00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host Mark Kenyan in this episode number two hundred and eighty and today in the show, Dan and I are talking about the power of habits and other life structuring processes that can help you better prepare for and enjoy your next hunting season. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx and today joined by my right hand man, Dan Johnson. And I was gonna try to fit some kind of joke in there when I when I thought I'm gonna say I usually write up to some very basic notes, and like those are the words just like came out like right hand man, And I thought there's gotta be a finger joke in there somewhere. It's not I'm not a full right hand like that. I was thinking of my hand, like I couldn't remember if your nub is on your right hand to your left hand, which is it. It's on the right hand, it is the right hand, Okay, So so that would have played very well into my wording there. Well, well, next time, buddy, next time. If you're gonna be a stand up comedian, you've got to practice your routine before you actually go on here with it. I know. I think what we did here is this more like a choose your own adventure. So everyone everyone can now insert your own missing one finger joke for Dan right now, think of whatever kind of thing you'd like to throw out there at them, and say that to yourself. Chuckle, and we're gonna pause for a moment if you enjoy that laugh And continuing on the hunting industries punching bag, Dan Johnson exactly. So I'm here with Dan, and Um, what I want to talk about today is a little different than usual. Um, but it's something that I think is really interesting, and this is habits. I want to talk about habits and systems and processes. And what I mean by that is all the stuff that we do throughout our day or throughout a hunting season or throughout a hunt. All these things that we kind of subconsciously do, or these processes that we develop and then just start doing it all the time without really thinking about it. Um. I spend a lot of time reading about or listening to podcasts or watching videos from different folks that kind of, UM, like study excellence. I'm really intrigued by just like studying people that are high performers and like how they do it. So whether that be CEOs or athletes or writers or scientists. UM, it's really interesting to me to try to study these high performers and then pull out, like, what are the things that these people do that can be applied to to my daily life or to what I do as a hunter. UM. And I feel like that's kind of what we try to do with this podcast in general, as we talked to all these really high performing hunters and try to pull out little lessons from them, a little patterns. UM. But I think there's things that we can take from folks outside of the hunting world and pull that into the hunting world sometimes to help us. UM. So kind of on my own, I I do this and I look at folks and I think about how that could be applied to hunting. But we've never really talked about it UM on the podcast, So I thought we maybe today could do that kind of you know, I've been, like I said, reading all sorts of stuff recently about the power of habits. So how creating these habits or changing bad habits can help you, and so I thought we could talk a little bit about what that means, how that might apply to what we do as hunters, um, and then walk through some of the things that you and I do, Dan, talk through some of our habits, talk through some of our processes, talk about different things we do throughout the year that maybe help or hurt us in our hunting goals and whatnot. So that's the high level plan. Um. Before that, though, I thought we should at least take a little time on the front end since you are here Dan to get our our pregame show, and you're you're always game for that, right, I guess. Um. So, first off, we've got to give a quick shout out to the moms. Right yesterday the day before today when we're recording with Mother's Day. Uh, big shout out to all the moms out there. Now, having a child on my own and seeing everything that my wife does, I am even more grateful than I ever have been and have just a new appreciation for all the moms out there. So big big thanks, right, um, Right, and Dan, did you guys have a good Mother's Day? Yeah? Man, we uh you know, we went out for breakfast to like a really good breakfast joint. Uh. Then we ended up going over my buddy Ben Harshein's house later that day and um having this little pseudo Mother's Day celebration and let the kids run around and you know that was it, man, just a low key you know, spent some time outside at a park and uh we went to this uh nature observator. Well it's not necessarily observatory. They call it a raptor center, where they of all these um like owls and different birds of prey that have been injured, whether they've been hit by a car, attacked by a dog, or they've gotten in fights and broke their wings. They bring them to the center, they rehab them and then they try to let them go, or they just keep them there and feed them. You know, there's check this out. Here's a fact for you. The one eagle in captivity, bald eagle in captivity there is thirty four years old. I didn't even know bald eagles could live that long. Yeah, that's impressive. So he did that, and it was just a fun day. That's awesome. Sounds that sounds really good. Did you guys have a nice weather. Uh, you know, just like everywhere else in the Midwest. Man, it's been below It was like the high of high of fifty yesterday, so and the and the clouds were out, so it's not like it was gorgeous like today. It's gorgeous out it's gonna be like a high sixty five, and but yesterday was a little cool. Yeah. I was wondering if you guys had the nice the nice weather, yester, because I see in our forecast it's gonna hit us probably tomorrow. It still allows you here, Um, but gosh, I really I hope that spring arrives. It seems like the way things are going, it was almost like winter, winter, winter, and now it's been like crappy spring and will probably jump right to summer here, we're not gonna have like a nice spring. Raining and raining and raining. It's like crazy. So other than that, man, we just did uh, me and the wife, my dad, we had t ball on Saturday, right, so both kids had t ball games, did that and my dad came down to watch that game. And then after the game was over he stuck around and watched the kids for about an hour and a half two hours and me and the wife. We went out mushroom instam. Yeah, we found we got We've had one meal of them so far, and we got enough for about probably two more meals or a big meal. And uh, I don't know. I love morals. And I've even expanded my mushroom game this year into a another uh species called a pheasant back. And it's not too bad, I must say. I I I experimented with a couple of them, and uh, they turned out horrible. But then I found a way to make them that wasn't so horrible. And they're actually pretty flavorful if you do it right. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Every year I tell my stuff that I want to get out and try to do that, and I never end up getting into the schedule. But but tentatively, I actually I am planning and doing some this week. So do you have one mushroom hunting tip you can share your best side. It's just like looking for sheds, but much smaller, you know what I mean. It's it's not like because we found them in your typical uh typical locations, like really old decayed trees down you know, as the water runs down, that nutrient runs, nutrients runs down off that really old decayed tree, good moisture, really good fertil fertilization, you know, or fertilizer in the ground. Found him there, But then we also found him like one of them's popped up in the middle of nowhere, you know, where you wouldn't think one would find. So we found a couple there as well. And uh so it wasn't like there, it's just like shed hunting. Dude, put your head down and walk real slow in the woods. Yeah, well, I'm gonna try to kill a turkey this week and then if I cant to that, and then I'll start walking slowly with my head down and uh hopefully find some mushrooms. That's my that's my game plan. Yeah, well, if you get the opportunity. And I don't know what it is, maybe it's nostalgia, but if I could, if I could have like a last supper. Let's say I get convicted of you know, some double homicide, right whatever, and I go to I go to jail and I'm gonna be put on death row. I think my last meal would be pan fish, like deep fried panfish and Morrell mushrooms and like a potato salad. I mean that's like, that's like my favorite. Man, that's pretty good. That's a pretty good meal. I like that I would do. If I was gonna go with fish, it would have to be a deep fried wally fly with with sliced thin potatoes and onions that are thrown in the fryer. To that right, there would be my nostalgia meal. You got me rethinking my last supper. Dude, Yeah, that's getting me hungry. So what's doing I had? I had I made like a fruit smoothie yesterday and like had enough for two servings, so I saved some for this morning and drank it