This method will fix your schedule

Identifying "pain points" will fix your schedule… if you want it to.

Let me hold myself accountable here.

I will often complain about traffic on the way to work.

"It is just such a waste of time!"

Sure, absolutely. But why don't you do something about it?

I realised that every time I complained I never seriously thought about ways to fix it.

I could leave earlier to beat traffic. I could take public transport. I could call my family or intentionally wait to listen to a favourite podcast only once I hit this annoyed state to improve my mood.

I am in control of those things and it all starts with pain points.

Pain points are:
Things that frustrate you
Things that take a lot of time or too much time in your eyes
Tasks you don't enjoy doing
Tasks you can get better at

Simply put, they are things that consistently pop up in your weekly schedule that cause pain.

So, do you just accept that something annoys you constantly or do you do something about it?

Pain points method:
Identify pain points
Identify potential ways to improve
Implement into your schedule

Try this yourself because I know for me, it wasn't until I actually wrote down my pain points that I thought properly about how I could improve those areas.

You're in control.

AI is the new Internet

I am fascinated by this comparison.

When the Internet was created (Google tells me in 1983) people were no doubt skeptical and hesitant, but also excited by the potential of it… basically what AI is now, right?

I stumbled upon this Thread by Chris Adame which stated "Ignoring AI today is like rejecting the internet in 1995".

Well that's bold.

But is it? What if he is bang on the money here? What if AI becomes so big, so normal, that it's basically what the Internet has become today.

It's a fascinating thought and when I think of it, do you know what the main thing is? To embrace it.

What if in the 1980's the majority of the population didn't embrace the Internet because they were hesitant to, like many are with AI, but the people that did, got so far ahead of the mark it wasn't even funny.

What if that is the opportunity we are currently faced with and currently have to decide on?

When you really think about it, why shouldn't we embrace it? Yes it's scary already in terms of its power and intelligence, but if you put aside those thoughts of robots taking over and killing us all then the power of AI is really quite cool.

My hesitance to use AI doesn't come from those thoughts of robots taking over, mine comes from a weird guilt of thinking of it as cheating.

I work in the creative industry so using AI feels like you're cheating a little.

It does things for you in 5 seconds that you used to do in half an hour with a skillset you built up over time (eg Photoshop).

It can write an article for you, as opposed to you doing it all yourself.

But is this basically like saying, "no I will not use Google Maps, I will use a physical maps instead."?

AI is a new resource available to us now, just like the Internet was in the 1980's - 1990's.

It is there to help us so maybe it is time that I, and you, properly embrace it and get ahead of others in our industry.

Our phones are a comfort blanket we hide under

I won’t lie, I was pretty happy with this analogy. I think it describes our relationship with our phones accurately.

We as humans naturally gravitate towards comfort, and our phone is comfort.

All the people we know, all the interests we have, all in one spot.

So we go towards that comfort, even if we have no real need of doing so.

TV ads come on? You grab your phone.
Waiting in line for a coffee? You grab your phone.
Run out of conversation? You grab your phone.

We all do these things! It’s sad but we do. It’s just the reality of our addiction (yes I will use that word even if it comes across as strong).

I battle with reducing my phone time like many of us, but have no fear, I have had some success.

Here are 3 ways I have reduced my phone time:

Out of sight, out of mind
If you don’t see it, you don’t think about it. It’s really that simple.

If you’re phone isn’t there it’s not a quick after thought once you complete a task and once you come back to your desk. Hide that thing, put it in another room, do whatever you have to to remove that little sucker from your vision.

I put mine in a small draw in my desk at home. It’s still within reach (which I should probably change) but I know I have stopped reaching for it as much since tucking it away. At work I simply face the phone down on my desk which funnily enough, isn’t as effective.

Do Not Disturb
Ah the Do Not Disturb mode on Apple devices — what a beautiful feature you are. I started putting my phone on Do Not Disturb during work hours only, but guess what? I never switched it off.

