How do I deal with the fact that I’ve got this big limitation that I need to work against, but also that I want to achieve really cool things, but I also want to do really cool things and it takes a lot to ask for help, right?

It takes a lot to be like, “I need something.” It’s a bit embarrassing, and so often—more often than I would like—people either say, or I can see that they’re thinking it, “Why are you asking?”

I feel really strongly about like taking ownership of the situation that you’re in to achieve the things that you want to do and to have the life that you want to have.

No Bullsh*t Talks is a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.

There’s too much bullsh*t out there, especially when it comes to business. This podcast aims to highlight what’s true and what’s not in the world of entrepreneurship, bringing you honest and raw conversations about the rollercoaster that is entrepreneurship.

Each week, my guest will be a high-performing entrepreneur sharing the ups and downs of their journey and helping you prepare for the road ahead while providing you with actionable insights and absolute gems of knowledge.

Stay tuned as I introduce this week’s guest.

Caitlin Rozario is the founder of Include, where she provides workshops to help ambitious teams make productivity less toxic and more sustainable.

She’s also the Head of Brand and Culture at the tech scale-up Metricus.

Caitlin aims to make work a lot more sustainable and a lot less toxic through her new Anti-Toxic Productivity Bootcamp.

I present to you this week’s guest, Caitlin Rozario.

Welcome to this week’s episode of No Bullsh*t Talks.

I’ve got the incredible Caitlin Rozario in the house. Have I said your name right?

Yeah, that’s right.

I feel like it’s a very Hollywood name, Caitlin Rozario.

I love that.

And getting married next year, people keep being like, “Change your name,” and I’m like, “Absolutely not.”

Not. When are you getting married? What day?

I’m getting married—less asked, but that question has come up as well about the name. You know, I love my name, I really do.

And my mother’s last name is Denman, which is, like, I don’t know, it’s not a single word. No. I don’t know.

But so I was like, and with people talking about all personal brand and whatever, I quite like the idea of double-barrelling it.

So I might be Chevannes-Denman.

See, that’s cool.

Does that work?

That could work for sure, yeah.

I just feel very deeply connected to my name. I remember being a child and being like, I cannot get my head around the fact that I may be a different person one day.

Yeah, it’s just never… and I’m very much everyone’s choice, but for me I’ve never understood it.

And you’ve just got to do whatever people feel connected with. It doesn’t mean you love them any less, like they say.

But I think these days it’s more normal, which is really nice. I like the fact that there have been different shifts and things.

And I think that sort of thing is now becoming a bit more normalized, that women don’t have to take the man’s name.

We know so many people who’ve done portmanteaus though. People are putting their names together.

Yeah, and it’s like, love that for you.

I’ve seen that as well, like those guys now who’ve got the wins, and I’m like, wow, this is quite interesting.

So I like that. Maybe he should be a Chevannes-Denman too.

I’m not wrong.

Is your dog a Chevannes-Denman?

Well, yeah, she was Bella Chevannes, but I think she should be Bella Chevannes-Denman.

Yeah, perfect. He’s a great dog dad, so yeah, she should be.

Then you should have a little ceremony after you get married and just change her name.

I think that’s an amazing idea. I’m so doing that.

Any excuse to have a party.

I love it. Love it.

We’ve just had this random intro there. We’ll get into the podcast.

Caitlin, can you tell us a little bit about yourself first? Because I feel like introductions should always be done by you know the person themselves because you can do it better. I won’t do justice to what you actually do. So, yeah.

I love that.

So yeah, I’m Caitlin Rozario. Nailed it first time.

I do quite a few things. So I am the Head of Brand and Culture for a tech startup called Metricus, just across the river.

I’m also the founder of Interlude, which is now in its second iteration. So it was a tech startup to begin with, and then we’ve moved into this more in-real-life workshops phase, which is much less stressful and way more fun, which is great.

And then also, really soon, I’m launching a writing kind of project. I don’t want to call it a newsletter because it’s not news, but it’s like essays. It’s called *How Not to Start a Startup*.

And it’s off the back of that pivot where I had a few dark months when we closed down the startup version of Interlude, and we were kind of in the desert a little bit.

So I was like, what would I do if I were to do this again a second time? And I was like, hey, I know loads of founders, I know loads of smart people. What would they do if they were to do it again a second time?

So that’s kind of the premise of it. So I’m working on that at the moment as well, which is really fun.

And then the final thing that’s important about me is I suffer from hay fever, which is why I sound the way I do today.

And if I start crying in the middle of this, it might be because we’re getting emotional, but it also might be because I have hay fever. It could be tears, it could be pollen. So yeah, that’ll be us. We’ll be in balls of tears by the end of this, I’m sure.

But tell me about Interlude because I feel like, for those who don’t know about it and what you do, I’d love to hear about why you started Interlude and what it does.

Yeah, well, to dive in at the deep end right off the bat, my partner and I were in lockdown.

He was teaching himself how to code. He was on 80% time, and he was like, “What am I going to do with that 20%?”

So he started teaching himself how to code, and he was like, “I really want to build a project to do something with it instead of just learning it, you know?”

And we were looking at what was going on, and this was really early doors lockdown. This was like March, April 2020.

And we could see that work was becoming a really, really big problem.

And I remember really like early in the lockdown sitting on the sofa and seeing a news report that was like, “Productivity is soaring.”

And I remember being like, “That’s such a bad thing.”

It’s only soaring because we have nothing else to do, and that is going to crash, which obviously it did.

And so when we were looking at this world, it was like, “I want to build something to help people work better.”

And we were talking about this loads, and what we came to was microbreaks because there’s loads of research that suggests that microbreaks are a what way to feel really good and to do better work.

So why I said to get deep really quickly is because it’s also aligned with my lived experience.

Which was the in 2012, yeah 2012, I was right the beginning of my first term at university, I went on a night out with my friends.

