#83 The Cool Down

Hello, friends.

What I’m Learning/Doing

With several companies and multiple clients I’m working with, the amount of context switching I do in a given day is high. One thing I’m working on to better manage it is to implement cool down periods of transition.

I’m finding that 20-30 min of space before going from one creative endeavor to another or from “sales guy” to “manager”produces much better performance.

I know, this is obvious but it’s so easy to book your calendar back-to-back with no breaks. In addition, having a break is different than an intentional “cool down” — giving your brain a chance to recover and change gears.

My cool down happens in three parts:

  • One: I try to empty my brain of everything that I just experienced/worked on. Kind of like morning pages, the idea is to free write whatever comes to my mind.
  • Two: Note any big mistakes I made or evidence of expectations.
  • Three: Reset. For me this is anything that would fall into the categories of entertainment or exercise.

The new practice reminds me of my friend Vince’s routine before and after every show. He had several unique vocal exercises he’d do preceding stage time to warm up and after his set to cool down. These enabled his voice to actually grow stronger over the course of a multi-week tour.

Our brains, like vocal chords or other muscles, need recovery cycles.

Changelog

Honestly: We’ve been at work on 2020 planning with our clients. Most of the effort is helping stakeholders embrace flexibility and focus on outcomes vs. deliverables.

LOFT: We’re preparing for a new hire in customer success as well as seeing activities pick up in our “three-pronged” strategy for customer acquisition.

CrewPay: Since the last NFTF, I attended Quickbooks Connect to promote CrewPay and learn more about the market from industry professionals

Pttrns: We’re continuing to iterate on customer acquisition to find better channels.

Until next time.

-David

P.S. Love this episode of Martini Shot about “vertical integration” (Trey, thanks again for the intro to this gem of a podcast): https://overcast.fm/+DD3nkoEw

P.P.S. Wake up call of an article on where “search” on Google is going: https://sparktoro.com/blog/google-in-2020-from-everyones-search-engine-to-everyones-competitor/

P.P.P.S. The ads during this time of year are so aspirational. Love it. Here’s a good one from Argos; https://youtu.be/7GjeHzrn8jg

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