Procrastination & Switching Off

Tommy: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 876.

Tommy: Uh, what's happening, Gronks? What's going on? How are we? Happy Thursday.

Josh: Do you feel like this week is flying by?

Tommy: Fuck, mate, it is. I just had a panic.

Josh: It's ridiculous.

Tommy: Panicked. I'm like, is it Monday?

Josh: It feels like Tuesday.

Tommy: No, fucking Thursday.

Josh: Thursday. Tomorrow's Friday, and then you have the weekend. This is crazy.

Tommy: When do you think time goes quickly? Because I think COVID and lockdown has sort of challenged my thoughts around time and the speed of it. I mean, it doesn't— there's only one speed. It's the time that's set, like it's there, but it's just our processing. What do you think it is that makes it feel fast?

Josh: So yeah, it's interesting. I would have said previously, if you have a filled day, it goes quick, like there's a lot on. Yeah, you get up, you go, you get your brekkie, you're out the door.

Tommy: Or, you know, like it's all around sort of that momentum of moving forward and actually geographically moving.

Josh: Yeah, geographically is your new favourite sort of term. You love everything.

Tommy: Well, I wanted to say something else. I've— it's funny you pick up on these things because, um, what's the— I'll think of it, but I'm replacing a word that I haven't been able to get to in my brain yet.

Josh: What is it? What do you think it is?

Tommy: Um, I'll get there, you keep talking.

Josh: Can you—

Tommy: I'm thinking about it, mate. I'm thinking about it.

Josh: What's the area maybe I could help?

Tommy: Well, it's clearly around the geographical or—

Josh: So, it's like you're moving around.

Tommy: Yeah, it's another descriptive word for like your location, your geographical location, point, you know, it's like, yeah, it's just another one.

Josh: Okay.

Tommy: I'll mix it up.

Josh: Yeah, if you can find it out, find out, that'd be great. No, but I think the interesting thing is this week is one of those weeks where I've got a few things I need to do. And I've sort of given— There's been like yesterday, for instance, I was like, you know what? I'm giving myself a break. I'm going to have a chimichanga for lunch. Like I did Uber Eats lunch, which I haven't done in a long time. And I was just like, I'm going to do a little bit of work, but I'm not going to put a crazy amount of stress on it. But the thing is that I feel the need, I need to do a bunch of stuff today. I feel like if I don't get things going now, it's going to get to the end of the week and you're like, I haven't achieved anything. So, I do feel that pressure.

Tommy: That is tomorrow. It is classic cram, Janson, though. Classic cram, Janson.

Josh: I was always a crammer.

Tommy: Always a crammer. Still are a crammer.

Josh: Yeah. I think it's just the— It's optimism. It's a mixture of procrastination and optimism. I think that in some ways it works for us sometimes because it means like, I'll always be working on something.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: But it's not always— GB does the same thing. Yeah. You know, it's like you can— You'll go all in on something and you can spend so much time on it. It's not always the main thing that you need to be doing. But it is, it does feel like you're moving forward.

Tommy: Well, I think I, I could sum up your procrastination quite well, and it's somewhat of a compliment because your procrastination actually comes out in finding other highly productive things that move us forward. But then it's like, then the panic will set in. So for instance, you'll build a fucking website in a day that is highly, highly beneficial for the business. Yeah. But you'll leave the edit to last minute and then you'll panic about it. So technically it's productive for you, but it can— but the feelings, like, because what are the sort of like drop, you know, if you've got a little, um, you know, those little sort of droppy things that you put under your tongue, like Poo Drops, that kind of thing. But imagine sort of the ingredients, great product, that are put into your body. It's anxiety, it's fucking stress, it's like all these little things that sort of get you flowing at the very last minute, but then all of a sudden you've done more than what you needed to do.

Josh: Because if you actually just— Yeah, it's time consumption.

Tommy: You only— you would actually have less on.

Josh: So, the thing is that this is my justification, whether it's right or wrong.

