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Leitura de 22 min

Simplifying

Summary

In this final episode of the year, host Jonathan Cottrell discusses the importance of simplification as we approach a new decade. He begins by illustrating the limitations of multitasking through a simple exercise—asking listeners to recite something complex while trying to listen—demonstrating how our capacity to focus is severely limited when we attempt to do multiple things simultaneously.

Cottrell connects this concept to the broader theme of simplification in our lives and work. He suggests that our minds become distracted not just when we try to do two tasks at once, but at a meta level when we have multiple priorities competing for our attention. As we reflect on the past year and look toward the future, he encourages listeners to think about what truly matters by asking a fundamental question: if you could only accomplish one thing in the next decade, what would it be?

To help listeners identify their true priorities, Cottrell offers a framework of reflective questions. He suggests starting with a ten-year perspective and then scaling down to yearly, monthly, and daily levels. This zoomed-out view helps put immediate concerns into perspective, revealing that many urgent matters don’t significantly impact our long-term trajectory. The episode provides practical questions to help evaluate current activities, including identifying the least important tasks on your list and considering what you should stop doing, continue doing, or start doing.

Cottrell emphasizes that simplification requires making difficult choices about how we spend our time. He notes that our time doesn’t expand to accommodate new priorities—we must elevate the importance of what truly matters and be willing to sacrifice other worthwhile but less important activities. The episode concludes with a reminder that while there’s plenty of work that should be done, there’s typically only one thing that should be done now, and true productivity comes from focusing on that single most important priority.

Recommendations

Podcasts

  • Developer Tea — The show itself is mentioned as approaching its five-year anniversary, with Jonathan encouraging listeners to share it with other developers or leave reviews in iTunes to help the show continue and reach more people.
  • Spec Network — A network where Developer Tea and other shows for designers and developers are available, with Jonathan encouraging listeners to visit spec.fm to find more content made specifically for them.

Tools

  • Local by Flywheel — A free local WordPress development environment that Jonathan describes as ‘the best local WordPress development environment’—simple, beautifully designed, and optimized for WordPress development with features like shareable demo URLs and customizable environments.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — The illusion of multitasking and focus limitations — Jonathan introduces the episode with a simple exercise to demonstrate our inability to truly multitask. He asks listeners to try reciting something complex while listening, showing how our retention suffers when we split attention. This sets up the core theme: our minds are limited in their capacity to focus on multiple things simultaneously, which becomes especially relevant as we approach year-end reflections.
  • 00:01:43 — Connecting multitasking to year-end contemplation — As we approach the end of the year and decade, Jonathan connects the concept of multitasking to the broader challenge of working with distraction. He frames this as particularly relevant for listeners who are spending time contemplating the past year, preparing for the upcoming one, and thinking about goals and resolutions for the new decade ahead.
  • 00:03:25 — Introducing the theme of simplification — Jonathan shifts from discussing goal-setting methods to focusing on a simpler concept: simplification itself. He explains that our minds become distracted not just when doing multiple tasks, but when we have multiple priorities in our lives. The episode will explore ways to think about simplifying and questions to help narrow down where to focus energy moving forward.
  • 00:06:03 — Reflecting on productive days and the cost of focus — Jonathan asks listeners to reflect on a recent day when they felt particularly productive and consider what marked that productivity. He returns to the fundamental assertion that it’s difficult to focus on multiple things at once, suggesting we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture rather than getting caught in day-to-day distractions.
  • 00:07:23 — The decade-level perspective exercise — Jonathan presents a thought exercise: if you could only accomplish one thing in the next decade, what would it be? He encourages looking back at the past ten years to identify what you truly appreciate accomplishing, then projecting forward. He also suggests considering the opposite angle—what would you deeply regret not doing over the next ten years—and notes that aligning these answers helps identify true priorities.
  • 00:09:31 — Scaling priorities from decade to month — After establishing a decade-level priority, Jonathan guides listeners to scale this down to yearly, then monthly perspectives. He explains that starting with the ten-year view makes many immediate concerns seem less important, helping identify what truly matters in the shorter term that will feed into long-term goals.
  • 00:11:29 — Question framework for evaluating priorities — Jonathan begins a series of reflective questions designed to help listeners think differently about their situation. The first set asks: what are three things on your list for the next year that are least important? Then consider if there are more important things that could replace them, or if these unimportant tasks are necessary, how could you make them unnecessary?
  • 00:12:43 — Behavioral change framework: stop, continue, start — Jonathan presents a framework for thinking about behavioral change by asking: what have you done in the last year/decade that you should stop doing? What should you continue doing? What haven’t you done that you should start doing? He connects this to simplification, noting that much of our lives is controlled by regular behaviors rather than motivation.
  • 00:15:08 — Identifying your top priority and its enemy — Jonathan asks listeners to identify their number one priority for improvement in work or life, then identify the number one enemy to achieving that goal. He notes that often these enemies aren’t obvious bad things, but rather good things that simply take up time—the hardest sacrifices to make because they seem worthwhile but aren’t the most important.
  • 00:16:45 — The necessity of focus and daily prioritization — Jonathan concludes the main content by emphasizing that it’s necessary to focus on the most important thing. In day-to-day work, while there’s plenty that should be done, there’s typically only one thing that should be done now. True prioritization means elevating what matters most and being willing to sacrifice other worthwhile activities.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2019-12-20T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:18:49

