Planning A Wedding Without Going Insane | Deep Questions With Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | All right, what do we got next?

00:00:02.480 | All right, next question is from Nathaniel.

00:00:06.320 | He asks, "How do I plan a wedding without drowning in minutia?"

00:00:11.000 | He goes on to explain that he's getting married in a month.

00:00:13.680 | Partner's amazing, but he's getting overloaded with minor details.

00:00:18.560 | Um, all right.

00:00:22.760 | Wedding planning.

00:00:24.760 | I was very young when I got married, so I don't remember a lot of this.

00:00:27.080 | And our wedding was informal.

00:00:30.080 | I think I, based on some of the weddings I've been to recently, I now understand

00:00:33.760 | it as a more complicated procedure, uh, than it once was.

00:00:38.000 | So here's the, I would say the big point I would deliver here, Nathaniel,

00:00:42.240 | is that these vendors work for you.

00:00:45.560 | You're paying them.

00:00:47.120 | So you have a lot of flexibility in setting the standards by which your

00:00:52.960 | interactions are going to happen.

00:00:54.120 | Most vendors are not productivity gurus.

00:00:59.240 | Right?

00:00:59.520 | So left to their default is going to be like, I don't know.

00:01:02.240 | I'm just going to shoot you off a text message or an email.

00:01:04.120 | I have a bunch of clients.

00:01:04.920 | I'm just like, all day long.

00:01:06.960 | And you could get sucked into that.

00:01:08.040 | And then you're all day long.

00:01:09.560 | It would be the technical description of what it's like to fall

00:01:13.280 | into the hyperactive hive mind.

00:01:14.280 | I say, you should figure out, here's how I want to work with you.

00:01:17.280 | Here's how I want to communicate, where we want to store information, how we

00:01:20.040 | deal with various types of interactions that will happen common in our relationship.

00:01:23.960 | Here's how it's going to work.

00:01:25.200 | Okay.

00:01:25.480 | I'm paying you.

00:01:26.280 | So you kind of have to say yes.

00:01:28.760 | And you can engineer these interactions to be much less ad hoc, much less

00:01:33.600 | haphazard and require much less on demand attention.

00:01:37.880 | So for example, you might use dedicated email addresses, a dedicated address for

00:01:44.000 | the planning itself, or even multiple dedicated addresses for different

00:01:47.960 | aspects of the planning, wedding planning, office hours could be a critical idea.

00:01:53.400 | I have 30 minutes put aside every day.

00:01:57.000 | Maybe it's during your drive home.

00:01:59.360 | Right.

00:01:59.640 | I don't know when it is.

00:02:00.520 | This is the time that you just keep every time one of these vendors is like, okay,

00:02:04.840 | we're not sure about, uh, like the lilies.

00:02:07.840 | We have a different type of purple.

00:02:09.000 | We're not sure if it's going to work or we need your, your, your, uh,

00:02:11.440 | approval and this or that you always just say until they have it.

00:02:13.680 | Seared into their brain.

00:02:15.480 | Call me during, you know, four to four to four 30.

00:02:18.600 | You can always call me.

00:02:19.320 | Don't even bother emailing me about just call me then I'm always here.

00:02:22.760 | And you know what?

00:02:23.840 | They will love that.

00:02:24.800 | Vendors love just like any type of client.

00:02:27.520 | They really do love the clarity.

00:02:29.400 | I know exactly how to get an answer.

00:02:31.480 | I don't have to send something out there and try to remember it.

00:02:33.880 | And is it going to be like all my other jerk clients and forget to respond to this?

00:02:37.000 | I can always just call Nathaniel.

00:02:38.640 | I always call him at four.

00:02:39.800 | He's always there.

00:02:40.960 | There's 50 or 60% of your communication.

00:02:43.480 | Uh, agree on processes in advance.

00:02:46.640 | If like, this is what we're going to do.

00:02:48.080 | Okay.

00:02:48.320 | We're picking the flowers.

00:02:50.360 | Let's talk this through in our initial meeting.

00:02:52.440 | Like what's going to happen here.

00:02:53.360 | This'll happen.

00:02:54.160 | We'll have to see these samples.

00:02:56.400 | We'll have to give you some approval.

00:02:57.480 | You're gonna build a sample thing.

00:02:58.560 | You'll have these questions.

00:02:59.440 | Figure out the whole process in advance and sit there and write it down.

