February 2, 2024
[Intro Music]
Kris: Hello everybody. So before we get into the episode, we wanted to let you know about something exciting that’s happening for designers. It’s a really great summit. It’s the Designer Boss Summit, where there will be lots of design business educators coming together, including us, to give you lots of tips on systems and process and productivity.
So, this is happening on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of February, 2024. And we’re going to be sharing all about using a client portal and how to stop your clients from being difficult.
Don: Yes, problem children.
Kris: Yep. So I’m sure a lot of you can relate to yeah, you’ve got a client who feels like a problem child.
Well, it’s probably that you need a portal if you don’t have one already. So yeah, this training is a game changer. The whole event is a game changer. Go and sign up. It’s totally free.
Don: Yeah, absolutely.
Kris: You can upgrade. There will be an opportunity to upgrade your free ticket to get a whole bunch of design business goodness.
It’s called the designer boss bundle. And it’s over $2,000 value and it’s not a huge amount to invest in. It’s definitely not 2, 000. It’s like, it’s, it’s much, much, much, much less, a fraction, a small fraction of that. And what we’re offering inside the bundle is our nicely said scripts kit, which is sold for 100 USD in our shop.
And it is so good. Our scripts are jam packed full of what to say, what to do and how to handle tricky client situations when they pop up.
Don: It’s more than scripts.
Kris: It is more than scripts, yep.
Don: It’s awesome to have in your toolkit.
Kris: So we’ll have the link for you to sign up in our show notes. And we’d really appreciate it if you could sign up using our link. As it is an affiliate link of ours. we’d really appreciate it. If you have any questions about the Designer Boss Summit. Reach out, send us a DM, send us an email.
Don: Yeah, But it is incredible, all of those design business educators in the one space for three days. You are going to get so much gold. And we, the speaker lineup is amazing. We, We’re super excited to be a part of that. And yeah, it’s a great cohort. So. Get yourself a free ticket and yeah, use our link, please, yes, please do. And we will see you there. And if you do decide to upgrade, you are going to get your hands on that gorgeous, nicely Said Scripts kit and amongst a whole other bag of goodies.
Kris: Yeah. Alright, let’s get into the episode. So, the topic for today Interruptions. So, are you feeling like designer interrupted?
Don: Or business owner interrupted.
Kris: Oh yeah. So if you don’t have a lot of time and you’re feeling really pushed for time, you know this is very common, it’s a very common problem that persists in the design community, we’re guessing that a lot of it may be to do with being interrupted. There’s a lot of aspects of time management, don’t get us wrong, but interruptions are huge. They’re a huge problem. And it’s something that we like to all the people that we work with, whether we’re working with people one to one or people in the Academy, we want to get on top of interruptions.
Don: Little interruption after little interruption compounds, just like compounding interest, and they become a big part of your day’s time sucks. Altogether, all those little interruptions can be massive and really impact on productivity and creativity. We’ve got some, we’ve got some research that we’re going to go into in a little bit, but it is fascinating how interruptions can really take its toll on your Your mental well being, your creativity. And your business bottom line, basically.
Kris: So if you’re feeling time poor we also did another episode way back when. It’s episode 14.
Don: Oh, baby episode 14!
Kris: It’s how to be a graphic design time management boss. We’ll pop the link in the show notes for you so you can check that one out as well.
Because we go into lots of really good time management techniques in that episode. The focus of this episode is is on interruptions. So that nasty little time suck, the interruption. So that’s going to be our focus for today.
Don: Because, like we were saying, lots of little interruptions become one great big time suck in our day.
Kris: And as designers, we, we often require periods of really focused, concentrated work time. You know, we need that focus in order to bring design to life in order to do our CEO work in order to do any kind of needle moving activity in our business. We need, we need that period of focused concentration for sure.
Don: We need to guard it. We need to protect those periods of time where we’re in that needle moving activity, whatever it be, whether it’s a creative activity, a CEO activity, which is also creative, as well. But whatever it is, you know, any task really, I can’t stand being interrupted when I’m in the middle of something. You know, when you’re really in the, squiggly middle of it, and you’re really trying to unpack it and and come to a solution, and all of these interruptions keep flooding in. Everything’s going to blow out, right?
