Episode 4
The Productivity of Unlearning (Season 2 Eps 4)
What does it truly mean to be productive and accomplish the right things? The answer evolves with age. In our 20s, embracing new experiences and saying "yes" often helps build skills and confidence. However, by our 40s, the focus shifts towards saying "no" more frequently, prioritising our limited time and energy on what truly matters.
In this episode, Daniel Sih and Matt Bain dive into the science of productivity, drawing from over a decade of global coaching and consulting experience. They’ll share valuable insights on how to shed outdated habits and make space for what truly matters at each stage of life.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Spacemakers Productivity Masterclass
Are you smashed for time, overloaded with emails, and struggling to make space? Boost your productivity with our high-value Productivity Masterclass. This online group coaching program helps you build new habits over six months in a supportive environment, led by Daniel Sih. Visit spacemakers.au/masterclass and contact us to start the conversation.
Transcript
[00:00:29] DANIEL: Big thanks to our sponsor, Banjo's Bakery Cafes, who are expanding across Australia and looking for new franchisees. If you've always wanted to work for yourself and want to fast track success, visit franchise. banjos. com. au and save 10 percent on franchise fees by mentioning Spacemakers.
[:[00:00:50] DANIEL: Hey, welcome back everyone to The Spacemakers, a podcast where we talk about how to make space for a meaningful, intentional life. And I'm here with my good [00:01:00] friend and co host Matt Bain. Hi Dan. Hi everyone. Great. And we are here talking about a big idea for season two. We're talking about how to make space for life's inevitable resets.
[:[00:01:41] DANIEL: Yeah, it's a big one. It's a big topic for this series. Another big topic. Yeah, we talked about happiness last time, but this is another one. Yes. So I was thinking about a conversation I had last week. So I have a productivity masterclass, which I run year on year with a few groups of six leaders. And so we meet for just over an hour every fortnight.[00:02:00]
[:[00:02:22] DANIEL: And one of them said a comment that I thought was very relevant to this podcast and I learned something from it. She said, the challenge for me is that. I'm not just learning new habits, but I'm unlearning old ones and that's harder. Yes. Yes. And I thought that was really profound because it's one thing to get information.
[:[00:03:01] DANIEL: But I think that's the process that we all have to journey along as we move from our twenties and thirties to our later life.
[:[00:03:15] MATT: There's nothing to unlearn.
[:[00:03:20] MATT: know, I did. I started a band, the Ramp Shacklers. You never heard of us? We were like old country when it was cool. Was it dad rock? It was pre dad rock.
[:[00:03:32] MATT: I
[:[00:03:34] MATT: Alternative
[:[00:03:52] DANIEL: I was smart at reading the play. I was fairly good at, you know, let's say ball skills and knowing how to shoot. But when I hit university, [00:04:00] not only am I not kind of big enough for water polo, but I just couldn't keep up with the pace. It doesn't matter how good you are with ball skills and how smart you are, you actually have to be able to swim as fast as everyone else.
[:[00:04:25] DANIEL: We used to swim like Tuesdays and Thursdays and there were a whole heap of great swimmers. And someone once said to me, you know, Dan, you actually. I don't know how to swim. Can I teach you? Which is a little bit offensive when you've played water polo for quite a few years. But honestly, she was completely right.
[:[00:05:01] DANIEL: Flat with stuff. Exactly. And look, I, it was fine when I was just swimming in school, but I had to unlearn that. And what was super hard is she basically made me stop swimming quickly and I had to literally go back. all the way to like A, B, C, D, so I could learn how to swim again. And it felt unnatural. It was just, it was weird.
[:[00:05:43] DANIEL: And how to reshape what it means to get the right things done. Yeah, that's great. So you and I have talked about how would we describe that overarching shift from being productive and successful when we're young to reshaping and relearning productivity when we're older. And it's [00:06:00] essentially about going from saying yes to everything to start saying no to a lot more to be more selective.
[:[00:06:24] MATT: Yeah, yeah. That's right. So like, you know, we've heard plenty of American podcasts probably and American authors like use that baseball analogy, right? So swing at everything when you're young. And then when you're older. Be a lot more selective doesn't quite work with a cricket bat. Doesn't it doesn't, but the thing that I really like about that analogy is that swinging after a while and everything else becomes instinctive.
