Thatcher Wine, THE TWELVE MONOTASKS: Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
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[0:41]Thatcher Wine is the author of the twelve monotasks, do one thing at a time to do everything better.
[0:46]Thatcher is the founder and CEO of Juniper Books, a company based in Boulder, Colorado that specializes in custom-curated libraries and beautifully designed book sets.
[0:55]Thatcher has long been an advocate for reading as a form of self-care, and a means to build focus in the digital age, concepts that form part of the foundation of his latest book, the twelve monotasks.
[1:05]His monotasking philosophy took shape as he grew Juniper Books, and weathered numerous personal challenges, including a life-threatening cancer diagnosis four years ago.
[1:14]The twelve monotasks, combines Thatcher's personal experience with research into neuroscience, productivity, and mindfulness.
[1:21]Welcome, Thatcher. Thanks so much for coming back on Momstone of Time to read books to discuss the twelve monotasks, do one thing at a time to do everything better.
[1:31]Happily be back. Thanks for having me.
[1:33]Of course. I love the whole idea behind this book. I loved all the different tips and tricks and ways of thinking about, you know, I'm always focused on how to be most efficient.
[1:45]So I was like eating this up.
[1:48]Anyway, tell listeners a little bit about your theory, why we should do one thing at a time, and all of that.
[1:55]So the book is all about monotasking and monotasking is all about doing one thing at a time, and sounds like a great idea.
[2:02]What do we tend to do most of the time is multitasking.
[2:06]So that's probably what we're more familiar with. We've been kind of encouraged to multitask for decades now, and our devices make us think we're good at it and enable us to do it.
[2:16]So multitasking is really like we just do it habitually. We might be on a Zoom call like this while also looking at an email or, you know, thinking about what we're going to make for lunch or kids want our attention.
[2:27]So it's going on all around us. So what I decided to do is write a whole book about the opposite of that because I realized that I was the most productive, the most successful, the most creative, the most happy, and the least stressed when I did one thing at a time.
[2:42]It's really hard to do. It's harder than it seems. And so the book is really all about how we can bring our attention to one thing at a time and really train to pay attention to everything in our lives so that we can call upon our monotasking muscles.
[2:57]When we need them, when we really have some important work to do, when we have an important conversation with our kids, when we want to give our attention to a hobby, you know, working out or something. So yeah.
[3:06]So the book kind of lays out a really easy to follow a plan to basically do the things you already do, like walking, reading, listening, playing, sleeping with your full attention in order to build those monotasking muscles.
[3:19]And then you can call upon them for anything you need to do in life.
[3:22]I think this may be the only muscle I've been working on lately.
[3:26]I'm happy to hear that.
[3:28]No, it's funny because people are always asking, like, how are you getting everything done?
[3:32]And a lot of times, I'm like, well, when I'm doing something, I'm just doing the one thing.
[3:37]Like, I am not, I am doing this podcast with you. I cannot do anything else. Like, I am reading your book. I cannot do anything else.
[3:44]So there is something about having all of that, you know, all of the horsepower focused in one lane versus spread out.
[3:52]I do think it's like the secret sauce to getting everything done.
[3:55]And I love that you kick it all off without chapter on reading and how important that is.
[4:00]So talk to me, I know your whole, you know, juniper books, your whole business and life is about like the power of books and all of that.
[4:07]Talk to me a little bit about that and why reading is so huge and important.
[4:13]Yeah, I love talking about reading and I know you do too. So we could just talk about that.
[4:18]It just to follow up on one thing you just said, though, like, it's not monotasking, not about doing less in life overall.
[4:25]It's about, you know, doing all things. Like, you do an amazing number of things. You're super productive.
[4:30]But I'm happy to hear like when you do each one of those, you give it your full attention. So.
[4:35]I mean, not away. I'm not perfect. It's not always not when the kids are in.
[4:38]Neither am I.
[4:40]Yeah, the world is very distracting and like everything always wants our attention. So like part of it's just having the awareness like it's going to be distracting.
[4:48]There are going to be a lot of things again in the way of giving my full attention to one thing, but I'm going to try and sometimes I'm not going to do it by choice.
[4:55]But it's going to be my choice, hopefully not like a social media companies, you know, all the rhythm that's distracting, but back to reading because that's that's fun to talk about.
