Deep Work, Productivity Hacks, & Sleep Training

Colin and Brent discuss their deep work approach, productivity hacks, and sleep training

Apple Podcast / Spotify / Google Play / Overcast

Snoo Smart Sleeper Baby Bassinet Brent reviews.

Sign up for Colin's cohort-based course on acquisitions.

Enroll in Colin's Micro-PE Course & Community at IndiePE.com.

Reach out if you want some tech and product diligence done.

Reach out to Colin Keeley and Brent Sanders on Twitter with any feedback.

Sell your SaaS at VerneHQ.com

[00:00:00] Colin Keeley: Hello, and welcome back. This is Colin Keely here,

[00:00:03] Brent Sanders: And I'm Brent Sanders.

[00:00:05] Colin Keeley: and we are two guys buying and building wonderful internet companies.

[00:00:08] Brent Sanders: Yeah. And this week was a holiday week. Did you have a good fourth?

[00:00:12] Colin Keeley: I did, I stuck around here. I have a buddy whose family runs, like a barbecue. Chain and they, they sold off a couple years ago, but for the last 15 years, he's cooked like, or smoked 15, 50 pounds of meat every year around the fourth he wakes up at, I think he wakes up at 4:00 AM to turn the smoker on, goes back to bed for an hour and then puts the meat on at five.

And then it's like throughout the day, know, the ribs come out first as an appetizer at like two. And then it's like, , the pulled pork. And then the final is the brisket at like 8:00 PM. So that's my, , usual.

[00:00:46] Brent Sanders: Is there a lot of drinking, I've always associated people who run the smoker as like an excuse to just drink all day. Is, is that the case in his, even on a holiday, I'm sure people do it for a job and that that's rough, but is he heavy drinker?

[00:00:58] Colin Keeley: No he's super fit. He's like very into Olympic weight lifting and. Very muscular and not like a fat, Olympic weightlifter, like you kind imagine. So you actually, if you have a lot of muscle mass, you could drink, quite a bit, cuz that's what kind of processes? Alcohol.

But I don't know. People drink throughout the day. No, one's like, everyone's kinda old now. No, one's at sloppy.

[00:01:18] Brent Sanders: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I, I just always associate that like down home, sitting by the smoker, crushing a case of beer or something like that. Cause it just takes all day, but that's awesome. Oh,

[00:01:30] Colin Keeley: if anything, it's more like, I don't know, like the back of a kitchen, like people are frantic running around, like he's grabbing people. Like it's a, a big operation and it's like, is this fun? Are you having fun? This seems very stressful.

[00:01:44] Brent Sanders: oh man.

[00:01:45] Colin Keeley: but you have a good fourth.

[00:01:47] Brent Sanders: Yeah. Yeah. It was, childcare stuff, keeping the kids away from my son and, actually just turned three yesterday. And he, he's totally afraid of the fireworks. Like I thought he would, , start to be interested, but he's just like, I don't like the noise, so it was a lot of, , sleeping in bed together and, putting them to bed late after all the fireworks went away and turning, turning like multiple sound machines on, he wasn't a fan, but yeah, we had had a great, great time had great weather, can't complain.

[00:02:14] Colin Keeley: Hi. Nice. It sounds like you've been doing some reading over the holiday.

[00:02:18] Brent Sanders: I have, but before we talk about that, going back to sleep, that that was the kind of my huge achievement. So, my son is three. He sleeps every night in his own bed, in a big boy bed. This is, we did sleep training with him when he was only a couple months old. Went through that and my daughter is eight months old and has been like attached.

To my wife and my wife took me aside on, I think it was like Tuesday morning. She was like, This has to stop. Like I need help, and it's like part, because she travels with her. She's brought her on a, a work trip to Belgium. She's brought her, she goes to Chicago every other week or so for, to be at her office.

And, she still runs her business. I'm in, we're in Cleveland. We raise our family there, but her office is her business is growing and thriving and she's gotta be there, right? Like she's gotta do face to face meetings. She's gotta do performance review. She's gotta work with her team. So she just has been bringing the little baby, but she's getting big and she's like, I just can't, can't keep doing it.

And so she's kind of created, I'm not pointing fingers, but she's kind of created this, like, mom's the pacifier thing. And so she has like this baby attached for all the time. And she's like, I just can't and I'm like, okay, let's, let's do it. Let's do the sleep training. We did it with our son.

