0:00:00Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development.
0:00:04I'm Marco Arment. And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes,
0:00:08so let's get started. It is 2020. Happy New Year, everybody.
0:00:12It is 2020. It is a new decade, a new year. It's a really
0:00:16cool sounding year. I don't know about you, but I remember when I was in
0:00:20high school or whatever. It was always like 2020 was one of those years that was
0:00:24like the off... It basically was the shortcut for like off in the future
0:00:28but not impossibly far in the future. Yeah.
0:00:32I remember having to write essays in English where it was like, "Where will I be in 2020?"
0:00:36Flying cars is always what everybody thinks, right? Sure.
0:00:40Flying cars and... It's always the Jetsons, which I think is kind of funny.
0:00:44Because the Jetsons are really old at this point in some ways. Anyway, here we are.
0:00:48We are in 2020 and it is the beginning of the year. And while I'm
0:00:52not someone who particularly gets into kind of like the New Year's resolutions
0:00:56or that side of things, I think there are many aspects
0:01:00of the start of a new year that make it a useful
0:01:04time to kind of evaluate, think about our direction
0:01:08for the year and kind of where we want to go. And often this is
0:01:12useful from the more like the business-y side. Because I think most businesses tend
0:01:16to run their kind of financial year, January to December.
0:01:20And so if that's you, then it certainly is a time of year when you're kind of
0:01:24wrapping up your books from the previous year, probably starting to do some tax planning
0:01:28and stuff, and then kind of forecasting into the
0:01:32next year. But resolutions and that kind of stuff I think can get a little bit
0:01:36squishy, just mostly because it's like if you're trying to make a substantial
0:01:40change in your life or habits purely based on the changing calendar.
0:01:44Like that's a pretty weak thing.
0:01:48That's actually going to affect meaningful change. Usually in my experience it's more of a question
0:01:52of finding something that you are excited about, interested in, and making sort of
0:01:56small steps towards it on an iterative basis,
0:02:00which is where I think not necessarily resolutions, but
0:02:04thinking about the year and thinking thoughtfully about the things that you would like to change.
0:02:08Like from where you are now to where you're going to be,
0:02:12what are the things that you would like to see? And a year is a useful time
0:02:16horizon, but it isn't the only time horizon. And so when I start to think about this
0:02:20and preparation for the show, what I came up with is I think anytime you start to think
0:02:24of anything kind of vague and business-y, of course the first thing you have to do is you need to
0:02:28make a quadrant graph where you have two axes and you define your problem
0:02:32into four areas. That's business 101. Always need a quadrant graph. If you don't have a quadrant
0:02:36graph, you're not even trying. So the quadrant graph I came
0:02:40up with was for this kind of like planful thinking
0:02:44is the specificity of your sort of the change or your goal
0:02:48on one axis and then sort of the time horizon on the other.
0:02:52And if you think about your planning in those
0:02:56categories, you kind of end up with four general categories. And I'm going to call
0:03:00these ambition, which are long-term, less
0:03:04specific things that you're hoping for.
0:03:08You have long-term goals, which are long-term and more specific.
0:03:12You have short-term goals, which are short-term, more specific. And you
0:03:16have themes, which are short-term and less specific. And
0:03:20I think that kind of framing is useful
0:03:24for me as I try and think about, you know, there are different things that you might want
0:03:28and different changes you might want to effect. And determining kind of which
0:03:32of those four buckets that want or that desire falls
0:03:36into is useful both in understanding it, understanding if it's
0:03:40realistic, understanding how to accomplish it, and understanding just
0:03:44where it's coming from in you. Because the way you go about
0:03:48kind of effecting something that is this long-term, unspecific, vague
0:03:52ambition is going to be very different than something that's a short-term goal. That maybe is something very
0:03:56measurable and specific. And like you have a revenue target that you want to hit at a particular
0:04:00point in the year, and that's like a very short-term specific thing.