[5:04]So yeah, so I've had the company Juniper books for over 20 years now. And I thought, and basically we curate beautiful libraries and make these custom or special edition book sets like seven different editions of Harry Potter and and lots of beloved classics and also a lot of, you know, contemporary books too.
[5:22]And we create these custom book covers. So I think a lot about books and why.
[5:27]Why do I spend my career selling books and encouraging people to read and have a lot of beautiful books in their home like you do behind you.
[5:36]And, and I think about, you know, books not only being entertaining and informative, but really being kind of the antidote to our phones.
[5:47]And our phones fragment our attention and, you know, distract us and forces to multitask.
[5:53]Books make us consolidate our attention all in one place on the printed page, ideally, but audio books and ebooks are great too.
[6:03]They're reading. It's really great. But we really have to pay attention when we're reading. And that's kind of when I started thinking about writing this book about monotasking. I thought of reading as the ultimate monotask.
[6:14]You have to give your full attention to the book. Otherwise, you're not going to get anything. You could pretend to flip the pages, but you're going to have to go back.
[6:21]I know there are other ways that you've talked about like, you know, absorbing the content and books because you have to read so many books.
[6:27]Is like a monotask in itself. You're, you're giving your full attention. You've developed the way to, you know, summarize the book quickly and understand that.
[6:36]So, so I think books are really good for it. Good for us. Good for our brains. Good for our attention span.
[6:42]Our ability to pay, you know, to pay attention and focus in life. And then we can carry that forward to other activities.
[6:48]So people that tend to be very successful and productive.
[6:52]Also tend to be readers.
[6:54]My preference is not to have to go through so many books so fast.
[6:58]But I did, yes, write it a piece on on how I do it, you know, breadth versus, you know, especially on the podcast.
[7:05]Right now I'm like the more the merrier. So I do. I can't always sit and do it slowly.
[7:10]But that is my preference. Obviously it's just like, although I think reading is not a fixed skill, which I don't feel like enough people talk about.
[7:18]And definitely speed up your reading. Like it keeps getting faster. The more you do it, I think. Have you noticed that with you or no?
[7:25]Yes, no. I'm not a very fast reader. May well. Yeah. I don't know. I've never really tried to speed it up. I just always kind of like stayed the same pace.
[7:33]I didn't mean to speed it up. I didn't mean to speed it up. I just sort of noticed that the more I was reading it was speeding up.
[7:39]Okay.
[7:40]Anyway, I just paid attention. That's great. Yeah. No, I'm going to monotask my reading now and see if I can see.
[7:45]It actually, it wasn't until somebody was like somebody asked me like how many minutes per page, how many words per, I was like, what? I don't know, you know, some quantitative guy.
[7:54]Okay. How many do you edit? I was like, I don't know. I guess I'll measure it.
[7:57]And then I measured it like a year later. And it's markedly different. So anyway, and your other things like walking, for example.
[8:04]Right. Like every so often I do, I walk, but I'm often used that as an excuse to do something else. Like that's not one that I monotask, but now I feel like I should thanks to your book.
[8:15]Like I'm on the phone or I'm chatting with somebody or I'm like, I don't know. I'm not usually just like out walking.
[8:22]What happens to me? What happens to me do that?
[8:25]Sure. Yeah. So I mean, like what we've been encouraged to always think of any free time that we have like we should fill it, right?
[8:33]And so something like a walk seems kind of easy. Like our body knows what to do. So we might as well fill the other time that we have while we're on the walk with like the scenario book or podcast or making a call or scrolling through our phones, hopefully without bumping into something.
[8:47]So the opposite of that is to say, I'm just going to go for a walk and pay attention to the walk. I'm either going to leave my phone at home.
[8:54]or leave it in my pocket. And I'm in a, you know, see things I've never seen before. I'm going to hear sounds never heard before. I'm going to take a route. Maybe I've never used before. You live in New York City. Maybe you're going to spell something.
[9:07]Hopefully good.
[9:08]But, you know, a bakery or something that you didn't notice before.
[9:12]I don't spell any new bakeries. I am like overwhelmed with baked goods. The temptation of that, I should say, but anyway, the monotask your bakery avoidance.
[9:23]So yeah, so I mean, just by like being fully present in our bodies and our minds on something like a walk.
[9:30]It's just really good for us. And it it seemed it just helps us build our ability to pay attention to everything in life.