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] I want you to try something very simple while I’m speaking during this episode even during this

[00:00:11] little intro monologue I want you to take one earphone out if you’re listening on earphones

[00:00:17] and try to recite the Fibonacci sequence or maybe the alphabet backwards something that you don’t

[00:00:24] have kind of muscle memory in your head for but you can still think about and produce the

[00:00:31] answers kind of systematically and what you’ll find is that you’re going to be severely limited

[00:00:39] in listening to what I’m saying right now and actually retaining what I’m saying

[00:00:45] while accurately reciting whatever that thing is that you decided to recite

[00:00:52] now doing one

[00:00:54] or the other, your fluency is very clear. You can listen to what somebody is saying and retain most

[00:01:02] of it, although even after a certain period of time, that starts to fall off, hence why we make

[00:01:07] this show shorter than the average podcast. And you can also recite something that has a systematic

[00:01:15] nature to it. You can recite the Fibonacci sequence or do the alphabet backwards. Most

[00:01:23] people can do this without much hesitation, without much input, not much processing power. But

[00:01:30] because we can’t really multitask, we’ve talked about this plenty of times on the show,

[00:01:35] it’s difficult to do more than one thing at a time. And as we approach the end of the year,

[00:01:43] this concept, the idea of multitasking, or perhaps more appropriately, working with distraction,

[00:01:51] is something that I want you to focus on.

[00:01:53] Moving into the new year and the new decade. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. You’re listening to

[00:01:59] Developer Tea. My goal on this show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective,

[00:02:04] and purpose in their careers. This is the last episode of the year. We will be re-airing some

[00:02:12] episodes in the upcoming week, two weeks or so, most likely. But like most people, if you are

[00:02:20] spending the end of the year kind of contemplating what you want to do, what you want to do, what you

[00:02:23] want to do, what you want to do, what you want to do, what you want to do, what you want to do,

[00:02:23] contemplating what happened this year, spending time with family, perhaps having conversations

[00:02:29] with people that you don’t normally talk to, preparing for the upcoming year, and of course,

[00:02:36] turning over from the teens to the 20s. This is a new decade. If you’re following the same calendar

[00:02:44] that I’m following, then you’re probably thinking to some degree about your goals. And we talk about

[00:02:51] this every year around this time of year. If you’re following the same calendar that I’m following,

[00:02:53] year, we refresh our memories on what it means to make a resolution. What exactly is a resolution?

