Episode 58 · 24:40
The Power of Elimination and Focus
Using Olympic strategy and a series of everyday mishaps, Dan and Tom examine a deceptively difficult question: what should you stop doing?
Their answer is a practical order of operations—eliminate, automate, then delegate—so that focus is protected before more tools or people are added to the problem.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Removing unnecessary work creates more capacity than optimising work that should not exist.
- Automate a stable process only after deciding it is worth keeping.
- Delegation is partly a trust problem, not simply a productivity technique.
- Focus improves when your system makes fewer demands on your attention.
Watch the conversation
The original episode.
Full conversation
Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
It's because I can't see you as well so it's one of those things like I I I don't know whether or not right now you're siing a drink and I can't see that you're about to yes I closed my hand in the fridge today well not not my hand but my finger as King was walking past I was like oh close the fridge and and it shut on my fingers to let her pass so injuries did I say about my blood test that I took as.
Well I tell you think so all right so taking a blood test to you know like I was saying before a lot of the time with everything in life we want to kind of like get information or like we do it blind right so if we get data we then know what to actually do rather than do things blind have expensive urine as it were if it's all nutrition and all the rest of it so get sent this blood test.
And they've given you four like uh finger prick things and um they're like you should fill this jar up blood right so do the first one no they tell you like warm your hand spin your hand and all this stuff things do the first one it's like three drops and I'm like this thing is not going to fill up so I'm like okay cool and it says if it takes you know after two minutes if it's not like.
Filled like try another finger and in the notes it's it's as if like one finger will fill it on a worst case scenario maybe two fingers I ended up having to do four Pricks and I didn't even quite get it to what where it need to be but like like blood wasn't coming out so just find bad circulation in your hands you've learned basically yeah well I don't think it's even circulation I think it's more like you don't have any blood yeah it's like.
There's no there there's no like it like obviously it might have like clotted real quick so it's like hey we're bleeding here and it like clots up and then it can't come out like thickens as it were but I don't know it'd be funny though wouldn't it if somebody in the comments would be like this is me just this means that you've got XY Z and there was like I'm just oblivious to all this thing just laughing and joking.
About the fact that I had to I ended up pricking my finger four times not the not the same finger I did like one and then two and then one um and then I had all these plasters and then obviously when you prick your fingers you can't type because you got plasters on and they're a bit like saw to begin with but hopefully my results will come back in the next week because they've already hit the lab because I got an email about that.
Today which is good so oh nice yeah I do remember you saying you struggled to fill up something so that must have been the blood test CH I was sure there's another one yeah yeah definitely was a blood testure so what be cracking on about today I have no topics today no topics actually yeah i' I've I've um exhausted myself on my own video I recorded my own video last night cuz I was um a little little bit of way but I.
I guess um we should probably talk about the Olympics because that's important I I had had a thought about like you know just watching it and stuff um so I can we can talk about that I can I can enter in and talk about that and then I'll uh hopefully leave you to do the rest i' live all right let's jump into it we' got 20 could potentially talk about some of the topics I mentioned yesterday but I don't know if that's pod worthy.
Content but if we if we get to it if we get to it yeah yeah yeah makes sense plenty filler yeah yeah that that makes sense sweet don't be a stop don't be a stop don't be aop welcome back to another episode of don't be a doorstop we're here to talk about purpose business mindset and all the rest of it and Entrepreneurship as well just add that to the list have you been watching the Paris Olympics Tom and.
I have and we've been really enjoying it haven't we Tom I hope yeah I thought the first thing was the question have you been watching it rather than to the audience I was nearly answering then yeah we we'll uh it's because I can't see you as well so it's one of those things like I I I don't know whether or not right now you're sipping a drink and I can't see that you're about to yes but one one thing I found incredibly.
Interesting is how much verbalization there is about strategy this time round so you know when they say oh they run a good game or or whatever the the lingo that they use because you have polymer like first round kind of like uh what you call it like um safe like um quarterfinals and all this stuff right they have like many rounds to get through the final and what you want to do is like play a good game where you don't exhaust yourself in.
Those rounds but sometimes like you'll run so for example like 400 m first 200 MERS you'll run fast and then the rest of it you'll slow down because you don't want to have to reignite the speed in the last kind of 100 meters so I feel like I've noticed maybe and people are more vocal about the um strategy of like how to run um and the run up to the final which I found is interesting uh and the like it's kind of like game.
