How to Prioritize

Now we're going to gointo prioritization.This is a mouthful, howmany syllables of thatpie or it say six syllables.That's a very difficult thingfor a monosyllabic speakerlike myself so that youdon't get banned for life.Please come in muted, pleaseand turn your speakers down.All right.Prioritization,this is a tough one.And it's not just an exercisein core, it's a thing for life.And I've talked about this ina number of different ways,so hopefully I cansum this up for youin the most succinctway possible.Every day we'refilled with thingsthat we need to do,from small thingsto big things to little thingsand everything in between.So unfortunately,there's an impulseto solve the things that seemmost urgent, like the firesthat we talk about putting out.And we lose focus in termsof what we need to do.So we're always puttingout the little things,and there's a tendencyfor us to wantto do the things thatare simple and easyand not to do the things thatare annoying and somewhatdifficult. Forexample, if I haveto write up an invoice for aclient, I hate doing invoices.I hate it.I'm a whole team ofpeople to do that for me.But every once in a while,I have to do one and I drag.I drag that so far outthat sometimes it'sa year and a half before Isend an invoice, I'm like,surprise there's abill you haven't paidand then we haveto deal with that.So the things thatcause us griefor friction or heartache,those are things that we delay.But more often than not, thereare things that we need to do.So here's what you need to do.You need to make a list.Lists help all of usmake a list of thingsthat you need to accomplishtoday, this week, this month,this quarter.I think that's enough andyou can work backwards.You can say this quarter.I like to be able to builda certain amount of money,and therefore I need to havea certain number of clientsin order for me to get acertain number of clients.Let's say, in order to getfour clients this month,I need to speak to 20because my close ratio isabout 20 percent, meaningevery five clients I closeone multiply 4 times5 and it equals 20.In order to meet 20 clients,I have to call 80 clients,potential clientsto see if they'rewilling to take a meetingbecause that ratio is 4:1.So then you now realizeI have 80 clientsI need to call uponso that ultimately Ican get four clients.What do I need to do then?Why are there 80days in this quarter?Yes so that means every singleday I need a call at least one.And if I'm being a reallygood boy, I call to peopleand that's what I need to do.All right, so that's howyou prioritize things,so if, for example, I'mwashing the car comes up or.Changing our landing page ortweaking a logo or somethingthat we're workingon gets in the wayof us achievingour global businessobjective of calling at leastone or two clients a daythat we need to start theday, calling those peoplefirst before wedo anything else.And so if you governyour life like that,it's going to help you getthe things that you want done.Now you can't see this, butstrewn about all over my deskare post-it notes and no cardslike I have so many here.It's like straight up, likea mental asylum in here.OK, so these are all pagesand pages of notes and thingsthat I need to doevery single day.Some of them aregood, some of themare terrible, the terribleones I throw away.But this helps me toremove anxiety basicallyof being my own bossby having a clear listand I prioritizethe list in termsof what's most important forme to accomplish this day.Some days I don'thit all of themand I don't beatmyself up over that.Some days I crush it and notonly accomplish everythingthat I set out to dothat day and I do more.Typically what happens isthen I go to Facebook to brag,I'm like, look at howmuch stuff I've done todaybecause it makes me feel good.I don't always celebratethe moments where I suckand those happen for sure.Ok?how do you use prioritizationwhen it comes to design?Alexander was askingabout this because hewas designing some styleshapes and he was like,oh, I don't knowwhat done looks like.So it seems like I'mworking on this forever.I'm cutting the infiniteloop of revision, nip tuckand pushing things right.I have no idea.Now I think I can help solvethat problem by describinga different problem,and hopefully you'llsee the parallels and you'llbe able to connect it to OK.When we design the logosoftentimes in school,especially if you'vegone to design school,your instructormight have told you.Design 100 sketchesand just do that.And it's through working throughtons and tons of iterationsof ideas.Little chicken scratchthumbnail things.And then that's how you design.And through that process,you start to whittle it downand typically you have a teacheror classmates to help guide youthrough that process.Now, I think that wholeprocess is inherently flawed.It's flawed, and I think