Tiger Tiger.

Oh my God, I’ve been there. RIP. Best club ever.

You wonder, and you are missed.

We had an amazing time. The next day, I didn’t realize it was a hangover. I thought I had the flu. I was 18, so I didn’t get hangovers at the time.

Now, looking back, I know it was a hangover, which was a terrible mistake.

I thought I had the flu, took some medicine, and didn’t know I was allergic to the medicine.

I went blind within like five days. I could only see black.

The way I describe it, it was like looking through cling film. I could see colors and shapes at different like things, but I couldn’t see any fine vision. My fine vision was completely gone.

And it turned out that I’d hemorrhaged in the back of both of my eyes. I burst a load of blood vessels, which was really not good.

Medicine?

Yeah.

The flu?

Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah, that’s terrifying.

Yeah, it was mad.

And when I look back on it, it was only when I was seeing a therapist for burnout a couple of years ago, and my therapist was like, “Wow, that was such an intense trauma to go through at 18.”

And I was like, “No, no, no. Trauma is like other things.”

So she was like, “No, you’ve not processed this yet.”

So we did a lot of that there.

But at the time, I was 18 and I was like, “I’m going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to be okay.”

I went skiing two months later.

At this point, I wasn’t blind anymore. I had the vision I have now.

I had a panic attack skiing, obviously.

It was like, what the hell?

Oh my God.

I was literally… well, you’re 18. You think you’re invincible.

So after the month where I really couldn’t see anything and it started coming back, I was like, “I’ve already paid for it. I’m going to go. It’s going to be fine.”

I’m not a good skier. I’m not a confident skier. I was just like, “Let’s just go then.”

Yeah, it was good.

So all of that is to say where Interlude came from was that marriage of my lived experience and understanding that when I decided to go back to university—I was able to go back the next term—I was like, I have a choice.

I can either drop out and come back in a bit, or I can try and get this degree.

And I decided to try and get the degree.

And I realized with a bit of trial and error that if I worked myself down to the bone, my vision would literally shut down.

I’d be trying to do the work. I was doing English as well, so it really wasn’t very convenient.

Yeah.

I realized that if I had a nap, or I went for a walk, or whatever, I’d come back more refreshed and it didn’t take as long.

So I realized that taking these microbreaks was the best way to do it.

And I graduated, and that was great.

Then I did a master’s because I felt like I didn’t really get to have the full experience of my education.

So I did a master’s, and I used that approach and I did so well.

I really had the best time and did really well in it.

So I was like by the time it came to Will talking about this, to come back to a long story made short as well, I was like, okay, the science is saying this, and I’ve also done this myself.

So I feel really passionately about it.

I feel really strongly about taking ownership of the situation that you’re in to achieve the things that you want to do and to have the life that you want to have.

Because at the same time, I also wanted to go out. I wanted to have a social life.

I was at Cambridge, so it was really intense, and I still wanted to go out with my friends.

So how do I make all these things work?

So that was what the tech version of Interlude was to begin with.

Wow. I have so many questions because I’m just going back to my 18-year-old university days, and if that happened to me, I don’t think I would have been able to cope with that.

I just don’t think I would.

Certainly wouldn’t be skiing.

I would, but I wouldn’t.

I want to talk about that for a second because that takes a mega, mega mindset.

When you go through dark times, you think it’s the worst, especially when you’re 18 or 19. Every breakup is like the end of the world as well, right?

It is such a big deal. You don’t understand the grand scheme of things.

So run me through what was going through your mind.

You were 18, this happened to you. Did you not think, “Oh my God, this is the worst thing in the world. I’m never going to get a boyfriend because no one will date someone like this”?

Like, this is all going through my head.

I panicked when I got braces because I got them late at 17, and I ended up dating a complete loser because I was like, “I’m not going to get another boyfriend if I’ve got braces.”

To be completely honest, I only remember this once my mom said it, so maybe it was a recovered memory. Maybe I’ve built it up, I don’t know.

But only a couple of years ago, while I was doing therapy, I was saying to my therapist that I maybe hadn’t processed this.

And she was like, “Well, do you remember what you said?”

And I said, “No, not really.”

The whole first month is kind of blank.

This happened at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. My family is from Dublin, so I always spent Christmas in Dublin.

I just remember sitting on the sofa a lot because I didn’t really know about podcasts at that point, which would have been great because I would have just filled my time with that.

My thing at Christmas is my grandparents always buy me a big stack of books, and I just sit and read all holiday.

I couldn’t read anything.

So I remember just sitting on the sofa and listening to Christmas films.

I remember not being able to see my Christmas dinner and being like, “What do I do?”

But beyond that, I don’t really remember a huge amount.

So my mom said, “Do you remember what you said?”

I said, “No, not really.”

And she said that I was sat in the kitchen.

My gran and I are super emotional people. Like I said, I might cry during this, and I cry a lot.

My family will see me crying and be like, “Are you okay?”

I don’t remember saying this, but she said I was like, “Well, if I start crying, I’m never going to stop. So I’m just not going to get upset about it.”

So I don’t know if it was just a purely delusional like or if I was just going to block this out mindset and act like it wasn’t there.

It’s mad how quickly you develop coping mechanisms.

And then the anxiety shifts.

One thing that I have really struggled with is that I can’t see people’s faces very well.

If I move about half a meter further away, I couldn’t see your face.

But after few times of meeting, I can tell it’s you a mile off from how you walk and from your clothes.

So I genuinely don’t remember anything about anything. I just was very much one day that I like keep plodding on.

As like an insane defense mechanism for having this happen.

That’s what I’m saying. I don’t think I would have been able to do that at that age.

You think you’re so brave at that age.

Yeah.

At least you’re not. You’re just this fragile little teenager.

And that was your body and mind telling you, “This is how you’re going to handle this.”

It just shows you how insanely powerful the brain is because it was able to do that.

