How Should I Shift Gears From Many Different Hobbies?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | All right, who do we got?

00:00:06.460 | - All right, next up we have Shane McGrath.

00:00:10.760 | I'm pretty sure he's submitted a question before

00:00:13.280 | and he's basically got a lot of jobs.

00:00:16.360 | He's doing a lot of juggling

00:00:17.580 | and he's got a specific question about that.

00:00:19.800 | - Hi Cal, my name is Shane and I work

00:00:25.880 | as an operations analyst in the medical device field.

00:00:29.220 | I'm a big fan of your work

00:00:30.480 | and credit the embrace of Deep Work principles

00:00:32.740 | as a catalyst for my last two promotions.

00:00:35.480 | So I first and foremost just wanna express

00:00:37.540 | my utmost gratitude to your work

00:00:39.400 | and I look forward to your future work as well.

00:00:42.440 | What I wanna ask you is your advice and strategies

00:00:44.940 | for shifting gears between multiple domains.

00:00:48.160 | I have several interests including writing,

00:00:50.480 | learning to code, investing, data analysis,

00:00:53.720 | cooking and playing guitar, which I all tend to.

00:00:58.080 | They all feel rewarding in different ways

00:00:59.980 | and I guess I just operate as a right-brained guy

00:01:02.280 | who loves to throw coals in the fire.

00:01:04.880 | Assuming I keep this juggling act going,

00:01:07.160 | do you have any tips or strategies

00:01:08.780 | that help to shift gears between work in different domains?

00:01:12.960 | When I write, it seems like the optimal state

00:01:15.380 | is quite different than when I'm coding

00:01:17.200 | in JavaScript for example.

00:01:19.000 | They just seem to hit different.

00:01:21.300 | I just wonder how I could do a better job

00:01:23.220 | with managing this juggling act I'm in the middle of.

00:01:26.300 | Much appreciated, Cal, thanks a lot.

00:01:28.400 | - Well, I mean, Shane, my advice here is

00:01:31.880 | if you're struggling juggling lots of balls,

00:01:35.160 | the best solution is to take out a bunch of the balls.

00:01:39.560 | That's much easier than trying to learn

00:01:41.040 | how do I juggle five balls?

00:01:42.080 | That's hard to do.

00:01:43.420 | Two balls is easier.

00:01:45.040 | So instead of trying to figure out how to juggle five balls,

00:01:46.960 | you could get rid of three

00:01:47.920 | and that's what I think is the issue here.

00:01:50.360 | That's too many things.

00:01:51.480 | That's too many things.

00:01:53.740 | The overhead of having that many things

00:01:56.440 | is probably counterbalancing a lot of the value.

00:02:00.000 | So if we wanna see what's a more reasonable load,

00:02:02.720 | and we're talking here,

00:02:03.560 | these are all sort of out of work, leisure type pursuits.

00:02:07.720 | There's a few different things.

00:02:08.920 | If we're looking through the different deep life buckets,

00:02:11.840 | there's like a few different things

00:02:12.920 | that are pulling at your time, especially outside of work.

00:02:16.640 | I mean, first of all, there's the community bucket.

00:02:18.260 | I mean, serving your family, serving your friends,

00:02:21.200 | being a leader in your community.

00:02:23.740 | Enjoying and savoring times with people you care about.

00:02:25.540 | Like that actually needs a lot of time.

00:02:27.860 | That's a default.

00:02:28.940 | That's already taking up a lot of time.

00:02:31.140 | We have constitution.

00:02:33.000 | You gotta take care of your body.

00:02:34.260 | It's the best way also of keeping anxiety low,

00:02:37.180 | especially during difficult times.

00:02:38.540 | And it keeps you with more options

00:02:40.540 | for doing things with your life going forward.

00:02:42.820 | And that takes time.

00:02:43.900 | So now we don't have a ton of time left.

00:02:46.820 | Then you wanna throw in there,

00:02:49.140 | if we wanna have the celebration bucket

00:02:50.740 | or under contemplation,

00:02:51.580 | you wanna throw in there just having

00:02:53.440 | high quality present leisure experiences.

00:02:55.460 | Just really enjoying a movie, really enjoying a dinner,

00:02:58.060 | really enjoying a sunset while you're out for a walk

00:03:00.120 | and that type of just present gratitude generating moment.

00:03:02.880 | Now we're really getting down

00:03:03.980 | to a small amount of free time,

00:03:06.100 | which honestly I think the right load there

00:03:08.180 | is there's a primary hobby that you work on over time.

00:03:11.380 | So you get the satisfaction of mastery

00:03:13.200 | and of developing a really refined taste in one area.

00:03:17.460 | So if you get really good at guitar,

00:03:19.260 | you don't just get the benefit of the mastery

00:03:21.900 | of playing your guitar well,

00:03:22.740 | you get the benefit of really being able to appreciate

00:03:24.700 | and understand other good guitar players.

00:03:26.580 | So it's a gift that keeps on giving.

00:03:28.100 | And then maybe have a secondary hobby

00:03:29.800 | that you're messing around with.

00:03:31.620 | I'm learning how to cook this season.

00:03:33.660 | And then I'm really busy and I'm doing no secondary thing.

00:03:36.260 | And then I'm messing around with code.

00:03:37.360 | I'm gonna make like a video game for my kids.

00:03:39.340 | And then I'm doing nothing because I'm busy.

00:03:41.220 | And you have that secondary slot.

00:03:42.740 | I honestly think that's really what people

00:03:45.540 | more or less have time for.

00:03:46.820 | And my worry is if you try to have

00:03:48.060 | five different leisure activities,

00:03:49.900 | those other core deep life areas like community,

00:03:53.040 | like constitution, like just present celebration,

00:03:55.380 | they're gonna get squeezed out and that's to your detriment.

00:03:57.580 | And the overhead of just switching back and forth

00:03:59.360 | between these things are gonna make you more anxious

00:04:01.020 | than you get benefit from them.

00:04:02.740 | So I'm not sure if that's the answer you wanna hear,

00:04:04.720 | but that's the answer I am gonna give right now

00:04:07.340 | is if you do less, this might sound paradoxical,

00:04:11.340 | but if you do less, you're actually going to experience

00:04:15.080 | more good things in your life.

00:04:17.900 | (upbeat music)

00:04:20.480 | (upbeat music)

How Should I Shift Gears From Many Different Hobbies?

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