0:04:04At least if you're taking the same approach to both of those two things, you're
0:04:08probably doing it wrong. And you're probably going to be frustrated by the outcome
0:04:12that you will end up with as a result.
0:04:16Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I've listened to a lot of smart discussion about
0:04:20New Year's planning and resolutions and themes
0:04:24and goals from two main podcasts,
0:04:28the Cortex podcast here on Real AFM, where
0:04:32Mike and Gray talk a lot about themes, having annual themes.
0:04:36And in fact, you should go listen, like, they just did their theme episode, and they have a whole thing around it.
0:04:40So that's a big thing where I like the idea of the
0:04:44theme being this kind of long-term
0:04:48guiding principle kind of thing. And then over on the Back to Work podcast on 5x5,
0:04:52Merlin has talked extensively about
0:04:56New Year's resolutions being basically problematic and
0:05:00tricky, and it's hard to make
0:05:04a meaningful change like a light switch, where you just all of a sudden you are
0:05:08going to become a different person overnight. You're probably going to fail
0:05:12at that, and so having longer term and more general and more
0:05:16achievable goals is usually more productive. And that's kind of how I
0:05:20run my own internal goal system
0:05:24as well. I go for longer term
0:05:28incremental progress, basically.
0:05:32And of course, long term, it means very different things to different people. Long term
0:05:36can be where you're going to be in 2020 when we're in high school, and that's like
0:05:4020 years in the future is long term, or long term could be
0:05:44a year, versus, you know, some people might want to be planning on
0:05:48a monthly basis or a quarterly basis. Long term can mean different things to you,
0:05:52but I think certainly giving yourself enough time to affect the change
0:05:56you're hoping for is definitely a constructive way to
0:06:00start, that you're not going to affect instantaneous change
0:06:04just by a quick change. It's more likely going to be something
0:06:08that is going to take time to develop, to establish,
0:06:12and just to actually be something. If you could make
0:06:16a meaningful change instantaneously, by all means, go for it, do it.
0:06:20More likely that's not actually the case. If it was that easy, then
0:06:24everyone would do it, but it is much more likely to be something that will take
0:06:28steps that you're moving. It makes me think in some ways
0:06:32of navigating, rather than planning,
0:06:36necessarily, where it's like you're heading in a direction, and at each point
0:06:40you have to evaluate where you are and where you want to go, and what's the next step
0:06:44you need to take to move towards your goal.
0:06:48And you're sort of navigating as you go along, you'll encounter things that
0:06:52maybe you didn't expect, or things that help your journey or hinder your journey,
0:06:56but at each point you're just kind of working out where your next step is to go.
0:07:00And the purpose of having an ambition or a long-term goal or a theme or a
0:07:04short-term goal in all of them is it's helping you have a sense of direction
0:07:08for where your next step should be, and it's like which horizon you're looking at.
0:07:12You're trying to get to the next hill, or you're trying to get all the way to that mountain
0:07:16over there, far away. In each case, there's
0:07:20a useful information you're giving yourself by going through the process
0:07:24and thinking about this, so that you have a sense of direction.
0:07:28Otherwise, you're just sort of standing in an empty field, and you're just like, "I don't know
0:07:32which way to go." And that's just not going to be nearly as productive
0:07:36as having at least some general sense of direction.
0:07:40So, the first kind of these ones that I think is useful to dive
0:07:44into a bit more specifically is what I call ambitions, and these are the long-term,
0:07:48less specific directions that you're trying to head. And this is a general
0:07:52direction over a long time, and I feel like when I think about ambitions, I think
0:07:56about things, the sentences that might start, "I want to be," "I want to have,"
0:08:00"Maybe one day in the future." It's this very kind of general
0:08:04thing, and for some people that might be relevant to our podcast, it's
0:08:08like, "Someday, I want to be an indie." Like, "I want to be an independent app developer,
0:08:12maybe." That feels very much like an ambition. That is this kind of
0:08:16long-term kind of squishy, like exactly what that means, exactly what that looks
0:08:20like. It is something that is
0:08:24often the distance, potentially, and is something that is useful as
0:08:28kind of getting you motivated often. It's often a kind of a nice,
0:08:32fun, exciting version of something, rather than when you get into the
0:08:36specifics and the short-term planning and what next step do I have to take.