We, we went through that and I shit, you not, within one day, She was like slept through the night in the crib. So last night she slept through the night in the crib all by herself. And so what I wanna do is talk a little bit about that. Cause I know some people in our audience they've got kids, maybe they're about to, or or in the future are gonna run through this and sleep.

As as you talk about it, it's like probably would you say it's the most important thing? It's like one of the, we need sleep. We need food, water and shelter.

[00:03:55] Colin Keeley: Yeah, I would say, I mean, it impacts everything else in your life and it's probably the easiest thing. I mean, I, I say it's easiest. I don't have any kids. But it's like the most under your control to really nail, and then it puts you up to eat better for sure. And like focus on your work and do better work.

It's way easier to exercise. If you slept all the night before and everything kind of falls down from there to me.

[00:04:16] Brent Sanders: Yeah, which, if you've got, you know, even just one and you're, you're getting, so when they, when the kids come out, they can't sleep, through the night, so right. You can't expect that. So you're gonna get a couple months of like, they're up every two hours. Cause they they're little, tiny bellies, only hold like an ounce of food.

So they they're hungry every two hours. I'm not talking about that. You can't really, I don't think you can really sleep, train those kids. But once they're getting a little older and they can actually. So once, I don't know, four to six months, my daughter's eight months. Like she can definitely make it through night.

She's eating solid food now. She's it's adorable. She got one little tooth coming out the bottom of her, her mouth. It's challenging. Cause they scream their fucking heads off. They're just scream, scream, screaming your face. And it's easy to like get frustrated. And so I wanted share my tips. Number one is invest in a, or, or use whether you have noise canceling headphones or something.

Use that as a way to start this, cuz it, it can be, infuriating just to have a, a kid screaming in your face at like eight when you're, you're ready to go to bed and for hours, as it can go. And so that's one thing is, either ear plugs, it can just help give you this leg up to, to not let the, the screaming get in your, get to you.

Cause eventually will. You're tired. But the, the main thing that I would, I would pull from is Dr. Harvey carp. He's got this, this method called the five SS. He's got a company called the happiest baby. They created this, bassinet. That's like intelligent, right? It's like connected to the internet. And, but it it'll detect the screaming and, and it has like these different like motions that it will do.

It's, it's basically a robotic baby bassinet that will put your kid to sleep in like the safest way possible.

[00:05:58] Colin Keeley: Are you talking about the SN oh,

[00:06:00] Brent Sanders: SN yes. Okay. I'm glad you know about this. So you know about the

[00:06:03] Colin Keeley: swear by it. I, on Twitter. Yeah. Everyone buys it or rents it. You only need it for like a few months or something. Right. But it's like a, $1,500. So, the pro tip I've seen on Twitter is you buy it used and sell it used. And then you're basically, even.

[00:06:19] Brent Sanders: like we've done. We bought one, actually someone bought one for us and then we've shared it with every single one of our friends. So it's like, Cousin max got it. One of Elizabeth's employee has it now who's just about to have a kid. And so I, before I even get into my tips, that's like a leg up. You can also give yourself, especially the first day you come home.

If you're anything like me, you're holding this thing. And you're like, how do I not? Like you can't leave it somewhere. You just don't really know what to do. And so it has these like strapping Velcro, like a onesie that you basically put it in and the baby's there and it's secure and safe. And so it's like, I can rest and start to understand how this is gonna work.

So, after a couple days you're gonna get used to it. So fast forward to they get out of the Snoo and now you gotta get 'em into a crib. If you're like us, you may have fallen into this trap of like they're in your bed. And then, sleep might be okay. Like my daughter was sleeping pretty good in our bed, but it was like, I actually had to sleep in another bed, which that affects our marriage.

Like three months of sleeping in separate beds. I felt like an old married couple, like ships passing in the night starts to kind. We, you start to realize like, oh, we, we're kind of like more like roommates than, than a married couple. So, but the first thing is check out Harvey carp. And what I'm gonna talk about are just his methods.

So, there's the five S's he has. And so the first one swaddle, if you swaddle, this is like, a way of wrapping the baby up. So they're tight and they can't move their arms and legs. I mean, they can where they can just wiggle. They can't like. What they do is they'll slap themselves, wake 'em up.