this morning and like fermented or something, So it was not good this morning, but I still drank it. And so I'm just working off a really horrible breakfast. And this just makes you want to go fry some fish or cook up a steak or something that I know I speaking of cooking up steaks. Um. I have a little bit of a hunting season update that we haven't got to talk about yet as far as what I'm doing this year. Um, last time we talked, I think was just after my big Montana trip, right that right, maybe a couple two or three, probably three weeks ago. Um So, I did that whole Montana trip, found a bunch of sheds, scouted out five different properties because you know, definitely gonn hunt Montana. UM and then I found out I didn't draw a tag in Montana, which I didn't even know was a thing. Like the last three years I drew every year. It seemed like what I heard in past years is pretty much a guaranteed draw. Um. But apparently I've been talking about Montana too much or something. Um we didn't talk about this, do we. I don't think that we did know um So. So, yeah, Montana not happen. So So after that, I was like, Okay, what am I gonna do? Um? I still want to do that first week of September trip that I've really come to enjoy these last few years. Um So pondered bunch of different ideas, thought about trying to hunt, you know, ah, maybe Wyoming, maybe Nebraska again. Um ended up settling though on North Dakota because it's the one place that I have scouted a bunch already. I've haunded it once before, further hunter there before, and it's it's just a really really cool area. But I haven't figured it out yet, and there's like that you know, that feeling where you go try something and you just get humbled and you have that bitter taste in your mouth and you want to figure it out, Like I want to get it right eventually. I feel like I need to before I go tramping off somewhere else. I need to figure this spot out and and check that off my list or conquer that that challenge. So that's what I gonna do. I'm gonna do a North Dakota early season. Not now, well, buddy, let me throw a little salt out there for you. I don't know what that that's the right term, but let me throw another I ever heard this? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I just throw salt out there, salt on the sidewalk. Uh we at an opening on our Elk hunt second week of uh September. If you're interested, I would love to do it. But were the counter guaranteed tag by Colorado? Right Colorado? Yeah? Good encounters last year, and I I just can't do more than at least as as things stand. Speaking to Mother's Day, what I have is is like a seven day window I can get away with each each month, I just don't think I could do both again this year. But let me let me stew maybe there's someone I could finangle something. Um, are you driving? You're driving right? Well? Uh so, my buddy Ryan, he's going out. He's gonna he's doing two weeks out there, So he's gonna be like up in the mountains for two weeks. And so then I'm meeting him the second week out there, and um uh and then so I'm flying out. He's gonna picked me up and then we're driving back. Cool. That's man, Ryan's going balls deep two weeks. Yeah, yeah, good for him. I'm just like, dude, you know what you're doing, you know, because you know, you know, not questioning his manhood per se, but just like, man, two weeks out in the mountains is no no joke. Man, That's that's pretty cool. He'll spend that amount of time definitely will help reset the reset the clock for you after a whole lot of long days in the office and stuff. So I imagine that'll I'll be leaving him feeling good. Man. I'm excited about getting just out west. In general, we're taking off at the beginning of June. I think, and um, and that will be that will be exciting. So I understand that. And then let's see other than Okay, so you're doing your mule or you're doing your white tail hunt in North Dakota now, and you know, I am going doing my elk hunt second week in September, and then I'm taking a mule deer hunt be the first or second week in October to South Dakota. So that's happening for sure, all right, Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm I'm doing some research, you know, making some connections, getting a lot of great intel. Um. You know, I got lucky. I ran into a guy who I used to live there in where in the area, but he since moved away and he doesn't want to hunt mule there anymore in that area, so he's like hooking me up with some knowledge, and uh, that's awesome, right, That's gonna put you in a good position to get started. Yeah, at least at least knowing that there's mule deer in an area or any game like whenever, whenever you and this we can probably transition at some point to this. But knowing that there's animals whenever you take these big out of state hunts, right, knowing that there's animals in the area is almost like half the battle. It's that confidence that the confidence booster. If if you at least know that piece of the puzzles in place, then you can worry about everything else. But but agree, if you just don't even know if there's animals there, then you find yourself second guessing everything, right, everything, Yeah, it's it's you just almost need that initial foundation. Once you have that, then you can start going down the list of Okay, are they here here? Or should I be approaching it this way or that way? But if you're still like waffling on, man, are we even in the right general area at all? Then I you know, it's kind of like our ELKHN a handful of years ago, like are they anywhere around here? We weren't here anything we're seeing a like should we completely pick up shop and go somewhere totally different? Um? That can be tough. So that's uh again, So so so Colorado, ELK, South Dakota Meal there, Iowa white Tales for you. I'm going to do the north, go to white tail hunt, and then I tentatively am gonna go down for a short trip, just a couple of days down to Texas, and um, there is a guy kind of interesting. I didn't think about this before mentioning this, but kind of one of these people who studies other like high performers UM, an author and writer that I that I really that I really like, tentatively planning on taking him out for his first deer hunt. I ever got in touch with this guy, exchanged a couple of notes, and he has some interest in trying to learn about hunting and kind of getting back to the land. UM. So I said, hey, you know you have any interest in trying hunting, and he was interested. So I think we're gonna try to get out for a short hunt together. That'll be really cool thing. He lives down in Texas, UM, so that will be a quick one. And then I'm gonna try to do that boundary waters hunt in Minnesota that I've had a pass on last year, So I'm gonna do that. And then the new thing that this is another thing we haven't talked about dan um, but I am tentatively thinking about now and maybe I mentioned this, Um, I'm gonna try to do the tracking down a deer hunt in the snow, so go out to like the ad around the mountains out in New York or out to Maine and go hike through the Big Woods public land and try to walk one down, um and do like a back country whitetail hunt of that kind of fashion. So very interesting, Yeah, very very different. So I'm trying to get like some very different types of hunt and hunts in this year. I'm gonna do, you know, the North Dakota early season kind of typical huntly I've been doing. Then I'll have my usual Michigan stuff. Then they'll be the canoe in back country hunt in October, and then a hike in mountains tracking deer in the snow hunt in the late season. Um, this has me be very very different kinds of experiences. Well, you're lucky ass will probably fill all your tags again this year, and uh probably, I don't know, Like you walk into a place and I don't know, I just there's a there's a part of me that feels like you're that one YouTube guy where who's just like come here, come on, come on, come here, dear, come on, yep, yep, come on, and the deer just are kind of so curious what the hell is going on? They just like walk up to you. And then and then you shoot him. Is that what it's like? No, damn, it's it's all about good habits and processes and systems, and there's the transition. So Dan, what I want to talk about to their is uh is good habits and systems and processes and how to take all these different things that we learned and like build a structure around it so it becomes like second nature for us. And I was actually inspired to do this kind of whole topic conversation because of an email I got, Um, you and me, we're gonna do a podcast last week, and so I was going to look through a bunch of listener questions and just put put together kind of Q and a type deal. And one of the questions I got was related to this specifically. He was asking about kind of like a goal system or sorry, goal setting habits right, how we track progress and things like that. And they got me thinking about this bigger at your stuff just in generally in these habits and you know, kind of a generic definition of habits in this kind of way is is you know something an