Productivity is a Problem | MHFI 341

Productivity is a Problem -MHFI xxx === Doug: Hey, what's going on? Welcome to the Mile High Five podcast. I'm Doug Cunnington, and today is a rebroadcast of sorts. I was recently on the Five-Minded Podcast with Justin Peters, and we talked about kinda laziness and idleness. Maybe not laziness specifically. It has a bad name, and it really needs a branding update. But the main idea was anti-productivity and the intentional practice of doing less. We also talked about over-optimization, where it's kind of a negative, right? So, I mean, optimization could be good, but over-optimization, it's just baked right in the term there. It's a little too much, and there's a downside to it. We also talk about handling productivity as a default personal identity on the path to financial independence. And I'm, I'm actually reading, I think, probably the notes that Justin put together, which were really good. But it was a fun conversation, and this was published on his feed a few months ago, and I was like, actually, it w- it was really good, and there's no reason not to share it over on this side. There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of, um, overlap in audience as far as topic areas that are interesting. So this fits pretty well. And the fact is, while Carl and I have worked, uh, many hours on the lazy book, uh, it was a few years ago, we are living the lifestyle of being lazy, and we're, we're not gonna finish the book. We're, you know, we're not gonna f- we're not gonna finish it. I have talked about reducing the scope and maybe doing, like, a pamphlet kinda thing, but that's also a lot of stuff to, to work on. So probably not either. I don't know. It's just an idea. That's it. Uh, do check out, Five-Minded Podcast. Uh, we'll put a link up there so you could check it out. And thanks a lot to Justin for letting me publish this over here on the feed. Why Anti Productivity --- Justin: For years, I've taken a lot of pride in getting a lot done with my time. When a friend would say something like, "Man, I don't know how you get so much done," it would honestly put a little bit of a smile on my face. And I credit productivity as one of the biggest drivers on my fast path to financial independence. But as I get closer, I'm starting to notice something uncomfortable. The same tool that helped me build independence might also be the thing that makes it harder to actually enjoy it. So I've been thinking about a different skill, anti-productivity. If your FIRE number answers the question, how much money is enough, then anti-productivity is the missing piece that asks how much effort is enough. It's all about being more intentional about where you spend your energy, and that's why I wanted to bring on Doug Cunnington, host of the Mile High FI podcast. Doug lived in the world of productivity. He ran a lo- lawn care side hustle as a teenager, to working in consulting, to building multiple businesses that led him to financial independence. But what's interesting isn't how he's been productive through all of those, but how he's intentionally stepped back from that mindset as his life evolved, and that's the shift that I wanna talk to Doug about. Let's get into it. Doug, my man, this is gonna be a fun one. Doug: I'm excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me Justin: Yeah. Lazy vs Anti Productivity --- Justin: Uh, so in this conversation, um, I think the listener has gotta be turned off by the word laziness, so I opted to use anti-productivity instead. Uh, but I'm curious, do you see a meaningful difference between the two? Doug: Little bit, and I think y- you highlighted it well. Lazy has a branding issue, so we kind of view laziness as a negative, and that's, you know, culturally, certainly in the corporate environment, and, I mean, even when we're thinking about ourselves and, like, maybe working on our own projects, our own businesses, then we don't really wanna be lazy. Again, like you said in the intro, we get some joy out of being productive and being recognized for being productive. So when you put lazy on it, yeah, it's a branding issue. We, on the "Mile Hi-Fi" podcast, we kind of went with the lazy, um, descriptor just to be a little bit more grading, I think. And it was a little funny 'cause Carl, the, my old co-host, he and I, you know, we, we don't have to work, so we're like, "We can literally say we're lazy." There's no future employer that we need to feel like, you know, may get turned off by that. So another word, you know, anti-productivity, that's perfect because it's right in the face of the cult of productivity and efficiency, which I think you and I both were deep in those waters, and we're trying to find the right level that works for us, for our specific goals. Another way to look at it is idleness, and there's, you know, other specific things that, you know, idleness might bring up where it's more contemplative, more, you know, maybe like meditation or spiritual practices or things like that, where it's like you're idle, but it's not necessarily something where someone thinks, "Oh, that's negative, that's being lazy." It's like, "Oh, that's a spiritual practice. Someone's meditating or going on a retreat for a couple weeks or something like that." So I think there's a difference, but I'm okay if someone sees me and they're like, "I think that guy's a little lazy. I don't really see