261: Big Picture Thinking / How to Prioritize

Steli Efti:

Hey, everybody. This is Steli Efti.

Hiten Shah:

And this is Hiten Shah.

Steli Efti:

And today in the Startup Chat we want to talk about big picture thinking, and  how to prioritize better for your startup. So here’s the reason I want to talk  about this, Hiten. Ramin, big shout-out to Ramin, who is an invisible man behind this  podcast and is helping and organizing a lot and is working on the marketing team.  Ramin has been asking me about, or suggesting this topic to me for a really  long time now. And he keeps coming back, and any time I ask him, “Hey,  do you have anything you think Hiten and I should discuss on the podcast?” whenever I run out of ideas, he goes … Well, he offers a few topics, but  this is the one that’s been most consistently shared. And he always goes “You know,  you are amazing at prioritizing and keeping the big picture in mind”. And Hiten seems  to really, really amazing at this. And it’s something that most people struggle with, and  I think Ramin struggles with this directly in marketing topics. And I’ll talk a little  bit about this when I join team meetings. When I join marketing calls, and Ramin  is on there and I’m on there, I’m usually the one that is pushing to reprioritize some things, bring in the big picture of thinking. I think that’s an unfair  dynamic and I’ll talk a little bit about that. But he experiences many, many times  when I join a discussion and will help the team think differently about what is  the true priority and what isn’t. He’s been dying for us to talk about this.  I honestly have not been that excited about this topic, I don’t even know why,  I was like “I don’t know, prioritization,” but finally I’ve cracked and I was like  “all right, all right, I’ll ping Hiten, we’ll talk about this.” It’s probably something that  maybe, I don’t know, maybe you and I feel that this is not that big  of a topic or we don’t feel like it’s a big need in our life.  But I can see that a lot of people will benefit from this, so let’s  chat about it.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, you know, first of all, shout out to Ramin. I know he’s behind the  scenes doing a lot of stuff for us that I don’t even have to think  about. I honestly, just ’cause he wants it I’m down to do it on my  end.

Steli Efti:

Nice.

Hiten Shah:

So yeah, let’s do it. On the prioritizing, you know, I think that it’s a  skill anyone can learn. It has to do, honestly, I think, I’m gonna get a  little foo-foo for a second, but you and I might be good at it ’cause  I know how mindful we are. That has to do with mindfulness. I’m not saying  either of us probably meditates every day religiously. But I think we are the type  of people that can easily … I mean, I was walking with you yesterday for  a few blocks, ’cause we happened to hang out. It felt like for a bunch  of time we weren’t talking, we were both kind of like meditating, so to speak,  or just being mindful of where we are. I felt that and noticed it. I  think a lot of that has to do with … Everyone I know that’s not  good at prioritizing fits in one or two camps today. One camp is they’re just go-getters, the just go, go, go. And they are just very good at attacking what’s  in front of them. Or just what’s on top of mind. And that’s interesting. I  have a co-founder who’s very much like that, very, very much like that. He’ll just  go at it, and attack whatever’s in front of him, whatever’s top of mind, and  he does a great job of it. But one of the reasons he’s very good  at it, without actually having to prioritize as much as, I’d say, you and I  probably do, is that his horsepower, so to speak, being able to do something and  just get it done and pull people into it is uncanny. So the speed at  which he can get people to do things, and himself do things, it’s pretty strong,  pretty high when he puts his mind to it. I’d say it’s much stronger than  mine. The other camp, I would say, would be someone like Ramin. And I don’t  know enough about what he does, exactly, every day, but I can hypothesize, being in  marketing, he’s probably just got a lot of shit going on and his to-do list  is massive if he even has one. And his prioritization skills are probably just not  developed. The reason is, there’s just a lot going on. So those are two different  modes for me, because my co-founder Neil, he has a lot going on, but he  just demolishes through everything and is very good at just being mindful, not mindful but  anti-mindful. Just whatever’s top of mind for him, whatever he’s thinking about. And he has  a very singular goal in mind in life. And that goal is what drives him  to just prioritize, essentially, without having to think about it the way you and I  would.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

And then on Ramin’s hand, I think the to-do list is long. And when your  to-do list is long, it is definitely a challenge to learn how to prioritize it,  ’cause the short answer to prioritization is keep the to-do list short for what you’re  trying to do right now. And that’s not how everyone is, so I don’t know.  That’s what I got so far.

