November 16, 2022 • 29 mins
Is your life too complicated? Sure, work’s always a bit hectic and keeping family life running smoothly is as challenging as ever - but have you noticed that even the ‘good’ stuff can get a bit overwhelming sometimes?
Was picking a movie to watch after work on a Friday night always this difficult? Was your closet always so stuffed with items you can’t even remember buying?
This is part of what Leo Babauta calls the cycle of expanding and narrowing our focus. When we develop new interests or hobbies, or start a new job, we tend to expand - but if we don’t then narrow things down, by removing clutter or saying ‘no’ more often, life can become a bit too unwieldy.
Leo shares how he thinks about narrowing and expanding in his own life, and breaks down his journaling rituals and the writing techniques he’s borrowed from software developers.
Connect with Leo on Twitter or at the Zen Habits website
***
My new book Time Wise is out now. You can grab a copy here.
Connect with me on the socials:
If you’re looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
CREDITS
Produced by Inventium
Host: Amantha Imber
Production Support from Deadset Studios
Episode Producer: Liam Riordan
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What kind of stories do you tell yourself about yourself?
If you're like most people, those stories are probably pretty
nasty most of the time. Whether you're beating yourself up
for not being a productivity machine or for not being
the perfect parent or husband or wife, you are not alone.
(00:22):
Leo Babata, who runs the massively popular blog zen Habits,
knows these stories all too well. He worries constantly that
he's not the writer he should be, or that he's
not the coach his clients deserve. But the difference is
Leo's hyper aware of these stories and constantly reminds himself
(00:43):
that they're just stories. And if they're just stories, well
maybe he can rewrite them. Leo shared with me how
his current journaling practice helps him rewrite the unhelpful narratives
he's told himself over the years, and he also explained
his unique process for iteraty of writing, inspired by the
(01:04):
workflows of software engineers. My name is doctor amanthe Impact.
I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show
about how to help you do your best work. Leo
(01:25):
has written a lot about morning routines. And while it
does sometimes feel cliche to ask someone about their morning routine,
I couldn't resist asking Leo about his given how mindful
he is of the way he structures his days. So
let's find out how Leo is structuring his morning routine
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
That's great that you added at the moment, because it's funny.
I write about it throughout the years, and it changes,
and I find that it's almost like a seasonal thing
for me, where I will find what's supportive for me,
like right now on the journey that I'm on, and
what I need in my mission in my personal life.
(02:05):
So at the moment, I am rising with the sun
whatever that is at the time of year that I'm in,
so I rarely get up when it's dark anymore, and
I like the early morning light. And just I start
my coffee, I take a little bit of movement, not
(02:27):
too much, just stretching and moving a little bit, and
then I start checking in and checking in with myself,
a little bit of meditation, again not too much, and
then I start journaling, and then I start deciding what
I want to do for the day, and then I
usually I might answer some emails and check in with
(02:49):
my team, but usually fairly early on I'll do like
my most important task, and I like to do the
writing and things like that that I'm creating before I
get into meetings, calls and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Can you tell me more about your journaling practice and
what that involves.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, that also evolves, so it looks different depending on
what I need at the time. Right now, I do
a little bit of gratitude journaling, just really to get
me in touch with the idea that I do have
a lot in my life, a lot of abundance things
that I'm really thankful for, and that puts me in
(03:29):
the right mood for taking on what I want to
take on in the day. Is that I feel connected
to the fact that I have so much support in
my life, so much love in my life, so much
meaning and joy, and it's so easy to forget and
take for granted. So that's one thing I do. I
(03:51):
also do a little bit of a thing that's called
clearing practice, which in this case I could mean a
different number of different things, but in this case it's
really writing out my crappy stories about myself and with
the fears that I have about myself and then really
getting clear that that's just a story and interpretation, and
(04:13):
then deciding what I'd like to stand for that is
outside of that story. Lately it's been love, so something
so basic and simple as love, but reminding myself to
be love in the world and then to let myself
express myself from that place.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Now, the bulk of your work is writing, and you've
been operating Zen Habits your blog for about fifteen years now,
I believe, and I want to know how do you
keep coming up with fresh ideas for your blog posts.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
There was a time when I was actually struggling with that.
That was like a few years, maybe four or five
years into my writing, and I was like, man, I've
written about this stuff over and over, like habits and
simplicity and mindfulness changing your life. These are things that
I you know, productivity, These are things that I knew
really well, but I'd written about them and experimented with
(05:06):
them and tried all kinds of different ideas, and I
was kind of it was like the well was running dry.
That was actually a really scary thing for me because
I I was like, well, what if that's all I
have to say? What if I'm done here. So I
realized that I didn't want to just keep saying the
same thing over and over. I wanted to go deeper.