him doing much work. he, you know, he just walks around the neighborhood all the time," that sort of thing. I'm okay with that. Justin: Yeah, I looked up the definition for laziness, and it said, uh, "Laziness is the disinclination to work, exert effort, or act despite having the ability to do so. It's characterized by inactivity, the preference for leisure, and the avoidance of necessary task." And I think-- I, I mean, I, I'm not turned off by preference for leisure or, um, you know, not acting despite having the ability to do so. But I think the one word that really jumped out to me in the description is necessary, like the avoidance of necessary task. And I don't think the FI community is avoidant of necessary task. I think the issue or the rub typically comes in here of trying to decide what is necessary and what is not necessary, and that evolution has changed for me, for example, like monetizing every single hobby that I have in s- in like the good graces of getting to fire quicker. Like at some point in time, monetizing or making money in general isn't necessary, a necessary task that I need in my life right now. Do you see things the same way? Doug: Yeah. Uh, and bring the definition is a perfect way to look at it, 'cause I see the leisure aspect and I'm like, "Oh, we need to do a lot more leisure." That's a huge area that we could spend more time on. FI Mindset Shift --- Doug: And I agree with you, and I had a... Kind of in preparation for this interview, I had a realization, and it's been building. I mean, it was very gradual, but my wife and I hit FI a couple years ago, maybe a little bit longer. It's, it's a fuzzy, fuzzy line, but she stopped working about two years ago, and I've been self-employed, so I've just kind of stepped things down. But one thing that happened is I stopped equating time for money. So a specific example would be, I don't know, let's say I'm going to somewhere nice like Applebee's, and I'm gonna get a meal and it's, you know, maybe I wanna get some extra guac on there and it's a few dollars, or I l- I look at the full meal and maybe it's $75, something like that. We get a couple drinks. So $75, I'm like, "Oh, that takes, you know, one hour of time." I value my time at $75 an hour, for example. And I stopped doing that. And part of it is because I'm not doing activity and then getting paid, like we're living off our investments. And I, I have a little bit of revenue that comes in through my business still, just some of the legacy things going on, but it's barely enough to pay for the software cost, you know? So in that way, l- like I've completely decoupled spending money and earning money with time, which was, uh, I was like, "Wow, this is crazy," 'cause now I can spend a little bit more. And depending on where you are in your journey, you need to keep, uh, you know, you need to keep an eye on that. You don't want it to go out of control. But at the point where I'm at, we're living, you know, well within our budget and our plan. So being able to, you know, pay for a meal with my family where I pick up the whole check, like that's pretty cool and I don't need to worry about it too much. Again, it fits in the budget, but I'm not looking at each dollar in the same way. Justin: I think that makes sense and, uh, probably the place that I'm headed towards, but not quite there yet. Fears Behind Overwork --- Justin: But I'm curious, what, um, what fears do you think drive overproductivity, especially for the Fi community? And I'm curious if any of the fears that you mention here are gonna show up in, have showed up in your own journey. Doug: The main thing is the fear of running out of money. And I think when we have revenue coming in, we don't wanna leave that point, which probably for most of us is the highest earning years or that highest earning point. I know it was for me, it was for my wife as well. So literally we spent, you know, 15, 20 years getting to that point, building our network, our education, maybe spending time at the same company, finally getting paid what you're, you know, what you're worth, and then you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna walk away now." And I think if we were giving advice to someone else, we could say, "Oh, you could get another job, and you... Guess what? You don't need to earn as much as you did before. You could earn whatever. You could earn like 10 or $20,000 and a lot of times that'll bridge the gap if there's a down few years in the market or something like that, whatever external factor popped in." But I think that is the main, the main issue is like running out of money. Secondarily, many of us had a reputation to be very highly productive, always recognized, um, as someone who, whatever, went above and beyond. You are an overachiever, so to not get that recognition, to just be some regular person that doesn't work, that's a little harder. And you have to, you know, look elsewhere to get that recognition or just realize that it, it really didn't matter anyway. It feels good sometimes, but turns out it doesn't really matter. Justin: You know, and, uh, stepping out of corporate, and I know you are, are s- pretty heavily anti-corporate too, I just started to realize they use that, that fear, especially with younger people, as, like, leverage to get more work done. It's like how many of us wanted that recognition in our 20s and our 30s when we were working, and we