🎙️ S2 E22: The One-Week Book Sprint

We’re sat in the sunshine doing what should be a calm planning day, and we somehow decide to set the most ridiculous deadline imaginable: write, finish, and upload a stack of new books in a single week, ready for a September speaking event. Not next month. Not “when things quieten down”. A week. We talk through how we got there, why we’re using back-planning (with a little help from AI), and what the real timeline looks like once you factor in Amazon upload time, production delays, and getting author copies in our hands. 

Then we go deeper into the real reason we’re tempted by impossible targets: the dopamine. Both of us come from journalism, where deadlines don’t negotiate and “squeaky bum time” is basically a working style. We unpack what that does to your brain, how hyperfocus can be a superpower, and why creative standards still matter, whether you’re writing a book, laying out a page, or publishing online. Expect newsroom stories, craft nerdiness about how people read a page, and a reminder that teamwork can carry you through pressure when you commit to the process. 

The heart of the chat is accountability for self-employed people, especially with ADHD and time blindness in the mix. We’re honest about how easy it is to “just nudge” a deadline, and why that can quietly train you not to trust your own promises, affecting everything from health goals to content creation. We share practical ways to hold the line: break the work into smaller steps, set micro-deadlines for prep and drafting, choose quality over quantity, and plan recovery so you don’t burn out. 

We also answer a listener hotline question that turns into a surprisingly personal debate: would you rather arrive 30 minutes early or 30 minutes late, and when do you message to say you’re running behind? If you enjoy candid talk about productivity, ADHD, self-publishing, and real-life planning, hit subscribe, share this with a mate, and leave us a review.

Transcript

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Welcome To Awesomely Off Topic

SPEAKER_04 0:00

You're listening to Awesomely Off Topic. Books, brands, business and everything else we're not supposed to say out loud. I'm Taz and Asher. Now let's get into it. Welcome to Awesomely Off Topic. We are sitting here in the sunshine in the middle of the beautiful sunshiny park. How many times can I say it's sunshine in one sentence?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

I'm not sure. In sunny Stanford. Nice, sunny, sunny. I'll say it again and sunny.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

We've been here today for one of our inspiration days. Well, actually, we came away to do some planning away from the office. Because as we've said so many times before, can really get your juices. Look at that. Can really get your juices flowing if you step out of your normal environment to do some planning. But we've done something a bit mad, haven't we?

SPEAKER_03 0:42

We have really. We didn't know really where we were going and suddenly we ended up. What have we done that's different today? Apart from the fact that we've come out. It's been a while since we've come out, hasn't it, to get out from the office a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

We

Setting A Ridiculous Book Deadline

SPEAKER_04 0:55

have decided to set ourselves the most ridiculous deadline ever in the whole wide world.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

And it's because we sat there and first we were making some plans our unleashed group and how we were gonna bring that way up to date and add like loads of new exciting stuff. But then we also started talking about books we wanted to write. Some of them are micro books, some of them are full-size books. And then we had this realization that in the not too distant future, so in September, we're doing a double hander at an event where we're both speaking, we're both presenting, running this workshop, and hopefully a firewalk as well. And we realised that some of the books we wanted to do would be great for that audience. So instead of saying, oh well, never mind, we'll get them done in time for next year's event if we go, we went, can we get these done in time?

SPEAKER_03 1:50

In true Tazanasha fashion. Which uh yeah, we did, didn't we? Yeah, we just said, could we do that? What realistic then? But to be fair, we did kind of we had quite a few and then we kind of halved it. We kind of got it down to eight.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

And now we've given ourselves a a a task, a challenge to get two books done each and what two between us. Yeah, isn't it? Then we spoke to good old.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

I thought it was two, uh two, two, and one, I thought.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Oh, it could be two and a half.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

I think it's two and a half each.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

So two books each and one between us, so two and a half.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

But

Working Backwards With AI Planning

SPEAKER_04 2:26

then we tried to work the dates backwards with good old AI and said, so if we're travelling to this event on September the blah, and we need to get them uploaded to like say we use Amazon rather than Ingram Spark or whatever, let it be easy. And then we've got to work out how long it's gonna take them to upload the book and get it ready to sell, and then how long it's gonna take for them to send us author copies. How long does that give us? Not very long. And to give you a clue, today it's uh August the 7th, and in order to be safe, we need to get them all done and uploaded by Friday the 14th.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

It's a week away yet, so I mean, you know, it's 24 hours in a day.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

So a week away, we'll both have clients and our normal work to do, but we are challenging ourselves to see if we can actually get these books done and uploaded before we head off to this event.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Yeah. Delivered. I'm looking forward to actually sleeping tonight because it may be that I won't get any sleep for about the next week, but that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

It's absolutely bonkers, and not only that, but I decided one of mine could really benefit with from some cartoons. So I got in touch with my cartoonist Morgan Gleaf and said, Morgue?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

I don't know how busy you are at the minute, but is there any chance you could get some cartoons done in like a week? And if so, how many could you do? So we're gonna have a chat about that too. But what if we decided to do that, Ash?

