dave Dougherty:
- Wisconsin.
Kristen Juve:
- You guys definitely have...you do have a different subculture than Wisconsin for sure.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and that's why I always say I'm first-gen Minnesotan, because...
Kristen Juve:
- I know, and I appreciate that about you. This is why we get along.
Dave Dougherty:
- Because I don't understand the pure Minnesotan attitude. It's too insular for my liking. And to your point, be brutally honest, right. It's the...
Kristen Juve:
- And stop judging yourself. Be brutally honest, but then don't judge yourself.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, it's the short poppy syndrome.
Kristen Juve:
- The what?
Dave Dougherty:
- The short poppy syndrome, right?
Kristen Juve:
- No idea what that is.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, you have the field of poppies. And if any one of them grows too high, you whack it down.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, didn't you tell me this in a blade of grass last time?
Dave Dougherty:
- Maybe.
Kristen Juve:
- I feel like you used a different analogy last time, but it was like blade of grass, cut if off.
Continue, please.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, it might have been, like, tree trimming or something. I was in like a Zen mood that day or something. Actually, if you want a really good New Zealand comedy show, speaking of streaming services and everything else, look up "Short Poppies." It's hilarious.
Kristen Juve:
- I might. We'll see.
Dave Dougherty:
- It's really good. It's so stupid, but really good. Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- I totally derailed you. I'm sorry. Okay, so the short poppies analogy, one grows up further, and then you cut it off.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, yeah, it's the like...it's kind of that "How dare you think your special?" kind of a thing, right? Where it's...
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, I've literally had people, like, say that about other people that they've seen on, like, social, like, "What makes them special?" I'm like, "Literally nothing, but that's okay."
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. What makes them special? They're doing it. What are you doing? You're complaining about it.
Kristen Juve:
- Thank you. And that's kind of how I feel, too, is, like, nothing makes me special to be sitting here on this podcast to talk to you, other than we wanted to do this. And that's all the permission that we need. That's all the permission that anybody else needs, too. That's kind of one of the best parts about where we are living in time and space right now. Like, give yourself permission to do what you fucking want to do.
The things you may want to do now may not be what you were originally good at
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. Yeah. And I mean, it could very well just be like, "Hey, I like the conversations we're having over coffee. Let's just have an excuse to do them." Right. I mean, that's essentially this. Yeah, and part of it, too, was that I've always found with my career thus far, all of my favorite things are either doing presentations to groups of people, or, you know, the classrooms, or whatever else that I've done speaking in, or the coffee talks, where it's like, "Hey, tell me about your journey. What are you doing? How are you doing that?"
Yeah. If I could figure out a way to just do that all day, that would be a dream.
Kristen Juve:
- Just, like, get to know people and, like, their journeys and whatnot, I mean, we are going to have guests, so that will help. No, I agree. That was probably one of my favorite things at the last place that we worked at together, was, like, it was expected that if you actually wanted to get your job done, you knew people, and you know who to call when things needed to get done.
And so you'd just have coffees with them every once a while, and you would get to know them. And it was great to actually just be like, "Hey, we're humans, and we have lives outside of this. And this is what we find important. And this is what's interesting, and that here's my journey," and all this other stuff. And you find out all the things that you've had in common with these people that you just never would have before.
Granted, this was all pre-COVID. So, this was, like, we're in a virtual world, which makes it more difficult because you potentially have...I'm going off on a whole different tangent, but...
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, so I think, again, it's the making time of it, right? The making time for what? So, for me, I was so not into asking for help or asking for coffees or anything else. That muscle did not exist in my body when I started out, you know, 10 years ago. You know, I was the one that was nervous to ask anybody.
It would take me two hours to write an email saying, you know...
Kristen Juve:
- Same.
Dave Dougherty:
- ..."Would you maybe meet me for, you know, a coffee, I'm happy to pay for it?" Yadda yadda.
Kristen Juve:
- Been there, done that. Remembering a bad experience.
Dave Dougherty:
- But having seen how well that networking piece of it worked for my wife when she was in law school, I was like, "Okay, I have to do that." So, I just did it. Anybody [crosstalk].
Kristen Juve:
- You learn so much by talking to people. And actually, like, I would go so as far as, like, if you're thinking about doing a side thing and you're not sure if it's right for you, like, why not apply the same logic? Like, try to network with...and I've done the same thing, but really informally. So for knitting, I started joining the knitting community on Instagram and just absorbing all the content that a lot of these designers were putting out.