My phone is in Do Not Disturb mode 100% of the time now.

But Darren, don’t you miss important notifications? Well I asked myself, what is really that important that I need to feel a vibration in my pocket instantly and bring my attention towards it?

NBA scores — agreed.

Phone calls — also agreed, so they are the only thing that my phone still vibrates for and lights up for.

The rest — not important.

Ok fine, my work comms are all active on my computer and when I step out I do check my phone quite often. And yes if there’s something important happening that is the 1% where I turn off Do Not Disturb.

But try this, it’s super effective for me.

Intentional scrolling
Scroll social media intentionally. Yes, picking up your phone is one of my hacks to not pick up my phone as much.

This actually makes sense to me. By me identifying that I want to scroll social media and intentionally doing so at a certain time, this gets rid of any further itches for the next few hours that I may have to randomly pick up my phone again and do the same.

To me if you intend to doom scroll, it’s actually ok. The issue is when it isn’t intended and it just completely zaps all energy and positive spirits from you afterwards.

Take a break, check your phone for 5 minutes and lock back in.

-

To finish, I 100% still struggle with my phone addiction (I’m saying we all have this). So if you have any ways you reduce your phone time please do share. The weirder the better.

Case in point, I read today that someone puts an elastic band over their phone to make it harder for them to scroll, so therefore they scroll less. Genius I guess.

Being decisive means you win every time

Put your hand up and admit to spending an unnecessary amount of time on the following things:

What to watch on Netflix.What to eat for dinner that night.What to wear tomorrow.

Procrastinating on life decisions is normal, regardless of how tiny they really are in the grand scheme of things (and they really are tiny).

The one way to remove yourself from those situations? Decisiveness.

Be decisive.

It's funny that choosing something removes yourself from the situation of not choosing something.

I know, typing that out is much easier than actually doing it but it's the truth.

I am fully convinced that making a decision quickly, regardless of if it's the right decision, will always beat spending way too long choosing something and having your energy be zapped from you in the process.

Now obviously if it's a big decision like buying a house you should take time with that, but small things? Just choose an option and own it.

Run with it. You feel confident. You feel in charge.

Yes I'm going to watch the hell out of this action movie with sub par reviews.

You will feel happier watching it (even if it's average) than you will if you sit there stewing on what to watch, yo-yo-ing on the Netflix menu only to end on the first movie you picked out anyway.

If it's a bad movie, so what? If it's bad food well I guess there's only one way to find out.

You will quite literally learn something valuable with any choice you make, so:

Next time you're choosing a restaurant - be decisive.

Next time you're choosing a hotel - be decisive.

Next time you're choosing clothes to wear - be decisive.

Your enjoyment factor skyrockets when you be decisive.

Introducing The Time Token Concept

“We all have 24 hours in a day” yes, but how do we actually use those 24 hours?

I decided that in order to find out this answer, I would visualise each hour as a ‘Time Token’.

Like a poker chip basically. Think about holding 24 of them in your hands and then delegating them one by one into categories.

Stay with me, it’s cooler than it sounds I promise.

Let me show you what I mean and put this into action. Here’s a regular day for me when I work from the office:

How I Use My Time Tokens (1 token = 1 hour)
Sleep - 8 tokens
Work - 8 tokens
Travel - 2 tokens
Exercise - 1 token
Dinner - 1 token
Down time - 4 tokens

Day complete.

That’s a simplified version but one that is easy to look at and analyse.

Take down time for example, that can cover many different things but it makes it easy to understand and be like ok, I actually have 4 hours to (kind of) do what I want.

Whether that’s watching Netflix with my wife, catching up on sport, reading - it’s a great way to ask yourself how you want to use those 4 hours and how you currently are.

It paints a clear picture with the use of your time and brings up questions like:

• How can I reduce travel time to work?

• Is my balance right?

• Where should I delegate more tokens?

• What category could I take a token or two from?