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Because I think we get a huge amount of huge amount of ideas running through our brains, and very often, and we said before in previous podcasts that we leave them in notebooks all over the place, but when we do push ourselves to get things done with a short turnaround, a short deadline, we can do it, and we've done it before. I think it's something to do with our backgrounds. I think we've always grown up with back with deadlines ever since we left school and we went into journalism. Yeah. So we get a high from that, all that dopamine, all that hit, those hits.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

We used to have it have deadlines before that when we were trying to get coursework in for exams and stuff. Oh, you wouldn't have done that, would you? Because you would have been you were CSE, weren't you? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Oh well I did do O levels as well. O levels, so yeah, was that it was mainly CSE.

SPEAKER_04 4:36

Well was that mainly exam level or did you need coursework as well? You needed both.

unknown 4:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

But when I went to O levels, obviously I think it was all about the exams, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Because I was one of the first tranches through of GCSEs, so the majority was coursework.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yeah. And then exams as well. I would always, I can remember, I think I I might have explained about this before, but I can remember when I was at secondary school and I'd got to get a project in for science, and it was about I'd decided to do a project on fungi, and I'd got to create all these graphics and images and be long before AI and all the rest of it, couldn't use any of that, no internet. And I left it mobile phones let alone, aren't they? And I le I left it all to like the last I think four days or something. Yeah. There I am, you know, doing artwork for it, writing it all down, researching, getting all these things out and about and ready. And I did it, I did it in time, and I got a really good result with that because I got a good grade. I think I got either an A- or a B plus. I think it was an A minus.

SPEAKER_04 5:40

See, that's the difference. I mean, the reason my exam results were so absolutely appalling is that I did genuinely miss a lot of school through ill health, but I just couldn't catch up, at least didn't catch up with all the coursework. So I'd got notes from my teachers saying I should be getting an A in that subject. However, the coursework wouldn't be there to back it up, and and they feared that I would be massively undergraded because I was missing a big chunk of coursework, and that was so important for GCSEs.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So mine were absolute pants. I'm just thinking, because of course that would have been, it wouldn't have been, because if it was CSE, it would have been grades one to five. So one was your top. Yeah. So it must have been that. False memory, it must have been a grade one, I think. But I got a top mark for it and I got loads of lovely comments about it. But that's the difference with this, isn't it? As well, because my my hyper focus was on I knew if you asked me now, I probably wouldn't remember any of it. But at the time, if you'd asked me, I could have gone on mastermind with what I knew about fungi and what each mushroom looked like, you know. Kind of sung on a podcast together, I'm sorry. That's about four in a row. Carry on. Yeah, so that's that's what I did. But that it gave me a real thrill to get it done. My parents were going absolutely mad about it because I'm, you know, obviously I needed to have my sleep, but I need sleep, it's a wimps. So I think there's still a habit in there that's ingrained, and then going into journalism, obviously, and particularly when I work for evening papers, because you were can't I was current you know regularly on duty from like seven o'clock in the morning and writing like page leads and front page leads and all sorts of things and features and you know ridiculous times of the day, and it gave me a real high. So I don't think that's ever left us. I think we've just adapted it. I must admit, sometimes it's a bit more challenging than it was when I was in my early 20s, but I still get a thrill from that, so I think that's why personally, that's why I said, can we do it? Yeah, of course we can do it. See, it's

Why Deadlines Feel So Good

SPEAKER_03 7:32

funny, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Because if I think back to school and homework, I I remember there was one subject I really really struggled with because I just found it so incredibly boring, dull as dishwater, and that was social history.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

And I remember being behind with the coursework there, and there was a piece of coursework that was all all about like dividing up the fields and stuff. I thought, oh god, really. But I decided I was going to make the most of it, and I really pulled my finger out and I wrote what I thought was a really cracking piece and essay. But then I got into trouble and got really marked down for it, and I think she spoke to my mum as well because she said I hadn't taken it seriously because I'd used silly names for the characters. Oh like so like for the rich landowners had called on things like Mustaff a lot of cash or I've an awful lot and came up with other ones for the for the people who were struggling, and I thought I was really creative, but I got marked right down because of that. Thanks very much, Mrs. Sharp. But yeah, that that kind of I think that was probably the last time I really busted a gut trying to get something done for schoolwork because what's the point of putting all that effort in and getting creative if you're getting marked down for your creativity? Again, tell me you have the ADHD without telling me you have ADHD.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Well, you really spot it. What would be really interesting is if you could do some kind of research, maybe it's been done or survey into I wonder how many people that are neurodivergent are in the professions of journalism, etc. That people that sitting in the newsroom, I can remember us working together on one of the newspapers in Greater London.

