The Fight Against Complexity

Business Brain, episode 575 for Wednesday, August 21st Internet Self Care Day 2024. Greetings folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take an idea or an event or a something, we analyze it, we dissect it, we use it to help tune our business brains to be better in the future so we can all keep living that charmed life here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and I'm still out here in California. I'm Shannon Jean and I am happy to be here.

I am happy to be here too. I am somewhat surprised to be here. Not that I'm surprised that we're doing the show. Like that's normal, like scheduled. It, it was on my calendar. I have time to do it. I'm focused, I'm here. It's appropriate that this is Internet Self Care Day. I think the whole vibe behind that is the Internet is a resource for a lot of things. Why not use it as a resource for some self care or whatever?

Yeah, it's cool.

Yeah, I feel like I need some of that this week. And we're recording this a week in advance because when it comes out, I'm going to be at podcast movement, which is part of my issue. I am a very productive person. I like to, I like to say that and I like for it to be true. This week I'm starting, and even the last couple of weeks I'm starting to wonder how productive is too productive. And at what point does focused productivity just become another form of busy? Because this week I am so packed with things like let's, let's see, Monday. I don't even remember what Monday was. That was the first day of the week, wasn't it? You know, I'm sure it's a blur. Yeah, it's a blur, right? So I had, I had some events on Monday and then, and then Tuesday we recorded this show. I had some meetings in the morning and then I had a rehearsal that night for Rocky Horror that I'm playing this weekend. Wednesday, same kind of thing, right? All of these things are great. Wednesday, same kind of thing. Also a rehearsal Wednesday night for Rocky Horror. Thursday, today. I've been in meetings all day, having to prep well, this podcast, although I didn't do as much of that as I needed to until we got together. Because it was only 20 minutes before we got together that I saw. Oh, right, we're doing this on Thursday. Right? I have time for it. It's there. But my day has just been packed and I like how productive I AM when my day is packed, I like, if my day has nothing scheduled, I often wind up saying, well, I could like, take this little detour right now and do what I need to do later. Whereas when my day is packed and I know I don't have any wiggle room, then I just have to get to it. Like, oh, I'm doing it right now. And I had meetings all day. I have this. I was supposed to have a rehearsal tonight that just got canceled. That's a good thing. But then tomorrow I have a podcast in the morning, I have a gig two hours away at 6pm and then at midnight I have that Rocky Horror to play. And then on Saturday at 2pm, from 2pm to 4pm I have another gig. This is now a third band that I'm playing with from 2 to 4, maybe in, I don't know, 40 minutes away in Maine or something. And then at 6pm I'm playing a gig an hour and 10 minutes away from that. Oh yeah, it'll be a tight thing. They can start without me. This particular thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so four different gigs with four different bands in basically 24 hours maybe.

Sounds like you're living a charmed life to me.

I. It does sound that way. And it.

But it.

But like, I have found that I don't. I'm not able to be as focused, as polished at the things that I'm doing. Like, this show is a perfect example. But it's not the only example. This week where we showed up and it was like, oh, crap, I forgot that we were recording also, because it's not our normal Tuesday. I didn't have it on my calendar ahead of time to do all of my prep and everything, figure out what the special days of the week are and those sorts of things. So I had to do that when we got together, and I don't like to do that when we get together because that's now wasting your time. And so all of my things this week are going to be. Are going to suffer because my schedule is a little too packed. Is. Is the reality of it.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's easy to. Easy to fall into that. I was going to say fall into that trap, but it's just easy. If you're somebody who gets a lot of things done and you maximize your time, it's like a magnet for other things.

Yes.

And for other people to ask you to, hey, could you do this? Could do that. I have some. A couple of volunteer organizations that I help run and I, I Can tell you that when I got involved and one of the reasons why I got involved, because I had more time on my hands. But now that I'm in the middle of building something, I don't have as much time.

Yes.

And yeah, I could see it to your point. I could see things falling by the wayside. I can't get back to people in a timely manner. I, I use your thanks for your patience on a daily basis and I've just had to kind of come to grips with that because I, I pride myself on being quick and responsive and super resourceful. Let me help you fix that. But I've just had to start telling people, hey, my time is limited, so it's going to take me a while to get back to you. Or I've also taken telling people, hey, you don't have to involve me in this part of the. You've got this. Don't cc me on the email. I don't need to know because I think you're very well equipped to get this project done or whatever. But yeah, sometimes, like I said, you're dancing on the head of a pin. Right.

That's it. And that's how it has felt base. Well, the last three days, certainly. And even, and even Monday, like, it was just like so much. But it's been, it's been leading up to this. And of course I create this for myself. You're. I loved your phrase. You don't have to involve me in this. That's a different way of saying no.

It's a polite way. It is polite way.

It is.

But it's really true, man. Yeah. People like to CC a bunch of people on you press the email and all stuff. It's like, I don't, I don't need to be here. And I'm not saying that like I'm discounting the work you're doing. It's awesome that you're doing this, but.

We don't need to do it together. Yeah.