Kris: You know there’s certain personality types as well that find interruptions even more troubling and disturbing than other personality types. So it depends like some personality types, if they get interrupted, it just sets them off into the worst mood. How is that productive? How is that going to be helpful? Some people, their personality types can handle interruptions better than others, but you’ll know in yourself whether you’re one of those people who just, it all goes haywire if you get interrupted
Don: Yeah, I know there are some days where interruptions will have me like that. And I think it just depends on the hormones that day. Haha. As to whether I can handle the interruptions regardless of Whether or not you can handle them, even if you are handling them, they are still making an impact on your bottom line. They’re still making an impact on your creativity, your productivity, all of the things.
Kris: Let’s be real here, don’t be delusional.
Don: Yeah, let’s, let’s not, let’s not think it’s okay that you are capable of handling interruptions because you don’t want them anyway.
Kris: So let’s talk about the different ways you’ll get interrupted. There’s lots of different ways. Let’s count the ways, shall we?
Don: Yes. Let’s dive in.
Kris: So what about those notifications? on your phone, the little pings, even on your, on your laptop or your, your iMac or whatever you’re using. So you’re getting your social media notifications. You’re getting like little calendar alerts. You’re getting this, that, and the other thing happening all day long.
They are incredibly distracting and it takes you out of the focus into this reactive mode. Like, Oh, what’s that? What’s that shiny thing. Or even a little jolt of, Oh no, what’s that? It can. Be an extra stressor.
Don: Yeah, we’ve got some tips. So we’ll quickly go through all of the types of interruptions you have and then we’re going to give you some solutions.
Kris: Yeah, see if these sound familiar to you. So, multitasking, who’s doing that? Waiting for something to load. I know I’m guilty of this, so I’m like, Okay, this is taking a bit too long, I’m just going to pick up my phone, I’m going to check my socials and my email just real quick. Just real quick, while that thing’s loading.
Don: yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that real quick.
Kris: And then, 45 minutes later.
Don: Ha ha Yeah, that’s it. This one’s a good one. When we’re solopreneurs and we work from home, we have family and friend interruptions. The drop ins. The unexpected drop ins, and the phone calls.
Kris: Our family and friends who think that we’re at their constant beck and call because we’re at home and we’re working from home.
Don: Yeah, you’re at home, right? You’re here. yeah. Yeah, I’ve got a day off. And I’m just dropped in, you know, I’m on my lunch break. I’m just going to call you.
Kris: Having the open plan office or insert lounge room, kitchen, space, whatever you’re using. That noise and chatter and activity of family. You know, all your housemates, they’re just buzzing around you. And the little quick questions or the little quick interruptions. I just want to say this. Where’s the milk? Have we got this? Did you add that to the shopping list?
All the little chats, like, look at this funny thing. Look at this funny thing on my phone, they’re cracking up and they’re like, you’ve got to see this. And it’s like, Oh, okay. I was in my flow.
Don: That’s right. For all the parents out there, We can relate to that. one, right? The kids come out, especially school holiday at the time of this recording, we are in our summer break here in Australia. And I have two teenagers at home, Kris has a teenager at home. There are a lot of interruptions. You know, where’s the this? Where’s the that? And you know, it’s that kind of thing that really does take its toll.
Kris: Yeah, and it disrupts your flow. It just makes it really hard to… I mean, how are you going to concentrate on complex design work with all that happening? It’s very distracting.
Don: Or strategy for your business if you’re doing CEO work. How are you going to get deep into that really creative conceptual strategy work if you’re constantly being asked where their socks are?
Kris: Yeah. You just interrupted all day long. Clients sending through urgent requests or changes. Now that’s something that can interrupt your day. You might’ve had a little plan ready or a big plan ready for the day.
And then all of a sudden you’ve got a last minute request. There’s a revision or some sort of feedback that you’ve gotten. And then you’re just flying off in that direction because you’re reactive.
Don: Yeah, reactive.