Steli Efti:

Yeah, no, this is good shit, I think. So one, I want to start with  a disclaimer, and I think this is an important one. And I mentioned this earlier,  with the … You know, he might feel this the most significantly when I join  a call. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a fair comparison. So oftentimes, people like  you and me, Hiten, if you’re a founder of a startup or the CEO of  a startup, when you have some kind of a leadership position, oftentimes you, we’re a  little bit of a unique case because I know that both of us are a  bit more hands-on and do have some deliverables, more so than other CEOs might have.  But even us, we are operating most of the times from a position that has  the most context, the most context-rich position in the team, in the company, because we  touch every team and every area of the business, most of them probably, any other  person in the company. So you have a much better idea of what’s going on  all around the company. You probably have a much better idea of what’s going on  in the market in general, and you’re not as hands-on, like your list, typically, as  CEO or co-founder, probably is not gonna be as long, with as many little to-do  items, so when you join somebody else’s meeting, you can come in without that tunnel  vision. You can come in with a little bit of a distance, which gives you  the power of perspective, right? You can see the big picture because you’re just not  drowning in the tasks and to-dos of every single day and deadlines. And you also  come in with the benefit of knowing everything that’s going on in the overall business  and market. So when I join a marketing call and Ramin might have four to-dos and I might challenge him on the four things that they are working on and  I might challenge him on those and go “Why are we even doing these things?  Are they really important, are they really gonna move the needle?” Or I’m bringing up  something that was not on the list but that is of much greater importance, I  can feel, I can easily see how after a call like that or a meeting  like that, Ramin is like … And in this case, Ramin and myself, we’re just examples for this happening everywhere, I could see Ramin thinking “Holy shit, why didn’t I  think about these things?” Or “Why is it so easy for someone to just walk  into randomly a meeting or call and just know with such level of certainty what’s  more important and be right about it?” And I think it’s an unfair comparison, because  I come into the conversation with the ability to have much more higher-level, big-picture thinking,  and a much easier time for me to have the distance to see what should  or shouldn’t be a priority, probably, versus him, who’s in the day-to-day operational role. It’s  just easier to do that. If he joined a call from another meeting, it might  be much easier for him to see the big picture of what they’re missing or  what they should be doing there. So I think that it’s important for anybody that  has experienced this, especially with the founder or CEO-level person, to not compare yourself one-on-one,  like “Why am I not acting like this other person, exactly the same way?” Because it’s easier for an outsider to have big-picture thinking sometimes, or to see what’s blatantly  obvious but everybody else in that meeting or conversation is missing because they’re so drowned  and buried in details and to-dos and deadlines. So that’s one thing. You need to  be careful how you compare yourself with others, you need to understand that when somebody  else comes into your meeting that is not doing this stuff all day long, ten  hours a day, eight hours a day, and drowning in all these tasks, it’s gonna  be much easier for that person to be mindful and see the big picture, have  perspective, enhanced … You know, probably be better at bringing up priorities. So that’s one  thing. The other thing is, I think what you said is a really killer thing,  which is mindfulness, I think, is really the driver for being good at prioritizing things.  And mindfulness just means, if you don’t stop frequently, multiple times a day, a week,  a month, step back, physically and spiritually and mentally, to think “What is truly going  on in my life, in my team, in my business, on my projects? What are  really the things that drive and make a significant difference, that I’m working on, and  what are the things that aren’t really?” And what would happen if I just stopped  doing some of the things that I’ve been doing forever that are unfulfilling and not  really driving results? Is it really gonna be that bad? Versus “What if I double  down with the things that truly matter?” Or what is something that truly matters that  I’m not working on because I’m drowning on all these little tasks? If you don’t  find ways to slow down, to stop to take a break, to take a pause,  to step away and ask some of these big questions, you will never be good  at prioritizing. And to stop is much harder than to just keep going. It’s easier  to just keep going, go with the flow, be interrupted, let your inbox and people  emailing you and the people on your team that are chatting you on Slack and  the people in your office that walk up to your office and push you and  go “Hey, can you do this for me? Hey, what about … ” People come  to you with their problems, with their tasks, with questions, and you just let the  world around you dictate what you’re worrying about, what you think about, what you’re working  on. That is much easier because it requires zero mindfulness. You just allow everybody else  to dictate what you’re doing. But if you want to be good at creating tons  of value, which means being good at having big-picture thinking and prioritizing well, you are  forced to develop the discipline to be mindful and to be in control of your  own time and your mind. I think that’s just something that most people have not  yet had. And I didn’t have this my entire life. Ramin knows this directly because  Ramin worked with me on a company 15 years ago, and he will tell you  I was not good at big-picture thinking or prioritizing back then. I was horrible, terrible  at it. So it’s not like … Going back to what you said earlier, this  is not some kind of a personal gift, it’s not a personality trait, you’re not  born with it or without it. It’s a skill set you can cultivate or not, I couldn’t agree more with it. So maybe for the, to end and wrap up  this episode, maybe you can give a tip each on how to cultivate that mindfulness  allows, particularly well, to be good at prioritizing things.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, I mean, one of the reasons I think mindfulness helps is because what it  enables you to do is take a step back and look at everything you’re doing  with a more clear mind, a more blank slate. You’re not so much in the weeds, trying to get every to-do list item done. Instead, what you’re doing is you’re  taking a step back and actually thinking through what needs to get done, what’s the  most important thing. The interesting thing is, you know, I’ll give a quick short story.  I was at … I saw you yesterday, Steli, and then, I saw you with  my business partner Marie, met her for the first time, and that was awesome. You  came up with some ideas for the pilot cast, but we’re not gonna share them  right now. And after we met you, we actually went to Cyclops Coffee in San Francisco, I guess I’m a hipster like that.