know our corporate overlords were, like, using it, uh, to get more out of us and to make us more productive. It's a little insidious to some regard. I don't think all corporations are doing that intentionally, but I do think some of them are probably doing it a little bit more intentionally, especially I'm guessing in the, the world of consulting. It seemed like that's probably a big one. Doug: Oh yeah. I, I could, um, I could go on and on about that, but a quick example... I mean, I, I always felt like it, it was that, and I was working pretty hard to get raises, which even in the best years were only, like, 8% or so. But usually it was, like, 1 to 2%, which didn't even keep up with inflation. So as I was thinking of the math, which you don't even have to, you know, get a spreadsheet out, but you look at the number of hours you're working extra to get whatever, a 2.5% raise versus a 1.5% raise, it doesn't quite add up. And I, either I, I had enough confidence or I was ignorant enough to start standing up early in my career and just say, "I'm not gonna do that extra stuff." So I was a team player and like you said, the management was kind of holding the, um, reviews and different things that they could do to help you get a raise or promoted. They're like, "Oh, okay, we need you to work shift hours." So I'm working at night sometimes, going in super early or late or whatever, and it was around Christmas time and things were going behind, and they asked me to come in on Christmas Eve on a Saturday, I think. I said, "No." Like I, I did the other stuff that we talked about, but this is new and I already have plans. And they, they tried to say, "Well, you're gonna get a bad review," and on and on and on. And I said, "That's totally fine. Good luck over the weekend. I'll see you on Monday." Justin: That's hilarious Doug: get a poor review, and luckily I didn't have to work with those people anymore. So I mean, it, it's hard to do and everything worked out fine later, but in the, in the moment... Again, the whole someone else had to, you know, go and take that spot. But I mean, I assume it was that manager that was upset, but that was his deal. Anyway, I'm anti-corporate, so that's a good summary. Justin: Uh, I'm not probably quite as an- anti-corporate as you are. I, I, I was fortunate to work for, I, I felt like a really great Fortune 500 company and, and probably honestly even better, uh, just a better boss and manager that, that probably shielded me from a lot of those things. Status and Scaling Trap --- Justin: Um, but I do see a, some of the fear kind of showing up in my, my entrepreneurial life too. Uh, really just like the, the fear of losing some status or honestly, if I'm gonna dig a little bit deeper, just coming, becoming a little irrelevant. Um, it's a little bit different. I, I, I... My company is all around podcast production, and many of times with my peers it's, you know, how many clients are you serving right now? Or, uh, what's your monthly run rate? Like it's these things that you're like, "Oh man," like that's a status symbol in the world of entrepreneurship, and would love to slow down on work, but that probably honestly means cutting back on clients, cutting back on revenue that's coming in. So I'm, I'm fighting that, uh, that, that feeling right now of the irrelevancy or the status in entrepreneurship. Doug: I was right there with you. There was, um, there was a point in time where I went to a location independent entrepreneur retreat. Uh, these are my people. I listened to the podcast for years and actually I, I loved hanging out with all the people over the weekend, but when we went through the intros, it was apparent that I was doing something a little bit different. So it was 2022, I believe, and I think at that point I had my foot in the, the fire, um, door as well. So I was finding, finding out and figuring out like what was enough for me and taking my f- my foot off the gas and actually putting my foot on the brakes a little bit. So during intros, people were like, "I'm trying to hit seven figures this year. I'm going for eight figures this year." And they were, you know... A- again, everyone was great, but like these people were hungry, and they had drive, and they were ready to do some really cool shit. And came around to me, I'm like, "I, I do this stuff. Everything's great. Um, I'm working on doing less work this year. And, uh, it's great. I, I'm like so far so good, but I'm working on just like doing less." And, you know, people are like, "Oh, okay. What- whatever." Um, again, everybody was great. I got along, uh, like we're the same kind of folks, but like in the fire community and the entrepreneurs, s- super similar values, like same coin, just the other side. So like you could go back and forth. It's really interesting. But yeah, I had a, basically a decision point. I'm like, "You know what? I think my wife's probably gonna retire in a couple years." So like I started turning things down and revenue was getting lower and yeah, basically like the status stuff that you're talking about, like I used to get a lot more views and downloads and s- some vanity mer- metrics and some very real like dollar revenue metrics, um, changed dramatically, um, over the course of like 18 months. And it was intentional to the point where I like stopped marketing my online courses and then sunset them, and then there's like no revenue coming