You might have had a habit to not check your email first thing in the morning, and then one day, you might have picked up your phone and gone, oh, yeah, I'll have a quick look. That can't hurt. Next thing you know, you're on your laptop while you're having breakfast, you know, and it just becomes habit to do the wrong thing and to stray from that path. Hello, and welcome to the Pybytes podcast, where we talk about Python career and mindset. We're your hosts. I'm Julian Sequeira. And I am Bob Baldebos. If you're looking to improve your python, your career, and learn the mindset for success, this is the podcast for you. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Pyewites podcast. This is Bob Valdebos. I'm here with Julian Sequeira. How are you doing? Almost forgot my name. I'm good, man. How are you? We're off to a great start. It's a good lead into today's episode, I think. Are you distracted? See, this wasn't even intentional. It just happened. Yes, yes. So that's the point of the episode today, everyone, is that we want to talk about being distracted, about deep work, about the overwhelm, about all those things and more so then just tell you about it. We wanted to just recount what's been happening with us over the past couple of weeks, what we've noticed. So, Bob, do you want to kick it off? Yeah. Because this is not the first time we talk about productivity or deep work, for that matter. Right. No, no. We talked about. I think it was almost a year ago now, but still, it's something we should talk about more often, I guess. Yeah. So the reason we talk about today is that you can be very well on track, and then it's insidious. No, I knew you're gonna say in that you kind of slip off. It's a disciplinary thing, and you have to keep it up. And lately, we were noticing that we. Well, we definitely got deep working. I mean, it's part of our habits and rituals and stuff, but it definitely, like, we let destructions come through more and. Yeah. And then now we're kind of back on track. I mean, we're not ignoring people, obviously. We're still very responsive, but we. I think we manage it better. And this all came from stepping away and pausing and reflecting over the weekend, wasn't it? Yeah, exactly. Over the weekend. We did this weekend, like, two days ago. We realized that, well, there's. There's so much that we're letting slip, or so many not even letting slip with regards to, you know, people who work with us. Of course not. But more so around what we want and what we want to work towards. The goals that we've set, the things we're working towards in general, we've slightly skewed from that or strayed from that path, I should say, to just be responsive more than anything and reactive. And that, that's the thing that actually triggered me. So the first thing I'll say here is for everyone listening, um, you don't even realize it's happening. It's so tiny, incremental, it's such small little things that are starting to veer you off the course that you were on to reach your goals and you don't even realize it. It might be that you, some of your habits are starting to stray. Like, hey, you might have had a habit to not check your email first thing in the morning, and then one day you might have picked up your phone and gone, oh yeah, I'll have a quick look. That can't hurt. Next thing you know, you're on your laptop while you're having breakfast, you know, and it just becomes habit to do the wrong thing and to stray from that path. And so for me, it was that I found, and I realized this over the weekend when I did sit down to come and work on pibyte stuff. It was very reactionary stuff. It was very reactive content and that I was filling my time with. And so that could have been responding to slack messages, that could have been responding to emails. It could have been doing whatever that was coming in at that time versus, you know, limiting the time I spend on that and actually dedicating time to the projects and things I wanted to work on that would get us, me closer to the goal. So did you, did you have anything like that happening, Bob? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I got it with the gym as well. Like, didn't go one day, slipped a diet in rna. It's all habits. That's what I would like to stress from what you were saying. Yeah. But I can definitely recognize, like, doing reactive work intermixed with deep work is not working. So I think we're now able, better able to compartmentalize that. For example, for me, I do most of my meetings in the afternoon and then in the morning I have a very big block for solid work and that works really well. So it's a matter of structuring your days and I think also setting that expectations that you might not give a response immediately. Now, don't get us wrong. We're still very responsive, and it's a high priority for us. We talk with a lot of people, but there's a difference between doing that in one block versus interrupting deep work with constant responsiveness. I mean, we still have the, I feel we still do an equal, well job in responding, but just by having it in a separate block and not interrupting things that require a lot of thinking, like coding or strategizing, marketing, whatever you're working on is a big difference for us. And, you know, part of, as you were saying, you have to structure your day, right? It's not something you do daily. I would recommend for most people here listening, do it at the start of the week. You know, sit there first thing on a Monday morning and don't get swept up in the week. Don't check your email, what came in over the weekend, what's happening. Spend the first 15 minutes planning out your week. And for us, that's, uh, my Monday night Bob, your lunchtime on Monday. When we sync up and we plan out the whole week, we pop it in our shared calendar, what we're working on, uh, for the entire week, when we connect in the hours that we cross over and we get it done. And we've been doing that this whole time, it's just, for me, the thing that wasn't working was when we weren't together, working for accountability, uh, working on something at the same time, whether it be an email or, you know, this podcast or something on either side. My time was very haphazard, and I might have blocked out the time for pie bytes, but I wasn't explicit with what I was doing in that, say, half hour block or 1 hour block or whatever it is. And, you know, then