Management right or like Tire Management in Formula One you like don't realize they're actually trying to manage the tires to the end of the race or whatever um so I thought that was really interesting and the second thing I found was a bit like interesting but also difficult there's a guy called Noah LS American Sprinter and 200 meters um and he's trying to create like more popular kind of like following of athletes in the sport of Athletics um.
Rather than have it something that Athletics and and Olympics is kind of like forgot like those individuals are like forgotten about because if you think about the NFL or if you think about um the NBA there's always like characters right like main character Vibes and main character energy and it's funny because he's been CR critical of the fact that like I think the NBA have this like um world world champions or something but they're not world champions because the competition is.
Just in the states so how can we call ourselves world champions so then he's like we're world champions because we're playing on a world like against the world right against other people in different countries um and I thought his strategy of being um more kind of like a character it's still him right but um drawing attention to them be able to as he says like Ascend the sport as and be somebody beyond the SPO and I'm like there's no resource to like follow.
Individual athletes well it's usually like these are the sports and this is all the SP so you can like follow the sport but if you very interested in like particular athletes there's no way there's no easy way to like follow that person uh when it comes to like competitions and stuff because there's all all of them have different schedules and all the rest of it unless the one athlete does it themselves right yeah where they have their own app and.
Whatever I think that's what's inspired me to build the whales abroad app there's no way to follow Welsh athletes that are a part of Team GB so in having something that calls them out and specifically the where they're uh competing you you build like an affinity towards the individual rather than oh it's just this whole massive team you like get to know somebody um Have you shared that with um I think there's a BBC Sports Wales Twitter account where.
They just share the Welsh supporters the Olympics but also other things but that'll probably be quite good to share with I shared it with um sport Wales and then like we don't promote this kind of stuff what like this is a good thing so I'm like ah you know and you get a bit disappointed that you think was that in a tweet or was that in a uh email it was in an email cuz I was like hey you might.
Want to like write about this um or or kind of like Point people to it just tweet them it would be funny we don't support these but you don't support your own athletes yeah it's just funny that like you think that a government agency would be happy that people of their communities are like building stuff to like help bring attention and if I was like a part of them I'd be like this is dope like how can we support you like.
Can we give you a little bit of money to like keep it going or could we give you a bit of money to like add these extra things in um because it'd be really cool now obviously sometimes it's like well we planned the 12 years and this is not a part of our plan so we can't sorry not 12 years 12 months so we can't we don't have any resources or anything to like help out so I'm like I would be a bit.
More like fluid and compliment people and um kind of include them in on the ride rather than like no no no we're we're the only people that can talk about W Welsh athletes I'm like well why not promote this thing and then maybe you'd be like actually this is a great idea unless they're thinking this is a great idea we should steal this which should be fine and they' be like would you build our own version where we.
Follow Welsh athletes cuz I think that'd be great like similar to any country right especially if they're in a kind of a collective SC athletes do you know which ones are Scottish no unless they sell you right so you'd like follow them or like people from gy or wherever so I think it'd be a cool idea to have a like a an app where you could follow individual athletes across their competitions um and yeah you could follow them on Twitter and all that.
Stuff but you get a whole host of other stuff don't you so yeah that makesense yeah what do you what are some of the thoughts and some of the things that have come to your mind has have you been watching it I'm good that the GB man didn't play as well as they probably could have in the quarterfinals to at least go for a potential medal in hockey playing yeah with hockey they're playing um India India got a red card within 15.
Minutes and they literally played like Stoke City they just dropped back soaked up all the pressure waited till it was um sort of a a sort of a shootout at the end and they've got really good skills and they've got a good keeper so they just went it off that they just played the long game team that goes for shootouts it's just like it's boring like any team that plays for penalties it's just doesn't make sense very strategic when you know.
Actually from a skill set point of view India have always been good so you don't want to rely on more risk if You' got a good keeper and you got players that are very skillful you want to take it in your own hands and just be a bit more um direct and that's the thing is I think I understand GB were trying to be patient of pass it round but if someone's doing a really really low block and you're.
Passing it around well they're just doing one or two steps either side so you're not really creating a space and you're not really tiring them out because you're not drawing them out really you probably just should have had a lot more hitting or slapping just through them to some extent or deflections just to okay we're just going to Pummel you until we get something and we're just going to go go go go go or whatever that you might get.
Caught off the off chance with a Counterattack but then you just can do a counter press by picking up the ball so that was a bit of shame because I I know some of the players from uni so it's like I'm really gutted for them because I know they're such good players and deserve probably at least a bronze to be fair but yeah AB the Olympics it's a shame when the the strategy doesn't pay off because we don't realize that that's.