SPEAKER_04 9:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

Greater London's oldest free newspaper that we used to work on, and we had deadlines coming out of our ears, didn't we? But on a Monday different editions, was it? Or 14? 13, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 9:22

13 different editions, all with had the deadlines the same day.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

But we would sit on a Monday night, I think it was Monday night, wasn't it? Yeah, because it didn't come out until the Wednesday, because that used to really annoy us because it meant that if anything big news stories broke on the Tuesday, yeah, it was almost impossible to get it on the front page, wasn't it? Yeah, to get it in the paper. Of course, our competitors could do that, and it used to drive me mad. But hey, we had to work with what we had. But that sitting there on a Monday night with all our colleagues and having a bit of a laugh, and we'd order in pizza and we'd do all that, but we'd get it done. And sometimes we'd still be there on a busy newsweek, we'd still be there till quite late in the night, but still like willing to perhaps go down the pub for half an hour or an hour afterwards. Excuse me. And I loved that, but I got a real high from that. So we'd always they were happy times. But so I think there's still that journalist in me that wants to recreate that sometimes, even though I know that you know I'm getting on a little bit now, so sometimes maybe I it might take me a bit longer to write them. I'm not as hot on it as I used to be because I was living by those deadlines daily, and of course it's like anything, isn't it? It's a bit like shorthand. When you stop practicing shorthand so much, your speed lowers a little bit. So I'm I'm guessing if you put me in a newsroom now, it'd be like you've only written, you know, one page lead and three nibs, news in brief.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

I think we've really struggling in the newsroom now because they'll just wait for the press releases to drop and write about them.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

I don't think they're all like that to us.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

I think on a lot of the locals and regionals, though, it's proper lazy journalism.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Yeah, but it's social media is just there, isn't it? You know, the fact that now let's not we're going off, we're going to go.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

But you've got a story written and they've quoted what people have said on Instagram, for instance, rather than actually speaking to you.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so but that, so I that was always a thrill. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

So I was gonna argue and say I wasn't like that. You must have been, because you were now I was, but I mean now I was gonna argue and say, no, I like to get things done in advance, but then I'm I'm I'm reminded of you know, earlier this week, last week, whenever it was this week, when it was time to pay our taxes. And you got alarms set to pay it for like four days before the deadline, and every time the alarms went off, I was like, I'm not paying it now. It's due on the last day of the month. I'm not paying it now.

unknown 11:34

No.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Keep it in my account for as long as possible.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

And it wasn't even about it's not due yet. I could not get my head around it. Why are we rushing? And I was going into I was going into a panic about getting it done before I needed to do it.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

But you know, that's also that ties into that moment. I can remember, I can actually, I can still visualise it, I can still see it. Us both sitting in the same newsroom over in Kent and sitting around the news editor's desk, yeah, and we're making changes to something for the front page, and we've literally got like 20 minutes to get it finished, finalised, or whatever, because it's got to go to press at that time at the latest. We're pushing it already, and the thrill we got from that, it was you know a technical term coming out, squeaky bum time, but it we knew that we would get do it, and there'd be like two or three of us all round it, and then other people would come in and be there supporting, and it was just an amazing experience.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

I'm laughing because I'm just remembering one of those times where we were right on deadline and doing a front page lead, and it was something to do with the circus. And the news editor at the time, now the deputy editor at the time, said, What would be a good headline about a circus? What can I put here? And I just checked up da da da.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Yeah. And I remember her saying, How would you spell that? That's a journalist job that is on the. I'm not sure she was joking. How can you get that? Can you get that on two decks or three or six? What's the point? D-A, D A, D E R, D, D A. But that, so yeah, so maybe I'm still kind of, I think there's a part of me, there's a version of me that's still kind of chasing that a little bit. I don't know if that's the same for you, but it's because it because it was thrilling.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

Yeah, I don't I don't think I chase it in the same way.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

No, I don't think I do, but I think still there's an element that's still.

SPEAKER_04 13:26

I don't like leaving things right to the last minute apart from tax bills. I don't I don't I don't know why. I like to I run things right up to the wire, believe me. You know, particularly if it's my own work and my own book I'm on a deadline with. So goodness knows what's going to happen in terms of these. We've got to get done in a week.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Sorry I'm late, I was recording podcasts. Podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

But I don't think I try and create that same thrill. I think I'd got I'd be too panicked, and I've got too many things that are running around my head at the same time. Although, yes, if I think back to my journalism days, you know, on the newspapers that we've worked on together, on magazines we've worked at, where we've worked for the same company on different magazines, even back to the the first newspaper I ever wrote for before we'd even met, in this lifetime at least. Yeah. And those deadline nights, Wednesday nights for us in our first newspaper. You know, and sometimes we'd be there till half ten, eleven, twelve. We'd be there for hours. And although we were stressed, that point of kind of hysteria sets in where everything just becomes really funny. And they were some of the best times in my career. Yeah. Even though the editors were shouting at us and screaming at us, saying we shouldn't have to be here at this time of night. If you got yourselves organised, we could have gone to press by lunchtime the day before.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

And be like, no, because you why don't no, leave it to the last minute because then we've got all the best stories.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