(05:30):
So I started to deepen into my own exploration, my
own practices. I started working with a Zen teacher more
closely and studying. Deepening into my Zen practice. I started
working with a coach. I started coaching people and working
with them more closely. So I worked with people in
a membership program and then more one on one and
(05:53):
in small groups. And the more that I deepened into
all of that, the more that I found so much
richness to write about. So I even these days, if
I sit down, I'm like, what I want to write
about today? If I have nothing to write about, that's
a little bit of a scary thing. And then I
(06:13):
allow myself to explore the fear that comes up when
I don't have something to write about, and like, what
is there some rich ground there? So now there's actually
like never an end to something to write about, because
I'm always looking into my current experience and in my
work with others and the things that I'm learning about,
the things that I'm excited about. And if I'm not
(06:34):
excited about something, that's a that's a really good sign
that there's maybe something missing or something more to explore,
or maybe I just explore what it's like to not
be excited about something. What if everything feels really gray
and dull and I don't I'm just like bored. I
can write about boredom, and so there's really no end
(06:55):
to things that I could write about.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I've heard that you take inspiration from software to it
when it comes to writing blog posts, So I'd love
you to tell me about your iterative approach to writing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, you know, actually, I think this might be I'm
not saying I'm the only one in the world, but
I did draw inspiration when I started learning, you know,
more than a decade ago about that like agile software development,
and I think I might be one of the few
people who started doing this at the time. And you know,
(07:28):
maybe now there's more. But it's really interesting because when
I was reading about software development, you know, there's an
old model. You know, let's say Microsoft's model when they
were developing, you know, in the nineties, developing the next
version of Windows. They would spend a couple of years
working on the software in kind of isolation, and then
(07:50):
they would put it out into the world fully developed, launched,
and then people would try it, and you know, inevitably
a bunch of people would be like, this sucks. This
isn't what I needed. I like, I'd get all this
backlash because it wasn't what people really needed in the world.
And so people developing software came up with an idea
of what if we put something out immediately to test out,
(08:13):
get feedback on, and then use that information to develop live.
As we continue to develop, we're continually putting it out there,
getting feedback and getting that cycle of putting it out
and getting feedback and learning. And I love that model,
and I was like, how could I use that in
my own life? So I started applying it to everything
(08:33):
that I was doing, from meditation to learning to productivity.
And then I was like, oh, what if I used
it for writing? So what I would do is I
would test out ideas. Blog posts would actually be the
first iteration, so I'd be like, Okay, I want to
write about you know, at one point it was like
Haiku productivity, like really constraining myself to be more effective
(09:00):
like Haiku writers do. And so I wrote a blog
post about it, and it like resonated with people. So
by putting something that was really easy for me to
write out into the world, I could see if there
was any kind of resonance with it, or if people
had some you know, you know feedback that was negative,
or maybe they just didn't care about it. So blog
(09:21):
posts were ways for me to test that out, and
then I would take their feedback and then I would
develop something even more from that. So maybe a series
of posts, maybe it was a mini ebook that I
would give to, you know, a couple dozen people, and
then I would develop a book from that. And then
(09:42):
I came up with the idea of developing the book
live with people. And so what I did was I
would get a group of people, maybe twenty people, and
they would sign up as my like beta testers for
my book, and so I would write stuff for them
and then let them test it out in their lives
and actually put into action so they had some action
(10:04):
steps to take after reading it, and then they would
tell me, like how it went. They would give me
the feedback, and I would take that information and use
it to write the next chapter. In the next chapter,
and then I would take all the information as they
were going through it to write the next version of
all of those chapters, And so the book was constantly
evolving as people were giving me feedback, as they were like, oh,
(10:26):
this is something that was amazing that I really loved,
or like I would hear nothing about it and maybe
that was a sign, and I would ask them questions.
I would have them fill out form like surveys and
things like that, and I would also have some real
world results that I could speak to when I actually
put the book out into a larger group and say, hey,
(10:47):
these twenty people used this book and they got these results,
and so that might enroll people to like, Okay, I
want to try this out and really get going and
really put themselves into it because they've seen that there
are proven results. Or if I was getting some feedback
that people didn't really care or didn't weren't really into it,
I would drop the whole book project once in a while.
(11:10):
So this way, when the book finally came out, A
lot of writers will write a book in isolation for
a year or two and then they put it out
and they're like, I hope people actually like this. I
already knew if people would want to read this and
would actually put into action and if where the stumbling
blocks were and what they actually resonated with, because I've
(11:31):
been testing it as I wrote. And one of the
coolest experiments that I did just to finish this part
out is I would write live in public, so I
would you know. One day, I decided to write a
really short ebook, and I put a Google doc with
the title of the ebook, and then I shared that
(11:51):
doc publicly on Twitter and I said, come watch me
write this book and give me comments as I write it.
So I let people give comments as I was writing
the chapter, so it was like I was writing in public,
live on stage or something like that. They couldn't see
me personally, but they could see the writing. And that
was one of the most fun, like juiciest, most exciting
(12:13):
writing experiments I'd ever done, because it was like people
were commenting live like this is so cool or what
about this Leo, And so it was like a really
collaborative live thing where I had to be really present
in my writing and I couldn't just abandon it and
come back a month later because people were there watching.
(12:34):
So I actually wrote that book in like days, and
it was the most fun I'd ever have, and I'd
done several versions of that since then.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It's not like you wrote a lot about is simplicity
And I would love to know when you're trying to
simplify your own life and especially your work, what do
you do first?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Hmm? For me, simplicity again, this is such a an
amazing area to dive into. You could go really deep
with it, but for me, it's always it's like a
process of breathing where you expand and then contract. So
simplicity usually happens after you've expanded a little bit. So
(13:16):
if you were, for example, if you wanted to get
into a genre of reading a certain kind of books,
you know, like you say, like I want to read
all the mystery novels there are, right, So you might
start reading and expanding your library, and you'd have you
just like start ording a bunch of things online and
then you they call come in and after a while
(13:39):
you don't need to be as expensive, and so you
can start to simplify from there because you've decided like, Okay,
I've already explored the expansiveness and now I can cut
back a little bit. So it's it's that cultivating or
the it's the idea of winnowing down from the expansiveness.