in from any of my own products. So that was a huge change and, you know, to your point, it's a little bit scary. It's really cool. I mean, you're probably... I mean, it feels really good to build something from scratch on your own, and then there's like no limit to how much you can grow or, I mean, in the podcasting world, right, it's somewhat complicated. It can be very, um, expensive and hard for someone to set up and like your company is able to like really serve that need. The sky's the limit. Like you could do so much, but you could also like keep it at, at the, the perfect level, um, like right... It, it's, it's hard to thread the needle. Justin: It, it is very hard to thread the needle, and I'm still learning that. And I'm giving myself grace too, to, like, allow that, oh, maybe I overinflated and I didn't realize it, or actually maybe I had a little bit more time than I thought, or this is the kind of client that I really wanna serve. So just finding more of them is better versus honestly eliminating the wrong client, kind of client, I think is probably the bigger thing that I have on my plate right now. Um, so yeah, there's, there's lots of that. Optimizing Hobbies --- Justin: Um, but even for the corporate workers, I, I think one thing that I've noticed with talking with some of my FI friends and, uh, what I'm kind of feeling too right now is recreating productivity even reach, after reaching FI, but just in different forms. Like, how many of my friends are like, "Yeah, maybe I'm gonna step into some consulting or coaching or content creation," or, "I wanna, like, optimize this hobby." Like, I, I still kind of see sometimes productivity just taking a different form and, uh, applying it itself to, to, like, a work productivity issue even after you've left the nine-to-five. Doug: Yeah. It's funny, it's, um, it's like an oxymoron to optimize the hobby. But, um, but I get that. I have, um, a friend who's also entrepreneur online, and he basically had the realization that every hobby that he comes up with, he tries to put into the, the business mold of online business, and then like, "How can I monetize this and scale it?" and all that stuff. And, um, yeah, it's a really, it's a real sickness. Like, uh, 'cause I, I totally get it. Couple of the hobbies that I am working on now, and it could be anything for anyone, but me specifically, and I think it should highlight one area that is useful, is, uh, music. So I play the guitar, and I've gotten some nicer guitars, which is a, a fun thing. But I'm not gonna be a professional musician. Like I already know that. It's just a fun hobby. It's a difficult hobby where you have to put in a lot of time and effort, and y- you can't really brute force it either. So you literally have to put the time in and, and practice. Do, do you play any instruments? Justin: don't know, but I, I can imagine the, the journey to, to learning an instrument. Doug: Perhaps like language learning is similar, where could try to do 10 or 12 hours a day, but, you know, your brain doesn't quite absorb all the information, and more effort can help, but at some point you can't brute force it. And again, many of us in the, in the corporate world or some of our, you know, previous experience around just like outworking people, it doesn't quite work in the same way. Again, for the guitar hobby, I jam with a friend every now and then, but it's mostly for me, and it, it doesn't really matter if I do, like r- if I become much, much better or just a little bit better, but it's a good pa- pastime, great to keep your mind active. Again, similar with language learning. There's so many different hobbies like that where you can put in the time. Another area is just like fitness and health. Some people get pretty obsessed, and they can go deep on that. And again, like the brute force aspect, think maybe like ultra-running, like long distance running, you can work really hard at it, but also you have to build in recovery time and it's kind of a, it's an exercise in like injury management. So like you can't just all of a sudden start going 50 miles in a run. You have to build up to it. So again, you just have to put in the time, and most of us are probably not gonna win any races, but we can get better than we were before. So I think that's a good way to look at it. And I mean, our Type A tendencies will still pop out, and we may tr- try to quantify things and look at metrics and all that, but as much as possible, I mean, I would kind of minimize it because as soon as you start measuring it, you start managing it, as we know, and then it be- it can become negative and less fun as you're doing it. And you'll see it happen, and you could like stop, um, checking the metrics and all the analytics, at least in a way that's healthy. You can move in a way that works with you and doesn't make it like an obsessive thing. Justin: Where do you find or see the balance with challenge and purpose and fulfillment versus productivity? And, you know, for me personally, I find metrics a very tough gray area because in some regard, I like the challenge. I'm a runner myself, and I love the challenge of beating previous personal records and, you know, running a half marathon or a marathon faster than I previously did. And I-- There is a sense of fulfillment, mostly if I'm geared the right way of looking back and the training block that I did and all the hard work that I