But tell me the good thing about it. You got your sight back. What happened?

You went from being blind, and now you can see. You’ve got an impairment, but how did you get that sight back?

It just… this is bonkers.

So what I have is called acute macular neuroretinopathy.

When I was diagnosed, there were 60 other people in the world who had this. Most of those only had it in one eye, and I’ve got it in both, which is why they were like, “You’re really rare.”

I was like, “Great.”

Also, normally it’s at the front of the eye. I have it at the back. So it’s just layers upon layers.

But of those 60 people, half of them stayed the same from when it initially happened, 25% got better, and 25% got worse.

And of the 25% who got better, no one had then regressed.

So I’m in the 25% that got better.

It went down, and then it went back up to exactly where it is now.

It kind of stopped and plateaued, and it’s been exactly the same for 12 years now.

So fingers crossed.

And the thing that’s amazing is that what this presents as is macular degeneration, which so many of us get when we get older.

And because we have an aging population, there’s quite even though this is so rare there’s a lot of my friends are doctors a lot of their parents are doctors and there’s a lot of hope that the kind of like the laser surgery won’t work for me because it’s the wrong part of the eye, but there’s a lot of hope that this will actually be something there is surgery for in the near future because so many of us are going to be dealing with something so similar.

So yeah, it just got incredibly better and better.

Until so now I have a blurry patch that’s about this big in the middle.

And then depending on the day, the rest of it can be a bit stress-related. If I’m ill, all those sorts of things.

Then I get migraines and aura and stuff like that.

But it’s very manageable compared to what it was.

So I’m very lucky.

I have got some impressive things on that disability fund.

Yeah. Are you happy to call it a disability, for starters? I feel like this is another… would you consider this to be a disability?

Yes. So technically it is a disability.

Well, I can only speak to my sphere, but it’s a disability if it’s not corrected with aids.

So glasses help me. I had rubbish eyesight anyway. It’s not terrible, but that paired with the impairment is quite annoying.

I’m just being vain and not wearing them right now, but with the glasses on I still have that doesn’t change the blur spot. That’s still there.

So I only in the last couple of years have been able to call it a disability. I’ve only been able to feel comfortable with that because mine was more that I didn’t feel disabled enough.

Yeah.

But it’s like it has had such an impact on my life.

And actually, you asked about that mindset thing, and I remember being out of the blind stage but being like, thank God I didn’t want to be a surgeon or even a newsreader or something that relied on sharp focus, which I just don’t have anymore.

I think that really helped as well, the gratitude that, okay, yeah, I have to try to read bloody Shakespeare plays, but that’s fine. I get a lot of support from university. It’s fine.

But I think that really helped.

So whilst I have become comfortable with saying I have a disability and this is a disability, I’m not yet comfortable in the person-first language. I’m not there yet.

I really respect people’s decision whether they choose disability-first or person-first, but I’m not yet comfortable with it.

And I think I am still a little bit limited by that “am I disabled enough?” thing.

That’s so interesting because it just speaks to so many conversations I see online, right?

The conversations around disability, or a lot of this stuff now that’s talked about, and what do you need to choose to be considered disabled?

Do you have to be in a wheelchair? Because when people say disabled, they think wheelchair or something like that.

And there are so many disabilities out there. There are lots of invisible disabilities as well.

And you know we’ve talked about how people say, “Well, you don’t look disabled,” and there’s all that sort of thing.

And there’s also just ableism, whether intentional or not. There’s a lot of that sort of stuff, and it is really difficult to navigate this world.

How do you feel as someone with a disability, because that’s how you’re comfortable talking about it, someone with a disability for most of your life now? Almost half my life now, right?

So how have you dealt with that in terms of work, in terms of how people accommodate it? What have people’s reactions been?

Because it’s only in the last few years there’s been a lot of talk around accessibility and inclusivity, and it’s great that people are finally sort of waking up to it, but people still don’t do it well. They still don’t know what to do.

But let’s take even prior to all that. What was that like for you?

What have you seen us do well? What have you seen us do awful?

And how do you think it is now?

I mean, there’s obviously a difference in experience for every person with a disability, every disabled person. And there’s obviously a difference in experience between people with visible and invisible disabilities, both on every side of the spectrum, right?

Like my friend Emma Pickles, who you may know. She’s amazing, and she’s a para-athlete. She was putting on Instagram a while ago her difficulty with getting a Blue Badge.

She had her leg amputated, and their reasoning was, “Oh, but with your leg on, you can get around.”

Is that true? Like, seriously?

But levels are wild. It’s wild.

And then on the invisible disability side, this is obviously really minor, but sometimes it has an impact.

Like you’re saying, when people just question you, and you’re like, it takes a lot to ask for help, right? It takes a lot to be like, “I need something.” It’s a bit embarrassing.

And so often, more often than I would like, people either say it or I can see that they’re thinking it, like, “Why are you asking?”

“But you look fine.”

“Yeah, you look fine. You’re all right.”

And so that’s super annoying.

With work, I didn’t actually become comfortable talking about this until… I don’t even know. It was a long time.

I had friends who were so supportive. People would be like, “She seems so friendly. She’s always scowling.”

And my friends would be like, “She has this thing. She doesn’t want to talk about it.”

It’s just so sweet of them.

And then I think it wasn’t really until my second proper job out of uni that I spoke to my manager.

I was doing a lot of stuff with spreadsheets, and lines fuck me up. Like stripes.

I’m like they make everything… they make the whole room… My mom has a stripy dress, which she’s very fond of, and I’m like, “I can’t look at you.”

And so I was saying spreadsheets are probably really difficult. It just means I’m going to need a bit more time.

And I also will need you to double-check. I will double-check, triple-check, but I also need you not to just check, I need you to double-check.

Which was fine, but people forget.

And then I would get in trouble for something not being right, and I was like, “I have made it really clear that I do need extra support with this.”