I think it’s a great exercise to do to be like hang on, how do I actually spend my 1,440 minutes every single day and how can I be smarter with that time?

For example, I’m already contemplating how to reduce travel time to work. Whether that’s leaving earlier, finding a different method and so on.

Try it for yourself. Delegate those Time Tokens.

It is so easy to learn these days

I laugh (a good chuckle) how easy it is to access information and learn these days.

Part of having a brand online as a successful person is essentially sharing your knowledge with the world, for free.

Think about that. Doctors, scientists, business guru’s, tech guru’s - they’re all sharing knowledge online in different formats.

I was just listening to a podcast with “Mr Beast” who admittedly, I have barely watched any content of, but he has 364 million subscribers on YouTube so I assume that means he is the biggest YouTuber ever.

I am in the world of content so why wouldn’t I listen and learn?

If a super smart bloke who has done years of research into a topic you want to learn about, why on earth wouldn’t you spend an hour of your time listening to a podcast of his?

It just makes sense.

If you want to get into Psychology you can listen to hundreds of podcasts on it, read books, attend “YouTube University” and boom, your half way to becoming a Psychologist. That’s a stretch but you can really educate yourself easily, and quickly.

The online world is tricky though, let me hit you with a situation as an example.

If I see a video on Instagram about which foods contribute to health problems, and it’s a doctor telling me, well then it has to be true… doesn’t it?

That’s the challenge right there. The amount of ‘experts’ online.

Every second person acts like an expert now so you don’t know who to believe or what to actually pay attention to.

But in amongst the mud are some bits of gold that you can take with you.

We really don’t have any excuses to not learn about a topic these days.

You’re not too busy, it’s just not a priority

Look, I have a bone that needs picking.

I’m sick of “I’m too busy” being used as an excuse to not do something.

You will make time for something if you want to make time for it.

Everyone is busy but it’s up to you what you make a priority.

I get it, sometimes it really does feel like you have no space in your schedule left.

But the reality is you can substitute. You can choose something over another thing. You can sacrifice if you want to.

You can also learn ways to constantly be more efficient, more productive and to open up time for those things you’re itching to get more time for.

That’s where time management comes in. It’s a thrill I get when I find ways that save me time.

But it really comes down to choices.

Eg. you can choose to catchup with a long time friend over working overtime. That example sounded personal because… maybe it is. Maybe that is something that has come up recently but better out than in, right? That’s just the reality of it to me.

Next time you catch yourself thinking you are too busy to do something, maybe ask yourself, “what is my priority?”.

If your choice remains the same then great. If you’re not willing to sacrifice something for that catch-up then that is perfectly fine, but don’t use “you’re too busy as a reason.”

I’m laughing to myself now because I am imagining a text coming through after suggesting a catch-up that reads, “sorry you’re just not anywhere near a priority right now.”

You suck at communication

Ok not suck, but we can all improve at communication.

The amount of times projects break down, people cause unnecessary stress or an overall shit storm happens from a lack of communication is quite remarkable.

Remarkable in the worst way.

If someone is affected, tell them.

If a time has changed, tell them.

If you are running late, tell them.

I feel silly writing that as you would think it was obvious.

These are such simple things but so many struggle at doing them at times.

Being busy is not an excuse to think about yourself only.

It is not hard to keep others in mind!

It’s time to hold myself accountable.

The most important part of starting anything new.

Discipline.

Discipline means that regardless of what day it is, what week it is, you do the thing you set out to do. And as a result, you feel good about yourself. And you feel like you are progressing. Actually, you are progressing.

The best part about this is that to me, what you set out to do should be relatively small.

Don’t promise the world to yourself and get stressed out about it. What’s the point in that?

I began my writing journey (so to speak) I guess around a year or so go and have been dabbling ever since.

No real consistency, just writing whenever I felt like it.

But I don’t think that’s the way to reach goals. To get better at a skill.

That doesn’t hold myself accountable in any way unless I set some guidelines.

