This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up, friends, listeners, Side Hustle School Community. Here we are in the month of October, episode 1374, at least for those listening in real time. I know we have lots of folks who are going through the archives, picking and choosing what works for them, which is always my recommendation. A lot of stories, a lot of question and answers from listeners, a lot of those things are relevant for everybody. But this classroom series, which we did once a week for the first half of 2020, and now we're doing every other week in the second half of 2020, it's more of the kind of thing where some people will really benefit from some of the topics and other people will be like, well, I already know how to make a website using WordPress.
Well, in that case, just move on and do something else. Like I always want to encourage you to use your time well. But in fact, today's episode, we're gonna talk about using your time well. We're gonna talk specifically about transitioning between projects. How can you transition between projects or perhaps a job at a side hustle without constantly losing your flow and how can you start a completely new project without just creating more stuff to worry about?
Which is, I tend to have that second problem more than the first, but we'll talk about both of them. If you go to sidehustleschool.com/classroom, you can scroll back or take a look or a listen to anything you might've missed in this series that seems particularly relevant to you. We've got dozens of episodes, everything is completely free. We don't even have a membership model. You can just go and download it or save it, however you'd like to access it, whatever is good for you.
All right, so transitioning between projects. There are actually two parts to this, as alluded to. The first one is the daily or frequent transition between projects that you're actively working on. So this could be your day job inside hustle. It could be your coaching call and that book you're trying to write.
It could be something else entirely. And by the way, when I say projects here, this can include personal projects because any kind of project is going to take your time and attention. So the daily or frequent transition between projects you're actively working on. And the second one is the transition between old and new projects. When you start something new and move on in some fashion from something old.
So let's start by looking at that daily or frequent transition between projects you're actively working on. I have recently been rereading a book called "Deep Work" by Cal Newport. Cal is a computer science professor at Georgetown. And this is one of these books that seems simple. Like if you hear the concept, you're like, oh, you should concentrate on your work, great.
How does somebody write a whole book about that? But it actually is very well done. It explains this concept in a fresh way. And Cal defines deep work as professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.
And he also has two principles that I think you might find relevant. I've actually been thinking about this a lot myself in recent weeks. The first one is busyness as proxy for productivity. And he says, "In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity, which is doing lots of stuff in a visible manner." In other words, working really hard, but not necessarily being effective. And then the second principle here is the principle of least resistance.
In a business setting without clear feedback on the impact of various behaviors to the bottom line, we will tend toward behaviors that are easiest in the moment. When I read that, I was like, man, that's exactly what I do. When I'm not quite sure, okay, what is the next activity, then I'm like, what's the easiest thing? What's right there? And that's not a bad strategy in some way, but if you're trying to do that deep work, if you're trying to do, again, those activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit, well, that's almost never going to be the easiest thing, right?
So these simple principles, as I said, have been very helpful to me in recent weeks as I've been looking at different stuff. So keep them in mind. But at the same time, I realize, I know our audience, this isn't a treatise on distraction-free work, okay? Because I know that for a lot of our listeners, the reality is you don't have multiple hours a day to sit in this monk-like silence and work on a single project. And we got lots of parents out there who are dealing with childcare in addition to a day job who have perhaps other responsibilities as well.
And here, I don't even mean hobbies or free time, which is also great, but I mean, just like looking out for other people or other stuff, right? So that's the reality of our lives. How can we manage to transition between projects without completely losing the flow? And so for me, one answer, I think one key, at least one part of it, is working from a list of tasks, like always knowing what to do next. So if you get distracted in your side hustle or any other project, when you come back to it, there's that cost of the mental switch that people talk a lot about when they critique multitasking.
And they say, well, there's no such thing as multitasking because you can only do a single task, and every time you switch between tasks, there's a cost to it. So fair enough. But for me, it's not just the switch that costs energy, it's the struggle of wondering, okay, now I'm back to this thing. Like, wait, what was I doing before? What do I need to do next?
And so if you can solve that part of it, if you have that list of tasks, and you're like, okay, next, I need to do this one thing. Next, I need to write this one email campaign. I need to fix this one tech issue. I need to, you know, whatever it is. If you can solve that part, then I honestly think that's half the battle, okay?
So there could be still some issues with multitasking, but I think that helps a lot. At least it's been helpful to me. Before I go on, I have a message from our sponsor. I really appreciate them allowing the show to be completely free to you. So let's hear about their offer and then tell you about the second part of transitioning.
Like, when is it time to move on and how do you best do that? [Music]
So when is it time to move on? How do you not just go back and forth in your daily work? How do you actually start a whole new project? And then, you know, what do you do about that?
And then what do you do about that one you've been working on? If you've been listening for a while, or if you know some of my other work, you might be familiar with the two question rule. This is my rule of like, when do you quit? When do you keep going? Because, you know, we're taught that perseverance is very important, and it is to a degree, but you also have to be willing to change.
You can't just be persistent in doing the same things over and over again. So the two question rule is, you know, number one, is it working? And number two, do you still believe in it? And that's the kind of tool that I've used for a long time to decide, okay, is it time to move on from this thing? Or, you know, do I want to continue to invest energy in it?
And one problem that's very much connected to this, that people like me tend to have, is we start a lot of things, and we fail to ever really stop the earlier ones. And this to me is kind of a key issue. It's like, it's not just when do I move on? It's like, what do I do with the old thing? And through much time, and I was going to say time and experience, but it's like, is mis-experience a word?
I don't think it is quite a word, but through much time and experience of, you know, as they say, trial and error, emphasis on the error. What I try to do now is close the previous project, instead of keeping it dormant. I try to just like close whatever loops are there. I have far too many dormant projects and online properties, and I don't think it's a great model to follow. So as people ask me like, oh, should I have just one website or should I have a bunch of websites for each thing?
And, you know, I have tended to start a bunch of different websites. I don't know that I would do that again if I went back. However, if you're still able to earn income, you know, or some other benefit from the project that is truly and completely passively, then of course you might not want to shut it down. So that's, you know, that's up to you. I would just say really look at that question of like, is it completely passively?
'Cause in my case, like there was still stuff that I had to do and it was small stuff perhaps, but it just kind of added up. And then you're not doing great work. You know, you're not doing that deep work. You're not able to really focus on the thing that matters the most to you. So my suggestion based on my experience, that mis-experience is, you know, whenever possible, close a loop, move forward.
Don't be afraid if some things are messy, right? That's just life. That's the life that we're all in, you know, especially these days, this year, 2020. Or if you're listening later, you're probably still feeling the effects of 2020 because God, what a year, you know? So it's okay if everything is not perfectly organized, but I think you'll feel better about yourself if you're able to point and say, okay, this is what I'm doing now.
This is a project that I might be thinking about doing in the future. And this is something that I used to do, but no longer do. Just the more you can keep those edges clean, I think the better. So that's my suggestion, of course, as always modify it according to what's best for you. So your assignment for the week is to learn to transition in a way that makes sense to you, and also to spend more time doing deep work.
Even if you spend a couple of hours more just doing that cognitive work where you're really focused, you're not distracted, it can go so far. It can really, really make a huge difference. So that's what I'm trying to do as well. Let's do it together. You can read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at sidehustleschool.com/classroom.
And this has been episode 1374. Thank you so much, my friends. Be sure you're subscribed, much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