[00:03:00] And how do we create these goals for ourselves? And there’s a lot to discuss here. Of course,

[00:03:05] there’s so many different ways to think about goal setting, about tracking those goals. How do you

[00:03:11] maintain both productivity and motivation over a long stretch of time? How do you build better

[00:03:19] habits? These are all worthwhile discussions to have. But in today’s episode, I want to talk

[00:03:25] about something very simple, and that is simplification. You see, our minds are not just

[00:03:33] distracted when we try to do two things at once. Our minds are distracted at a meta level when we

[00:03:42] have more than one priority in our lives, more than one important thing,

[00:03:49] that’s in front of us. So I want to talk today about ways that you can think about simplifying,

[00:03:57] questions that might help you narrow down where you’re headed. But first, I want to talk about

[00:04:03] today’s sponsor, Flywheel. Flywheel has created, in my opinion, the best local WordPress development

[00:04:13] environment, and it’s free. This is such a good tool. It’s called Local. It is,

[00:04:19] a simple, free, beautifully designed local development application that’s optimized for

[00:04:24] WordPress. If you have ever set up your local environment to build WordPress websites, you know

[00:04:31] that this can be a total pain. Not only is it a total pain, but it’s probably likely that your

[00:04:38] local environment doesn’t match up to the remote environment. And this stuff is so simple, but it

[00:04:44] turns out that all of these simple things, they can just be a headache. And to take that headache

[00:04:49] away, go and use Local. This is by far the best tool, at least for the average WordPress developer.

[00:04:56] And it’s not, you know, old school. It is a modern tool. People love it because it’s, of course,

[00:05:03] completely free, as we’ve already mentioned. But it’s also incredibly simple. You can launch a new

[00:05:07] WordPress site in a matter of minutes, and it’s constantly improving. This isn’t something that

[00:05:12] you install and maintain on your own. This is a product that Flywheel is actively managing.

[00:05:17] You also can SSH into the box that Local is running kind of behind the scenes. You can use

[00:05:25] things like WPCLI, so you can manage things on the command line. Like I said, this is a modern tool.

[00:05:32] You get shareable demo URLs. This allows you to show your site to your clients, your collaborators,

[00:05:37] or even your friends. You have customizable environments for developers, which helps you

[00:05:42] configure the way your local site runs. Go and check it out on any platform you use. They have

[00:05:47] Mac, Windows, and Linux. You can also use it on your own. You can also use it on your own. You can

[00:05:47] support. Go to localbyflywheel.com. That’s localbyflywheel.com. Thank you again to Flywheel

[00:05:56] for sponsoring today’s episode of Developer Tea. I want you to think about the last five days or

[00:06:03] maybe the last 20 days of work that you’ve done. And you don’t even have to limit this to work,

[00:06:09] perhaps just the last 20 days or the last month of your life. And I want you to imagine any one

[00:06:17] single day.

[00:06:17] Now, imagine one day that you felt particularly productive. What marked that productivity?

[00:06:28] Was it the number of things that you got done? Was it the feeling that you were productive? Or

[00:06:36] was it perhaps the depth that you went to to be productive? None of these answers are wrong per

[00:06:44] se. And there’s plenty to discuss about the difference between a feeling of productivity and

[00:06:47] an actual productivity. The difference between our sense that things are getting done and our way

[00:06:56] of measuring whether that’s true. But I want to return to our fundamental assertion at the

[00:07:03] beginning of this episode. And that is that it’s very difficult to focus on multiple things at once.

[00:07:11] So I want you to take a step back. Take five steps back.

[00:07:17] I want you to look at the big picture of the next decade.

[00:07:23] If you could only accomplish one thing in the next decade,

[00:07:28] what would that thing be?

[00:07:31] In other words, as you close out this decade,

[00:07:34] perhaps you look back and you can identify

[00:07:36] the thing that you really appreciate

[00:07:39] that you accomplished in the past 10 years.

