November 13, 2024 • 43 mins
#78 — In this episode of The Happy Scientist, we dive into the emotional patterns that hinder the smooth operation of any to-do list system.
These emotional barriers can sabotage even the most well-crafted to-do lists.
Let's get to the root of these emotional barriers and empower you to work more effectively.
Join us as we explore the psychological factors that influence our productivity and learn strategies to overcome them.
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Episode Transcript
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VX (00:30):
This is the Happy Scientist podcast. Each episode is
designed to make you morefocused, more productive, and
more satisfied in the lab. Youcan find us online at
bitesizebiodotcom/happyscientist. Your hosts
are Kenneth Vogt, founder of theexecutive coaching firm, Vera
Claritas, and doctor NickOswald, PhD, bioscientist, and
(00:52):
founder of Bite Size Bio.
Nick Oswald (00:59):
Hi, everyone. This is Nick Oswald welcoming you to
this Bite Size Bio webinar,which today is a live episode of
the Happy Scientist podcast. Ifyou want to become a happier,
healthier, and more productivescientist, you are in the right
place. With me, as always, ismister Kenneth Vogt. In these
sessions, we'll hear from Kenmostly on principles that will
(01:20):
help shape you for a happier andmore successful career.
And along the way, I'll pitch inwith points from my personal
experience as a scientist andfrom working with Ken. If you
have any questions along theway, please put them into the
questions box, and you will geta personalized answer from Ken
or myself. Today, we will becovering the second part of our
2 part presentation on gettingdead practical about to do
(01:43):
lists. This one is aboutovercoming task avoidance. Ken
will be leading this as usual,but first of all, Ken, I'm sorry
I left you hanging last time.
It wasn't it wasn't to do with,having too many things on my to
do list. It was, it was just alast minute family day at the
beach. So I think I think weshould do an excerpt on that,
(02:03):
giving yourself permission tohave fun. What do you think?
Ken Vogt (02:05):
I like it. Yeah. I think that sounds fantastic. And
somehow, we muddled throughwithout you. We've got great
production support here.
So, you know, Connor is onceagain our producer behind the
scenes today, and he he, doesgreat work for us. So to do
list, last time, we talked aboutcall it the practical side of
(02:29):
it. Like, how do I how do I pickout a good system for myself?
How do I how do I, how do I pickout what features matter to me?
And then how do I pull thetrigger and and start using it?
So here's the problem. If youdid all that last week and you
(02:50):
figured out which system youneed and you and you got it, And
if it's in required some kind ofinstallations, required some
kind of setup, you've done that.And then you get into it and you
start to use it, and you findyou don't use it. You you stop.
You hesitate.
You you get distracted. You youdo anything but follow your
(03:14):
system. And you you're wonderingwhat went wrong. I put all the
effort into this already. I Idid the heavy lifting, and I and
I picked the right system forme, and this one should work for
me.
It should be perfect, and yetI'm just not doing it. And so
what happened? Well, the thingis that that system is a
(03:36):
mechanical thing, and whetherit's you're just using a, you
know, a yellow legal pad or oryou're using some some full
blown project management system,there's the emotional part for
you. There's the human part. NowI say emotional.
I don't wanna make it soundlike, oh, you're just you're
(03:56):
just being hysterical on howyou're reacting to this. No. No.
It's not like that. But you arehuman.
And I don't care how clinicalyou are. I don't care how much
of a statistician you are. Idon't care how much of a
scientist you are. You're stillhuman. And it's not a negative.
That's a positive. You're you'rebringing something additional to
(04:17):
this, and it can absolutely bewielded for the most positive
possible effect. But when itseems like it's working against
you, you gotta ask yourself,what now? So I wanna start off
by considering this notion ofold habits die hard. Before you
(04:39):
had your system, your to dosystem, you did whatever you
used to do.
And for whatever reason, youdecided that wasn't working well
enough, but it's familiar. Andit's what you always used to do,
and you must have gotten somekind of results. You didn't get
a PhD because you don't getthings done. Yeah. Obviously,
you have been effective atgetting things done.
(05:01):
It's just you'd like to be moreeffective. But having done
something pretty well already,you're gonna have to let go of
it. Those old habits, thosethings you've always done, I,
you know, I always check myemail first thing in the
morning. I always I always writedown this type of task, but I
(05:24):
have never been in the habit ofwriting down that type of task.
I always put all my my workrelated stuff in here, but I
don't put any of my personalstuff in there because, you
know, I'm at work.
I shouldn't I shouldn't bethinking about that or doing
that, except that's not reallyhow life works and vice versa.
You know, you you can't spendall of your time scheduling,
(05:45):
picking up the kids from school,and and doctor's appointments
and all that, and ignore yourwork, you have to do all of it.
So the first thing is toacknowledge that, okay, I have
some old habits. And, you know,you've gotten this far in life
into adulthood, and you've seenthe power of habit. Habits can
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be can be so compelling, and notall habits are good, obviously.
But here here's the tough one.When a habit has been good for
you, those can be really hard tolet go of. You know, you used to
do it a certain way. Now yournew system is telling you to do
it different, but the back ofyour head is telling you the old
(06:28):
system was good. The old systemworked.
What will I lose if I if I letgo of this? Well, it's it's it's
kind of like, if you wanna swimacross the pool, you're gonna
have to let go of the side ofthe of the pool. You you have to
get in there and start swimming.And, yes, when you let go, you
have a little more chance ofsinking below the water, but
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it's it's just a choice you'vealready made. And remember, if
you've chosen a new system, youyou went through this process,
you have thought about it.
You have considered the impact.So now now you just need to get
in there and start swimming. Sothat, you know, it it starts it
starts with that. Put it anotherway, either you're gonna do your
(07:16):
old habits or you're gonnachange. If if you don't make the
commitment to change, you willgo backwards.
It's the opposite direction ofwhat you've chosen here. And,
yes, sometimes having made achoice, it was hard and it was
scary, and you maybe even stillscared about it. And you don't
(07:39):
know what the future holds. I doknow the results I get with my
old system. I don't know forsure what kind of results I will
get with the new system.
Well, if you like data, get inthere and start creating it.
Start getting feedback so thatyou will know what will happen.
Now this is not so that you canset yourself up to shoot down
(08:01):
the new system. But you do wannasee things in practice. Because
at at the beginning, you've gotyour fantasies about, oh, it's
gonna be so much better.
Everything's gonna be perfect.It's all gonna be so smooth.
Probably not. It's it's notgonna be that straightforward.
Get in there and start findingout where the rough spots are.
Where do you need to to dialthings in a little more? What's
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missing that you didn't think ofbefore, but now it's now it's
screaming at you? Don't look atthose things as as, alarm bells
going off. They're notemergencies. They're just
they're just information.
And now it's good to know that,alright. I need to I need to
shore this up a little bit overhere, or I need to I need to
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change something, additional sothat this will work. Yeah. The
objective always is you want itto work out for you. You have to
have a system of some kind.
You know, whether it's it's, youknow, super dialed in or whether
it is more flowy, whatever itis, it's gotta be something that
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works for you. And give yourselfa chance. Get in there and do
it. Make some mistakes. Getbetter at it, because that's the
other thing.
You everything you've everlearned how to do, you started
off doing it without experience.So, you know, to ride that bike,
you had to actually take achance and get on the bike. And
at some point, you had to pulloff the training wheels and find
(09:29):
out, can I do this or not? Andeverybody who's ever rode a
bike, I've never met anybodythat will claim they never fell
down. We've all done it.
You fall down sometimes. Andsometimes it really hurts, but
probably, it doesn't kill you.Well, in fact, if you're here,
it didn't kill you. Right? Andit it'd be the same thing with
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this.
Now part of when we when we wechose a a system that would work
for us, we chose something thatwould not lead to catastrophic
failure. That's already kindabuilt into the system. The
system is built that it can takesome knocks. So have some
confidence in it and have someconfidence in your selection.
(10:13):
You know, trust yourself.
At the end of the day, you'vegotten this far trusting
yourself. Even if you've doubtedyourself, even if you've dabbled
with impostor syndrome, whichwe've talked about several times
in the past, the the fact isthat you've come through. And in
many cases, come through withflying colors, and you didn't
give yourself credit. So giveyourself a little credit that,
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you know what? You can work thisout.
You can you can take it to thenext level, and you can make a
new system work. And it'll itcan it will go more quickly if
you get in, if you if you getengaged and involved. Otherwise,
if you're hesitant and hesitantand hesitant, you're you're not
(10:58):
gonna make any progress, and andthen it's just you're just
wasting your time, and you'reslowing things down. So I will
pause for a minute here and, letNick, jump on in.
Nick Oswald (11:11):
Makes sense to me so far. I'm just waiting for the
bit about the, the avoiding the,you know, the demand avoidance
thing because that's me. But no.This is, yeah, I I suppose one
of the the main things is,though, I love look reading
about these systems, figuringout what will work for me, and,
(11:32):
and then setting them up, andoff I go. And I use a version of
Zentadon, or or I have set up aversion of Zentadon.