Tommy: The—

Josh: when I was younger, I would be a perfectionist. So, if I had 2 weeks to work on something, I'd be working on it. Like, I would just spend all the time on it. And so, part of the cramming and procrastination stuff is rather than being stressed, like, rather than focusing on a single thing to be stressed about, just leave it and cram it and put it like into a like a tidy little box and say, okay, I'm just going to focus on that in that time. The problem is that it never quite works that way because you do have the evenings where you're like, fuck, I gotta get that thing done. I need to do this thing. Like, so you are, there is a residual effect to the procrastination. But I think some of the best things I've ever done have happened from procrastination. Funnily enough, 2013, I had an idea for a documentary on procrastination. Never got around to doing it, which is so annoying. But it was called, do you know what the documentary was called? I think it's still a fucking great idea. Um, it was called Coming Soon. And so what I was going to do was, uh, this is a classic thing that I've done. Even Jack Post and I have been talking about this as he's working on phase 2 of Jackie Roach Studios, his podcast. It's like, yeah, we can be very much drawn into the launch of something, right? And so the idea of the procrastination doco was the first scene that I filmed is me going around Melbourne putting up billboards and signs for the documentary that's coming soon. And then it's just me going, okay, fuck, now I've got to do this thing.

Tommy: So have you worked— you work it out? Like, is the— so if we're just going to dive into the doco, sure, like it's already been made, it starts with putting the posters up, but the— it's not actually made. And do you have any idea of what the doco will be, or are we gonna discoveries you discover, because you've even procrastinated on coming up with the concept.

Josh: Well, I think you just— you bring up early like the hypothesis around like, for whatever reason, I'm, I'm a procrastinator. And then I'd probably speak to a few people, um, because yeah, you could do something very interesting about the, uh, sort of, um, the benefits of procrastination, which is a— which would be a classic procrastinator move.

Tommy: Well, Well, just, just on the, on the thought of procrastination, it, it could be seen as diverting the pain. So, or like, um, pushing the pain to the side for the moment because you procrastinate things that you don't necessarily want to do, or you want to do them but they require something from you which could then be painful, or you're not in the right place to activate that part of your brain. You just think that you're not ready for being creative in this moment, whatever it be, right? The problem with it is that all those things end up happening later down the track. And so it's, it's— I mean, we were talking yesterday about sort of just the weird sort of wirings of our brains, and that's one of them. Procrastination is definitely up there, or delayed gratification, all of these things.

Josh: Like, you think about even the resistance. Like, I love walking. I like— I— but I just like, even with this step challenge, I'm annoying myself with it. Like, I know that I can just go out and I can do it. And I've fucking having a half an hour convo with, uh, uh, Pete Shepherd on the phone. And I get off, I was like— I was sitting, he was buying chicken fillets whilst he was on the phone to me. He was out and about. Yeah, yeah, lemon. He's like, hey, just hang on a sec. And I was like, oh, he's ordering. He's like, I just gotta order something. I was like, okay.

Tommy: It's actually when you're on the phone to somebody and they're doing something, it's like, oh, it's a bit sort of like suspenseful.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, I feel like I'm sort of like in his ear and he's like, uh, yeah, can I get, uh, you know, 4 of the lemon? I'm like, where the fuck is this going? I thought it was gonna be lattes. And yeah, lemon chicken. And I was like, where are you? He was at the butcher.

Tommy: I also like the people that you're on the phone to and you don't know, you kind of just, ah, they must be out and about. And next minute they're just like, they haven't informed you that they're about to ask something. And next minute you're just like, they haven't even said, sorry, mate, 2 seconds. Hey, can I get this? It's just like from conversation. Yeah, I have those, you know, they're just straight into it. It's very confusing. Oh God, bit abrupt.