[9:37]And we can really detach from like work and stress in all our commitments and thinking about the past and the future and all that if we can kind of really just be on the walk.
[9:46]And you don't have to go out for hours and hours. Go for five minutes or 20 minutes. And it's just like a really good reset to then be able to come back to your desk or whatever you need to do refreshed.
[9:57]You talk in the book throughout the chapters.
[10:00]your own sort of battle with cancer a while back and how the treatments of that made it very hard
[10:05]for you to do a lot after you were so exhausted and it made you have to be very strategic about
[10:11]what you did. Tell me more about that. Yeah, I mean it was very formative in my mono-tasking practice
[10:16]and thinking about it because it's truly physically forced to do one thing at a time
[10:22]with the minimal amount of energy that I had from going through chemotherapy for about four months.
[10:27]I had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, went through at three tumors in my chest and went through a pretty
[10:32]grueling chemo regimen. And, you know, I'm very optimistic, energetic person, so I tried to keep up
[10:39]appearances, kept working, kept trying to be as creative as possible. But definitely, you know, hit
[10:44]my limits and had to learn how to like really plan to do some of the things I needed to do, but with
[10:52]the minimal expenditure of energy, I really think about like I wrote about how I'd go for a walk and
[10:57]have to, when I got to the end of the street, I had to like really think about did I have the
[11:00]energy to go down the hill around the corner and back up the hill or should I just go straight,
[11:06]you know, back and forth. It was important to me to physically move my body and get out for some
[11:11]fresh air and maybe one of my kids would come with me, but really had to think about it. And that
[11:15]that kind of made me think whatever people are going through, you know, they may not, they may not
[11:21]have that choice be so clear. It might feel like you have an abundance of energy. So you are going
[11:26]to do 10 things at once. You are going to, you know, train for the marathon and start three companies,
[11:31]and do this and that, but it's not always the best decision for us. And for our brains, especially
[11:38]that can become kind of fragmented and splinter. So since this book has come out, it was several
[11:44]months ago that it came out right at this point. So what has the, what have you been surprised about
[11:50]what has happened since it's come out or conversations that you've had that perhaps you weren't
[11:54]expecting or more people wanted to asking than you thought or fewer people have people tried it,
[11:58]failed, succeeded. Like what's like your take on the whole thing now that it's out there?
[12:03]Yeah, that's a great question. There are definitely a bunch of things that I anticipated and other
[12:08]things that are new. I mean, overall, I'd love the reception that the book has gotten that
[12:14]people really feel like the book and the idea of monotasking kind of gives them permission.
[12:19]For something that they already knew intuitively that they were overwhelmed, they were doing
[12:24]too many things, but nobody in this world says like, slow down, do one thing at a time. Like,
[12:30]it's okay. You don't have to keep up with everybody on social media and, you know, have all the
[12:36]side hustles and all that. So that's been, that's been great. Definitely gotten, you know, some of
[12:42]of the criticism that I may have anticipated, which is like, this is unrealistic. You know, I have
[12:48]bills to pay. I have, you know, kids to take care of. I'm working from home for the past two years.
[12:53]Like, what do you expect me to do? Like, how do I do this? And I think that's all very fair and
[12:58]realistic. But I'm also, I'm saying, you don't have to monotask all day long every day. Do it
[13:04]some of the time. Like, just take a break and go for that walk we talked about or just, you know,
[13:09]in the morning, reach for a book instead of your phone. There are lots of little things we can do
[13:13]to reclaim our attention. So, and I realize it is hard, especially, you know, during the pandemic
[13:20]and with all the demands that people have. You know, I think people also, you know, there are a
[13:25]lot of people joke and I was sort of anticipating this as like, oh, I listened to your book while I
[13:28]was, you know, out for a run or doing my taxes. And, you know, I didn't like it. It didn't make any
[13:33]sense. And it's like, you're multitasking and I know they're making a joke about it. So, I mean,
[13:38]you have to meet people where they are. It's not an overnight, you know, magic wand kind of change.
[13:44]So, you know, if you are listening to the audiobook version of my book while running, that's great.
[13:49]So, you can then like apply some of the tips to getting better sleep tonight, even better.
[13:53]Sleep is such a challenge. I mean, you can't. I mean, that's, that is one thing you can't do
[13:57]while you're doing anything else. So, I guess that's good. But I think it's the lead up to sleep that
[14:02]and the focus of all the sleep habits and get lost very easily, but I will.