action in your life that at one point started like a deliberate choice, like you chose to I don't know either, drink of pepsi every morning on your way to work. Maybe that originally was a choice made and then you do it frequently enough and you got rewarded in some kind of way subconsciously enough that it became an automatic behavior. So there's these things all threat our lives, right that we do over and over and over again, and it becomes autopilot mode, like we don't even think about anymore. Um, they just happen. And it's interesting that about study over in Due University found that about forty of the actions that we take on a given day are habit based. It's about of what we do in today is just autopilot. We don't even think about it. It's just done. It's just a habit, it's a pattern, it's a system that's just going and going and going. So this is good news if our habits are good ones. This is kind of scary news if we've got some bad habits. So that's why I think that this probably translates into you know, what we're doing as hunters too, because I'm sure there's a lot that we do as hunters, whether it be throughout the year leading up hunting season or during a specific hunt that we're on autopilot for, or we're doing stuff just because it's the way we always do it, or we don't even think about it, but we're doing certain ways, um and that can really impact, you know, the outcomes. So I think the thing is that if we recognize these habits, if we can start to identify where habits are in our life, or where certain patterns are, we can start to say, Okay, these are the good ones. We're gonna kind of foster those, and these are the bad ones, and maybe we need to change. And there's there's a lot of studies out there, a lot of people looking into this kind of stuff, and and the the fact is that habits can be changed, they can be replaced, they can be adjusted. So there's there's the ability for us to adjust these things. It's not just that we're stuck with what we do. That's good news. I guess what I think we can do here is is talked through a little bit of what we do already, some of the habits that you and I already have in place, some of the things we like about those, some of maybe the areas where we feel like we're struggling, um And then talk through some of the things I've been learning about how we can change those or different systems that I've rid about and heard about other high performers using for their various tasks. UM. I think if if there's any one common thing when it comes to these high performers that I was talking about earlier, those like CEOs or physicists or professional athletes, almost all of them have very well structured lives. Like that's a very common trait. People don't. These these really really high achieving people. They don't just kind of go about their lives willy kneeling like they They're very thoughtful about everything they do and how they do it and why they do it. So they have these thoughts through routines and processes and habits, these kind of structures throughout their life that are they are intentional and that help them achieve whatever goals they have. So that's that's what I think we can drop some inspiration and from UM, and I think that I think you applied to what we're doing here. So so that all being the case. UM, the first question that I had this is that email question that I got that originally made me think about this. I think It's a good one to start this whole conversation because a lot of the people that I've been reading about and when it comes to good habits, good systems, good process is one of the very most important things for all these high achievers is having goals, like really firmly understanding like what are your goals, what are these things you're shooting for, and then tracking those things. So that's kind of where I thought we should start, because we don't know what we want and if we don't know how to really think about what we're striving for. Um, you know, it's it's it's hard to know to get where you're going if you don't know where that is. So this first question from a guy named Jake, and he emailed me and he said that he's enjoying kind of book recommendations have been putting out there, and he said he just recently read a book called Measure What Matters by John dor And this John dor is a big Silicon Valley um investor guy out there doing a bunch of early stage investing and things like that. And so Jake goes on to right to me, he said, quote, I imagine you know about the okay, our process. Since you worked at Google, I'm interested to hear how or if you implement the okay our process into hunting objectives. And if you do, how do you recommend we do the same? End quote. So there's a question. He brings up this thing called okay rs and okay ours. Uh. This is basically the goal setting and tracking system that we had in place at my old day job at Google. It stands for objective and key results. Objectives and key results, and so what we had to do back in the day job was every quarter, so every three months we would have to put together a set of okay rs for that quarter, and then we would have those as individuals, and then our team would have larger okay rs as well, so that our manager put together his team okay ours, and then our individual cares health would have to kind of funnel up into those. But basically what they were is is an objective. So like a high level goal. Um, maybe that's something like I want to, you know, drive ten percent growth in sales that on my old day job. Now it might be something like I want to, um, you know, I want to have ten new tree stands hung this year, or set up ten new trees to hunt from this year or something like that, whatever might be some high level objective and then the key results. And this is kind of the key with this whole system at the job was that it's not okay just to have goals. You need to have actual key results that indicate success in those goals that can be measured. So, um, maybe my first example of the tree stand wasn't good. Maybe I should just say I want to kill buck this year is a high level objective, and then key results would be like five things or three or four different things that you can do leading up to that goal, like things that would let that goal happen, and that can be measured. So if the goals I want to kill a deer, the key results might be I will have hunted a minimum of ten times, um, I will have, you know, spent a minimum of ten hours scouting, I will have hung ten trail cameras, and I will have spent you know, fifteen hours practicing with my bow. These are arbitrary, but the key thing being have a high level goal and then a set of actual things that you can do and make sure you're doing and check on um that would lead to the success of that goal, and then every three months we would have to go back and look at those and say, Okay, how have I done as far as you know, knocking out those goals? How HAVEING made progress on these these things that I said I was measuring and taking action on UM. So we should do that every three months and at the end of the year look back at the whole thing. And the gist of this was that, and the reason why we did it was that, you know, having these high, high lofty goals are great, but most people never all through on them. Most people don't really understand the small steps needed to achieve big things. Most people aren't tracking what's happening, and then they get to the end of the year, maybe like someone sets a New Year's resolution and then a month then you kind of fizzle out and you forget about until next new year. So with these okay rs, the thing is, Okay, we have the high level goal, we have the measurable, actional, actionable steps will lead to it, and then we check often and we get accountability on it. So feedback on it said okay, how are we doing? Someone else reviews it with us UM, and that led to people actually taking progress towards the goal, because I think it's a baby steps. If you do all these baby steps leading to it, you actually get stuff done. Yeah, so that's what I used to do. UM. Do I use that still today? Not to the degree that we used to do it, um in my old day job, but I certainly take some of these things into account in my daily life. And UM, I think this would be something we should we should talk about, Danny. How do we set our goals? How do we track our goals? How do we make sure making movement on them? Um? You and meet each year, usually in August, we do a podcast where we talk about our goals for each year, UM, which I've always enjoyed and that's like a fun, helpful thing. UM. But what I haven't done a good enough job of is really, um going beyond that? And I think I probably should after you know, kind of rethinking through the old okay, our process and and even looking at how some other people have been doing stuff like this, there probably is something to be said about trying to make yourself more accountable about all the little steps that lead to the big goals. So, you know, if I was better at this, and I should be better at this. If my goal of this year is to kill a four and a half year