So you know, in that example, I might just pick
(14:01):
the five novels that I couldn't live without, and those
are the ones that I want to keep in my library,
and the rest of them I go and sell. So
I think the mistake a lot of people make is
to think that this means like you're depriving yourself or
somehow you have to get rid of things that you love.
But this means, as you like explore and expand, and
then eventually, like when you realize this too much, I
(14:22):
didn't need to buy this many things, you start to
narrow it down to the things that actually add value
to your life, that you actually love, and then get
rid of all of the excess, and that really lightens
the load. It really means that you are down to
the things that you actually care about. But I still
recommend the expansive mode. When I get into something, I'll
(14:44):
usually order way too much, spend too much money, and
then and just really empower that, like it's totally okay
to go too big. And then eventually I start to
narrow it down and I realize what's actually essential. You
can't know what's essential until you've done the expense of exploration,
being curious, you know, that kind of stuff. But most
(15:04):
people do the expansiveness for a lot of their lives
and they don't they don't then narrow it down, so
you have to start to learn what actually matters. And
that's really the process after expansion is like taking a
look at all the stuff you've done, and can you
notice what's essential, what mattered most to you, what do
you care the most about, what is necessary and unnecessary?
(15:28):
And as you start to narrow things down, not just
like physical things, but you know, all the commitments in
your life, you know, all of the things that you
do during the day, all the apps on your phone,
all of your distractions versus the things that you actually
need to pay attention to. This is really asking that
question what matters to you? And most people don't like
(15:49):
to be confronted by that question because they don't know
the answer, and so they're like, I don't know what matters.
I'm just going to keep all of it because what
if it matters? And I got you know, the fear
is that I'm going to get rid of something that matters.
But asking that question really allows you to really check
into what your values are what you want the most
(16:11):
in the world and what you care about, and I
think it's such a beautiful exploration.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
We will be back with Leo soon where he shares
the five key ways he thinks about to simplify his life.
If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me
work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving
(16:40):
through the interesting research findings. You can sign up for
that at Howiwork dot code. That's how I Work dot co.
Now there are five key ways that you write about
to simplify your life. The first is around curating your day,
the second is about start living in full screen mode,
(17:01):
the third is having a weekly clearing ritual, the fourth
is eat simple foods and move, and the fifth is
slow down and enjoy. So I was really intrigued about
this idea of living in full screen mode. Can you
tell me what you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, this is something So I like to write in
really simple writing apps that can go full screen and
all you see is the text that you're writing. You know,
one of the first ones that I used was called
om writer and omm writer, and it was just this
(17:38):
like beautiful like nature background and some music playing and
then your text and that was it. And there's some
other amazing ones as well, And so I realized that's
how I like to write, without a whole bunch of
other things calling for my attention, just really fully being there.
And then I realized, oh, it's so much like meditation,
where you were just you know, letting everything else in
(18:01):
the world go, and you're just sitting there really just
being fully present without constantly switching to a bunch of
different tasks at the same time. And I realized that
a lot of the things I like to do were
full screen mode, Like, for example, if I was going
to read on a device, I like to just I
like to close everything else out and just have the
(18:22):
book open so that it was you know, the Kindle
is a great example of that. It's such a single
tasking app or device that that's all there is, you know,
And I really hate it when things pop up and
like ask you to buy something when you're trying to read.
And so I was like, oh, what if I could
live my whole life like this on full screen mode?
(18:42):
What if everything I do on the computer, for example,
was like one thing at a time, full screen and
just really giving my full attention to that. It's not
always possible, but that's that's what I It's kind of
an ideal to move towards. And then I was like,
what if not just my computer, but everything that I
did was like that. If I decided to, you know,
(19:04):
have a conversation with someone, I would turn my phone
off or put or put it down so I couldn't
see it and really just be there with them as
if they were on full screen mode in my attention,
or exercise instead of like being on my phone while
I'm exercising. What if it was just the exercise or
a cup of tea or a meal. What if I
(19:25):
was just eating rather than you know, checking social media
while I was while I was eating. And I just
really love that idea that the same thing that I
like to do with writing and reading could be done
with anything that I You know, it's one thing at
a time, anything that you wanted to do was just
this one thing, and man, if you do try it,
it really transforms the way that you live your life.
(19:47):
We're so we're so fractured, these days, and I'm not
saying that's necessarily a problem, but for me, there's such
such a peace of mind that comes with the simplicity
of that.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
It's interesting. I mean, so many people try to be
more present, which is a really hard thing to achieve,
but I love the idea of expressing that as living
in full screen mode. It somehow makes it more tangible,
which I really love. Now I want to dig into
the weekly clearing ritual. Can you tell me what that involves?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, So, I don't know if you've ever have ever
tried GTD Getting Things Done by David Allen.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I've tried it halfheartedly. Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Well, I was a full on convert a zealot in
when I first started a zen habit, so like around
two thousand and seven and eight, I was just like,
oh man, this is the thing, and it was there
was a lot of really good things about it, but
it was too complex for me. After a while, I
(20:54):
kept falling off of it. And so that's where that's
one of my simplifying things is that I like, what's
the thing about this that I really got the most
out of it? And one of the things was some
kind of weekly ritual where you kind of cleared out
your inboxes, you got everything organized. He called it the
(21:14):
weekly review, and I like that idea a lot. But
then I was like, what if I could clear out
my desks, clear out my you know, physical papers, clear
out my email inbox, clear out my you know down
loads folder, and my desktop on my computer, really just
you know, clear you know, all the tabs of my
browser that are always open. What if I narrow you know,
(21:37):
like somehow save them or put them into the right
buckets so that at least once a week I would
have everything cleared. Now, I'll admit, I'll be the first
admit I don't always do that, but when I do,
it's just so such a relief. And when I don't
do it for a couple of weeks, I really feel
(21:58):
the build up of that. I think that's something that
is just running in the background for most of us,
is just the build up of all of this stuff
that we have to do that we are like kind
of have as this these pending notifications in our mind
kind of so like, for an example, people use clutter
(22:18):
in their lives as reminders, you know, all the bills
that they might have on their kitchen table or their
dining table might be because they didn't want to forget
to pay those bills, and you might have, you know
a lot of things around your house that are just
there because you're afraid of forgetting stuff. And so what
it means is that we go through our whole lives
(22:38):
on our computers, on our phones, on you know, our
physical world around us with all of these reminders of
all the things that we have to do, and think
about how hard that is to run on full screen
mode when that's basically it's like trying to read a
kindle and a whole bunch of notifications are going off,
like don't forget to pay your bills, don't forget to
call Manda, you know, like it's all of these things
(23:01):
are constantly calling for our attention and it's just training.