But then then then the real testis 1 is living it. And as you
said, it's it's like thehoneymoon period, isn't it? As
you you find out what where itdoesn't work for you and, you
(11:55):
know, where it gets sticky foryou and, yeah, and then you have
to find a way to get throughthat and kind of personalize
that, make that work foryourself. So
Ken Vogt (12:04):
Right. And and that happens that happens in motion.
Because we all have those timeswhen, like, look, I wanna follow
the system, but I have a really,really good reason why I'm not
gonna follow the system rightnow.
Nick Oswald (12:17):
Today. Yeah. The diet starts tomorrow.
Ken Vogt (12:19):
Yeah. Exactly. I remember back in the day, this
is probably before most of yourtime, there was there was this
actress. Her name is TodyFields, and she used to be on
the the the daytime talk shows,and she was funny. She's a
comedian.
You know? And she wrote a bookcalled, I think I'll start on
Monday, because she was quiteoverweight and and she, you
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know, and she really traded onthat. It was part of her shtick.
And and it was always about, I'mgonna go on a diet. I'm gonna go
on a diet.
I'm gonna go on a diet. And, ofcourse, she never does. And, the
hilarious discussion about itjust was ongoing. But it's
always struck me to, like, wow.She can't go on a diet on
Monday.
Her whole life is built aroundthe fact that she needs to go on
(13:03):
a diet. And, you know, you mayfind yourself doing stuff like
that. And, you know, you gottawatch for that. You gotta pay
attention. When am I playingthis game?
There's a quote I wanted to toreference here from somebody, FM
Alexander. People do not decidetheir futures. They decide their
(13:27):
habits, and their habits decidetheir futures. Nice. Yeah.
And when you think about that,you realize, what has my habit
been? Because the habit startsto take over. The thinking isn't
happening anymore. Now thisparticular person who wrote this
is an author and also was anactor, and he developed the a
(13:48):
thing called the Alexandertechnique or the Alexander
method. And it's it's veryinteresting, how that all
worked.
It's a physiological thing, thisthe Alexander technique. It's
basically how to have goodposture, which mattered for a
stage actor and, you know,matters in a lot of things. Now
I'm not necessarily recommendingthe technique or recommending
(14:11):
against it. That's not thepoint. But the point is is that
he recognized that there werehabits.
They were they even weredownright physiological that
impacted his output in hischosen field, and the same thing
happens to all of us. Nowthere's 2 kinds of habits that I
wanted to talk about here thatthat may may show up for you.
(14:34):
It's your habits surroundingstarting tasks and your habits
surrounding finishing tasks. Sosome of us have a hard time
starting. And once we get going,we're okay, but starting is so
hard.
When you get you really need tolook at yourself and go, what is
happening in that moment? Myhabit is to avoid starting. Why?
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What's what am I doing? How do Ido it?
What methods do I use to keepfrom starting? Do I use
distraction? Do I start makingvalue judgments about this is
more important than that, andtherefore, even though I chose
to schedule this thing to donow, I'm not gonna do it because
there's this other thing that'smore important? Well, you know,
(15:21):
it is more important that you dothings to survive than that you
have fun, you know, as far aslong term viability. Right?
Except you do need to have funsometimes. And if you never
allow yourself to have funbecause it's not about survival,
you won't start things. So youyou need to pay attention to
(15:43):
when I'm not starting things.Sometimes you wanna dig into
why, but other times, it's justjust taking note that, hey. I'm
hesitating to start.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna putup with that. You don't need to
talk yourself into it. You don'tneed to have a conversation in
your own head. It's just like,I'm just gonna start. Just it
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doesn't matter why I wasn'tstarting before.
I'm just gonna start and juststart, and then watch what
happens next. You will find thatit's it's kind of a flywheel
effect. Once you get going,you're okay. You you've I think
I mentioned the Pomodorotechnique in our last session.
You know, the idea that ifyou'll just commit 20 minutes to
(16:25):
something, say, look, I'm notcommitting to finish writing
this paper.
I'm just gonna commit 20 minutesinto it. I'm I'm I'm then the
first 20 minutes, all I'm gonnado is start working on a start
working on an outline. That'sall. In fact, I'm I'm just gonna
start I'm just gonna start theoutline. That's all I'm gonna do
for 20 minutes.
After you're in it for 20minutes, you ask yourself again,
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am I ready to commit another 20minutes? And usually, the answer
is gonna be, yeah. Yeah. I'm I'min it. I'm and and I've got
momentum, and you'll and you'llget going on it.
And that becomes a habit. If youget in a habit of acting of
taking the first step, you'llfind taking first steps is
easier and easier and easier.Now the other side of that, do
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you have a habit of notfinishing tasks? You get
excited, you get involved, andit's like, this is getting
detailed and boring. And nowthere's other these other shiny
things I wanna start, and thenyou start the next thing and
start the next thing.
And all of a sudden, you've gotall of these unfinished things
sitting around. Well, how do youmotivate yourself there? Well,
(17:31):
by starting finishing. You thatis treat it like it's a new
project. It the new project hascome from where I am now to
where I wanna go next.
That's that's always true. Thatnever stops being accurate. So
the point of all this is to takea look at your own emotional
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barrier here. I have a hard timestarting. I have a hard time
finishing.
Maybe both. Who knows? But tojust acknowledge it. Okay. This
is how it is, and this is justan emotional thing.
It's not it it's not a systemicproblem. It's it's you know, I
mean, if you lack things, youknow, I need more information
(18:13):
before I can start or I needapproval or what you know? Well,
fine. If there are practicalthings, then then make that the
project. The project now is toget approval for the project.
The project now is to get getthe data I need for the project.
Fine. Just just start looking atit that way and taking taking
that next step. And then youwanna start rewarding yourself
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emotionally. Praise yourself forlook at look at me go.
I started. Or look at me. Ifinished it. I'm I'm isn't that
great? You know, I'm worthy ofsomething.
It's and it is more than okay toreward yourself in some way for
having successfully started orfinished. It doesn't have to be
a big thing. It's I'm gonnareward myself by going and
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getting a latte. You know, I'mand, you could reward yourself
like, when I finish this, I'mtaking a family on vacation. You
know, sometimes the reward needsto be big, and the motivation of
that potential reward is therefor you, and it will help you to
establish these habits.
And I'm sure you know peoplethat are are really good at
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getting things done. And and youwatch them, like, how do they do
that? They they did it the sameway that I'm suggesting you now.
They got in there and starteddoing, and then it got to be
such a pattern for them, such ahabit that they just never
stopped. And, of course, theygot the rewards of the success
of taking action, and and nowthey have that as a kind of a a
(19:47):
a substructure underneath itall.
Like, I know I'm gonna get somesatisfaction when I start this.
I know I'm gonna get a bigpayoff when I finish this. Start
using those things and stopignoring that you're acting
emotionally. You're a human.You're gonna have emotional
reactions.
Sometimes they're avoidant, butother times, they're they're
(20:10):
moving you toward things. Usethat stuff. There's there's
nothing wrong with with draftingon an on another, you know,
another person. Somebody elsesucceeding, start following
them. If if somebody else isgetting a lot done, start
getting a lot done to matchthem.
You can use competition that wayin a positive sense, and it will
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and it'll help you move forward.Okay. So now let's talk about
this from the negative side.Sometimes we look at, look, I
got this great system and I'veimplemented it and I'm using it
properly, but other people keepgetting in my way. I'm getting
interrupted all the time.
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And sometimes it's like, well,I'm being interrupted by peers
and okay. That's a problem. ButI'm getting interrupted by my
boss. I can't ignore that. I Ican't just say, well, I'd get
more done if my boss wasn't inmy way all the time.
Your boss has reasons to be inyour way. Actually, so do your
peers, but, you know, you we wecan't pretend that's not not
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gonna happen. So if you planyour day in such a way that you
have no room for interruptions,well, you're you're not planning
properly. Now there it may bethat you just need to plan 6
hours worth of work in an 8 hourday, and maybe that solves your
(21:37):
problem. But maybe that's nothow it is.
Maybe it's when I getinterrupted, I'm I'm just
totally taken off track, and Ihave to have to go down another
road. You you do still need toacknowledge that that is the lay
of the land. If if if it's suchthat you just can't take it
(21:59):
anymore, then maybe you do needto change the lab you're working
in, change the the way you'redoing work. But for most of us,
that's not really the answer.It's not a matter of, well, I
just don't feel like it.
It's just too hard. You're doingwork that's hard. You've been
doing work that's hard, andyou've been doing work that's
(22:20):
hard for many years to get tothe level you're at. Hard work
isn't the problem. In fact,you've gotten a lot of
satisfaction from doing thingsthat are hard.