And it really helped me figure out if this was going to be what I wanted or not. And they were just willing to put this content out there. I didn't even have to ask them, all I had to do is just wait for it to hit my feed.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, I think there are the different stages, and I think this will be something for us to explore in later episodes, of the different stages that you find yourself in, right? Because if you are testing the waters for something, you can, if you're not comfortable doing the cold calling, you know, for coffees or, you know, virtual whatevers, there are ways to monitor the market from afar, right, doing your Instagram piece, doing a deep dive into the different YouTube channels that are around.
God forbid you spend any time in the comment section of places, but, you know, that might be a good spot to check out at least to see “is this audience aggressive?” Or is it like, you know, the guitar community, where, yeah, there's some people who are jerks, but for the most part, it's a really supportive community because everybody knows that it's really just about self-expression.
And, you know, if I see you wearing a particular band shirt, I know a little bit of about you before I even say hi. So, you know, that's...yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- It's a lot of, like...back to, like, you're making the time to research, you're making the time to figure out if this is what you want to do. And giving yourself that permission to make the time to figure out if you want to do that or not is, like, everything. Jumping into something without knowing if you...like, if you're totally making the decision on it.
Like, I feel like we started talking about, like, saying no to things and really making the time, but really, this is about, like, I don't know, so much more. I can't even articulate right now.
Saving mental energy by having processes in place
Dave Dougherty:
- This is why we will circle back on this many a times. Because it is an ongoing thing, and it's a small every everyday improvement kind of a thing. I know, for me, like, I...some people will look at my schedule and be like, "Oh, my God, that is so rigid."
Kristen Juve:
- I would do that. I would look at your schedule and be like, "Make it go away."
Dave Dougherty:
- So, yeah, I mean, typically...and this is a holdover, I think, from when, you know, my wife worked for Warner Brother Records for a little bit and, you know, went to school in Nashville and worked with artists and all that.
Kristen Juve:
- Brag much?
Dave Dougherty:
- No, that's...it's a job like any other.
Kristen Juve:
- Not, it's awesome. Your wife is amazing, and so, I feel like you should brag about her.
Dave Dougherty:
- But she and I, both with that industry, or trying to participate in that industry at any level, whether it's local or whatever else, you're used to scheduling yourself out about, you know, six weeks out. So, I try to maintain about four to six weeks of, you know, knowing what's going on on the calendar. Like, for example, I already know most of my holidays already for this year.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, God, you guys are so prepared. And it's funny because I'm the freaking project manager. You guys are so on top of stuff, and I'm like...
Dave Dougherty:
- I say I hate project management, but then I do that with my life. But then, you know, I...
Kristen Juve:
- It's the focus.
Dave Dougherty:
- I go to bed, pretty much the exact same process every day. My son guarantees that I wake up around 6:30 every day.
Kristen Juve:
- Those are decisions you don't have to make because you've already put the routine in place, too.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. Right. And I know that, okay, if I have...you know, if I eat past a certain point here, if I have, you know, caffeine past a certain point here, that, you know, back end is going to be totally screwed up. You know, but I have [crosstalk]...
Kristen Juve:
- Is that adulting? I feel like that's adulting.
Dave Dougherty:
- Unfortunately.
Kristen Juve:
- I know that I can have more than two cups of coffee. I'm an adult because I know that.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, I mean, like, I've been saying...my response to that now is just, "Well, it happens to the best of us."
Kristen Juve:
- It's not an inaccurate statement.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, I mean, everybody's got to do it. So you know, whatever. Yeah, it happens. But, again, it goes to the priorities. I would rather wake up and have the processes in place so that I can be creative, rather than living what I think should be the lifestyle of what I want, which I find...you know, that was a whole thing, you know, doing music, where you have the scenesters, which are really only about having the gig so that they can be seen playing an instrument so that they can, you know, hook up and get drunk and, you know, do that life rock star lifestyle thing rather than the music, rather than, you know, doing the work.
I've always been about doing the work.
Kristen Juve:
- And that's a part of it, too, though. Like, when you're making decisions and making the time, you do feel like it's supposed to come easier, because you've seen people who are either like that type of, like, scene people or you...the story that you're hearing other people who've made it in whatever industry, it looks like they've made it overnight. And you're like, "Well, how did they get there?"
And it's literally like, no, they put in a ton of work. If they're actually successful, and not just selling you snake oil, like, they have put in the work and the time and they've made the time to do it.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, that's...one of my favorite stories, in high school, I was listening to about 12 hours a day of Metallica, and I went so deep into the history, the biographies of the guys. And there's one story that stands out to me in particular.
So, like 1982, 1983, they did their album, "Kill Them All," which they got an offer to record that album from basically, like, a startup record company, a mom-and-pop record company in New York. So they had to drive themselves from San Francisco to New York.