So no wonder why we're all exhausted because there's so
much that's training about this, And so a weekly clearing
ritual is like, what if I could clear all of
that and have one moment of clearing where you were
just completely free of that, and then you know it's
(23:23):
going to build up during the week. But it's almost
like you know, clearing cleaning your pool, like running the
pool filter. If you have a pool, you know, you
need to run that every now and then so that
things get cleared out and you don't have a bunch
of gunk that's going to clog up the whole pool.
If you don't do that thing, what happens is that
the pool starts to really get like moldy and like disgusting.
(23:47):
So I'm not trying to say that our lives are disgusting,
but like that's kind of the idea, is clear it out.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
I love that now you've mentioned that you are doing
quite a bit of one on one, which I think
for you normally used to be via video call, but recently,
am I right in saying that you're now mostly doing
those as audio calls?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Why is that? Oh man? You know, during the pandemic,
I'm sure a lot of people started there's this idea
of Zoom fatigue. We're on Zoom so much working from home,
doing all these meetings, family calls, And what it turned
out was not only was I doing one on one
coaching calls through Zoom Video, I was doing group coaching
(24:35):
calls and webinars and calls like this with other people
who I was collaborating with calls with my team, calls
with family, all on video, and I was I found myself,
first of all, sitting in front of the computer all
day because I had to do all these calls, getting
so exhausted by the end of the day and not moving,
(24:56):
like my step count was really low, and I was
just disconnected from the outside world. And I decided this
is not just me. I found other people who were
doing this, and I decided to get inspired by them
and change all of my calls for the most part,
to audio, especially the one on one calls, so that
(25:17):
I could go out for a walk. And now I
go out into the park. I go to this place
where there's like a graveyard, and I see a coyote
and a bunch of turkeys and hawks, and I feel
much more like I'm moving through three D space rather
than sitting and staring at a flat screen. And so
(25:39):
you lose the face to face kind of video thing.
And I think once in a while it's useful to
have that. But there's something intimate about being You know
this as someone who does a podcast, and I'm sure
you listen to podcasts being in someone's ear pods, air
pods or earbuds. You are in their head and there's
an intimacy to these kinds of calls where I can
(26:01):
hear them right in the middle of my head space.
And there's another thing that's really interesting about that, besides
the fact that I'll get like step counts of like
twenty thousand to thirty thousand some days, is that I'm
losing weight. I'm much more lean and active. But also
the calls themselves become tied to my moving through three
(26:23):
D space, so I could actually recall the calls better,
the conversation's better. Whether it's a call with a friend
or a family member, or a coaching client or a
team member, I am moving through space, and as I
passed a turkey, that's what happened. I can recall what
happened on that call, As I passed this oak tree
(26:46):
or this you know, this set of houses, what was
going on in the conversation. So I actually recall the
calls a lot better than when I was sitting in
from my computer and everything just blurs together. I actually
think that's what happening for a lot of us who
work this way, is that our days are blurring together
and they're just all the same, and we don't we
(27:09):
don't have a good sense of the passage of time.
So as I move through the outdoor world doing my work,
you know, I mix it in with the indoor work
as well, but as I move through, it's a much
richer sense of time, and there's a lot more like
sensual text like textual details, so that I am feeling
(27:34):
just more connection to not only what you know the
outside world, but to the things that I am doing
during the day.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Leo, It's been amazing to chat to you after reading
your words for many, many years and just getting so
much inspiration and practical tips from zen Habits. So for
people that want to consume more of what you're putting
out into the world, what is the best way for
people to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Definitely my website, my blog zenhabits dot net is the
main place, and there what I would recommend as you
sign up for the email newsletter that's there, because not
only do I put my blog posts into that email newsletter,
but I also send out another extra email each week
with some thoughts and ways to bring mindfulness and productivity
(28:24):
and focus to your life. So that's where I would go.
And you know, I'm also somewhat active on Twitter, not really.
I'm not on Instagram, I'm not really on Facebook too much.
