SPEAKERS

Greg McKeown, Tanya Dalton


Greg McKeown  

Tanya, Welcome to the What’s Essential podcast

Tanya Dalton    

I am so excited to be here because I can tell you, we had a great time having you on my podcast. So I’m, I’ve been excited about this.

Greg McKeown 

Yeah, it was really a pleasure to be on your podcast. And so happy to have you on this. And I mean, can you just help me, given your work, given your research, given your writing, If somebody is listening to this today, and they’re in the midst of pandemic burnout, right, they’ve done this for a year. They have used up a lot of resources, energy.

Tanya Dalton    

They’re all done.

Greg McKeown 

They’ve done they’ve grind grinding effort to make it true. And here they are, you know, they’re on the edge of a transition with all of that implication that, but they’re hard workers, they’re achievers, they’re successful. But what should they do now?

Tanya Dalton    

And I love this question, because I think this is the thing is, we want to be an achiever. And so we set this bar so high for ourselves, that it’s almost unattainable. So we’re just constantly chasing after this, this impossible finish line that’s moving again and again. So I think first of all, the first thing we have to do is we have to stop and really redefine what is success? What does achievement look like? We have to stop turning our necks left and right and watching what everybody else is doing and choose instead, what is important to me? Or to use your terminology, because what is essential? And to me, this is what life is really all about it. And priorities are what drives us. It’s not about doing more things. And I think people think when it comes to being productive, because a lot of people are constantly chasing this idea of being productive. Productivity is not about doing more, it is doing what is most important. It’s cutting through the clutter and the noise and really taking the time to define that for yourself. And if there’s one great silver lining with all of this, that we’ve gone through with this pandemic, it’s that suddenly a lot of those priorities have become so much more clear. We’re suddenly realizing hold on a minute, what have I been doing with my time? How have I been spending my days. And so that’s, that, to me is one of the great things that has been happening. There’s a lot of tough things that have been happening, let’s not lie. But the beauty of it is we’re able to see, okay, these are the things that are important. This is what I need to double down on. So that’s what I tell people is just to stop and let’s figure out what is most important to you.

Greg McKeown    

I love that answer. I think at the beginning of the pandemic, we were all involuntary essentialists Yes, hold Yes. Go to your, you know, go to your room and have a think about it.

Tanya Dalton    

I mean, like we were on the Titanic, and we were being pushed onto the lifeboats. And it’s like, how much can you bring with you on those lifeboats?

Greg McKeown    

Oh yeah I that metaphor, like, what can you actually what really matters?

Tanya Dalton    

Well, the thing is, yeah, until you have an emergency until your boat is sinking, you don’t know what to throw overboard, because everything feels important. And then suddenly, you get into a situation where everything’s hitting the fan, the boat is sinking, and you’re like, Oh, you know what, this isn’t important. This isn’t important. This is no longer important. It just cuts through everything else and clarifies what you really want, what you really need, and what is truly important to you.

Greg McKeown   

I can think of no more profound event in, you know, in our lifetimes, then then this moment, that such a collective moment, where, you know, maybe not every person in the world, really, but I would say at least a third of the world was within a few days of each other. Just forced to ask this question and suddenly discovered that so many things that the week before you said, Well, I have to do this. I have to Yes, is not inarguable, it’s unthinkable. It wasn’t questioned, suddenly you’re like, well, I’m not going to be

Tanya Dalton  

It’s no longer working.

Greg McKeown    

So now what am I going to do, so you see that there was opportunity in that?

Tanya Dalton    

Oh, definitely.

Greg McKeown    

So now, as we’re going into this transition, we’re going back into life, I mean, give me let’s say like give me the three most actionable, concrete things, that somebody listening to this and myself as well can do, to be able to continue with the lessons and the opportunities that have been in this challenge. I mean give me it tangibly