Essentially what's at play right it's the strategy that fails and doesn't come through or like the people like what What's the phrase like yeah you lose your head or whatever you know when people just like because again you'll see it in the running don't you when somebody's doing really well in the last 100 meters they just literally do not have energy to pick up the pace and then everybody else passes them and you like feel gutted for them because they just.
Literally youve have run out of energy so I have I have been Day Dreaming the fact that imagine if I got to the Olympics with the hockey team and my main aim was to get a gold actually the last three Olympics that probably would have worked for my age maybe let's say the next one I might be able to push for argument sake I still wouldn't be able to get gold and I think that's the fascinating thing with.
The with the team sport to some extent you sort of want to be a director of sport to influence the whole infrastructure to get them to a place of competing for medals but actually if you line up with either a good crop of Netherlands players or German players that are way more better than you or a bad crop of GB players whatever not that they are I think they're a good one at the moment but it's a shame that it's like if your.
Dream is to hit gold at the Olympics from a team sport particularly a big team sport it must be quite tough if that's your only goal um I think it's probably more so like a hockey goal than a football because there's more competition and you get more known and I guess it's that you build a personality through the Premier League or champions league and those types of um remits and you can build a lifestyle but I think there's a difference when your sport.
Relies more on the Olympics um especially if you're training for four years to then hoping and aiming to get some sort of Medal and not even getting anywhere close to it which is a shame must be hard there's so many moving parts right what one thing I thought was um cool is each team some some teams have reserves so for example in the relay they had a reserve in the cycling some of the sprinting they have reserves now in the.
Relay obviously again you do your rounds so one individual like of that group let's say there's five of them right like one of them ran in that and then in the final somebody else ran and because that person in the first round like ran and they got through all five of them got medals and I'm like that's cool one individual didn't even run in the final but because they contributed to the team progressing they got a medal too and I.
Was like that's a real cool way to like up your chances as it were of course then you're down to like whether or not your team let's say your team wins in the final great if they're not going to win in the final world it's hard you have no control over like enhancing that because you're not involved in it but um I thought that was cool because again these Reserve people they will have trained the same amount right ready to.
Step in if somebody has an injury or whatever however when it comes to a medal they don't actually get a medal and I understand why but it would be kind of like interesting to see if a reserve person gets like secretly gets a medal behind the scenes anyway I I don't know maybe they don't so they train the same amount and they're ready to step in um yeah I do I do find it interesting but yeah overall Olympics I think I've only.
Just kept tabs with the hockey with the GB stuff apart from that is all the uh opening ceremony kick off on Twitter and Facebook and stuff that's the only other stuff that yeah I've come across really I noticed that one guy has won five consecutive gold medals for the same Sport and that's the only person that's ever done it he's a guy from Cuba and he's doing like um I'm not sure if it's wrestling there'll be a proper name for.
It right but it's kind of like that American style wrestling you know when they've got those like um people that are trying to like pin you down or whatever is that type of thing in the circle um and he's won five consecutive medals he's now like in his 40s or whatever like that's pretty cool it's the first ever person to win five I think before it was four so him becoming five is like right now he's the the main.
Guy which I think was really cool that's impressive longevity there oh yeah for sure for sure which is great so all right final uh eight minutes you got a topic to throw about eight minute topic um what should we talk about F first let's do the eliminate automate delegate we could have of a chat yeah just before you jump into that I think another thing that because we're talking about like ideas and stuff right now people have just watched a bunch of.
Olympics they should Target their Hometown with Facebook ads with like did you see the Olympics lot their stuff so they could get a bunch of new signups I was thinking this for your hockey teams this start delivering like um did you see G team GB but it would only really work if it it would work better if they had a gold or something like do you want a gold medal well come and train for us for the next four years and that'll be.
Your like sports club ad yeah so like if because that's the thing gets her gold you'd be like right let's advertise Taekwondo right yeah because that's the thing is when you get gold you just get elevated to hold you another level it's like if you win the World Cup it's like people follow you people know what you're about and people want to buy into that idea yeah if you don't hit that medal sometimes people like I enjoyed watching it a bit but and then it.
Doesn't really go anywhere they're like well I won't be able to win a gold even if I put in the effort because a really good team can't even win it so yeah I think it brings more of a hope when you're like oh our nation can win a gold in XY Z but no agreed yeah go on run you three name three uh three lines again so I came across a social post and I mentioned it to yesterday that I'd.