put in there and how rewarding it was when the result paid off. Also trying to be patient with myself if I didn't quite hit it and still patting myself on the back for the hard work that, that I put in. But sometimes I find it's a hard thread to, to kind of, to balance with, you know, challenge and purpose versus productivity and this movement towards kind of more anti-productivity. Doug: that, that is a tough one 'cause there's so many different areas, and I- I'll keep it in the, the music area. And I think about, you know, deliberate practice, and it comes into play with fitness as well, so those are two areas we can kinda go back and forth on, where you're kind of on the edge of comfort, but, but it's a little uncomfortable. So when I'm learning a new piece on the guitar, maybe I have to go super slow, and then I try to speed up a little bit and add a little bit more. There's still, like, memorization. You can look at the music and that sort of thing, but it's kind of on the edge of not being fun because it's just more than you can do. So I think that does come into play, and l- as I was saying, like, uh, it's, it's good to not get into the metrics too much. However, one of the ways that you could practice exactly what I'm talking about is to, like, have a metronome and set it at a certain beats per minute, and then you start slow, and then you slowly speed it up. And guess what? That's exactly metrics. You are like, "I did this at 60 BPM for three minutes on this day," and then you go up two the next day. Same thing with running. You wanna add, what, like, five, 10% on your mileage. You don't wanna add too much. You wanna let your body recover. So you're kind of on the edge of what you could do just a little bit more. Same with, like, weightlifting, just a little progressive overload over time, and you don't wanna push it too hard. And you'll know it if you do. With the guitar or music, it probably won't be fun, and then you'll f- it'll fall apart. And then, you know, fitness-wise, you'll injure yourself, which takes you out of the game, which is no good. So it, it is a balance. Um, a- and then thinking about the, the metrics angle, I mean, again, it's hard for us to turn off that portion, but if we can frame it in a healthy way and make sure it's still fun. 'Cause I think when it stops being a leisure activity and it stops being a hobby, then it's not fun anymore, and that often happens. You know, talking about monetizing hobbies. You're like, "Oh, maybe I can, uh, do, like, a coaching program for runners." And then, then you have, like, deliverables and people, you know, texting you and calling you and stuff. And that can be fun and novel at first, but then, you know, it... things become work when you make them work. Justin: Yeah. How, how have you kept things not work on that front? I know you've flipped and sold guitars. I don't know if you're still kind of actively doing that, but were you intentional about making sure it's, like, contained into this is fun? Like, I love searching, finding a guitar, maybe working on it, maybe adding it to my collection, then offloading another one that I don't want. I, I could s- easily see a slippery slope to you spending a weekend collecting guitars, tuning them up, fixing them, flipping them, and making plenty of money from that. How do you contain that? Doug: Yeah. It, luckily I've held that at bay, um, and also my wife would be like, "Why, why do you have more guitars?" So I, um, yeah, so I've, I've done a little bit of that and maybe bought and sold like two of them. I tend to keep them for about a year or two, and then just like real estate, I got a good deal when I bought it, so that makes the whole transaction worthwhile. The area that I do wanna go into is like the podcasting portion. So I have two podcasts, and at times they made a lot of money. Well, one of them. The My Hi-Fi never made much money. Like we are taking donations now, but it barely covers the software and it's, uh, it's a tough business model. I mean, there's a decent number of downloads, but my other podcast was related to business and entrepreneurship and online business, so there's a lot of advertisers that were very interested in being in front of the audience. I also sold my own products at that time. Truly, I like podcasting, which is why I have two of them, and I continue to do them even though I don't have to. And again, one of them was making a lot of money. The business model sort of changed a little bit in the specific industry, but at the end of the day, I looked at podcasting and the enjoyable parts, which is these conversations and maybe networking with some folks that, you know, I don't know, but because I have a podcast and a YouTube channel, people will talk to you, especially if they have a book coming out or something like that. And then I didn't like editing and I didn't like a lot of the admin stuff that happens around podcasting, and I actually don't really enjoy dealing with advertisers. So what I did was cut basically all that stuff out. So it's typical 80/20 kind of exercise, and c- clearly I could tell when I was doing an activity that I didn't wanna do, so that was pretty easy to identify and then figure out how to get rid of it, eliminate it if it actually didn't matter too much, like the advertising. If I don't need to earn money from the podcast, then Justin: Don't? Doug: to deal with advertisers. There's