Lenny Rachitsky: commitment

Transcript context

…Yeah, we came up with this name because we were trying to think of endlessly replenishing fount of content. So, basically if you can pull to refresh or if it streams, it's an infinity pool. So, this is pure entertainment stuff. This is stuff that people say like, "Oh, I spend so much time on Instagram," but it's also stuff that's important and necessary and productive. Email is a huge infinity pool and it's probably the single hardest thing for the two of us to control and avoid getting sucked into. And anybody listening to this is going to, I think, understand how powerful those pools are and how effectively designed and engineered those products are to be really compelling and to be friction-free and to just make it easy for us to dive back into that pool. And so, when you put these two things together, the busy bandwagon and the infinity pool, you kind of have this, it's like a flywheel, but bad. You feel like you really need to be busy, you really need to be on top of everything. And then, you've got this whole collection of apps and services and products there that are ready to pounce on that, they're ready to take advantage of that set of defaults, that cultural and internal set of defaults that you have about what you should be doing. And for a lot of people, it just sort of spins out of control. So, our view is if you can name those two things, if you can understand those two things, then you can start to deliberately change some of the defaults around them, so that you can put your most important projects, people, work first, like we talked about. I'm guilty of both these things. I feel like the reason I do some of these chats, this one in particular is it's like one-on-one coaching almost. This is going to help me stick to some of the things you teach. And I've already actually implemented a number of the things you recommend, but this is reinforcing it. And then, obviously, also helping all the listeners get better at these things. Before we get into it, one last question is just like real talk, how how's your guys' productivity? You wrote this book, it sounds amazing. There's 87 I think pieces of advice. How is it going for you guys? As we go through, I want to hear what you're actually using, but just broadly, how's your productivity? At the top of the interview, Lenny, you asked, "What do most people get wrong when they think about this productivity, time management, whatever?" And I'll frame my answer in those terms. So, most people, I think they try to get better and faster at doing what's right in front of them. We don't change the defaults in our environment, so we can focus and spend time on these different more important things. And if you think of that sort of what do I want to do? What's my goal? What do I want to spend time on that John referred to as project A, generally the things we want to do, these project A things, they're big, they're not easy to start, they're slow to create, dopamine hits, they're non-urgent. Like boss is not asking for them if you have a boss. And generally, the tasks and activities that stand in our way that keep us from doing project A, they're small, they're medium size, it's obvious how to start them, they create dopamine right away, they're supposedly urgent, email meetings, TikTok, Instagram, news, what's on your OKRs, all these things. And I know what's on your OKRs may not sound like it's a peer of those others, but in a way it really can be. So, these big things, they're at odds with these little things that get in the way that the busy bandwagon expects us to do, these things that have infinity pools built in. And so for me, right now, it's a constant battle between the Jake and the busy bandwagon and my inner feeling of how can I live up to people's expectations of me and respond in the way that I should and react in the way that I should? And then, how can I do the project A stuff, the big important stuff? A lot has changed in my life since we wrote the book. The summary is every few months I need a few new experiments. I have found in what has been some trying times that the tactics and the framework that we use... Because it's kind of simple and it sort of fits with these experiences that I've had for many years doing sprints, that it works. And that if I can go back to that, that if I can create space for it, if I can think about this as it's a series of experiments, if I can look at myself with curiosity and say, "Why are things not working out?" And then try to experiment my way out of it that I'm able to. But yeah, so at any given point in time, I probably give myself a B to B-, and sometimes it's a C and sometimes it's a D, and sometimes it's an A, and I'm really plugging away, but it's totally an ongoing challenge. So, I'm not going to sit here and say, yeah, just follow me with a drone for 48 hours and you'll think that's exactly how you should do things. But part of our philosophy, I think that part of the way I look at it is it can be a mess. And yet, if you can create the space for those project A moments, for your highlights, that can shape everything else, if you just have those moments.…

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