Introducing Friday Feeling. A weekly newsletter from myself.

Everyone releases things on Monday morning it feels like. Forget that. Friday’s usually a better mood, people are thinking weekend weekend weekend and a busy week has just finished up.

A busy week means lots of thoughts.

Friday Feeling is going to be sent every Friday morning and will cover one main thought from my week as well as some other tidbits around my life that I want to talk to you about and oh, get recommendations from you as well. TV shows, books, podcasts, shit movies in the cinema - let’s discuss.

Time to stay consistent Darren, you will write every Friday morning.

Hey to read these, you know what you have to do, sign up to the newsletter on the homepage. Sorry, I have to hook you in and grab your data somehow you know?

Not every hour of every day needs to be productive

I was in a ‘productivity funk’ last night, that’s what I’m calling it.

You know those moments when you have free time but you feel like you have to be super productive with it?

And if you aren’t productive you get irritated at yourself.

How do we define being productive by the way? Because isn’t resting technically being productive because your future self will then be more productive with that rest? I hope you are following because I barely am.

I said to myself I would just watch the Australian Open and relax, switch off, that old thing. But my body kept picking up my iPad and trying to create some content which of course was just not working.

I’d spend 5-10 minutes creating and after the work-in-progress piece didn’t look a million bucks I got annoyed with myself.

And then further thought to myself how unproductive I was being.

Do you get in this productivity funk as well? Message me some tips.

I literally wanted to just watch TV or read a book, but my body was getting agitated by just doing that.

The online world, the entrepreneur world, they all push GO GO GO, be productive in every hour of the day but that certainly doesn’t feel achievable. Nor should it.

You need rest, but our bodies and minds are getting very used to always wanting to do something more. At least mine is anyway.

Laughter is seriously the best medicine

It’s the best.

Wherever that saying originally came from I applaud you because everyone knows it and it continues to ring true as I go through my adulthood.

I had a damn good chuckle today and it was at mine and my brothers expense. Those have to be the best laughs by the way, with your closest people, your circle, those who you are most comfortable and therefore most silly with.

There are some great quotes on laughter out there. Here are a few favourites that I found during a quick google search.

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” – Charlie Chaplin

“Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.” – Kevin Hart

“Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers.” - Bill Cosby

“I think laughter is the best medicine. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then you can’t laugh at life and the silliness of it all.” – David Hasselhoff

Wait, did David Hasselhoff come up with the “laughter is the best medicine” line….?

I’m going to end my inspirational quote dropping there as I think about what I’ve discovered.

I don’t want you or I to think too deeply about laughter but there are some great quotes in that link above.

At the end of the day, it really is the best. Humour in general is.

It’s a way I instantly connect with people and I think it makes every day life and every day struggles that much easier.

It’s a free medicine, so sometimes you just need to get over it, be silly and have a laugh.

Life doesn’t have to be so serious.

Embrace the Onion, embrace the small steps

We all focus on the finish line only. I do this, you do this, it’s human nature to do this.

We set goals for ourselves and then stare at the finish line like, “man, that thing is so far away”, rather than embracing all the steps that you HAVE to take to get there.

I did this yesterday in a really small way. Now, stay tuned for a thrilling story.

So I was making dinner. Spaghetti Bolognese was on the menu, well we used Penne instead of Spaghetti but that’s not the point. I could go into more detail if you like?

I started chopping an onion and all I was thinking about was how long was left until the meal was done, cooked, in my stomach and I even thought about dishes and cleaning up at that stage too.

What’s the point in that? It just makes us likely to be frustrated with all that hard yakka ahead of you. It then speeds you up and stresses you out.

Slow down and embrace that Onion, Darren.

Everything has a process. Yes the end goal is great but you might not even make it there if every single step is a super heavy one.

Eat an apple before you transform your entire diet.

Do literally 5 pushups before you get built.

Post 5 pieces of content before you quit your 9-5 to pursue your content career full-time.