But I do have a membership program called The Fearless
Living Academy that I highly recommend people check out if
(28:45):
you want to go deeper with me after you've checked
out the website and in there, we talk about how
to create habits, how to find purpose, and then how
to actually take that purpose and create impact in the
world by facing all of our fears is an uncertainty
and working with that mindfully.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
One of the things that's stuck with me from my
chat with Leo is the idea of living life in
full screen mode. I find this much more useful and
visceral advice than people telling me to be present and mindful, which,
to be honest, where is a bit thin after a while,
But living life in full screen is something that really
resonates with me because I always try to work in
(29:26):
full screen mode at my computer with the software that
I'm using, and so transferring this habit into my outside
of computer life feels like a really concrete thing to
strive for. How I work is produced by Inventing with
production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this
episode was Liam Riordan, and thank you to Matt Nimba
(29:48):
who does the audio mix for every episode and makes
everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
See you next time.
What kind of stories do you tell yourself about yourself?
If you're like most people, those stories are probably pretty
nasty most of the time. Whether you're beating yourself up
for not being a productivity machine or for not being
the perfect parent or husband or wife, you are not alone.
(00:22):
Leo Babata, who runs the massively popular blog zen Habits,
knows these stories all too well. He worries constantly that
he's not the writer he should be, or that he's
not the coach his clients deserve. But the difference is
Leo's hyper aware of these stories and constantly reminds himself
(00:43):
that they're just stories. And if they're just stories, well
maybe he can rewrite them. Leo shared with me how
his current journaling practice helps him rewrite the unhelpful narratives
he's told himself over the years, and he also explained
his unique process for iteraty of writing, inspired by the
(01:04):
workflows of software engineers. My name is doctor amanthe Impact.
I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show
about how to help you do your best work. Leo
(01:25):
has written a lot about morning routines. And while it
does sometimes feel cliche to ask someone about their morning routine,
I couldn't resist asking Leo about his given how mindful
he is of the way he structures his days. So
let's find out how Leo is structuring his morning routine
at the moment.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
That's great that you added at the moment, because it's funny.
I write about it throughout the years, and it changes,
and I find that it's almost like a seasonal thing
for me, where I will find what's supportive for me,
like right now on the journey that I'm on, and
what I need in my mission in my personal life.
(02:05):
So at the moment, I am rising with the sun
whatever that is at the time of year that I'm in,
so I rarely get up when it's dark anymore, and
I like the early morning light. And just I start
my coffee, I take a little bit of movement, not
(02:27):
too much, just stretching and moving a little bit, and
then I start checking in and checking in with myself,
a little bit of meditation, again not too much, and
then I start journaling, and then I start deciding what
I want to do for the day, and then I
usually I might answer some emails and check in with
(02:49):
my team, but usually fairly early on I'll do like
my most important task, and I like to do the
writing and things like that that I'm creating before I
get into meetings, calls and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Can you tell me more about your journaling practice and
what that involves.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, that also evolves, so it looks different depending on
what I need at the time. Right now, I do
a little bit of gratitude journaling, just really to get
me in touch with the idea that I do have
a lot in my life, a lot of abundance things
that I'm really thankful for, and that puts me in
(03:29):
the right mood for taking on what I want to
take on in the day. Is that I feel connected
to the fact that I have so much support in
my life, so much love in my life, so much
meaning and joy, and it's so easy to forget and
take for granted. So that's one thing I do. I
(03:51):
also do a little bit of a thing that's called
clearing practice, which in this case I could mean a
different number of different things, but in this case it's
really writing out my crappy stories about myself and with
the fears that I have about myself and then really
getting clear that that's just a story and interpretation, and
(04:13):
then deciding what I'd like to stand for that is
outside of that story. Lately it's been love, so something
so basic and simple as love, but reminding myself to
be love in the world and then to let myself
express myself from that place.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Now, the bulk of your work is writing, and you've
been operating Zen Habits your blog for about fifteen years now,
I believe, and I want to know how do you
keep coming up with fresh ideas for your blog posts.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
There was a time when I was actually struggling with that.
That was like a few years, maybe four or five
years into my writing, and I was like, man, I've
written about this stuff over and over, like habits and
simplicity and mindfulness changing your life. These are things that
I you know, productivity, These are things that I knew
really well, but I'd written about them and experimented with
(05:06):
them and tried all kinds of different ideas, and I
was kind of it was like the well was running dry.
That was actually a really scary thing for me because
I I was like, well, what if that's all I
have to say? What if I'm done here. So I
realized that I didn't want to just keep saying the
same thing over and over. I wanted to go deeper.
(05:30):
So I started to deepen into my own exploration, my
own practices. I started working with a Zen teacher more
closely and studying. Deepening into my Zen practice. I started
working with a coach. I started coaching people and working
with them more closely. So I worked with people in
a membership program and then more one on one and
(05:53):
in small groups. And the more that I deepened into
all of that, the more that I found so much
richness to write about. So I even these days, if
I sit down, I'm like, what I want to write
about today? If I have nothing to write about, that's
a little bit of a scary thing. And then I
(06:13):
allow myself to explore the fear that comes up when
I don't have something to write about, and like, what
is there some rich ground there? So now there's actually
like never an end to something to write about, because
I'm always looking into my current experience and in my
work with others and the things that I'm learning about,
the things that I'm excited about. And if I'm not
(06:34):
excited about something, that's a that's a really good sign
that there's maybe something missing or something more to explore,
or maybe I just explore what it's like to not
be excited about something. What if everything feels really gray
and dull and I don't I'm just like bored. I
can write about boredom, and so there's really no end
(06:55):
to things that I could write about.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I've heard that you take inspiration from software to it
when it comes to writing blog posts, So I'd love
you to tell me about your iterative approach to writing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, you know, actually, I think this might be I'm
not saying I'm the only one in the world, but
I did draw inspiration when I started learning, you know,
more than a decade ago about that like agile software development,
and I think I might be one of the few
people who started doing this at the time. And you know,
(07:28):
maybe now there's more. But it's really interesting because when
I was reading about software development, you know, there's an
old model. You know, let's say Microsoft's model when they
were developing, you know, in the nineties, developing the next
version of Windows. They would spend a couple of years
working on the software in kind of isolation, and then
(07:50):
they would put it out into the world fully developed, launched,
and then people would try it, and you know, inevitably
a bunch of people would be like, this sucks. This
isn't what I needed. I like, I'd get all this
backlash because it wasn't what people really needed in the world.