[:[00:06:49] DANIEL: Yeah. So at the start, you literally swing, swing, swing, and then you tidy it up. Yeah, that makes sense. So we're going to go into detail about this stuff, but why don't we pause and. [00:07:00] Feedback on the activity from last time.
[:[00:07:21] MATT: So the call was book something in with them, like a regular. fortnightly, monthly, quarterly activity that involves some face to face interaction and be intentional about that. So use our action triggers, time, place, and have a good plan as to how you're going to do it, but then put it in your calendar.
[:[00:07:40] DANIEL: It's a pattern. Yeah. That's the key. Make it a pattern. Don't just assume that friendship will happen by being spontaneous because it's getting harder and harder for that, particularly as you kind of get busy with life and family. Yeah. Create a rhythm, even if it's an occasional rhythm, even quarterly, you know, if you catch up with someone four times a year and have a really meaningful conversation, a beer, [00:08:00] a meal or a bushwalk, it'll actually significantly increase your relationships as opposed to hoping you'll catch up every six to 12 months.
[:[00:08:18] MATT: And I reckon that's 99. 9 percent of us, 99. 2
[:[00:08:23] MATT: I would say, be more accurate Matt.
[:[00:08:38] MATT: Yeah, that's good. Yeah.
[:[00:08:45] DANIEL: did you go with that activity?
[:[00:09:05] MATT: So I worked out a rhythm. So we're going to be looking at booking something in like a restaurant meal, effectively like same time every month. For the remainder of the year, starting next month. So I just sent out a group text saying, Hey everyone, be great to see you. This particular restaurant, this particular time, and I'm gonna try to keep it on this pattern.
[:[00:09:24] DANIEL: Okay. How about you? So, okay, I'm a geek, I'm a productivity guy, right? So I thought, how would I approach this? Mm-Hmm. using my strengths, we'll call 'em strengths, although they're really neuroticism, , and, uh, that's right. And so reframe. It's a good start, man.
[:[00:09:52] DANIEL: So I figured if my current state is, you know, I've got old friends. Lots of people I care about, but honestly, I've been so busy. I have not had the types of [00:10:00] community and relationship that I had even three or four years ago, pre COVID.
[:[00:10:03] DANIEL: I think I lost some of my social muscles actually by going into isolation.
[:[00:10:23] DANIEL: And they're kind of in my future state. I won't tell them that. Uh, but if you're listening to the podcast and I've given you a phone call, you can go, you can guess what list you're on. But anyway, the point is I, I want to start actively pursuing a coffee with someone, you know, once a month, that doesn't sound like a lot, but you know, that's 12 coffees with 12 different people.
[:[00:10:57] MATT: But yeah, yeah. And now what, you've kind of committed to it. And I'm just [00:11:00] letting you know, we won't be catching up again. Well, that's okay. It saves me from telling you that I won't be seeing you at dinner. So yeah, I didn't get
[:[00:11:17] DANIEL: right. So let's look at our framework. I mean, you and I are in the business of productivity, coaching, training, consulting. So we've worked with thousands of different people over the years, obviously read a stack of stuff on productivity. And you know, when we talk about how would we put productivity as a framework into this idea that life changes in your 20s and 30s to 40s, 50s, 60s.
[:[00:11:58] DANIEL: Yeah, that's it. That's it. [00:12:00] Look, so when I was young, someone once said to me, just give everything a go. You know, they didn't say, say yes to everything, but the premise was you're young. You've got no responsibilities. You've got a bit of disposable income. You've got heaps of energy. Just do stuff, you know, travel the world.
[:[00:12:44] DANIEL: Part of what I would say is try lots of stuff, you know, say yes to a lot of things and build valuable skills and experiences along the way. Yeah. So get a lot of stuff done. Get a lot of stuff done. A wide spread of a lot [00:13:00] of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Which makes a lot of sense, right? You've got the energy. Yeah. You don't know a lot of stuff and you don't actually really know your strengths.