But yeah, I don't I don't think I try and recreate that anymore. No, I don't think I would, and that's what I mean is I've romanticised it again because there were times when, even then, and particularly when I had that shell shock of a move from a weekly newspaper to an evening paper, completely different experience.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

Yes, I never worked for an evening.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

And that was tough.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

And and now, you know, you think the pressure we say that okay, we've got all the tech, we've got all the social media now that we can use, but actually the turnaround time now for things and the pressure because you've got citizen journalists that are going out there and getting footage of things happening. Everybody's got a phone with a camera pretty much now. Everybody, you know, so for that profession to kind of stand up with that and actually be ahead is almost impossible. Yeah. So it's finding a different angle, isn't it, for that story. And so I think things have changed a lot in the time from when we were w working on weeklies and evening papers at a regional level.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Yeah, I also think what's different now is I'm thinking back to when we were running magazines of our own, when we were when we were running Tweeting Times, for instance.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

And occasional supplements, and we were in charge of our own deadlines, our own magazine, but we did have a deadline time. We had a a digitisation slot, didn't we? Yeah. That we had to hit. And we were right up to the wire then, and frequently we'd put all nighters to get it done. But I think the difference was that wasn't about the camaraderie and the getting it done and the team all being around you and having a laugh with it. It was number one, we were both also holding down full-time jobs and five to nine with that.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

But also, what I now understand to be time blindness. And then I think, how much of that in my early newspaper days was time blindness? Oh, we've got ages yet, we've got a whole two days yet, and then all of a sudden, bloody hell! It's press day, and we've still not got a page lead for pages four, three, two, and one.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

I can remember when I was five, three, two and one. I was working on the even on the entertainment pages. So I was put in charge of that on a on a weekly.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

Yeah, I did that.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

But I would do that, and a lot of them would be either celeb interviews or theatre reviews, and sometimes I'd do them or film reviews, or sometimes they'd come in, and then I'd have to edit those, and they went through to the subs and everything, people laying out the pages.

Newsroom Craft And Print Standards

SPEAKER_03 17:10

But I would frequently leave things, oh, Jack Russell running rosy. Oh, it is like your mum's little dearly departed dog. Oh no, beautiful, oh look. Um, yeah, and I'd frequently think it's okay because I've got yeah, I've got a whole three days. It's fine, and then I'd get to the point where I'd think, Oh crumbs, I've got to write this, and then I've got to write that, and I've got I've got half a day now. Where did that time go? So, yeah, I can understand that because I would do, and of course, you'd have pages, certainly when I worked on features and working on because they're the further back pages, so they get done in reverse. Of course they do.

SPEAKER_04 17:45

And then the evens, because of course, you know, the reason I was saying that we'd have gaps on pages five, three, two, and one is that once you got past page three, the even numbers become less important because it's always the facing page for anyone thinking why why is page five more important than page four? If you think about it, when you open a newspaper for those of you who've actually had a physical newspaper rather than just scrolling it online.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Yeah, crumbs I've gone to imagine. I wonder how many of our audience actually quite a few, I would hope.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

When you open that newspaper up or fold it in half, yeah, it's the page that's facing you as you're looking at it.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

So in the same way that when we were designing pages, and that's what still does my head in a bit when I see it now, I can see a beautifully designed feature, but they've got like it's sort of a headshot of somebody and they're looking out of the page, so your eye naturally will be drawn out of the page when you want your reader to have their eye drawn into the page and to stay with it.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

Awful habit I see in a lot of magazines where they put the byline over the first column of text. So the reason we're talking about that for anyone wondering, when you see text on a page and it's not just one big chunk, it's done in horizontal columns. So the the the width of text is short enough for your eye to scan. And you're not supposed to have steps up because your eyes naturally go diagonally down the page if it's a print publication. Yeah, a bit different when it's online, but your eyes scan diagonally down the page. So if you have one column at the start that's lower, and then the next one jumps right up, it creates a moment of confusion where your eyes don't quite know where to go. But more and more in magazines where they haven't been taught about the psychology of reading a page, they don't know these things. So they'll put a byline on the first column of text, which creates a dog leg stepping up.

SPEAKER_05 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Or again, if you've got a face on a page, you should also always have it looking again through the page, through to to keep people looking into the page rather than following the eye line.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:43

And it guiding them out of the page.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So things like that is really important, isn't it? So it's like I'm Well, it is to us, but if the reader doesn't know. I don't know. I know, maybe it's just us when we're going to go. And this is where we're buying.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Yeah, this is where we'd argue that standards are slipping, isn't it? But then you have to go, well, if nobody else notices, does it matter?

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Is it just that we're getting old? Yes, it matters, god damn it. So do apostrophes. Hang on a minute though. If you're talking about that, so if you're talking about online news now, how does that impact that? Because is that a different set of rules when it's online?

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Yes, it is a different set of rules. That's what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

So a lot of people won't even know what we're talking about. But in print and actually say, why is it matters? Is it important really? Or is it just us harking back to the days?

