Stitches & Picks S1:Ep 7 - Working on Everything Other Than the Fun Stuff
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Episode 7 - Working on Everything Other Than the Fun Stuff Video and Podcast Transcript
[This transcript has been lightly edited to ensure readability]
Dave Dougherty:
- All right. Welcome to Stitches and Picks. I'm Dave.
Kristen Juve:
- I'm Kristin.
Dave Dougherty:
- And in this episode, we are going to talk about the inevitability of working on everything, except for what you planned on doing when you look to start your own side project or your own...
Kristen Juve:
- It's funny because we were talking about this. We were talking about it as like, would you have to work on other things than what you want to do? You could use that on like the flip side of this. It could be that you are working on your side gig stuff when you really want to be doing something else, or it could be that you're having to work at your 9 to 5 job, or with your family and you want to be doing your side gig stuff.
So I was thinking about it in both ways and I was like my last, I don't know, X amount of days, weeks, has been having to take care of every single thing that is not my side stuff. I've had people ask about my side stuff. I've gotten to have some random conversations about it. I have gotten to work on it a little bit here and there, but not enough to actually be fully entrenched in it, loving it, and feeling like I'm making a huge impact.
Troubleshooting Your Technology and Managing Your File Storage
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. I've spent the last two weeks troubleshooting tech and trying to get my computer to do everything that I would like it to do with the huge file sizes that we're dealing with, you know, with video and everything else and, you know, things that you don't think of when you're starting stuff out, especially in digital space of okay, storage capacity.
You know, do I do the hard drives? Do I do the cloud? Well, what if the cloud's just a mirror of my computer hard drive rather than a separate thing? So that's what I've been going through, you know, half a day, text chatting and phone calling with Apple and there was a bug on their end and then there was a whole bunch of cleanup on my side.
So some of that memory storage stuff is definitely just bad habits that the paper cuts added up over time. And so I was like, okay, I have to deal with it, but yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- I dealt with that a lot with my photography business. Like, I had all these huge, massive raw files and I ended up getting a terabyte external hard drive back when a terabyte was really expensive and I still ended up losing a bunch of stuff because I wasn't on top of it. And I'm like missing some of my personal photos too.
So it's funny that it's such a mundane task that I loathe doing, but maintaining files is so important. It's ridiculous how important it is.
Dave Dougherty:
- That was the big thing when I was doing the music production for school and then after school with my own records and, you know, band demos and stuff of just having naming conventions and having folders structured in a certain way and getting that thing set up so that you can actually remember where you are at any given time.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, naming conventions! I mean, during my day job, I work with a lot of people who are constantly working on naming conventions, but I haven't had to do that manual labor of copy/paste or like in Photoshop batching things. And those were...batching in Photoshop was probably my savior. I could not...
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and it's only worse now with how automated some of the stuff that Photoshop has and some of the features where if your data plan isn't on point, you're going to get a lot of stuff, you know, orange instead of what you want it to be. I'm by no means a Photoshop expert, I know enough to be dangerous, but reading through some of their feature lists of recent updates, like, whoa, this could be really cool, but also when you get turn-key automation on creative projects, you're going to be asking for some trouble...
Kristen Juve:
- You have to actually know what it is too. Well, it's so interesting that they're cloud-based now too. Before I literally like I had a CD that I had to load onto my computer and it lived on-premise on my computer and like, yeah. And like now, now it's so different.
Shout out to Canva.com - Tool Recommendation
Kristen Juve:
And now Canva is like this amazing tool that's completely free that does so much of what you need. Like, I think we've talked about this before and I'm like, "I should probably buy stock in Canva."
That's how much I like it.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. And we're by no means paid to say it, I cannot do what I do with BGO or even stitches here without Canva. Even the free version of the tool is amazing. So if you're in need of a good tool to help you out, go check that out, canva.com.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Recommendation of the week.