Tanya Dalton    

Yes, so I would say the first thing is to throw out your to do list. I don’t like to do list people are always shocked when they’re like you talk about productivity and there’s no to do list. I think that to do list takes you everywhere but where you want to go I think it takes you 1000 different directions absolutely because a to do list is way too long people just keep tacking things on and it’s no surprise that so many people are ending their days feeling unsatisfied, unsuccessful. I mean here’s a question right now for the listeners when’s the last time that your head hit the pillow and you thought great day to day you did amazing work or did you think I didn’t get enough done oh I should have gotten or should have worked harder I should have done this I should have done that our to do list works against us. So instead of making a to do list I advocate making a priority list. So it’s essentially the same amount of time that it takes to make a to do list you just add a little intentionality behind it you add a little bit of thought and you prioritize and so I walk people through three categories that we go through it’s basically loosely based off the Eisenhower matrix where you have important did you have urgent tasks. So you start at the top with what is important and what is urgent those are your escalate tasks those are the tasks you want to handle first and there should only be a few of them right we want to minimize how many things are on this this priority list because it’s priorities not just things to do. And then the second category is cultivate. These are things that are important but they’re not urgent so there’s no looming deadline there’s no fire behind them this is actually the place where we get the most growth. This is the place where we actually do the things that are truly important to us but a lot of times we push them aside because there is no urgency so I tell people that should be the biggest part of your priority list. And then the bottom of this priority list is the third category accommodate, which are things that are not important truly to drive you closer to your goals your life purpose they’re not really important things but they’re urgent tasks so they’re urgent so they feel like they’re important because they’re a fire and you feel like you got to put it out so if you make a priority list it’s shorter it’s focused you start at the top and you work your way down. I think a lot of people and i speak to i think to people in all different walks of life all different industries and I’ll say how are you doing how’s your business how’s life and the word i hear again and again and again is overwhelmed by the tasks they have to do overwhelmed by the projects on their plate overwhelmed by their own to do list and i say overwhelm isn’t about isn’t having too much to do overwhelmed is not knowing where to start and when you know where to start you’re so empowered to take that next step that next tiny action to get the momentum going and that right there is what a priority list does for you.

Greg McKeown  

Yeah I love that line overwhelmed is not having too much to do it’s not knowing where to start. I like that, when everything starts to feel like the priority where everything seems urgent and important all the time and you just can’t discern between any of it yeah i think that is what it means to be overwhelmed you just have you literally just don’t even know where as you say to begin. Okay so this is these are the tasks i want to just talk through this a little bit because I’m familiar with the Eisenhower matrix and sure most people listening are as well but this is where you have one axis is the level of importance and on the other axis you have the level of urgency and as you say there’s one category you don’t want to spend any time in and that’s the stuff that’s mean anything that’s unimportant.

Tanya Dalton     

Right, why do we even list it.

Greg McKeown     

I like what you’re saying here i like this structure so if i’m going to use this today if someone’s going to use this i started with the escalate tasks how many tasks should i have under that in what you’re suggesting with this priority list?

Tanya Dalton     

Honestly one or two, one or two at the most, because the beauty of it is, if you are using the priority list, you’re spending most of your time in that second category of cultivate tasks that are important, but not urgent. And therefore, because you’re spending time, more time there, you’re able to do better quality work, you’re able to really think and be creative, you’re better, you’re able to be proactive, rather than reactive, you’re not getting to that sense of urgency. And so those tests never make their way up to escalate. That’s really the goal is we want just one or two things and that escalate area.

Greg McKeown     

So I could imagine that at the beginning of doing this, people would have more escalate tasks, but over time, they’re going to be spending more time in the cultivation area. And so they have fewer things that become urgent. Is that Is that a fair approach?

Tanya Dalton    

I would say that’s a fair approach. It’s almost like you gotta dig yourself out of the hole, right? You got to dig yourself out of the hole first, and then get it going. But again, we don’t have to tackle even things that are urgent, what I would encourage people to do is ask, is it really important, you know, or, again, to use your terminology, is it really essential? Because a lot of times, the things that we’re saying yes to, or not truly the things that are important to us, we’re saying yes, out of obligation, we’re saying yes, out of guilt. And we all know that every time we say yes, we’re saying no to something else. And most times, that thing we’re saying no to are the things that are truly important. There are family, there are passion projects, they’re, they’re the things that we love, and we want to spend our time doing. But we’re so busy people pleasing, and making sure that everybody else is happy with what we’re doing. We’re pleasing everybody on our list, but ourselves. So I would take a good hard look first, that would be the first thing I would do is, are these tasks truly important? And make it almost black and white. Either it’s a yes or it’s a no, there’s no. Maybe if it’s a maybe that’s a no, I think it should be that clear.