Kris: and it’s derailed your whole day.
Don: Yeah. And the key there is the derailing, you’ve allowed it. We want to highlight that, again, we’ll go into solutions in a minute, but we have control over this. We can stop this from happening.
Kris: I mean, all of these you’re allowing, right?
Don: They’re all allowing.
Kris: Yeah. Oh, this one might not feel like you’re allowing, but there is some kind of you’re allowing. It’s those, it’s those technical issues, you know, when the software crashes or you’ve got a glitch or you’ve, you know, you’ve got a slow internet connection or you’ve got an older computer and it’s really frustrating. It’s just bringing everything to a stop and you’re out of flow because of this glitch that’s happened.
Don: Yeah. This is a really important interruption to have on the list because I don’t think a lot of designers, or we’ve we’ve noticed a lot of designers allow this to happen. They do allow it to happen and think that this is just the way it is.
But we’re here to say this is one of the areas in your business that you need to really focus on so that interruptions from this space Uh, non existent to very minimal because this can really stop the flow. Really stop productivity.
Kris: Yeah. And affect your bottom line as well.
Don: All of them
Kris: Yeah, all of these are gonna impact your bottom line. You’re not gonna be as profitable with all these interruptions happening all day long. Then we’ve got, say, the personal errands, the little unexpected little things that you’re doing. You know, just attending to little personal matters, unexpected situations that just throw your way, even, I know that we’re working from home, we’re multitasking and all that sort of thing, but it’s like the interruption of the washing machine going beep, beep, beep, when you were like trying to It’s telling you, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready for you to do the next thing. When you were deep in flow. It’s an interruption.
Don: Yeah, or if you do decide to do a quick errand and the traffic is crazy, you know, you think, I’m just going to duck off for an hour, and really it’s full circle, two hours later. Little interruptions like that, for, you know, that’s unexpected. You didn’t expect for that hour to be taken away from you, but there you go. Boom, it’s happened.
Kris: Yeah, and this is a slightly different topic, but just even doing all the household chores and errands when you really thought that you would be having a really productive work day there is a blurred line between making the most of working from home and also procrasti-cleaning.
Don: I’m guilty of that.
Kris: Yeah, doing those things that just feel a little bit easier. Like, you know, I’ll just do that little pile of dishes. Just that little task, it won’t take me long. But, they’re distracting. And those lines do get blurred. They do.
Don: Even if you listen to a podcast while you’re doing the dishes? You’re still being distracted from the core work that you had planned for that day. Because often we’ll do, oh well I’ll do that, but I’ll listen to a podcast and that’s technically work, right? Yeah, it’s an interruption. If It’s not planned, it’s an interruption.
Kris: Now this one’s a little bit of an odd one, but it is an interruption to your day, and it is procrastination. You know, and just that feeling of, oh, I can’t get started on this project. I just can’t get started. Like, you’ve got self doubt or whatever, and it’s just I need to just dive in but something’s holding me back and I just feel bogged down. It’s an interruption to your day.
Don: And then like Kris was saying before, the blurring of that work and personal life really, it, that, that happens on so many levels. Not just the cleaning, right, it happens across the board. So the flexibility of remote work can Really be a double edged sword, you know, especially if you’re a digital nomad and you’re traveling. You could get distracted by the shiny thing that’s happening outside your caravan window. And it’s tempting to stop work now, do that fun thing, and then I’ll work into the evening, which means you’re more tired then, so your hours are longer. You might check your emails outside of work hours because you, you were being the digital nomad and ducked away. You know, whatever it is, all those things can lead to burnout and overall lack of productivity and overall affects your bottom line.
Kris: We’re all for the life of the digital nomad, for sure. Like we love that concept and that idea. But, it’s so true that we have that temptation and it’s like, it’s okay, I’m going to go and do what I want to do right now, but I’ll do it later, it’s okay, I’ll make up the time later. But that is a real fast track to burnout, before you know it, even though you’re like living the dream, it’s like, oh no, I’m actually not productive.
I am in burnout. How could this be? So it’s just something to be wary of and to be watchful for. That you’re not getting interrupted to a point where your business isn’t successful.