0:08:40It can spoil it a little bit and be less fun, but
0:08:44that's kind of the utility, I think, of an ambition. But I think
0:08:48it's also, there's kind of, in my experience, and this is speaking for my own life,
0:08:52there's two different kinds of ambitions that I find myself having. There's a comforting
0:08:56ambition, and then there's an actual actionable ambition.
0:09:00And a comforting ambition is essentially just like hopes. These are like the
0:09:04warm, fuzzy, like the things I tell myself to make myself feel better,
0:09:08that are kind of, they're not actually specific, or
0:09:12they're not actually actionable. They're just like these things that I want to,
0:09:16the classic would be like, "I want to be a good person. I want to be a
0:09:20good father." These are very,
0:09:24as an ambition, that's great. They're useful, but they're less actually
0:09:28concrete. And you can certainly turn
0:09:32them one way or the other. It depends on how you interpret it personally, but an
0:09:36active ambition is something that you'd be able to point to specific steps
0:09:40and actions that you are taking on a regular basis to make
0:09:44something a reality. And I bring that distinction primarily for
0:09:48the ambition, say, of being an indie, if you want to be an indie developer. I've
0:09:52spoken to many people over the years who say that as an ambition, that, "Oh, one day
0:09:56I'd love to be an independent developer." But I think they say that primarily
0:10:00as, it's because there's a comfort in it, that it's like this thing
0:10:04kind of vaguely off in the distance, that they don't actually want
0:10:08the actual work or the process of getting there. They just love imagining
0:10:12themselves in that outcome, and kind of skip over the
0:10:16awkward, nasty parts of the process of getting there and what it actually would entail, and just
0:10:20focus on the nice, warm, fuzzy parts that are great. And if that's where you
0:10:24are, and that's useful for you, and it's comforting, and that's a great hope, awesome.
0:10:28But I think it's important to recognize it for what it is, versus if it's
0:10:32something that is more specific. I want to be an independent developer, and for that, that means to you, okay, what steps
0:10:36am I going to take to get there? That is an active, useful ambition
0:10:40that is providing direction to your work, to your efforts, and to what you're working
0:10:44on. And so, being aware of kind of what kind of ambition your ambition is,
0:10:48I think is a useful thing, just to be honest with yourself.
0:10:52Yeah, and also, to be able to break it down into steps, to be like, alright, well,
0:10:56my ambition is I want to be an indie developer. Right now, I have zero
0:11:00apps in the store, zero apps in progress, and I'm working for somebody else. Okay, so
0:11:04how do you get from here to there? If you just keep telling yourself, this year
0:11:08I'm going to become an indie, and that's the only specificity you ever
0:11:12really get, that's going to be hard to achieve from where you are.
0:11:16What you need to do is break it down and be like, alright, well, today, like, how am I
0:11:20going to today or this week get closer
0:11:24to being an indie? And you got to start small, like if you're
0:11:28starting from nothing, you got to be like, alright, well, do I have an app yet that I want
0:11:32to sell or make money from independently? If not, like, do
0:11:36I have any ideas? Let's explore the market. Let's, and, you know, so,
0:11:40step one might be start writing an app.
0:11:44And that's a big step, but, like, that's how you start. You don't
0:11:48become an indie by trying to will it into being for three years.
0:11:52You become an indie by doing the work, and doing the work starts with
0:11:56starting an app, and, you know, you got to be able to break it down into stuff
0:12:00like that. And then the other thing I would say is, like, for the ambition area,
0:12:04make sure that what you
0:12:08make sure that what you're going for is something you actually want.
