Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth here in San Diego. And joining me from all the way across the pond, we've got Simon Pittman. And Simon, I found through just my own curiosity, watching his YouTube videos. For many of my listeners, you know, I've kind of deviated a little bit. People don't have to write a book to still be an author. And Simon is one of those people who's authoring on YouTube, it's called Better Creating b-e-t-t-e-r-c-r-e-a-t-i-n-g.com. You can go there to see his videos, you can go to his YouTube channel as well. He's got a lot of them posted there, Simon, Good day to you, how are you doing?

Simon Pittman
Good day. Hi, Greg, and thanks for having me on some great things you're doing here. So really chuffed to be a part of the podcast?

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, you say productive, creative life and simplified. And I love that. And I think that's what people are looking for. But you know, when you get involved with all this technology, it can actually become not so simplified at times. And I think you're the person that helps to make it simplified. And I think people can send in, spend an inordinate amount of time on trying to make something more simplified, when at times, I've often thought, oh, maybe if I just got out a piece of paper and a pencil, and started writing, it would work just as good, but I'm going to tell them a bit about you. Simon's a content creator and notion ambassadors for all those who know what notion is, it's out there. It's kind of an open platform where people like Simon can create templates or you can get them from notion themselves. He went came here by way as a theater director living in London, which is kind of unusual, you don't find a lot of theater directors that become productivity gurus, and then was gurus, he started better creating as YouTube channel to learn new ways of improving his work and his life. It's grown into a full scale content creation, and digital download business on better creating a creative weekly videos on YouTube, which I say you can go to. And he shared what he calls his notion templates and notion from scratch video courses, to help you get organized and share great ideas and tools and tech on mailing lists to make it a little bit easier. He's also you can subscribe to his YouTube channel there. And as I said, he's been doing this since 2019, along with his other freelance director career, which is UK and internationally. He is an ATA fellow and X senior lecturer in the theater. He tries to balance directing theater projects with his solo business, content creating and his notion templates and tutorials is part of a wider digital product business. And he's proud to call himself a notion ambassador and a Microsoft loop creator. We didn't ask him any questions about loop, but I know it's something that Microsoft is come out, I think, is it still in beta?

Simon Pittman
It's kind of both seems to have both been around for a long time and is brand new. But um, yeah, they're doing exciting things. And so I've been kind of testing that out and seeing what I make of it.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, well, you're one because I tried to get on their loop kind of thing to be able to do it. And you kind of have to be, I guess I don't know what the situation is. But not everybody can get in to do it. So he started this, I said in 2019, the middle pandemic, when the pandemic came away a break away from the theater. This was something that occupied his time. And it's turned in to be, you know, really quite a business. So it's a pleasure having you on Simon, it's a pleasure being able to speak with you. And I'm intrigued because, you know, as I was going through watching your videos preparing for this interview, I think you would tell listeners, how you migrated from working in the theater director to becoming a YouTube creator in the tech and productivity space, which just doesn't even seem to go hand in hand.

Simon Pittman
Yeah, thanks, Greg. Again, thanks for having me on. It doesn't and actually I continue to speak about how the move I've kind of accidentally become a YouTuber. And I think that's probably how many people kind of get started in this kind of space. I yeah, I've worked for 17 years as a theater director and movement director, I continue to do it. And interestingly, this this kind of journey into I'm calling it the kind of ideas, tools and tech to help you have an easier life make life a bit easier, perhaps a little bit more efficient. productivity. They're charged words, aren't they? And I think and I completely agree with you about the, you know that sometimes a pen and paper is the best thing. But I think it was the ideas and the kind of the strategies and thought processes that drew me into it. So my journey into this was, we had that pandemic, I found that obviously, a lot of live arts were put on hold. And I worked for a theatre company in the UK that studied in a lot of schools and universities on syllabuses. And so we started making content for teachers and artists and students for that theatre company. For them to keep going, basically, they were going, please give us something. And I remembered that when I did my A levels, I liked playing with cameras and photography, and actually found the process of kind of sharing and supporting and help giving value to other people that you do a lot as in education, or in theater is the aim anyway, translated really nicely into to making content. So that kind of led me to go, well, what am I going to spend my time being creative with? Well, I'm stuck at home and trying to, you know, find bits of work took me into setting up a YouTube channel, it started originally for kind of documenting my process of trying to get my life in order in I've been as a freelancer, many of us experience that overwhelm of hundreds of projects, and, or not enough projects and loads of little tasks and different things to manage. And so I kind of started decluttering, my house decluttering, my digital spaces I started making, as I read and learn about different strategies, I started making a little organization system in notion. And then that turned into essentially, what's become a kind of resource and hopefully an entertaining platform on YouTube to share those tools and those ideas with other people to hopefully make their lives a lot easier. And that's what's led me into the world of, you know, no code productivity, second brains, and all of that.