old buck in Michigan, let's say one of my goals. Um, it would be really smart for me to line out four things I could do in the next you know, six months that would help make that happen. In my head, I know some of those things, UM, but it would be a really smart system to put into place, to start, um, making myself a little bit more accountable to the steps along the way. UM. I mean so right now as far as what I do, we have our our our yearly conversation. You and me do our goals. Another thing that I do the last handful of years is in the spring, usually well late winter, like February March, I usually put together a deer hunting to do list. So every different trip I'm gonna go on, or every main hunt or farm i'm gonna hunt or whatever, I'll put together to do list of everything that's got to get done before the season starts. I've got that already going now for this year, so I keep track of at least the tasks that I need to do. UM. And that's been a helpful adjustment that I've kind of added to my repertoire the last couple three years, probably, um, but I do think I could probably take it to the next level. Do you how do you track this stuff? Dan? So? I am a list maker, right, and UM, what I mean by that is like, not necessarily on the hunting things, but on the things I need to do before a certain date. Excuse me. So I'd say, for example, I have a long term to do list or a list and a short term list. And so like the first thing that pops into my head, I'm looking at this white board that I have in my office right now, and it's just a breakdown of everything I need to do for the Sportsman's Nation. Right, I need to you know, accomplish these goals by this date. They are not necessarily goals, They're just things I have to do before this These dates they have a date um with them. So it's just like I need to do, you know, submit this RSS feed by this date. I need to have this profile set up by this date. I need to do all these things by this date. And if I don't, if I see that date creeping up on me, I need to, you know, work harder and faster on that. Right. It's basically just the list and it's in order of importance. I think that's the really important thing to the prioritization. That's huge is importance and then dates to putting that kind of UM restriction on it almost forces you to take action. And I think that what we've done a little bit, UM my wife and I his we started doing like every New Year's Eve, we have this, like the third year we've done this. Now we sit down and we make a set of goals for the year. UM Like, okay, there's like personal goals, work related goals, family related goals. UM. So we go and we set these goals out. But the first year or two we would would make these goals on New Year's Eve and then we didn't check back in on it until the next New Year's Eve, and we kind of failed on a lot of stuff. But it was good. We thought was a good helpful thing and encourage a lot of good conversation. But then this past year what we did is we started checking in UM kind of doing what he used to do and work but slightly less formalized. But we started checking in midway through the year, and then we start doing just said, we started putting dates on certain things. We started ranking certain things. Um, because stuff doesn't get done. Life just gets in the way unless you find ways to to lock stuff in. And so same thing with like a hunting to do list. Like every year, I can't tell you I've gotten better, but every single year it gets to be late August or middle of August. I'm like, oh my gosh, I have so many things I gotta get done still before you know, of September, when I try to stay out of the woods completely. Um. And so every year I've tried to get better utilizing these list systems and and now starting to put dates on things. But now now much better than used to be. And that I've got these lists put together here in the early spring, and now I'm saying, Okay, this project and this project I gotta get done before the end of May. This thing I get done before the end of June. And if you don't do that, it's just there's always some other thing that needs to be done more in your head. Right now, I gotta go pick up the kids, I gotta take out the trash, I gotta mode the lawn, I gotta do this, gotta do that. Um. It's only when at least for me, the only way I can get things done well ahead of time without procrastinating on is if I put a date on it and I forced it to happen, Like, Okay, I know this thing has to happen. I need to make time for it because the time isn't just gonna magically arrive, like you have to carve it out somehow thought like proactively doing it. Um. But I'm I struggle with that, like I'm a procrastinator unless I force myself to do stuff like this. Um And I feel like this is the stuff like doing like getting these Earth offseason projects done, getting this gutting done, getting all the work done. That is usually what's one of the main separators from the guy that gets out there and has a good time but doesn't fill his tag, whereas the guy or a girl that gets out there and does fill fill the tag. Yum, it's it's follow through. I think that's I think that's key. So so yeah, I'm I'm definitely big on those lists. And I think that I'm trying to trying to find a way to to to get more accountable. And that's an another thing with a lot of these habits and a lot of these systems stuff is finding a way to get accountability around it. You know. It's almost like I feel like with you, like having someone like you that I can talk to you every year about this. There's a certain level like an accountability partnership here, Like you can call me out if I'm not doing something I was gonna do. I can call you out if you're not doing something you're not doing. Um, But I feel like we all, at least I benefit from that. We could probably all benefit from having people like that that keep track of stuff and call us out and we're not taking action, you know, Yeah, someone to throw the bullshit card every once in a while. Yeah, It's almost like I imagine that you could. I think this is a simple thing that everyone could do that would probably help is if you know, right now you put together this kind of list for yourself. Okay, here's a couple of high level goals I have for my hunting season. Here are the two or three or four steps I need to take to achieve that goal. And and then do this with a friend, like get one of your other hunting buddies to do the same thing. Both of you guys put together lists and like share them with each other and say here's my list, and everybody gives his list to you, and then you just make a deal and say, all right, we're gonna hold each other to this and maybe plan on like a check in, you know, halfway from now to the day of hunting season. Maybe you guys just need to plan. All right, Hey, on this day, we're gonna go get a beer and we're gonna check on our progress. Um, make sure we're taking action on some of this stuff. Make sure we're making progress and this stuff. And I think I think that's like a pretty simple way to um to notice some real improvements just by doing the stuff you know you have to do. I feel like that's such a thing. Like we know a lot of the stuff we should be doing to have success. It's just do we follow through on all of it? Yeah, and this seems to be a good way to it. I'll be the first one to say, yes, I have these lists, uh, and yes I have all this stuff. But just like you, I'm not gonna say I'm not necessarily a procrastinator. But one thing I'm not good at is when so like I like to I like to have things set in place, but I am not necessarily good at adjusting when chaos enters my life or when a wrench gets thrown into the spokes per se. Right, So let's say I have you know, I have this list, and at the end of the list today I want to shoot my bow. But if something happens where my wife needs to hop on a meeting at work, then I don't get the works my work done because I'm watching a kid, and then everything gets pushed back, and then shooting my bow or maybe working out or uh maybe you know, doing some extra stuff on the business side of things takes a back seat. So all that just means that I am up an hour, two hours later or in a day, you know, trying to get all this done, and then I get I get to the point where I'm just like, screw it, I'll do it tomorrow or screw it, I'll do it, which is kind of like procrastinating, but it's not by my own choice, if that makes sense. Yeah, And I totally relate to that. Um, that's that's something I definitely deal with. And I I wonder if that goes back to kind of what we were talking about, like the prioritization thing and it's like identifying certain things that are easy to get bumped. Like, for example, I do this all the time. I'm I'm I'm struggling with a couple of things like this, Like right now, UM, I have fallen off the bandwagon when it comes to like regular running and cardio workout. UM, usually pretty good about it. But I've just fallen off bandwagon, have let bad habits seat back in. And it's one of those things that I tell myself already I get out there and do I gotta get back out there and do