Josh: I always feel that with the post office. Because I walk to the post office and then I go in and then there's this transitional point where, especially if I've walked in and I've still got my AirPods on, I can't hear them. And so, it's this upsetting thing where I have to ask them to repeat themselves. But I am the guy that will take the AirPods out. I understand the perceived rudeness in not, but I'm looking forward to the day that where this is going to happen in the next 2 to 3 years, where AirPods, all of these products, will become hearing devices. They're already sort of moving that way. And so the social acceptable thing is you are wearing them all the time. They'll probably run flush to your ear. You won't even be able to notice them. You'll be able to amplify sound, but then you'll also be able to listen to a podcast. So there will be this weird stage— I'm sure we're going to hear about it in the news— where they'll say You know, are we connected? Are we talking to one another? Because you think like looking at the screens are bad. Think about you're having a conversation with someone and you don't know whether they're listening to you or whether they're listening to a podcast or they've switched their microphone so that they can hear better behind them so they can hear the conversation of the people that are having an argument.

Tommy: I mean, what about when Neuralink, Neuralink comes in and you've got it tapped into your brain or even like your eyeball. There's a big company going to be releasing new glasses. So, yeah, this is where we need like a Mr. 97 who probably has been reading.

Josh: We can actually call Sev. I've set up the phone to make it very easy for these things. She definitely would know.

Tommy: Yeah.

Mason: Yeah.

Tommy: Get him on and then I'll set it up.

Josh: Yeah, but go on. What have you heard so far?

Tommy: So, some previous Apple employees who have left the company and they're currently working on a new operating system and they've created a startup. Actually, you know where I heard it? This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis. What is it? Calacanis?

Josh: Yeah, Jason Calacanis. Okay. Sebs, are you there, mate? Uh, Mr. 97, hello? Yeah, this is a nightmare. It hasn't worked, has it? I reckon he's probably hung up on me. Oh, are you there, Seth?

Tommy: Is he in bed? He could be doing a workout.

Josh: Oh yeah, he probably is doing his— Yeah, I'll just try and call it. I tried to get all fancy and call him first and then unmute him.

Mason: Okay. Yo.

Josh: Oh, g'day, Seth. I tried to be smart and have you on the line as TJ was telling that storey to unmute you. Could you hear him? At all or no?

Mason: No, no, no, no, that's it.

Josh: That's all good. So TJ's talking about this new thing— TJ, what is it?

Tommy: These Apple employees who have left and have started a new company, and they're going to be releasing a product that will probably become something like the Google Glass or like the Snap... I was gonna say testicles! Spectacles!

Josh: Oh, the spectacles! Yeah, I remember that.

Tommy: Have you heard about this, Seb?

Mason: No, I haven't.

Josh: Okay, well, it's annoying. Just wasting time. Can you tell us something interesting that's happening in tech? I mean, your go-to site is The Verge, which is a technology—

Mason: I mean, they're interesting. You, you sent an article a while ago around, um, some of the journalists that work for The Verge, um, going off and using their own software, but they're going to Substack and they're— yeah, yeah, creating their mailing list and own newsletter for, for readers, but Interesting. The Verge recently put up— I reckon today they've put up a thing saying, um, support independent media, like support us, and here's a little donate button on their site.

Josh: On The Verge?

Mason: On The Verge. At the top of The Verge, there's a little yellow box that's just like, donate to us.

Josh: Don't you think that that's a little bit cheeky? Because The Verge is owned by Vox Media.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: How much do we think Vox is worth? I mean, Vox is bringing in probably $100 mil a year. Let's have a look at Vox, uh, Vox Media, valued at $140—

Tommy: oh, that was 2012.

Josh: Hmm, evaluation.

Tommy: I mean, yes, the company—

Mason: more—

Tommy: sorry, the company's worth more than a billion dollars.

Josh: They've had a total of $306 million in funding.

Mason: Yeah, that's ridiculous. The, the, the thing— the banner says like, um, explanatory work is important, support us.

Josh: And so do you think that this is the move away from advertising? Are they just— or are they wanting to double dip?

Mason: I mean, I wouldn't know, I rock ad blocker, but the— I, I would— yeah, I mean, they can't— I can't imagine them earning heaps of cash through their ads. Like, it's not like they're doing integrated posts or anything like that. It's more just like almost like, here's a banner placement, put your ad in. Um, yeah, I can, I can imagine just like if, if they've got however many, you know, journalists and writers putting out like editorials and articles and stuff like it, decent, decent overhead.