[14:07]Yeah. Now, the whole chapter in there, I mean, that I think a lot of people have said,
[14:11]you know, the listening chapter and the sleeping chapter are the two that have really changed
[14:16]their lives the most. And sleep is like, we all need more sleep and more rest.
[14:20]I know. I know. I know. I know. So, okay.
[14:23]Well, I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. You convinced me. I was like, I know.
[14:28]And I love the listening chapter. I feel like I love listening. I love listening to people talk.
[14:34]Like I love conversations. Like there's nothing more than I'm like, what's your story that I love?
[14:39]And I can just like sit back and kick it and whatever. But I do feel that, you know, a lot of
[14:44]time people are already thinking about what to say. Right. There's like all this anxiety behind
[14:49]the conversation versus just like letting it go and just like, sinking into it. And of course,
[14:56]that really changes the quality of the conversation. Right. It's supposed to having a be more
[15:00]open ended where you get to take it in and then respond versus like in school where I had like
[15:05]my next comment, like on the paper ready to go. So I wouldn't forget it. But yeah, powerful to
[15:10]him. Sorry. What did you say? No, I'm just kidding. No, just say while you're saying that
[15:15]as watching your dog get up for the rug and go over to the couch. Yeah. This is her room. I just
[15:21]see that. She looks very cozy. Yeah. No. I mean, it's like nobody, well, a, you're a professional
[15:26]listener. Right. So you've, you get to practice monotasking listening in your podcast interviews
[15:32]all the time and you do a lot of them. So, you know, I don't know in the same way as reading,
[15:37]maybe you've tracked how your listening skills have evolved. I have not. Okay. But your listeners
[15:44]appreciate it. Your audience has grown. You know, I think it's definitely noticeable that when people
[15:49]are really good listeners and they're paying attention. And, and like you said, I mean,
[15:54]nobody tells you really how to listen in life. You just kind of figure it out. Maybe,
[15:58]but a lot of people become bad listeners. And then these days, most people, I would say, just
[16:04]half pay attention in conversations. You know, if I had my phone out right now, well, on a podcast
[16:09]would be different. But if we were like having coffee and I had my phone out, like it wouldn't be
[16:13]that abnormal. Right. Yeah. It might be more unusual if I was like fully paying attention. And you
[16:20]were like, wait, you're making me uncomfortable. Like you're, you're not using your phone. You know,
[16:24]you're really listening to me. So I think it's a great skill to have. And I think people really
[16:28]appreciate it, whether it's professionally or personally, like people really value the good listeners
[16:33]in their lives. And they notice whether they can call it out or not is, is different. But they
[16:38]notice when you're like, really listening versus just waiting for your turn to speak. And you've
[16:43]already thought about what you're going to say. It doesn't really matter what, what I said. So,
[16:48]yeah. So I think that, you know, that listening skill is really important. And you can
[16:52]mono to ask it and give yourself permission to fully pay attention to a conversation. And it has
[16:57]big benefits. I mean, well, my kids don't listen at all. I can't even get through a sense. And they're
[17:03]like, interrupting me, interrupting each other. I'm like, where did the idea go of like one person
[17:09]speaking at a time? Like the dinner table. I don't know. I'm a total failure in that regard. I have
[17:13]to say, but it's hard. My kids are 13 and 15 now, you know, whether it's, I mean, usually it's
[17:20]their phone that's taking their attention away from the conversation or where I'm asking them to do.
[17:25]So that's really hard. And I definitely empathize with parents everywhere as we're trying to figure
[17:30]this out in real time, you know, how to get our kids attention. I did go back to the other question
[17:35]you'd asked me. One of the things, you know, I knew that like once I wrote the book, I had to like
[17:40]be very, be really good at mono tasking essentially. So there are a lot of times that I'm like
[17:46]sitting around the dinner table here with the kids. I'm like, oh gosh, I hope nobody like it has a
[17:51]telephoto lens like taking pictures of our dinner table with the kids, their phones out like
[17:55]the mono tasking guy and his kids. This is really what goes on at home. But that's reality. So
[18:01]yeah, I mean, I do have all sorts of tips for parents and people. So we can get into those at
[18:05]any time if you want. Well, give me one tip. Give me just one. Please help. Yeah, I mean, so far as
[18:13]far as like eating and phones and listening as those three things come together. I mean, one thing is
[18:19]to have like a place in your home where there are no phones allowed. And because I try to make
[18:25]that the dining room. I really do. I put my phone like in the kitchen and then we closed the door.