it. But it's always just like what you just said. Something comes up and I was gonna do in the afternoon, and then I work out crazy. Now it's already five thirty and I gotta be helping with dinner, and I gotta do this, and I gotta do this, and I gotta do that. And if I were to take my own advice, which is what I should be doing, I should be doing what I'm talking about here. I should probably find a way to incorporate if I think that's so important for myself, which I do think so I need to man up and build a better habit around it that forces it to happen. Before things can interfere. Right, So it's like what I need to do and what I what I used to do successfully and fell off, was that I would wake up early in the morning. The first thing I would do would be go for a run before anything else can get in the way. Right, If I get it done right away, no other obstacles could get in my way. On that, and that that whole morning routine thing, it's a good segue for something I was going to mention. Um. One of the things I've tried really hard struggled with but I've gotten much better at it is developing a morning routine. And this is another one of those things when I when you look at all these high high achievers and high performers, another big consistent UM pattern with these people is that they start their mornings and like a really planned, thoughtful way, like a morning routine is. Like if you go out there and like google morning routine, there's tons and tons and tons of stuff written about this, Like there's been a lot of evidence that shows that the people that have a certain way they start their days and don't just don't wake up at a random time and kind of fiddle fattle around, but actually have a plan of getting their day start off the right way, do the same things, have good habits around it, like for for number a number of different reasons. It really leads to positive change, good stuff. So I've been trying to develop that myself. Like my tendency is I like to stay up late, and I would like to sleep in late. If it was like if it was just my body doing what my body would do, I can sleep in late and I just do that. But I don't want to do that, like I want to be up early and getting stuff done. So I've had like a really hard time over the last ten years to do that because I used to be good back in the day job, and then I quit my day job and started working for myself. Then I would just like sleep till I wanted to sleep. I was like, hey, this is great, I'll wake up when I want to wake up and enjoy the day in that kind of way. Um, but it just found that your day got off to a slowish start. And and I've been in the last five years or so changing that in waking up early for me, except for if it's like for hunting season or going on a fishing trip or some kind of thing like that where there's like, I don't know that reward, I can get up and go for that, but getting up for just a daily day, it's a regular work day. Man, I'm I'm a chronic hitting the snooze or kind of guy. Yeam. So what I started doing was actually implementing something that that kind of falls right into this stuff. If you're trying to change the habit. One of the things I've read a lot about one of the things that I've tried to incorporate. So if you're trying to change the habit, maybe it's to try to start running every day or waking up early every day. Is going for incremental changing. It's really hard hard to go from doing something to doing like a completely different, dramatic thing like so to go from waking up at seven in the morning to wake up at four in the morning would be really hard to do. Um And if you can't do it that one time, it just becomes harder and harder to repeat it. So the theory is that if you can shoot for small goals at first, shoot for something that's achievable first, and achieve it. So what I did is I said, Okay, my body usually wakes up at seven, but I want to be waking up earlier. So I'm just gonna try to wake up at six thirty and do that and try to try to form like a consistency there. And so I started waking up at six thirties, so it's only half an hour earlier. It's not that different. My body wasn't that messed up. I could achieve it, and every time I did it, I did it day after day after day. It became a little bit easier. And you also get a little bit of a reward, right like you did the thing you said you're gonna do. That feels good. Um. So this is theory incremental change, and then the theory of small wins. This is the other things. If you're trying to make a big change, start with these small little changes that you can actually achieve and get done, because that builds momentum kind of a snowball, and then you find a small wind, so small reward. Uh. So that's kind of what I did there. I started with six thirty that felt good, rewarded myself. I got the outcomes I was wanting, and then I would slow him push it. So now now I wake up at six am. Every day, I have more time to get the stuff done I want to get done, feeling good about it, and it's much easier to do all these other things I want to do now that that What I need to get back to is I used to wake up around five thirty, go for the run, get shower, and start working. Then a bunch of crazy stuff with work just made it harder. And then have a baby made it harder for me to get all that stuff done. But now I'm trying to. Now I'm trying to get back into it. Well. What So basically my morning routine is I get up at six, have a couple of water, organize my day. I kind of set my to do list for the day. Um, drink a cup of coffee, and then get into my hardest work. Um right at the gate is what I do on like a regular work day. Um, I'm curious what your regular day morning routine is like day, But then we should talk to what our hunting morning routine looks like. I think that's one of these things that could apply to hunting that I think would be interesting to look at. Yeah, so I'll be completely honest my my hunting routine and my morning routine at home are completely different, completely different when and I'm gonna start with the hunting first because I'm more proud of it like that. Well, and the reason I say that is because I get out of the tree stand, let's say, and I'm just gonna jump right into the full blown rut where you're hunting morning and you're hunting, you know, most of the day, right and you're hunting evening. So I get home after an evening hunt, I organized all my gear, charge my osonics batteries, whatever, you know, lay put my uh, set my boots by the chair, have my socks ready to go, have my pants ready to go, have my bow um in the truck. So all I have to do is take it out like all these things. It's just I mean, it's it's literally I plan my day in a straight line. Wake up, walk out to the you know, shower, walk out to the garage, uh, get dressed, Hop in the car, drive to the property, pick out what I need to pick out of the truck, turn on, turn on my head lamp, go to the tree stand. Like that. It's it's that organized where there's hardly any problems, right, I get home from the morning hunt, I do the same thing I set up. I set everything up to where I know it's almost there's a lean manufacturing term called five s where you you put everything in a specific spot so you know where it's at, you know, you know that it's going to be there the next day, and there's no issues. Right, It's just it's clean, it's smooth, like, there's no there's no issues now at home, Like, I got a son who still gets up, uh throughout the middle of the night. Right, So last night he got up twice, once at once at two and once at four, and he cries and he cries and he cries and he cries. Right, we try to cry out. Method doesn't work. So if we don't give him a bottle, or we don't put him in our bed or whatever, then that just means I'm up right. So there's no like in my life now. I gotta sleep when I can sleep right, because I'm waking up multiple times a night because whether I'm the one going and getting him or I'm the one uh like my wife goes and kids, I'm still waking up right. So then some mornings I can wake up at five thirty when the kid wakes up or sometimes like today, I can sleep until six something and and there's no like, there's no organization, there's no straight line. It's just like I got we wake up, I got kids saying hey, I want breakfast, I want this, I want this, I want this, I want that. There's no routine, it's just complete and utter asks every morning. And even when I try to get things organized, it just it seems like it quickly falls out of that line, right, just because of the chaots, the chaotic state that the household is in every single day. Yeah, that's gotta be challenging. Yeah. Yeah, So I know this is kind of maybe a little bit off off the topic, but I think it's very important because for me, and I think for you, you are very passionate about hunting and the outdoors. I won't say the outdoors because I know your wife is pretty outdoorsy too, but you as far as hunting, right, and and me as far as hunting, and my wife she likes the outdoor like she likes hunting, but it's not her passion, right. So how have you addressed this issue to where