So learn how to swaddle, practice it, go on YouTube and just practice when they're awake. And you'll see that they'll start to like follow the motions with you. And they love it. So it gives 'em that, that like, I don't know, feeling of kind of, you're trying to get kind of make them feel like they're back in the womb, which sounds weird, but is it really is.

It's like, it's where you're trying to get to. So swaddle is the first one practice. This, the second one is side, right? So it was side or basically like get them on their side. So this is not before when they're sleeping, but you hold them like that football pose. And you wanna basically get 'em on their side, off their back.

So they they're kind of used to, again, getting back to like, what is that feeling? They were back in the womb. Third ass is shush, and this is like, this one works. Brilliantly, especially on my daughter, but, and it's, it's basically like, like the sound sh and I'll do it pretty loud and not like right in her ear, but to the point where it's like, it's, it feels like, that's the loudest thing in the room and at the same time swing.

So the, the fourth S is to swing. So not shake, do not shake babies. But swing, give them this sort of like motion. That's what this Snoo kind of does. It, it like wiggles and it. It has three settings, the highest setting. It looks like it's shaking the shit outta the baby, but it's not, it's, it's, , it's a swing, but yeah.

Do it to your own, be very careful, do not shake a child, but swing and you wanna give them at the same time where you either SWD up on their side, you're shushing them and swinging them. And with those four. They'll they'll, they'll keep screaming, but eventually they'll get tired. Like you're an adult, you've got way more energy than they do, even if it's one in the morning and you're tired and angry, like there are these little beans and they can only do it for a couple of hours at most.

So the rigmarole is. You get into this motion. The, the fifth one is suck. Like if you have a Binky, you give 'em something to suck on. My daughter doesn't touch a Binky she's she gets offended. Cuz she thinks you're giving her a fake nipple and she'll like, throw it back at your, know, it will set her off.

So we just don't even try. But this was the thing like the other night we, we got into a routine, the other things that help. Bath time, get into a routine of, of doing a bath before bed to like you're gonna put her down at 8, 7 30 S bath time feeding and try to get into a routine. It will build that, that capability.

But here's how it'll go. It's like, she'll start, you put her down in the crib, screams her head off. You go in the other room for 10 minutes, set a timer. You go in there after 10 minutes and go through the five S's it'll take about 20 minutes. Right? You, you, you, you start with a pretty heavy swing and you start you slowly.

So she'll stop crying. She'll start going back. And then you might try to sit down and rocker. And if you've like earned the, the trust, she'll let you do that. But if not, you're back on your feet and be ready to kind of go back to square one at all times, you're gonna go forward and back, and that's this whole dance.

She'll start to fall asleep. The baby will start to fall asleep and we'll eventually do, and then you'll hear this, like this like deep breath of like after maybe five minutes, 10 minutes, no crying. That's that like the point where you're like, okay, making progress. That's the, the first checkpoint you want, you can try to put 'em down.

If there anything like my daughter or my son they'll immediately start screaming. They'll wake up, scream their fucking heads off. You'll get really mad and you'll go ahead and just get outta the room and set the timer again. And so you rinse and repeat this and just be ready to do this like five times, and or all night, because that's where your head goes after you do it twice.

You're like, oh my God, it's nine 30. I've been doing this for an hour and a half. And they're not gonna sleep, but what you will run into is they will eventually tie her out. And so the last one for my daughter was, put her down after the whole rigmarole, the five SS she's sleeping, she does the big breath and then put her down and she still woke up the last time, but she was just like, ah, it was just such a half ass cry.

She was so tired. She had basically fallen asleep five times and woken up five times. And then finally. Slept through the night. So it, your mileage may vary. Don't come after me. If like your kid wakes up anyways, it, it will, my son took months of this where he would just not sleep. So, again, just recap five S's Dr.

Harvey carp, the guy who made this SN he's written books on this, he he's the real deal. Don't waste your time with anything else. I shouldn't say anything else. Every kid's different, but. It's it's something that definitely like, I'm very thankful for his teachings and it it's really been a life save.

[00:12:23] Colin Keeley: So, so when people say sleep training, is this what they're referring to? The five S is.

[00:12:28] Brent Sanders: Not always like it, this is a big part of it. This is like getting them to sleep, sleep training, I think is also building a schedule like a, a consistent and reliable schedule, which at each age, like we hired a sleep consultant for Oliver. Like we were so bad at it and we're so dejected that we're like, we just need help.