And then people feel uncomfortable, and sometimes people, when they’re uncomfortable, will be awkward.

So it’s not major, but I’ve had that happen a lot with managers, and it’s not fun, you know, to be like, “Oh yeah, the reason is because of this.”

So it depends.

How does that make you feel though? Because I feel like you say it’s not major, but if that’s happening frequently and you’re always made to feel like you’re to blame, and this disability is making you not a good employee, or it’s like you’re putting other people out, isn’t that a big play on your emotions and how you feel?

Yeah. I was younger as well, and I’m a real people pleaser.

So I’m much better now, but I used to be so terrible for it.

So I’d obviously feel really awful.

But I think also I’ve always wanted to challenge myself, and in my first two proper jobs out of uni I was doing things out of my comfort zone.

And it kind of helped me to realize, actually, I need a job that plays to my strengths, which I think a lot of people feel.

But I particularly was like, I can’t actually be dealing with all these spreadsheets, all these numbers. It just isn’t working for me.

I need to move to a role that is more in my wheelhouse.

And so that’s why I did content marketing.

So I was like, words I can do. You can spell-check it. It’s easy for people to look at it. That’s fine.

Numbers are obviously much harder to spot errors.

So I was like I wanted to move out of that, and that was a really… that was the first step into being like, okay, right, now things are starting to align.

Yeah, and that makes so much sense.

So what would you say for any employers out there, any companies out there who do have someone with a disability?

What advice would you give them to, A, make them feel comfortable, help accommodate them, and just get them to be the best version of themselves and feel safe and comfortable too? What would you say?

I think it starts before someone even joins. I think it’s in the job description.

You know, “We support all of our employees, whatever they’re working with, whatever they’re dealing with. Please do feel free to let us know what accommodations you need.”

And then I feel really personally, I don’t think everyone has to do this. I think if you’ve got something, if you’re working with something and you don’t want to talk about it, that’s 100% your decision.

For me, I feel like because I do feel comfortable talking about it now, I have a duty to use that to a wider benefit.

So in interviews I will always say, “I have a visual impairment. Sometimes I need more time with certain things. Sometimes I have days where I just wake up and it’s like that cling film thing.”

And I’m just like, today is a podcast day. Today’s a listening-to-things day. It’s not a looking or typing day. It just isn’t. It’s just not there for me.

But I say that to interviewers.

Is there anything that you need? You could either tell me now, or you can drop it in an email if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it.

I think that helps people to be like, “Oh, this is a company where I actually can say those things.”

Because when I started, I was really I debated heavily whether I was going to be discriminated against or not by talking about it.

And to this day, you don’t know, right? You don’t know. It’s down to the company. It’s down to the manager. You don’t know.

So I just make it clear if I’m the hiring manager that it’s safe with me.

And if you want to talk about it openly, that’s fine. But if you only want it to be between you and me, that’s fine too.

So I think it starts before someone’s even there.

I think that’s a really difficult discussion as well because I know that I’ve had this discussion a lot with people of color, for example.

And there’s systemic racism that goes through certain industries, or just in general. People have that racial bias.

The same with disabilities. If you suddenly declare that you’ve got a disability in an interview, are they immediately like, “Yeah, we’re not hiring that person”?

And how do you know that you didn’t get that job because someone was better for the role, or just because they don’t want to hire someone with a disability?

And it’s really hard never knowing that.

And then if you go away thinking that is what it is all the time, you have a fear of liability.

And I’ve seen how people respond to that. Then some people end up blaming their disability for a lot of things, and it gets in the way of making their progress.

I don’t know if you’ve seen much of that and experienced it. It’s a really vicious cycle.

And the answer is that you will never know, really.

Like, no hiring manager—excuse me, this hay fever is really getting me—no hiring manager is going to say, because it’s illegal, no hiring manager is going to say, “Oh yeah, we’ve passed on you because it’s just going to be too hard for us to work with what you’ve got.”

They can’t do that.

So you’re never going to know.

Yeah.

Which means you are always going to question it.

Yeah.

And I guess the thing that I’ve done when I haven’t gotten roles is, if it was down to that, I didn’t want to work there anyway. So whatever.

Yeah, and that takes a lot of confidence, and it takes a lot of personal work on that, which I think is incredible.

But it’s amazing that you’ve come this far.

And now you’re running your own thing, which I want to talk about as well, because I feel like Interlude is something that—and I like the name.

How, like an interlude from your day, it’s little microbreaks.

So I want to… understand like I guess why productivity is so important to you and what made you kind of want to build this up.

Yeah, this is a really interesting question because obviously productivity can sometimes get a bit of a bad rap.

Yeah.

But people can think it’s toxic and all those sorts of things.

But my view is that if you are working, you are engaged with productivity, right?

Like if you’ve got a job and you are working, it’s… there is this weird amorphous thing, right? Like what is it really?

And for me—excuse me—for me it’s about, it’s to me it’s a tool, right?

Productivity is a means to an end. It’s not the end goal, it’s a means to an end.

And for me, I want to live a life. I’ve always said that I want to live an extraordinary life.

Like whatever that looks like for you, it doesn’t really matter.

But for me, I never wanted to have like a run-of-the-mill life. I’ve always wanted to see really interesting things.

And I’ve also had this big thing that I’m working with.

And so for me I started getting interested in productivity and all these different things that you can do because I’m like, right, how do I deal with the fact that I’ve got this big limitation that I need to work against, but also that I want to achieve really cool things, but I also want to do really cool things?

And like that, you need time, and you need energy. So how do I like utilize that?

And that’s kind of what productivity is—like that thing that helps us to do the things we want to do.

And like for me, it’s about doing it and achieving the things you want without the personal price tag.

Because I’ve been there as well. I’ve had burnout just because I thought about this a lot doesn’t mean that I haven’t succumbed to it.