[00:07:44] And maybe there’s two or three things,

[00:07:45] but one stands out for most people.

[00:07:49] And if you were to look forward to the next 10 years,

[00:07:52] imagine that you can fast forward time

[00:07:55] and you’re sitting in the same spot that you are now

[00:07:58] and you’re listening to something,

[00:08:00] perhaps developer tea or something totally different,

[00:08:04] and you’re reflecting on the 2020s, the next decade.

[00:08:11] What thing, what one thing that you accomplished

[00:08:14] in the next 10 years,

[00:08:15] in the 2020s was worth your time,

[00:08:19] made you feel fulfilled

[00:08:21] or something that you’re happy that you spent your time doing?

[00:08:26] And if it’s hard to come up with this answer,

[00:08:29] perhaps approach it from the opposite angle.

[00:08:33] Imagine that you get to the year 2030

[00:08:36] and you’re looking back at the last 10 years

[00:08:37] and you have a deep regret.

[00:08:42] What is that regret centered on?

[00:08:45] What would you regret deeply over the next 10 years?

[00:08:50] What’s interesting is when you ask these two questions together,

[00:08:54] they often have different answers.

[00:08:58] Something that we consider an accomplishment

[00:09:00] is not something that we would consider a regret

[00:09:04] if we didn’t actually accomplish it.

[00:09:07] This isn’t always true,

[00:09:08] but the closer you can align these things,

[00:09:11] the more likely that answer is true.

[00:09:14] The more likely your projection is accurate.

[00:09:20] So imagine this at the decade level,

[00:09:23] the one thing that is most important to you

[00:09:26] over the course of that 10 years.

[00:09:29] Now I want you to scale that down

[00:09:31] and imagine that you’re looking at this

[00:09:35] at the yearly level,

[00:09:38] but then scale it all the way down

[00:09:41] and you can look at it at increments

[00:09:43] as you go down.

[00:09:45] What is the most important thing

[00:09:46] that you can do in the next month?

[00:09:50] Now you might be wondering,

[00:09:52] why do we start at the 10 year,

[00:09:54] the decade level?

[00:09:55] And the reason for this is that

[00:09:57] when you start at that level,

[00:09:58] a lot of the things that you are typically concerned about

[00:10:02] in the next month,

[00:10:04] they seem to become less important.

[00:10:07] For example,

[00:10:08] you might be concerned with impressing your current boss

[00:10:11] in the next 30 days.

[00:10:14] And while this is a totally valid concern,

[00:10:17] you want to make sure that you are performing well

[00:10:20] at your job and that you’re doing the things

[00:10:22] that your boss is asking you to do, for example.

[00:10:26] When you zoom out,

[00:10:28] whether you fail at this job or not,

[00:10:31] doesn’t typically have a drastic impact

[00:10:35] on the next 10 years.

[00:10:36] Instead, your overall trajectory

[00:10:39] is so much more important.

[00:10:42] And so if you start with a frame of 10 years

[00:10:43] and then you scale it down,

[00:10:44] and then you scale down to the month level,

[00:10:48] then you start to get a perhaps more impactful picture

[00:10:53] of what is important and truly important

[00:10:56] over the next month

[00:10:58] that will feed into what is important in the next decade.

[00:11:04] Now, I want to end this episode

[00:11:06] with a series of questions

[00:11:07] that are intended to not have explicit answers.

[00:11:10] There’s no right answer to these questions.

[00:11:12] They’re intended to,

[00:11:13] to help you think about your situation,

[00:11:16] think about your life, your work,

[00:11:18] a little bit differently,

[00:11:19] gain a new perspective,

[00:11:21] gain a new focus on your life and your work.

[00:11:26] So we’re going to start those questions now.

[00:11:29] What are three things on your list

[00:11:32] of things that you expect to do in the next year

[00:11:37] that are the least important?

[00:11:40] Think about this for a second.