it'steaching us the wrong thingsthat it's almost like design.It's a painting andyou just paint at ituntil you feel like it's done.Like, how does an artistknow that the canvas isdone because they felt tired?They don't know.Nobody knows.So here's what I like to do.I'd like to have some senseof a direction as to whereI'm going, and this iswhy we've introducedthe concept of a style escape ora mood board or a style towel.It doesn't really matter whatyou call it, because out therein the real world, somethingthat already exists,that is similar to whatit is that we want to do,even though we don'tknow what it is yet.So I would rather spend sometime searching for this thingand eventually saying,well, this little mark,this little symbolor the expressivenature of thisthing that I've seenfeels like this is whatI want to accomplish,and it feels likeconnected to the brief,the problem I'm trying to solve.It feels appropriate andit feels like really good.It needs a lot ofwork to get from hereto be tailoredfor this solution.I think it's going to work.So what I want to do now is Iwant to check in with a clientbecause there's no teacher here.I want to check inwith the client,say, based on ourconversation, basedon what we discovered throughour initial conversations.It seems like this is thething that you're looking for.Is that correct?And they're like, yes, thatis what I want to do nowis they use this as my newbenchmark, my North star,my guiding point guiding light.I want to put it over here, andI want to start designing like,what is it that makesthat mark what it is?Is it the shape?Is it the color?Is the ratio of sharpedges to curvy edges?What is it?So I might make alist then, and I'mgoing to write down four orfive traits or characteristicsof that thing thatI'm trying to solve.Guess what, it's backto being a list again.So now when I'm going to designor to put together a stylescape, I'm only going to selectimages that meet one or moreof these criteria.If they do, they stay.If they don't, they'regone and the whole time.The more parts I find, themore momentum it builds inside.Like, I feel likethe winds behind usand we're running downhill.And it's awesome because I'mracing towards the finish lineand I get super excited.And then I take amoment while I'mdoing this to enjoy the processto say wow, before today.I don't even know that thisstyle or this photography styleor illustration evenexisted, and I'm superthrilled to be learningit because it'sanother crown and mybox of infinite crowns.I don't want to color withjust three shades of red.I want to be ableto use that boxof like 128 colors and Crayola.I want to use them all.And so this issomething I'm goingto be able to add into myrepertoire, my bag of tricks,things I can thinkabout and talk about.So maybe prior tothis moment, I wasn'ta fan of brutalism interms of architecture,but now I have a newappreciation for it.And I can talk aboutit with some senseof expertise and knowledge,and that excites me a lot.This also helpsyou to solve someof your shiny, shiny objectsyndromes that some of you guysare chasing.That's all I got about that.I'm trying my best toweave as many of the thingsthat you guys talk aboutinto this one thing,and hopefully I've hitupon a couple of things.Dan, how are we doing?We're good.Nobody's asked anyquestions, so keep going.All right.Wait for something.Go ahead, Alex.Yeah, I have a question.So it seems like whenyou're doing this work,you're constantlycommunicating with the clientand asking for their needs.But for example,when you presenta style that shouldn't bepresented as one solid piecerather than broken intopieces and then collectingthe information from theclient, they have this clip.100% So what youneed to be able to dois to map some ofthe concepts I'mtalking to you about intothe very specific thingsthat you're doing.It's not a literal oneto one relationship,so I was talking about a logo.I do want to check withthe client on the logo,but if the style escapeis the form of the logo,you need to do thatlittle thing for yourselfto say like thisone little image.Maybe it's the colorsor the textures,or the way that the typeis arranged on that thingfeels like, what itis that I want to do.So, OK, it's usingmetallic serif typefaces.It's using sizes.As far as I can tell,you're making your list.It's using a walnutwood finish and there'selements of unnaturalthing like there'sa botanical leaf in there.OK, so I get it.So it's wood, metaland greens, and it'sof a 50, 20, 20, 10 relationshipor something like that.So I haven't mapped out.I'm trying to create the recipe.Now I can go and find theimages and the referencesthat I need to be able toassemble the style escape.This is somethingI've said before,but I'm going to putit together in just onevideo for you is this isthat I've seen this on TVwhen there are master chefsand