0:12:12Like, what is being an indie developer? Yeah, it's, you know,
0:12:16making money on your own and not having a boss, but it's also
0:12:20taking on a lot of risk, working from home, probably,
0:12:24maybe making less money at first, having to do your own health insurance, and stuff
0:12:28like that, and you're going to be making different amounts of money.
0:12:32And that's what you're going to be doing. And then, like,
0:12:36you're going to be making different amounts of money at different times, and it's going to be
0:12:40kind of uncontrollable and uneven, and, like, there's a lot of uncertainty
0:12:44and stress and risk involved. You have to do your own, like, tax
0:12:48stuff. Like, there's a lot of other stuff that goes along with that, and so, like,
0:12:52if you are setting an ambition, it's useful to think through, like, what's the day-to-day reality
0:12:56of that? What are the downsides of that? What are the things, like, you know, talk to people who
0:13:00have that or who do that or listen to their podcast and listen to, like, what are the
0:13:04problems they face every day and decide, like, is that something I actually want
0:13:08to be working towards? Or are there things about that that I'm probably
0:13:12going to hate, and should I actually be rethinking what I'm going for?
0:13:16Yeah, it's like, make sure you actually want it and you don't just like the idealized version of whatever it is
0:13:20that you're imagining. Like, it's so easy to, it's like,
0:13:24to see the, to want the outcome without the process, I think,
0:13:28is the way that I've encountered myself, having that kind of thinking many times, that, like,
0:13:32you want the outcome but not the process. And it's like, you have to make sure that, A, you want the process, and then
0:13:36B, that you actually would like the outcome that that process would lead to. That it isn't just something
0:13:40you think would be nice because it worked for someone else. Just because
0:13:44it worked for someone else doesn't mean it worked for you. Like, it's not necessarily, like, being an indie, I would
0:13:48not say is, like, the best, it's the best way to make a living.
0:13:52I would say it works well for me, and clearly it seems to work well for you, but
0:13:56it doesn't seem necessarily, like, don't try and take someone else's dream just because it works for them.
0:14:00Like, actually be thoughtful about what do you enjoy about where you are,
0:14:04what do you think you would enjoy about something that was different.
0:14:08And keep in mind, too, like, you are seeing someone else's front
0:14:12of stage or on stage, and you're not seeing all the backstage, like, to steal another thing from
0:14:16Merlin, like, it, you are seeing only what people present to the world.
0:14:20There might be hidden difficulties or challenges, and there's a whole bunch of other people who
0:14:24try something and don't achieve that level of success, and you never hear from them, right?
0:14:28So, like, all that to consider, yeah, like, there's one of these areas, like, I decided recently
0:14:32that I'm done trying to be a video maker. Like, I thought for the
0:14:36last, like, couple years, I want to get into YouTube and build up an audience there, that's where all the people
0:14:40are, and that's where I should be, and I recently decided, like, I actually
0:14:44hate doing that. Like, I tried it a couple times, and I hated
0:14:48every part of it, and I just, it's not for me at all.
0:14:52I don't want to put in the work to get there, and even if I had a big audience
0:14:56there, I wouldn't want to put in the work to keep that going. Like, even if
0:15:00I had achieved it, the, just the work of keeping it going is
0:15:04not something I'm interested in doing anymore, and so I decided, like,
0:15:08that's an ambition that I can just cross off that, you know what, I started going on the road,
0:15:12hated it, and it's not for me. -Exactly. -We are sponsored this week
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0:16:56So you have your ambition, hopefully you've kind of worked it out
0:17:00that it's actually something you want. I think you were alluding to this earlier Marco, but like
0:17:04the next step is obviously to turn that into something actionable. And this is
0:17:08I think where sort of on the axis of specificity you take something that is
0:17:12less specific and you turn it into something more specific. And this
0:17:16can either be a short term goal or a long term goal. Mostly in my experience
0:17:20long term goals are mostly just kind of ambitions in fancy dress.