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, you're a digital native, and this show addresses people across all age groups, and categories, and so on. And sometimes some of the most challenging things that I think people who aren't native to digital face is really like what you do, you've created templates for people to say, okay, you can go in and use my template and download it, and actually organize your day. And I do know, notion has their own tasks template as well. But you've gone deeper because you formulated it in other people's, like the second brain with Tiago, you've actually formulated a lot of these things into there. And I think that's it, we'll get to that question. But I think it's really important. But your work at this better creating helped you become better as a theater director, you said? And you see this newfound YouTube career with these notion templates. As a developer? Where do you actually see that going at this point? I mean, you're still doing you have a foot in both worlds, right? You got a foot over here, YouTube creator, you got a foot in the notion world with the templates, and then you have put in obviously, your love is still theater, I would assume. But if you would address that, because there's a lot of people out there that are thinking about maybe I want to get on YouTube, or I want to create a side hustle, right, as they call it. You did it kind of naturally. But there must have been a drive behind it.

Simon Pittman
Well, yeah, I mean, I think the drive was exactly the challenge of already being a kind of multi hatted polymath freelancer, which I think is more and more common in the modern world. And I think the way that information technology has shifted, it's made it a lot more easy for many people to have different streams of work. And so I was already kind of juggling that as it was. So kind of trying to make sense of that and find a way to make that easier, less impact less effort on me, and hopefully to then have more impact to help and provide things for others was the goal, really. So I think the I have to say, what I'm really finding is that as you mentioned that working for myself in this way, creating on my own terms, and essentially, I'm, you know, if you're not, if you're not a big YouTube watcher, I'm a blogger, I'm a I'm a kind of a journalist, really, I suppose that's what it's become. It's been about, I'm finding stuff out that I didn't yet know, and then thinking how can I distill this share my point of view and support others to discover the things that helping me in my life and hopefully they'll help them so I think it's all about providing value and helping people through what can be a challenge with them. I meant with income and all of that stuff, managing careers. So but what's been really fascinating is that the, I think the working on understanding product, you know, these productivity systems and these ways of thinking, goal setting, making more space and time for the stuff that really matters. I was really inspired early on by people like Greg McEwan, and essentialism. And those things have paid off dividends in the work that I take. So I'm saying yes to less, there are projects, I think I'm doing better work. Because of it. I'm being more intentional and more process focused on how I make the work that I make in the theater. And it's resulted in me, I think, doing less fit less theater projects. But some of the biggest scale and biggest impact theater projects I've done since I started the YouTube channel. So that's been great. And I suppose because of that, because I'm perhaps doing that classic 8020 Rule I'm putting and finding out what 20% actions of my actions I can take will have the biggest impact. I've then got this extra time and space to develop, learn, put that on a YouTube channel. So it's kind of got this lovely reciprocity. You know, I get a lot from it. And then I think by publishing it and writing it and putting it out there and just doing it, hopefully a lot. Well, it seems a lot of other people are also benefiting from that. So I don't know where it goes yet. But I suppose the way I see it is, I would hope this would turn into a larger business where I'm kind of supplying tools and ideas to people where it's a go to place to help people live their lives a little bit more easily.

Greg Voisen
Well, you are doing that. Now. It's not like what it's becoming, because I have found it quite useful myself. And I think that while there are many people in this space, who are out on YouTube doing this, besides yourself, you have a certain way of delivering it. That's unique to you. And I think very special. And yeah, I really do I, I just want to compliment you on that I sent that in an email to you, I think you have to keep doing what you're doing. Because what you're doing is working. And you're good as a teacher, right. And some people aren't, they're good technicians. But they're not good teachers. They don't have the patience. And when you do explain everything, you explain how it works, you explain it thoroughly. And your videos the way they're cut, and edited and everything and this is a plug for you. I'm being honest plug. They're well done. So speak with us about our world, as it is today. Everybody, most people feel an overwhelmed, and it's complex. And you talked about Greg in the minimalist thing. In one of your videos, you speak about this mindset, if you provided three tips for becoming more productive with simplifying your life, which is what you just said, now you're working on the 20% and left the 80% behind and making those focused projects better? What are the three steps? And what are the systems that you built? Because it's really all around the systems, right? The systems that you've built to be more efficient and productive?