So, you know, don't run awayfrom that, but acknowledge that
this is how it is. Now somefolks are in a chaotic
environment just by nature. Youknow, if you're an emergency
(22:41):
room doctor, literally,everything you encounter is an
emergency. Yeah. That's a toughenvironment, and it's not for
everybody.
But for the right people, it isabsolutely the right
environment. So if you'refinding that having an
environment that has a fairamount of chaos is actually good
for you and actually motivatesyou and actually energizes you,
(23:04):
great. Accept that motivationand energy, but also accept the
impacts of it and see it. Andand then start asking yourself,
how can I how can I mitigatethis? What can I do to make this
easier?
Maybe not even easier this time,but next time in the future.
What what can I what can I putin place that will help with
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this? And it may be that you youset up a team so that you can
offload some of these theseemergencies on others. Maybe
it's a matter of of preemptingthings, seeing in advance. This
is this kind of problem keepspopping up, and I can make it
pop up less if I take thesesteps.
And then maybe you need to workit into your system that I've
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always got this fudge factoravailable. I you know, that that
when I need it, I can pull itin, and it won't create chaos.
So, you know, everything thatyou're promising about
delivering on has got room sothat if something else pops up
in between, that it won't won'tcrash and burn your project.
(24:13):
Alright. Enough about outsideinfluences.
Now let's talk about insideinfluences. One of the things
that that stops us more oftenthan anything else is fear, and
we often don't want toacknowledge that. We think,
well, fear is kind of a childishthing, and it's irrational, and
(24:33):
that's not who I am. I'm anadult, and I'm a scientist, and
and I'm a logician, and I'm andI'm a capable person. Now to
claim though that you never aremade afraid by anything is
disingenuous.
It's not realistic. So when youhave fear, you wanna acknowledge
(24:54):
it. And when I say acknowledgeit, I don't mean engage with it.
We're not having a conversationwith the fear. We're merely just
looking and going, oh, look atthat.
I'm afraid about something. I'mafraid I won't get this done.
I'm afraid this project's gonnafail. I'm afraid that somebody
is going to gonna get in my way.I've you know, whatever the fear
(25:17):
is, acknowledge it.
Because the fact is, if you havefears about things that are
getting in the way of youaccomplishing tasks, those fears
are not gonna just vanish. Andyou can't just treat them as if
you're talking to a child like,look, there's no monster in the
(25:37):
closet. Don't just that's silly.Stop thinking that. If you've
ever tried doing that with achild, it doesn't work.
You can't just poo poo it andpush it away and pretend it's
not there. What you have to say,look at that. There is fear
there. And with no judgment,it's like and it's not stupid to
be afraid, and it's not it's notlazy to be afraid, and it's and
(26:01):
it's not, you know, it's nottimidity that's making you
afraid. It's just something iscausing that to pop up.
So acknowledge that it's there.Because if you don't, it's gonna
keep trying to get yourattention, and it will and often
you've probably have noticedthis. You don't pay attention to
something, it amplifies. Andwe've we've had this kind of
(26:25):
experience just with they saysomething physical. It's like,
you know, my knee's a littlesore, and I ignore it and I
ignore it.
Now my knee is really sore, andnow my knee is injured. You
know, there was a escalationthere, and in each step of the
way, you didn't acknowledge theproblem. If you will just the
the earlier you can acknowledgethat fear is is welling up, the
(26:49):
better off you're gonna be, themore likely you're gonna deal
with it. And I when I say dealwith it, I don't mean stopping
and making some intellectualchoices about what's what's to
happen. When you acknowledgefear, it gets internalized.
The the not the fear itself, butthe acknowledgment gets
internalized, and you will startyou will find you will start to
(27:11):
deal with it. It'll starthappening. Okay. I will you'll
get in front of this. Because ifthat first time you look at you
look at your system, it's like,oh, no.
I I I have to prepare for theMonday morning meeting, and, you
know, I don't wanna work on theweekend. Well, great. Now that
you know that. You're right. Ineed to schedule something for
(27:32):
me to do on Friday, so I'mprepared for Monday's meeting.
All that because you acknowledgethe fear. If you just push the
fear away, it'll it won't bethere until Monday morning rolls
around like, oh my god. I'm notprepared. And, no. I'm here I am
on the speaker stand.
Now what? You know, then fear isthen fear is really
(27:53):
debilitating. So just deal withit when it's small and when it's
early, and you'll find you'regonna have a lot better time.
Another thing that happens ishave you ever noticed that
sometimes you start doingthings, and maybe even in the
past, they used to be useful,but for now, they're not the
best use of your time. But youjust can't stop.
(28:17):
I have to finish this thing. Youknow, I I used to do this all on
notebook paper. And even thoughI've got a system nice online
system, I'm gonna keep I'm gonnakeep doodling on this notepad
until I finish. And then you'renot gonna use it. You're gonna
use your automated system, ornow you have to transfer what's
(28:38):
on the notepad into theautomated system.
Why? Why do you do that? Well,it's because it's familiar and
it's comfortable, and we aredefinitely drawn to things that
make us comfortable. And there'snothing bad about that. But,
nothing generally bad aboutthat.
(28:58):
But in the specific instance,there are times when you gotta
tell yourself, I don't wannapursue this dopamine hit of
creating this manual list. WhatI wanna do is start getting my
dopamine hits from following thenew system. And, again, this is
the installation of new habits,and you've gotta break the old
(29:20):
habits too. So it's not just anew habit has to start, old
habits have to end. And that'syou know, we've talked about
addiction to dopamine in thepast too, and it's I mean, it's
a real thing.
We all do it, and and we're allbeing compelled to do it. I
mean, our phones are doing it tous. Our all these systems and
(29:43):
social media have been designedto attack us that way and to to
wrangle away our own dopamineresponse. And, you know, in the
past, we had an episode on on,going on a dopamine fast. It's a
it's a good idea.
(30:03):
Every once in a while, you justneed to stop all of that. Turn
off all the devices, if that'swhat's causing it for you. Turn
off the television if that'swhat's causing it for you. Stop
listening to podcasts. And I'mnot saying forever, but give
yourself a breather.
Give yourself a break. And whenyou find yourself going back to
(30:23):
an old habit, just stop. Don'thave a conversation with
yourself about it. Don't don'tengage it. Just like we don't
engage fear, don't engage yourcompulsions.
And we all have compulsions.Don't don't beat yourself up
about it like, oh, man. Thismeans that I'm I'm an addict, or
this means that that, you know,I'm psychologically imbalanced.
(30:47):
No. You're just human.
We all have these compulsions,and they're satisfying in short
term. And we we will miss thatsatisfaction. We will we will
wish we had it. It's okay. Youcan you can forego a
satisfaction, and it's gonna beokay.
Forego that satisfaction, moveon to the next thing, and you
(31:08):
will find something else willreplace it. And you'll find you
get more resilient, that you cango longer between meeting
periods of satisfaction. Becauseif you have to be satisfied at
every given moment, you youknow, you're gonna act in a very
childish manner. And I say thatin, you know, in the most
professional sense. Right?
It's not that you're gonna actlike a 2 year old, but but
(31:32):
you're not gonna act like theprofessional that you that you
truly are. And and it comes downto facing what's really in front
of you. One other thing. Do youfind sometimes you don't follow
the system? Because I'm just notgonna.
(31:52):
You can't make me follow thesystem. I don't care if I put it
in place. I don't have to. I I'mfully in charge of my existence,
and I can do whatever I wantwhenever I want. It's freedom.
Right? I mean, freedom is great,and freedom freedom is
important. In fact, freedom is asource of your free thinking,
(32:14):
which is, just a criticalcritical skill to have as a
scientist. But you need torecognize when you're acting in
rebellion, when when you'rejumping out there and and you're
just just being a rebel withouta cause like James Dean here on
the screen. If you're gonnarebel, do it with purpose.
(32:38):
If you're finding it's just justa short term satisfaction thing,
that's that's not a verycompelling reason to engage with
it. So I'm not telling you tostop rebelling. In fact,
rebellion is really necessary inscience, but make sure you do it
on purpose and and with purposethat you're gonna you're gonna
(33:00):
get something of value out ofit, not just short term
satisfaction. So once again,Nick, I I'll let you jump in.
Nick Oswald (33:10):
No. I I'm writing down here. So this is this is
definitely an Achilles' heel forme, this one, because you get,
I'm just looking at well, thethings you wrote down, outside
influences, fear, compulsion,and rebellion are all ways that
you stop yourself following thatsystem or stop yourself from
(33:33):
getting past the the honeymoonperiod and and into the become
proficient at running thatsystem. Mhmm. Yeah.
So for me, they they all play apart depending on what the, on
on what it is, really. But, thatthing about the the the dopamine
(33:54):
hit is is quite compellingbecause you go for that. You go
for dopamine.
Ken Vogt (33:58):
Mhmm.