Greg McKeown   

Yeah, you’re saying if it isn’t clear, yes, then make it a clear No, for definitely wasn’t the function to help you actually select between them? Okay, so so I’m doing this as we’re going along. So I’ve written down one item that I think is essential for me, but also urgent, I haven’t had the chance to sort of really do it for a second thing here, but I just just thought of one right now. So I’m gonna write that down. Then moving on now to the cultivate area, how many tasks should I have that within one day?

Tanya Dalton    

I mean, I think it varies from day to day. And this is what people love that they want to know. They want to know exactly what they’re supposed to do. And the truth of the matter is, you’re supposed to do exactly what feels right to you. If you’re feeling your to do list, and every day you’re getting to the end of it, I like to do like a rating at the end of each day, right? Like just to do a quick check in. I call it the five minutes to peak productivity, where you do a quick little check in and one of the things you check in on is how did I do with the things on my plate? Did I did I get them all done? If you are consistently ending your days, and there is, you know, a bunch of tests that are still sitting there, if you’re waiting your day at like a seven or an eight, that’s not high enough. We want to have more nine and ten days. If you’re consistently putting too much on your plate where you’re ending your day feeling like Oh, I didn’t get this done, didn’t get that done, we need to shorten that list. So there’s not one definitive answer if there’s one thing that I truly believe it’s that productivity needs to be customized and personalized to you. And I think this is the reason why so many productivity systems have failed people in the past, they think there’s this magic button, they have to press or this this magic system, and then they put that front and center and then they try to wrap their life around it. And it doesn’t work because our lives are well first of all, our lives are messy, but they ebb and they flow. And we have kids and we have all these different things that come up. And we’re not really creating the system around us. If we switch that model, If we put ourselves front and center, if we put what is important to us our priorities, our purpose, the things that I consider your Northstar. Your your core values, your vision, your mission, the priorities that are important to you put those front and center. Let’s wrap the system around that instead. Let’s customize it so it truly fits you and your strengths and your weaknesses. I think we have to stop pretending like we don’t have weaknesses. We are all beautifully imperfect. And it’s a fabulous, wonderful thing because it makes us all unique and different. Let’s stop pretending like we don’t have those and choose instead to embrace them and create a system that plays to those weaknesses as well as our strengths.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, I like everything you just said as well. Now I’m going to come back to your priority list structure. So I’ve been working now on the cultivate task list. And I’ve identified a couple of areas there. And I am struck when I look at my examples, that they are, I mean, they are as they’re supposed to be, they feel really important. And they also don’t feel urgent. And it’s easy to see how, how both of them haven’t happened this week. I mean, I can share one of them which is, which is playing tennis with my son. He’s asked for the last couple of days to do it. I want to do it. It’s not a motivational problem. It’s important. So it’s not an alignment problem. But of course, it’s not as urgent as other things are. And so it hasn’t been scheduled. You’re not trying to just look at your schedule and prioritize it, you’re trying to make sure that what’s essential, is getting on the schedule in the first place.

Tanya Dalton    

Yes, we have to stop looking at ourselves as victims of time. We are not victims of time, we are owners of our time. And when we flip this on its head and we stop looking at tasks as what we need to accomplish. based solely on time, we become we become more powerful, we become the owners of our day. Because like Like you said, right there with your son playing tennis. That’s really what you want to do. But it’s not happening, because it’s like, I don’t have the time for it. I don’t have the time for it. We’re letting time make those decisions, instead of letting our hearts our priorities truly drive those.  

Greg McKeown     

The now that’s an interesting idea that you said there about what feels what feels right. I like that answer. Because it’s, it challenges us and me in this moment to think about discernment. Yes, of course, that’s got to be the answer. I’ve got to be discerning inside and taking a moment to discern what, you know, what, what seems possible, what seems reasonable? And what feels right. To do how much feels right to do in in all this. Now help me with this. As I moved to the third area accommodate, I think well accommodate for me, is that the things that are already on my calendar, I mean, the things that are on my calendar, generally speaking are things that I value, the things I decided to do at some point. Fairly deliberate and intentional about what goes on there in the first place. I see sometimes, sometimes blow isn’t a risk. I have it fairly top of mind to try and try and really live what I espouse.  

Tanya Dalton    

Yes, it’s important to eat what you cook. I think it’s really important. I agree.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah and so with that, like, Am I accommodating the things on the calendar? Because sometimes the things on the calendar, once you actually hit the day on these items under cultivate. So is that what I’m accommodating or what, what should I be putting in the accommodate section?