SPEAKER_04 20:21

For the psychology of reading and the way our brains work and the way our way our eyes scan a page, then if I was editing or designing a newspaper or magazine, or even a flyer or a leaflet, anything in print, then I would say yes it matters, and I will that is a hill I would happily die on.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Do you know what? I'm really I'm really sad now. But this is showing age again. But one of the things I used to love as a sub-editor, so those people laying out the pages, was the crossheads. Yeah. So the little headlines you get within the feature that will break up the paragraphs. I used to love those and get away from the phone. And why are they important? Because it breaks up the page.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

Yeah, if they if you look at a great big wadge of text on a page, your brain will go, I haven't got time for that. Whereas if you break it up with pull-out quotes.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

I used to love doing that though. And crossheads and crossheads. So that just little heading in between the paragraphs.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

And that's where I can get excited if I'm what I used to love doing it.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Medium. Sorry to interrupt you.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

I was just gonna say okay. That's exactly what I was just gonna say. One of the areas I still enjoy is if I'm laying something out for a LinkedIn feature on your feature article or newsletter, or medium. Because you they're they're as much as possible, they're like a newspaper page and you can follow those same lines. You can do your pull out quotes and you can put your crossheads in. Drop caps. What about drop caps?

SPEAKER_03 21:34

We've talked about those before and all the people that have done that when they've had fun with those when they've left.

SPEAKER_04 21:39

When people are about to leave and they'll make the drop caps spell something very rude. Rude.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yeah, but I yes, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Didn't we actually have one that spelled fuck off in one of our newspapers once and nobody noticed it? We didn't notice it.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

It wasn't me particularly. It wasn't me either, but we heard about it.

SPEAKER_04 21:54

Just the drop cut. I think one of the best ones from The newspaper we both used to work on was um Barry Keevan's classic. Was it Barry?

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Yes, probably. It sounds like a Barry if you're listening, Barry. No, the nib. Oh yeah. Kate Winslett. Yeah, we talked about that before, I think, on a couple of podcasts. But it's I I love but I love going back to these things because some of the things about it have kind of not necessarily been lost, but now we're talking about a different media and we're not, you know, a lot of people don't read, unfortunately, don't read printed newspapers.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

And the other thing we should never assume is that everybody's listened to every podcast before this one. Yeah, you're right. So, in short, for anyone wondering what the Kate Winslet thing is, one of the reporters just before they left put a string of news and briefs, the little tiny stories, and one of them said that Kate Winslet would be attending an event at Dartford Library. Which of course she wasn't, loads of people turned up wanting to see Kate Winslett. It's right about the Titanic launch time as well, wasn't it? So the f the movie, not the boat, it's not that old. So yeah, all of those things matter. How on earth did we get onto design when we started talking about deadlines?

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Well, because we were talking about being in the office on deadline day, and there was something, you know, the nostalgic trip down memory lane for me of realising how much that was a such a huge part of our lives at that time, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 23:15

And how much teamwork matters. So, do you remember when we were working for a news quest newspaper in Greater London again? And it was coming up to the Millennium, and we'd done a supplement for the Millennium. Yeah, and we lost a lot. The whole system went down, and hours before it was due to go to press, everything was lost.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

Yep. All 13 editions.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

Yeah, and so a team of us all volunteered to stay back and we worked through the night with copious amounts of pizza.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

There was a lot of pizza and beer to get it, I believe.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

Pizza and beer. Yeah, but stay back to get it done.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Yep. But again, it was like so that real team effort, and I think that. And we were all really united in that. Yeah. It was like, okay, we're gonna do it. We can't, we can't, you know, fudge this one, we've got to get it right because it's a big story. Um yeah, and we did it.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

I'm gonna get off of the tangent now. Go on now.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

So that's that's not like us at all. I know.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

So the nearest I can think of to that in terms of how important it is for a whole team to pull together.

Teamwork Lessons Beyond The Newsroom

SPEAKER_04 24:16

So when you think about on the big one, if we're running talking stick rounds.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

So talking stick rounds for anyone who doesn't know, is where we all agree that nobody interrupts, and you use an object to represent a talking stick. It's not a stick that talks, it's something that gets passed around the circle, person to person, and the rule is that you can only speak when you're holding the stick. And you have to wait for it to be passed to you, and you can't interrupt. And it's a really brilliant way for pulling things out that need to be said, whether people are avoiding things or not, or whether someone's nervous about speaking. It's a great way to make sure that everybody feels heard and to train everybody else to listen deeply. And sometimes they can go on for rounds and rounds and rounds, but you've got to be all committed to it to make that happen. And sometimes I can get really frustrated if it's doing the rounds and we know there's something else to come out, and somebody will say something like, Oh come on, people are wanting to go to bed now, they're tired. It's like, don't break it. It's the teamwork, we have to all pull together and stick through this until it's done. But that's the closest I can think with the work that we do now, in terms of that teamwork element.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