Tommy: So I don't know, maybe it actually probably draws to the fact that they're paying their journalists fuck all.

Josh: Or I think they, they, I think they, I think the journos get paid. I think the— so Jason Calacanis, who, uh, has the podcast This Week in Startup He was talking about Substack. So, I actually have a Substack, joshjanson.substack.com. I've never done anything on there, but we should definitely do it.

Tommy: Procrastinating.

Josh: Yes.

Mason: Dr. Jason Fox is all over it.

Josh: He does a great job of Substack. And so, the idea is it's like a paid newsletter/blog. And so, you could get set up and what's happening is there's been a bit of an exodus on these big journo's, especially the ones that are perceived a little bit controversial, but they have a really strong base of supporters. And so, what they're doing is Jason Calacanis was saying they're probably getting $140,000, $150,000 a year as journal— as sort of—

Tommy: Wow.

Josh: Those sort of senior journalists. So, it's not like peanuts. I mean, it's obviously not podcaster money like what we're on. These books don't pay for themselves. But the—

Mason: Rolling.

Josh: But, um, yeah, so, so he was talking about what's potentially happening is companies like Substack are committing to journalists and saying, hey, come over here, we'll give you a guarantee. So we'll give you, say, $50 grand a year guarantee, and then build on that platform, and they could be making a bunch more money. Yeah, yeah.

Tommy: So they've said on, on the um, it was The Verge, and it takes you to Vox, and it says your contribution does not constitute a charitable donation, but it will enable Vox to continue bringing you essential information for free at the pace and scale of the coronavirus crisis demands. So maybe they're saying that the demand is higher based on coronavirus, and they're— I don't know. I mean, it's a lot more common now, these donations.

Josh: Yeah, and so this is the thing. So it's— we have— we've accepted as a society that for the most part there's all this sort of media that we don't pay for, right? But there's people doing the work. And if we do have a problem, if we look at the Social Dilemma and we say, oh, we don't want to be the product and we don't want to, to have these ads and also think like there's got to be an alternative, it's not like, okay, turn off the ads, turn off the algorithms, and then just get this content for free. There needs to be a change in the business model. So maybe Vox sees the writing on the wall and saying, okay, to be a media business going forward after, uh, you know, 2020, it requires something where they have a direct relationship with their readers and their readers become customers.

Tommy: Yeah, I guess it's Patreon if you if your content is worthy enough, people will spend the cash. People will help, you know, put money behind it. I guess the donation model makes you really think, uh, okay, yeah, I love what they do. I've got— I want to help them continue doing what they do. It just— I think the weird bit is coming from a large business is what you're pointing out. It's like, seems huge from the outside. It's like, hang on, wait, that's like— usually they're like independent creators or, you know, people running a small operation that seem to do that, that model.

Josh: Yeah. Um, any other tech news, Max?

Mason: Um, no, not really. I mean, I was, I was reading an article about a supersonic jet that they really just released a prototype, but nothing, nothing really special about that.

Josh: It's interesting, all the supersonic stuff.

Tommy: You've just discounted, you know, millions of hours of work by very hardworking, smart individuals.

Mason: It's only a prototype. It doesn't fly yet, so.

Josh: And once you watch documentaries on the Concorde, you realise that any talk around the supersonic stuff, there's a huge amount of issues with them. Like, it does sound amazing being able to get from London to New York in, what was it, less than 3 hours or whatever is awesome. But, you know, sonic booms and shit, like, you got to worry about certain things.

Mason: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: Are you working out right now, Sebbs?

Mason: No, okay, we, we did it. We did a workout earlier, but I was just making my smoothie.

Josh: Okay, great. All right, well, can you drop and give us 10, 10 push-ups?

Tommy: Thanks, man. We'll see you soon. Love you.

Josh: Thanks, mate. Bye.

Tommy: Um, have you seen the, the TikTok that's absolutely blown up? Um, and it's got a Fleetwood Mac song in it. Do you like Fleetwood Mac?

Josh: I love Fleetwood Mac.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, you do?