But it’s also about sometimes the things I want to do are nothing.

You know, sometimes the things I want to do is rest.

A lazy day on Saturday. I was so hungover and I stayed in bed and snoozed,
red, snoozed, red, snoozed all day.

I was like, this is wonderful. I’ve worked the week out so that I knew that I have all day to do that.

Because when you run a business and have another job, there’s loads to do.

But I was like, no, I want to do that with absolutely nothing and that is like that was because of productivity stuff that I planned my time well enough that I knew want to do that with absolutely zero guilt, no shame.

And it was luxurious. It was so nice.

I was lying there like, I feel terrible. This is so good.

So that’s what it’s about for me.

It’s not about ticking things off a list.

It’s about having that life that you want to live and taking control of it so that you could have it.

Yeah, and I love that so much because that’s my dream as well.

Like people go through what does success look like, and I don’t have a monetary number on there. I have a freedom—like a level of freedom.

I think that freedom should be to do whatever you want when you want, not obliged to do anything in particular.

And I think that is ironically why most of us start our own business.

But when you start a business, you realize freedom is not what you usually have. You’re usually absolutely having to work every single hour because time is money and if you don’t you feel guilty. And like, that’s what leads to burnout, right?

And this is what people don’t realize because they glamorize entrepreneurship. And you aren’t just free—you aren’t just lying on a beach doing whatever you want.

You actually—you just said, “Oh, I was just lying in bed hungover on a Saturday reading and sleeping.” And I was thinking, that’s what most people would do on a Saturday.

Weekends are for rest.

You’re going to have to block that in and actually make sure that that’s a thing.

But that is really what entrepreneurship is like because people are like, “Oh my God, you’re working weekends, that’s bad.”

And I was like, why is it bad? Again, it’s your lifestyle.

Like I actually love working on a Sunday. It’s like probably my most favorite thing. On Monday you don’t feel as stressed, like you’ve got so much more done. It’s so quiet, people aren’t emailing you.

I love a Sunday for deep work.

Love it. I love it.

And like, what else are you doing? I mean, like if the weather’s nice I might be out there.

Do you know what I like? I’ll take a book out into the park and I’ll write some notes and I’ll work and do that.

Like you don’t have to be at your desk at all.

Yes.

And so I love that attitude towards productivity, and it’s so much more refreshing than the crap that’s on social media and online at the moment.

And I’d love to hear your thoughts on that because I just feel like everyone’s a productivity guru and everyone’s got these things and…

They’re sharing all these cheat sheets every day about like, you know, the two-minute rule or like, you know, all these same stuff over and over again.

And I’m thinking, how many of you actually use this stuff as well? How much of it actually works? Is it applicable to every single person?

No. Not for everyone.

And something that, for example, like the Pomodoro Technique—I like it, I love what it’s about, I’ve used it—but it doesn’t work for everything.

Because like you said, deep work—it’s not going to work for deep work if you’re taking a break every 25 minutes necessarily.

It’s not going to work necessarily for people with ADHD.

And like some people with energy might actually love it because it makes them concentrate.

So everyone’s very different.

So I’d love to hear from you, your thoughts on classic media perceptions of productivity and yeah, your thoughts on what it should look like.

You have hit on the exact reason why Interlude is what it…is now so now we deliver corporate workshops and the whole point of it we call it antitoxic productivity and the whole point of that the reason why it’s called that is because what’s toxic to you might be exactly sweet for me.

And so no lot of those things work for everyone and it’s not the point so we do three kind of core sessions and the middle one is all the the Practical stuff and the point of it what literally what I say in it is like all of these will not work for you like we’ve actually will my partner designs my deck and he’s he’s very proud of it this slide that’s like a you know like a this claimer at the beginning of a film it’s like that it’s like these won’t work for everyone like yeah

Before we go in don’t get all head up like I tried turn rocking it bit the work for me cool.

What we want people to do is the whole point of what we’re doing now is teaching people about a toolbox of different things that you could have and it’s about really interrogating your work to see what do I need right now for this kind of work but having that knowledge and awareness of other things that you might need to use so that you can deploy them when you need it.

So you mentioned Pomodoro it doesn’t no like you can’t do deep work if you got an alarm going off every 25 minutes but that is so like exactly what you’ve just said is kind of what we’re talking about which is you’ve got Pomodoro in your pocket and you like okay so for me Pomodoro works really well what I have to get through um big chokes of reading because I get tired reading and stuff so like it works really well to set a TI and be like I’m going to read this like a lot of scientific studies sorry so I just really so I’m like I’ll read it for 25 minutes to take a break but what’s great about it is in different people respond different ways and I’m super competitive so I then start to beat like beat myself so then he like I’m like in competition against the clock of that l..

So then comes another thing and that’s the whole point is how can you take these um these kind of basic ideas or these systems these processes these strategies and make them your own and that my problem with a lot of the productivity media I cannot stand when people are like doing this it’ll change your life it’s like do this and it might change your life there’ll be some people it will change your life someone else you’re like this isn’t resonating with me but maybe in 10 years they’ll be like oh remember that thing I going to try it now.

So I really I shugged with this because I felt like I was being too newed for social media being like I feel like I was context collapsing all the time being like Oh you could do this you could do that she after a while I’ve decided I would have stick to my guns on this because I really don’t like people stating their opinion as fact especially when the fact is contrary to the opinion.

If you a 100 productivity tools tips systems whatever they will not work not like there is not one person one of hundred those work for but on the flip side I really want to challenge people to be like okay you tried time blocky once and it didn’t work for you.

Actually science says that it is really good in humans it really works for you so maybe try using it a different way and see if that works for you because if you’re complaining that things are that you’re not productive enough what if that means to you or you’re getting through things you want more free time you want more time AFF fluids you want more creativity maybe try it in a different way so from all angles I’m trying to challenge people to think about these things a little bit differently because it is really frustrating where you’re told this works for you but it’s also really frustrating when people say to me that just doesn’t work for me like trying for for a day doesn’t really count you know.