yes, you want everything in your hunting world to be organized, but maybe somebody else like your wife doesn't really care about that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting point. And and where I get into trouble. And this just came up the other day. There was something there was a project in the house at the house that I was working on. I did it, I thought I did, just to find job with it. My wife felt like I did a half ass job with it. And she was really frustrated with it because she's like, how come there's all these things around the house that need to get done and you just kind of schmuck it together. But then when it comes to hunting, you don't cut any corners. You talk about how important the details are. You're working so hard this stuff, so why are you prioritizing that stuff and doing quality work? And then you do a halfass job here at home? And that was that was a hard burn. That was a hard burn. And and I don't try to do that, like I'm not purposefully trying to do a half ass job staying in the deck or something like that. But um, but maybe that maybe she's right. Maybe there's certain things like stuff that I don't enjoy as much, or stuff that I just has to get done because it has to get done. Um, you know, maybe I'm guilty of that. She might have made a good point, and I don't know how to deal with that. It's like to your earlier point, It's like almost the biggest thing I've been trying to do is understanding what really matters to my wife as far as um, what is she prioritize and so for her, Like it's like action and service is really important to her. So like it's not how much I tell her I love her, or how nice I am to her, or how while I treat her or anything like that. That's great, but the stuff that really fills her up is like acts of service, So actually doing things to help her, doing things around the house, Um, all that stuff is the stuff that really shows her that I care. And so I struggle with that because I used to be much more like I've verbalized stuff, but I'm not as good as like doing all those kinds of things. She's much more of like the taking care of people. And I guess maybe I get a little bit tunnel vision and I get focused on something that I'm working on, and then I get the blinders and I don't do is get at helping other folks. So that's been a struggle for me and been trying to recently like just prioritize it, like figure I actually have this kind of ties and everything. I've tried to place queues within my life to make sure I think about these other things. So I've got post it note right next to my computer. So that's the place where I'm usually so focused on work, and that's where I get into trouble because I get in here and I'm working on some project and I'm obsessing over work. Now I've got a queue right next to me that I see every day that reminds me, says, what have you done around the house today, Like making sure that because I'm so passionate about the outdoors and my outdoor projects there I'm spending all this time on that, I need to give back just as much though to this other part of my life that is more important. But sometimes I get sidetracked by the thing I'm passionate about outside of it. Um. So I think I've try to recognize that there's some balance, trying to figure out ways to remind myself to you know, fix make sure I don't get off track. And if I'm doing that, if I'm showing my Karen and and and love for my family through my action. That helps my wife understand why I'm so helps my wife be okay with the amount of time and passion I put into the other stuff, as long as I'm keeping the scales balanced with the thing that matters to her most. So the thing that matters for most is that doing my share here at the house, doing things like that. Um you know, if I brought her flowers every time I got back from a hunting trip, she wouldn't give a shit about that. That wouldn't help. But if I were to spend if I would take a weekend out of hunting season and do a bunch of stuff around the house or put together something that she really wanted to get done, that's the kind of thing. Um. So, I don't know if that answers your question, but like that's how I'm trying to tackle that. What about you? Just like it's kind of the same, right, But it's just our lives are so busy right and now at it's crazy because at when I was had my cubicle job, I had a routine. I was up, I was up in the morning, I did this little thing, you know, I did that. I went to work, I worked out over my lunch break, I you know, went back to work, I came home. I had a schedule every day for a podcast until X time, and then after that it was family time all after that, like complete routine. Now since I've had to take the kids out of daycare, right because you know, we're not making the same money that we're making anymore. I took the kids out of daycare, and yes, we're saving money, but now there's you know, sixteen hours a week. If I'm not gonna say sixteen hours because that's just the amount of time that the kids were at daycare, sixteen to twenty hours a week that I no longer have to work on things. So now that has to be redistributed throughout three other days for other days. Five other days of the week, Sundays and Saturdays are typically for the family, right, And I can't just like, hey, I got this work to do. Go that's kind of that kind of frustrates my wife, right, whether I need to shoot my bow or you need to work out right to get ready for you know, the Colorado trip, and it just I don't know, it's I need to stop this snowball from getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and that's very hard to do. Yeah, yeah, I'm right there with it. I think this is a good this a good opportunity to talk about. Then, uh, what I've been researching and understanding about how to create or change a habit. So let's talk about your situation right there. You got a ship ton of stuff going on, really busy, lots of chaos. Um, but you want to do something like um incorporated shooting your bow habit? Like, right, would you say you wish you had a better habit of shooting your bow? Okay, So from the reading I've done, there's a couple of things that they're saying that can help you create this kind of habit or or change a bad habit. So number one, it's just defining what behavior is you want changed. So you want to, you know, start shooting your bowl more consistently. You want to develop a habit or on shooting your bow and somehow find a way to fit that into the chaos. So the number one thing would do is is define it, and then you've got to figure out what's the trigger. So habits come in. There's there's three steps in a habit. If like when people actually break this down for research and stuff, but they found is that there's it's a three part process. So there's the first part, which is called the trigger or the queue. This is the thing that like kicks your mind into autopilot. And what it's interestingly people have done these studies where they put up um receptors on different people's brains and actually watch how brain waves change as people go throughout their daily lives, and researchers specifically trying to study habits see that there is the spike and brain activity once a trigger happens. So we'll say, um, maybe a hypothetical snare might be someone who has a habit of drinking that pepsi on their way to work. So the trigger is that they are about to walk out to the car and they know that before they get to the car they always grab pepsi. So there's this trigger, and then there's the reward. The reward is that first wig of pepsi, that bubble ly carbonation and the sugar hit and all that great stuff. That's the reward. So there's the trigger, there's the behavior or the routine, and then there's the reward. So the key to changing habit number one what these folks says, you need to identify what those things are if you have a bad habit, or you need to create those things if you're trying to create a habit. So we'll say, in your case, you want to shoot your more often the trigger. There's got to be something that's gonna trigger you to remember when you need to do it, Like, developing that system is the way to do this. So for me, I've struggled with the same thing where I will push off the shooting that bow. I won't get too as often as they want to, or if it's two incon convenient, it becomes outside of you know, the realm of my daily life, then I just don't end up falling through. So when I've done a good job of this what I started doing because I would actually put the bow in my mudroom right by um the door, so that I would actually see it before I stepped out, And I used, I don't do this right now. I do it now in my barn. But I used to have my bow hanging up right next to the door, and then I had a target right outside of the door, on the side of the barn, so I would as I walk out the door to go do something, if I went in there to get some something for some reason, I'd see the bow and then it triggers, oh, hey, shoot that bow, and then right then I could go ahead, open the door, shoot three arrows and get that kind of developed that habit, just something to trigger your