Yeah. I, I'm not like, now for something you need my approval or you want my feedback. Well, that's great. And so I often say, try to say it in a very kind way. It's like, hey, you're. You got this. You just go, you don't need. I don't. You just update me, you know, whatever, once a month. I don't need to be cc'd on the five emails you send every single day.

Yeah.

It's too much.

Yep.

It's too complex.

It's too complex. I. There's a, there's another side of this that maybe is its own. Its own topic to talk about. Like, there was one thing on Tuesday. Tuesday was utter mayhem. As if today is not. But. But I was moving too quickly. And I got a text from this new band that I joined and they were like, are you available on this date? And I looked really fast on my phone because it was a private party. They're like, it's happening quickly. Can everybody do it? It was a group text. And there was a lot of activity in the text, not just about this one date. It was other things. It was too much. And it wasn't the only thing in my life that was going too much. Right. You know, it was all the things. And I looked quick and I was like, yep, I'm open on that date. And they booked the thing. We got the deposit in. Like, it all happened very, very quickly. And it was either that night or the next morning that I realized, oh, I have plans with my family on that day.

Crap. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I have to let my family down on that day is what. What the. And the band was like, oh, let me see if we can try to move it. You know, this. That thing. And it just didn't work out. And so it kind of came down to, well, do we need to cancel the gig or are you going to let your family down? And they. They would have been okay with kind of either one. It was like, well, they can go do this thing that I was going to do with them. Help me. You can't go do this other thing without me. So I put myself in this position. If I'd realized that, I simply would have said no, but I didn't. That's on me. So I'll. I got to own this. And. And that sucks. I don't like. I don't like being unreliable, and that is very much an unreliable moment. And. And I especially don't like being unreliable to the people that I care the most about. I don't like being unreliable to anyone but to my family.

Yeah.

I don't know. I feel like there's a. I don't know that I made the right decision on this. So.

That's a tough one, man. And you. You. I don't know that you'll ever know, but it depends on how. It doesn't happen very often or, you know, hardly at all. It's once. Once in a while things. You get double booked and, yeah, something's got to give and I get it. It's. It's tough. I don't have an easy answer to that, man. That's a.

That's the thing. There is no easy answer.

Yeah, yeah, that's. It's. That's a hard one. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know. Cutting out. What do you do? You don't show up. You let all those people down, or you tell your family, hey, I gotta. I can't go to this thing. Or I can't. And again, I think it depends on the context. If it's happening all the time, it's a bad sign. You gotta put a stop to it.

Yes.

Bad sign. If it happens, you know, a couple times a year. Because it's like, oh, and also, I think it's the way you present it. You presented your family. Hey, I made a mistake.

Oh. That's how I started, actually. I started with. I was. I was gonna do it in person, and then, yeah, completely randomly, but nothing in life is ever random. My. This is a date two months out. My wife texted my son and I about that date. She just referred to it, and it was like, all right, well, now that we're having this conversation, I can't wait till this weekend when we're all in the same room and I can do this in person. So I started with. I effed up and then explained it from there, you know, uh, yeah, that's it.

It happens. All.

You gotta own it. Yeah.

Yeah, you gotta own it. That's. That's super. Accountability is. Is the answer.

And. And I think it's interesting, that process of owning it, first of all, is. Is. I mean, objectively, I would say, is the right thing to do. It also communicates to other people that, like, okay, we all make mistakes, and he made one, and he's owning it, so that's good.

But.

But it also communicated to me, like. I mean, it's probably the catalyst for this conversation. I. Right after I had texted my family that somebody texted me about another date that could. I could, like, squeeze in or whatever. And. And I was like, no, you know what? I need to say no to this. And it's okay to say no to this.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've really kind of leaned into the no, no. And I get like, you know, I've. I've been, you know, building this thing on. On X and that my DMs are full of, hey, do you want to. I have this opportunity. Do you want to do this? Or what should I do? And so you just have to go. I. I can't. I can't. I Can't be involved in that. You know, okay, wish you luck. Here's some resources. But I, you know, I'm not.

Yeah, I don't have time for you.

And then no, you can't do it.

It. You. The, the, the thing that you put. It's interesting. We both had topics like this because you had a topic, the fight against complexity. It's like, oh, I think I have the, I think I have the setup for that. Shannon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to talk about it because so whatever you're. And here's my context. Whenever you start something new, you're trying to make yourself look professional, trying to build things out and you, you know, in like this coaching business, I'm trying to, okay, what app do I use or software platform? How do I, you know, keep all this stuff together and everything? And I found myself trying to over complicate it to make me look more sophisticated than I really am as a, almost like a crutch in the sense that this app looks really good and I'm going to do this. And you know, I actually just reverted back to planning document that I created in, in Google sheets to work. You know, it's like, hey, here's our objective of our call, here's the agenda. Here are the action items. It's very simple and it just reminded me that that simplicity is, should be the, the, the system. I almost said the G word, but I didn't want to swear on the show. G O G O A L. So the simplest systems, they're just the easiest to make succeed and to be successful in and over complex complicating things to make yourself. And when I say yourself, I mean me sound better or like you've, you know, what you're doing and all that, you have to really fight against it or I, I do. At least there's other folks that do it.