Tanya Dalton    

Really what you’re putting under accommodate are the things you think you should be doing or the tasks that really are important like picking up the dry cleaning, returning a shirt to target kind of the minutia that just has to happen in your day, that’s just part of, you know, running life, just those types of tasks. So they’re not really important, but they’re things that you’re like, Well, yeah, this needs to get done. And it has to get done by the end of the day. Because you know, the shirt is has to be returned in the 30 day policy, or whatever it is. So we accommodate those we don’t, we don’t rotate our day, we don’t wrap our day around those things. We accommodate them and kind of slip them in our schedule wherever they fit. We’re not saying we’re not going to do them. We’re just actively choosing not to make those the priority not to do those things first, because that’s what happens is our brain loves that dopamine hit right it. That’s the thing too with the to do list is our brain automatically goes for that really quick, easy win, because oh, that dopamine feels so good. And we crossed that off our list. So we’re spending our day chasing after these unimportant things that are easy to check off. Because we’re dopamine addicts, we we love that high we get we check something off our list. There’s nothing more satisfying people will actually write things on their list, just to check them off. And I see that as somebody who’s done that. We’re all guilty of doing that, right? And so that’s the thing is we want to not do those tasks first by putting them at the bottom of our list reminding ourselves that this is not what’s going to drive that feeling at the end of the day of satisfaction of success, of feeling really good. My goal in life and my goal with the joy of missing out that my goal with my podcasts and everything else, is to empower people to go to bed at night and feel good about their days to stop worrying about all the things they didn’t do stressing about how they’re not living up to these unrealistic expectations, and instead truly live a productive life where everything that is important to them is front and center.

Greg McKeown     

So I like everything you’re saying the this idea of the five minute check in at the end of the day, how did I do my feeling about it? I you know, I love that, for me, is part of my mental health.

Tanya Dalton    

Yes. Yes.

Greg McKeown  

Not just to do a check in what works for me and, and gives me an ounce of sanity, even on very intense days, is it doesn’t sound very new. People have heard it before, but literally to write out the big things I’m grateful for from that day. And there’s, there’s a few advantages of this. It’s almost like a reverse to do list I suppose. Where you say, where you say, here’s all the stuff that got done. Here’s all the things that worked. Here’s an end, there’s a couple of things that really hit me about that recently. One is it helps you to see all the invisible work you’re doing so that you can see the progress being made. And, and then two I’m struck myself, like this week, by how I can feel sometimes at the end of the day. Oh my goodness, there’s you know, there’s so much still to do. But then I’ll go through the process this process, and I will be amazed that there was some major win or even a couple of major wins today.

Tanya Dalton    

Yes. Well, here’s the thing I call it having a marble jar in your head is basically what it is I go into this in the book is this idea and this concept that are you familiar with like the marble jar trick. It’s like what teachers do when the kids in the classroom do a good job, they pop a marble in the jar or when you’re let’s say when you’re potty training a kid you put a marble in the jar everytime they do something good. And then when the jar fills up, we give them a reward. It’s just a little bit of a reward system. Well we do that in our day we do something good got up worked out marble in the jar. Oh made lunch for the kids a marble in the jar. It was a healthy lunch, two marbles in the jar. I got this work done on this project more marbles in the jar more marbles and all throughout the day, we’re adding these marbles to our jar. But then what happens is this one thing goes wrong. One thing doesn’t happen perfectly. We forget the ingredients for dinner we slip up and we forget to call our best friend on their birthday, we do something that’s a minor slip up. But what happens is, we lose our grip on that marble jar and it just smashes, all the marbles are everywhere. We forgotten all the good we’ve done. And it’s all over the place. And we feel like Oh, I can’t do anything, right. Our brain is wired to attract itself like velcro to negativity to see what we didn’t do well. And it does that because our brain is wired for survival. It wants us to remember when you touch fire, you burn, right? And we feel unsatisfied. We feel frustrated with our day. And that is why it’s so important with the five minutes to peak productivity going through. There’s what the first minute of that exercise is taking a moment to reflect on your accomplishments. Because nine times out of 10 you’re going to be shocked. Wow, I did a lot more than I thought I had. You know, minute two is spent evaluating our date like we talked about how would you write today? How did you put too much on your plate? Do I need to shift how much I’m putting on my priority list? Minute three is for how did you move closer to a goal today? What did you do something small, something tiny, something big to move towards a goal. Minute four is writing down three things were grateful for that day in particular. And then minute five is for getting the things out of your head and onto the paper. Because we use our heads as this giant filing cabinet where we’re still thinking about work when we’re at home or stressing about things. We write it down. And then what I love to tell people to do is you take that five minutes to productivity you rip it off, you put it on your desk, you use that as your water for the well, to set up tomorrow’s priority list the next day, you leave it there on your desk so that way you start your day looking over. Wow, look what I did yesterday. That feels good dopamine hit. Wow, look at the things I was grateful for dopamine hit. Okay, what am I going to work on for today? Oh, I’ve already listed a few things out some ideas to get me started. So you can see it gives you momentum, I’m all about momentum and building inertia.