Simon Pittman
Yeah, well, I think that the first thing that can be if someone is overwhelmed, which by life, or work, or whatever, all the diff competing things you have in your life, which many of us are, you know, in a, in a in an age where you have everything coming at you all at once, if you want it to and sometimes when you don't, it can seem like the idea of bringing in other thinking and building a system is just another thing on the list in order to get organized and to make things easier. And I think that that kind of initial step is valid and is something that a lot of us feel I had the privilege and advantage of just about being able to get by during the pandemic at home, not always working just about and as a result, I had the time to do that work. And I think that's how they started I've that I've then go on to actually, if someone just told me really good things that can work and simplify that for me, I might be able to do it myself and make life easier. And so I think it's true systems, as opposed for me are about a couple of simple concepts or habits that you can start applying each day or how you plan your year or just how you think about what you have to do.

Greg Voisen
As I noticed you read tiny habits he's been on here we've had, you know, most of the guys who've written books about habits, you know, so for you, what were the little steps you took to actually make a big difference you cited I watched your videos you cited the lady who wrote the book on organizing I don't remember her name now. But you know how you organized the lenses from your camera and built your desk and took it apart and all these little things. But literally, it's so you didn't have distraction? Right? Because that's in a minimalist. I mean, I even saw the inside of your house. Everything's neat. It's kind of put together, you know, to the degree that you showed us in your video. But I'd really like to see what your bathroom looks like. No.

Simon Pittman
I mean, that's true, isn't it? I mean, I have the advantage of currently not having children. So that does make that a lot easier. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think when it comes to those steps, I think there was there three areas that I think is really useful to think about how you can manage how you look at your time, the spaces that you inhabit. And then I suppose you’re kind of digital world as well. So that's about decluttering, space decluttering, the digital footprint that a lot of us build over time. And also talks a little bit, I suppose, as well about just in your relationship to money. And I think that that, because I think that time is probably the greatest asset we have. And the thing that disappears the quickest, the longer you spend it. That's my personal feeling. And so actually, how can you adjust the effort to impact that you make so the one of the first things I spoke about in that video, I think you're referencing is this idea of the effort to impact matrix, it's really worth looking at, it's very simply put, the idea is that you focus on the low effort, quick wins, and the high effort, major projects, right. So there's some things that will be lots of effort but will be major projects that will really get you somewhere, I'd say, for example, in my life that might be launching a template, which will continue to support people and support me or it might be putting on that one production in two years time.

Greg Voisen
People that don't people Simon, think of in that quadrant, it falls into like four quadrants. low effort, high impact, low effort, low impact, high effort, high impact, high effort, low impact, right? So there is actually a quadrant and I'm not certain if it was Stephen Covey that came up with it. But the reality is anxiety. I've looked at that enough that some people are a little bit taken aback by the quadrant you want to be in, which is another word, what is my knowledge and expertise about something so that it's a low effort, but high impact that I could deliver? really defining that right? In other words, what is that? In your case? You had an expertise or you knew something about the digital world, you couldn't have entered writing templates? If you didn't feel that what would you tell somebody who wants to come over and move into an area where they don't know a lot about it? And then they want to do something in that area where it's going to take them higher effort, but they might initially have a lower impact? Because there's a learning curve, the learning curve is pretty big.

Simon Pittman
Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a couple of ways to look at that as well. But there's the there is that in terms of moving into an area and where your expertise is, and I think that's absolutely right. I also think there's, there's just on a, on a day to day basis. If you're kind of, I think, first of all, to go into the area that's new for you. I think it's about kind of really unpicking what value that has to you and why it would be worthwhile if you if you can't do anything but go into it. And you're really you find you're passionate about it or you. You see you find the drive to go and explore it. That kind of joy is a really good catalyst.