a lot of back and forth. If people are conscious, um, or I would be conscious of the things that I say, even though we always said whatever we wanted anyway, but in the back of your mind you're still thinking about it, so it just removes all those, those barriers. So for me, I just like took out the pieces that I didn't wanna do, and I think, I mean, that could be a useful thing for you to think of as you're, you're going through your, your journey and, I mean, it, it's funny, like the thing that I didn't like to do is the editing and the production and the stuff that your company does. It's a perfect pain point to solve. Justin: I promise you, Doug, I don't like that, uh, part of podcasting either, uh, but found the right person to do it and then built a company around it, so Doug: Oh yeah Justin: let's transition. Practicing Doing Nothing --- Justin: Let's talk about the skill of doing nothing, uh, something that I think probably makes some of us in the FI community, maybe most of us in the FI community, feel a little bit more uncomfortable. Um, how have you intentionally practiced this skill? Like, for example, one thing that I really loved I heard you talk about was just taking a walk without listening to a podcast, which sounds so small and silly, but, like, honestly, how many of us try to triple up or, you know, quadruple up activities and let's get our walk and also walk our dog and learn something and, like, do all the things at one time? And I like that you just, like, decouple and I'm like, "I'm just gonna go for a walk." Doug: Yeah, it's-- I need to remember that, um, 'cause I l-literally did what you talked about. I was, like, listening to a podcast while walking my dog and, like, doing something else at the same time, and, uh, it's like... I'll give some examples, but, uh, you know, do what I say, not what I do, I guess. I think o-one area, and, and you'll have to build up to this, is just being okay with not being productive all the time. I know when I worked my corporate job or when I was working really hard to get my business going right after I got laid off, I was like, "I wanna fill every hour, every minute that I can with something productive." And it was effective in some ways. I'm sure if I look back, it was just a lot of caffeine and not enough sleep, and it was much sloppier and mo-more stressful than it needed to be. But what I've done is, like, slowly have more open spaces. So one, one of the things that w- is effective, and I encourage people to do, is, like, check out, um, time blocking, so made popular by, uh, Cal Newport, who wrote "Deep Work" and several other books. But, you know, I would map out my day hour by hour in, like, 15-minute increments or so, and, like, what I would work on at those times. Really rough at first, but you get better at estimating how much time something will take. It turns out things take way longer than you think, and you're very wrong when you start doing it. Justin, have you done some time blocking? Justin: Yes, definitely. I'm both a time blocker and a, uh, like a, a theme- like a day themer. Like, I like to do meetings all on one day, and I like to record on these days, and now I'm trying to do anti-productivity things on certain days. Doug: Yeah. So one thing that you realize when you start doing the time blocking exercise, you underestimate how long things take. So basically, days were better when I just had a couple things planned or maybe a theme, but lots of open space. So maybe I budget 30 minutes for something, guess what? It takes an hour and 15 minutes for whatever reason. There, there's always external factors that kind of fuck up the thing that you're trying to do. So sometimes not, but usually at least like once or twice a week, some stick gets thrown in your spokes, right? So I was doing that, just building in slack into my schedule, and then just gradually over time I would build more slack, and now like these days, I maybe have one or two days per week where I'm doing like some real work, and it's usually only like an hour or two, something like that. I come downstairs and I'll check my email and stuff, but when I go on vacation, like now I realize I bring my laptop just in case, but now I'm like, I don't even need to check my email. Like 90% of the things that are like flying in towards me, like it didn't matter in the first place. A- and it's been weird to realize, again, super gradual over the course of several years. And I did this at my job too in certain ways. So even if you're in a corporate environment, depending, depending on how much you wanna get a good performance re- review, you can slack off a little bit. So I mean, I honestly, I was like quiet quitting in the, it must've been like 2011 timeframe for a few years and just like slowly did some things. And I'll give a quick example. Again, this, I got laid off, so no one take this as career advice, but it worked great for me. So I had a team of maybe like, I'd say like 6 to 15 people or so over time, and I realized that they're really smart. They're good. I delegated everything I could. Everything I could except for like one or two meetings that I had to lead myself. And it-- When I went on vacation, everything was taken care of, like the team worked really good, but it also like pointed out that I was unnecessary because I delegated everything and they're like: "What, what are you, what are you doing?" I'm like: "So and so stepped up. They did a great job. It helped them get promoted and all that stuff." And you know, again, it... Some people frowned upon it, but it turned out I was like running a really good team and, you know, the work that I was putting in was not really that much at that point Justin: I think it's a lot of work to build a really good team and find a really good team. So you just did all the work upfront and then enjoyed the fruits of the labor afterwards. Doug: Yeah, totally. Yeah Justin: How's your advice around productivity change dependent on where someone is in their FI journey? Like, is it different early stage versus late stage, or would you think most people should be considering anti-productivity no- regardless of what stage they're in? Doug: Hmm. Yeah. So I'm, I'm 47, and I don't have as much drive and energy as I did when I was e- even 10 years ago. Like, that's when I was really building my business and all that stuff, and I worked really hard then. But I, I would say, you know, if you're earlier in your journey, if you're younger, work really hard. Like, it works out well for most of us by doing that, and we understand compound interest. And I made some, a lot of bad decisions when I was in my 20s and 30s, but a couple good ones, like maxing out my 401and a couple good foundational things that compound interest kicked in. I worked, again, really hard. So I would say, you know, go for it, especially when you have more energy and, you know, y- you get better sleep. And, you know, nowadays I, I wake up more through the night, and I'm just a little more tired and that sort of thing. But, um, you know, back in my 20s, in the consulting days, we would travel, we'd go out super late, get up, and still be able to lead the calls. I, I don't know how in the Justin: That's crazy. I know. I don't remember those days. It, it feels like light years ago. Doug: Yeah. Now hangovers last like two, three days. Then it was just like, "Oh, we're, you know, we'll go to work. Justin: Yeah。 Doug: afterwards." So I think it's important to keep these ideas in mind. So even if you're early in your journey, you're younger, and you're like, "I can outwork people," you know, go give it a shot. Don't buy all the things that the, the corporate overlords are, are telling you. Switch jobs every two or three years, that would be a good thing. But I think keep these ideas in mind because there will be a time where you'll need to slow down a little bit, and you need to have these skills in place. One of the great benefits of me working for myself and kind of being, you know, a remote worker on the early side, you know, maybe starting in like 2010 or so, I was working at home off and on, so I had a lot of unstructured free time while I was working, and I'm totally comfortable with that. I didn't lose my hobbies. I found more and more hobbies. So I think one of the biggest risks is like working so hard that you forget your hobbies, you kind of lose a little bit of your personality. I've seen this happen a lot with, um, lawyers that, are really successful. They're very good at their jobs. Turns out a lot of lawyers end up being in the FI community 'cause it's pretty, it can be very tough on you mentally and physically and on your family and all that kind of stuff, just this psychological drain, and they make a lot of money, so they end up trying to figure out how to get out of there. And I think, you know, one of my friends, I think he lost a little bit of his, um, personality and hobbies, and it took him a f- you know, a little time to like build those back in. if you, if you lose that skill, it's not great. I mean, 'cause you, you think, "Oh, m-maybe I need to get a job," like the job was actually serving a purpose. And it, maybe it does, but I think there's a lot of different things you could do with your time, especially if you've been in a career for 10, 15, 20 years. Like you've done some great things, but there's a whole world of experiences that you could put time into and, you know, looking at the opportunity cost of putting more time in the same thing over and over again for another couple decades, I mean, I think we could be a little more creative and do something better with our time. Justin: I agree with that. Um, and yeah, there-- I think on some hand there is a case to be made to be hyper-productive earlier in your journey. Um, just the ROI in general is gonna be a much bigger payout, uh, versus the payout that comes from high product-productivity late in your, your journey. Uh, and like I said, I find the challenge making the transition and realizing maybe when you've crossed, uh, the threshold and when you personally, the effort isn't matching the reward. And like I said, I, I think that's where there's so much gray area in this productivity/anti-productivity conversation, is knowing when it's starting to feel like a job and when doing a little bit less of it or not doing it at all would actually have the real benefit or the real ROI, which is like peace of mind and, um, comfort for your life too. So I don't know if you, looking back in your own fi journey, if there's any points where-- that you could pinpoint that you, you wish you would've maybe approached it a little bit differently. Maybe a lot of this productivity was starting to spill into your life at that point in time? Doug: Gosh, you know, at first I was thinking of, like, all the poor financial