How Do You Keep Yourself Motivated While Dealing with the Issues
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. Hey. Okay. So you obviously had physical limitations to what you could put your time and effort behind because of it specifically being the technology that was holding you back. Like, other than just having to push through it. What was keeping your motivation up? What was keeping you not just throwing it aside and like walking away from it for weeks on end?
Dave Dougherty:
- There was definitely some of that not, you know, weeks on end, but yeah. The thing for me is that it was a reminder of the things that I actually want to do and that I enjoy doing are on the other side of whatever this problem is.
Kristen Juve:
- So like, you can't have the good without the bad kind of thing. Like, in life, the roller coaster that you want.
Dave Dougherty:
- That's always my perspective, but, you know, that seems like a different episode.
Kristen Juve:
- Probably. You know what, I feel I could definitely do a full episode on it too.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. We should probably have some guest experts in for that conversation.
Kristen Juve:
- Fair enough.
Dave Dougherty:
- But I think I have enough experience, especially with, you know, recording guitars and the music production thing of it didn't save the right version and I have to redo all the work.
Kristen Juve:
- So your expectations were in line with kind of what you were experiencing to some extent. So it wasn't like you were suddenly like... And I bring this up because, like, I think when I first started my photography business, I didn't have anything to compare to and I had no mentors and nobody to talk to about it and be like, it would completely throw me off if my files were deleted or if things were just like completely not what I thought they were.
And that would actually take huge mental toll on me, which then would come out to my work and I wouldn't be working more. So you're saying, like, you kind of had some history with that that helped.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. I mean, when your, you know, 5.1 surround sound homework project is due the next day and it's 4 in the morning and you're in the studio already and the files go away and you're like, "Oh, no, I have six hours to rebuild, you know, three months."
You don't want to repeat that ever again. You know, I would hope as I've gotten older, you know, versus my teenage self, I get less mad at myself about those things as I used to.
It's less catastrophic now.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. Same.
Dave Dougherty:
- But I would still curse out the wall and go for a walk is essentially my immediate process whenever catastrophic things happen.
Kristen Juve:
- Your coping skills. So proper expectations are based on historical events, acceptance and/or coping skills. Okay?
Dave Dougherty:
- Sure.
Kristen Juve:
- I'm trying to frame it up in a really healthy way that people might be able to be like, okay. Because I'm trying to think of, like...I literally am thinking about the younger version of me doing my photography business. Why do I feel like I wasn't successful in that? I think it was a lot of these types of things where, like, it was everything. It wasn't just this, but this was a piece of it, for sure.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. I think the other thing too is when you're dealing with the audio files or especially video files, they're so large and they require so much memory that you kind of have to gear up for it. So like my choice of a laptop is not the bottom level so that I can be able to do some of this stuff.
You know, but if I went out and bought the $300 Acer, would I be doing 4K video production on that? Absolutely not. Because the thing would, you know, blow up and start the kitchen table on fire.
Discussion on Doing What You Like Outsourcing the Rest, and the Work it Takes to Outsource Activities
Dave Dougherty:
- So, like, there's that aspect to it, but then, you know, when you hear people talk about, oh, do what you like, which you feel you're compelled to do.
I feel like these moments are when that actually shows up because if you really are into doing something, you're willing to have a bad gig, or you're willing to put up with, you know, a really crappy situation because you know the flip side of it and you know that you like the work, you enjoy the journey of it and not just the end result.
Kristen Juve:
- Well, that's the grit behind it, right? Like, I think when you said that, I literally think of I don't know who she, I forget her name, but Barbara from Shark Tank, and she's like, do what you're good at, do what you like to do, and then outsource everything else. I think that's a super privileged way to look at it. I don't disagree, but I think you and I even talked about this like that is a stage that we can get to eventually.
That is not where we're sitting currently. We are doing everything ourselves. It makes financial sense for us, it makes sense for us to understand fully what we need to do in order to get to that stage where we can get the right people in the door if you will, or whatever. So you're super privileged to just be like, hire out, hire out. Yes, there's a time and point that it is completely appropriate.