And so. She was great. She came in and met with us and helped us build a schedule. That was, that was really the, the training part of it is like every single day on clock, like, like clockwork at a certain time, you're going to the tub, and, and so on and so forth. So I think the, what I call sleep training as, as a whole is like these techniques to like, get them back to sleep is critical, but then I'm not going to deviate.

And so what I think that really means is. Like I said, my wife travels like no more travel. The baby's not going with you every single night. They're gonna be home in the same bed for, a certain amount of time. Usually, with my son, we were afraid to do it, to, to do anything after like six months.

But, I think it's building, building a habit and a routine for them.

[00:13:33] Colin Keeley: Yeah, it's not that different than like adult sleep hygiene, just like the being very regular, doing everything the same every night, know, is kind of the best practice there as well.

[00:13:43] Brent Sanders: Yeah. I think the, the thing that I would say it's. It goes from my understanding, it was, four to seven months old and then like eight to 15 months. And then like 16 to 24, there were three stages. And part of this, I shouldn't even, I should be clear as like, when I say schedule, I do mean bedtime routine, but also like you gotta get 'em up at a certain time cuz that will also shift things.

And they're all also changing, but like, feedings at certain times, naps at certain times, And bedtime routines at certain times. So it's like, it's all connected. Just to shout out to the lady who helped us, her, she has a company called swell being, which is just like a support resource. You can pay her.

She's incredibly nice to come to your house and tell you how to put your kids to bed. And she knows what she's talking about, but she's like, and I don't wanna speak for her. And I don't remember her name offhand apologies, but shout out's wellbeing. The techniques part of, of like, Hey, once you're in that bedtime routine in like they're screaming their heads off and it's one in the morning, go back to the five S's that stuff's gold,

[00:14:43] Colin Keeley: Awesome. Any other knowledge you wanna drop on? The sleep

[00:14:46] Brent Sanders: On the sleep thing. And then it, when it doesn't work or when you're doing all this stuff, like, if you're going through the, or anything like me, you're going through this and then, 8:00 AM you gotta go to the office and you gotta try to work and code or use your brain. I can't recommend 15 minute nap schedules, like the 15, like 15 minutes, whether it's on a couch or in a chair or under your desk, like.

Get it when you can, if you, if you're not getting sleep, like some people, I know some people are like, oh my wife, she just takes the kids and hands, it it's like, good luck. You're gonna get divorced. But like the resentment. When there's a kid screaming in your face. You're not thinking about the kid being mean, you're thinking about the other person sleeping.

let's be honest. You want, you just wanna stab them and give them the kid. And so it's a lot of resentment. So, my recommendation, if you're doing this as a partner, be a partner, take part in it, on, both sides, but usually women get, get stuck with this and. With two working parents, you gotta get, you gotta be able to catch up on that sleep.

You're never gonna get it. You're never gonna get that the eight hours, but then coping mechanisms around this is, is definitely like gotta stay healthy, no drinking, for sure. Like, it's a great way to get sick and, and kind of lose your head, but then 15 minute naps during your day. Like if you're at you gotta go to the office and, and try to be functional, like.

15 minutes. I mean, I don't know if you remember seeing me at builders, I'd be at the office, like just escape for a quick 15 minute nap. Not nothing more than that. I wouldn't ever try to do 30 minutes cuz then you're tired,

[00:16:13] Colin Keeley: Were you a nap in

[00:16:15] Brent Sanders: yeah, I would nap. I don't know if you remember. They were like back in Paul's office, he had a, a couch and it was like, you couldn't see anything back there.

I would just sneak in there cuz he was, he was not

[00:16:24] Colin Keeley: funny. I, no, I never knew. Yeah. I always thought that was,

[00:16:29] Brent Sanders: Yeah. I had like the, the HR firing room essentially or whatever, but yeah, there was like a little, couch in there and just, 10, 15 minutes just recharge and get back at it. And just don't, don't focus on, on the lack of sleep, focus on getting that 15 minutes and recharging your batteries. I, I, I don't know. I would just say I would encourage, encourage, people to, to check out, the SN the, Harvey car, the SNS. Great. But it like gives you this false sense, security that like, when we put our daughter, it's like, oh, it worked great. We thought like, oh, this, she sleeps right out of the.