decisions I made over the years. Turns out most of them are okay if you get a couple things right. You can make some devastating, um, financial decisions that, eh, even if it's, like, a couple hundred thousand dollars, like, everything turned out okay. From the productivity standpoint, one thing, you know, similar to you, I was working on my own projects while I still had a corporate job. I got a lot of work done in those t- roughly two years. I think I got promoted. I mean, I was doing well at the corporate job and got promoted, good raise and all that stuff. Team was on all cylinders, like I mentioned, and then I was waking up at, like, 4:00 in the morning and, like, doing my own projects and work, and then go to the gym, and then start the day of, like, whatever, 8 to 12 hours of working at the corporate job. So certainly at that point, I was doing a little too much and it maybe would've been smarter to get more sleep. I think getting more sleep would've been better. Um, at the same time, it paid off and I like where I am now, so it's hard to really fault myself for that. That said, I think some of the, um Over optimization. Again, we do it in the FI community, a lot of the productivity, um, books and tips. It's about optimizing and getting more done in less time, which is all good, but we need to keep it in the right areas. So I mean, you don't wanna have like a meal with your family in the most efficient way where you're like, "All right," like, "Let's order all the food right at once. We'll get it, and then we'll, we'll get out of there in 20 minutes," like eat faster. I mean, that doesn't make sense. So when you start putting... E-extreme example, but when you start putting it in areas where you're like, "Does this need to be the most efficient way?" Like may-maybe not. Maybe it's actually more enjoyable to just, go on a slower hike and, you know, look around a little bit more and just enjoy, the world. So I, I think I probably got a little too aggressive with some of the optimization in different areas, and then, you know, at this point I can't even remember what some of those were because I'm trying to, break those habits. And, and some of it, I mean, I still, write down to-do... I have Post-it notes all over and like to-do lists and stuff. I just kinda let them go. Like I'll keep moving the list and then I'm like, "Oh, it turns out if I haven't done this in like a week or two, it doesn't matter." So I'm like, "Eh, turns out it's okay." And, you know, on, actually on the, on the business side, there are a lot of incoming emails and things that I thought I needed to respond to or evaluate. Turns out a lot of that is just noise and I could just, I could ignore so much. So I would do little tests and see like, does a little bad thing happen? Does nothing happen? Like if I eliminate this, piece of work, does it even matter at all? And so many things didn't, and then it becomes apparent like, oh yeah, I was just spinning my wheels a little bit thinking things were so important Wrap Up and Where to Listen --- Justin: Doug, this has been fun, man. Uh, I, I wanna label this a productive conversation, but that would be antithesis from what we're talking about, so we'll just say this is an enjoyable conversation. Tell the audience a little bit about Mile Hi-Fi, and if they checked out the, an episode, what you would expect them to gain from the, the podcast. Doug: My Own High Fi is mostly post-FI topics or very advanced FI. So it's where I am in my journey, and I started the show with, uh, Carl Jensen, Mr. 1500 Days, and we did the show together for about two or so years, and then he left. He, he's, uh, the busiest retired man I, I know. And since then it's been, like I said, maybe a couple years now, but I'll have guest hosts pop in occasionally. Sometimes I'll interview people, and I would point people towards, um, well, who- whoever you see that I interviewed or is guest hosting and if you like them. But Mr. Money Mustache is a neighbor-ish, he lives in, uh, the area here. So he's been recording with me quite a bit in the last, I would say, like few months. He's on maybe like once a month or so. So I would check those out. I mean, Pete doesn't blog as much these days, so it's, you know, people are hungry for what he has on his mind, and those are great episodes to check out to like get a flavor. And it's pretty... It's silly. Like I said, we don't have, uh, sponsors, so... And we're not trying to cater to anyone. It's really just, you know, Carl and I, we're trying to get each other to laugh most of the time. So those earlier episodes have Carl, and then the others are, uh, guest hosts and that sort of thing. But generally we're talking about lifestyle. Justin: So once again, everybody, this is Doug Cunnington, "Mile High Fi" podcast. Doug, man, this has been a blast. Thanks for joining us. Doug: Thanks for having me Speaker: Thanks for listening to the show. This podcast is not financial or legal advice. I do hope it's entertaining, but I can assure you it's not advice of any kind. The show is listener supported, so you can check out the Buy Me A Coffee link, and supporters get extra content at least once a month, and it really does help out the show. If you wanna go a step further, you can leave a review, like on Apple Podcast or wherever you can, or tell a friend about the show and forward them a specific episode that you know they might like