And if you do know and you do have the resources, cool, but there are a lot of people who don't even know what they're going to need, so they're going to have to live through it themselves. And this is the unpretty, unfun, gritty part about building the side thing.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and I think the other part of that too is that is absolutely good advice when you're there for it, you know, to your point. But then that also just glances over all of the work that it takes to get to a point where you can hand something off.
You know, like if you're going to hand off blog writing or, you know, SEO work or something, you should have some sort of, these are my expectations, agency, freelancer, whatever, can you meet these? Is this reasonable? And they'll say yes or no. And if nobody wants to work with you, your expectations are probably unreasonable.
So, you know, go revisit that. But that's all a process, right? So you have to say that outsourcing this is the top priority because it might not be when you're, you know, stuck in video production mode and you need to get three videos out the door. You probably won't have time for that because, you know, your resources are elsewhere.
So, you know, you have to stop doing one thing to do another. And depending on where your situation is and what else is going on in your life, you may or may not be able to do that, even though it would be probably the best way to move forward. I know I'm looking at the projects that I have and as I'm doing it, I'm like, I can't wait to pass this off.
Kristen Juve:
- You've got them all like listed out, you're like, and this one's going to go away someday. This one's going to go away someday. Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. These two things could be done by a single person. This thing could be done by this other person. I'll probably need, you know...
Kristen Juve:
- That could be a whole like sub-sector to another conversation about like scaling that we'll need to have in the future at some point too. Okay. So for me, I've been doing things for like maintaining my daily life, not even for...and I've been doing obviously my full-time job as well. And that has been more lately than it normally is, which we have times of years that are just busier.
So, like, it's funny because when I'm doing my day job, I'm not thinking about the side gig stuff and then I get focused on the kiddo and I got to make sure she's okay, right?
Like, we've been going through even more teething because there are so many teeth. I know that I've said this so many times, like, we're always in teething, but literally the first two years are all teething. It's just insane. And then also just trying to have a life and connection to my spouse and then have some fun outside while I can because of the weather and stuff.
Planning Rest, Productivity, and Weather Patterns Into Your Content Calendar
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I think we talked about this in a different episode. I forget which one.
Kristen Juve:
- Like the balance, life balance?
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, how even your environment dictates certain things. Like, if you're going to create a content calendar, well, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you should probably set aside, you know, six weeks just to be outside because all of the work will probably get done in the winter when you can't go outside for, you know, different reasons. So, you know, planning that into your kind of annual cycle will be beneficial and...Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- I did have a goal and I think I've even mentioned it before. So I knew all along that at this point in the year my sister was going to be visiting and I wanted to have this knit pattern done so that I could have a try on the sample, and I only have the body done. And so I'm like, I know that I didn't make my goal in that sense, but I'm also like for the first time I think in my life, I'm cutting myself enough slack where I'm like, you didn't get it done.
There are a lot of other options. There are other ways to think about how this can still be like released on time, or close to, or be acceptable. So I just have to adjust my own expectations. Like, she was supposed to be like my sample model. She's a size medium.
I'm also a size medium. I have like 80 other people that are a size medium. I can easily have them be the model for it. I can ship it to her or wait till she comes. Actually, I can't ship it to her because she's in a different country. It won't get to her. I can wait till she's in this country again the next time and I can just force her to come visit me that way also, which would be really good.
So yeah, it's adjusting expectations and acceptance of stuff too. For me, that's like, I'm struggling with that because I really am happy with my level of acceptance of like the real-life stuff and like I obviously have to feed my kid dinner. Obviously, I have to feed myself. But like at the same time, I'm just setting my knitting stuff aside too much sometimes that I'm, I'd like to go back to it, but I can't figure out that balance right now.
And I know it's like on a weekly thing. I think about my life in a weekly term, typically, mainly because at home we have a weekly calendar where we write out if my husband's got hockey, what dinners we're making, and if the baby has special events or whatever.