I feel like with social media at the moment there is definitely that though there is there is like this is Gospel and like you know this is the only way and what’s ironic I think the same people are using contradictory information and what we they’ll be saying one thing and another week they’ll be saying another but then all the little followers will just be like yeah yeah sounds great and I think if it sounds easy and nice then people will just kind of lap it up and I think that’s dangerous and I think is it’s setting a false sense of you know expectations for entrepreneurs or people who want to be more productive I don’t know if you’ve seen that when your workshops and what people are thinking.

Yeah this is a long this is a long game this is a long game this is about like this is why in our Workshops the first one is reflective there’s no tips and tricks in that at all it’s all being like where are you at what are you trying to achieve at the moment like what do you want more of your life what’s the context of your team that you’re working in because there are doing quick fixes like the the tips and tricks like I said there for like in the moment where you’re like oh I need something right now but like there needs to be an underlying discipline of like this is where I want to get to and this is how I’m going to try and work on that and also I think the big thing is flexibility to be like when my circumstances change I need to review this because it might not work for me and I think the I understand where people are coming from with the whole like like didactic way of doing things because social media is not aligned to our best interest in terms of deep thinking reflection experimentation all of this algorithmic way of thinking is aligned to how could I get this out to the most people.

And that’s why I kind of stopped getting stressed about the fact that I haven’t had any virality really it’s cuz it’s like well what I do is quite nuanced and so it can’t really be viral because it’s not it’s not slappy it’s just not so I can see why people fall into the trap of like saying 10 different things because they’re just trying to do I think there are some people who are sales people I think a lot of us are just trying to do our best and put our point across but we’re also working with this technology that doesn’t it’s it’s not aligned with the best way of delivering that message which is a real shame and then on the flip side when we’re trying to receive information we all want the quick fix so we then feed the algorithm by giving all those things the likes love this that’s great because we all want that we all love quick wins and like I am so guilty of seeing a course £1 1220 and this is going to change your life and change my life yes but like it’s you know there’s a reason why it’s a cliche that like anything worth having doesn’t come easy because it is about just plodding on and like figuring stuff out and like being reflective and thinking about like where I at now versus where I want to be how things changed so and I think the other thing is that we’ve become way less critical and I mean that in was very critical in this set that we’ve become less like new and less willing to critique things we just we want to accept the big shiny thing is given to us because it’s easy what really you can take a little bit of what someone says say okay how could I take a nugget of that and weave into what I’ve been consciously working on and intentionally working on.

Oh it’s hard really hard I feel for all of us.

Yeah me too because I feel like I feel so overwhelmed just going on social media and absorbing all this information and I think that you know like I said the virality thing people are addicted to it so it’s like they’re trying so hard and I think that the things that sound really nice and sound really easy and give us that false hope that we can achieve this perfect life that’s a stuff that goes viral because it’s easy no one wants to hear the real hard cold truths and like I think I’m obviously the whole no bullshit thing is what I do is try to give those real hard cold truths but you know I think then the ones that get engaged with on that are usually because people are disagreeing with it and they don’t like it and they’re like no this is the end of the day I call something out which I think you know you said you you also see it like I was talking about it and people are there going this is a very depressing post and I’m like I’m really sorry that you find it depressing but it’s also this is what the situation yeah like that’s just you can’t just live in your sunshine and rainbows all the time and immed it’s nice to pretend that that’s what it is but it’s not like that I think that’s what’s really hard so you know I I get that all this productivity stuff makes it sound so easy like it’s just like oh you do this and you’d be able to stay so productive and you’d be able to 10x your workload and I feel like that’s why I think your workshops are so needed because everyone’s really different and there’s so much out there which is so intimidating that at least you can help own in on that and yeah well you save.

Well no I’m just it’s it’s so interesting because I think there’s a difference between easy and ease right right like what we what we always want to do is we we we’re really agree with that productivity looks different for everyone right and what people think of it and all those different things so there’s a kind of there’s a classic like way back when productivity some people it still is but you know that factory input in output out d d but knowledge work is very is very different to that and you’ve got these kind of like these um what’s the word of BL you for these kind of like the cannon of ideas or a productivity a good example is that Chris Bailey talks about um it being managing your time energy and detention great I see a lot of that there’s all these different things so what we kind of think it comes down to is when this antitoxic productivity idea it’s like what can you do to make your work more sustainable more intentional and more enjoyable that’s not to say that work is always going to be enjoyable but you are going to do better at it if you build that in if you intentionally build something that you some parts that you enjoy and that’s why I’m talking about ease and easy because we do want to help people find some ease and some things like if there are parts of your work that are difficult but there are actually some tweaks that we can make to bring a level of ease and that but that’s great like there is a level of like some things are easy fixes you just don’t know about them but I think we’re we’re being told that everything is easy just do this and just do that and on the other hand there’s people go the other way and they build all these complex systems and then you’re spending so much time getting the dopamine hits from the system and building this thing when you’re actually doing the work.

Yeah.

So I just want people to find that middle that works for them specifically.

I feel like you are great person to ask about productivity anyway because like you said you’re had of Brandon culture Mar.

I feel like you already got a full-time job which is already tax time.

Part time.

Oh was it part time okay fine.

But you’ve got a parttime job and you’re running a startup now.

Can we talk please about that because I feel like that is intense a lot already.

Um I think there’s a lot of people who probably are in jobs at the moment going oh I’d love to see a startup how do I manage it.

I guess how did you kind of do that and and you know how are you managing your time and what advice would you give for people who want to do that.

It’s been a journey.