Greg McKeown   

So I love that structure you just described to those minute one through five. Without trying to be pedantic about it, I cannot do what you’re describing in five minutes. I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong, or I’m just doing whatever. But like, to me, it takes me. I don’t know. I mean, honestly, if I’m honest about it probably takes me an hour. And I’m feel I feel a little mixed about that. Because for example, this week, I’ve done it, I do it pretty religiously. But it will take me, you know, I’m giving up sleep to do it.

Tanya Dalton    

We don’t want to sacrifice sleep to do something. Right. So again, it’s not about whether you’re doing it right or wrong, I want us to do away with what we think we are supposed to do. What would work for you, it may not be doing all five of those things, it may be taking two of them and doing that. Or it may be taking one of them. Really again, this goes back to that idea of let’s create systems that truly do work for you. If you feel like it’s going to take you an hour, let’s throw that out the window, let’s create something that is going to work for you. This is just a springboard to get people thinking to get people to have an idea of this is how I could do it. But you don’t have to do it that way. And that’s what I tell people when I’m teaching and when I’m coaching you on this is what I’ve seen works for other people, these are the things that have worked for me and growing and scaling my business, these are the things that have, it doesn’t mean that this is how you have to do it. I’m giving you a framework so you can modify it and make it work. You can plug and play and use exactly what I’ve given you. But you have absolute permission from me if you need it, and you don’t, but you have absolute permission to twist it and turn it and make it really work for you customize it so it feels really solid to you.

Greg McKeown     

Let me ask you this question. The question I put to you earlier on was like three specific things. And the first you’d given is the priority list, and we’ve talked through that the second is this checklist, don’t jump to the third yet. Because I have a challenging, you know, situation to offer you. Yeah, well, yeah, your response. So, I mean, what you’ve effectively said, especially the priority list maps to the idea that most of us have heard about the big rocks theory, right, the big rocks theory course effectively says, you have a container, if you put all the small tasks in the, the urgent but unimportant, you know, you know, you fill it up with all the minutiae, maintenance items first, and then you put in the small rocks, okay, maybe that’s the urgent and important stuff you put in and then and then you put the urgent, the non-urgent but important in last, if you do it in that order, there isn’t room, if you put in the big rocks first. You know, if you do it in the order, you’ve said, escalate, cultivate, accommodate, then then it fits. Okay, now that’s how it’s supposed to work. And I’m a completely in in in alignment with this a believer that that is in a sense what Essentialism is arguing. But I mean the whole reason that I ended up writing Effortless is because I started to see sort of cracks in the theory. Yes, and I would summarize it with this question, which is like, what if there are just too many big rocks?

Tanya Dalton    

Yes. How do you prioritize when everything’s a priority?

Greg McKeown     

Well, not everything is a slight yes but with a slight distinction, which is that if you have stripped away the non-essential, and you’re left with the essential, but they still don’t fit, and that like actually happened to me, right. So I was being more selective than I’d ever been in my life. I have, then then, you know, doing the things I want to do doing the things that feel right. I actually think I was doing the right things for the right reasons. And feel very grateful for all that came with that. But then, in addition to that have a family crisis that comes up that is now this huge thing. My options were What? Like, what do you do give me the actionable thing that I should do and for those listening that are in a similar feeling, that they have more essential responsibilities than they know what to do with because suddenly they’re doing home education, they’re responsible for that. They don’t want to drop that rock they go

Tanya Dalton     

Don’t forget to go grab it.