Right outta the womb. She's she's sleeper, she's a champ. And then it's like, she gets out of it and it's like, oh my God. But you know, I, I think a lot of people I've been thinking about this a lot, but I do think a lot of people have kids and they just are like, we'll figure it out. And then they get into it and balancing a career and trying to stay like a high achiever.

In your career. It, it can be, you're like, oh fuck, I need sleep. I can't do this. And you have to almost like accept that you can do less and just know like you're making wonderful people like, and that's the priority right now. And it's the thing that keeps me. From losing my mind on like the anxiety of work stress, or like the expectations I set for myself is like, Hey, this is just temporary.

They're gonna learn how, like, they're gonna, there'll be three year olds before you know it and they'll sleep through the night. And you won't actually remember any of this pain, which is funny as we're talking about it. I remember it being like agonizing, but it's like, I don't think about that pain at all.

It it's just something you go through and, you're, you're think of the big picture. You're making great humans. We need more great humans.

[00:18:08] Colin Keeley: Yeah, it's definitely an issue. I mean, the, newborn rate is very, very low. I like way below, replacement level is what they say. And you can only import for so long. And then the other countries also fall, as they get wealthier and wealthier. So, you're doing, America proud producing those babies.

[00:18:26] Brent Sanders: Yeah. Yeah. But, on the same tip of like going into what I'm reading, one thing that I started recently was this book called make time to switch gears, which is funny, cuz it's kind of related to, was like my days. I used to be able to work 12 hours a day. Like I'd work a normal day, go home, work out, make dinner, and then work another three hours or something before having kids.

And it's like, I've expected that for myself for some reason, or like, it's just been a, a tough transition. And so finding strategies kind of get more done in less time has been a, a constant struggle over the last three years or not struggle, but like a curiosity. So this is a book from Jake nap, which at Jake nap in this guy, John TKI, Jake NA wrote a book about, the product design sprint, kind of a pioneer at Google ventures.

Man, we, we did, I've done about a dozen or so of those sprints and it's a great technique. So he's like this really bright mind. And it's more so a book about him and another gentleman I think was also at Google ventures, John SRAs, who they just, again are high achievers and they've compared notes as to like, how they spend their time, how do they, how do they get everything done?

Maintain like high throughput, but without like being a complete psycho, like scheduling every single minute of your day. And they, I just wanna talk about some of the, the things I've read. Which were, were funny, like at first there's they kind of go through labeling, what are the things out there in the environment?

They have this thing that they call the busy bandwagon, which is this, they call this culture of our constant busyness, the inflowing of inboxes stuff, calendars, endless to-do list. And I think it's like, I don't know. You're really good. I think you don't, you don't check slack, right? You leave slack off and you, I would assume don't check your email while you're focusing.

[00:20:13] Colin Keeley: Yeah. I basically only see it on my phone. So, you probably notice is like, if you send me something, I don't see it right away. Like I'll, I'll see it in a half hour or something like that often. That's. Yeah, but I don't have the app open on my computer at all times for sure.

[00:20:26] Brent Sanders: That's good. So they, they kind of go back to this culture of busy bandwagon. They also have a great label for, They call it the, for second force for competing for your time, which is called an infinity pool. And so there things that are like any apps or sources of endlessly replenishing content, which I was like, when I read that, I was like, oh, holy shit, like Twitter, anything you can pull down to refresh and just get more.

It's like, Such a red flag stay away. And we took, we were talking about this last week, like what is our media diet? And so this kind of made me realize like, oh, this is another kind of proof point to just delete, try to get rid of, or don't spend time on anything that has an, an infinity pool. So these guys put this framework together.

They, they put a framework together that will allow you to. I don't know if it's allowed, but it's basically, it allows you to choose what you wanna focus on and build and maintain energy, which is like, that resonates with me because that's always the thing where it's like, you run outta energy and you're, you're not able to kind of get what you you want done or what you set your expectations on.

And then you feel shitty. You feel like you're not productive. But a big thing that I've realized is like, Being productive doesn't mean responding to like other people's priorities, which has been a, how I learned how to work and what I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from clients. When I was consulting, when I started my agency, when I've started working in VC is like just watching your email, being really quick to respond.