These things make perfect sense when you type them out, but our brains feel like they are wired to think “end goal end goal end goal.”

Embrace the Onion.

Any motion beats no motion

Starting is always the hardest part. But you’ve already succeeded once you do because you are in motion. You’re doing something, anything!

This was my takeaway from a video via The Blurb on YouTube. Don’t ask me what The Blurb is or why it popped up on my feed but that’s the way content platforms work, things just appear, but I’m glad this one did.

It’s the idea that any movement towards a goal easily outweighs no movement at all, so get moving, little by little.

My recap is essentially:

• Reduce the stakes of your goal, otherwise it’s too overwhelming.

• Don’t promise that you’ll deliver the world, start small.

• 2 minutes is all you need on any task, after that it’s your choice to stop or keep going.

The top one was my favourite though - reduce the stakes.

Go for a daily walk before you run a marathon. Record one podcast episode before you create a media empire. Write on Threads each day before you write a book.

I am guilty of setting big goals and I’m sure you are too. They are great but they are also overwhelming.

“Oh shit I have to transform my life with this task, that’s right, I better make a huge leap in the right direction today otherwise I’ll set myself up for failure.”

That doesn’t scream motivation or confidence to me.

Big goals are great but getting there involves a ton of small reps. Achievable reps. So let’s start there.

It’s quite soothing knowing that you are succeeding with quite literally any motion in the right direction.

Nothing happened on New Years Eve and it was awesome

Maybe it’s a sign of getting older, maybe it’s my personality, but by ‘New Years Eve’ standards I did nothing on the night of December 31st and I was really satisfied with that.

For as long as I can recall there felt like pressure to go out on NYE, drink alcohol and stay up late - that was the vibe.

Which a lot of the time is fun, and there is nothing wrong with it. But this year it was different for me.

Many of my circle started talking about NYE plans and we didn’t have any. But the funny part was nobody sounded like they wanted any. I was 100% in that camp as well.

My NYE looked like this:

• Dinner with my wife, brother and his wife

• Ice cream afterwards

• Home by 8:00pm

• Asleep by 11:00pm

I was genuinely really satisfied with this night.

I spent time with my loved ones, ate good food and got a great nights rest all while feeling perfectly healthy and hydrated. How good.

(Ok fine, I felt rundown from the amount of social activities at this time of year but besides from that, healthy).

I’m not saying I’m above anyone who had a big old drinking sesh on NYE, not at all, more so that we shouldn’t feel this social pressure to do just that every time December 31st rolls around.

Ask yourself why you’re doing it. If you want to do it, please do, but if you don’t, please don’t.

This time of year there’s enough socialising going on anyway, sometimes all you want is a relaxing night in and a good snooze to cap off the year.

Happy 2025 all.

Isn’t social media basically a depressant at this point?

This sounds a bit dramatic, I know, but I think I’m onto something here.

Comparing social media to a depressant such as alcohol is a bit much but they do have their similarities!

So just say we did compare it to alcohol…

Small hits of it makes you feel good but too much and your head is throbbing.

It can give you a buzz but once you overdo it, even just a little bit, you feel worse.

Look, I like social media. A lot of my job involves social media, but the reality is that the more I am on it, the worse I feel.

Seeing what your friends, colleagues, acquaintances are up to is great. As is having a laugh over some silly TikTok with your partner, but there is so much garbage in between those moments.

Sometimes I look up from my doom scroll, take in my surroundings and be like, “now why the hell did I do that?” And feel shitty about it. I’m sure we’ve all been there.

Doom scrolling gives you some form of hangover. That’s how I’m describing it.

The less social media the better for me these days, they are my parting words.

You are in control of your own happiness

There are so many things we control that provide us happiness. Yes they can be a pain in the bum to do, but we control them, technically.

We are all different, weird humans in our own way, but everyone knows what feels good for themselves.

One thing for me is my morning routine. Wake up, make a healthy breakfast, a coffee and go for a walk.