Like, we go on a week-by-week basis. And in my Google Calendar, I block out stuff. I had reoccurring meetings for like when I'd work on stuff. And now, none of it's real. And so I need to like sit down and change them all so they actually reflect real because the seasons have changed.
Yeah. And so I'm just trying to like...
Dave Dougherty:
- It's funny you say that because like for me, I'm typically booked out six weeks in advance, but I only pay attention to the next couple of days.
Kristen Juve:
- Interesting.
Dave Dougherty:
- And so I know due dates like, okay, you know, this particular video is supposed to launch next week. What are the steps I can take today to me closer to getting that done?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah.
Dave Dougherty:
- And so it's more on that day-to-day piece of it. Also just to gauge energy levels because there'll be some days where I'm just like totally, no, nothing's going to happen. And then another day will be, let's go do all the things. And, you know, I'm within a normal range also, it's not like a manic thing. It's just a normal...
- No. And here's the thing. I think people do need to listen to their bodies more. I think that when I was much younger, I wasn't and I had pushed myself too hard when I didn't have the energy and then it would end up this like overtired when I would potentially should have energy. And I've talked about like my mental health a little bit, but my mental health is very much tied to my physical health and my energy levels and things like that.
So like it's just something that I have to consider and have to be aware of, especially when I'm not on medication of, like, this is life and I have to be okay with that. I think living through that has probably allowed me to accept like, oh, okay, you're focusing on your family. You're in survival mode.
Like, I literally had a conversation with my husband this week and I was like, okay, our house is a mess. Like nothing... Like, if you were to look at our house, you'd probably be like, "Are these people okay?" But the thing is, everybody got fed. We slept when we could because sometimes we are up for two hours in the middle of the night. Everybody had clean clothes.
Everybody like had a roof over their head. Everybody had playtime. Like we survived. We did well. We were not thriving. We didn't look like the perfect family and have the perfectly clean house, but that wasn't the goal for this week.
Dave Dougherty:
- I think for anybody with a kid under 2, that is the expectation. Like, anything more than that shouldn't be...
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. But I only had [crosstalk]. My time is running out of making that excuse because once she's like past 2, then what's my excuse?
Dave Dougherty:
- Right. Isn't that coming up soon?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. No, I'm of the theory like... And this is funny because if you would've asked me this, like what type of parent I wanted to be, I would've been like, oh, no, my house is going to be like not immaculately clean, but like clean, right? No. I would rather go outside and play with my kid and draw chalk and go for a long wandering walk than clean my kitchen.
If that means that my kitchen doesn't look amazing, that's fine with me because even if she remembers that our kitchen was never clean, I want her to rather have memories of me playing with her and having fun and actually spending time with her.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, speaking of hiring things out, would you ever do like the maid stuff? Like, I know a lot of people, you know, have. Again, with the expectation piece, like, you know, I do all of the cooking and so I expect my workspace to be of a particular cleanliness and organized in a particular way to the point where I know that that's not possible for me.
I have to do all the cleaning so that I know that... And this is the only room that I am this way about. There's something about cooking...
Kristen Juve:
- It's your domain.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, no, but it's something specifically about food touching services and being properly prepped and cared for that I get a little overdone about how things are cleaned and set up and, you know, whatever else. I mean, it's my own thing.
Kristen Juve:
- Don't come over to my house.
Dave Dougherty:
- I'm just fussing, whatever. It's your space, not mine to judge.
Kristen Juve:
- You'd be like blegh...
Dave Dougherty:
- As long as things aren't sticky or greasy, I think, you know, that's fine. Like, if you reach a doorknob and your hand slips, you're like aargh.
Kristen Juve:
- No, doorknobs no. Countertops in the kitchen, probably. No, we usually do a pretty good job cleaning up before people come over, at least like the kitchen. So, you know, there are surfaces that people can like lean on and not be like, what the heck?
Dave Dougherty:
- We’d go eat outside.
Kristen Juve:
- Where? We still have to get patio furniture. I digress. Yeah. So, I do feel like I've gotten really good at understanding my values. That definitely plays a role in my day to day. But I haven't totally figured out how...there's a lot I haven't figured out in this world and I don't think anybody has it figured out.