Don: And you’re pushing your business to the fringe, like you’re pushing your business to the peripheral and you’re saying, I’ll get to that later.
I’ll get to that later. And what’s happening is your business gets the most tired version of you. It gets that burnout, like Kris was saying. it gets really hard. So even in a solopreneur space, a digital nomad’s life, we still need to have boundaries and we still need to have structure and a plan around how we’re going to manage our time and how we’re going to stop these interruptions from really impacting on our business and our day.
Kris: Yeah, so what happens when you get interrupted? We’ve alluded to a lot of it already, but it stops your flow. And what that means is it takes so much longer for you to get back into the task and get into that flow state again.
Don: That’s the key for me. That right there is that it takes you longer to get back to where you were. And we’re going to talk about some studies now that have taken you like twice as long to do the task that it would have taken you. Half the time, if you had it stayed on track prior to the interruption, it’s incredible.
Kris: There was a study by the University of California that found that workers who were interrupted every 11 minutes, which you think about it, how often are you getting pinged even just on your phone or, just if a housemate or a family member is interrupting you, so every minutes, took an average of 23 minutes longer to complete a task than those who were not interrupted. So that’s. double.
Don: Yeah, iterally double the time. That in itself tells me straight away that’s going to affect my bottom line, that’s going to affect my profit margin. If I’m doubling my processes, then where’s the profit margin for me? You know, I want to eliminate interruptions purely because of that, you know? It’s crazy.
Kris: There was another study and it found that workers who were interrupted were twice as likely to make mistakes as those who weren’t interrupted. And I think that has a lot to do with your flow state being interrupted. You’re not in flow anymore.
Don: Yeah. It has been proven that interruptions can increase stress and anxiety. A study by the University of Michigan found that workers who were interrupted reported higher levels of stress and anxiety than those who were not interrupted.
Kris: So what that does, when you’re in a state of stress, and when you’re in a state of anxiety, what that does is it reduces your creativity. And that was another study. The University of Chicago found that workers who were interrupted were less creative than those who were not interrupted.
Don: Right? That’s the mic drop moment.
Kris: It is. Because you’re in a creative business. You cannot be interrupted like this because it’s going to impact the quality of your work. It’s going to impact, your mental health. It’s going to impact how much time you actually do spend in your business, it’s going to impact your profitability on projects.
Don: Absolutely. Your bottom line, right? It all leads to impacting so many things. But that bottom line is why you’re in business. So, that’s so important. You know, not to mention that, that anxiety and that stress, even if you are a solopreneur, that if you’re working with a team or if you’re working at home with family buzzing around you, it has a real negative impact. On your self, your being, and therefore the space in which you’re working as well. And that is really hard to take day in, day out. it leads to resentment.
Kris: Yeah. As well as health issues. If you’re wondering why anxiety and stress would make you less creative, it’s because the body’s directing blood flow from the brain, from the, the centers of the brain that are responsible for creativity and conceptual thought.
And it’s sending it to other parts of your body that need it to fight the stress. So you’re going into fight or flight and, you know, it might be going into your limbs. It might be going to your heart and making your heart beat faster. So that’s one of the reasons why that you will have less creativity if you’re stressed.
Don: Absolutely. Not to mention that scattered brain as well. Because if something pops in that interrupts you and it has And your mind is scattering off over in that direction, and that direction, and that direction. That can overwhelm, certainly overwhelms me. and shuts me down. So it shuts me down. It shuts down my whole thought process. It shuts down my creativity. Because I’ve got too many things circling in my brain. My focus is gone.
Kris: Too many inputs. And I think that’s something that is happening here as well. We’re talking about interruptions, but a lot of these interruptions are little extra inputs, little bits of extra data that our brains don’t really need, and it’s overwhelming. It’s overstimulation. So all of this is compounding. And we’ve got a lot of unhappy little designers.
Don: It’s driving everyone nuts. So let’s work out some tips. So we’ve got some beautiful tips to help you prevent these interruptions and help you stay sane, help you stay calm, help you stay profitable. All of the things that we’ve been talking about, so let’s dive into them.