And it's something I've had to train out of. My existence in the workplace is to just like do email at the end of the day, which is, is something they talk about this. It's like other thoughts in. Was really around, making one highlight, which I really loved that they were talking about. So they talk about there's a whole chapter about having a daily highlight.

So a daily highlight is like a way to kill the infinity pools, get, get off the busy bandwagon and reveals this third path of being really intentional and focused about how you want to spend your time. And so I, I thought about that, cause I planned my day. I think we've talked about it a little bit. Like I planned my days.

I do a planning session once a week, I talk about, or I think about, what are my goals in life, like my high level goals, and then work those back into my calendar. But I usually have like multiple things that I I'm like, I'm gonna get this done. And then I'm gonna put two hours into this and it's like, you get a phone call, you get derailed and, and you end up getting none of it done.

And then you move it down to the next day and it's. Just focusing on one highlight, that's like 60 to 90 minutes of like very strong focus or what they call laser focus. And so some of the techniques that I, I liked from this book one is, FLA it till you make it, which I'm pretty uncomfortable doing, but I actually may start doing, I, I promise not to do it to any important meetings, but just, no showing, I mean, letting people know, but you know, just no showing on meetings that aren't necessarily important or.

I think we do this with the pod. We do a good job of this. It's like, if some days just shit happens and it's like, you know what let's do Monday. Let's do another day. Let's do Fri let's kick it back. Like, I appreciate that. But I think like being able to just bulldoze your schedule a fair amount and they, they talk about, ways to essentially just make you feel okay with canceling meetings or moving meetings or pushing things back.

[00:23:38] Colin Keeley: I mean, I think it's way better to just not schedule meetings. I like, I would never not show up to a meeting, because all the meetings I have are like, this is with a, a founder or this is with an investor and that would be, really bad form to not show up to it. But I, this is what we talked about in the past, but I make it pretty hard to have that first meeting with me, unless there's like a really obvious reason that we should be meeting instead of doing something, asynchronously like email or something like that.

[00:24:04] Brent Sanders: Yeah, I would say that the, a lot of our meeting. A lot of my meetings have lately been like portfolio company, like the dev teams or product teams that are like, Hey, we need feedback on this. And those can be kicked off. Like, I get added to a fair amount of those where it's like, Hey, keep me informed. And I, I could show or I couldn't show.

And it's like, maybe it's better sometimes that I don't show cuz the teams start to work better with each other and not create a linchpin. That is me

[00:24:30] Colin Keeley: Or you just tell 'em to send you a report. Just have it

[00:24:35] Brent Sanders: right. Yeah. Yeah. Asynchronous work. I is an interesting, I have a lot of interesting learnings of that over the last year. And I think this book doesn't quite, at least maybe I'm not there. I haven't completely finished it, but doesn't quite capture all the evolutions because I feel like it was, it just came out.

But even still, this seems to be an evolving, like, and a set of techniques that are becoming more and more welcome. Other good things that they were saying that we talk about all the time is like swallow the, to get, get the hard stuff done first. So like, a schedule that I would love to strive for once the kids are a little bit older, is like, wake up at five 30, a light workout and then focus between then and like eight then have kid have kid time, have like breakfast.

And I really, when your brain is rested, your day is fresh. You have no reason to feel distracted, no news items to look at no work emails to do over. It's just like savor that and, and that can be like the most productive time of your day. But yeah, I I'll pause there and just say it's like the one thing I, I really enjoyed about the book so far, and again, I'm not totally through, it's just been like, they've done a really good job putting a finger or like pointing out these things that like we all feel and go through and do.

That it just feels, it feels like going to group therapy where it's like, oh yeah, you're going through that two man. Oh man, this is what you do. And it's like, it doesn't seem like their solutions are all that novel or amazing. But it's just nice to read something that's like, okay, these other people are, everyone's kind of going through this it in the same kind of way that at least I am.

I don't know if you get not anxiety, but just like, man, I really didn't get what I wanted. I wanted to do these things and I didn't, and now I've gotta kick back my. My plan for the week, by a day. And then now things are getting kicked off my, my calendar. Do you run, run into that much?

[00:26:21] Colin Keeley: I I, so I definitely adopt this. Like, I'm getting two things done today, no matter what, and I'm gonna tackle them like first thing in the morning. The other, so I always say I hate self-help books, one good or.

[00:26:32] Brent Sanders: yes.