[18:32]So, but it does not always work. Yeah. So and if it's like interrupt you by the way. So anyway,
[18:38]I mean, well, you're like, no, that's not realistic. But so wherever you are, like, you know,
[18:43]could be, okay, now we're going to start to go out to dinner every Thursday night,
[18:47]we're not going to bring our phones. Like basically start a new habit from wherever you are.
[18:52]So if it's like too hard to change the dining room as kind of attribute, you're like, okay,
[18:57]now we're going to like change to this behavior. So it might be every, you know, one night a week,
[19:02]we're just not going to have phones at the table or one night a week we're going to go out to
[19:06]dinner. We're not going to bring our phones. Things like that. I mean, basically start make a clean
[19:10]agreement with your family about what you're going to do and how you're going to pay attention to
[19:15]and then how like have it basically be better than when they're on their phones, which is really
[19:20]hard for kids because they want to talk to their friends and all that. But you basically have to
[19:24]propose a better alternative that's more fun, more engaging and a lot of that comes from like
[19:29]you personally monotasking it and being fully present telling stories from your childhood or
[19:34]something. My kids always get a kick out of that. It's true. Yeah, maybe tonight I'll try like
[19:40]making a little piece of paper like as we walk in, you know, like handing someone like
[19:44]I am ready to pay attention to everybody at the dinner table. Like we all like walk in or something.
[19:48]I don't know. I feel like you need some sort of big head space shift. Yes. Yeah. So
[19:56]and making that conscious decision is important and teaching kids that they
[20:00]It can do that too, like as adults, you know,
[20:03]we might be more aware of when we're like,
[20:06]we used to do this, now we're gonna do that,
[20:08]but you know, with kids, like kind of enabling
[20:11]and empowering them to make that decision
[20:13]can be great for them.
[20:14]So what is the latest with Juniper Books?
[20:16]What's going on there?
[20:18]It's been incredibly busy since we last talked.
[20:21]My, so I was first on your podcast
[20:23]when for the love of books,
[20:24]designing, curating home library came out.
[20:27]And that was my first book,
[20:29]beautiful coffee table book all about the business.
[20:31]And then three months later, the pandemic started.
[20:34]And, you know, initially people were staying home
[20:37]and reading more, so they were buying more books.
[20:41]Then this whole trend of redecorating and remodeling
[20:44]and, you know, everyone's looking at their shelves
[20:46]or, you know, on the Zoom call and saying,
[20:48]oh, I could do better.
[20:49]I should have nicer books.
[20:51]So that led to a lot more orders
[20:53]when people weren't traveling.
[20:54]So they were sending more gifts
[20:56]and books make great gifts,
[20:58]especially book sets that we offer.
[21:00]And so yeah, so all three of those trends
[21:03]have made us incredibly busy.
[21:04]So we've been able to, you know,
[21:05]help get books into a lot more homes
[21:07]for the last couple of years.
[21:09]We've introduced, I don't know, probably 30 or 40 new books
[21:13]that since then, in that two-year period,
[21:16]Wheel of Time is super popular.
[21:18]15 books, Sarah J. Moss, the court of thorns and roses.
[21:22]So we just like introduced more and more sets
[21:24]as people have asked for them.
[21:26]And we've come up with really cool designs.
[21:28]We're always like redesigning some of our previous best sellers
[21:33]and introducing new options.
[21:34]Like we're working on a Percy Jackson set right now.
[21:37]And yeah, I mean, we're just having a lot of fun with books
[21:41]and kind of at the intersection of books and design.
[21:44]So never gets old.
[21:46]So cool.
[21:47]I love the one you did where all the people
[21:50]who blurbed my first anthology
[21:52]and you put the logo of the girl.
[21:54]I feel like you should try to sell that.
[21:55]Maybe people would buy it.
[21:56]With your books or the ones that I had picked
[21:59]because those were amazing books.
[22:00]Okay.
[22:01]You'd like put it in the catalog.
[22:02]Tell me if anybody buys it.
[22:04]I don't know.
[22:04]Right?