[:[00:13:12] MATT: Yeah, that's good. And also the only thing that I'd add is that. Commonly, typically, not always, but typically in that stage of life, you just haven't got the same amount of responsibilities and dependents that you may have later on.
[:[00:13:40] DANIEL: Like if you lose it all at 22. Start again. Yeah. I mean, like it, it still feels risky, but it's a different layer of risk. Yeah. So that's the time you want to start building up your risk muscles.
[:[00:14:00] MATT: for like a year or one bedroom, like apartment and really eat nothing but rice for a year. Right. So after you've done that, you will always have a good idea of what like worst case scenario is. And when you're young again,
[:[00:14:14] DANIEL: Cause then you can say to your kids later on, Oh, mate, guys, you complain about everything. You're so entitled. When I was young, I used to live in my car. Oh, there
[:[00:14:22] DANIEL: can give that a go. Um, but But that's the first bit of advice. Okay. When you're young, try lots of stuff. Say yes to stuff, build skills.
[:[00:14:50] DANIEL: The first one we'll talk about is developing basic systems, and the second one we'll talk about later is the different types of intelligence that happen. Yeah. So in [00:15:00] terms of the first thing you and I would say is when you're in your twenties and thirties, while you want to say yes to a lot of stuff, you still need to build basic productivity systems.
[:[00:15:30] DANIEL: And so you might as well start to build a container for yourself in terms of productivity that you can build on and shape later on. What I mean by that is when I put it all together as a system, and then that foundation will allow you to launch into whatever area of life you want to extend into.
[:[00:15:52] MATT: Does that make sense? It makes complete sense. That's great. Yeah. So basically like that foundation that you're building, putting those tracks in, it's going to serve you for a long time.
[:[00:16:05] DANIEL: the first thing. The second thing. is about recognizing the change that will happen in your intelligence. And you, you might want to explain that because that will set us up for how we shape things in our forties, fifties, sixties.
[:[00:16:18] MATT: um, so like, I think like the big message is whilst we're talking about a change, we're talking about a change that will lead from having particular strengths because of our physiology in the first, again, twenties and thirties to having a different kind of strength in our, you know, forties onwards.
[:[00:16:50] MATT: Yeah.
[:[00:17:09] MATT: 40.
[:[00:17:32] MATT: to the early fifties and after that. So, and this all comes back to our physiology.
[:[00:17:39] MATT: because
[:[00:17:52] DANIEL: Is that where that's coming from? Yeah.
[:[00:18:05] MATT: And this is all from a book that we've both read from strength of strength by Arthur Brooks. So Brooks talks about the two different types of intelligence. Okay. So he doesn't like, he says that the, the old kind of paradigm of just saying, if you like raw IQ is too simplistic. So based on a bunch of different research that he cites and that he studied, he's, he describes the first kind of intelligence as fluid.
[:[00:18:46] MATT: Yes. You can learn a bit fast. You can learn really, really fast. Yeah. So you can learn very, very quickly and you can recall things quickly. And also critically there's, there's a function that's associated with the prefrontal cortex, which is all about inhibiting [00:19:00] our ability to be distracted easily, so I can shut that down.
[:[00:19:04] DANIEL: Yeah. Okay. So this is why when I was younger, I could study with music on. Yeah. Or I could drive with music on and actually feel like it helped enhance my driving, for example. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's right. Now, actually, I find too much noise is actually harder to deal with because my brain has changed.
[:[00:19:20] MATT: Yeah. Yeah. So like pretty much we're talking about multitasking and I know to some, you know, to some degree that's a complete fallacy in and of itself. There's no such thing, but our ability to be able to tolerate different stimuli at the same time decreases with age.
[:[00:19:50] MATT: I can't multitask, I can't focus 'cause I'm older.
[:[00:20:15] DANIEL: So what you're doing is your brain is context switching like a metronome left, right, left, right. The only difference when you have fluid intelligence and you're younger is that flipping and that context switching. doesn't seem to have as much cost. So you can look like you're doing these multiple things at the same time because it doesn't hurt your brain as much.
[:[00:20:44] MATT: Yeah.
[:[00:20:45] MATT: it's good. I almost feel like we should have like a PSA announcement down the bottom of the screen here.