Nick Oswald (33:59):
You know, that that's what you're programmed to
do. So if you can make thedopamine hit about having your
inbox at 0 or or ticking theticking the the thing off the
list or whatever, that is, Iguess, is is that the way is
that the the goal sort of thingor or or a way to get this to
take advantage of yourprogramming here to make it
(34:21):
Yeah. To work.
Ken Vogt (34:22):
And it it can't be just a, you know, something as
gross as inbox to 0. Because oneday, that is a very good goal,
and the next day, it's not avery good goal. So we have to be
a little more nuanced about it.We have to choose we have to
choose where we're getting ourdopamine hits from, and we
(34:43):
usually aren't. And that reallyis the big shift.
So start start being the chooserinstead of just being the
recipient of the choice, and andthat can make a big difference
for you. You know? And, youknow, you mentioned we talked
about fear. We talked aboutcompulsion. We talked about
rebellion.
A lot of folks will hear thosethree things and go, I don't
(35:05):
like the sound of any of those,and I don't I I don't like to
even be associated with that.But you can look at the flip
side. Like, what if I'mcourageous? And what if I'm free
thinking? And what what if I amin charge of my own existence?
(35:26):
You know, you can you can lookat this from that positive
standpoint and use that tomotivate you. Some people, it
will be very motivating that thenegative is motivating to them.
You know, they wanna push awayfrom that. Other people wanna
push toward the positive. Orit's a mix of that, and and
maybe it's it's dependent onwhat's happening for you in the
(35:49):
moment.
Right now, I'm avoiding anegative, but tomorrow, I'm I'm
happy to pursue a positive, thenuse them both.
Nick Oswald (35:58):
I just had a thought of 22 parallel parallel
things, meaning tools that workor that help with that. Mhmm.
One was and I'm sure it's fromJason Fried. The, what's that
book he wrote wrote? He wrote 2,didn't he?
One of them.
Ken Vogt (36:14):
He's the CEO of 37 signals. Yes. He's actually
written a couple books.
Nick Oswald (36:20):
The second one, whatever his second one was. But
he talked about having, thatyour goal should be able to get
to the stage where you can haveguilt free fun. Yeah. And that
should be your aim is that youfeel that everything's under
control enough that now you canjust you don't have to carry it
with you for the rest of youknow, once work is finished.
Ken Vogt (36:40):
Mhmm.
Nick Oswald (36:41):
Now now it's time to go and have some fun, and you
don't have to feel bad about it.Yeah. And, you know, rather
than, you know, rebellion, yougo, no. I'm gonna take some time
off and, without doing all thisstuff.
Ken Vogt (36:53):
Yeah. But you kinda feel like system and yes. Right.
You can't make me kinda thing.Yeah.
Nick Oswald (36:57):
Yeah. You kinda feel a bit guilty, though,
though, about it. So you don'treally get the benefit.
Ken Vogt (37:01):
Right. So it's And and for some folks, you need to
schedule in your pleasure. Youneed to schedule the coffee
break. You need to schedule thevacation. You need to schedule
the time to to read forpleasure.
That needs to be in your to dosystem. You know yourself. If
you need that, get it in yoursystem. Now for some of us, we
don't need that. We'll we'llwe'll do those things fine.
(37:21):
But but if you're somebody who'sbeen nose to the grindstone,
shoulder the wheel for years nowand often academia did that to
you, you gotta you gotta allowyourself to schedule pleasure,
and it's it's productive for youto do so.
Nick Oswald (37:40):
Yeah. And the other thing I was thinking of as well
is using a bit of brute force toget yourself out of your normal
thought pattern when it comes toapproaching what you need to do,
you know, when you you sit down.And one of the really good one
is there's one, it's it's likean inspirational video, where
(38:03):
you just watch. It's meant to bethat you watch it at the start
of each day, and it just kindagets you a bit pumped. I used to
have one of these, and I had,like, the, the, the Rocky theme
tune on it and stuff like that.
Ken Vogt (38:13):
It's pretty good.
Nick Oswald (38:14):
You just kinda get ready. But this one is it's an a
Tony Robbins one.
Ken Vogt (38:18):
Mhmm.
Nick Oswald (38:19):
And if you can you can find it on YouTube. It's
called now I am the voice. Andthe idea the idea is that you
sit down and your brain juststarts going, oh, I hate doing
this. Oh, we've got so much todo. And and it's kinda and it
just goes on autopilot.
Ken Vogt (38:34):
And and
Nick Oswald (38:34):
it's the same every time. And this thing is about
just giving yourself, you know,as I think it's 7 minutes long
or so. 5 or 7 minutes long. Andthe the idea is just to give
yourself 5 minutes to get intothe zone of actually, don't
listen to that bumbling voice.That's not your voice.
Now you see what you want tohappen. And as you get into the
(38:55):
habit of doing that, the idea isto do it every day. But as you
get into the habit of doing it,that gets stronger. Your ability
to say, no. This is what's goingto happen.
Consciously say it rather thanto let the script tell you
what's the or the videotapethat's running in the background
all the time. Rather than nottelling you what's gonna happen,
then, you know, that that's theidea of the, of that video. So
(39:15):
that helps you use a bit ofbrute force to kind of shove
this in the right direction.
Ken Vogt (39:20):
Sure. And you might some folks may be listening to
that going, oh god. TonyRobbins, are you kidding me?
Like, well, what do you need? Doyou need to be Carl Jung?
You know, if it works, it works.You know?
Nick Oswald (39:33):
If you read the life story of Tony Robbins, then
he he he has whatever you elseyou think of him, he has been
able to motivate himself. So Iwould
Ken Vogt (39:43):
definitely millions of others.
Nick Oswald (39:45):
Yeah. I would definitely listen to him on
motivation. Yeah.
Ken Vogt (39:47):
Yeah. So, I mean and, you know, it doesn't matter who
that is. There are people thatthe, you know, they they give
them to the limelight, andsometimes they fall out of it.
Sometimes it's just becausethey're in the limelight.
They're getting shot at all thetime, and all you've heard all
you hear is all the negativestuff about them.
You know, look at what works.Look at what's getting resolved.
(40:09):
Yeah. And and go from there.Yeah.
Yeah. And and you don't have toapologize for it. You know, you
don't have to broadcast iteither, but if you if you wanna
start your day with I am thevoice every day, it will not
hurt you.
Nick Oswald (40:21):
Or or the rocky theme tune. One of them.
Ken Vogt (40:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Or or whatever. Yeah. The the rocky
and bow
Nick Oswald (40:27):
winkle theme tune, whatever you wanna do. You know?
Ken Vogt (40:30):
And it's funny how some of those little things,
it's not that they're motivatingfor everybody, but they are for
us. We have some connection tosomething. If you find something
like that that works, don't beashamed. You know? And, again,
you don't have to make it apublic thing.
There's plenty we can do inprivate that moves us. You know,
there are people that thatmeditate every day. There are
(40:52):
people that pray every day, andwe look at it. Oh, come on.
Really?
You know you know what? It'sworking for them, and they're
getting results. And they'regetting measurable results. So
you we can't argue with thedata.
Nick Oswald (41:07):
Definitely. Well and and you and as a scientist,
you shouldn't just assume whatthe data is gonna be for you.
You should go try
Ken Vogt (41:15):
it out
Nick Oswald (41:15):
and get your own data set.
Ken Vogt (41:18):
Well, I like that. So so there is something that I
wouldn't have thought to saythat the scientists in the room
did. So good for you.
Nick Oswald (41:24):
There you go.
Ken Vogt (41:26):
Alright. Well, that's what I had to had to say today.
Anything else you wanna add,Nick?
Nick Oswald (41:30):
Okay. No. I think that that is really good. I
mean, I I do love the when wehit upon this a few episodes ago
and decided to come back to it,that it's one thing setting up
your system, and there's sothere are a lot of systems out
there for getting organized andand staying staying motivated
and, you know you know, fororganizing your tasks mainly.
(41:50):
But then there's all thesethings that stop you from stop
you from executing the system.
That was kind of like a, okay. Isee. I don't need another
system. I need to figure out whyI don't do this system well.
Exactly.
The system I've got is prettygood, but I but I still have
quite a lot of chaos, and it'sbecause of this stuff. And I and
(42:12):
I didn't realize until you'd,popped that up in that few a few
episodes ago. So Yeah.
Ken Vogt (42:17):
Cool. Alright. Excellent.
Nick Oswald (42:19):
Alright. So thank you everybody for taking the
time to join us. And, and, ifyou've enjoyed it, please
subscribe to the Happy Scientiston your favorite podcast
platform. Leave a review.That'll help other people to
find it, and, of course, tellyour friends so that they can
also benefit.
So we will be back with anotherepisode in a few weeks. Until
(42:42):
then, good luck in yourresearch, and goodbye from all
of us at Bite Size Bio.
Ken Vogt (42:47):
Bye.