Probably do this as more personally to me but I thought we'd throw it out there for the uh for the old community and it basically talks about uh the goal of my map is to see where you can and then it's the top first second third so first is eliminate so eliminate things from your life that maybe is distracting you from your goal or pulling you away or whatever automate so things that might not necessarily need to involve you but.
Still need to get done and then and you might be able to automate it through different um AIS or stuff like that and then delegate is there anyone that's in your life that might be able to take it up or you I guess employ someone or get a contract and stuff um yeah I guess have you done this before or is there areas that you actually i' like to do more automation or more elimination or more delegation I guess that probably be.
A shorter discussion yeah I found the elimination thing uh the most interesting so there are similar things around like you know um every so often you quit something every so often you change something right it's it's it's the keeping things fresh I I think the elimination one is the easiest it might be hard to do it however it's the most beneficial I think I or always have automation kind of like baked in I'm always trying to find the fastest or the.
Easiest or the simplest or the one with the least effort method um in anyway I think the one thing I do find hard as delegation because I typically feel like oh well that individual won't do it as passionately as I will because this is my thing or or whatever so I find that one harder to do because it's a trust aspect um but I recognize really it's the whole if you want to go fast go your own go solo or go by yourself if you.
Want to go fast go by yourself if you want to go far go with others um yeah so having that team um if you take anything most things in the world have been built by teams um that are still around that have succeeded and succeeded Beyond kind of like a typical like one two three five 10 years right it's all team based things um so yeah I would say um I find it harder to do the delegation one I.
Naturally aut toate and every so often I do cancel stuff or like back out of stuff sounds bad but like I think that's an important thing of like why am I actually doing this is this um adding to what I'm my purposes and and sometimes we can get confused because something might look very good and complement well but it's it's a little bit off to the side and and having that Nuance is important and that's the thing the guy.
Said why the elimination is first is because you might randomly automate and delegate things where really is a distraction um so you don't want to create a lifestyle that you've automated and delegated because that might incur costs to do so and just brain power to keep on top of everything actually the first thing you should do is are you keep to where you want to go cut a couple of things then automate it because I guess with automation it's.
More technology routs I'm assuming um or transport or something that's um doesn't involve people and then the delegation is probably more time consuming but also more rewarding of once you can find a team or a person that you can rely on or you know that you can build up it is yeah you get a lot more for your money but it takes time to get to that place at the end of the day elimination really helps you become more serious doesn't it.
And kind of like attack the real issues it's the whole analogy of like Aladdin in the cave where the monkey was like distracted by the Ruby but they never went in for the Ruby however if you came out of the of the cave with a ruby everybody would be like that's great right they didn't go in there for the Ruby they went in there for the for the genie right the lamp so in having that elimination you can be more serious and.
More kind of like honest with yourself to not kind of like well I went in there and I got a ruby isn't that something to be celebrated and you can kind of like Get rid of this like fake celebration because that's not really why you're here doing this journey and it might be that you decided to get the Ruby because you got scared and that's fine but let's be honest about that and address it so you can like attack it and that's.
Something that I spoke out yesterday on my video around how like fear and the energy required to overcome the fear can sometimes put you off doing it um and and can create that alternative narrative that you now go down to kind of like validate the fact that it was the right thing to do which is uh is hard so yeah yeah I think I always struggle with delegation as well and probably a little bit of automation because I think if I don't know the.
Technical skills or products I need to do research to find out what I can actually automate um because I'm trying to practice do a little bit more I know my personal socials is throw them all in at the same time the long form and all the short forms and then just um schedule schedule them obviously I know it's me posting it but the fact that I don't need to go up and sort of do the task every day at a certain time or.
Whatever it's that element of automation of okay at least I'm automating when it goes live so then I can do all the task in one sort of sitting as it so yeah trying definitely improve on those things plus I find to some extent elimination I think because it's so easy I think for myself of when I get overwhelmed cutting things out your life makes you feel good so actually it can be like to some extent rewarding not in.
A good sense because let's say you're overburdening yourself quite regularly then you're just getting the joy of cutting things out your life but then you're not actually getting anywhere CU you're coming up with ideas and then you maybe execut the idea then you pull it back and cut it back and then you come up with another idea so it can be um I guess aware that you're not just eliminating things for the for the fun of things that's why I think it's good.
To be like okay if step two is automa delegate can you have that in your mindset um at the same time amazing and I think that's a perfect uh point to end on thanks again for watching we chat to you later [Music] stop don't be a door star don't be a door star.