I am in control of that, every single morning.

When you think about it nothing can really stop me from doing this every day (barring some rare, unexpected occurrences.)

Isn’t that powerful though?

I know that makes me feel good, and I know I can achieve that every day ending in “y”.

These aren’t simply opinions either, these are science based things.

Sunlight in the morning improves your mood.

Drinking water reduces your chances of headaches.

Being active is good for you.

Eating healthy makes you feel better.

Doom scrolling on social media decreases your mood (this is something I am guilty of lately).

I am no scientist with the data in front of me but I know that studies prove these things. Qualified people tell us these things.

They are all things we are in control of.

So maybe it’s just a matter of getting over ourselves sometimes and doing those extra activities to boost our mood.

Easier said than done, but we are in control.

Man, what a hell of a year it’s been

Shaboozey’s song “good news” made me reflect on the year of 2024.

Firstly, great track. 100% not what I usually listen to but Shaboozey has made me a fan.

Secondly, a year is a long time and it’s so easy to forget about things you experienced, accomplished and simply watched play out.

In 2024, I:

got married.

grew a business with my brother.

saw a close friend make the NBA.

went to the NBA Summer League in Vegas.

worked my 7th season in the NBL.

Just to name a few.

What headlined your 2024?

Go write down some things that happened in 2024 just so you can appreciate them once again.

Are loud people privileged?

We know “the early bird gets the worm”, but what about the loudest bird?

Adam Grant in his book Hidden Potential writes, “When we select leaders, we don’t usually pick the person with the strongest leadership skills. We frequently choose the person who talks the most. It’s called the babble effect.”

While I think every situation is circumstantial, this makes a lot of sense to me.

The loudest in the room gets noticed.

Maybe it’s who gets the promotion at work, who becomes captain of a sport team, if you’re loud, you’re seen. Therefore you may be getting valued more than someone who isn’t.

Look at the corporate hierarchy specifically, the loudest equals the most confident right? Putting two and two together means that they would in theory, make the best leaders.

I can’t blame people for thinking that way but there are things we can all do to change that.

Introverts, let’s challenge ourselves to be more vocal.

Regardless of if it gets you a promotion, it’s great for personal growth and it feels good doing so. This doesn’t mean standing up at every meeting and presenting by the way. Being loud could be emails, messages, phone calls - there’s different ways of using your voice.

Leaders, let’s look beyond the loudest voice in the room.

It’s easy to get drawn there, I get it, and honestly that may be exactly what you are after and the best person for the job, but let’s give everyone a shot. Quiet doesn’t mean a lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, lack of skills.

One last thing to conclude this, if you’re out of sight, you’re out of mind.

Do you remember shopping for groceries at your local Samsung store?

Good, because neither do I.

Google tells me that Samsung started as a grocery store in 1938 so a big hello to any 86 year olds reading this, maybe you recall a time you picked up milk and bread at Samsung but I can guarantee you most of us don’t.

Samsung started as a grocery store.

Nintendo started by making playing cards.

IKEA started as a pen.

I read this on social media the other day and guess what this told me?

That it’s normal to fail.

The biggest brands and biggest names in the world have failed.

So next time you and I ‘fail’ at something, let’s try to look at it differently.

Trust your circle, but trust yourself more

Everyone has their own ‘circle’.

Family, close friends, mentors — all of you get in that circle.

Having them there to discuss career moves, ideas, hobbies and even relationship advice, is great.

To me it is what they are there for.

But after hearing them out, regardless of how many points you agree with or points you don’t, I say to always go back to what you feel.

Everyone always says “go with your gut” when making a decision but I think it’s within good reason.

It’s super easy to get influenced by even a single conversation or text message from someone you trust.

It’s happened to me many times.

“Well damn it, I really wanted to do that but Circle Member X raises a good point and now I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

Getting there perspective on a decision is the whole purpose as they will see it differently than you do.

But at the end of the day, back yourself.

Trust them, but trust yourself more.