[:[00:20:58] DANIEL: looks [00:21:00] like, it looks like you can get away with rapid context switching. Yeah. Just like you can get away with sugar.
[:[00:21:24] MATT: They can file them super quickly. And then when it comes to pulling those books out, my librarian can quickly and nimbly go and grab the, retrieve the book straight away and bring it back to me. So that's all great. But then again, for most of us. come the late thirties, all the way through to the early fifties at latest, all of us suffer a degradation of our prefrontal cortex.
[:[00:22:03] MATT: Again, my librarian will be hobbling around going through all these books, trying to retrieve the book all about Top Gun Maverick. Okay. And bring it back here. So. My, so what I used to be able to do with my fluid intelligence is now rapidly declining, and that's really frustrating. That's really scary. It means I literally can't keep up with my younger self.
[:[00:22:41] MATT: And again, Brooks like terms that based on his research and his studies of other people's studies, he calls that crystallized intelligence. Okay. Crystallized intelligence. And he gives a lot of examples of usually as you get older, you actually get more articulate and increased vocab. That seems to go with older age and crystallized intelligence.
[:[00:23:22] MATT: Over the years, and also interpreting what it is that we've learnt and collected and then passing it on, communicating and conveying it. So the benefit of the
[:[00:23:48] DANIEL: Yeah. And end up basically teaching, coaching, creating, as a result of it, which is probably closer to what the ancients would call wisdom. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So while there's a [00:24:00] disadvantage, it's not like sports. If you're an elite athlete, you eventually lose the ability to perform at that high level. Yeah.
[:[00:24:24] MATT: whole lot of other tasks.
[:[00:24:33] DANIEL: productivity very specifically? Yeah.
[:[00:24:51] MATT: So with our crystallized intelligence, we want to kind of focus our efforts in such a way that's consistent and conducive with that rather than doubling down and just trying harder [00:25:00] to kind of restart and rejig. Absolute intelligence. I'm showing my
[:[00:25:15] DANIEL: Like there's, in the sense of you start to work to your strengths and you start changing the way you work in order to get benefits of who you are now, but that requires unlearning what you used to do. And if we go back to the multitasking analogy, I can't believe I brought up Rocky. But um, as we go back to the multitasking analogy, yeah, rapid context switching.
[:[00:25:55] DANIEL: Otherwise you literally will end up just going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing and your [00:26:00] ability to perform will consistently decline and you'll feel like you're overwhelmed, stretched, busier and more reactive than ever before, but not necessarily achieving what matters. Cause like you fundamentally have to start saying no to a whole lot of.
[:[00:26:30] DANIEL: So that only occurs if you can discipline yourself to start pushing away from the multitasking churn of life. That's a big, big thing.
[:[00:27:07] DANIEL: What does success look like from a productivity perspective when you're in the midlife slump? So why don't we start with crystallized intelligence? We've already talked about it a bit, but is there anything else you'd specifically say to someone you?
[:[00:27:29] MATT: But then they made this big shift again in their, you know, mid, midlife slump kind of age. So like in their forties and got involved in the health, like, you know, doing frontline health work. And I remember they told me when the first couple of weeks on the job and they were side by side with all these really much younger peers, again, been all through the same training pathway, had the same level of education now first day, like on the actual job.
[:[00:28:11] MATT: I can't even keep up like with the younger version of me. I would've, I would've been so much better at this like 10 years ago. Later on when it came to the actual, like personal patient. care, my friend had all this experience and accumulated wisdom because of their past career to be able to draw on, put together and synthesize.
[:[00:29:08] DANIEL: Your new formed level of intelligence. Yes. That's right. So that's the first thing. And the second thing we talked about is systems. Yes. And this is where, you know, my, the bread and butter of what I do is train and coach and work with senior leaders and professionals who are trying to work out how do I get space in my life because they find themselves having been successful through their twenties and thirties established near the top of their various careers or professions and absolutely smashed for time, struggling to get.
[:[00:29:55] DANIEL: And so I've traditionally talked about four foundational [00:30:00] ideas when it comes to. the basis of productivity. You know, we talked about even in your 20s, I think you need these four ideas, but I add a fifth when it comes to the midlife slump. So the four would be, we used to call the cope habits, capture, organize, plan and execute.