[00:26:32] Colin Keeley: Kind of booking that space, it's called deep work. So the whole idea is that like, distracted work is just so common today.

Very few people are doing deep work and the people that do really stand out and it actually doesn't take that much time, like every day to do it, but you have to, protect that, deep work or deep thinking time at all costs and, basically do two important things. So that was a good one by Cal Newport.

It's pretty famous. But I would recommend it if you're kind of, especially if you're into like, or I think everyone should be like writing or anything in the like content creation world, it definitely sets you apart and you don't have to be like, any smarter than other people, but very people are actually, taking the time, putting the effort into, create things in the world.

[00:27:13] Brent Sanders: Yeah, I, I have read that as very good. I think. Recognizing I've been in some situations where I've made the time for it. And I've, and that was one thing they, they talked about make time is like this, they sort of graph, I can't really describe it, or I can't paint it for you. But in short, it was like opening browser tabs, essentially.

It's like on the X axis is your time and on the YX is, is like the level of focus. And so. One struggle I have is a lot of the work I do. You have to build something, right? So there's like a minute and a half build process that needs to run in between something like, Docker container or something.

This is technical stuff, but like, I'll turn on the build. And then it's like, I've kind of got like a minute to kill sometimes. And it it's just like, the inclination to go to those infinity to go to Facebook, go to Twitter, go to read the news. It's like the greatest thing from this book that I pulled away is like, just have two tasks.

And I know that's not great to, to focus on more than one things, but I'm doing deep work on one side, but then also like, even just instead of doing something else, just reading something that isn't like read a book instead of, the, these infinity pools. But yeah, that, that's one thing, like when my energy gets low, I will kind of go back to this, like opening another thing.

And so. With that, just trying to like plan that out ahead. It's like, if I'm gonna be doing something that requires this, like just don't don't run the builds or do a task that like I can do without having to constantly do something, that's gonna have a pause button to it, cuz it's like, you don't really get into that deep work until you consistently spend the time.

You just keep getting pulled out of it. You're not gonna produce anything that, that high quality.

[00:28:49] Colin Keeley: Yeah. I also say it's like a muscle, like anything else? Like your brain just gets broken, looking at, Instagram all day and. It's really hard to sit down and write or sit down and read for long periods of time and you just do it, little by little, every day. And it, it definitely gets easier.

A, what is Andrew Wilkinson was, big on this thing. It was like a serotonin, not a serotonin, something detox

[00:29:09] Brent Sanders: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they talk about this as well. It's like, yeah. What is that? It's the it's escaping me right now. It's the it's. The chemical in your body that makes you feel happy? Not

[00:29:20] Colin Keeley: dopamine, dopamine detox.

[00:29:22] Brent Sanders: Yeah. Dopamine. Yeah. People talk about this all the time. I really haven't done it. I I'm I'm up for it.

I think we should do it. I mean, I'm not a huge social, like I've been already kind of trending that way, but like, they're talking about like everything, like booze, like sugar,

[00:29:40] Colin Keeley: is. I think dopamine detox is more like no social media, no email on the phone. No TV, no podcasts. Basically no phone, outside of calls and no, it would be hard, like, I guess no music, no movies at night. I guess you just read a book, like reading all the time. It's probably good. Probably good for the brain to reset it like that.

[00:30:02] Brent Sanders: I mean, I do this every year. We go on this, like multi-day hiking trip and there's no devices. There's, the most entertainment you're gonna get is a fire, no booze. I mean, you can try to bring it, but you're gonna feel terrible. It, I feel amazing at the end of it, everyone does everyone sleeps great.

And then they go back to their lives and start to build those terrible habits again. And so it's like, yeah, maybe, maybe it does make sense. To try that, especially if you, trying to do writing or, or increase your work output.

[00:30:30] Colin Keeley: Yeah, I'd be down to do it sometime. I don't know what period of time you're supposed to do it for seven days, three days,

[00:30:36] Brent Sanders: Hmm.

[00:30:37] Colin Keeley: but I gotta hop to this next meeting here.

[00:30:40] Brent Sanders: Okay. Oh, wow. It's noon. Yeah, I gotta roll. Well, let's just wrap it up there. Thanks for listening.

[00:30:45] Colin Keeley: All right. Take care, byebye.

Continue reading

Subscribe now.

Get the occasional update with helpful guides and insights.