Steli Efti:

Yes, you are.

Hiten Shah:

And … Or I can at least say Marie is and blame her. And we  actually had a meeting, her and I over some coffee, at the Cyclops instead of  at our office, which is her apartment. And we actually had one of these meetings  where we prioritized. And literally, we just took a step back and said “You know,  we just launched this product, there’s these seven, eight things that we actually have slated  to do. What’s most important?” And so to me, the mindfulness part is more about  stepping back, not looking at your to-do list, not even writing anything down yet, and  having either a discussion with yourself, which is totally doable, or having a discussion with  the person that can help you or is helping you, and responsible equal to you  or even not equal to you, just in whatever capacity makes sense. And just talk  about it. And literally, we reprioritized, in that fifteen-minute talk about this topic, and figured  out “Oh, crap, what we were thinking about and all this jumble in our head  about all these eight or nine things, boils down to these two things that are  most important right now.” And we were able to discuss why. And I don’t think  that conversation could have happened unless we were both being mindful about wanting to have that conversation and stepping back from the to-do list. Otherwise we would have went back  after seeing you, ’cause you know, it was a fun meeting seeing you and we  were definitely not talking shop as much, and going back to work directly and being  like “All right, we’re gonna go crank out our stuff.” But I don’t think the  decisions would have been the same. And so that’s what I mean by being mindful,  from my perspective. It’s like when you’re in the weeds, literally I call it “in  the trees,” not the forest, you’re not able to look at, from a higher level, what’s going on, what are we working on or what are we proposing to work  on, and how can we just focus on what’s the most important thing? Usually that  discussion just doesn’t happen in people’s heads. And like you were saying, like a founder,  a CEO, an executive, a manager tends to have a viewpoint on the situation or  the details or the high level of something that other people don’t. And so we  have learned to manage all those inputs and prioritize and keep people on message, on  task, etc. But an individual person who’s working day to day like Ramin, he’s probably  not stepping back. And I can give you hacks, ’cause it’s probably about that time,  right?

Steli Efti:

Yep.