0:17:24The difficulty of having a long term thing that you're
0:17:28trying to make specific action towards is that you don't have the information
0:17:32you will have in the future. You can't predict how the market's going to
0:17:36change, how you're going to change, how your lifestyle or the world is going to change.
0:17:40Having this long term thing that you're trying to be specific about gets very
0:17:44difficult very quickly. And so in general I would say don't worry
0:17:48too much about long term goals. Have short term goals
0:17:52and themes, that can be a useful way to head towards an ambition. But don't
0:17:56worry too much about a long term goal. Worry about something that you can
0:18:00directly affect and change. Because a short term goal I think
0:18:04is something that can be useful and be something that is concrete
0:18:08and mostly just is helping you have something that's tangible
0:18:12that you can be working towards. And the best kinds of goals are things
0:18:16that you have control over. That aren't things that
0:18:20will rely on other people and their result.
0:18:24And what comes to mind with that is you can, having a goal be
0:18:28you want an app that makes $100,000 a year.
0:18:32That is kind of a terrible goal because it is entirely reliant on
0:18:36things that you don't control because you need an audience to like
0:18:40your app, to respond well to it, etc. That is a desired
0:18:44outcome that might come from a goal, but
0:18:48having that be your goal is probably not the best way to go. A good goal
0:18:52would be to ship a new app, ship two apps,
0:18:56explore an idea that you have, make something. These are things that you can actually
0:19:00specifically work towards and you are in control
0:19:04of whether it's going to happen or not, whether you'll meet that goal. And that is
0:19:08a useful thing to differentiate between. Because if you don't control it, it's kind of a lame
0:19:12goal. You can have those outcomes, and those outcomes are great as motivation
0:19:16or as things that you are working towards and can be
0:19:20motivational tools. Like, "Oh, I want to make an app,
0:19:24and my hope is that it will have this desired outcome." Excellent.
0:19:28But as an actual specific goal, focus on
0:19:32something that you can control. That it doesn't depend on anyone else, and
0:19:36while that can be sometimes honestly a little bit scary, because when you're
0:19:40the only one who can blame for whether you meet your goal or not,
0:19:44in my experience, that is the best way to have short-term goals. These are something very specific
0:19:48that you're working towards, that you're in control of, and if you're in control of it, then
0:19:52you are empowered to actually make it happen. And that is the best place to
0:19:56start. And if it's something that you actually care about, that you're actually motivated towards, then you'll actually
0:20:00in my experience, you can make progress to it. Because if you have a good ambition
0:20:04and it's a motivating thing for you, and you can pick a next
0:20:08step towards that ambition, you can make that happen.
0:20:12There's very few things that, in my experience, that are just completely
0:20:16impossible in that way. If you're being reasonable with yourself and your own ability
0:20:20and resources and where you are, you can do it.
0:20:24And pick something that's reasonable for you, pick a step that's appropriate for you.
0:20:28In some ways that might just be, "Learn something."
0:20:32It might be, "Develop a prototype." You can make the
0:20:36goal smaller. It doesn't necessarily have to be big and grand. In many ways,
0:20:40the best goals are something that is attainable within
0:20:44a couple of weeks, I would say. It's something that you could realistically
0:20:48accomplish in that period, because beyond that, it starts to feel
0:20:52less specific and starts to feel more long-term, where it starts
0:20:56to become more of an ambition, because it's losing its specificity
0:21:00and its immediacy. Right, and if you have goals that
0:21:04take longer than that, break them down into subtasks, basically, that you can accomplish on
0:21:08shorter time horizons, because that way it keeps you from procrastinating
0:21:12forever and never really doing it. Yeah, and you're just never...
0:21:16I think you're also losing the ability to navigate effectively.