And so people developing software came up with an idea
of what if we put something out immediately to test out,
(08:13):
get feedback on, and then use that information to develop live.
As we continue to develop, we're continually putting it out there,
getting feedback and getting that cycle of putting it out
and getting feedback and learning. And I love that model,
and I was like, how could I use that in
my own life? So I started applying it to everything
(08:33):
that I was doing, from meditation to learning to productivity.
And then I was like, oh, what if I used
it for writing? So what I would do is I
would test out ideas. Blog posts would actually be the
first iteration, so I'd be like, Okay, I want to
write about you know, at one point it was like
Haiku productivity, like really constraining myself to be more effective
(09:00):
like Haiku writers do. And so I wrote a blog
post about it, and it like resonated with people. So
by putting something that was really easy for me to
write out into the world, I could see if there
was any kind of resonance with it, or if people
had some you know, you know feedback that was negative,
or maybe they just didn't care about it. So blog
(09:21):
posts were ways for me to test that out, and
then I would take their feedback and then I would
develop something even more from that. So maybe a series
of posts, maybe it was a mini ebook that I
would give to, you know, a couple dozen people, and
then I would develop a book from that. And then
(09:42):
I came up with the idea of developing the book
live with people. And so what I did was I
would get a group of people, maybe twenty people, and
they would sign up as my like beta testers for
my book, and so I would write stuff for them
and then let them test it out in their lives
and actually put into action so they had some action
(10:04):
steps to take after reading it, and then they would
tell me, like how it went. They would give me
the feedback, and I would take that information and use
it to write the next chapter. In the next chapter,
and then I would take all the information as they
were going through it to write the next version of
all of those chapters, And so the book was constantly
evolving as people were giving me feedback, as they were like, oh,
(10:26):
this is something that was amazing that I really loved,
or like I would hear nothing about it and maybe
that was a sign, and I would ask them questions.
I would have them fill out form like surveys and
things like that, and I would also have some real
world results that I could speak to when I actually
put the book out into a larger group and say, hey,
(10:47):
these twenty people used this book and they got these results,
and so that might enroll people to like, Okay, I
want to try this out and really get going and
really put themselves into it because they've seen that there
are proven results. Or if I was getting some feedback
that people didn't really care or didn't weren't really into it,
I would drop the whole book project once in a while.
(11:10):
So this way, when the book finally came out, A
lot of writers will write a book in isolation for
a year or two and then they put it out
and they're like, I hope people actually like this. I
already knew if people would want to read this and
would actually put into action and if where the stumbling
blocks were and what they actually resonated with, because I've
(11:31):
been testing it as I wrote. And one of the
coolest experiments that I did just to finish this part
out is I would write live in public, so I
would you know. One day, I decided to write a
really short ebook, and I put a Google doc with
the title of the ebook, and then I shared that
(11:51):
doc publicly on Twitter and I said, come watch me
write this book and give me comments as I write it.
So I let people give comments as I was writing
the chapter, so it was like I was writing in public,
live on stage or something like that. They couldn't see
me personally, but they could see the writing. And that
was one of the most fun, like juiciest, most exciting
(12:13):
writing experiments I'd ever done, because it was like people
were commenting live like this is so cool or what
about this Leo, And so it was like a really
collaborative live thing where I had to be really present
in my writing and I couldn't just abandon it and
come back a month later because people were there watching.
(12:34):
So I actually wrote that book in like days, and
it was the most fun I'd ever have, and I'd
done several versions of that since then.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
It's not like you wrote a lot about is simplicity
And I would love to know when you're trying to
simplify your own life and especially your work, what do
you do first?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Hmm? For me, simplicity again, this is such a an
amazing area to dive into. You could go really deep
with it, but for me, it's always it's like a
process of breathing where you expand and then contract. So
simplicity usually happens after you've expanded a little bit. So
(13:16):
if you were, for example, if you wanted to get
into a genre of reading a certain kind of books,
you know, like you say, like I want to read
all the mystery novels there are, right, So you might
start reading and expanding your library, and you'd have you
just like start ording a bunch of things online and
then you they call come in and after a while
(13:39):
you don't need to be as expensive, and so you
can start to simplify from there because you've decided like, Okay,
I've already explored the expansiveness and now I can cut
back a little bit. So it's it's that cultivating or
the it's the idea of winnowing down from the expansiveness.
So you know, in that example, I might just pick
(14:01):
the five novels that I couldn't live without, and those
are the ones that I want to keep in my library,
and the rest of them I go and sell. So
I think the mistake a lot of people make is
to think that this means like you're depriving yourself or
somehow you have to get rid of things that you love.