Hiten Shah:

One big hack for me is, take a step back either every morning or every  evening. This is one reason I love all the content out there. Every time I  read something about this, about that dream of making your three things you need to  do tomorrow, or making your to-do list in the morning or the evening before. All  those things, to be honest, are very good, very, very good. We don’t do them,  nobody does them, I’m sorry, but they are very good because they give you that  opportunity to spend five or ten minutes to reflect upon either what you did, which  is always good, or what you’re going to do. So for me it’s like, I’ll  reflect on what we did or what we think we need to do to figure  out what we do next, and so it’s about “Okay, what did we do, what  do we need to do, or what do we think we need to do?” All  the things, and then how do we make sure we’re focused on the most important things? And if you can just have that discussion with yourself either every morning or  every evening before you go get at it … I actually like the evening, ’cause  sleeping on it is helpful and writing it down. It’s not a to-do list, ’cause  I know that formalizes it too much for most people, at least for me. But  it’s more of just a discussion with yourself about it. Even if you don’t write  it down it will be in your head. And so I think that can help  you reprioritize and stay a little more sane regardless of what level you are or  what you’re doing inside of a company.

Steli Efti:

Absolutely, love it. All right, so I’ll give a tip before we wrap this up.  My tip is, do two things. One is, look at your current to-do list, especially  at the smallest of items. And really challenge yourself frequently, you know, maybe once a  month, maybe every two weeks. What are these things, if I stop doing them, what  would really happen? And oftentimes it’s like “Wow, then this wouldn’t exist.” And the important  thing is to keep asking the question “Okay, and then what would happen?” Well, then  we wouldn’t have that number in our reporting. Okay, when was the last time that  number really led to an insight or to an action? Are we just looking at  that number because it’s interesting, or have we ever learned something or changed our behavior  on this? Well, we haven’t really ever done anything with it. All right, then kill  it. Right? Or, this is a small thing I do every day, but if I  stopped it … There’s a lot of small things that accumulate in our lives, to-dos,  that if we really challenge ourselves, we would come up with answer of like “Yeah,  if I stopped doing this nothing would really happen.” Nothing of consequence would happen. And  so finding ways to simplify your to-do list or to take away, especially the noisy,  little, tiny tasks that really, some of them are necessary, but oftentimes we do these  things out of habit and it’s easier to keep doing them than to stop them.  So it’s important to once in a while just do house cleaning and stop some  of these items. But then even more important than just stopping them is to make  a conscious effort not to replace them instantly. So if I, every morning if I  spend ten minutes doing this one small task, then my challenge to people would be,  not just to kill it, ’cause when I kill it mindlessly I will just, some  other small, dumb task will just fill up those ten minutes. Or I will just  use these ten minutes, you know, going on Facebook or Twitter or doing something else  that’s mindless activity. I will replace one mindless activity with another one that’s inconsequential. Maybe  better, maybe worse, but I’m not in control of that. What I would challenge people  is, kill a few of these little items, save yourself ten, twenty, thirty minutes a  day, and then consciously use that time for mindfulness. So you say “Tomorrow from 9:00  to 9:10 AM I’ll go on a walk.” Right? Or every day now I’m gonna be doing a 30-minute walk or meditation, I’m gonna go out in the park and  read a book, or I’m gonna have a call with a friend talking about big  picture, what we want to accomplish, setting goals, or I’ll talk to somebody on my team. But not to-dos, but big-picture, creative thinking. Just take those thirty minutes and don’t  instantly replace them with other small items, ’cause that’s a lot of times what happens  and what I see happening is, people will reprioritize, or kill some of the items,  it will create some gaps, and these gaps again will be mindlessly filled with other  random shit. And then you really haven’t accomplished anything. So an important thing to think  about is, when you kill something, ask yourself “What am I going to replace this  with? How am I gonna fill up my time instead?” Making sure that that replacement  is of higher quality, is of higher priority, and if you can’t come up with another specific item, just make sure you don’t do anything during that time, right? Rather  go on a walk or drink a coffee by yourself, or chit-chat or daydream, or  take a nap, than just spend another 15 more minutes a day on Twitter or  Facebook or some other site. That’s my tip for becoming better at prioritization, big-picture thinking, and keeping perspective and mindfulness in life and in business. All right, I think that’s  it from us for this episode.

Hiten Shah:

See you later.