[22:05]Because people comment on it all the time.
[22:06]It's in my dining room.
[22:07]Oh, really?
[22:08]Yeah.
[22:09]Yeah.
[22:09]Well, with custom orders like that.
[22:11]So about a quarter of the dozens of these days
[22:13]is purely custom.
[22:14]So you could say, I want a special gift for my wife
[22:19]or she loves this author.
[22:21]Or we just, we have a new house,
[22:25]and we want to do this for our kids' rooms or my friend,
[22:27]it's an interior designer and they need help with the hotel lobby.
[22:31]So it's all one of the kind kind of projects.
[22:33]When we do those projects like we did for you,
[22:36]we don't turn them into products unless we kind of have
[22:39]a conversation that you say, you should do that.
[22:41]Or can we do that?
[22:42]Or you have permission to do that?
[22:44]So now that we've had this conversation,
[22:45]I will talk to you on the team.
[22:46]Yeah.
[22:46]I think it would be so fun.
[22:47]Yeah.
[22:48]We could even do different, we could do different books.
[22:50]We could do like a fiction set or a memoir set or I don't know.
[22:54]Well, I'd love having like guest curators
[22:56]or curator collaborations.
[22:58]So yeah, we should definitely talk about that.
[23:00]Oh, I would love that.
[23:01]That sounds really fun.
[23:02]I have a great.
[23:03]All right.
[23:04]And now I have you on the record.
[23:05]Same thing.
[23:06]Anyway, okay, it's always fun.
[23:10]Okay.
[23:11]And your logo is like super fun
[23:12]and looks great across the books too.
[23:15]I love, I love how it turned out.
[23:16]I just love what you did.
[23:18]So yeah, oh, that would be so fun.
[23:19]I would love it.
[23:20]Okay.
[23:21]So what is coming next for you
[23:23]and what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[23:25]So I'm always, well, I'm basically trying to share the message
[23:30]of monotasking with the world in various ways.
[23:33]And I'm trying to honestly figure out like
[23:36]the right amount of marketing.
[23:37]It's a lot of message in the book is about like
[23:39]not being on social media,
[23:40]but I have to use social media for people that discover me.
[23:43]So yeah, I'm trying to crack that code, yeah.
[23:47]And so basically doing that, doing a little bit more speaking
[23:50]about monotasking and really just trying to introduce
[23:53]the subject to the world in a larger audience,
[23:56]especially like we've talked about it this very
[23:57]like overwhelming stressful time that we live in.
[24:00]I do, I am writing more and I'm thinking about,
[24:04]I started a novel years ago.
[24:06]I really want to finish that.
[24:08]So I'm basically trying to put my own monotasking practice
[24:12]to work so that I can do all the things that I love to do,
[24:15]running Juniper Books, sharing the message of monotasking,
[24:18]and doing new creative projects.
[24:20]So hopefully in the not too distant future,
[24:23]meaning the next couple years, I can finish that,
[24:26]and maybe write another monotasking book we'll see.
[24:28]So for authors, I mean, there's a whole chapter in the book
[24:31]about creating and a lot of the ideas in there are things
[24:36]that I've come up with over the years,
[24:37]running my business as an entrepreneur,
[24:40]being the creative director of the company,
[24:42]and also as a writer.
[24:43]Like I got the book deal for the 12 monotast two years ago,
[24:47]like during the week that everything shut down.
[24:51]Oh my gosh.
[24:52]That March 13th or whatever it was, 2020.
[24:55]And then I was like, oh, this is great.
[24:57]I'll be at home.
[24:59]I can write the book, but it didn't quite work out that way.
[25:03]Because my whole team at the office had to go home
[25:05]and I didn't run the business solo for a little while.
[25:07]So a lot of the ideas, though, I was forced to come up with
[25:09]to figure out, here's how to really pay attention
[25:13]and you need to, how to be productive
[25:15]and get something done, like a creative project,
[25:17]such as a book.
[25:19]So a lot of it's about, you know,
[25:21]people have all sorts of productivity methods.
[25:23]I'm not saying any one of them works for any,
[25:26]you know, all people.
[25:27]So even the tips of my book, like there's so many of them.
[25:30]You can just pick and choose what works.
[25:32]It's not like you have to follow this method.
[25:34]But to me, a lot of it's like about having a space
[25:38]to write that like is where I focus.