brain remember to do this, and then you kind of have that basic routine. Then the key is then some kind of reward um. So you can kind of flub this, you can make it your own reward, or sometimes there's a natural reward um. So then it's just knowing what that feels like. So maybe in your case, you at your bow somewhere that you're gonna see it and remember, Okay, every morning at six thirty am, when I walk out, I wake up, I walk out, take a piss, and then I'm gonna see my bow sitting over top of the refrigerator or something, so that before I can go and grab my iced coffee or whatever I want to eat for breakfast, I'm gonna see the bow right there, which is gonna cue me to say, hey, before you can eat breakfast, you have to shoot your bow ten times, so you grab that bow, you step outside, you shoot ten times, and then you've got to give yourself a reward. So maybe that reward is just gonna be some sense of self satisfaction, or maybe you tie the reward if you can't drink your coffee until after you shoot your bow. So now you're forcing yourself. You're reminded right away with that trigger when you walk to the freezer, you shoot your bow, and then you get the reward of drinking your coffee. Studies that have shown if you can do something like that about two months, sixty six days of the number I saw, if you can do something sixty six times consistently, it will move from a behavior that you are actively thinking about to becoming ingrained and your body just wants to do it, and you build that momentum, so then you get the snowball effect, but it's the positive snowball effect. So you're gonna get up and you're like, okay to do it. Do it, and then you get your coffee. And so by putting that kind of thing in a period of your day where you do have control and then developing a system around it, supposedly this is the way you can start incorporating these good things into your life. So I think you could do that with shooting your bow. I think someone could do that by with like I'm what I'm trying to do is get back to my running habit. So for me with my running habit, and what I'm trying to do now is my queue in the morning so that I can't ignore it, so that it just becomes part of my thing. Is I put my running shoes out right next to the door, so I walk out in the morning, take a leak, and then when I want to go to my office, instead of walking in my office, my running shoes are sitting right there. So it's just that big quel it boom. Gotta get your running habit and get that and then after that and then I can eat my breakfast. Um. So that's kind of this system that people are talking about that's supposed we can help you create these new positive habits. So I think you know, there's these things that applied to us as in preparation for hunting. Um or you might have a bad habit. And the big thing with people have bad habits. Let's I don't know what that might be in the hunting context. Um, but I'm sure there's lots of bad habits we have. Like the bad habit maybe is procrastinating on getting all your tree stamp prep done or whatever. Right, So, what they're saying the key thing to do here is is too again identify that the three parts of your habit. So try to figure out what's the trigger, what's queuing my bad behavior, what is this thing that I'm always doing this routine? And then finally, what's the reward I get? Um. So, what they what the researchers have found is that it's very, very hard to change a trigger and a reward. What you want to do is you want to keep the same trigger, keep the same reward, change the routine in the middle. So we'll go back to the pepsi drinking thing. It's really hard to change the bad thing you're drinking on the way to work if you just try to up and change it. But if you were to try to change that habit by having the same trigger. So in the same trigger, let's say you're walking out, you're gonna go to the fridge because that's what we always do. You're gonna get that trigger. The routine is what you can change. So in the middle change the routine from grabbing the pepsi to now instead you're gonna grab the sparkling water. Let's say that's the healthier alternative. And then you're gonna get the same reward though, because it's got that same fizziness and it's got a little bit of sweetness to it. So those are like ways to make up change in your life that makes it easier try to get something as the same reward, the same queue, just that better middle per um. So I'm thinking like there's ways to apply that into what we do as hunters, Like when you're in tree, when you're in the tree stand. Here's a bad habit of mine. I sit in the tree stand. I found this out a couple of years ago when one night I decided to go out there. And now I do this more often. I'll just turn my phone off and put in my backpack, don't have my phone at all with me in the tree stand. What I discovered that I did is that I'd be sitting there, I do a scan, look around, look around, and then I had this like I had no control over my hand just would go to the pocket and I was gonna grab my phone out and look at it, and I didn't even think about it, just happened. I had this compulsion, and then I kept realizing, Oh, I don't have my phone. And then ten minutes later I would reach my phone and I was like, oh, I don't have my phone. And then fift two minutes later, two minutes later, reached my phone. Oh I don't have my phone. And I realized that this horrible habit of like getting so easily distracted when'm hunting by my phone. So I imagine that's something that you could probably change that. You could find something. You've got this trigger that is, hey, I need something to distract me or something, and then the reward is you get some tiny little distraction. Um. But the bad routine in the middle was looking at my phone. UM. I don't know what this would be, but maybe there'd be some different thing. Maybe you could have like a little stress ball or something in your hand, in your pocket, and then when you typically would try to go and grab your phone because you've looked around for ten ntes, I haven't seen anything. Instead of doing that, you just add a little fiddle gadget or your a little stress ball or whatever, and that's the little thing that takes your mind off the monotonate for comments, and then you're back at it. Um. I think that's how you could start implementing this kind of system, UM to deal with various things in your in your hunting world too. UM. I don't know, does any of that resonator makes sense? Yeah? Man, it does. UM, I get that. I get that same kind of thing where you know, when I'm closing, I hunt closer to my house as opposed to my main farm. My main farm, I don't get like three g or four g or anything down in there, so I don't have that problem, right, I get like one bar, two bars. I basically get enough h enough I guess coverage to where if I kill a deer then or shooted ere, I can call even if the call gets dropped. Uh, people know that I've killed a deer, right so, because I don't call people when it's when I'm hunting, right So, so I don't typically have that problem. It's just man, My big problem is when chaos, Like I have my path, but when chaos enters it, and I don't know, that's something I work on every single day. Yeah, there was UM this book I was reading by a guy named Tim Ferris, who, um, kind of this is his big main stick is that he does. He's got one of the most highly listen to podcasts out there, a lot of very successful books. Um, it's all about analyzing these top performers. So he's kind of doing exactly what we're talking about. And one of his big takeaways, one of the big kind of rules coming out of all these different interviews he did with all these different people, was that the basically he says, he's this quote that he said is do not work more to fix, overwhelm, prioritize. So it's just like what you're talking about, Like, if you're overwhelmed with chaos, if there's just too much going on, very often, the solution to that isn't by just like trying to do more and more and more and more. Very oftentimes, the best way to deal with that is the prioritization. UM. And I feel like that applies exactly to what you're saying. It's like, figure out a way to to rank order things and then push stuff up on that list if it's typically getting getting knocked off. I think that's that's kind of the big thing he saw. And then the other thing for me I always remind myself and this is more of like when I'm dealing with a big project versus like lots and lots of little things. But whenever I'm dealing with a big project, I always remember that old adage that you know, how do you eat how do you eat an elephant? Or how do you eat a whale or something? Bike? BikeE by bite? So just like little step, little step, little step. Um. So that's that's how I've been trying to approach the big stuff. But but yeah, it's it's also frustrating. And this is where and I think a lot of guys, you know, what would you say the breakdown for the demographic of men versus women for this podcast like men five percent women or is it more like? Okay, so of the men on this podcast, whether your your wife is a hunter or