it's just living in this world of constant urgency shuffling things around without actually getting any work done because I think so many people have lost even the definition of what work means what does it mean to actually do work hey there I'm matella and welcome to my short form podcast three rules each episode I ask a guest to share three rules that help them find success and happiness today I'm joined by Sam coros CEO and co-founder of levels a company helping people better understand their metabolic Health through real time data Sam takes a counterintuitive approach to both work and life rejecting the always busy CEO stereotype he schedules his days for deep focus while also being very intentional about his media diet whether you're an entrepreneur or not I think you're going to find a lot of value from Sam's rules let's start off with rule number one for you rule number one is don't let urgency determine priority it's a useful way to think about problems and what I found is that certainly in my past and a lot of people that I know are basically trapped in the Urgent category sometimes urgent important sometimes urgent not important usually urgent not important where something feels urgent it just by default will override anything that you are doing because it has to be done with a deadline a very specific recent example for us I had a reporter reach out to us for a quote related to our space and glucose monitoring and said I need you to respond to this within 2 4 hours and I said no thank you because you know it's a large publication but media is not part of our strategy so while there's this artificial constraint of hey you need to do this within 24 hours I don't actually have to so I'm going to focus on what's important media was part of our strategy a few years ago it's not right now so it's better to just not respond and focus on what's actually important um so one of the practices that I have for this which I found really helpful I every quarter I try to do a think week where I stole this from Bill Gates where I spend one week per quarter not plugged into Communications just thinking and writing he mostly does reading but I do a lot more writing in mine I a lot of my best work a lot of the strategy documents that have led our path on this company have come from those think weeks it's often times I found it's not until day three or four of being disconnected from the dayto day of the hyperactive hive mind that I'm actually able to come up with new ideas and think more clearly about where we're heading otherwise you just get fixated on what is immediately in front of you so um yeah not not letting urgency or whatever is the thing that's recent and directly in front of you determine what you pay P attention to is really a critical one I imagine there are blanket NOS that you have where you're just like uh doesn't matter what it is uh and it doesn't matter how urgent it seems your automatic response is no I think some of it is is not necessarily even a blanket no but I do add friction so um one thing that I have found really helpful is when somebody reaches out and they say Hey I'm working on this new thing I'd love to get your feedback on it and I'll respond with something like hey I'm I'm happy to help I'm really constrained on my time right now for calls so if it's okay with you I'm happy to trade notes by email to start and about 90% of people don't even bother following up with an email which saves me a lot of time like if you're if you're not even willing to put in the 5 minutes of effort that it would take to like write down what you were hoping to get out of the conversation in an email it was almost certainly going to be a waste of time in a phone call so um creating that friction and uh verifying that the other person is actually willing to put in the effort I think helps a lot that cuts down the noise um but I'm I'm willing to help people in a lot of these circumstances so it's not a blanket no I'm so glad that you gave this advice it's very relevant right now cuz I have an email in my inbox where somebody wanted to get on a call and I really felt like we didn't need the call like we we could just yeah exchange notes via email but it is the I think it's the people pleaser in us that wants to they say get on a call so you're like all right yeah let me find time to hop on a call but I think you have to lean into that a little bit like you said and just it may be a little bit uncomfortable to push back against somebody when they're really really want to get on a call they make it seem really urgent make it seem really important but there are ways to tactfully um create a response that will kind of push that off your plate it's just living in this world of constant urgency constant just shuffling things around without actually getting any work done because I think so many people have lost even the definition of what work means what does it mean to actually do work so that's uh it's it's so different in knowledge work because when you're a Mason when you're doing masonry like you know what the output of your work is when you're building a house you expect to have a house at the end of it in knowledge work it can just be vaporware and nobody knows any different uh let's move on to rule number two rule two you don't need to know everything this is an interesting one because I think so much of people's attention is pulled in directions that are outside of their control I think many people live their lives as the passengers not as the drivers I do my best to ensure that other people are not able to impose upon my attention that I am the owner of my own attention and that I choose what I put that attention on what are some ways that you remain intentionally ignorant I think the simplest one because this is where most people get their information is news I've been news sober for 11 years and the news is where most people get information where they they feel like they are staying informed and the reality is most of that information has no connection at all to your day-to-day life you also have no ability to influence it and it changes your perception of the world in a way that's really unhealthy so there's only so much time and attention there are only so many things that we can learn our time is finite this is a constant my my wife hates it when I say this but she always says I don't have time and I say you have the same amount of time as everyone else you just choose not to prioritize it which is okay but let's not pretend like there just isn't time we people do things we all have the same amount of time we just choose what we want to do or not what media do you prioritize like what are those um those the the whether it's books or TV or news what are the Staples when it comes to your media diet it's almost entirely books I think when I when I consider my consumption of information from outside sources I I do my best to read two books a week I think I've averaged about a hundred books a year for the last 11 years uh ever since giving up the news um the books that I pick are typically books that were recommended by friends so I uh I have whenever somebody recommends a book I will add it to my audible wish list I do most of