0:21:20The longer, the more fine-grained
0:21:24each step of your journey is, the better you're able
0:21:28to be making course adjustments as you go. If you only find
0:21:32out that your project was successful or not six months from now,
0:21:36if it's not, you're way off course at this point. You're
0:21:40miles from where you need to be. But if you can make that realization
0:21:44a month from now, and you can tweak and change and
0:21:48adapt as you go, you can keep yourself way better, much more on course,
0:21:52and much more heading in the direction that you actually have said that you want, than
0:21:56having this big lofty thing that you're kind of scrolling away on for a long time.
0:22:00And it's just also demotivating. I also have a short attention span for
0:22:04projects, but I know that after a couple of weeks, I'm
0:22:08kind of getting bored. And if it's not showing fruit, I'm never going to really be able to
0:22:12keep it up. So I want to have something that's small and tangible that I can have to
0:22:16show for it. And it may not be the whole app or the whole project
0:22:20or whatever it is. One of my favorite things is to take
0:22:24some cool essential part of a project and develop it
0:22:28from top to bottom and see if that works. And if it does, that is often
0:22:32a great indication that it's worth expanding out from that.
0:22:36But that's a great short-term, tangible goal. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to
0:22:40knock something out and see what that's like and have that be my goal, rather than
0:22:44worrying about some of the big, broader problems or things that I
0:22:48might need to deal with down the road, because I'm just
0:22:52going to get so lost in the weeds that I'm never going to know where I am.
0:22:56So the last kind of area to be is themes.
0:23:00And this is something that you mentioned earlier. I think this is a really
0:23:04useful construct that Mike and Gray talk a lot about on
0:23:08Cortex. And I'll have a link to Cortex-95 in the show notes,
0:23:12which is the most recent example where they talk through
0:23:16themes. And specifically what they talk about usually are yearly or seasonal
0:23:20themes, where it's talking about these
0:23:24broad, general things that you're aiming for in this year.
0:23:28And it gives a flavor to the actions you're taking or a filter to take.
0:23:32And what I've found specifically with themes, and these are short-term, less specific
0:23:36planning tools, is they have become
0:23:40extremely helpful, I find, when you are more established, or your
0:23:44business is more established, or your routines are more established, that you aren't
0:23:48just trying to build a whole... If you imagine a kind of a nautical
0:23:52analogy, maybe if you're heading out and you're going to build a whole new ship
0:23:56and head out on a new journey, themes are useful in some ways.
0:24:00But in my experience, really what you need is lots of really tangible
0:24:04short-term goals that are measurable and you can make good adjustments for.
0:24:08Like you are starting out on something new. Whereas themes, I've found to be
0:24:12incredibly useful since they started talking about this on Cortex in my own life,
0:24:16or in my own business, because it kind of feels more like trimming the sails
0:24:20or a rudder on a ship, if you're going to extend the metaphor, where
0:24:24it's ways of making these little adjustments throughout the year that
0:24:28help you along your journey. Because it gives you
0:24:32this kind of... You often find yourself in a place where you're
0:24:36kind of making choices between two roughly equivalents.
0:24:40You have these kind of "Should I do this thing or should I do this thing?" and they're probably both
0:24:44similar. If you have a theme, it's often kind of like a useful
0:24:48thing to help filter your decisions
0:24:52through. I think the canonical theme is probably
0:24:56having a year of less. A year where you take on less or you
0:25:00try and focus down your ambitions to something that
0:25:04is attainable. And the nature of
0:25:08a year of less is something that you have an abundance from which
0:25:12you are trying to reduce towards the less. So in that sense, this is much more useful
0:25:16when you have lots of projects, when you have lots of things, lots of irons in the fire
0:25:20and you're trying to narrow it down to be more selective and
0:25:24effective with what you have. That is a useful thing when you
0:25:28have the idea, "Huh, what if I made an app that did this?"