We're just trying to figure it out and move along and enjoy life. So that's why I'm okay with it.
Balancing Where You Invest Your Energy Throughout the Day
Dave Dougherty:
- So how much of this is related to side projects versus work stuff too?
Kristen Juve:
- It's not separate, right? I mean it is, but it's not. Like, the more I get at my day job, it's like I don't want to say sucked in, but the more work I have to do hands-on at my day job, the more energy that it takes to do that is obviously I'm upping that game.
I'm more on top of it. And then I don't have the energy left over and I would rather spend the energy with my kiddo. So like I think that's where I'm tipping out. Plus I do think...okay, so given my particular niche of knitting, I am a year-round knitter, but I definitely slow down in the summer because it is just like it doesn't lend itself to like posing up on the couch like in the winter or fall or even in early spring than a having a kid.
I can't have a ball of yarn around that kid because she's like “Yeah!” So at some point, I'm going to be able to sit and knit and she's going to be able to like watch TV or play with her toys and I'm going to be like, “Yeah, great!” Hoping it’s soon, which will help me. And I'm not the type that...I'm not going to sit on a computer when my kid's watching TV. Like, if my kid's watching TV, I'm going to cuddle with her and like be present with her because that's important to her.
Dave Dougherty:
- We'll see how that changes.
Kristen Juve:
- It probably will, but right now it's not and I'm okay with that.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. It'll be fascinating to see how that changes.
Kristen Juve:
- Don't get me wrong. If I need to make dinner, I will sit her in front of a TV and I will make us dinner. Like, I will use the TV as like a tool sometimes. I'm not about that.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, so like you said, there's a certain amount of energy. Yeah. I don't lack for the actual energy to get stuff done or the mental power to do it, my problem is the frustration and the anger levels. My ability to deal with BS quickly goes away.
Kristen Juve:
- That is definitely your brand.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Especially if I haven't slept, if I haven't done anything, or if everything I'm trying to do is hampered in some way, then I think the natural response is screwed.
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, that is human nature. Like, you keep hitting blocker after blocker after blocker and you feel like you can't get a win, of course, everyone wants to give up. I think a lot of times it is about accepting it and then like taking some space.
As you said, you'd go for a walk and then come back to it and get your mindset about it, like, okay, I have to get this done, or I have to do this, or this is what I need to do in order to do the thing that I want.
How Do You Get Yourself Out of a Funk?
Dave Dougherty:
- So how do you get yourself out of the funk? You know, because we started out with the premise being doing all the things that are not related to the things that you want to do, right? So if your stated goal is to launch your knitting thing, CastingKnits.com. How do you get past the, okay, I've just spent five days sitting and watching TV?
Kristen Juve:
- Haven't even done that. The house even though is still a f***ing mess. This is the part that I haven't figured out. I don't know. I don't have it figured out. And I think this is why I...this is one of the laundry list of reasons why I'm not super good at launching things is because like I get to a point and I know what's needed for the next steps, I know what I have to do, I know what I want to do, but there's always going to be more things that I need to get done for my personal life or my whatever that I want to take precedent.
So in my head too, I'm like this is... I like to think about my lives in like, my lives, my nine lives, my life in week timeframe so that I can go okay, over the week, like of the five days that I'm thinking of, I spent four doing things with my child and making extra food for some friends that are going to need it and, you know, doing some grocery shopping.
And then that one day, I can bust out a bunch of things because it happens to work with the schedules better for my side stuff. So it's more about the summation of what the week is versus an individual day because I've had to like, think about...for me, it's just like there's a certain point where you like box up time and that's the summation of that indicates that something is "good or bad."
And a day isn't a long enough timeframe for me in order to get that full understanding of if it's good or bad. Does that make any sense?
Dave Dougherty:
- Kind of, but it's far enough beyond the way that I typically think that... I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Why don't you take a second pass?