Kris: Yeah, so the first one, you need to communicate your needs. So, a lot of you are working from home, right? You need to communicate to the people in your life exactly what you need. You need to communicate, When you are in focused work, they need to be on board with when you’re working and when you’re in focused time.
And they need to understand the boundaries around that. You need to set a limit with the people, and there’s a few different ways you can do that.
Don: And it’s okay if initially they don’t get it, because you’ve allowed them to interrupt you up until this point. For example, you may, not, you may be great at boundaries, but if you are one of those people who are not, and you haven’t had any boundaries Especially within the space that you’re working in, then it’s going to take a little bit of adjusting. So you have to be the strong one. You have to keep it in check. You have to keep resetting the boundary. Resetting the boundary.
Kris: Yeah. A lot of people in The Academy, they have little kids and, and it’s really hard to communicate that to little kids like, you know, dad’s working or mom’s working or what, whoever’s working that they need to understand that this is work time. And then it’s like, no, I don’t understand that. I’m three .
But, often in those situations, our workspace is in the middle of the living space. We all don’t have the luxury of a little office, a separate office space that we can shut the door and lock ourselves away in. That is the ideal situation. If you don’t have that set up and you can, that would be the ideal situation. If you’re not utilizing that.
Don: We highly recommend you do.
Kris: Set it up. But if you are out in the public area of your house and you’re trying to work, first of all, communicate, like we said, and be strict about it. Like maybe if you’ve got little kids, it might be just that you have a little banner up, you know, like a little sign on the back of your desk. It could be a sign that says no, don’t interrupt me. It could be an image.
Don: if it’s mum, go and ask dad. If it’s dad, go and ask mum. A sticker on the back of your chair.
Kris: I cannot be interrupted. Or a quiet zone. You know, whatever you like to be called. It’s my quiet zone now. So that they know.
Don: Yeah, is is tricky when you’re in the middle of the living space. But there are ways, first and foremost, it literally is just communicating and if you can pop yourself into a separate space. That is so good on so many levels for interruptions, but for other ways for you to actually separate your business and your family. It’s, that, you know, that’s another podcast but it is so crucial for you to be able to separate yourself out if you can.
Kris: There was a funny little meme going around with this picture of a guy where he was working. He looks like a designer, has a piece of paper attached to his back, which says, please don’t talk to me. I have no self control and we’ll talk to you for two hours and get no work done.
Don: Haha. I love that!
Kris: But it might mean that you need to get a little bit more serious. That’s a jokey jokey way about it. And that might be good with flatmates and that sort of thing. But you might need to sit down and have a family meeting and say, look, everyone, this is really impacting my business.
This is really impacting my ability to make a good income for my family and From now on, this is how it’s going to go. You share your schedule. You communicate that with your family. Like, you know, if your mom’s ringing all the time, or if you’ve got friends who are ringing all the time, you need to have the conversations with them. I’m changing things now. I’ve been just too loose and free with my structure and it’s really impacting me and my business. I’ve been too available.
Don: Yeah, I’ve been too available and I have to really make this change in order to really maximize my productivity. And it’s okay, people will respect that, your family will respect that. They might need a little bit of nurture to actually on board with it, a little bit of reminding, but once you stay firm to your boundaries and don’t cave, it will become the new norm for everyone that you’re not available during the day, or you’re not available during that hour or two hours or whatever.
Kris: You might get a screen. You might just get like a folding screen that can be pulled out when you’re working it’s like ’screens up’. I’m working. Could even be a curtain.
Don: Yeah. anything The visual cues is a really great tip.
Kris: It’s good for you too because you’re going okay. I’m shutting curtain.
Don: Yeah. I’m in my work mode now. And thank you for respecting that. So we can do this with love and respect, right? As, as with all boundary setting. So the, another tip is to set boundaries with your technology. Like I was saying before, turn off notifications. Silence your phone, like literally pop her on silent. And co not disturb. and close any unnecessary browser tabs to reduce that digital distraction. Like my go to, whenever I sign up to anything, it says, So and so would like to send you notification.