And the way that they describe it is, "Yeah, we were living basically...you know, our meals were bologna on hand," because they couldn't afford bread. And they lived in one room, basically eating, you know, slices of bologna and doing the music, and then going on the road so that they could have some cash.
And doing that, you know, doing the work. And, you know, every single band that has made it has the van stories, you know, of car broke down, or, you know… Rob Zombie has a story when he was in White Zombie, of the car, the van that they had broken down, like, halfway to the show, and, you know, thank God for AAA.
You know, like, all those kinds of things where, yeah, you make it work. You show up. You borrow the gear. You do the show.
Kristen Juve:
- You borrow the gear, I like that. Borrow what you can.
Dave Dougherty:
- And you get scrappy. Because you don't need the big stage production. I mean, that'd be really nice to have, and that's...you know, you want to get to a point where you can reinvest in yourself to that point. But you have to start playing the crappy gigs, right?
Using free tools and what's available to you to get rid of your own excuses
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. One of the things that I'm excited about, too, that we'll, like, talk about in the future is, like, the tools and the free tools and things that you can get away with using, setting up your side business, and that's enough. A lot of time, that's enough. Like, there are so many amazing companies that are putting out free tools that you can utilize. But it's about choosing which ones are right for you, and then also, like, dedicating your time to learning the right ones.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, yeah, and the free tool piece of it, too. I mean, that eliminates the barriers, you don't have any excuses then. So then it comes back to what we started off the conversation with, is why are you getting in your own way? If you have all the tools, you have the time set aside…What's up?
Kristen Juve:
- Mental game. All of this is around, like, a mental game and mental health, I swear to God. That was my one takeaway from my "failed" photography business, I'm going to use finger quotes when I say failed because I did learn a lot. And in that sense, I was a success of, like, figuring out that I was in my own way.
I killed it for myself because I felt like I was holding myself to these, like, unattainable goals and standards. And I didn't allow myself to actually be creative and be myself and find myself in that space. And it's just completely different this time around.
And granted, I've done this a few times in between as well, mind you.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, that's part of the journey, right? Because each time you learn a particular skill set, you know...
Kristen Juve:
- Even add it to your resume.
Dave Dougherty:
- You learn time management.
Kristen Juve:
- That's the other part, too, is like, I think we forget that when we dedicate the time, we've chosen to dedicate our time to learning something. And then let's say you either have to pivot or you have to, like, wear a different hat for your small business, the things that you learned about that one tool or that one thing that you needed to do, that one process, still very much help make you more a robust person in this other part of the project, whether it's directly related or indirectly related.
And it's not that you completely...I think we act as if we completely lose all of the knowledge that we've gained in all that time. And we tell ourselves, "That was a waste of my time," when it actually wasn't. That's the other piece of, like, giving yourself grace, is, like, give yourself due credit.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and so I...you know, you and I have had this conversation on and off the mic on how I would challenge you that it was a failed photography thing. I just think it wasn't the right time.
And photography wasn't the right thing.
Kristen Juve:
- I agree.
Dave Dougherty:
- But you did it. And that's cool. Because you learned it and you moved on, right? It doesn't mean you won't necessarily come back and do photography again if you get that bug all of a sudden.
Kristen Juve:
- I probably won't. Not portrait photography, at least.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. So who knows, I mean, that's…I keep circling back. I mean, in all my journeys, I keep circling back with there's really only a couple of things that I want to do in life. And that's writing, playing guitar, and doing cool things with cool people, with good food.
Kristen Juve:
- We're missing the food part.
Dave Dougherty:
- That'll change.
Kristen Juve:
- I know, pandemic. But you figured out what you value, what you want. You've lined up how you're spending your time in a day-to-day so that it matches those things. And the level of contentment, happiness, and joy that you reap from all of that is probably tenfold.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, despite what my face would normally convey, right? Because I've been told I'm overly stoic and just have that Scotch-Irish/German face.
Kristen Juve:
- I would just describe you as, like, the heavy metal rocker dude who just looks pissed.
Dave Dougherty:
- Can't help it, it's my face. It's the way it is.
Learnings and takeaways from our conversation
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah, I think my takeaway is that, like...of my learnings, not only in my personal stuff, but of in talking with you:
Give yourself the grace, time and space to learn and fail.
Be okay with that.
Stop judging yourself.
Make the time. Pick out the time.
Figure out your values, and then align how you spend your time to your values.
Not your goals, not your specific tactics, but your overarching values, like, what you actually want for yourself.
Learning through doing
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. So I guess, as a quick sort of example of all that, out of curiosity, with the Casting Knits piece, how long from idea to hitting Publish have you been working on it?