Greg Voisen
It's like playing a piano. Right? So let's say I want to pick up a musical instrument. I know nothing about playing an instrument, you're going to find that it's going to be challenging at first, but the more you practice, the better you get at it. Who knows you might be playing Beethoven symphony in you know, a couple of years. If you're lucky. You know, look, you've been in the theater so you can relate to that people come into the theater. I remember watching something with Arnold Schwarzenegger when he first did his first movie and said it was a horrible actor. He couldn't act out of it at all. But he ended up taking lessons and he was being coached by theater directors and people and ultimately yes became Conan the Barbarian or whatever. But my point was that when you get into these areas that are uncomfortable you have to be okay being uncomfortable.

Simon Pittman
Absolutely. I think that's totally right. And I think I think sometimes the overwhelm with anything like this you getting used to and that is a muscle that I have definitely been where I've known is how to be comfortable being uncomfortable and working out and just daring yourself to do that a little bit each day. But I also think that when you look at the whole, it can feel completely impossible. And so I think one of my favorites is one of my favorite things that I learned in the last year around procrastination and about moving forward is this idea of, essentially, this, what's the smallest first action that you can take? Because I think a lot of the time, we and I forget the author, the professor who talked about this, but I referenced it in one of my videos. And he, he talked about the fact that motivation should follow action, and not the other way around. Because I think a lot of the time we wait for motivation, and go, I just need it, I just need this to be in the right place. Or when I feel it when I really feel I want to write or write, but actually work out what the first action is, find out what the time and place might be that it would be like a good time for it to happen and start to kind of build that is what's called an implementation intention. So when I put the kettle on, and get the mug out, I lay my yoga mat out and step on to it, you're probably more likely to then do your yoga in the morning, which has just about been working for me. So it's about building that regular habit, taking that simple first action. And I do find that when I sit down to do Yoga with Adriene, on YouTube, if I've sat down on the mat and pressed the button, I'm much more likely to go through the yoga process. And I feel a lot better at the other end and can do the next thing. So yeah, first actions, simplify it, write down, don't take on the whole thing in one go. Those things really help, I think, and then if you know the Absolute One essential thing you want to be spending your time on. If you can work that out and do a bit of reflection, then I think you're all the more likely to do it. Because you really have identified what is essential for you to be spending your time doing.

Greg Voisen
It's great advice. And I think the consistency of that is so important. In other words, if you're going to put the tea kettle on and then open up the iPad, I saw you, and then you can have your cat there. And hopefully it's not bothering you along the way. But the point is whoever Adrian is right is like literally finishing the half an hour yoga practice, right? And feeling better about yourself, because then the endorphins are going to release in your system, because we can talk about all the chemical things that occurred one, as a result of doing these new habits as well. Right, it's like getting on the Total Gym or getting on the peloton or getting on the mat or taking a walk in the woods or riding your bicycle. All these things are physical, but they're also stimulating oxy toxins in the brain, which are great for creativity, and your site is called Better creating. And we're a big believer in systems that will help us synthesize our influx of information. And I just did an interview with a guy from Australia on thriving with information overload. Right. And his name is Ross Dawson. And I think it's really important that you endorse David Allen Getting Things Done Thiago forte building a second brain and their methodologies that you've included into these Norton templates because you believe in enough and what their systems are and philosophies is to do that. What's uh, what is it about? David Allen or Thiago that you believe in their system so much that you would have gone to this extra effort to put it inside the template? Even though at times it? I think it makes the template a little bit more robust, very robust, and not as simple. But you wanted to expose your clientele to this? Yeah, it's