[00:11:42] What are three things,

[00:11:43] on your list of things

[00:11:45] that you are kind of planning to do,

[00:11:47] you’re expecting to do

[00:11:49] that are the least important?

[00:11:53] Now, once you have those three things,

[00:11:55] ask yourself this question.

[00:11:58] Are there any other things

[00:12:00] that you could replace

[00:12:02] on your list

[00:12:04] that are more important?

[00:12:06] Is there something that you don’t plan to do

[00:12:09] that could take the place

[00:12:10] of these three things?

[00:12:12] And why or why not?

[00:12:14] If you have three things that are not very important,

[00:12:18] but you have to do them anyway,

[00:12:21] because they’re part of your job,

[00:12:25] then you can ask yourself further questions like,

[00:12:29] what could I do to make them not a part of my job?

[00:12:33] What can I do to make these things unnecessary?

[00:12:39] Next question or set of questions.

[00:12:43] What things have you done

[00:12:44] in the last year or three years

[00:12:46] or even in the last decade

[00:12:48] that you believe

[00:12:50] you should no longer do?

[00:12:53] What are the things that you’ve done

[00:12:55] in those periods of time

[00:12:56] that you believe you should continue to do?

[00:13:00] What are the things that you haven’t done

[00:13:03] in those periods of time

[00:13:05] that you believe you should start doing?

[00:13:08] This is a framework

[00:13:09] for thinking about behavioral change.

[00:13:12] There are things that we are doing

[00:13:14] that we should continue doing.

[00:13:16] There are things that we are doing

[00:13:17] that we should stop doing.

[00:13:19] And then there are things that we are not doing

[00:13:22] that we should start doing.

[00:13:24] Of course, then there’s also a whole litany of things

[00:13:27] that we’re not doing that we shouldn’t start doing.

[00:13:30] And that’s actually another interesting category.

[00:13:33] How will you avoid the things that you’re not doing

[00:13:36] and that you don’t want to start doing?

[00:13:39] And here’s why we frame these questions

[00:13:41] in this episode about

[00:13:42] simplifying.

[00:13:43] There are so many parts of our lives

[00:13:46] that are controlled

[00:13:47] less by our motivation,

[00:13:50] less by our instincts,

[00:13:53] and much more

[00:13:54] by our regular

[00:13:55] kind of operating system.

[00:13:58] The things that we do on a regular basis,

[00:14:00] the behaviors that define us

[00:14:03] from a macro level.

[00:14:06] So when you’re talking about simplifying your life,

[00:14:09] much of the conversation

[00:14:10] should center around

[00:14:12] how you spend your time

[00:14:14] versus how you want to spend your time.

[00:14:18] And the reason it’s important to talk about

[00:14:20] how you spend your time today

[00:14:21] is because everything comes with a cost.

[00:14:25] Your time will not simply expand

[00:14:29] to make room for the things that you want to do.

[00:14:33] Instead, you have to make the things that you want to do

[00:14:36] the most important things.

[00:14:39] You have to elevate the importance

[00:14:41] to the things that you want to do.

[00:14:41] To the point

[00:14:42] that you’re willing to sacrifice other stuff.

[00:14:45] And this probably seems like common sense,

[00:14:48] but yet we have a hard time

[00:14:51] adopting new habits

[00:14:52] and dropping old habits.

[00:14:55] We also have a hard time changing in general

[00:14:58] because it’s very difficult

[00:15:00] to change our behaviors

[00:15:02] from an ingrained pattern

[00:15:03] to a new pattern.

[00:15:05] The next question.

[00:15:08] What is your number one

[00:15:10] kind of top

[00:15:11] priority for improving yourself

[00:15:14] either in your work

[00:15:15] or in your life?

[00:15:18] And that one’s probably easy.

[00:15:21] The hard one is

[00:15:21] what is your number one

[00:15:24] enemy

[00:15:25] to achieving that goal?