And when we're closing the circle on our wisdom keepers all help us pack up.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Yeah, that's lovely.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

I think that's but I've And everybody in circle does particularly, but they'll help come and pack up our kit.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

It's always been that element of though, because of again, because of the backgrounds that we've both had, it's always been part of having a team, isn't it, around you and being part of a team.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

Dream teams.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

And I think sometimes when we go into self-employment, particularly if we're a sole preneur, solopreneur, yeah, sole trader, it can be really lonely. It can. Because for that reason, if you're a people person, and I can I can be extremes, I can either be a real people person there to greet everybody, be really, you know, chatty, really welcoming, and then there can be other times when it's like I'm people down now. Totally. I need to stop. I just need to take myself away, have some space, have a day like that this last week, I think, where I said to you, I just need some space. I've got I need to put my t-shirt on that says I need space.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

You need space, yeah, with all your planets in there.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Moons and stars on it. Yeah. Anyway, deadlines. The thing

Self-Set Deadlines And Real Accountability

SPEAKER_04 26:28

about deadlines is when you work for yourself and you set your own deadlines, it's too easy to break them. Whereas if it's a real deadline, i.e., if I don't get this done by this date and this time, the thing I'm trying to achieve won't happen. And you know, when you're setting your own deadlines and there's not really a hard line, you think, oh no, I'm really tired, I'll just nudge that a little bit. It wasn't like that when you're working in newspapers. Deadlines don't care how you feel. Deadlines do not care if you're tired, they don't care if you've had a family bereavement, they don't care if you're feeling ill. Deadline is a deadline is a deadline, and if you don't get it done, it doesn't happen. But I think that's what's different, isn't it? When you work for yourself, you know it's not going to happen any time. The deadlines we've just said that we'll do, they are proper set in stone because if it doesn't happen by then, we won't have the books to take with us on top.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

I don't want to get the t the tams in scary stare.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

I don't know what you mean.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

And you won't want my scary stare. Let me go with Miranda Priestly on your ass. Yeah, oh I don't know. I might I might miss the deadlines deliberately now. But yeah, I think yeah, you'll just get my wiggly my raised raised raised eyebrows. That's what you'll get from me if you miss the deadline. But you won't, you won't miss the deadline, nor will I. But yeah, it's so much easier when you work for yourself, isn't it? Because you can you've got a cop out, you've got the ultimate cop out really, haven't you? Well that's the thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 27:51

Is it easier, or does that mean that we can get more lax? Does it help us to be able to move deadlines like that?

SPEAKER_03 27:58

No, because then it gives us an excuse to beat ourselves up some more. Two beautiful dogs coming this way, sorry, can't help it. It's a Gladys and a Bailey. It is looks like a golden doodle and it's a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 28:10

And Gladys is the same colour, and the Bailey one is chocolate.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Yeah. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

I think about 95% of the dogs we've seen today have been curly. They have. It's bonkers, isn't it? Yeah. I love curly-coated dogs. Yeah. So, how can we do it? If we work for ourselves and we don't want to keep fudging those deadlines, if we want to actually keep ourselves accountability accountable, how can we do it? How do we build an accountability when we know we're gonna cut ourselves some slack? And does it matter?

SPEAKER_03 28:44

I would give myself I'd break it down into steps for me. So, for instance, if I know I've got to get two books written in X amount of days, I'm gonna have a deadline for prep. So I'm gonna give myself, I don't know, two hours for prep. My ADHD work brain just went, oh prep, pretend, I could eat some of that now. Where's the most prep? With a bee. I don't know, you made me want that. And then I'd break it down into smaller steps. So for instance, but you'd hate that because I'd have to make a list. Oh no, I can't be doing with this. But this week I had so what I'll do is I'll come up with a list for like the week. So I'll usually do that either on Friday night, I'm not doing it Friday night this week because we're doing this, or Monday morning, and they'll be just things for the week, and then from all those things I'll take out like two or three key things for each day that I need to work on. So with these books, for instance, I'll say, right, okay, so Monday I'm gonna try and do that on that book and that on that book. Obviously, I've got other client stuff coming in, and I'm gonna have maybe half a day on my stuff and half a day on my clients. Tuesday I'll be doing this and I'll break it down but day by day, and then also morning and afternoon or evening, because there's gonna be some evening stuff without doubt. This next week. So, and then remembering to build in some downtime afterwards.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

And that's I'm thinking as well, I'm just thinking outside of the box a little bit. Yeah. In terms of whether it really matters if you can cut yourself some slack, cut yourself some slack. But in some ways, unless you're really burned out and you're pushing yourself too hard, the downside to being able to build in extra time is that we are literally training our brains to know that we can't trust ourselves and we can't trust our own decisions and our own promises.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Nasty, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 30:31