Kristen Juve:
- Not to product place me here, but if anybody's familiar with Weight Watchers. I don't do Weight Watchers, but I actually eat a lot of their recipes. They're really good. Anyways. They give you a sprint, essentially. So if you're also familiar with Agile methodology, you have a number of points with Weight Watchers in a week, and they do it by week, that you can use up.
So, like on a Monday, you can have ice cream. On a Thursday, you could have more ice cream and you'll stay within that threshold of points for that entire week. And it's just a box of time that's giving you same with sprinting. So if you had two-week sprints, if you're familiar with agile methodology, there's amount of work that you're going to get done.
My thinking is very similar to that. Like, I want to know if something is good or bad. I'm like way over-generalizing, obviously, like good or bad because obviously, it's never that simple, but it's am I happy with my level of success for that week? And I choose a week as a timeframe because, in one day, the answer's always no.
I'm never happy with what I accomplish in one day. But three days, five days, seven days, much more happy that I have the opportunity to get things done the way that I want to get them done. I feel like I'm confusing you more, but you are so familiar with sprinting.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, and so this is my...I really like the agile methodology in terms of scoping work.
Kristen Juve:
- It's literally what I do for my day job.
Dave Dougherty:
- But when it comes to actually like, you know, moving the post-it to done or whatever else, like, no, just tell me the thing that needs to be done. I'll do it. And when it's done, I'll put it in done. And this is where a lot of products...
Kristen Juve:
- You don't want standups, in particular?
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Like, you know, the scrum masters or whatever will be mad at me because, you know, it's like you told me to do the thing, I'm doing the thing. I'll let you know when it's done. Leave me alone.
Kristen Juve:
- You're really only supposed to bring it up if you have any impediments.
Dave Dougherty:
- No, I know, but it's just the, you know, "Okay, move it to the next column." Like, no, I'm not going to get that nit-picky on it. I said I would do it, I'll do it. So that's the thing for me. Like, I can't do the week thing, like the allotted point for a week.
Kristen Juve:
- Okay. I mean, that's fair.
Dave Dougherty:- And this is where the different personalities come in. If I can't have ice cream. I can't have ice cream no matter what day it is.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh my God.
Dave Dougherty:
- And I just have to live my life that way.
Kristen Juve:
- Oh my God.
Dave Dougherty:
- Because otherwise...
Kristen Juve:
- I could never live that way. How could you not have ice cream every single day, or every other day, or every three days?
Dave Dougherty:
- Honestly, I only get ice cream now if I go out and get it. And I go to Dairy Queen or I go to...
Kristen Juve:
- You have very good willpower. I mean, I think I do too. Sorry, I can dream.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, no. But I mean, that's the thing where it's like, okay, I'm making it more difficult for me to go get it. Like, I can't just walk to the fridge and, you know, do a quick little cheat or something, right? Like, I will not eat after 6:00 p.m. I cannot drink caffeine after 12.
I have to be regimented if I'm going to get everything done and this works for me. You know, and I've been accused of being overly brutal and that's fine, but it works for me.
- If it works for you and you're happy with it, I don't think there's anything wrong with it...
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, I'm not saying I'm happy about not eating ice cream every day, but it's...
Kristen Juve:
- I mean, I'm sure the long run we live to be like 99. You'll probably be, like, I'm really glad I didn't eat ice cream every day.
Dave Dougherty:
- I don't know that I want to live that long.
Kristen Juve:
- And me neither, but that's also probably another topic.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. It's just the different personality piece of it. Like, it is either today or it is not. And, you know, I'll have the day where it's like, oh, crap, I had the egg sandwich and the burger, and now I'm going out with friends for dinner. Like, tomorrow is oatmeal and salads.
You know, and it's either all or nothing for me. So, again, we all have our own different things that we have to deal with. But then, you know, getting back into it really is the, okay.
Circling Back Around to Troubleshooting Technology
Dave Dougherty:
- I think you know, circling back around in terms of like troubleshooting with my particular case, my computer, the systems files were taking up two-thirds of the memory.