Josh: Yeah, I would often say to Google to play Fleetwood Mac.

Tommy: Do you say play Dreams?

Josh: No, I say, um, it's gone completely blank. I'd say play Fleetwood Mac. I'm trying to think of my favourite song.

Tommy: They just serve it up. They serve it up. Um, so this guy— I can't believe you haven't seen it. Like, it's—

Josh: no, no, I haven't seen it.

Mason: No.

Tommy: So there's a guy on a skateboard and, uh, shaved head dude, you know, probably in his late 30s. Looks like an older fella, like, just having the time of his life. And he's got this big, big bottle of cranberry juice, and he just is like cruising and then drinking the cranberry juice, singing the lyrics to Dreams. And there's something about it, it's just— it's, it's fucking gone nuts online. Fleetwood Mac have hit the charts again for like the, the most streams, um, you know, since it's been released. It's like they've broken a record of the streams, but You haven't seen it?

Josh: No, I haven't, but I have heard about the, uh, I saw our mate Leon Shergrin do a tweet saying, um, about the cranberry— everyone's drinking cranberry juice nowadays.

Tommy: So I mean, the— I've got myself in a little fucking— yeah, I put my foot in it with what I say usually. I think I ate less as I get older, but still, you know that I'm the guy that's putting my foot in it. When I was younger though Um, so there's the, the classic one of— I, I said to a girl when I saw her at Macca's, I was like, have you been swimming? She's like, what? No. Her hair looked wet.

Josh: Sure.

Tommy: I, I saw it and called it for what it was. You've been to the pool? Yeah. No, oily hair.

Josh: Sure.

Tommy: Fuck that one right up. Uh, the other one was—

Josh: which McDonald's was it?

Tommy: Elsti. It was a classic meeting spot.

Josh: What time?

Tommy: Rocky, probably about 3 PM, probably just getting a QP, quarter pounder, getting a QP. Yeah, yeah.

Josh: Okay.

Tommy: Anyway, and then relating to the cranberry juice, I walked in, uh, an ex-girlfriend at the time, her mate owned this sort of like salon, and we went in there and she's got this big bottle of cranberry juice, drinking it. And I just said, what, you got a UTI? Because I, because I do it like I thought it was just a joke. I thought she loved cranberry juice, but I also knew that like people drink cranberry juice for urinary tract infections. And she's like, oh, what? No, no. End of story. My fucking girlfriend at the time, when we get back, she's like, what the fuck did you say that for? She does have a UTI.

Josh: I was like, oh, never again.

Tommy: So when I saw this guy just cruising on his fucking skateboard, I was just It's like, this poor bugger's got a UTI.

Josh: Is pom, uh, cranberry juice?

Tommy: Pomegranate is a different fruit, broski.

Josh: No, pomegranate.

Tommy: Pom. Pom. Or is it the name of the brand?

Josh: Pom Wonderful. I don't know if it's pom.

Tommy: Pom.

Josh: Pom Wonderful. Oh yeah, it is pomegranate juice.

Tommy: Yeah, pomegranate.

Josh: And so cranberry Is a different fruit. Is cranberry cranberries? Are there things called cranberries?

Tommy: Cranberries, yeah.

Josh: Cranberry juice. What are— like, there was one that I thought was a berry that's not a berry, that's a made-up name. What am I thinking of, mate?

Tommy: I have no idea.

Josh: What's the one where the guy's like stomping around in the fields?

Tommy: What do you mean?

Josh: There was a— I don't know, there was a specific drink where it's called something and I thought that that's the berry, but it's a manufactured thing. I don't know what it is.

Tommy: Oh, like it's a fake berry, but they've like, that's a great idea. Come up with an idea.

Josh: It's not that. Well, what's it called? What's the big red juice? Pomegranate. It's going to piss me off. Red juice. Berries made up on Google. What did we get? Berry, berry burst. Do you know what I did on the weekend? I went to, um, we went to Boost Juice. Oh yeah, I got the Janine's favorite, not even on the menu anymore.

Tommy: I remember that. Yeah, the Janine Ellis mango. Does it have mango in it?