And that's the trouble. If we can't trust ourselves to make things happen, there's only so many times we're gonna cut ourselves more slack before actually deadlines and commitments stop meaning anything to ourselves, and then we can't keep ourselves accountable at all. So from that point of view it matters. Because that's gonna be everything from, I don't know, wanting to shed some extra poundage you don't want to be carrying to coming off caffeine, to quitting smoking, to scheduling and bulk creating some of your social media content, which I hate doing, to going for a walk, going to the gym, getting that work done in a certain amount of time. All of that, if we start putting ourselves more slack all the time, eventually our promises and our commitments mean nothing to ourselves. We train ourselves neurologically that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

You've got to get out. You've done it before and nothing happened really, there's no repercussions, not really. So I can do that again. That was a classic example this week. A little tiny thing, but one of the things we've both put on a bit of weight, we talked about it quite openly, mainly for sitting on my bum for too long. Yeah. We talked about going to the gym, we haven't yet gone to the gym, but one of the things I did commit to was like, right, I'm not gonna go so over the top with the cycling like I did before to the point where I buggered my hip up again. But what I will do is commit to three times a week for my cycling, and I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

And but you did also on Wednesday night commit to going to the gym at some point within the next week, which means before Wednesday we've got to go to the gym.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Yeah. So, but even that, it was like it was last night I went on my bike again. Yeah, and I There's more than I've done. It I've got to, I had a plan, and I was I was gonna get as you do, I was gonna get on the bike at about half past six, and then various things happened, and then I've realised I've got to go and feed the hedgehog. And forgotten other than that.

SPEAKER_04 32:29

But you're not forgetting that, you're committed to you're really committed to feeding the hedgehog every night by a certain time. I am. It's that was early, but I was like But you're not going to the gym, but you can feed the hedgehog on time.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

Because I'm caring for somebody else. You've got hedgehog accountability.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

Yeah, so you come and rap on the French doors if you haven't done it on time.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

I come up on these little hydraulics or the she will. I think it's a girl, I'm pretty sure it's a girl. Anyway, so so yeah, so that was part of the plan, but then it got put back because I don't know, I was knackered, so I had a little nana nap for 20 minutes, gave myself a 20-minute nap, and then got on with it. And I think eventually it got I think the hedgehog got fed about quarter past seven, but then I've got on my bike because I said to myself, even if I don't do as far tonight, I've at least I've done it, that's the promise I made to myself, and I felt so much better for it afterwards. Yeah, so the you know, the positives from that was so worth it. But at the time I did everything to try and stop myself. Yeah, hadn't got the right trainers on, hadn't got the right gear on, I haven't got do you know what I mean? No, for me, for the bike, but yeah, there was so I came up with a thousand reasons why I shouldn't do it. But did you do it? I did it, that's what I'm saying. How did you manage to make yourself do it then after coming up with all those explanations? I won't give myself and so the bini say Usher, if you want to try and get a bit of this weight off that you've put on, and you know how you're feeling miserable because all you've done is highly by the time we speak at the shamanic convent. But I don't think that's realistically gonna happen because it's only a few weeks away. But I think, yeah, if I don't start doing something, I'm just gonna beat myself up tomorrow, and I don't want to give myself any, you know, chance of doing that. To do that too much anyway. So yeah. So that that's what it means. So for me it was, yeah, I actually held myself accountable. Yeah. But that doesn't always work.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

So yeah, deadlines. Well, we've gone all round the houses on this, haven't we? Should we just pause and have one of our I've gone blank, my brain is farting. Glitch, glitch, glitch. Should we pause

Hotline Question: Early Or Late

SPEAKER_04 34:25

now and listen to one of our hotline caller of the week? Yes, I think we should, Taz.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

I knew you'd get there in the end. I was just watching you squirm a little bit. Awesome we have the book, hotline collar of the week.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Awesome we off the book, hotline collar of the week. Hi, this is Daryl Holling from NTP Online Learning. And I've got a question for Taveranas. Would you prefer today, if you're going to a meeting, 30 minutes early or 30 minutes late? Why? Me personally, if I'm going to a meeting, I like to set off to get there just on time. I don't like to be early. I prefer to drive fast and plant my time and have plenty of time to get there. What what do you like to do? Like to know.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Want to be featured? Call our hotline on 033 0027-2871. Remember to add plus 44 if you're outside the UK. Leave your name, record your message, then listen out on future episodes.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

Thank you for that brilliant question, Daryl. Yeah, thank you, Daryl. So it's an interesting one because the first reaction I had was, well, I'd rather be 30 minutes early and just go and pull up somewhere and get myself a coffee and get myself prepped. But the trouble is, because we are both ADHD AF, we have time blindness. And I can go from being way, way, way early to suddenly going, bloody hell, I should have left 20 minutes ago. Yeah, time just disappears, doesn't it? Into that can you need a triangle of I aspire to be early. I aspire to turn up about five about five minutes early or just before the meeting time would be ideal for me.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

It's interesting. I always learnt from my sales manager many years ago that 10 minutes either side was good. So you're either 10 minutes early or you're Chris of the Milton. It is Chris of the Milton. Hello, Chris of the Milton, if you're listening, or ten minutes late. But ideally, ten minutes early is is good. So that's my ideal. I get there ten minutes early, which means you know, if you're signing in somewhere, it means you invariably, I invariably need the loot. I ask where the facilities are, I can do that, I can settle in for five minutes, and then before I go into the meeting. But the reality is it's usually like either like with two minutes to go, scream into the car park, hope there's a space, yeah, then hope I can park in the space because I'm crap at parking, and then hopefully get at least get into the front office to the reception area so I can at least have the conversation with the person that is gonna phone through for the person I'm having a meeting with to the receptionist. So that that's probably the reality of it. But in my ideal world, I would do that, and I did for many years arrive about 10 minutes early.