she's not, I'm just gonna say a majority of them are men, right, So I don't know, or maybe a woman can relate to this too, I don't know. Um, I better just stop talking before I dig a hole. Anyway, Anyway, what I what I got it is okay, So to to to do this passion that we have takes time, right, and if I'm doing that, that means my wife is with the kids. If I'm in this office working, um my wife is with the kids, right because we're not in daycare. We don't have daycare anymore. If I'm doing something related to my business or my um hobby, which is now this big gray area, um my wife is with the kids. And I know that spending time with my kids can be very frustrating. Because I now spend time with the kids, I have to figure out a way to like I don't necessarily want to say train her or like help her, or I don't like I don't know how to do this without like I'm gone. She has to be with the kids. And when she's with the kids, then she's frustrating, Like she gets frustrated. So I don't know. I'm trying to find out what I need to do so she's less frustrated, to make things less frustrating for her when I'm not in the picture. Okay, so you need to do is you need to develop a habit for your wife by establishing a que when you leave to go hunting, starts routeam and then there's a reward when you get back, so then she starts having a positive association with you being gone for hunting. No, I know what you mean, um man. You know. The only other thing, like, the only the thought that comes to my mind as I think about the same challenge that I've had to a degree is um is efficiency. It's like, how do I cut out the other fat because I don't want to cut out the importance of the family time and my family obligations, and I don't want to cut out the important uh you know, hunting work related obligations. But I'm finding myself I don't time to do it all or make a sacrifice where I don't want to make sacrifices what I've tried to do and not that I've figured this out at all completely, but the the what I've been trying is finding out where to trim things up elsewhere, Like where's the other stuff that doesn't really matter to me? But I spend time, um just because as a habit that I could cut so I don't need to watch Netflix for an hour on a Thursday. I don't need to look at my phone for twenty minutes here in twenty minutes that in twenty minutes here if you if you add it up, all the time you looked at Facebook or Instagram or read news articles throughout a day, that might be an hour of time if you took every five minutes and ten minutes and three minutes and added it all up. So it's like I've been trying to fare out ways to to free up chunks of time by cutting out the small stuff and like just being more efficient with my time because one of my kind of like you just said and me and my wife just talking about this, one of my big challenges is that I oh over commit, Like I'm always too many projects, too many things, too many goals, too much I'm trying to do. I'm constantly running behind, I'm constantly feeling overwhelmed, them constantly too busy. Uh, And it's it's, you know, number one, I could be doing a better prior job prioritizing number two. Maybe from the front end, I should be doing a better job of understanding what I'm saying yes to. But once you're committed to stuff, you're committed to stuff. At that point then it's like, just have to use your time better, Like I just need to figure out what better way to cut the junk out there, because they're like, I'm not I don't think any of us are on task every second, Like no one's perfect like that. But maybe I could get half hour better every day, or maybe I could find ways to you know, remove some other bad Habit might maybe it's trying to think to myself, what do I do? Um, I don't know, it's right, right, there's a great example. There's an hour a week, Um, you could cut that really in the long scheme of things. Is that really going to change your life? Now? Like it's so good? But there's an easy you know, there's an easy six hours over the next six weeks that you could have back to work on your big deer hunting project, to work on a big job project, or to to do the important thing that your wife really wants to get done around the house, to make your feel a little bit better about you know, us going off and doing our thing. So there's probably if we if if I'm guessing, if each one of us sat down for twenty minutes now and just kind of thought through our day and wrote down a list of like little things we do that don't really matter but we just always do, we could probably find some time to do things the way we really should. That's Uh, that's one thing to think about. Um, you know the what are we talked about here? We've talked about creating habits. We talked about changing habits. We talked about the importance of setting goals and being able to quantify and track them. Talked about having accountability partners. We've talked about some of these habits, how you might be able to establish a practicing with your bell habit or running habit. Um talked about some of these struggles we've had balancing time between family obligations and our passion. Um, what do you think Dan about you and me trying to take on a change like this, each of us in our own lives, and hold each other accountable to it, and then like report back and and try to demo something like this for folks and see if we can do it. Yeah, man, I'm down. What do you want to do? Do you want to do the bow? Because I need to do better there too. Do we want to try to put together something in place that we can need to do and try to stick to. Well, I think I think a lot of these things come right. Like also with lean manufacturing, we do something called a five Y right And we talked about I wrote an article about this a while ago. But it's about, Okay, why didn't I shoot my bow? And then you ask yoursel and then you answer that question because I didn't have time. Why didn't you have time? Well, because I was. You know, life is kaok why is it chaotic? Well, it's because you know whatever, And you go back five times and and this is to help find a rick cause to your problem. Right, So my goal is to do something like this, And I don't know if we can necessarily I can necessarily do it right now, but I want to be able to. I think if why if I find the root cause, it clears up much more than me finding time. It's going to allow me to be more efficient in my work week, it's going to be it's gonna allow me to be more efficient with my family. And so my goal, what I want to do is try to figure out what I need to do. And this might just be a conversation I have with her about what I need to do. What a conversation with my wife to make my wife less stressful? And yeah, I don't know, like something like that. I like it. What about this? What if we both think about what we wanted things to be. You can do some exploring and maybe talk with talk to your wife, figure out try to figure out the root cause when we come back for the next podcast together, let's both have like one thing that we both want to do better or different and will make an agreement between each of us, like here's the thing we're just gonna do, here's how we're gonna do it, and and you and me we can try to keep each other accountable on it throughout the rest of the year. Right is that's not a good plan? Cool? We can try to we can try to demo some of these ideas we're talking about here, and uh, maybe you can you and I can both get better at something near and and maybe help folks see how they can incorporate some some possible positive change into their hunting life as well. And uh, it might be fun. So anything else on this topic you want to make sure we hit on before U before we wrap it up. No, I'm good man? All right? Well then, um, I think we should just shut it down and then check back in soon. And that's gonna do it for us today. Hope you enjoyed this one. You know, if you were interested in this topic, there's a couple of books that I've read that that I found pretty handy. I mentioned Tim Ferris. He's got a book called The Tools of Titans and another one called Tribe of Mentors, both of which um combine a whole bunch of different answers to questions related to these topics from areas high performers that Tim has interviewed. They're great resources. I also referenced a couple of books by Charles do Hig. There's one called The Power of Habits and there's another one called what is It Smarter, Faster, Better? Both of these talk about habits and different um, different types of processes and things you can do to become a higher achiever, high performer, the kind of stuff that we're trying to do here as hunters. So lots more out there on the innert to lots of good podcasts. Um. Tim Ferris show again is a good one along those lines. So I hope you enjoyed it, Hope you found this interesting, and maybe you'll try incorporating a few things into your own uh, you know, schedule. Try it out, let us know what you think, and until next time, thanks for being you, Thanks for foulling Wired to Hunt and stay wired to hunt,

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