0:25:32or "What if I went down this road?" It's something that's like, "Nope, this is the year of
0:25:36less. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do something else. I'm going to do
0:25:40the choice that narrows my focus rather than broadens it." You could also have a year of more
0:25:44if you find yourself stuck in a rut and you feel like you've been doing the same
0:25:48thing over and over again and you want to explore new things. Awesome! That's a
0:25:52great theme. Go down that road, but make sure that you
0:25:56can decide which one works for you. The great thing about themes is that they're not pass/fail.
0:26:00It's not a goal in the specific measurable way that a short-term goal
0:26:04is where it's so specific that you can say if you achieved it or not.
0:26:08A theme is much more of this thing that you have the feeling for, and it is helpful in that way
0:26:12because it is so general that it's just a little encourager
0:26:16during whatever season you have that theme for where you're
0:26:20just like, it just keeps nudging you. Maybe rather than a rudder,
0:26:24it's just a little nudge. It's just sitting there nudging you throughout the year to just
0:26:28keep you on course when you start to
0:26:32veer slightly one way or the other. Yeah, the theme is the
0:26:36decision-making guide. As you mentioned, if you're
0:26:40trying to decide whether to take on a new project or start a new thing, or if you
0:26:44have a theme that you're trying to achieve for that time period, it
0:26:48can help you decide just what general direction
0:26:52to go or whether you should take on something
0:26:56new or explore something in a different direction or whether you want to contract on it. It's funny,
0:27:00I think most of the annual themes on Cortex so far
0:27:04have been summarized by either less or more.
0:27:08This year I need less, this year I want to explore more.
0:27:12For me personally, I was thinking my yearly theme for this year
0:27:16I think is focus, which is
0:27:20in many ways less. That basically I
0:27:24have way too many open projects, like
0:27:28half done or unachieved things
0:27:32that I need to either close this project, ship this feature,
0:27:36just get rid of a lot of stuff in my house.
0:27:40There's all sorts of things where this year I feel
0:27:44focus/less/concentration, whatever you want to call it
0:27:48is I need to take what I have now, which is
0:27:52too much stuff and a bunch of open projects, and
0:27:56close them, ship them, focus my efforts down, get rid
0:28:00of stuff, just concentrate because it's all too much and I don't like
0:28:04having open projects. So things have spun out of control for a while.
0:28:08So this is not going to be a year where I explore becoming a YouTube star or
0:28:12stuff like that. This is not a year where I'm going to open up a bunch of new stuff, it's a year where I'm going to shrink
0:28:16stuff down. Do you have a theme for the year?
0:28:20The relevant one I have for this discussion, I think, is my hope
0:28:24for this year is the year of intention, which is
0:28:28the less/more category is the less side. I feel like there's many things that I do
0:28:32both professionally and personally that I'm doing out of habit rather than necessarily
0:28:36out of intention and choice. And I think my theme for this year is to try
0:28:40and make sure that the things that I'm doing on a regular basis
0:28:44are things that I want to intentionally do on a regular basis.
0:28:48In the work case, are there
0:28:52apps that I'm continuing to support because I have them?
0:28:56Or are these things that I actually want to work on? And making an intentional choice
0:29:00that is proactive around that rather than just like, "Well, the inertia is
0:29:04the easiest thing." In some ways, it's considered to be the opposite of that
0:29:08theme. It would be like the year of inertia, just keep doing what you did.
0:29:12Which is not a particularly compelling theme. So anyway, hopefully that was a useful discussion.
0:29:16And I think the thing to wrap up about this is that this kind of discussion
0:29:20and this process is useful
0:29:24even if it's just a scaffolding for your thought. That it gives you something to latch
0:29:28onto, something to concretely turn vague notions
0:29:32or desires or things that you might have in your mind into something concrete. If you can turn it into
0:29:36a goal, an ambition, a theme, you're well on the path and you've done probably
0:29:40most of the work to actually be heading in the right direction, which is ultimately
0:29:44the best we can do. Thanks for listening everybody, and we'll talk to you in two weeks.
0:29:48Bye.