[25:41]I wear these headphones all the time.
[25:42]Usually they don't have music on.
[25:44]They're just like they're signal to me that I should focus.
[25:47]I'm going to pay attention.
[25:48]I work a lot.
[25:49]I'm like the ergonomics of my setup
[25:50]because I don't want to be like distracted
[25:52]thinking about anything else.
[25:53]I have mixed feelings about my desktop
[25:56]and like all these focus mode kind of things
[25:59]that, you know, I basically just been very disciplined
[26:02]and I like don't look at anything else while I'm writing.
[26:05]Yeah.
[26:06]That doesn't work for everybody, right?
[26:07]I definitely turn off my phone
[26:09]or put on Do Not Disturb, close all the other windows
[26:11]and just have one window open and set a realistic goal.
[26:15]It's not like I'm going to write five chapters in a day.
[26:18]Like it's going to be like,
[26:19]I'm going to work on this one section, get it done.
[26:22]Go for walk, take a break, maybe take a nap.
[26:25]Like all those things are really important.
[26:27]It's the productivity and the creativity.
[26:29]Like doesn't just come from saying like,
[26:31]I'm going to get this done.
[26:32]I'm going to sit at my desk till I get it done.
[26:33]Comes from all the other things.
[26:35]And that's really a lot of what the book is about
[26:37]like the sustainability of life through mono-tasking.
[26:42]So make sure you make time for the rest,
[26:45]the reset button of going for a walk
[26:47]or getting some exercise.
[26:49]I try to break up my day into a few different segments
[26:52]so that, or at least two segments.
[26:55]So that I get like a lot done in the morning
[26:57]and a lot done in the afternoon
[26:58]and I take a pretty lengthy break in the middle.
[27:01]That sounds nice.
[27:03]I know, right?
[27:04]Time for a nap.
[27:05]As I like you my day, right?
[27:06]Like not even a minute until I pick up the kids.
[27:09]But anyway, it works great.
[27:11]But you know what you're doing works for you.
[27:12]I mean, yeah.
[27:13]That's, yeah.
[27:14]Or it doesn't, but you know, it is what it is.
[27:17]All right.
[27:18]Well, what's the best way for people to find you?
[27:21]So I have a couple websites.
[27:23]You can find me at fatcherwine.com.
[27:26]You can find me at monotasking.tips,
[27:29]which is a website I created is like the companion
[27:31]to the book.
[27:32]And there are some additional tips
[27:33]and I'm eventually going to be sharing some
[27:35]scientific research about, you know,
[27:38]monotasking versus multitasking, things like that
[27:40]as studies come out.
[27:41]And then Juniper Books, if you're interested in that,
[27:44]is at JuniperBooks.com.
[27:46]Lots of fun stuff to look at for book lovers everywhere
[27:49]and we're, you know, on Instagram
[27:51]and all the social media places as well.
[27:54]Yeah, and I love hearing from readers and listeners
[27:57]who, you know, try monotasking and tell me what works
[28:00]for them and how it's changed their life.
[28:02]So yeah, I look forward to hearing from people.
[28:04]Amazing.
[28:05]Thank you, Thatcher.
[28:06]This was great.
[28:07]And now we can talk about some cool collaboration
[28:10]and then sell some awesome products or something.
[28:13]That sounds good.
[28:15]Yeah, it'll make book lovers happy everywhere.
[28:17]Yep. Great.
[28:18]Well, you already do, but anyway.
[28:19]All right, thanks so much.
[28:20]Have a great day.
[28:21]Yeah, thanks for having me on me.
[28:23]Okay, bye-bye.
[28:25]Hi, I'm Stevie Owens and you're listening
[28:27]to the award-winning podcast.
[28:29]Moms don't have time to read books.
[28:31]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology
[28:34]called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[28:36]Check it out and you'll hear from 49 authors
[28:39]about all sorts of things Moms don't have time to do.
[28:41]All the authors have been on this podcast.
[28:43]Also, check out my TikTok at with Zibi and Tracy.
[28:46]My other podcast, Sex Talk with Zibi and Tracy.
[28:49]Check out Moms Don't Have Time to Write on Medium.
[28:52]And of course, my new publishing company called Zibi Books.
[28:56]And now back to our daily author interview site
[28:58]and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[29:00]Hi, hi, hello.
[29:02]Enjoy the show.