And I had never run into that, and not only that but like my iCloud was consistently downloading and I had no idea why to the point where, you know, my internet provider was like, "You've used 75% of your monthly allotment."
Like, what? Yeah, I had no idea. And so that was where I had to call and I had to, you know, go through all of that stuff and get through. And it literally was what is the next best thing that I can do in order to get to where I say I wanna get to.
Kristen Juve:
- So you are in motion and you're like what else can I keep doing to stay in motion, essentially?
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. And I think that's probably the best summation of my approach to any, you know, waking moment essentially is, you know, if I stop, I'm done.
Kristen Juve:
- I'm similar to that. And like, okay, I'm very bizarre. When I'm hungry, I have to complete all the things. And I'm hungry and I'm hungry and cranky and everything, but yet I have to keep moving. I have to keep doing things.
And I think it's actually like built in me as a survival thing, because, like, if I were to just give up, I wouldn't eat because I'd be like I'm not going to go catch that lion. I'm done for. I'll just starve. So, I end up like having to really watch that. So if I notice I'm hungry and I start like leaning into everything and doing everything that I'm like, okay, I have to call it at some point.
I have to actually set a timer sometimes. Like yesterday I had to set a timer and be like, when it hits 12:45, you're going to eat lunch because you want to do this right now, but you really should be eating lunch. And so, like, I knew that I had to stop in order to actually take care of myself.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, you know what I did to take care of that problem in terms of like people scheduling stuff over lunch or whatever else? Is for like six months I said lunch is sacred. You're going to invite me to lunch or a lunch meeting, one, I will eat on camera because you schedule it during...
Kristen Juve:
- Oh, totally. I totally eat on camera
Dave Dougherty:
- Two, you'll provide lunch.
Kristen Juve:
- You'll provide lunch.
Dave Dougherty:
- Or you'll be okay with me eating during it because, you know, you're choosing this time when there's obviously other things for you to be doing. Or I'll just say no. Yeah. And after communicating that for long enough...
Kristen Juve:
- Setting boundaries.
Dave Dougherty:
- ...very, very, very rarely do people invite me to anything or even like...
Kristen Juve:
- It's a good boundary.
Dave Dougherty:
- ...11:30 or whatever. It's just like...
Kristen Juve:
- Mine was self-imposed. It was literally my lunch break and I wanted to do something else besides eating. And so I did.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm the...
Kristen Juve:
- It's weird, right?
Dave Dougherty:
- I think I was probably a dog in the past life because it's just, like, it's food time. So, anyway, this will be an interesting episode to see what the reactions are. But so in terms of working on other things.
Kristen Juve:
- If anybody has ideas of how to get back into being motivated or things to try, I'm all ears. I would love to crowdsource some more ideas.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. I'm curious to see how everybody else deals with it too. Because, again, I know I'm like so black and white when it comes to certain things.
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. Your ideas don't help me. I know that if I do start like talking about it, which is why you and I have continued to talk that it helps me. And I know if I talk about it to other people, I get that motivation back too, but it lately hasn't been enough or maybe that's not the problem for me. Maybe I need to like actually sit down and critically think about more of what my problem is of why it's not probably even known.
The 5 Why's Exercise
Dave Dougherty:
- Like five whys. Do you do that exercise? The five whys?
Kristen Juve:
- Probably, but I don't know what this is formally called. Why don't you tell me?
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, so this came out of another former colleague of ours that's in big company now. But he would always bring it up as to, you know, okay, the Washington Monument had a bird poop problem. Why? One, well, there happened to be a lot of, you know, birds around it.
So they are pooping knowing all over it. Okay. Well, why are there a lot of birds there? Well, there are a lot of insects. Well, okay, so why is the food source for all the birds, you know, at the monument? Well, it turns out that because of the way that we're lighting the monument, the bugs are attracted to the lights, and birds are coming to get to the thing, which means they're hanging around and they're pooping on the monument, which is degrading the quality of the monument, yadda, yadda, yadda.