Josh: Yeah, it's really yum. It's ribena. Thanks, Sharna.

Tommy: Ribena is not a fruit.

Josh: Ribena is not a fruit. So Ribena berries.

Tommy: Oh yeah.

Josh: What is a British origin brand of blackcurrant-based, uncarbonated— why do they have to— geez. Oh, and carbonated soft drinks and fruit.

Tommy: You get both.

Josh: So there you go. So Ribena is not a berry.

Tommy: Okay. Yeah, that's interesting because that was the— that was a— they did well when we were young. Like, that was a brand that was out there, like the— like in the sort of little juice boxes. Get your Ribena in a big bottle.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: I mean, there is something about like, I feel like when I was drinking the carbonated drinks a lot, I've sort of backed down a little bit from it all of late. But I'd always bring it up because I wanted to be able to drink them in client meetings. Like when I'm on a call, I would at the start set it up when they would say, how are you going, Josh? How's your day? I'd say, it's good because I got this drink. And I tell them about it. I say, oh, it's got some flavour and it's actually really delicious. There's one called—

Tommy: use my coupon code.

Josh: It's got that vibe. But the— I said this to one client And it was amazing. I didn't realise this, but in a previous life, he was a, like a bev— He worked for, like, in the beverage industry.

Tommy: Oh, great.

Josh: And knew everything. So, it seemed like, because such a quirky thing to bring up, right? Like, hey, I'm going to talk about this beverage. And he just starts naming factories. Oh, yeah, they would have gotten the thing from this factory and that. I was very impressed.

Tommy: That's great.

Josh: Yeah, it's not much of a story, but.

Tommy: And then the next meeting, great. Good to hear.

Josh: We've got nothing. Just got nothing.

Tommy: Just move on.

Josh: Got nothing to say.

Tommy: Just finally, before we finish, the Uschi scheme continues on yet another day.

Josh: More Uschis.

Tommy: Yeah, Bodie rocks up to the cafe. New person's on. It's not George, his go-to barista for his babyccino and Uschi deals. And it's his sister, George's sister. And what has she got? An, uh, a packet, ushi inside. She thought about Bodhi when she was at the supermarket. She brought it and gave it to Bodhi. But then she asked me, hey, if you have Elsa, as in the Disney character, yeah, if you have Elsa, my daughter would love it. I said, great. So So get back in the car. Amy, do we have a spare Elsa? Yes. Amazing. I'm sending currently in the mail out 3 of Bodhi's spares to Gronk Stusso, who needs them for his son's collection, and we're helping out. So it's, it's becoming a full just operation. This is full-time, this is full-time, dude. I won't be able to do work for the next 6 months because I'm just exchanging oshis every moment.

Josh: And so, I wonder, I feel like at the cafe they could put up a sign like, want to leave your oshi? Like that you could put them into some sort of bucket or whatever.

Tommy: I'm sure they also want a sign saying, can you please spend more money? Coronavirus is highly effective.

Josh: I mean, if people are Donating to a business that's raised $300 million. Yeah, true. I can't help but feel that we should be, you know, donating to these other things. I did think very quickly.

Mason: Okay.

Josh: So, it's been an entire year, I think, since I've been on a holiday. So, the last time was Daylesford.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: September, the end of September. For, I think it was 3 days. Yeah, I was thinking, when was the last time you went on a holiday?

Tommy: Uh, it was, I think it was our FFS, um, our Flinders Fuckfest is what you call it. No, did we do anything? I can't remember. God, no, not really. Not— so this is the problem, if you can't remember what—

Josh: if it was a fuckfest or not, is that what you're saying? What are you talking about? I'm pretty sure we just had headaches and we're pretty tired.

Tommy: Just fucking slept the whole time.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: So no, I was thinking, I was like, um, what are we going to— like, I feel like with all the COVID stuff that's happening, we can't do holidays, but we should at least consider annual leave. We should consider like what would it look like to take a week? Like, what would it look like for you to take a week, then me to take a week, Mason to take a week?