Kristen Juve:
- You just had to ask this question, didn't you? I don't know the exact answer. Okay, so the current pattern that I am working on to publish is my third. I have not published any other patterns.
I have knit up an entire dog sweater and wrote the pattern in chicken scratch and have...and will never...I won't say never publish it, I would like to publish it. I just need to, like...
Dave Dougherty:
- Are you talking, like, an actual dog or, like, [inaudible] pet?
Kristen Juve:
- No. So, my dog's, like, an actual dog, but she's in a miniature size. And I know that sounds like I'm mincing words, because I am, but I'm not. No, she's a small dog. But she does not need a sweater. The whole intention I had for...I wanted to see if I could...I wanted to see if I could create a knitted garment from my own head.
And so I did it. And I was laughing the entire time. I loved every moment of it. Because it was for my dog. Who is very, very, very fuzzy and does not need a sweater, as I stated. The second one I completely designed and started writing, designed as in, like, I sketched it out, I figured out exactly...I did my research behind it.
I spent hours and hours on this website called Ravelry, which is, like, a pattern library for people. And then I found out...the reason why I didn't go further is I found it. Someone else had already written it, and they probably did it better. And so I was like...
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, that's an assumption in your own head.
Kristen Juve:
- Right. Well, I had to pay the money to get the pattern in order to figure it out. And I'm not going to do that at this point because there's a whole 'nother piece of the knitting community where...I love that the knitting community can be extremely collaborative and extremely kind. And when there are some designers that put out designs that are very similar to other ones, people can get mean.
Or they can get really nice. Like, it's very weird, like, it just kind of depends on very specific people. And I'll admit that the sweater that I'm working on currently, I believe that there are semi-similar sweaters to mine. However, my value prop for this particular sweater is it's constructed in a different way than the ones I found. I need to, like, update my research because it's been a little bit stale.
To your point, that has taken me a very long time to get this done. But so, like, this has been a very interesting journey. And as I've admitted before, like, I knitted up almost all the way up the back and then just ripped it all out because it just wasn't the right fit for the right body, like, what I wanted. But I have it all, like, drafted out in a Word doc.
So no more chicken scratch, I learned from that. I have an Excel document that complements it. And I use formulas so that I can type in new sizings and automatically populate the numbers that I need to populate. Because when you write a pattern, you don't just write for one size, you write for multiple sizes.
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. So that's a thing in and of itself.
Kristen Juve:
- Yes, yes. So it is going...I've kind of set this, like, I know that it takes a typical knitter roughly about a month to knit a sweater. Obviously depends on sizing, too, and just how fast you knit and other things. But I was like if I can get the main body part done in a month, like, that's a very...that should be an obtainable goal.
And then I can focus on the sleeves for another month. And then I have to set up testing. So, like, I have a map of where I... This is totally...I'm totally...
Dave Dougherty:
- You're dodging the question for sure.
Kristen Juve:
- I am.
Dave Dougherty:
- But that's okay.
Kristen Juve:
- I don't know. It's been...
Dave Dougherty:
- Three years?
Kristen Juve:
- No.
Dave Dougherty:
- Four years?
Kristen Juve:
- This particular one, I think I'm probably rolling on nine months, maybe more. Maybe a year, I don't think it's been a year.
Dave Dougherty:
- Would you say that Casting Knits is fully launched then, like, in terms of website and everything else? Or is it still building?
Kristen Juve:
- It's still building. There's a lot of, like, little things that I need to... To my point earlier, I go in, I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to do this thing on my Shopify," right? So, like, "I'm going to set up my bank account." Wait, what? I need to do this... What?
And like, it's not actually that...I just need to make some decisions. But then I have to do the research to make the decisions. I don't want to just make a decision. So, and then I'm like, "Okay."
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, just particularly around anything legal or financial, you should take time for that.
Kristen Juve:
- Yes.
Dave Dougherty:
- But yeah, I think for me...the reason I asked was because...so I came up with the idea for Beginning Guitar Online in, like, 2014 when I was...that was, like, the last year I was teaching in-person guitar lessons. And I went so far as to look at whether or not the domain was available. It was, I bought it.
I wrote three-quarters of an ebook, maybe, like, while I was teaching lessons, of, like, "Here's the boot camp for music theory, guitar," or whatever. So like, I had a lot of this content ahead of time. But you could also tell where I was, my writing wasn't good enough. It was overly grand. It was overly complex. I wasn't thinking of the beginner guitar person. So the language was all wrong.