they are sitting thereand they're doing some kindof cooking competition.And one of the challenges is totaste a spoonful of a rich soupor broth and try toguess as many ingredientsas they taste in one mouth.That's it.That's all.One spoonful.And that's it, right?So each chef walksup to the table,their face facing eachother like one two, right?And they both take a spoon.OK And then one chef says Ican name seven ingredients.The other one saysI could do eight.Well, looks like I could do 10.And so if they can't do 10to the other person wins.This is what youwant to do in life,I think we need to be moreintentional, deliberateand use her powersof observation more.Too much is left in the gutor in the back of the brain,and we just don't know.So this is where you takethat spoonful of design.And you sit thereand you stare at it,it's like, what is makingthis thing, this thing that Ilove so much?What is it that's drawingme in its angular shapes?It's the big elements nextto the small elements,and they're usinglike tiny circles,and they're using thecolor red and orange.Interesting ways,and you're justtrying to be able to name asmany ingredients and componentsas you can.Now, if you're aself-taught designeror you're not adesigner at all, thistends to be somewhatdifficult because you haven'tbeen taught how to see NielsLindstrom in the letteringclasses.You can't drawwhat you can't see.Or what you don't knowand what you can't see,you don't know or something likethat, I totally butchered that.I'm so sorry.I promise you itwas a good student.OK, so you need to beefup your visual vocabularyand you can do thisin a number of ways.The easiest way is to hang outwith a lot of MFA fine artytypes like, Oh yes,Darling, because theyuse that language to talk aboutthe juxtaposition of this imageor having agency over somethingor the provenance of something.They're using certainkinds of language,and it's very specificto a subset of societyand designers, right?So if you hang aroundwith a lot of MFA studentsin fine art worldin academia, they'regoing to be able to uselanguage to describethe most simple things.And it's going to giveyou a much richer paletteand a visual vocabularythan you've ever had before.All right.Let's say you live in Timbukturemote parts somewhere.I don't know where you liveand you have no MFA friends.There's not evena school near you.What can you do then?Well, if you havethe possibility,if they have the option of goingto a library or to a bookstore,you can flipthrough these thingsbecause chances are most designbooks start with a vocabulary.They start with thetools and they tell youwhat they're used forand how to use them.They have a glossaryterms, if you will.So even in Douglas Davisbook creative strategyin a business of design, he hasa whole section of definitions,and that's how hebegins the conversationbecause we want to make surewe have a shared language.So that's how youcan learn that.Does that help you, alex?Yeah, kind of.Yeah, it is.Thanks I'm done with you.You're the guy who can neverbe happy about anything.Yeah just because I'mdone with you yet.What do you mean?Kind of what back?Thanks a lot.That's how I abused people.OK, never mind.No, it's cool.If it's not right, we'llanswer the next one.Ok?all right.Oh, we're good.We're good.OK, I'm going to stop this part.There we go.And I'm going to start again.Who knows if I'm doing anything.I'm just pushing a buttonand shaking the camera.You're really goingto want to clip outthat last the beginningand end of last few secondsbecause it's like yourface way up in the camera.Yeah, really?You know what a face thatcloses what you're saying,Philip, I get it.And I've got you on a 43inch screen right now,so it's kind of43 inch 4K monitorscreen, so it's like, Oh yeah,and I get out of focus too.OK I don't know.I could talk aboutpassionate attachment.Is that ok?You guys want meto talk about this?That's a great way to sum it up.Thank you.Yeah, it's not evenmy words there.Gabby bomberger Gabby.OK, so cool.Switch back to Zoom.Passionate talk about that.Great because I'vegot a jet in about 20or 30 minutes foran appointment.So awesome.OK, here we go.Passionate detachment,what the heck is Chrismean when he talks aboutpassionate attachmentbecause those are twoconflicting ideas?And I want to talk about that.This is where my binary robotbrain, because I'm a host,I'm not actually a human being.I can flip back andforth quite easily.I can oscillate between being avery passionate person, as youcan see, sometimes on camera,sometimes when I'm working.But the minute.I need to get a jobdone, I flip overto like being very objectiveand cold and like a machine.And this is the thingthat's helped meout a lot in terms of mysuccess and being able to lookat my work objectively.So that did gosomething like this.When you're workingon something,it requires