Tommy: To be honest, it's so close to the end of the year and we haven't really like You talk about no holidays. We've been at home. It's like the last—

Mason: Have you?

Josh: This is my, this is my thought. Yeah, never getting to really switch off. Not real—

Tommy: like, the—

Josh: that's the thing that you don't realize, right, is it's like, yeah, I, I get the, the psychology of— especially when they do, like, you know, businesses do forced annual leave or whatever, which is around Christmas time for us. Yeah, I wonder before things ramp up with like filming and all that sort of thing, what it would look like to do a week. Just a thought. What do you think?

Mason: No.

Tommy: Yeah, I know. I agree. I think though we're so close to the end of the year, I'd rather take weeks off at the end of the year. That gives me like, I disconnect at the end of the year. I love that time of year, like the Christmas break. Usually we go up to Sydney and it's just like a time to just reset. And so the hard bit is when you're trying to disconnect to then come back to ramp it up hard. And so it's like end of the year is that time for me.

Josh: Do you reckon it will be different though this year? Obviously, because like I don't know whether Sydney, like whether you'll be able to—

Tommy: Or if we can either way, it's like it is the time when the vibe's there. It's like right now I can't go anywhere. My son's like, my family's like— because I wonder about like when you have a kid, if I've got annual leave and it's like my kid is still going to daycare, it's like I'm still in it. I don't have the luxury of like it just feeling— it still feels like a work week for me. It still feels like stuff's going on based on—

Josh: so how do you get to switch off though? Because I feel like it's Like I feel it and then you would be feeling like, I could imagine you're feeling it too, where it's just like not taking, like just waiting that extra amount of time.

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, I bet, I don't, it's such a small period of time. I guess if you're struggling then it's a different conversation, but I think it's like you're trying to, the step challenge is making me feel heaps better actually moving and sort of like, and so I'm just kind of fired up to sort of kick into gear rather than just pause. It's like actively do the stuff to make me feel better so I can continue and have a break. It's like, I guess it's for the people that want to work through the fucking Christmas break. It's like most businesses shut down, and if you're business to business, it's like a lot of time you gotta slow it down that period of time. So to be honest, I would love the In the previous years, we've had the, my, the, the concern of the business over the Christmas periods, and it'd be amazing to get to a point where you're like, I don't have to think about it, we've done really well, and it's a time to just have a break, and we know we can come back and just get started. It's not coming back and just fucking blowing, blowing it in the first week, but it's like Being in a good space to come back to would be—

Josh: where do you think, where do you think, like, from a business, if you were to design the way businesses could operate in 2021? So think about like future of work, what it all looks like, what leave looks like. There's a bunch of companies that obviously they do unlimited, you know, employees take as much as you want. What do you really like?

Tommy: Who are they?

Josh: Uh, Basecamp does it.

Tommy: Animals. I mean, so they're all— they're not remote, they're distributed teams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a, that's an easy one. The distributed team stuff is, is going to happen more next year.

Josh: You can't—

Tommy: you look at the city from where we are, I can see the big buildings. It's like there's 10,000 people in that fucking building, or there's 5,000, but you know.

Josh: So is there, is there something— is there something— I think about the annual leave thing. Because people get pissed off with the forced annual— like, I know people are like, fuck, I've got to take— I don't want to take it, blah blah blah. But there's like— I've seen those occasions where it's like people work through Christmas, right, because it's quiet, and then they'll fucking take annual leave when it's busy for them, you know what I mean? Like, I wonder what the— so the thing is, it's like The— I, I get the— I get the idea of saying, okay, let's, you know, I want to just switch off from a Christmas perspective. Yeah, I just wonder what it would look like, like, uh, having time throughout the year. So could you actually, from a reset perspective, rather than just be like, by the end of it you're not actually that optimal because you're fucked because you're just trying to see the finish line, versus—

Tommy: No, I'm taking into consideration this year. And then I'm thinking, well, the end of the year, next year, if we're hopefully back to some kind of new normal— fuck, buzzword— but that, you know, it's like, fuck it. Usually the challenge for most people has been time off equals going somewhere, going on a little trip, not even overseas. It's like fucking to the farm or to someone's farm or, you know, in a caravan. It's like that shit has been off the table. And so, yeah, I mean, so don't people need breaks though?