VX (42:53):
The Happy scientist is brought to you by Bite Size Bio,
your mentor in the lab. BiteSize Bio features thousands of
articles and webinarscontributed by hundreds of PhD
scientists and scientificcompanies who freely offer their
hard won wisdom and solutions tothe bite sized bio community.
This is the Happy Scientist podcast. Each episode is
designed to make you morefocused, more productive, and
more satisfied in the lab. Youcan find us online at
bitesizebiodotcom/happyscientist. Your hosts
are Kenneth Vogt, founder of theexecutive coaching firm, Vera
Claritas, and doctor NickOswald, PhD, bioscientist, and
(00:52):
founder of Bite Size Bio.
Nick Oswald (00:59):
Hi, everyone. This is Nick Oswald welcoming you to
this Bite Size Bio webinar,which today is a live episode of
the Happy Scientist podcast. Ifyou want to become a happier,
healthier, and more productivescientist, you are in the right
place. With me, as always, ismister Kenneth Vogt. In these
sessions, we'll hear from Kenmostly on principles that will
(01:20):
help shape you for a happier andmore successful career.
And along the way, I'll pitch inwith points from my personal
experience as a scientist andfrom working with Ken. If you
have any questions along theway, please put them into the
questions box, and you will geta personalized answer from Ken
or myself. Today, we will becovering the second part of our
2 part presentation on gettingdead practical about to do
(01:43):
lists. This one is aboutovercoming task avoidance. Ken
will be leading this as usual,but first of all, Ken, I'm sorry
I left you hanging last time.
It wasn't it wasn't to do with,having too many things on my to
do list. It was, it was just alast minute family day at the
beach. So I think I think weshould do an excerpt on that,
(02:03):
giving yourself permission tohave fun. What do you think?
Ken Vogt (02:05):
I like it. Yeah. I think that sounds fantastic. And
somehow, we muddled throughwithout you. We've got great
production support here.
So, you know, Connor is onceagain our producer behind the
scenes today, and he he, doesgreat work for us. So to do
list, last time, we talked aboutcall it the practical side of
(02:29):
it. Like, how do I how do I pickout a good system for myself?
How do I how do I, how do I pickout what features matter to me?
And then how do I pull thetrigger and and start using it?
So here's the problem. If youdid all that last week and you
(02:50):
figured out which system youneed and you and you got it, And
if it's in required some kind ofinstallations, required some
kind of setup, you've done that.And then you get into it and you
start to use it, and you findyou don't use it. You you stop.
You hesitate.
You you get distracted. You youdo anything but follow your
(03:14):
system. And you you're wonderingwhat went wrong. I put all the
effort into this already. I Idid the heavy lifting, and I and
I picked the right system forme, and this one should work for
me.
It should be perfect, and yetI'm just not doing it. And so
what happened? Well, the thingis that that system is a
(03:36):
mechanical thing, and whetherit's you're just using a, you
know, a yellow legal pad or oryou're using some some full
blown project management system,there's the emotional part for
you. There's the human part. NowI say emotional.
I don't wanna make it soundlike, oh, you're just you're
(03:56):
just being hysterical on howyou're reacting to this. No. No.
It's not like that. But you arehuman.
And I don't care how clinicalyou are. I don't care how much
of a statistician you are. Idon't care how much of a
scientist you are. You're stillhuman. And it's not a negative.
That's a positive. You're you'rebringing something additional to
(04:17):
this, and it can absolutely bewielded for the most positive
possible effect. But when itseems like it's working against
you, you gotta ask yourself,what now? So I wanna start off
by considering this notion ofold habits die hard. Before you
(04:39):
had your system, your to dosystem, you did whatever you
used to do.
And for whatever reason, youdecided that wasn't working well
enough, but it's familiar. Andit's what you always used to do,
and you must have gotten somekind of results. You didn't get
a PhD because you don't getthings done. Yeah. Obviously,
you have been effective atgetting things done.
(05:01):
It's just you'd like to be moreeffective. But having done
something pretty well already,you're gonna have to let go of
it. Those old habits, thosethings you've always done, I,
you know, I always check myemail first thing in the
morning. I always I always writedown this type of task, but I
(05:24):
have never been in the habit ofwriting down that type of task.
I always put all my my workrelated stuff in here, but I
don't put any of my personalstuff in there because, you
know, I'm at work.
I shouldn't I shouldn't bethinking about that or doing
that, except that's not reallyhow life works and vice versa.
You know, you you can't spendall of your time scheduling,
(05:45):
picking up the kids from school,and and doctor's appointments
and all that, and ignore yourwork, you have to do all of it.
So the first thing is toacknowledge that, okay, I have
some old habits. And, you know,you've gotten this far in life
into adulthood, and you've seenthe power of habit. Habits can
(06:06):
be can be so compelling, and notall habits are good, obviously.
But here here's the tough one.When a habit has been good for
you, those can be really hard tolet go of. You know, you used to
do it a certain way. Now yournew system is telling you to do
it different, but the back ofyour head is telling you the old
(06:28):
system was good. The old systemworked.
What will I lose if I if I letgo of this? Well, it's it's it's
kind of like, if you wanna swimacross the pool, you're gonna
have to let go of the side ofthe of the pool. You you have to
get in there and start swimming.And, yes, when you let go, you
have a little more chance ofsinking below the water, but
(06:52):
it's it's just a choice you'vealready made. And remember, if
you've chosen a new system, youyou went through this process,
you have thought about it.
You have considered the impact.So now now you just need to get
in there and start swimming. Sothat, you know, it it starts it
starts with that. Put it anotherway, either you're gonna do your
(07:16):
old habits or you're gonnachange. If if you don't make the
commitment to change, you willgo backwards.
It's the opposite direction ofwhat you've chosen here. And,
yes, sometimes having made achoice, it was hard and it was
scary, and you maybe even stillscared about it. And you don't
(07:39):
know what the future holds. I doknow the results I get with my
old system. I don't know forsure what kind of results I will
get with the new system.
Well, if you like data, get inthere and start creating it.
Start getting feedback so thatyou will know what will happen.
Now this is not so that you canset yourself up to shoot down
(08:01):
the new system. But you do wannasee things in practice. Because
at at the beginning, you've gotyour fantasies about, oh, it's
gonna be so much better.
Everything's gonna be perfect.It's all gonna be so smooth.
Probably not. It's it's notgonna be that straightforward.
Get in there and start findingout where the rough spots are.
Where do you need to to dialthings in a little more? What's
(08:24):
missing that you didn't think ofbefore, but now it's now it's
screaming at you? Don't look atthose things as as, alarm bells
going off. They're notemergencies. They're just
they're just information.
And now it's good to know that,alright. I need to I need to
shore this up a little bit overhere, or I need to I need to
(08:46):
change something, additional sothat this will work. Yeah. The
objective always is you want itto work out for you. You have to
have a system of some kind.
You know, whether it's it's, youknow, super dialed in or whether
it is more flowy, whatever itis, it's gotta be something that
(09:07):
works for you. And give yourselfa chance. Get in there and do
it. Make some mistakes. Getbetter at it, because that's the
other thing.
You everything you've everlearned how to do, you started
off doing it without experience.So, you know, to ride that bike,
you had to actually take achance and get on the bike. And
at some point, you had to pulloff the training wheels and find
(09:29):
out, can I do this or not? Andeverybody who's ever rode a
bike, I've never met anybodythat will claim they never fell
down. We've all done it.
You fall down sometimes. Andsometimes it really hurts, but
probably, it doesn't kill you.Well, in fact, if you're here,
it didn't kill you. Right? Andit it'd be the same thing with
(09:51):
this.
Now part of when we when we wechose a a system that would work
for us, we chose something thatwould not lead to catastrophic
failure. That's already kindabuilt into the system. The
system is built that it can takesome knocks. So have some
confidence in it and have someconfidence in your selection.
(10:13):
You know, trust yourself.
At the end of the day, you'vegotten this far trusting
yourself. Even if you've doubtedyourself, even if you've dabbled
with impostor syndrome, whichwe've talked about several times
in the past, the the fact isthat you've come through. And in
many cases, come through withflying colors, and you didn't
give yourself credit. So giveyourself a little credit that,
(10:37):
you know what? You can work thisout.
You can you can take it to thenext level, and you can make a
new system work. And it'll itcan it will go more quickly if
you get in, if you if you getengaged and involved. Otherwise,
if you're hesitant and hesitantand hesitant, you're you're not
(10:58):
gonna make any progress, and andthen it's just you're just
wasting your time, and you'reslowing things down. So I will
pause for a minute here and, letNick, jump on in.
Nick Oswald (11:11):
Makes sense to me so far. I'm just waiting for the
bit about the, the avoiding the,you know, the demand avoidance
thing because that's me. But no.This is, yeah, I I suppose one
of the the main things is,though, I love look reading
about these systems, figuringout what will work for me, and,
(11:32):
and then setting them up, andoff I go. And I use a version of
Zentadon, or or I have set up aversion of Zentadon.