you to be deeplypassionate to give your heartand soul to make it feelas if it was your childor your own thing,even though you'reworking for somebody else.And that kind of passion,the attention to detail,the spark, the creativeenergy that youbring to the table as acreative human being thatneeds to be there.You don't want to besome cold robot whenyou're making the work.But here's the cool partthe minute the minuteyour finger leavesthe mouse buttonor the Wacom tablet, youknow, let me get my upwhen the minute youlet this thing go.It ain't your work anymore,it belongs to the universe,it's just the thing, it's justan object and you picked it upand you need to lookat it with fresh eyesand an objective point of view.You have to look back atyour criteria, the listthat you've made yourself thatprioritization list and say,does this live up to this?Did we lose ourselves goingdown that rabbit hole,the infinite loop, if you will?And it just becomes someform of design masturbation.Do we lose the senseof self and whatit is we're supposed to do?And if we did?We need to sit there andsay, well, what happened?Where do we go wrong?How do we fix this thing?Oh, this is where you playyour own art director.So you make a list again,you should say, look,if the point was to communicatethat it's hot in the summer,we got ice cubes, wegot cool color palette,we've got all these thingsthat don't seem to relateto it being hot in the summer.This is like the toohot for summer sale.Let's just say that'swhat you're working on.So what kind of thingscommunicate hot?We'll write those things down.OK, now we know we go back atit, we put the passion back in.We strip all the layers.We delete things.We kill our children.Our little ideas arenot that precious to usanymore because they'regoing against our purpose,so we destroy all those things.Once all those things areclear, sweep off the dustand you start again and youstart with that passion again.Now some of us are,we have a phobiaand we have attachment disorder,all those kinds of things.What I would saythen, is Command Shifts save as duplicatethe file commandd, whatever you need todo, duplicate the fileand then now feellike you're free.You're liberatedfrom whatever itis that you thought was sogood before, because there'sa copy saved somewhereand then now you can workand you can delete allthese things if you want to.And that's how I would do it.I have no problemsdeleting files and startingover no problems becauseI have no connectionto that other thing that I did.Now there's a detrimentto that sometimesin that somebody actuallyneeded a other file like shoot.I can recreate it.No problem.But that's why, too.It's becomeincreasingly difficultfor me to find old projectsto share with people because Idon't know wherethey are anymore.I just don't care.I've moved on.So for me, my energy is focusedon moving forward instead oflooking back.That's helped me out a lot.So passionate attachment,be passionate,bring all that energy.The emotional.What is that called emotionalintelligence intuition?That gut that's so goodfor what creative peopledo to be able to take chancesand try weird and wild things,but then to be governedby the objective self,the unbiased self to say, whatis it we're trying to do here?What's the goal?What's the mission?And are we accomplishingthat or not?And to be able tooscillate between the two?Easier said than done.Now to tell you alittle personal story,the personal story is we'renot learn this from well,I don't know if I went toart school with this mindsetor not, or if it's one thatI adopt a while in school.But I remember very clearlyevery week we would do workand I was eagerlylooking forwardto it with great anticipation.To hear what theinstructor had to say,and the instructors atArt Center are known,they have a reputationfor being rather brutalwhen it comes to their critique.So if you weren't aboutself-preservation,you were going to get destroyed.So maybe part of thatwas just ingrained in methat, you know what?I didn't put up the workand I need to learn.I need to be able to listen veryclearly to what's being said.And the only way I can do thatis to pretend it's not my work.Because I saw the consequencesof when you didn't, so whenthe instructor or somebody likeRoland young or Simon Johnsonwalk up to your work or NielsLindstrom and would say,you know, this is garbage.This is terrible, getthis work out of my class.What you would seeare men and women.Just crumpled, you know, just.Crime grown menand women crying.And I would look atthat, I'm like, OK,so between the tearsand the self-pityand the feeling ofhow life is unfair,can you hear anything thatthe instructor is saying?And chances areno, because guesswhat would happenthe very next week,they would do the exactsame thing all over againor somebody else woulddo the same thing.And it was