them as audiobooks now and uh I've just found it such a convenient way when I'm when I'm in the middle of a workday and I have like an hour between meetings in in the previous world I would have just sat around and done nothing maybe watched the news checked some website checked the New York Times or something and now I put on an audio book and I go for a walk and it's lovely and I've actually been reading books on audio books for so long that I can my default reading speed is at 3 and 1/2 no it's not are you joking that's insane it sounds totally normal to me at this point because I've done so many of these but to other people it just sounds like Chipmunks fighting yeah like does having this regular speed conversation just like it's like impossible for you to like slow down this much I will say that there have definitely been times when I've been in meetings live and I'm like looking for the button to make it go faster I'm like oh wait I'm in this meeting never mind I have to like calm down yeah for sure oh I was going to say because it's like that that brings up another question that I was going to have so you're consuming a lot of media through audiobooks one of the challenges that I've had is that um it I tend it tends not to be as sticky for me so what are the things that you do if you're trying to take notes Implement some of the things that you've learned from audiobooks how do you make sure that you don't lose track of those insights as they're flying by 3.5 times speed you know so part of the answer is I don't that's the the simple answer um when there's a book this happens with maybe fiveish per of the books that I read if there's a book that I've read and it's just like wow that one had so much content in it that I need I need to turn that into actions in my life I'll buy the physical copy after reading the the audio book um I accept that maybe my comprehension is 80 or 90% of what it would be if I did the physical book but I've done this experiment and my my actual the amount of content that I'm able to ingest is at least five times greater with audiobooks just because I can do it while I'm driving I can do it while I want to walk it's just those those Flex times when I can I can consume it and uh I can listen to it on an airplane whatever it is it's just so much easier to get that information in so I my comprehension is probably marginally less by doing audiobooks but when I have a really good one I'll buy the physical copy and I'll mark it up I'm going to be back with the third and final rule in a moment but first one of the ways I'm supporting this podcast is through patreon by becoming a patron you get access to the full unedited episodes of the show a lot of people have forgotten what it actually means to do work especially younger people who legitimately believe they wouldn't be able to articulate this but they actually believe that their job is to make sure that their green status icon and slack is always green as a patron you also get additional unused footage from my YouTube videos and access to a membersonly area where you can ask me questions for my patreon exclusive AMA podcast and most importantly you'll feel good knowing that you're supporting a Creator you like and really what other incentive do you need simply go to patreon.com Della to support the show that's patreon.com davella there's a link down in the description below thanks for considering let's move on to rule number three so rule number three is similar which is only give your attention to things you can control so much of my life I was worried about things that I I had no control over I would focus my attention on trying to network with people who I didn't know but who I thought would be good people to know I spend all this time on things that were outside and not focusing enough inside on the things that are immediately in front of me that I can actually influence and ever since I changed to focusing on that my life has been a lot better my friendships are a lot deeper I I think uh stress broadly speaking goes down when you just let go of things that you have no control over whatever is going on this is another fascinating thing that almost nobody can name their local representative in government almost nobody and that person has way more of an effect on your life than whoever the president is and yet people don't seem to know or care we we're focused on we're focused on National things like it's a like it's a team sport like we're watching football or something but the things that actually impact us are local and people spend very little time thinking about that what are the big things in your life that you found you can control um to help improve your life if you only have 24 hours in a day and you want to sleep which means you have about 16 hours a day of attention which is actually not very much and if you want to spend two or three hours of that getting angry about things that are happening elsewhere that you can't control or you can spend 3 hours a day with your wife and child building a happy marriage it's pretty obvious which one you should choose but empirically most people choose the wrong one so uh it just feels like but you have to be a responsible citizen so you have to do those things you actually don't I think people take these things as assumptions like you have to do them but you you actually have agency here uh there was a moment when I was in my late 20s early 30s when I I had this Vivid recognition that I was not driving my own life I was the passenger I was just letting events take me whatever was directly in front of me that's the way that I would go and I had to take a pause I took a year off work and thought a lot about what do I want to do with my time and that helped a lot um it's uh it's certainly a privilege to be able to take time off a year in particular to think about these things but it helped it helped Orient the way that I think about the world and focusing on things that I can actually influence that I want to to make the change in the world so I think it's uh anyone who can do it I think it's uh it's really really beneficial to take that time to think about it it sounds like reflection is just a really important thing that youve found in your life whether it's for one year or if it's for a weekend retreat uh where you go away by yourself and just write uh it seems like constantly kind of coming back to basic principles and trying to understand um in the busyness of Life what is important now because things often change our lives change a lot you become parents you change jobs uh and and constantly reflecting seems to help oh Sam thank you so much for joining me today it was a real pleasure if people want to learn more about your work your company and what you do where should we send them I'm just on X at Sam coros thanks so much thanks for tuning in to three rules want to see every rule from the show get the full archive at Matt dev.com thre rules for my weekly bite-sized self-development emails where I share insightful lessons practical tips and personal experiments sign up at mata.com newsletter and if you want to learn more about today's guest check out the description for this episode see you next time