No thanks. No, do not send me notifications. I don’t want notifications. from anyone. you know, I want to control where I go. give my time every day, that’s it. That’s what you’re doing. You’re controlling where you place your time, your energy, your effort, your focus. So while ever you’re allowing these interruptions to pop in, they are controlling your time.
That interruption is causing that reactive state where you’re just being pulled from pillar to post all day. So, yep, no, no, no to any notifications.
Kris: I don’t have any notifications for any social media or anything like that. I just find it way too distracting. Another thing that I do, and this is a bit of an ADHD hack, if you can relate, I actually move my social media apps around my phone so that they move into different spots because I tend to do things unconsciously sometimes, like I’ll just be waiting for something to load. Like there’s some bits of technology, even our podcast editing, I have to wait for things to happen. Sometimes I’ll go, Oh, I’ll just pick up my phone just while that’s happening. And if I have my apps in the one spot all the time, I go straight in and I’m not even thinking about it. But if I have to search for the app, I catch myself and I’m like, Ooh, you’re opening a social media app right now. And why are you doing that? Just because you had a little moment of boredom while the app loads.
Don:You thought you’d multitask, which is an interruption. Multitasks are interruptions in disguise. Yeah, that’s a fabulous tip, Kris.
Kris: So it’s really about practicing a bit of self discipline, isn’t it? You know, resisting the urge to multitask. Or in my case, I actually have to set up a little system, an internal system, so that I don’t go off on a tangent without meaning to because sometimes it’s quite innocent these things, like checking the little social media or whatever. But maybe you need some rewards.
Don: Yes! I love this idea. I love the idea of rewarding ourselves for sticking to our schedule. You know, that’s, that’s a fabulous tip to, to, at the end of it, when you’ve, when you’ve smashed it, and you’ve stayed on task, and you’ve stayed on track, and when you’re measuring and your profitability is there, it’s all happening. Reward yourself for that because, you know, it is hard.
Kris: Yeah, it is hard.
Don: To stay on track. It is hard to eliminate interruptions. Like, let’s not be delusional. We’re not going to eliminate disruptions and interruptions, but we can minimize them. So, when we do that in a really wonderful way. Rewards, whatever floats your boat.
Kris: Because you might need a little reward, because that’s what the social media interruptions are. They’re a little reward. They’re a little dopamine hit. So If you’re not getting that
Don: Mm-hmm,
Kris: You may need to implement something else. And it could be just as simple as, okay, I get to make myself a really nice cup of tea at the end of this one hour session that I am really focusing on. I’m gonna be super focused and I’m not gonna be interrupted for this whole hour.
Don: Yeah, absolutely. Or you schedule those dopamine hits. right? You can schedule them and say, I’m going to be on Instagram to get that dopamine hit for 15 minutes between this time and this time. You don’t have to not have these in your day. But they just need to be considered and planned. So, you know, this beautiful segue into our last point, you know, taking breaks, you know, get up and move around every 20 to 30 minutes to help you stay focused and avoid the burnout.
And you might think taking breaks, is that not an interruption? Well, It’s an intentional break, like, we like using Pomodoro. It is a beautiful app and a system for staying focused for 25 minutes. So you’ll work focused for 25 minutes, then you’ll have a break. It’s a timer that you can grab from the internet. Just Google Pomodoro Techniques. There’s a stack of timers there that you can have a play with. And it is intentional focus with intentional breaks. So the breaks are then not interruptions. They are planned to increase productivity. And so that’s a win, right?
Kris: Yeah. There’s a very big difference between a, a planned interruption and an unplanned interruption.
Don: Yeah.
Kris: Huge difference.
Don: Huge. So we can plan the things that we want. We can plan, we can say, I’m going to have a lunch break at this time. So mums, dads, kids, I can be interrupted at this time. I’m open to interruptions between 12 and 1pm.
Kris: Interrupt away!
Don: Interrupt away! That’s right. We can, we can have that planned time, and we, might want to drill it down to certain hours and we might want to sort of communicate that to our family and friends.