I'd be, okay, I've got to respond to this email. And while I'm doing that, I'd have another thought, and that would drag me away to something else. Slack would pop up and you name it, you know, just any old distraction would pop in, and I'd get to the end of the night and feel like, okay, we accomplished something because we work together, but what did I do by myself, you know? And little things were done, things were taken care of, but it wasn't moving. I hate to put it this way, but it wasn't moving the needle. I hate that term, ain't it so much? But it's true. It wasn't moving the needle with where we want to go. It wasn't moving us quickly enough. And so the solution for me that we kicked off yesterday was that I plan out explicitly what I'm doing in that time, and nothing else distracts me from it. So it's only a couple of hours. But even before this podcast, I refused to check Bob's notifications in our CMS tool. I refused to check his notifications because I said, no, no, I'm working on this. I'm going to get this mind mapping that I was dedicated to doing done. And that's what I focused until we met for this. So. And I find it's working. It's making me feel much more empowered with getting stuff done. I feel like I'm contributing more. I feel like I'm moving myself and us closer to the goal, and it just feels better. It feels really good. I'm energized again. I'm feeling. Feeling good about all of this. Yeah. Because the bigger things get done, right. And, um, there's also, like, the scientific argument, right, that whenever we get interrupted, it takes, like, a good 2025 minutes to get back in the flow. And I never believed that. I couldn't see it, like, no, you know, it's okay. I just did that email. I'm coding again two minutes later. But it's all, you know, it does happen. It does derail you, and that takes time. Right. So. Yeah. Well, it's also, you know, if you got pulled away from your code for an email for 30 seconds and came back to it, how much more slower are you coding as you draw yourself back into it, into that flow that you were potentially pulled out of? Yeah. You might make mistakes more easily because you don't have the complete structure in your head anymore. Right. But you think you have. You haven't. Hey, this is Bob. And a quick break from our episode. We're right back because we want to give you the opportunity to learn about our pibytes practical productivity pack. Yep. This is a pack that is designed to help you be more productive. It's not as simple as that because there are so many pieces to productivity. There's mindset, and there's a heck of a lot of best practices to put into play here to really help you get there. And that's exactly what this course is designed to do. So what's inside the pack? All right, to start, there are seven modules, and we start off with module one, as you'd expect, which is all about a time audit. We move in a goal setting, planning habits, deep work motivation, and end on perfectionism. These are really important pieces to help you break the habits you have build good habits and really start getting your productivity boosted. And all this in less than 4 hours of concise video content. Check out more information about the course@pibytesproductivity.com. Oh yeah, exactly. And, you know, so another thing for everyone listening is you need to be able to catch it. And you don't always know that you're even in that spot. So a surefire way to tell that you're in a spot of very little growth is that you're stagnating. Are things changing around you? Are you growing? Are you feeling frustrated about where you're at and how, how quickly you're moving towards what it is you're trying to achieve? Are you feeling overwhelmed? All sorts of things like that, you know, burnout. All these things come back to just not being in control of what it is that you're working on. And it can be, you know, crippling. It's frustrating. It's. It can even be depressing, you know? And so one of the things is to just catch that it's happening. That's the first thing. And secondly, it's to analyze the situation, get yourself some data on what it is that's, that's happening to you. And it's something I've talked about in the podcast before I mention it to all of our clients. Do a time audit. You know, get in there and analyze your time. And for me, I did that the other day. And sure enough, I found, okay, my project productive times were when I was on a call with you, Bob, because again, as we've said before on the podcast, get yourself an accountability partner. So by sitting there with, with you, I was able to get stuff done. But when we weren't together, it was very haphazard. And my time audit caught that. You know, it caught what I was missing. And I was like, oh, okay. So I was supposed to do this, but really I got distracted by this, this, this. And a lot of it was still pie bytes work, but it wasn't the stuff I'd set out to do. And, you know, I was talking with. And not to just keep yapping away here, Bob, but I was talking within a shout out to Luigi from PDM, one of our ex PDM is. And he's feeling very, you know, out of control with, with work, and he's maybe even overwhelmed a little bit. And that's okay, right? And one thing I said to him is, hey, we're in the same boat. I said, no one's perfect when it comes to this stuff. We can all get dragged back into it. Projects happen, business travel happens, family stuff comes up and throws our routine out and we lose where we're at. The important thing is to just catch it, recognize it, and get the data and see what it is you can do. Just as we said before, tiny steps. Doesn't have to be a huge change overnight. That's it. 2 hours tomorrow at the gym. It could just be okay. I just need five minutes to go for a quick walk around the block or do some stretches in my bedroom or whatever it is. Right. Start building that new routine back in. And I think that's a really effective way of doing it. And that's how it's working for us this week. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. The data is really important. I think it's the same with dieting, right? Like, if you want to lose weight, well, start to keep track of what you're eating. Look at the calorie intake for a day. You might be surprised. Oh, I'm eating. I'm eating way more than I thought, you know, and that's then part of the issue you want to address. Right. So it's always good to get the data. I also want to highlight again that we mostly take weekends off except for coding. Um, and that's really good because that this, this whole deep work discussion actually started when we took the weekend off. And because otherwise you just keep going and you're just too much into it. Right. And then you don't spot it. Take a step back and then all of a sudden you're like, wait. Well, yeah, I'm actually acting haphazardly. I'm not working towards my bigger goals. And so it's really. Yeah, so it's one of our favorite productivity tracks. I mean, apart from the time audit and goal setting, it's actually take breaks, take the weekend off and let your other half, non analytical brain or whatever, take over and give you those insights for free, you know? So. Yeah. And it also comes with, and this is from the book that I've been reading. And I mentioned this a few weeks back. I actually put the book on pause to read a different book, but I've gotten back into it and it's that create space book and creating space for you to relax, creating space for you to reflect. You know, if you're getting to the end of your work day and you have no idea what you've done, you're feeling like you haven't accomplished anything, feeling overwhelmed, stressed, you know, you need to key in a few minutes at the end of your day to reflect on what worked well for the day. It might sound a bit, you know, like woo woo and all that stuff, but it actually helps to sit there. And I encourage this for to Ben, one of our new PDM is the other day, you know, I said, set an alarm for, you know, 445 before you finish for the day at five. And use that time to get everything out of your brain. Write it down, prepare for, say what it is that you were thinking, what you were working on. And that way when you come in the next day, you're fresh and ready to go. You've given yourself permission to switch off for the day. And you can also use that time to. To reflect on the day and say what went well. What could I do better tomorrow? Tackling these same projects or these meetings and whatnot? And for me, that creating space allowed me to see that, oh, wow. I've completely lost sight of the goal and working towards it. And that's what it's just allowed me to pick up. So I'm really happy. Or like Hemingway, just drop your pencil mid sentence or leave a bug in your code and come back next day. Definitely get you focused. It'll still be there, the work will be there, the people will be there. You're entitled to your own time. So there you go. Awesome. Anything else? I think this. No, no. Well, covers it, right? Yeah, I think that was it. I just wanted. I thought that was a good topic. I think a lot of people with the things happening in the world and, you know, potentially returning to work, going back to offices, whatever it might be, even changing jobs with everything happening. That's a good point back to be totally. And the tooling as well. Right. The slack. And it's also interruptive. And then the expectation is almost there that, well, we use slack, so you better respond well. Yeah, but I want to quote that essay, right. Makers versus managers schedule. This is a classic, right? From Paul Graham. Like, we're engineers should not be on a manager schedule. Meaning like we should have deep stretches of time to code because it's a very. You need a lot of focus for that, right? Yeah. You should be able to just disappear and into the code and resurface 3 hours later and be like, well, it's lunchtime. Sweet. That's how we are most valuable. So hopefully you found that useful and perhaps maybe a bit reassuring that everyone goes through this, even us. The people who talk about being productive, we still go through it and use the same techniques that we talk about with everyone and find them useful. So there you go. Yeah. It's something you constantly need to work on. So in that sense, we highly recommend. I think I can speak for you as well, Cal Newport. Deep work book, right? No, you can't speak. No, of course you can. Yeah, definitely deep work. Deep work is the book. And this create space book as well that I'm still going through. I haven't finished it, but definitely paying for itself already. Yeah, I'm lining that up for next week. And also now we're on the books. Right. I picked up Matt Walker's why we sleep again trying to finish that. Because that's the thing. Well, yeah, sleep can be a whole episode in itself, but like, the better you manage that, the more you get control on giving in to destruction. Basically, you construct your willpower. Sleep is super important. Well, it's true. And I love that you pointed that out on the weekend. As I was saying, I averaged 3 hours of sleep per night last week because of the baby teething. And you pointed it out. I'm like, yeah, I know. Thank you. One day. One day. So, yeah, I really appreciated that message. Thank you. There are some books, and we also got sent a great article about deep work by Sean Paul. Shout out. I will link that below as well. I think that definitely put some good oil on the fire for us when we were about it. Stoked the flames. That one was good. I liked it. Yeah. Nice, right? All right, well, I think we want to talk about next week. We've got a list. I don't know. Could we? What do you want to talk about? I tell the story about PI by CMS. Oh, yeah, we'll do that one. Okay. Then we'll save the other topic for the week after. So we'll talk about our new CMS app that we created next week. That's going to be very exciting. Quite enjoy it. Awesome. Well, looking forward to that one. Yeah. All right, man. All right, well, thank you so much for listening, everyone, for tuning in every week. We appreciate you, appreciate your time. We hope that we've made your drive or shower or washing dishes or whatever it is you're doing right now as you listen a little more enjoyable. And Bob, thank you for joining me. Appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks, everybody. As always, for feedback, send us an email to info I bytes and we're back next week. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. To hear more from us, go to Pibyte friends, that is Pybit es friends and receive a free gift just for being a friend of the show and to join our thriving slack community of Python programmers, go to Pibytes community. That's Pibit es community. We hope to see you there and catch you in the next episode.