[:[00:30:31] DANIEL: Even if you have fluid intelligence, it's just a dumb idea because your working memory should be used for other things. And so you need a way of capturing those inputs in a particular place or a few places so that you can outsource your memory and increase your capacity to deal with stuff. So that's the same for everyone.
[:[00:31:11] DANIEL: That's again for everyone. So that you can achieve the things that matter most day by day. Okay, so number three is plan or multi level planning. So you basically need to plan your year, your week, your day, rather than just turn up and see what's in email, and see what happens in your calendar in terms of meetings, and let that shape your day.
[:[00:31:49] DANIEL: Yep. You know, strategies you might've heard of like eat the frog or Pomodoro. There's lots of strategies and that would include processing your inbox to zero using our email ninja methodologies.
[:[00:32:00] DANIEL: If you want to pretend to multitask, Matt, you can at any age, but those things are foundational for anyone.
[:[00:32:24] DANIEL: Because the biggest problem that leaders face is that They just have too many commitments. You can organize the heck out of yourself and have all the right efficiency systems in place. But if you have 120 percent or 130 percent commitment overload, it doesn't matter what system you have. You won't be productive.
[:[00:33:01] DANIEL: So essentially when we hit our forties, fifties, you know, and we're in highly kind of responsible roles, you have to spend a whole lot of time reducing commitments and that takes a lot of practice. To say no to a whole lot of stuff, which involves not just eliminating and subtracting responsibilities, which I think is very, very important, or even automating using technology.
[:[00:33:46] DANIEL: I mean, have you seen that with people you've worked with? Oh
[:[00:34:09] MATT: And that's what makes it really, really
[:[00:34:41] DANIEL: Uh, so if you're interested, it's all free. Go to spacemakers. au forward slash no, that's spacemakers. au forward slash no, you'll get the free book and a free audio book narrated by yours truly. Uh, if you want to hear more of my voice, but, uh, it's just one hour and it will be super helpful.
[:[00:35:10] MATT: He writes, When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option. No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility. Be careful what and who you say yes to. It will shape your day, your career, your family, your life. So let's take 30 seconds, sit, have a reflect and process what we've talked about thus far.[00:36:00]
[:[00:36:36] MATT: But as usual, we want to make it really practical and really concrete too, so we've got our two exercises. One for those of you who are in your twenties and thirties, and one for those of you who are in your forties and fifties. So the first one, if you're in your twenties and thirties, again, this is all about, if you like, and we've used this analogy before, this picture before, building your container in the earlier part of life.
[:[00:37:18] MATT: Okay. So like you could say, it's an appropriate, suitable stretch. If you're in your forties, your fifties, again, like chances are, as we've already discussed, if you're like us, you're already feeling overloaded. and far too stretched. So we'd like you to say no, again, appropriately, appropriately to as many things as possible this week.
[:[00:37:59] MATT: And again, we'd [00:38:00] strongly encourage you to jump on the YouTube channel.
[:[00:38:16] DANIEL: Like I think every. Four weeks or something just on the weekend, but they weren't getting away. So that was there. No, others have said no to bigger things. I've been asked to take on projects or new responsibilities, and they've actually found a way of saying no. And they've often come back and said, Hey, I'm surprised that.
[:[00:38:54] DANIEL: Commit to something today. If you're older and you feel overwhelmed, And you've already got a lot of [00:39:00] opportunities in life, take the risk and say no to something, even if that means delegating, outsourcing, eliminating, automating, it could be a strategy to help you get there. And if you really want to dive deep into this, download my ebook and audio book at spacemakers.
[:[00:39:40] DANIEL: Yeah, that's right. Working on our social fitness. Social fitness based on the research. I'm really looking forward to this. And until next time, make space. See ya, Rowan.
[:[00:39:52] DANIEL: A warm thanks to our sponsor, Banjo's Bakery Cafes, who are expanding across Australia and looking for new franchisees.
[:[00:40:10] NARRATOR: you'd like to support this podcast, share an episode with a friend, leave a review, or subscribe to our blog post at spacemakers. au. Until next time, make space.