But then, when we have those open periods of time, we might want to also communicate that this is when we’re open for play, so that people know that they can have a life with you. They can have a relationship with you, especially the flatmates and the housemates and the kids and the partners and that kind of thing. So they’re not feeling neglected. But they know the boundary. It’s clear, right? When you’re available and when you are not.
Kris: Yeah. So if this is resonating with you, if any of these interruptions that we’ve been talking about, you’re like, Oh yeah, okay. Guilty. This is happening to me and it’s happening on repeat.
What we recommend is for you obviously to implement some of the systems that we mentioned earlier. But also it might be time for you to do a time audit. So track your time for a minimum of seven days, track all your time, every single thing you’re doing, and really take note of the interruptions. See what is happening.
Where is my time being sucked? What are the time sucks? We call them time sucks. We have a time tracker called the Everything Time Tracker where we get our students and our one to one coaching clients to fill it in and It is not easy to fill it in for a whole week, because we’re asking you to track everything from the moment you get up in the morning to when you go to bed, because you’re trying to see where the lines are being blurred, where the interruptions are happening, and how you can improve it, and you will get such incredible intel from doing this.
Don: It is mind blowing. The intel you get is incredible. It is a drag. We are not, we’re not going to sugarcoat it. It is a real drag. but The return on investment from investing a week in this, at minimum a week, we actually like you to push it to a couple of weeks if you can, just because then you’ve got the variation of two weeks, to really see what is going on.
Once you identify those time sucks, you can’t unlearn that information, right? You don’t know what you don’t know. But as soon as you know where these time sucks are lurking in your life and your business, you can action the heck out of that and get rid of them.
And you can put in some really beautiful boundaries, pop those in place, and then You just watch your productivity soar. Once you have that intel, it’s really, really, it’s game changing.
Kris: Yeah, and some of the intel that you, you get will be, oh, my family is bothersome and they are the problem. And some of the intel you’ll get is like, oh dear, I’m the problem. So, you’ll see. You’ll see. So give it a go. We highly, highly recommend that you do it.
Don: And it’s okay. when you are the problem, I’ve been the problem.
Kris: Me too.
Don: I’ve been multitasking, thinking I’m doing wonderful things, multitasking. And you know, I said it before and I’ll say it again. A multitask activity is hiding or disguised as an interruption. At the end of the day, you, I don’t get excited about being able to say I’m a multitasker. I actually find that it’s too discombobulating for me now.
I really love focused time and focused efforts. And scheduled focused efforts so that I’ve got lots of things on the go, but my productivity is higher because I’m not attempting to multitask anymore, and I have been very, very guilty of believing I’m a fabulous multitasker to the point of delusion.
Kris: Oh yes, I know, me too. So we want you to be designers in focus. Not designers interrupted. We want you to be designers in flow. Let’s kick these interruptions to the curb. Let’s not have them burdening your life because that’s what it’s doing. It’s like dragging you down.
Don: Put those boundaries in place. Everybody will love and respect you when they understand. Because what’s happening when they’re interrupting you, if it’s people, and you are coming back at them with a negative mindset or a negative sort of energy, they’re feeling that as well. So, these boundaries that you’re going to be putting in, (bravely putting in place), they’re actually going to make everybody happier.
Kris: Except for your parents, I’m sorry. Haha.
Don: Haha no!
Kris: They never get used to it. Haha. My parents are always like, we can’t ever contact you. Oh, I love them though.
Don: I know I know.
Kris: Okay. So just before we go, we have a favor to ask. We would love, love, love. For you to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review, it would mean so much to us. And we get beautiful feedback. We get beautiful people reaching out to us about how much they’re enjoying the podcast and how much it’s helping them in their business. And yeah, it would be really helpful to us if you could subscribe and leave a review.
Don: Yeah, please do. We would love that so much.
Kris: Yeah. It’s really important for the growth of our podcast. And we want to continue to be able to show up with really helpful content. We love this design community so much.
We really appreciate you.
Don: Thank you so much in advance, everybody. Okay. Until next time, be brave.
Kris: Be brave!
Don: Bye.
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