00:03:02.720 | Here's how we're going to do it.

00:03:04.200 | By this date, you'll put this here.

00:03:07.360 | We have a conversation for a half hour here.

00:03:09.880 | We'll deal with all of these things.

00:03:11.280 | Put the photos up here.

00:03:12.560 | I will, you figure out the whole process.

00:03:14.480 | It all goes onto your calendar.

00:03:15.640 | It's all written down.

00:03:16.480 | They see it.

00:03:16.920 | You see it.

00:03:17.480 | Not a single ounce of planning energy has to be further invested

00:03:21.320 | in this particular interaction.

00:03:22.640 | You have it all figured out again.

00:03:24.320 | Vendors like clients in general want clarity more than they want.

00:03:28.960 | Like, oh, I can just reach you at any point.

00:03:31.080 | Reaching you at any point is not the big deal.

00:03:33.000 | The big deal is getting you to actually do stuff and not them have to not worry about it.

00:03:36.120 | Clarity trumps accessibility.

00:03:37.480 | Finally, wedding planning is actually a good situation in which hiring a part-time

00:03:44.400 | assistant is worth it.

00:03:46.280 | It's a type of work where a part-time assistant is actually quite useful.

00:03:50.800 | It's like very specific.

00:03:52.440 | It doesn't require domain knowledge about like what you do for a living.

00:03:57.680 | You're spending, and this is looking at the official estimate of the average

00:04:03.440 | wedding budget of 2022, you're spending "all of your money" anyways.

00:04:08.640 | So the cost of a few hundred dollars a month for the part-time assistant is nothing.

00:04:14.000 | And it could make a really big difference.

00:04:16.440 | Pay for a good one.

00:04:18.160 | It's worth it.

00:04:20.360 | And have them be the point of contact, like three or four of these vendors.

00:04:24.440 | You talk to them.

00:04:25.120 | So if you can't get your vendors to call you at the same time, you have a half hour

00:04:28.360 | conversation every other day with your assistant.

00:04:30.160 | We're like, here's all the things going on.

00:04:31.560 | You're like, great.

00:04:32.800 | Here's my answer to this, my answer to that.

00:04:34.160 | For this one, get me a sample.

00:04:36.280 | For this one, get on my calendar, you know, a meeting day.

00:04:39.400 | And the very last suggestion I would have, Nathaniel, is have a certain half day where

00:04:44.720 | this is when you do the meetings that have to happen.

00:04:48.840 | And you just build your work schedule around leaving, whatever, Friday noon to four clear.

00:04:53.440 | So it's really easy when people like, all right, well, we got to call.

00:04:56.480 | We got to talk about this.

00:04:57.440 | He's like, yeah, just grab a time, use a calendar, have this time open in the same

00:05:01.960 | same period.

00:05:02.600 | Now, the reason why I'm going into sub steps about wedding planning, I need to

00:05:08.680 | qualify this so it doesn't get back to my wife.

00:05:11.040 | And she's like, wait a second, what do you want to?

00:05:12.440 | Why are you thinking so much about wedding planning?

00:05:16.320 | The reason why I'm getting into this is because what I just went through there applies

00:05:21.160 | to many different professional relationships you might have in your life.

00:05:24.160 | Big conferences you're trying to organize.

00:05:27.560 | A new client that you're trying to get on board, a new service you're offering, whatever.

00:05:33.480 | There's lots of professional situations in which a lot of haphazard ad hoc

00:05:39.080 | interactions going to have to happen to make it pull off.

00:05:43.360 | Do not in those situations just default to let's just rock and roll, man.

00:05:47.680 | Here's my text message.

00:05:48.840 | I have WhatsApp going.

00:05:50.240 | I'll check email all the time.

00:05:51.800 | And let's just the don't do that.

00:05:55.000 | Take the time up front to be like, how are we going to structure these interactions and all

00:05:59.440 | the different types of things I just talked about and my suggestions for Nathaniel for

00:06:03.880 | wedding planning can apply to any number of other professional situations in which a

00:06:09.240 | complicated thing involving many different vendors or clients and peers, colleagues has to

00:06:13.520 | come together. Structure it.

00:06:15.360 | Do not just rock and roll.

00:06:17.560 | Thank you.

00:06:18.560 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

Planning A Wedding Without Going Insane | Deep Questions With Cal Newport

Chapters