But this means, as you like explore and expand, and
then eventually, like when you realize this too much, I
(14:22):
didn't need to buy this many things, you start to
narrow it down to the things that actually add value
to your life, that you actually love, and then get
rid of all of the excess, and that really lightens
the load. It really means that you are down to
the things that you actually care about. But I still
recommend the expansive mode. When I get into something, I'll
(14:44):
usually order way too much, spend too much money, and
then and just really empower that, like it's totally okay
to go too big. And then eventually I start to
narrow it down and I realize what's actually essential. You
can't know what's essential until you've done the expense of exploration,
being curious, you know, that kind of stuff. But most
(15:04):
people do the expansiveness for a lot of their lives
and they don't they don't then narrow it down, so
you have to start to learn what actually matters. And
that's really the process after expansion is like taking a
look at all the stuff you've done, and can you
notice what's essential, what mattered most to you, what do
you care the most about, what is necessary and unnecessary?
(15:28):
And as you start to narrow things down, not just
like physical things, but you know, all the commitments in
your life, you know, all of the things that you
do during the day, all the apps on your phone,
all of your distractions versus the things that you actually
need to pay attention to. This is really asking that
question what matters to you? And most people don't like
(15:49):
to be confronted by that question because they don't know
the answer, and so they're like, I don't know what matters.
I'm just going to keep all of it because what
if it matters? And I got you know, the fear
is that I'm going to get rid of something that matters.
But asking that question really allows you to really check
into what your values are what you want the most
(16:11):
in the world and what you care about, and I
think it's such a beautiful exploration.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
We will be back with Leo soon where he shares
the five key ways he thinks about to simplify his life.
If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me
work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving
(16:40):
through the interesting research findings. You can sign up for
that at Howiwork dot code. That's how I Work dot co.
Now there are five key ways that you write about
to simplify your life. The first is around curating your day,
the second is about start living in full screen mode,
(17:01):
the third is having a weekly clearing ritual, the fourth
is eat simple foods and move, and the fifth is
slow down and enjoy. So I was really intrigued about
this idea of living in full screen mode. Can you
tell me what you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, this is something So I like to write in
really simple writing apps that can go full screen and
all you see is the text that you're writing. You know,
one of the first ones that I used was called
om writer and omm writer, and it was just this
(17:38):
like beautiful like nature background and some music playing and
then your text and that was it. And there's some
other amazing ones as well, And so I realized that's
how I like to write, without a whole bunch of
other things calling for my attention, just really fully being there.
And then I realized, oh, it's so much like meditation,
where you were just you know, letting everything else in
(18:01):
the world go, and you're just sitting there really just
being fully present without constantly switching to a bunch of
different tasks at the same time. And I realized that
a lot of the things I like to do were
full screen mode, Like, for example, if I was going
to read on a device, I like to just I
like to close everything else out and just have the
(18:22):
book open so that it was you know, the Kindle
is a great example of that. It's such a single
tasking app or device that that's all there is, you know,
And I really hate it when things pop up and
like ask you to buy something when you're trying to read.
And so I was like, oh, what if I could
live my whole life like this on full screen mode?
(18:42):
What if everything I do on the computer, for example,
was like one thing at a time, full screen and
just really giving my full attention to that. It's not
always possible, but that's that's what I It's kind of
an ideal to move towards. And then I was like,
what if not just my computer, but everything that I
did was like that. If I decided to, you know,
(19:04):
have a conversation with someone, I would turn my phone
off or put or put it down so I couldn't
see it and really just be there with them as
if they were on full screen mode in my attention,
or exercise instead of like being on my phone while
I'm exercising. What if it was just the exercise or
a cup of tea or a meal. What if I
(19:25):
was just eating rather than you know, checking social media
while I was while I was eating. And I just
really love that idea that the same thing that I
like to do with writing and reading could be done
with anything that I You know, it's one thing at
a time, anything that you wanted to do was just
this one thing, and man, if you do try it,
it really transforms the way that you live your life.
(19:47):
We're so we're so fractured, these days, and I'm not
saying that's necessarily a problem, but for me, there's such
such a peace of mind that comes with the simplicity
of that.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
It's interesting. I mean, so many people try to be
more present, which is a really hard thing to achieve,
but I love the idea of expressing that as living
in full screen mode. It somehow makes it more tangible,
which I really love. Now I want to dig into
the weekly clearing ritual. Can you tell me what that involves?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, So, I don't know if you've ever have ever
tried GTD Getting Things Done by David Allen.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I've tried it halfheartedly. Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Well, I was a full on convert a zealot in
when I first started a zen habit, so like around
two thousand and seven and eight, I was just like,
oh man, this is the thing, and it was there
was a lot of really good things about it, but
it was too complex for me. After a while, I
(20:54):
kept falling off of it. And so that's where that's
one of my simplifying things is that I like, what's
the thing about this that I really got the most
out of it? And one of the things was some
kind of weekly ritual where you kind of cleared out
your inboxes, you got everything organized. He called it the
(21:14):
weekly review, and I like that idea a lot. But
then I was like, what if I could clear out
my desks, clear out my you know, physical papers, clear
out my email inbox, clear out my you know down
loads folder, and my desktop on my computer, really just
you know, clear you know, all the tabs of my
browser that are always open. What if I narrow you know,
(21:37):
like somehow save them or put them into the right
buckets so that at least once a week I would
have everything cleared. Now, I'll admit, I'll be the first
admit I don't always do that, but when I do,
it's just so such a relief. And when I don't
do it for a couple of weeks, I really feel
(21:58):
the build up of that. I think that's something that
is just running in the background for most of us,
is just the build up of all of this stuff
that we have to do that we are like kind
of have as this these pending notifications in our mind
kind of so like, for an example, people use clutter
(22:18):
in their lives as reminders, you know, all the bills
that they might have on their kitchen table or their
dining table might be because they didn't want to forget
to pay those bills, and you might have, you know
a lot of things around your house that are just
there because you're afraid of forgetting stuff. And so what
it means is that we go through our whole lives
(22:38):
on our computers, on our phones, on you know, our
physical world around us with all of these reminders of
all the things that we have to do, and think
about how hard that is to run on full screen
mode when that's basically it's like trying to read a
kindle and a whole bunch of notifications are going off,
like don't forget to pay your bills, don't forget to
call Manda, you know, like it's all of these things
(23:01):
are constantly calling for our attention and it's just training.