But then then then the real testis 1 is living it. And as you
said, it's it's like thehoneymoon period, isn't it? As
you you find out what where itdoesn't work for you and, you
(11:55):
know, where it gets sticky foryou and, yeah, and then you have
to find a way to get throughthat and kind of personalize
that, make that work foryourself. So
Ken Vogt (12:04):
Right. And and that happens that happens in motion.
Because we all have those timeswhen, like, look, I wanna follow
the system, but I have a really,really good reason why I'm not
gonna follow the system rightnow.
Nick Oswald (12:17):
Today. Yeah. The diet starts tomorrow.
Ken Vogt (12:19):
Yeah. Exactly. I remember back in the day, this
is probably before most of yourtime, there was there was this
actress. Her name is TodyFields, and she used to be on
the the the daytime talk shows,and she was funny. She's a
comedian.
You know? And she wrote a bookcalled, I think I'll start on
Monday, because she was quiteoverweight and and she, you
(12:41):
know, and she really traded onthat. It was part of her shtick.
And and it was always about, I'mgonna go on a diet. I'm gonna go
on a diet.
I'm gonna go on a diet. And, ofcourse, she never does. And, the
hilarious discussion about itjust was ongoing. But it's
always struck me to, like, wow.She can't go on a diet on
Monday.
Her whole life is built aroundthe fact that she needs to go on
(13:03):
a diet. And, you know, you mayfind yourself doing stuff like
that. And, you know, you gottawatch for that. You gotta pay
attention. When am I playingthis game?
There's a quote I wanted to toreference here from somebody, FM
Alexander. People do not decidetheir futures. They decide their
(13:27):
habits, and their habits decidetheir futures. Nice. Yeah.
And when you think about that,you realize, what has my habit
been? Because the habit startsto take over. The thinking isn't
happening anymore. Now thisparticular person who wrote this
is an author and also was anactor, and he developed the a
(13:48):
thing called the Alexandertechnique or the Alexander
method. And it's it's veryinteresting, how that all
worked.
It's a physiological thing, thisthe Alexander technique. It's
basically how to have goodposture, which mattered for a
stage actor and, you know,matters in a lot of things. Now
I'm not necessarily recommendingthe technique or recommending
(14:11):
against it. That's not thepoint. But the point is is that
he recognized that there werehabits.
They were they even weredownright physiological that
impacted his output in hischosen field, and the same thing
happens to all of us. Nowthere's 2 kinds of habits that I
wanted to talk about here thatthat may may show up for you.
(14:34):
It's your habits surroundingstarting tasks and your habits
surrounding finishing tasks. Sosome of us have a hard time
starting. And once we get going,we're okay, but starting is so
hard.
When you get you really need tolook at yourself and go, what is
happening in that moment? Myhabit is to avoid starting. Why?
(14:58):
What's what am I doing? How do Ido it?
What methods do I use to keepfrom starting? Do I use
distraction? Do I start makingvalue judgments about this is
more important than that, andtherefore, even though I chose
to schedule this thing to donow, I'm not gonna do it because
there's this other thing that'smore important? Well, you know,
(15:21):
it is more important that you dothings to survive than that you
have fun, you know, as far aslong term viability. Right?
Except you do need to have funsometimes. And if you never
allow yourself to have funbecause it's not about survival,
you won't start things. So youyou need to pay attention to
(15:43):
when I'm not starting things.Sometimes you wanna dig into
why, but other times, it's justjust taking note that, hey. I'm
hesitating to start.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna putup with that. You don't need to
talk yourself into it. You don'tneed to have a conversation in
your own head. It's just like,I'm just gonna start. Just it
(16:04):
doesn't matter why I wasn'tstarting before.
I'm just gonna start and juststart, and then watch what
happens next. You will find thatit's it's kind of a flywheel
effect. Once you get going,you're okay. You you've I think
I mentioned the Pomodorotechnique in our last session.
You know, the idea that ifyou'll just commit 20 minutes to
(16:25):
something, say, look, I'm notcommitting to finish writing
this paper.
I'm just gonna commit 20 minutesinto it. I'm I'm I'm then the
first 20 minutes, all I'm gonnado is start working on a start
working on an outline. That'sall. In fact, I'm I'm just gonna
start I'm just gonna start theoutline. That's all I'm gonna do
for 20 minutes.
After you're in it for 20minutes, you ask yourself again,
(16:48):
am I ready to commit another 20minutes? And usually, the answer
is gonna be, yeah. Yeah. I'm I'min it. I'm and and I've got
momentum, and you'll and you'llget going on it.
And that becomes a habit. If youget in a habit of acting of
taking the first step, you'llfind taking first steps is
easier and easier and easier.Now the other side of that, do
(17:10):
you have a habit of notfinishing tasks? You get
excited, you get involved, andit's like, this is getting
detailed and boring. And nowthere's other these other shiny
things I wanna start, and thenyou start the next thing and
start the next thing.
And all of a sudden, you've gotall of these unfinished things
sitting around. Well, how do youmotivate yourself there? Well,
(17:31):
by starting finishing. You thatis treat it like it's a new
project. It the new project hascome from where I am now to
where I wanna go next.
That's that's always true. Thatnever stops being accurate. So
the point of all this is to takea look at your own emotional
(17:53):
barrier here. I have a hard timestarting. I have a hard time
finishing.
Maybe both. Who knows? But tojust acknowledge it. Okay. This
is how it is, and this is justan emotional thing.
It's not it it's not a systemicproblem. It's it's you know, I
mean, if you lack things, youknow, I need more information
(18:13):
before I can start or I needapproval or what you know? Well,
fine. If there are practicalthings, then then make that the
project. The project now is toget approval for the project.
The project now is to get getthe data I need for the project.
Fine. Just just start looking atit that way and taking taking
that next step. And then youwanna start rewarding yourself
(18:36):
emotionally. Praise yourself forlook at look at me go.
I started. Or look at me. Ifinished it. I'm I'm isn't that
great? You know, I'm worthy ofsomething.
It's and it is more than okay toreward yourself in some way for
having successfully started orfinished. It doesn't have to be
a big thing. It's I'm gonnareward myself by going and
(18:59):
getting a latte. You know, I'mand, you could reward yourself
like, when I finish this, I'mtaking a family on vacation. You
know, sometimes the reward needsto be big, and the motivation of
that potential reward is therefor you, and it will help you to
establish these habits.
And I'm sure you know peoplethat are are really good at
(19:22):
getting things done. And and youwatch them, like, how do they do
that? They they did it the sameway that I'm suggesting you now.
They got in there and starteddoing, and then it got to be
such a pattern for them, such ahabit that they just never
stopped. And, of course, theygot the rewards of the success
of taking action, and and nowthey have that as a kind of a a
(19:47):
a substructure underneath itall.
Like, I know I'm gonna get somesatisfaction when I start this.
I know I'm gonna get a bigpayoff when I finish this. Start
using those things and stopignoring that you're acting
emotionally. You're a human.You're gonna have emotional
reactions.
Sometimes they're avoidant, butother times, they're they're
(20:10):
moving you toward things. Usethat stuff. There's there's
nothing wrong with with draftingon an on another, you know,
another person. Somebody elsesucceeding, start following
them. If if somebody else isgetting a lot done, start
getting a lot done to matchthem.
You can use competition that wayin a positive sense, and it will
(20:32):
and it'll help you move forward.Okay. So now let's talk about
this from the negative side.Sometimes we look at, look, I
got this great system and I'veimplemented it and I'm using it
properly, but other people keepgetting in my way. I'm getting
interrupted all the time.
(20:53):
And sometimes it's like, well,I'm being interrupted by peers
and okay. That's a problem. ButI'm getting interrupted by my
boss. I can't ignore that. I Ican't just say, well, I'd get
more done if my boss wasn't inmy way all the time.
Your boss has reasons to be inyour way. Actually, so do your
peers, but, you know, you we wecan't pretend that's not not
(21:16):
gonna happen. So if you planyour day in such a way that you
have no room for interruptions,well, you're you're not planning
properly. Now there it may bethat you just need to plan 6
hours worth of work in an 8 hourday, and maybe that solves your
(21:37):
problem. But maybe that's nothow it is.
Maybe it's when I getinterrupted, I'm I'm just
totally taken off track, and Ihave to have to go down another
road. You you do still need toacknowledge that that is the lay
of the land. If if if it's suchthat you just can't take it
(21:59):
anymore, then maybe you do needto change the lab you're working
in, change the the way you'redoing work. But for most of us,
that's not really the answer.It's not a matter of, well, I
just don't feel like it.
It's just too hard. You're doingwork that's hard. You've been
doing work that's hard, andyou've been doing work that's
(22:20):
hard for many years to get tothe level you're at. Hard work
isn't the problem. In fact,you've gotten a lot of
satisfaction from doing thingsthat are hard.