Simon Pittman
such a balance, isn't it? Because ultimately, those key ideas that I think really work within their systems, which are systems are thinking, they're the things that make something like notion, really powerful. You know, I think it's, it's no good to get and as you say, I think people, I find that my, the people that use my templates, if they first engage with those key ideas, then the template makes absolute sense. If they don't, and come and go, I just want it to work. It doesn't always completely work straightaway. But actually, that's like anything, you know, if you set up a task list and put them all nto an inbox, and then you don't have the habit of checking the inbox, you never get anywhere. So what I loved about David Allen's book and I'm like this distill this to one sentence is a kind of seminal productivity book, but the heart of it. The idea that really chimed with me was you create a second book, the idea of the second brain is you create a second brain that's the heart holding everything so that your Mcbrain doesn't have to. And that therefore means that you can then focus on having ideas instead of holding them, I think is the famous quote. And that that works on a lot of levels, like you say, in a world where there's loads of information and a lot of things we carry. There are a couple of processes there, which I've kind of integrated into the process of using those motion templates, which is really fast capture. So one of the first things I would recommend anyone to do when they're thinking about utilizing systems to make their life easier is how frictionless can capture be for you, we say very productivity term capture. But it essentially means the moment you have an idea or see that quote, or see that movie, you go Oh, or that idea, you want to remember, you have a really clear place to put it. And it's really easy to put it there. So for me, it's turn on my phone, click new task. Remember to do that thing, put it into the inbox, or it might be ah, that's a fantastic article, clip, click on the Save to notion extension, drop it into my knowledge bank in notion, and later, I'll be able to process it. And then the other thing, which I really like about these systems, tr goes idea of a second brain is about kind of being able to create meaningful connections between the stuff that you gather. So a lot of time, we will gather all our tasks, and we'll capture all those quotes and clippings. But they'll never really result in anything, we won't find them to redo them or we won't find the knowledge to reuse it. So the idea of para, which stands for projects, areas, resources and archive is one where, let's say I clip, a quote from this podcast that we're recording now, because I quite liked something you said. It goes automate automates into my notion system. And then I link it to the next video I'm making. So the neck when I go and script my video that I planned i Oh, there it is, there's that quote, and it reminds me so the second brain when it works, and this literally might be paper on a table, feeds back to you what you need when you need it, and means you get create more meaningful outputs, or get more done more easily as a result. So that's, that's what I love about the idea of a system. In that it

Greg Voisen
just mentioned that the audio would connect to notion, right, and I saw you talk about that in a video, right? And for those people who aren't technologically literate, you know, I know I have AI, I have otter AI running right now capturing the transcript in that and it's I use it incessantly, right. The question is, do I go back to use it and take notes? And then put that somewhere? How are you finding that to actually integrate? Or is there an AI not an AI component, but a way for them to link? I know, you talked about Zapier and one of them and these various things that we could use, there's a lot of tools, how is it linking across?

Simon Pittman
Well, there's a couple of simple tools that there's a Chrome extension, if you don't mind using Chrome, which is safe to notion, which will essentially copy the contents of a web page or quote it or link back to something, for example, a podcast if you wanted it to, and it will fill in database columns automatically for you in the thing that's great. For podcasts or audio, I have used to there is air A I r.io, which is a little bit buggy, but very good. So that is essentially a podcast thing, which when you can triple click on your headphones or click the air quote and it will quote the last 30 seconds you listen to. There's also something called snipped snip with a D on the end, I think. And that's a very similar, slightly more robust podcasting interface. And that will do the same you can cut a piece of the audio or the transcription if it's there, and it will hold that for you. And then I really recommend to a lot of people if they don't mind spending, I think it's probably like something like $100 a year that one of the best investments I've made is something called Read wise. So read wise is a has a reader. But it's also essentially a place where you can channel things from those podcasting apps and quotes from your Kindle into read wise and then read wires will integrate with notion into that database of knowledge. So what I do is use all of those sources, Chrome, read wise, those clipping devices, it sends it to read wise sends it into notion. And then I find it all in my inbox of my knowledge bank, as I've called it, and then I can link it to output.

Greg Voisen
So you've created inside notion, a knowledge bank where the receptacle of all of these things that you do, then automatically feeds into the It's right. That's yeah, basically, in essence, and you found five or six, what it sounds like different tools. So for my listeners, you know, we'll put links to that. So you can have it, we'll also put links to the videos that you've done. You know, I remember I go back to the late 80s, with David Allen. And I remember when we were in his classes he used to do and I found this to be quite productive. You know, we wake up in the morning, and as human beings on this planet, as it spins around again, we have all of these things, these to dues, and he used to have a hand a sheet out with a picture of a brain on it, and you do a brain dump. And it was literally dumping the contents of your brain onto the paper, you know, am I going to go help mom, today she's in the convalescent facility, am I going to go to the grocery store? Am I going to feed the cat? I mean, what are all these things that I have to do? Because it literally left the rest of your mind available for creativity, it left the rest of your mind to be much more productive, because you had all these things. And I thought, you know, going back to no technology in the late 80s that we didn't have, to where it has evolved to today is really quite interesting. And that was the initiation for me in late 80s was a brain dump, you know, just the contents out, huh?