But it was an important thing because I had gone through the process, I had, like, rough drafts of a lot of stuff, you know, right off the bat. But then when the pandemic hit, I looked at...you know, I had this idea that had been nagging at me for five years, four and a half years or whatever, yeah.
And so, then yeah, I called up my friend, Chris. And I'm like, "I've had this idea I've been meaning to talk to you about for a really long time. I think it's time we do it." And it took about a year from that phone call to us launching the site.
Kristen Juve:
- I still think that's really fast though, given, like...if you look at what yours is versus me writing a pattern, like, a year for everything that you've put together, and you had another person who you're, like, "dependent on," I say that with finger quotes, because, like, you could have definitely done it yourself.
But like, getting another person involved, too, can also speed up things, like.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, yeah, Chris is awesome. He brings a whole lot to the table, you know, with it. So I mean, it's definitely something where having another person also brings about a certain level of accountability that...
Kristen Juve:
- And it's why we're doing this.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, it allows me to have some sort of deadline, as keeping my word is massively important to me.
Kristen Juve:
- I'm the same way. I need an accountability buddy.
Dave Dougherty:
- That was the only way I quit smoking. I told my boss and my coworkers, "I am taking this day off, or these two days off so that I can have four days to detox, so I'm not coming into work, biting your heads or clients' heads off." And because I said it publicly, I could not go back on my word.
And so that was the only way that I got it done. But I got it done. That, and I poured a litter box on top of the cigarettes so I wouldn't, you know, go for them again.
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, you do what you got to do.
Dave Dougherty:
- Exactly, whatever it is that you need to finish. But yeah, I mean, it was...that amount of time really was that year of launching to then. Well, it was coming up with the processes and stuff.
Kristen Juve:
- That was like a pen-to-paper year, though. Yeah, that was like a pen-to-paper year where you were, like, putting in that time and constantly, like, putting the work and doing the processes, developing your process, so you could, like, scale it across multiple videos, right?
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. And just kind of mapping out, I got a whole framework for the launch where it was, like, okay, within a year, I want to do this, and then the content will repurpose itself this way. So that everything...you know, I'm touching things once or twice. Right? So then you're just done. Because you have all the versions, you don't have to come back to it.
Kristen Juve:
- Smarter, not harder.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. But that being said, because I'm an active participant in guitar lessons, like, I already kind of knew the lay of the land, I knew who some of the big players were. But then I did take a lot of time to actually look into:
Who are the smaller players?
Who are the online-only players?
Who are the people who are doing this as, like, a side thing to their main performance stuff?
Because there's one guy who's the backup guitar player for one of my all-time favorite instrumental players, who's, like, the guitar god's guitar god. And he has his own lesson subscription site that he does when he's not on the road. So, it's like, okay, well, that's interesting. Is it working for him? You know. And because of the background, you know, I'm able to see what the kind of traffic is and all of that, but then that came in to formulate the plan of, "Okay, this is how I'm going to launch it. This is how I differentiate."
And doing that, like, actual sort of formalized business thing, just as an experiment of the, you know, can I make a business case for this? Or is it just going to be a hobby?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. Putting in that time.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. So I say that for anybody who's listening where it's like, "God, you know, I have this thing, but I don't feel like I can launch it in a year or two," it took me five.
Kristen Juve:
- Just, yeah, at the start and then you start to figure out what it actually looks like.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- The one thing I will to, like I want to say about like, since we're talking about timing, and how you can like help yourself once you do figure out a lot of things, these things is looking at your processes to your point, can you replicate the same things in pattern making? I can create an Excel document. It's essentially like a calculator and I can punch in a bunch of numbers. And depending on what the pattern looks like, because if there's...a sweater is a sweater, right?
You got two arm holes, you got a neck hole, you got a body hole. Like, there are various things that are almost going to always be the same. An Excel spreadsheet can really help me in that where I can just punch in some numbers and get a bunch of the output. And then I just got to figure out how to negotiate the communication part to the person that's making it. So, a skill where you figure out what you can duplicate and process and not have to recreate the wheel every single time.
There's nothing wrong with that. That's genius. And with that...
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, I think we will...
Kristen Juve:
- We'll give you more time back to go get started on your stuff.
Dave Dougherty:
- Thanks for spending time with us. We will see you in the next episode. Hit us up online.
Kristen Juve:
- Got any questions? Time management, whatever, we're here for it.
Dave Dougherty:
- On Youtube, like, subscribe, share, ring the bell, podcast, please rate and review, share it, and help us out. And anybody, you know, go to the website, or any of our social handles and hit us up with whatever you got. So I appreciate it.
Thanks for taking the time, and we will see you next time. Bye.