So when I started it was fulltime I was working full-time and I was seeing Interlude on the side and then because I am I don’t know a masochist I thought the only way to learn how to run a business is to do an MBA would you end actually done the same one yeah so I was like I’m going to do that as well um which obviously I burned out like really not very well but Quantic were really good they helps me take some time was fine um it was all fine what you um but actually the point there is that like my company have always been really supportive so I was really open with them from the start and I’m also in a really fortunate position that my manager is one of my best friends we met at a previous job and we’ve just kind of she me and like so we’ve had a lot of trust between us and I made it very very clear that when I’m when I’m at metus I’m giving them 100% when I’m with interlude I’m giving that 100% but we’ve also always been really flexible so when something does come up like we have a kind of a short hand that Charlotte if she calls me my manager or C if she calls me I know that she really needs it really needs dealing with like that she wouldn’t call uness it did and so they were always really supportive and I think just because I made it very very clear that I’m kind of set those boundaries that I was always going to give it my all like I think that’s why it’s worked out quite well for me is because I’ve established that level of trust and flexibility both ways so I think those the key things but I’ve had a huge amount of support so there’s not only Charlotte but like the other people in the company my team everyone has been so amazing so helpful so supportive and then we also have some really good benefits like I have healthcare what I had some health issues that was really helpful what I didn’t burn out we have therapy so I was able to get therapy so it’s been kind of a perfect storm without sense um I’ve been able to I don’t know if I’d be able to do other places so I think I would advise people if they want to do something on the side a don’t quit your job don’t quit your day job if you want do something on the side monetize it first I make sure that make sure it’s viable um unless you’ve got loads of money which case live your life um but I would say otherwise work on the side but how I managed my time was those boundaries I think that was really really important um but then also really like a big thing for me is time blocking really making sure that everything’s parceled out so I know what needs to be done when and making sure everything’s prioritized so that I don’t trip over things so that was really really cool that’s that really helps me to do it um and I actually have I would say a fairly convoluted planning system um I show it in my workshops not to be like you should do it this way but because I don’t want people to be able to be like are you just selling this because it can make you some money I want to be like no this is hard one like this is less is a hard one and I show people my planning system which is kind of four stages because I want people to see that like you can build something for yourself that works for you I showed it in a workshop was so was is that a bit toxic and I was yes it might be for you but this is what I built over time to accommodate my multiple roles and I’ve also got two roles within that day job as brand culture so I have two tabs so and then also um I really take my social life I take them really seriously and like my partner my family my friends that’s really my hobbies that’s really important to me so that really kind of that whole system that looks quite toxic to other people is how I make sure that things work for me so I just use it as an example of showing people like don’t let other people tell you what to do because one person’s toxic is another person’s treasure.

I love that I love it so much it’s all personal and I love that you said don’t quit your day job because I just feel like there’s so many people out there who are totally regretting quitting a day job because of all the social media posts that were just like just do it just do it like you know you got to start like and don’t think about it just quit and do it and be all I quit my job four months later I was a mil there like there’s all these stories and I feel like they’re so misleading there so many people out there rage quitting their jobs and then being hitting rock bottom because they can’t pay the bills and it’s just so impractical so I’m so glad you didn’t say that it’s like it’s terrifying out there again all the advice that just misleads people.

Yeah I’m like I don’t know a friend of mine Matthew cook um he is very very smart he what I told him about this he was like oh part time plus and I was like I love that I know that because actually cuz people you know I’ve spoken to coaches I have amazing coach but previous coaches that I spoke to like so what’s it going to take you to quit your job and I was like I don’t want to quit my job I actually don’t want to right now I love my team at metus I love the work I’m doing is super interesting I’m learning so much and that means a huge amount to me other than interlude is my own say I have freedom of creativity I get to do the thing I love the most which is speaking in front of people helping people learn ingesting resources and helping people to take what they need and at the moment that is ideal for me and so the other I say to people is maybe doing two things would actually be really good for you because you know you’re kind of the master of your own destiny when it comes to income with your own job your own business or whatever and then you got the support the salary the benefits of a day job if you can give 100% to each of those at the time they’re allotted then you could build to a win so I for some it is all enough thing and you know I still would say like make sure you’ve got enough money for an emergency fund make sure that you’re you know your dependents whatever that is it’s looked after I’m not saying never put your job but like make sure those ducks are in a row but for someone else maybe maybe you don’t need to quit your job maybe part time plus yeah be ideal for you.

Yeah I love it I think it’s great and I feel like I can’t not ask you for your productivity because like you know this is literally what you do you’ve talked about micro breaks and a lot of things as well and you know you’re cleanly productive you know the fact that you’ve got a job and you’re doing a startup and you’re doing all these different things.

What would be your key productivity tips for people out there and obviously as we said disclaimer like it’s not the one for every single person but what are some of yours that you would recommend?

So the first thing that is for everyone this is 100% for every single person is start with the end mind this isn’t a tip or trick this is a a fundamental thing so it doesn’t have to be word actually really interesting that guys uh someone was said to he was like write your speech that some would say about you your 80th birthday party and like what are you going to do today to kind of make that a reality which I it was really sweet I was like.

Oh that’s fine that is the sweet version of my one which is your big true yeah that’s what are they going to say to your funeral.

And everyone’s dir very glamorous don’t oh yeah whether you’re morbid or not you can pick your pick your one but also it’s like I don’t necessarily believe it like 10 year PLS 5e PLS cuz I think so much can change but I do think it’s quite a fun exercise to be like what would I’m particularly like world my life work what I want it to maybe feel like at that stage but then I would say on a on a specific level it’s the key at the end of this year or you could even be more gradual say at the end of this project I’ve started a project how do I what what does success look like what the success metrics for the team but also for myself what does success look and feel like to me and what do I have to do to get there.