So no wonder why we're all exhausted because there's so
much that's training about this, And so a weekly clearing
ritual is like, what if I could clear all of
that and have one moment of clearing where you were
just completely free of that, and then you know it's
(23:23):
going to build up during the week. But it's almost
like you know, clearing cleaning your pool, like running the
pool filter. If you have a pool, you know, you
need to run that every now and then so that
things get cleared out and you don't have a bunch
of gunk that's going to clog up the whole pool.
If you don't do that thing, what happens is that
the pool starts to really get like moldy and like disgusting.
(23:47):
So I'm not trying to say that our lives are disgusting,
but like that's kind of the idea, is clear it out.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
I love that now you've mentioned that you are doing
quite a bit of one on one, which I think
for you normally used to be via video call, but recently,
am I right in saying that you're now mostly doing
those as audio calls?
Speaker 2 (24:11):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, yeah?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Why is that? Oh man? You know, during the pandemic,
I'm sure a lot of people started there's this idea
of Zoom fatigue. We're on Zoom so much working from home,
doing all these meetings, family calls, And what it turned
out was not only was I doing one on one
coaching calls through Zoom Video, I was doing group coaching
(24:35):
calls and webinars and calls like this with other people
who I was collaborating with calls with my team, calls
with family, all on video, and I was I found myself,
first of all, sitting in front of the computer all
day because I had to do all these calls, getting
so exhausted by the end of the day and not moving,
(24:56):
like my step count was really low, and I was
just disconnected from the outside world. And I decided this
is not just me. I found other people who were
doing this, and I decided to get inspired by them
and change all of my calls for the most part,
to audio, especially the one on one calls, so that
(25:17):
I could go out for a walk. And now I
go out into the park. I go to this place
where there's like a graveyard, and I see a coyote
and a bunch of turkeys and hawks, and I feel
much more like I'm moving through three D space rather
than sitting and staring at a flat screen. And so
(25:39):
you lose the face to face kind of video thing.
And I think once in a while it's useful to
have that. But there's something intimate about being You know
this as someone who does a podcast, and I'm sure
you listen to podcasts being in someone's ear pods, air
pods or earbuds. You are in their head and there's
an intimacy to these kinds of calls where I can
(26:01):
hear them right in the middle of my head space.
And there's another thing that's really interesting about that, besides
the fact that I'll get like step counts of like
twenty thousand to thirty thousand some days, is that I'm
losing weight. I'm much more lean and active. But also
the calls themselves become tied to my moving through three
(26:23):
D space, so I could actually recall the calls better,
the conversation's better. Whether it's a call with a friend
or a family member, or a coaching client or a
team member, I am moving through space, and as I
passed a turkey, that's what happened. I can recall what
happened on that call, As I passed this oak tree
(26:46):
or this you know, this set of houses, what was
going on in the conversation. So I actually recall the
calls a lot better than when I was sitting in
from my computer and everything just blurs together. I actually
think that's what happening for a lot of us who
work this way, is that our days are blurring together
and they're just all the same, and we don't we
(27:09):
don't have a good sense of the passage of time.
So as I move through the outdoor world doing my work,
you know, I mix it in with the indoor work
as well, but as I move through, it's a much
richer sense of time, and there's a lot more like
sensual text like textual details, so that I am feeling
(27:34):
just more connection to not only what you know the
outside world, but to the things that I am doing
during the day.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Leo, It's been amazing to chat to you after reading
your words for many, many years and just getting so
much inspiration and practical tips from zen Habits. So for
people that want to consume more of what you're putting
out into the world, what is the best way for
people to do that.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Definitely my website, my blog zenhabits dot net is the
main place, and there what I would recommend as you
sign up for the email newsletter that's there, because not
only do I put my blog posts into that email newsletter,
but I also send out another extra email each week
with some thoughts and ways to bring mindfulness and productivity
(28:24):
and focus to your life. So that's where I would go.
And you know, I'm also somewhat active on Twitter, not really.
I'm not on Instagram, I'm not really on Facebook too much.
But I do have a membership program called The Fearless
Living Academy that I highly recommend people check out if
(28:45):
you want to go deeper with me after you've checked
out the website and in there, we talk about how
to create habits, how to find purpose, and then how
to actually take that purpose and create impact in the
world by facing all of our fears is an uncertainty
and working with that mindfully.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
One of the things that's stuck with me from my
chat with Leo is the idea of living life in
full screen mode. I find this much more useful and
visceral advice than people telling me to be present and mindful, which,
to be honest, where is a bit thin after a while,
But living life in full screen is something that really
resonates with me because I always try to work in
(29:26):
full screen mode at my computer with the software that
I'm using, and so transferring this habit into my outside
of computer life feels like a really concrete thing to
strive for. How I work is produced by Inventing with
production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this
episode was Liam Riordan, and thank you to Matt Nimba
(29:48):
who does the audio mix for every episode and makes
everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
See you next time.
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