Yes.

And I, I think it's all, you know, all aspects of our business. How your customers, you know, how. What is the fastest way that they're going to get to your product or service? How can you eliminate the layers that in between your customer service department and your, your, Your customers themselves. And just thinking about simplicity and removing unnecessary barriers to being successful and it just really hit me as I was building this stuff out.

I definitely follow that. And it's not necessarily to prioritize simplicity, although that's probably, I might be saying the same thing. I do it to prioritize action. Right. If a system is too complex to get set up that friction I'll Be aware of it. And I'll be like, I don't want to have to send this to this person because that's going to take me all this time and mental energy to get going. Maybe I should just cancel the call, reschedule it for next week. And it's not that I don't want to do the call with the person, it's that I don't want to do the setup for the call with the person.

Right.

And, and so I have learned to, to just use those very simple things. And it always often, not always starts with a Google Doc or a Google Sheet and it's like we can collaborate on this and this is a great place. And I'll do that until I realize that that has become the friction point.

Yes. If you outgrow that, I get it. You got to go to the next.

Level and then level then we either build something or you know, find, find a new platform or whatever. But yeah, starting with the, because Google Sheets and Google Docs are ubiquitous. Everybody has access to them, everybody knows how to use them.

Yeah, you don't pay. I mean, well, you pay with your data, but I mean you're, it's, you know, whatever.

But that's why I actually do a lot of those on my synologies, because they're, it's, yeah, it's my data, I own it.

Right. That's nice.

Your own cloud, it's private cloud, but same. It's exactly the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's like, you know, I think Steve Jobs always said, hey, the customer or the user of this software or whatever it is has to get done within like two clicks.

Right.

Or maybe it was three or something. But think about all the steps you, that your customers or just people you interact with have to go through to, to get things done and, and see if there's just ways you can remove that complex. It just takes too much time, man. You know, even like I, I, this one of these volunteer groups that I'm in. You know, it's primarily an older crowd and I don't want to say they're technically challenged, but they often want me to print out like a hundred pages of stuff to bring to meeting. Oh no, no, no. Exactly. And I refuse, of course, because I'm, and I'll say, hey, I'll put it up on the website on a lot on a, a password protected page and everybody can log into it and do whatever they need.

You want to print it? Yeah, go ahead.

You got it. You got like, I, I'll say hey, I'm not going to print out 100 pages of anything ever again in my life. But yeah, just, I, I just keep running into this. Keep it simple. Was it, you know, kiss. Keep it simple. Stupid. You know. And another part is as I'm interacting with lots of business people, the, the folks that can explain how their business works, like in one sentence, you know, like we had Joe Benson on. Yeah, well, it's actually today or no, yesterday. Got released last week.

Last week for the.

Yeah, last week. Because this will come out.

Yeah, yeah.

So with eversight and you know, he described what their business was in. Quick, quick. And I've noticed that if, if you can't do that, if it's some roundabout way and we work with this group and we make this cut of this and we're set up to do this and we're to this and then all we have to do is this. It's like I just, maybe I'm just not smart enough. It's too sophisticated for me. And I just. That tells me right then do not get involved in this.

Yeah. If you, if you do that for your business. Because certainly I've, every business I've had. If you asked me at a certain point in the business's evolution, what do you do? I would give you this circuitous description of it because I, I'm seeing it as the thing that we evolved. Right. Like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so what I, but what I've learned to do is notice that and then stop and say, okay, get impatient with myself. Give myself, you know, 12 words. What is it that you do? And, and I will, I'll do that sometimes. Like, well, you know, it's this, like, it's this website where we have people and we provide news and reviews for Apple users. Like, you know, like that's it.

Yes, that's it. And, and I, like, I got to the point where it's so complicated to try to describe what I did talking about that I would just say I'm in the technology business.

Yeah.

Now if, if they want to ask more like, oh well, what kind of technology? What do you do? Okay, well then we're having a discussion.

Yes.

Not five second. You know, you go down like the.

Beginning of this show, I used to stumble through how to describe what you were about to hear us do in. At the beginning of every episode. And one of you, David Dawson, one of our listeners, called me out on it and was like, you need to get better with that. Because I, I listen because I know what the show's about, but anybody coming in would think you have no idea what the show is about. And it was.

Good point.

Right, Right.

Good point.

Got it. And then you fix it. And now I know what to say. And it almost rolls off the tongue even though I ad lib it each time. It's fine. Like I know how to describe it.

Yeah, it's good. So, yeah. So if, if I would love more tips on how to simplify things, how to fight against complexity. Complexity, I could say that because it seems like I'm always fighting against it and setting things up. Feedbackusbrain show or you can find business. Brian Avehamilton and Shannon Gene on X. Send us a DM and love to hear your tips. We were here to help each other.

Absolutely. Like he said. Feedbackusinessbrain show Keep living that charmed life, folks, and we'll see you on Friday.