And the reason I say that is because I am not against hard work at all like there is there is joy in like locking down and being like I did that like that was really tough and I did it but what I want to try and help people do is to look after themselves as well and be able to find the joy in that hard work hard work doesn’t have to be miserable it can be and I’m not negating that at all sometimes your head is down you’re like this so but you have one in mind and you’re like I’m going to get then without what we always say the personal price tag without sacrificing yourself at the altar so start with the end mind that’s really really important I think that is the application to your specific circumstances so if you an entrepreneur and it’s just you it’s okay how what does this look like with any working with or any other thing that I work with kids F life does your dog need you got a dog that is very demanding if you’re attention like I believe both of our are things like that.

But then also if you’re in a team whether you’re the boss or you’re in um you’re an employee what does your team need what does your manager need what’s the specific circumstances that is wrapped around your personal productivity as well so you have to take more of that into account the other thing is I don’t don’t care how you do it but you have to PL like you have to PL your time and people don’t like that oh I just I just go with the flow it’s bril effective um I think it was Cal newort said on his podcast recently said um what should I do next is a really ineffective way to work and this isn’t just because oh you won’t do work that’s good for the for the business or whatever like this kind of like the thing that makes people feel icky it’s like you will feel frantic and it won’t feel good when you have forgotten to do something and you’re behind on something whatever it is because you haven’t just taking five minutes to be like this is what I need to do so you could be like me and have a four stage play sister M but for contest ask bring out everything or to click up fortnit I plan out my um my tasks for both of those weeks that’s so that I’m always a week ahead I’m never like caught up on I’m never tripped up by something I then do a weekly um a weekly plan and then I do a daily plan that helps me feel in control doesn’t work for everyone Earth but that helps me feel in control of what I need to do your planning might be keithy need to get done on Monday bam Keith or Tuesday F blah blah blah that could be it great if that’s what works in you and makes you know that that key thing isn’t going to get missed great.

But everyone needs to plan it is some way because otherwise you’re just at the mercy of everything the other thing with that is if you haven’t planned things you can’t communicate that with the people around you and so their emergency is suddenly going to be your urgency when actually you had something else that was urgent because you couldn’t communicate that because you didn’t plan yeah suddenly they’re like Poli I didn’t that you were doing anything you’re like oh I actually did really sh thing but yeah I didn’t I didn’t know I feel yeah so planning is super super important I’ve got here a note that just says popcorn brain is not your friend again this is something that is for everyone we all need to practice Focus so whether it’s watching your favorite TV show but giving that your undivided attention or reading a book or doing a course or whatever we all need to practice focus more because big tack is taking it from us all of this algorithmic Slappy content is making us think that this is the way that things need to be consumed so work and life are not separate they are two sides the same coin and if we are unfocused in life through social media through suby content that cares through to the how we work as well so practicing Focus across both will make both of those things better.

Finally, here is quite deep.

I the only constant is change.

Oh wow yeah I mean yeah that is true it’s so true.

So what you I’ve mentioned this before but I think you’ll notice that all these productivity tips I’ve given a lot actually about like actual yeah about it’s about everything that is wrapped around in it too.

I think all of these are true for everyone and then it’s how you apply them for yourself.

So when I say the only C has Chang in this context what I mean is right now I have no children I um in the context we’ve talked about with the work and stuff and I don’t have a mortgage so there’s that next year in my life might look very different.

And all of the things we’ve just talked about may to change and so but coming more comfortable with that uncertainty and that flexibility I think is really important.

Because I think it’s we work so hard to find the thing that works for us I don’t know it can feel really it can make you feel really off kilter when circumstances change and you’re like what’s working it is not working for me anymore and you’re like we double down to trying to make that thing work instead of being like okay either everything leads to change because my whole life is different or maybe I’m in a moment where I need to care for someone or out I’m injured that is really exhausting and you really need to like be injured actually takes up a huge amount of mental capacity because your brain is working really hard until it heal yourself yeah whatever it is.

Whether it’s like a momentary change or it’s a ongoing change we need to I think be more comfortable with the fact that things will they will change so that’s really important.

Wow I think that’s a you know a really also great not to end on the fact that everything like I feel like there’s there’s that quote as well which is like nothing is is certain in life other than death and taxes like that’s what someone said and I know like sure but you know I feel that’s that’s a really morbid way of putting as well but I think I love yours like the whole the only constant is Chang and so many people are scared of change and that’s the thing like if they just embrace it then you know then I think life will get a little bit easier because you know it’s going to things are going to happen.

Yeah there’s a there’s a great quote in um by Nal rant it’s a lot about acceptance it can feeling bit depressing but actually it’s not it’s about the idea a lot of what he writes about is acceptance of the fact that we’re already here for five night times so why stress about the things don’t need to see about obviously and one of the things he says is about this s of the M like dream lifestyle he like actually the most the the best that most of us can hope for is to accept that we’re a rat and the rat race and be like what pockets of Joy can we find in that because we’re probably not going to escape it and and that intention of being like Desiring this like sitting on a beach and doing nothing probably not going to happen so but what can you do if desire if Cy on a beach and do is something that means a lot to you what can you do to design a life where you do that four times a year.

Yeah.

You know and like just accepting that you’re a rat at a rat race but your rat get to go holiday subti so that’s great yeah that’s wonderful exactly you’re probably never going to have able to throw your laptop at the river as my part to say it’s his dream but you know this is what we’ got this is that we’ve got I think one thing we need to bring hold on to from Covid is like this is what we’ve got to work with Le I always say I I really really really believe this with all my heart we work on average for 90,000 hours of our Liv but I think that we owe it to ourselves to make those large thousand hours the best they can be.

Yeah.

That’s that’s what it all comes down to for me.

I think that’s such a perfect and no like yeah there’s no escape from working you’re better off I feel like it’s work well and to get what you want as it get out of life.

Well thank you so much for coming on today it’s been incredible and I think we’ve got so many great pieces advice upon activity and I and I can’t wait to see what interlude does.

Thank you so much for having me.