incredible tome, it was shocking to me,considering eventhen how much tuitionwas costing us to attendschool for each class.If you're not learning themaximum, what are you doing?You're just throwingyour money away.What's the point of that?So here's what I wound up doing.I would do thework, even though Iworked on an all night ofsuper passionate about it,I want it to be perfect.I would put it upon the wall and itwould step away and pretendit's not even my work.And I would not ever respondto it emotionally or physicallyunless the instructorphysically said,you know whose work is this?OK, now he's looking at me.All right.OK, tell me.Great, great.OK, fine, fine.OK, wow, excellent.And they could be destroying it.I didn't care.And every once in a while, Idid do work that got destroyed.I'm not saying that was perfect.And then people will walk upto me, oh, my god, are you ok?I'm like, yeah, I'm OK, why?Because it's not evenin my mind, my work.It was just alearning opportunity.John Archer talksabout this a lotin his positive psychology, thelens in which we see the worldhave a greater impact onus than reality itself.So if you walk in with alens like this is my work,this is my preciouslittle child and you'rebasically insultingthe work and insultingme, my family, my forefathers,everybody, my entire gene pool.Well, what are you goingto learn from that?Yes, I put on the lens.I want to learn, so goahead and tear it apartbecause everythingyou say is wrongwith it is an opportunity forme to learn not to do that everagain.So that would make me happy.So this is the idea ofpassionate detachment.I hope that's beenhelpful to you.Yeah, it's been great, thankyou very much for sharingand actually eliminatedsome other questionsare going to have maybe later.Maybe once, once every30 minutes, give or take.So I'm maybe 45.I'm trying to cut down.You do know?Yeah, I'm well aware of that.But then again, thereis also a lot of stuffthat's going to tell us.But no.So to pick your death,but yeah, no, absolutely.Yeah, I was thinking withregards to that was perhapssometimes expectations.Not so much that I'm hurtwhen they criticize the workor consider it to be or whatnot,I can take criticism just fine.It's when they come tome and say, OK, come upwith a couple of solutionsfor this, and then they go,Oh yeah, that isthe better solution.And yeah, we affordit, but we're justnot going to do that.Quite literally, they steerthat, steer the business,or I have this expectationthat I put a lot of effortinto this.Why didn't we actuallygo down that road?I mean, this is going tobe really great for us.OK a couple of things for you.A couple of things.One is effort is nomeasure of effectiveness.You need to knowthat if you come upwith an idea on the backof a napkin in two minutes,that might be the best idea,regardless of some other idea.Took you 70 hours.This is talking about now thesunk loss by some loss bias,meaning the more time,energy and effortyou put into something, themore you got to see it through.It's also known asthe IKEA effect.It's like when you go andbuild something with your handand takes you a lotof time to do this.You've fallen in love withthe things that you make,even though that thingis a piece of junk that'sparticle board withsome cheapo laminatewith a couple of screws.If you look at thewrong way, the thingis going to fall over.But because you put allyour heart, soul and energyinto making thisstupid thing, youfeel like that's veryvaluable that you actuallydevelop real feelings towardsthings, inanimate things, whichis silly.If you think about it,they might arrest youin a different century.If you did that, like,why would you feel that?That's why I have some form ofdetachment on a lot of things.It's like, you know what?Kids break something.Even though I thought itmeant something to me,I just try and say,look, oh, bummer.Let's move on.They're just things.They're not people, right?So these things that youmake, you can remake.I mean, what are wetalking about here to?Like, I was askingthis question, OK, whatis this, what is this thing?It's just digital.It's a binary set of codethat describes a thing.It's even a real thing.So go ahead and change that,so if you put a lot of energyinto something and theclients like, we love this,it's beautiful, but we'renot going to go with that.Let's move on from that.First of all, let'sget the problem solved.And I'm interestedin solving problems,but I suspectsomething here, Philip.In your situationspecifically, if you'redealing with aCanadian client, Isuspect that's a very politeway to say this ain't working.If somebody prefacedsomething like, loveit, beautiful, amazing, andthen they follow it up with,but that's not goingto work for us.I think those arejust ways of maskingthat's not working for us now.I know it's astereotype of Canadiansare very polite, theones