Greg McKeown     

It’s a big heavy rock. They don’t want to say that.

Tanya Dalton     

It’s a boulder is what it is.

Greg McKeown   

They say, Okay, well, my health, I’ve got to do that. That’s important. But that’s a little trickier. There’s the room I used to do that in maybe is being utilized for something else has got to be my office as well. You know, that, you know, this, this pandemic course, it provided opportunity but it’s also provided this This, I think, you know, I was just talking to Eve Brodsky, she said, there’s 153% increase of, of invisible work for working women through the pandemic, not just saying the same thing. What happens if you have too many big rocks? What do you do that give me something actionable? I know, it’s a big challenge.

Tanya Dalton    

It is a big challenge, I think you wrote a whole book on this, Greg. You want me to solve an answer in one sentence, and you wrote a whole book, come on.

Greg McKeown     

I just want to know, is this something you can pivot back by? I mean, you obviously were kind enough to read the book. And we talked about it on your podcast. So you could pivot back from something that stands out to you from that. But I just want to see if, if what you would suggest to someone in that situation?

Tanya Dalton    

Yes. Well, I think one of the big things that happens, quite frankly, is a lot of times, we think things are important, because we think they’re important to other people. And so I think the first thing you do is you open up, especially if you’re talking about a lot of family obligations, which especially if we’re talking to women, that is definitely true. I like to say we take off our CEO hat and we go home and we put on our CEO of the home hat. There’s, there’s a whole nother job waiting for you at the end of a work day. But really opening up conversation with your family. And looking at our teams, our teams at work and our teams at home to see how we can support and encourage each other how we can take things off our plates. I think so often, we feel like we have to do all the heavy lifting. And we think we have to hold that built that boulder up all by ourselves, when really our team is there to help us. So really looking at how you can bring team in whether that’s your spouse, or your you know, other people, you know, possibly you know, an assistant or outsourcing or using, you know, different services to take care of some of these things that are important to you, or even looking at your children. I think a lot of times we do so much for our kids to their own detriment. I think that so often we’re taking away the opportunity to allow our own children to be team players on our team at home, in pursuit of giving them an amazing life and out of love. It’s not out of you know, any sort of detriment we’re trying to do for them. But think about any time when you have kids that you say, Oh, I need help with this. Can you help me your kids are happy to pitch in. And so I usually challenge women especially, are you really allowing the other players on your team to be a member of the team or are you holding everybody up and exhausting yourself? So often we tell ourselves this story that nobody else can do it as well as we can. Nobody else is going to be able to perform or take care of this to the way that I can. And I would say this 80% done well, by someone else is better than 100% done right by you let go of some of that perfection that tells you it has to be done a certain way. Let go of the perfection that tells you that nobody else can do it your way and start opening up those channels to share these boulders with other people.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, I like what you’re saying there’s something sometimes about the most important activities in our lives. I’ve seen that often in encouraging people that that wouldn’t stay start thinking about the essentials, that there’s a default assumption that means they have to do it. It’s then those aren’t related ideas. This because something’s important to you doesn’t mean you have to be the one to own it. It just means it’s important to you that it is done. What I found myself discovering was, I’ve got to actually create systems of support, you know, if I want and not to burn out, right, if I want me not to burn out, if I want our children to burn out, I’ve got to create a system of support.

Tanya Dalton    

I think it’s Dan Sullivan, who says who not how? Stop asking how you’re going to do it and start asking who is going to do it? If we start shifting that and instead of thinking, how am I going to get this done, and we bring in these support systems, I love that you and Anna are doing this together. And you’re really taking a good look, it’s no different than, you know, when we’re in our office, and we look at the org chart of who’s responsible. And then we realized, Oh, my gosh, this one person is doing way too much. We don’t realize it because I love that term, invisible work that you’re using. It’s so true. We don’t even recognize it or realize it and the people around us don’t either, unless we share that. We’ll call it sharing the wealth, even though it’s sharing the work.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, this is right. And I think that I think that this is I am someone who has been quite critical of corporatism and its unintentional effect on human behavior. And one of the ways I think that this has affected even sort of a traditional family structure it of course, is people listening to this from all sorts of structures, but in that traditional family structure where you have a man going to work, so to speak, says listen to our language, so corporatism right there. And the woman is working at home, even in that structure, the presumption that, that that well, that’s your job, you have a corporate job, that’s what you’re doing. You’re providing for the family. That’s really, that’s a who, who made that rule. I mean, for millennia, that’s not how it worked. Families worked at home and cottage industries, boom, family families worked at home on the farm. That wasn’t, I think, quite the same, complete division of labor in if you take a bigger broader view of history, I think it’s quite a modern concept that says, Well, yeah, man, you do the work out that, like, I think this division of labor we’re talking about is necessary, separating of our family responsibilities more equitably. is a an example of pushing corporatism out of our life.