Simon Pittman
I mean, it's fantastic to hear that. And I will say like for all of the talk of digital, I'm still you see this, I'm still using paper, like, I think I think it's important for people to remember, it's not the tools that make the difference. It's deciding to think in the way and then going, oh, what will work for me, you know, like, there's a company that I've partnered with who I really rate who make, it's quite expensive, but they're good. And they make really simple to do lists cards, but they're great. And actually, if it's the right thing for you, it's the right thing for you. I completely agree with you. If there was one bit of advice to someone who was overwhelmed and had a lot going on right now, even though it's scary, the best thing you could possibly do is write every single task that's on your mind on a separate piece of paper, put it on the table, route them into projects, then order them in order of priority. And you probably quite quickly find that at the top of each project and maybe even just a couple of the projects. you redefine the one or two things that if you did them, everything else would be less overwhelming, easier or not as important. So well look,

Greg Voisen
there's you know this and you have been around the technology world. And I've followed this area so intently because it's something that there's something inside of me that's extremely curious. But you know, mind mapping software, like Mind Meister or like AOA, which is a British based company, Chris Griffis runs open genius. And Chris is a good friend. And you know, you see people saying, okay, I want to dump the contents in my brain. If you want a digital world of dumping into, then go dump it into a mind map, and then take the things off of the Mind Map. And if you don't do that, get those big yellow stickies that are about this big you can buy and just start drawing on them right and early, mapping out what you want to do or what needs to be done for a project or initiative or whatever. And I think when you get in the habit of that, that helps to free up your mind. Now you quote in one of your videos, Francine J in her book, The Joy of less, and she says that her goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do so you and I have been talking about all the to do doo doo doo doo. But we haven't been talking about being I fully agree with,

Simon Pittman
isn't it? Yeah, this is the thing. That's what we should really be doing less?

Greg Voisen
Yes. So how do you have you personally been able to scale down the amount you have to do providing you more time to be right, a good friend of mine wrote the the being and doing conundrum, great Hollywood producer, and I can highly recommend the book. And it is a conundrum for most people the do and be right, who am I being? What am I doing? And we've seem to have played this role throughout the eons of time. Right. And I think one of the reasons philosophically we don't give ourselves enough time to be is because we're afraid of what we actually might see.

Simon Pittman
Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. I think it's, it's why so many of us get I mean, the world asks it others were thrown a lot a lot of things are thrown it is it's a world of information and products and more. And it's very hard to do that. And actually the less you flex that muscle the less good you get it? And, and that's when we can become overwhelmed with things. And I've certainly done it. I mean, one of the drivers for me in starting this was I Yeah, it wasn't dealing with life very well. And this side of it is perhaps the most important bit, I think, I think there are a few different things you can do in answer to what your provocation is about, like, how might you? I think there are two ways to answer it. There's a few of these are kind of mindset shifts, and kind of engaging with kind of simple ideas to live by. And I think others are just really practical actions that you can take. So I think for me, taking time to, for me, it's actually making time blocking in a practical sense to reflect or do

Greg Voisen
you also seeing one of your videos not pompadour to where you freak yourself out. And I saw your screen, you showed a screen that I think you were trying to exemplify. And since they exemplify exaggeration, you had every minute of every day blocked out on your iPad, and your said, No, this is not the way to do the Pomodoro method.