Josh: So this is my thing, it's like, because I completely understand and get that, which is like you think ahead and you're like, okay, I'm gonna do a holiday, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. But if potentially, you know, flights aren't happening till April or whatever it is, do we need to come up with a different version where people can disconnect. How can you, like, so that's the order.

Tommy: Some businesses ask you to put in your annual leave, like you needed to give us your tentative dates because then what that's saying is you're using it, or some people don't want to use it. So it's an individual thing, and this is the rights of someone who is employed. It's like they get to choose, they get to save it up, they get to do what they want. So it's more if you were saving it up because you think you can't take it because you're too busy, don't do that. Take it. You need to, you need the respite. But then if that's the objective to go, I want 4 weeks off in a December period, like literally December 5 through to fucking Jan 5, I want the full month off paid. That's, that's what a, that's what someone who is employed gets to make the decision on.

Josh: Well, they have blockout periods and things like that. And so what's the, when was the last time that you felt that you switched off Um, probably last Christmas.

Tommy: But then like, look at this fucking year. It's like—

Josh: but that's why— but I wonder, like, is that just a pain that—

Tommy: so there's a storey there which is like, yeah, but we've got to get through Christmas. Like, the annual leave stuff, and then shit changed. And so I think it'd be a great idea to look at blocks across the year when it is a smaller team like ours. We can actually just have a meeting about like 'Who wants to take what, where?' And then you're just like, 'Well, let's plan to that,' because when it's small, it's like, it helps when it's— it's very impactful when someone goes, but that's not a reason to have people not go. And so you work towards having people, having people sort of take that time. And so yeah, that's it. That's a great idea. Have a, have a conversation about what that looks like.

Josh: Well, 'cause I can just see it like where you don't make it a priority and then it's not helping anyone. It's not helping the individual who's like exhausted, just hanging on. I just think about how good I feel after taking some leave. That's interesting. Great. It's the Daily Talk Show. Hi, the Daily Talk Show.

Tommy: And we'll be back in a month. We're taping.

Josh: No, so I was thinking, so no, I started thinking about like, what would it look like? So would we do like a co-host? Like, so if I did a week, would you have a, like, a co-host, like different co-hosts?

Tommy: Definitely, definitely. I think that's a, that's the key. If we actually get into the granular bits, usually we've done a stint of going hard, which I think if someone stays on, it ruins them for the next week. Like, it, it's, it's too much. It's like, even though you get to sort of not have the shows the next week, it's like to get that many shows recorded is laborsome. And then, you know, it's like you're back at work the following week, but then you're like spent. That's been the experience. Like after we did the Sydney— we went to Sydney and recorded a fuckload of chats.

Josh: Or even like LA, when we came back from LA, we had a week where we had all the, the interview shows or what, the pre-records or whatever.

Tommy: That's right.

Josh: But yeah, it's sort of— it's a bit of a Recovery.

Tommy: Yeah, you're recovering. Yeah, you're recovering, shaking. Yeah, it's interesting.

Josh: I think like there is— I don't know what the answer is, but I think there's an open— there's a— there's an open bit where it's like, how do— how like, how do we avoid burnout? How do we make sure that we're getting the most out of everyone?

Tommy: And so, um, if you're listening and your workplace does something great that you personally love, even though it might be sort of a precedence that they've set, what works for you?

Josh: Well, because a lot of businesses have done forced annual leave during the COVID stuff as well.

Tommy: Well, that's to fucking survive. It's like, you need to take your annual leave because we can't afford money, because we would owe you that anyway, so we're going to give you that. We're going to pay down our debts to you with the money you've accrued. It's like, yeah, it makes sense. I know people have complained about it, but it's like, it's—

Josh: well, it needs it.

Tommy: It's been a survival method of the business.

Josh: Great. All right. Hi@thedailytalkshow.com is the email address. Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow, guys. Have a good one.

Tommy: See you guys.