So like the idea behind that, and I know I did four for any of you nit-picky, but just as an example. You know, taking yourself back that way allows you to address...
- I like this exercise. I've never done it. Of course, you would have this exercise.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah.
Kristen Juve:
- I never talked about that.
Dave Dougherty:
- So, you work yourself backward from that to then get to the underlying cause of, okay, you know, I don't want do the social media stuff. Why? You know?
Kristen Juve:
- Yeah. I like this. I'm going to do it.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. Because then it's, okay, I'm trolling myself. Well, why am I trolling myself? Because I'm afraid everybody else is going to make fun of me when I post something online. Well, why is that? Because I've seen everybody be...you know, other people have that happen to them. Like, okay, but what happens to your life if that actually happens?
Nothing. I just sit around and feel bad about myself. Well, that's on you. That has nothing to do with the people online saying, you know, crappy things. That's on them. So, you know, yeah, working yourself backward allows yourself to actually get closer to the real thing, you know? Because obviously we're humans and we'll put up our own mental blocks.
But, you know, if I find instead of just like trying to work it through on my head, like, writing it down.
Kristen Juve:
- Yes, I'm a huge fan.
Dave Dougherty:
- And having a blank piece of paper so that you can, you know, trace it or, you know, actually see it in front of you when you're done.
Kristen Juve:
- Other senses are like bubbles or whatever. Even if it looks stupid afterward, it's so helpful. The process of writing something down, whether it's like on a computer or on an actual piece of paper is so helpful. Okay. I'm going to do this about why I'm not motivated to like work on it. It's going to be like 80-wise probably.
And I'm probably going to have like excuse after excuse after excuse.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, okay, so then you do your project management background, right? Circle the ones that seem to be a common theme, trace the dotted lines until you get to like, you know, the beautiful mind kind of room or, you know, the old cop shows where they have all the things going back and forth.
Yeah. You know, you could circle all those and be like, okay, this seems to be the major problem, you know?
Kristen Juve:
- That sounds like a point.
Dave Dougherty:
- I'm eating ice cream every day, which means my blood sugar's too high, which means I feel blegh.
Kristen Juve:
- I only ate a pint last night.
Dave Dougherty:
- Whatever it is, you know. I know I'm harping on ice cream. I'm not anti-ice cream. I love ice cream.
Kristen Juve:
- No, ice cream is so good.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. When people ask me what my definition of success is, I say eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's like a river otter on the couch. That to me...
- Like the river otter, you just made me think though of like eating Ben and Jerry's while you're sitting in a tube on the river, which sounds even better than on the couch.
Dave Dougherty:
- Exactly.
Kristen Juve:
- That sounds like my dream. Like, that'd be my dream day. Someone brings me ice cream while I get to sit on the river on a floaty.
Dave Dougherty:
- All right. So, now that we've defined your definition of success, then now we can work towards it.
Kristen Juve:
- Exactly.
Dave Dougherty:
- Well, cool. I think it took us a while to get to the meat of the thing, but I think we got there eventually. Thanks to everybody who's hanging around and listening to this and hope you had fun. I've had fun with it at the very least.
Kristen Juve:
- Same. Also, I legit want to crowdsource other ways to motivate or to figure out how to motivate or any other exercises or ideas because I am 100% behind gathering information of what might work for me.
Dave Dougherty:
- Yeah. And, you know, if there are any other episode ideas, hit us up on social...any of the social profiles. Any of the questions, we'd love to do a questions episode. I think I mentioned in the previous one, you know, we have that format for, you know, beginning guitar, and those are some of my favorite ones because it's...especially after you've kind of mastered certain aspects of something, you forget what it's like to be a beginner.
So having those questions, you know, being brought to you is like, "Oh, yeah, that is a good point." The things you take for granted once you have some knowledge and expertise. So, yeah, by all means, send them our way. We'd love to hear from you. See you next week in the next episode.
So, take care.