So, you know, don't run awayfrom that, but acknowledge that
this is how it is. Now somefolks are in a chaotic
environment just by nature. Youknow, if you're an emergency
(22:41):
room doctor, literally,everything you encounter is an
emergency. Yeah. That's a toughenvironment, and it's not for
everybody.
But for the right people, it isabsolutely the right
environment. So if you'refinding that having an
environment that has a fairamount of chaos is actually good
for you and actually motivatesyou and actually energizes you,
(23:04):
great. Accept that motivationand energy, but also accept the
impacts of it and see it. Andand then start asking yourself,
how can I how can I mitigatethis? What can I do to make this
easier?
Maybe not even easier this time,but next time in the future.
What what can I what can I putin place that will help with
(23:26):
this? And it may be that you youset up a team so that you can
offload some of these theseemergencies on others. Maybe
it's a matter of of preemptingthings, seeing in advance. This
is this kind of problem keepspopping up, and I can make it
pop up less if I take thesesteps.
And then maybe you need to workit into your system that I've
(23:50):
always got this fudge factoravailable. I you know, that that
when I need it, I can pull itin, and it won't create chaos.
So, you know, everything thatyou're promising about
delivering on has got room sothat if something else pops up
in between, that it won't won'tcrash and burn your project.
(24:13):
Alright. Enough about outsideinfluences.
Now let's talk about insideinfluences. One of the things
that that stops us more oftenthan anything else is fear, and
we often don't want toacknowledge that. We think,
well, fear is kind of a childishthing, and it's irrational, and
(24:33):
that's not who I am. I'm anadult, and I'm a scientist, and
and I'm a logician, and I'm andI'm a capable person. Now to
claim though that you never aremade afraid by anything is
disingenuous.
It's not realistic. So when youhave fear, you wanna acknowledge
(24:54):
it. And when I say acknowledgeit, I don't mean engage with it.
We're not having a conversationwith the fear. We're merely just
looking and going, oh, look atthat.
I'm afraid about something. I'mafraid I won't get this done.
I'm afraid this project's gonnafail. I'm afraid that somebody
is going to gonna get in my way.I've you know, whatever the fear
(25:17):
is, acknowledge it.
Because the fact is, if you havefears about things that are
getting in the way of youaccomplishing tasks, those fears
are not gonna just vanish. Andyou can't just treat them as if
you're talking to a child like,look, there's no monster in the
(25:37):
closet. Don't just that's silly.Stop thinking that. If you've
ever tried doing that with achild, it doesn't work.
You can't just poo poo it andpush it away and pretend it's
not there. What you have to say,look at that. There is fear
there. And with no judgment,it's like and it's not stupid to
be afraid, and it's not it's notlazy to be afraid, and it's and
(26:01):
it's not, you know, it's nottimidity that's making you
afraid. It's just something iscausing that to pop up.
So acknowledge that it's there.Because if you don't, it's gonna
keep trying to get yourattention, and it will and often
you've probably have noticedthis. You don't pay attention to
something, it amplifies. Andwe've we've had this kind of
(26:25):
experience just with they saysomething physical. It's like,
you know, my knee's a littlesore, and I ignore it and I
ignore it.
Now my knee is really sore, andnow my knee is injured. You
know, there was a escalationthere, and in each step of the
way, you didn't acknowledge theproblem. If you will just the
the earlier you can acknowledgethat fear is is welling up, the
(26:49):
better off you're gonna be, themore likely you're gonna deal
with it. And I when I say dealwith it, I don't mean stopping
and making some intellectualchoices about what's what's to
happen. When you acknowledgefear, it gets internalized.
The the not the fear itself, butthe acknowledgment gets
internalized, and you will startyou will find you will start to
(27:11):
deal with it. It'll starthappening. Okay. I will you'll
get in front of this. Because ifthat first time you look at you
look at your system, it's like,oh, no.
I I I have to prepare for theMonday morning meeting, and, you
know, I don't wanna work on theweekend. Well, great. Now that
you know that. You're right. Ineed to schedule something for
(27:32):
me to do on Friday, so I'mprepared for Monday's meeting.
All that because you acknowledgethe fear. If you just push the
fear away, it'll it won't bethere until Monday morning rolls
around like, oh my god. I'm notprepared. And, no. I'm here I am
on the speaker stand.
Now what? You know, then fear isthen fear is really
(27:53):
debilitating. So just deal withit when it's small and when it's
early, and you'll find you'regonna have a lot better time.
Another thing that happens ishave you ever noticed that
sometimes you start doingthings, and maybe even in the
past, they used to be useful,but for now, they're not the
best use of your time. But youjust can't stop.
(28:17):
I have to finish this thing. Youknow, I I used to do this all on
notebook paper. And even thoughI've got a system nice online
system, I'm gonna keep I'm gonnakeep doodling on this notepad
until I finish. And then you'renot gonna use it. You're gonna
use your automated system, ornow you have to transfer what's
(28:38):
on the notepad into theautomated system.
Why? Why do you do that? Well,it's because it's familiar and
it's comfortable, and we aredefinitely drawn to things that
make us comfortable. And there'snothing bad about that. But,
nothing generally bad aboutthat.
(28:58):
But in the specific instance,there are times when you gotta
tell yourself, I don't wannapursue this dopamine hit of
creating this manual list. WhatI wanna do is start getting my
dopamine hits from following thenew system. And, again, this is
the installation of new habits,and you've gotta break the old
(29:20):
habits too. So it's not just anew habit has to start, old
habits have to end. And that'syou know, we've talked about
addiction to dopamine in thepast too, and it's I mean, it's
a real thing.
We all do it, and and we're allbeing compelled to do it. I
mean, our phones are doing it tous. Our all these systems and
(29:43):
social media have been designedto attack us that way and to to
wrangle away our own dopamineresponse. And, you know, in the
past, we had an episode on on,going on a dopamine fast. It's a
it's a good idea.
(30:03):
Every once in a while, you justneed to stop all of that. Turn
off all the devices, if that'swhat's causing it for you. Turn
off the television if that'swhat's causing it for you. Stop
listening to podcasts. And I'mnot saying forever, but give
yourself a breather.
Give yourself a break. And whenyou find yourself going back to
(30:23):
an old habit, just stop. Don'thave a conversation with
yourself about it. Don't don'tengage it. Just like we don't
engage fear, don't engage yourcompulsions.
And we all have compulsions.Don't don't beat yourself up
about it like, oh, man. Thismeans that I'm I'm an addict, or
this means that that, you know,I'm psychologically imbalanced.
(30:47):
No. You're just human.
We all have these compulsions,and they're satisfying in short
term. And we we will miss thatsatisfaction. We will we will
wish we had it. It's okay. Youcan you can forego a
satisfaction, and it's gonna beokay.
Forego that satisfaction, moveon to the next thing, and you
(31:08):
will find something else willreplace it. And you'll find you
get more resilient, that you cango longer between meeting
periods of satisfaction. Becauseif you have to be satisfied at
every given moment, you youknow, you're gonna act in a very
childish manner. And I say thatin, you know, in the most
professional sense. Right?
It's not that you're gonna actlike a 2 year old, but but
(31:32):
you're not gonna act like theprofessional that you that you
truly are. And and it comes downto facing what's really in front
of you. One other thing. Do youfind sometimes you don't follow
the system? Because I'm just notgonna.
(31:52):
You can't make me follow thesystem. I don't care if I put it
in place. I don't have to. I I'mfully in charge of my existence,
and I can do whatever I wantwhenever I want. It's freedom.
Right? I mean, freedom is great,and freedom freedom is
important. In fact, freedom is asource of your free thinking,
(32:14):
which is, just a criticalcritical skill to have as a
scientist. But you need torecognize when you're acting in
rebellion, when when you'rejumping out there and and you're
just just being a rebel withouta cause like James Dean here on
the screen. If you're gonnarebel, do it with purpose.
(32:38):
If you're finding it's just justa short term satisfaction thing,
that's that's not a verycompelling reason to engage with
it. So I'm not telling you tostop rebelling. In fact,
rebellion is really necessary inscience, but make sure you do it
on purpose and and with purposethat you're gonna you're gonna
(33:00):
get something of value out ofit, not just short term
satisfaction. So once again,Nick, I I'll let you jump in.
Nick Oswald (33:10):
No. I I'm writing down here. So this is this is
definitely an Achilles' heel forme, this one, because you get,
I'm just looking at well, thethings you wrote down, outside
influences, fear, compulsion,and rebellion are all ways that
you stop yourself following thatsystem or stop yourself from
(33:33):
getting past the the honeymoonperiod and and into the become
proficient at running thatsystem. Mhmm. Yeah.
So for me, they they all play apart depending on what the, on
on what it is, really. But, thatthing about the the the dopamine
(33:54):
hit is is quite compellingbecause you go for that. You go
for dopamine.
Ken Vogt (33:58):
Mhmm.