I've met so far.So I imagine it'dbe very cultural.You go to Asia andthey're like, that sucks.You're fat, you're ugly.You're like, OK, now we knownow I know where I stand.Thank you very much.Right? they'revery, very direct.Some cultures are like that.Some some a littlebit more polite,and I do appreciate that.But the part that Ilisten to is the partwhere what is the intent?Let's not work on that fine.OK and it doesn'tmatter to me, there'snothing that mycoach here told me,and this is going to soundreally strange to you guys.I need you to leanin and listen to usbecause this is really tricky.You could choose toget the job done.Or so the onlyoption on that sideis you could chooseto get the job doneor you could choose tobe liked to be popularor to be comfortable.But you can't.And to be right to be liked,to be right, to be comfortableor to be popular.Or you can chooseto get the job done.The mature person.Entrepreneur, the leader.Chooses to get the job done.Almost all the time.This is where I'm like Mr Spock.Live long and prosper isbecause Mr Spock alwayschooses to get the job done.He'll sacrifice theneeds of the fewover the needs of the many,every single time whereKirk is like, no, we need tosave all people all the time.And you've seen this happen inmany movies about submarines.They've got tokill the four guysin the part of thecabin, the submarineto save the rest of them ifthey don't close that door.They're all gunners.And so the captain, theveteran captain, says,I love those guysclose the door.We have to close the door.Airbus says nocaptain, no to save.No, you can't.The whole ship will sink, thewhole submarine will go under.It's game over.Making the hard decision whennecessary, always, yeah, and Isense a Venn diagramin there somewherefor the ones you getone like the like,you know, likepopular being right.Like here's a reallylike real lifeexample that happened tome that will make hopefullyat this point, supercrystal clear, OK,I'm driving down on Pacific.That's like one streetover from the oceanand it's a green light.So I'm cruising along the way.Full on green light as I'mabout to hit the intersection.Some young surfer kidon a Black fixie bikespeeds right in front of mewithout checking anything.It just goes super fast.I'm careening.I'm going through theintersection here.I'm thinking, Ohmy god, in my mind.Time slows down.I'm thinking, what away to start my day.I'm going to kill anotherhuman being because there'sno way in my SUV.Is this guy going to survive?I slam on the brakesand amazingly.This vehicle as bigand as heavy as itwas, as I was driving onthis road was able to stop.It was doing all kindsof weird things as well.Stopping this is likeone of those moments.My heart was justracing thinking.You know, I'm going tokill a human being today,and I don't wantto do that, that'show I want to be in any day.So the bike just keepsgoing, doesn't even stop.It looks back at meand I was super angryand my car just stoppedshy of killing his kid.Now I can sit thereand think, well.I'm right.If this kid dies,but right now, Iwant to get the job done, whichis stop the fricking vehicle.It doesn't matterif you're right.Job is not to hurtsomebody in this situation.The job could be to dowhat's best for your company,not what's best foryour ego in the moment.And those are tough,tough decisions and thoseare going to be yourdefining moments as a leader.It'll come down to that.Thank you very much,I appreciate it.Yeah, well, 9:30, I thinkI'm going to do one more.All right, anyquestions on this?What we're talkingabout anymore.Killing it?OK that was actually killing it.That was awesome.OK, so I'm goingto stop this again.I am taking time of allthese, except the first one.Oh, Thanks.Thank you.OK so I've stoppedthe recording here.And before I goon, what else do wewant to talk about because we'regoing to end it on one more?So I think we've talked aboutembracing pivot a little bit.We haven't talked about alot of contrast reinvention.I think we've talkedabout leadership already.We've not talk aboutmatching mirror.I think we talked a littlebit about the infinite loop.I think a side effect ofprioritizing your goalsand having lists is beingable to focus deep focus.We haven't talked aboutsuper stacking scaffolding.Anchoring Sunglass bias we'vetalked about, and that's it.So of those remaining topics,Diane, as the co-host,you get to choose the lastthing we're going to talk aboutand then I'm going to seeyou like in like 30 minutesor something like that.All right.How about.Nobody wants totype in the chat?You get to decide if they don't.OK, super stacking,thanks, Rachel.Is that it?That's it, that's whatwe're talking about,Rachel, get to choose.OK if we're stacking.All right, let meturn it back on.I think who knows?All right.Sharing the screen.Let me find superstacking, where are you?There we are.