Simon Pittman
Time blocking is interesting, though, because two and a half days of that don't work. So it depends how you look at it, you know, in that, it depends what you're blocking timeout for because often the time blocking might be in the morning is deep work, I'm just going to do the one important thing I really want to spend time doing shut everything off disconnect do this. Or it might be to block out time to reflect or to not be working. And I think that comes down to that mind shift of thinking intentionally and going what is essential for me, you know, what are the important things and that has to come from reflection. So building a kind of process, you know, of, some people might want to journal some people might just want to, I mean, for me, it's sometimes just riding a motorbike. If I go out and ride my motorbike on my own without anyone else for two hours around, you know, the outsides of you know, out of London, a lot of stuff happens unconscious practice, and you end up coming back and then being able to go, this is what matters right now. And so I think it's giving yourself time to see things like that and understand what that key 20% is what really matters. And at the same time you make, I think, for me making more time, you know, to have less to do that also comes down to being better at delegating, automating and reflecting on how things have gone, and then improving how you do things in the future. So I've been building a bit more of that kind of effective reflection goal setting has really made more time in space. I also really wanted to list I thought you might ask me about this. And I wanted to list a little set of things that I think are really practical. So time blocking, not every inch of the day, but blocking out time to do deep work. As Cal Newport would call it is really powerful and blocking out in moveable time where you're like, that’s it, particularly for someone like me who works on their own schedule. That's it. No work happens past this time in the day is really powerful. I love having a daily one thing. So I'm referencing lots of people, but I think it's useful to send people towards it. The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, fantastic book, really the key idea that people can take away is, what is the one thing that if you did now would make everything else easier or less important. And I have a little tag in my notion system, which says one thing for today, and it's turns up at the top of each day. And then this idea as well of being able to say no more. Because if we're overwhelmed, we're probably in some form, saying yes. Whether we're consciously or unconsciously, so I've been trying to actively go if I get I'm going to reference it because I wanted to do this for you. Derek Severs if hell yes or no. So if it's Hell, yeah, it's not. And I think in terms of me making theatre or taking on projects, that's been really powerful to only say yes to the things that really matter, or really are like, oh, my goodness, I absolutely have to do that. Because then you're going into the things you actually take on, completely charged up and excited. And if you're excited, it's easier. You know?

Greg Voisen
Well, one of the things that I think you've done a masterful job of is that you're the synthesizer of all of these philosophies into kind of one area through your YouTube videos, through the templates that you're creating for notion. Through interviews like these, you know, a lot of people won't take the time to synthesize this I had a recent post by a woman who listened to Dr. John Ratty. Talk about ADHD 2.0 and her rebel lation and the other book called The Distracted Mind by the professor at San Francisco State University, that I interviewed probably about a year ago. But what I what I take away from these interviews with these thought leaders is this. There's a lot of things that are affecting the neuroplasticity of our brain, and how we're wired and fired. And Dr. Justin Kennedy from Switzerland was just on about rebooting the brain. And I think you talk about rebooting the brain, but then rebooting the systems that we have that are supporting the brain that are supporting how we think and is reminding us, right, look, people have notifications on their phone, which I think those can be obsessive. And those can be disruptors. We have people that say, Well, I'm ADHD, well, that's a label they give themselves but they actually can overcome the ADHD, not just with medications, but literally, like you said, go take your motorbike or go take your bicycle, and ride around a bit and get outside, right, there's so many things that affect how we become, quote, productive and creative at the same time. And it's a world which we've kind of all been delved into, and you have these, I'd like you to know, I'm a huge fan of your videos, your philosophy and your tips and your techniques. If you were to leave our listeners with like three big tips to implement into their lives, right. What would you want to leave this audience with? saying, okay, great. You know, we've talked about David Allen, we've talked about Diego, we've talked about notion, we've talked about all of these various system, you've given us some tips on some applications that we could use. And you are the synthesizer of all this. So this is a very big question. In the synthesis realm of everything that you've come across Simon Pittman in his world. What would you synthesize this down to? And what do you think are half twos? Versus maybes?

Simon Pittman
Oh, it's tough. I mean, there's so much. I mean, there's, I think there's something in there about. I honestly, at the moment, I think this changes from time to time, but I think this idea of decluttering and stripping back and yeah, and the idea of always asking what, what would be less, but better, has been one of the most powerful things. I mean, I love that that got new meaning for me, because I'm a big fan of design data runs less but better, a wonderful idea and design. But actually, if you think about that, in terms of your time and existence, to design, engage with the idea of what would it be if I did design, what I did today, that would have the biggest impact on how I want to feel and be or how I want to help other people. It's really powerful. And perhaps the quickest way to that is probably this idea of the concept of the one thing I think we mentioned a minute ago. So I would ask people each morning to do that, what would be the one thing today, if I stripped everything back, that would be the best or better thing to do than anything else to move to move in the direction I want to move. Number one, number two, I think has to be learning the difference between goals and systems. I think we can set ourselves goals all the time. And often they are result driven goals, which can leave you very frustrated and chasing something. So I think the idea of the second brain system in notion did fundamentally change how I live because I suddenly had this space to you know, enjoy what I was doing and have used that system to go to focus where I actually do work and put energy and the goals become about the process not about results, you know, stuff that's within your control. I think that's very powerful. Number three, do you know what I think it is probably what we started early on, which is exercise, try and go to bed at the same time every night. And don't drink coffee past 12 I think those things made a huge I love coffee. It's an absolute cliche in the productivity. So yeah. But they've really made a difference because, you know, if you look after your health, your mental health it's all the same organism than ever House kind of follows. It's easy to say harder to do, but tiny steps, and it really makes a difference.