Nick Oswald (33:59):
You know, that that's what you're programmed to
do. So if you can make thedopamine hit about having your
inbox at 0 or or ticking theticking the the thing off the
list or whatever, that is, Iguess, is is that the way is
that the the goal sort of thingor or or a way to get this to
take advantage of yourprogramming here to make it
(34:21):
Yeah. To work.
Ken Vogt (34:22):
And it it can't be just a, you know, something as
gross as inbox to 0. Because oneday, that is a very good goal,
and the next day, it's not avery good goal. So we have to be
a little more nuanced about it.We have to choose we have to
choose where we're getting ourdopamine hits from, and we
(34:43):
usually aren't. And that reallyis the big shift.
So start start being the chooserinstead of just being the
recipient of the choice, and andthat can make a big difference
for you. You know? And, youknow, you mentioned we talked
about fear. We talked aboutcompulsion. We talked about
rebellion.
A lot of folks will hear thosethree things and go, I don't
(35:05):
like the sound of any of those,and I don't I I don't like to
even be associated with that.But you can look at the flip
side. Like, what if I'mcourageous? And what if I'm free
thinking? And what what if I amin charge of my own existence?
(35:26):
You know, you can you can lookat this from that positive
standpoint and use that tomotivate you. Some people, it
will be very motivating that thenegative is motivating to them.
You know, they wanna push awayfrom that. Other people wanna
push toward the positive. Orit's a mix of that, and and
maybe it's it's dependent onwhat's happening for you in the
(35:49):
moment.
Right now, I'm avoiding anegative, but tomorrow, I'm I'm
happy to pursue a positive, thenuse them both.
Nick Oswald (35:58):
I just had a thought of 22 parallel parallel
things, meaning tools that workor that help with that. Mhmm.
One was and I'm sure it's fromJason Fried. The, what's that
book he wrote wrote? He wrote 2,didn't he?
One of them.
Ken Vogt (36:14):
He's the CEO of 37 signals. Yes. He's actually
written a couple books.
Nick Oswald (36:20):
The second one, whatever his second one was. But
he talked about having, thatyour goal should be able to get
to the stage where you can haveguilt free fun. Yeah. And that
should be your aim is that youfeel that everything's under
control enough that now you canjust you don't have to carry it
with you for the rest of youknow, once work is finished.
Ken Vogt (36:40):
Mhmm.
Nick Oswald (36:41):
Now now it's time to go and have some fun, and you
don't have to feel bad about it.Yeah. And, you know, rather
than, you know, rebellion, yougo, no. I'm gonna take some time
off and, without doing all thisstuff.
Ken Vogt (36:53):
Yeah. But you kinda feel like system and yes. Right.
You can't make me kinda thing.Yeah.
Nick Oswald (36:57):
Yeah. You kinda feel a bit guilty, though,
though, about it. So you don'treally get the benefit.
Ken Vogt (37:01):
Right. So it's And and for some folks, you need to
schedule in your pleasure. Youneed to schedule the coffee
break. You need to schedule thevacation. You need to schedule
the time to to read forpleasure.
That needs to be in your to dosystem. You know yourself. If
you need that, get it in yoursystem. Now for some of us, we
don't need that. We'll we'llwe'll do those things fine.
(37:21):
But but if you're somebody who'sbeen nose to the grindstone,
shoulder the wheel for years nowand often academia did that to
you, you gotta you gotta allowyourself to schedule pleasure,
and it's it's productive for youto do so.
Nick Oswald (37:40):
Yeah. And the other thing I was thinking of as well
is using a bit of brute force toget yourself out of your normal
thought pattern when it comes toapproaching what you need to do,
you know, when you you sit down.And one of the really good one
is there's one, it's it's likean inspirational video, where
(38:03):
you just watch. It's meant to bethat you watch it at the start
of each day, and it just kindagets you a bit pumped. I used to
have one of these, and I had,like, the, the, the Rocky theme
tune on it and stuff like that.
Ken Vogt (38:13):
It's pretty good.
Nick Oswald (38:14):
You just kinda get ready. But this one is it's an a
Tony Robbins one.
Ken Vogt (38:18):
Mhmm.
Nick Oswald (38:19):
And if you can you can find it on YouTube. It's
called now I am the voice. Andthe idea the idea is that you
sit down and your brain juststarts going, oh, I hate doing
this. Oh, we've got so much todo. And and it's kinda and it
just goes on autopilot.
Ken Vogt (38:34):
And and
Nick Oswald (38:34):
it's the same every time. And this thing is about
just giving yourself, you know,as I think it's 7 minutes long
or so. 5 or 7 minutes long. Andthe the idea is just to give
yourself 5 minutes to get intothe zone of actually, don't
listen to that bumbling voice.That's not your voice.
Now you see what you want tohappen. And as you get into the
(38:55):
habit of doing that, the idea isto do it every day. But as you
get into the habit of doing it,that gets stronger. Your ability
to say, no. This is what's goingto happen.
Consciously say it rather thanto let the script tell you
what's the or the videotapethat's running in the background
all the time. Rather than nottelling you what's gonna happen,
then, you know, that that's theidea of the, of that video. So
(39:15):
that helps you use a bit ofbrute force to kind of shove
this in the right direction.
Ken Vogt (39:20):
Sure. And you might some folks may be listening to
that going, oh god. TonyRobbins, are you kidding me?
Like, well, what do you need? Doyou need to be Carl Jung?
You know, if it works, it works.You know?
Nick Oswald (39:33):
If you read the life story of Tony Robbins, then
he he he has whatever you elseyou think of him, he has been
able to motivate himself. So Iwould
Ken Vogt (39:43):
definitely millions of others.
Nick Oswald (39:45):
Yeah. I would definitely listen to him on
motivation. Yeah.
Ken Vogt (39:47):
Yeah. So, I mean and, you know, it doesn't matter who
that is. There are people thatthe, you know, they they give
them to the limelight, andsometimes they fall out of it.
Sometimes it's just becausethey're in the limelight.
They're getting shot at all thetime, and all you've heard all
you hear is all the negativestuff about them.
You know, look at what works.Look at what's getting resolved.
(40:09):
Yeah. And and go from there.Yeah.
Yeah. And and you don't have toapologize for it. You know, you
don't have to broadcast iteither, but if you if you wanna
start your day with I am thevoice every day, it will not
hurt you.
Nick Oswald (40:21):
Or or the rocky theme tune. One of them.
Ken Vogt (40:23):
Yeah. Yeah. Or or whatever. Yeah. The the rocky
and bow
Nick Oswald (40:27):
winkle theme tune, whatever you wanna do. You know?
Ken Vogt (40:30):
And it's funny how some of those little things,
it's not that they're motivatingfor everybody, but they are for
us. We have some connection tosomething. If you find something
like that that works, don't beashamed. You know? And, again,
you don't have to make it apublic thing.
There's plenty we can do inprivate that moves us. You know,
there are people that thatmeditate every day. There are
(40:52):
people that pray every day, andwe look at it. Oh, come on.
Really?
You know you know what? It'sworking for them, and they're
getting results. And they'regetting measurable results. So
you we can't argue with thedata.
Nick Oswald (41:07):
Definitely. Well and and you and as a scientist,
you shouldn't just assume whatthe data is gonna be for you.
You should go try
Ken Vogt (41:15):
it out
Nick Oswald (41:15):
and get your own data set.
Ken Vogt (41:18):
Well, I like that. So so there is something that I
wouldn't have thought to saythat the scientists in the room
did. So good for you.
Nick Oswald (41:24):
There you go.
Ken Vogt (41:26):
Alright. Well, that's what I had to had to say today.
Anything else you wanna add,Nick?
Nick Oswald (41:30):
Okay. No. I think that that is really good. I
mean, I I do love the when wehit upon this a few episodes ago
and decided to come back to it,that it's one thing setting up
your system, and there's sothere are a lot of systems out
there for getting organized andand staying staying motivated
and, you know you know, fororganizing your tasks mainly.
(41:50):
But then there's all thesethings that stop you from stop
you from executing the system.
That was kind of like a, okay. Isee. I don't need another
system. I need to figure out whyI don't do this system well.
Exactly.
The system I've got is prettygood, but I but I still have
quite a lot of chaos, and it'sbecause of this stuff. And I and
(42:12):
I didn't realize until you'd,popped that up in that few a few
episodes ago. So Yeah.
Ken Vogt (42:17):
Cool. Alright. Excellent.
Nick Oswald (42:19):
Alright. So thank you everybody for taking the
time to join us. And, and, ifyou've enjoyed it, please
subscribe to the Happy Scientiston your favorite podcast
platform. Leave a review.That'll help other people to
find it, and, of course, tellyour friends so that they can
also benefit.
So we will be back with anotherepisode in a few weeks. Until
(42:42):
then, good luck in yourresearch, and goodbye from all
of us at Bite Size Bio.
Ken Vogt (42:47):
Bye.
VX (42:53):
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