[00:15:29] Now often the way that people

[00:15:30] respond to this question is

[00:15:31] well, my number one enemy

[00:15:34] to going to the gym and becoming healthy

[00:15:36] is junk food.

[00:15:38] Or my number one enemy

[00:15:39] in getting a

[00:15:41] promotion at my job

[00:15:43] is the

[00:15:45] bug list.

[00:15:46] The list of bugs that I have to fix

[00:15:48] and so I can’t prove my worth

[00:15:51] as easily because I’m always

[00:15:52] dealing with bugs.

[00:15:54] And these are the enemies that come to mind.

[00:15:56] But most likely

[00:15:58] the things that stand in the way

[00:16:00] of us doing

[00:16:02] whatever that number one goal thing is

[00:16:05] are things that simply

[00:16:07] take up our time.

[00:16:09] They’re things that are

[00:16:10] attractive and perhaps even good

[00:16:13] worthwhile things to do

[00:16:16] but they’re not as important.

[00:16:19] These are the hardest sacrifices to make

[00:16:22] because they seem to be

[00:16:24] running in second place.

[00:16:26] They have

[00:16:27] a lot of our attention because they seem

[00:16:30] like good ideas.

[00:16:31] But often times these things that seem like

[00:16:34] good ideas but they’re not

[00:16:35] the most important thing

[00:16:37] those are the things that take

[00:16:39] the space.

[00:16:40] It’s necessary to focus

[00:16:42] on the most important thing.

[00:16:45] In your day to day work

[00:16:46] this is how prioritization should be thought about.

[00:16:50] There’s plenty of work

[00:16:51] that should be done

[00:16:52] but there’s only one thing

[00:16:55] that should be done now.

[00:16:59] Thank you so much for listening to today’s

[00:17:01] episode of Developer Tea

[00:17:02] and for listening

[00:17:04] over the past five years.

[00:17:07] We’re coming up on the five year anniversary

[00:17:09] of this show and I’m going to see you next time.

[00:17:10] I’m totally blown away that we’re still

[00:17:13] able to record this podcast

[00:17:14] and that we still have people

[00:17:16] who get so much value out of what

[00:17:18] we talk about here on the show.

[00:17:20] If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast

[00:17:23] and if you’d like for us

[00:17:24] to keep on going

[00:17:26] the best way to help us do that

[00:17:28] is to share the show with other

[00:17:30] developers. If you don’t know

[00:17:32] anybody directly who

[00:17:34] will benefit from this, another good

[00:17:36] way to help the show is to go and leave a review

[00:17:39] in iTunes.

[00:17:40] iTunes is still the dominating

[00:17:42] platform for podcasts

[00:17:44] and this is a great way

[00:17:46] to help other developers decide if they want

[00:17:48] to listen to the show. And of course

[00:17:50] these reviews play into

[00:17:52] Apple’s special

[00:17:54] algorithms, their secret algorithms

[00:17:56] for ranking these shows as well.

[00:17:58] So that’s a huge help.

[00:18:00] Thank you so much to today’s sponsor

[00:18:02] Flywheel. If you’re a WordPress

[00:18:04] developer and you’re not already using Local

[00:18:06] I promise you your mind is going to be

[00:18:08] blown in a very good way.

[00:18:10] Go and check it out.

[00:18:12] Localbyflywheel.com

[00:18:13] That’s all the same word

[00:18:16] Localbyflywheel.com

[00:18:19] Today’s episode and every other episode

[00:18:21] of this show is

[00:18:23] available on the Spec Network.

[00:18:26] Other designers and developers

[00:18:28] like you are listening to other shows

[00:18:30] like this one. Head over to

[00:18:32] spec.fm to find

[00:18:33] fantastic content that’s made specifically

[00:18:36] for you.

[00:18:37] Today’s episode is produced

[00:18:39] by Sir Jackson.

[00:18:40] My name is Jonathan Cottrell and until next

[00:18:42] time, enjoy your tea.

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