Greg Voisen
Well, those are those are really, really great tips. And, you know, I'm gonna use an analogy here, pardon me, but you know, if you go back to the Agricultural Age, and the farmer woke up early, to either milk the cows or do the tasks that he had to do, but one of the things is you are constantly planting seeds in your garden with the manifestation of those seeds that are going to propagate into corn or wheat or whatever. And then you're going to harvest that, right? So my analogy here is this. We're constantly Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, wise, right. Your sleep habits, as you said, are very, very important. Don't drink coffee after midnight, because you'll never get to sleep to eliminate afternoon after noon, 12 noon, okay, I thought you meant after midnight, I was like, okay, that it's been proven, you know, like, we have all these sleep trackers, there's a zillion of them. Right. But if there's any one thing that affects your health, and I think your prosperity is one, do you give gratitude, I'm going to add to this list for everything that I have, and in my life for everything that I've realized. Are you curious? Do you have a purpose? Have you established you know, I call it focus is for free. Focus is something that you get when you have a passion about something and you have a purpose, completely right. And I think we haven't missed it in this conversation. But if it was to have entered into this conversation, it would have been one of the fundamental things which is driving all the projects which you, me and everybody else listening are doing. And, more importantly, my intentions, you call it the one thing, I might just say, hey, when I wake up in the morning, I give gratitude that my feet hit the ground. And I also set an intention, what is the intention for today that I want to create in my life, and simply saying, Now, if I'm going to declutter this brain and get it out into your app, inside of notion, I need to find the simplest and most effective way to do that. And I think for me, staring at the screen to do it, it doesn't work. Like

Simon Pittman
it's not the place

Greg Voisen
for me is if I make the list on paper, and then I decide to put it as David Allen says, one of your mentors in mind, he, I think he used to say, this ubiquitous device that just collects everything, which is what you've said, across lines, we then put it in there. So we don't forget it. Because the mind, he's always used to said the mind is basically to think things but not to keep things in it. Right. So it's supposed to flow. And that brings me to flow. That's the last thing. You know, the most important thing that we want in our life, I think, is that feeling of that we get of exhilaration when we're in those moments of flow, that's when the highest levels of creativity and everything occur, right. And creating that flow in life is a result of a combination of many of the things that you've said, and some of the things that I've said, and I think my listeners are tracking on this, I definitely want you to watch, you know, Simon's videos, because the systems that will help you keep yourself in flow are on his videos. Right? That's those are the things that will get you there. As far as this philosophical viewpoint of how you want to approach this, this can be approached in 100 different directions. Right. And so, with that, do you have anything else to add before we kind of wrap up here this podcast?

Simon Pittman
Well, I think that's brilliant. And I think it I mean, for me that links not back to the one thing, but actually to this idea of real time and space to reflect. And I think, you know, something that's really impacted me is, is kind of stoic thinking and that idea of really delving deeper into what really drives you. And when you find that, as you say that joy of what really does drive you is the catalyst to everything happening. So don't fight yourself. You've got to slow down and it's slow growth as another YouTuber Matt D. Avella would probably say it's been I don't think I have much to add. Really, I think it's been a year Really fascinating and stimulating conversation. I've got a ton of stuff I now want to go and find out about. I hope the listeners find this useful. We're always learning and I'm off now to learn about a number of things that you've mentioned, which I really should find some time for.

Greg Voisen
Oh, well, you know, I think in, in, in again, in due time, you one of the things you did mention was extremely valuable is the, the most important thing we have is time. You know, in a week from, it's less than a week now. I'm going to be 69 years old, and you never stop learning. Right? And I think people like you stimulate people to stay learning. And if there's one thing I would say is just keep learning, and use that knowledge and wisdom to apply it to something that's going to change you and the rest of the world. And that's what you've done. And I want to commend you on you know, your YouTube, on your, your templates on everything that you're doing. So thanks so much for being on inside personal growth and sharing your insights and your wisdom with my listeners.

Simon Pittman
It's a pleasure. Thanks, Greg. It's been great.