Tanya Dalton    

Yes I would agree.

Greg McKeown     

And saying look lets you know we have these responsibilities we need to take them on and we need to work together to create the support systems to do it.

Tanya Dalton    

I like to say too we’re so busy looking at our own plate and what we have on our plate we don’t realize what everybody else has on their plates right we’re so busy looking down at those plates and all the things that we have going on we don’t even recognize and so it’s really just we’re not we’re not using that “we.” I like how you’re talking in terms of “we” because we are a team we are a community we need to come together. I mean we are designed we are wired to live in communities not just even our small family our atomic families you know that we have we’re really designed to have a support system that goes well beyond the people who live in the four walls of our home.

Greg McKeown     

I think there’s a weakness that was like a fault in our stars before the pandemic that has been highlighted in the pandemic. You know the idea of the nuclear family for example is a concept that really came of age in the era of television prior to that in literally the average household was uncle grandmother you know parents yes this that there was in maybe there’s a border i mean this is when you look back at the census you know censuses and 1880s you know so on and I’ve done that it’s quite amazing to see what the family household structure really was like so television taught us that it was supposed to be you know mom dad two kids

Tanya Dalton    

One boy, one girl.

Greg McKeown     

Right that’s what it is yeah and then we have this this who sort of de-emphasized the idea of even intergenerational family and with that community i think it’s really clear that in the pandemic the isolation has been a huge cause of burnout so it’s not just number of tasks that we’ve covered and talked about already, it’s also just and you’re alone doing it. I really don’t care who you are you are more isolated today than you were a year ago you know whatever your comfort level was before you’re like extroverts and introverts but whatever level you are at least a standard deviation more isolated than you were before and i think that’s a big part of the cause of this deep burnout that we’re experiencing and so being deliberate about that it’s not just self-care it’s  how do i get support. It’s whatever you can possibly do to construct a sense of supporting community around you that will i think well i know eases the inevitable burdens that people are under. Give us the final word.

Tanya Dalton    

Well i think this is i mean this is the thing that we were we circled around throughout this whole episode it’s really that we’re understanding we’re beginning to clarify a lot more of what is most important and we’re starting to recognize yes spending time with my family that needs to be on my priority list. That needs to be more important whereas before we took it for granted and like anything else when we when it just as part of like the normal day to day goings on with our world we don’t really appreciate it and I think I think that is right there us enjoying the joy of missing out. It’s choosing to miss out on the things that we don’t want to do and instead choosing to do the things that do bring us joy do bring us happiness getting our family closer together creating ways and systems to make that happen instead of continuing to take them for granted. So I think there’s a lot of shifts that are happening in our world today in so many fashions and i think it’s gonna be really exciting to see as we move forward into the next couple of years what those repercussions look like what is what is some of the really good things that come from this time we’ve had we’ve shared in this experience, we’ve shared in this trauma all together and it’s going to be exciting to see what does that look like and how are we going to shift to really focus in on what is truly most important.

Greg McKeown     

I said I was gonna give you the last word I’m changing my mind because what do you do is puts me in this place which is we often only understand what we really value in its violation yes and the pandemic as given an opportunity to explore to figure out what matters to eliminate what doesn’t matter it’s given us that opportunity but it’s also shown that some things were eliminated that we actually really do need and so i think some of us coming out of this experience can value new things because we’ve experienced what it is to live without them; extended family,  community, support systems I think are top of mind when I say this. Tanya Dalton, the author of the Joy of Missing Out, live more by doing less and the podcast and marvelous other things thank you for being on the What’s Essential podcast today.

Tanya Dalton    

Thank you so much for having me.


Greg McKeown

Credits:

  • Hosted by Greg McKeown
  • Produced by Greg McKeown Team
  • Executive Produced by Greg McKeown