SPEAKER_04 37:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:01

Yeah, so enough enough to touch my makeup up and put a bit of lip gloss on in the car if you I don't wear lip gloss, don't know why I said that, I wear lip salve. So time to just check that I look okay and I don't stink. It's been a very sweaty day.

SPEAKER_03 37:15

So the half an hour thing then for neither of us. No.

SPEAKER_04 37:19

Just time to make sure that I'll look presentable and go in before the meeting starts. Just a just a couple of minutes before would you start would be ideal for me.

SPEAKER_03 37:27

I think if I actually the reality is, because I get anxious about a lot of things, I think if I was half an hour early, I'd be in that, depending if I didn't know the area that I was going to, I'd go into a bit of a panic about am I going to find my way back? So if I ventured out of the car park and left my car somewhere, would I find it? Would I get stuck in a queue somewhere and then be late anyway? Because a couple of times I've done that in the past where I've got 30 minutes to spare, I've gone off to investigate somewhere and then thought, crumbs, where am I going? And I had to ask for directions to get back to where I started. Yeah. And then I'll run in sweaty with about two minutes to go, and then I'm not in a good space. So ideally for me, the 10-minute rule I think still stands for me.

SPEAKER_04 38:05

Okay, so at what point do you call if you're gonna be late, or even if you're gonna be really early, if you're gonna get there really, really early, would you ever get in touch and say, I'm gonna be really early? Is there any chance you've got time earlier? And at what point do you go, I'm gonna I I'm gonna be so late that I need to call now? Where's your cut off and what would you do?

SPEAKER_03 38:24

I think I'd get to about depending on how far I was travelling, if it's say it's 15 minutes out, I'd still aim for that 10 minute rule because I could just say I'm really sorry, I'm running a bit late. I sat down saying I'm gonna get to you about 10 past one, whatever it may be. But at what point would you put that call in rather than going, oh it's within 10 minutes of the case? If I say it's a one o'clock appointment, yeah. I'd probably put that in if I was still a fair way out and I could roughly, you know, if it's giving me an arrival at 1.08 pm, I'd probably call at about quarter two. I think between quarter two and ten two. I don't mean that. Oh sorry, am I being really stupid? Probably.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

No. If Christopher Melton would say you could be either ten minutes early or ten minutes late, yeah. If you were going to arrive at say eight minutes past one and your meeting was at one, would you still bother to call or to message, or would you go, oh, it's still within the ten minutes, that's okay, I'll just apologise on the.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

So I'd still message in some way, even if it meant just pulling over for a minute and sending a text or a voice message, just to say, I'm so sorry, traffic, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_04 39:28

I've been S-I running a bit late.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

Yeah, they're in ten five minutes or whatever.

unknown 39:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

Just as a courtesy. I think I'd do the same even if it was a few minutes late, even if it was a case of been stuck in traffic a few minutes behind. Because of course there are there are going to be times where it's unavoidable, even if you set out half an hour early, if you get stuck in a traffic jam that's pushing traffic back by an hour, there's gonna be times where, you know, the sort of sort of stuff that on an insurance film would probably be classed as an act of God, and you you can't do anything about it.

unknown 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

That wasn't us, that was somebody grunting in the background.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Yeah, cool. So that thing it is Friday night, so anything's possible.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

Just coming out of that as well. How do you I remember being so relieved when I realised that time blindness was a thing. Because I have for my entire life really given myself a hard time about not being able to hit the right time. Either being way too early or just tardy. That kind of thing where you turn up to work almost late.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can remember, yeah, with childhood was like that with my mum. My mum was make she rest in peace, bless her. Lovely lady, wonderful lady, but was always underestimating how much time it took.

SPEAKER_04 40:47

My dad would always say my mum would be late for her own funeral.

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Yes, my dad would say that about my mum too. Not your mum, but my mum. Otherwise, there's another story there. But yeah, always would have that problem, that issue, and it would my dad would be literally pacing the oh, I've just realised that's where I've inherited that from then. Because sometimes you've been slightly behind me for whatever reasons.

SPEAKER_04 41:06

You start otchelling.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

I do, I'm pacing. Yeah. And that's where I've got it from, probably.

SPEAKER_04 41:13

That's a good old northern word.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

How do you spell that, Taz?

SPEAKER_04 41:16

I don't know. It kind of means she's kind of if you keep using it. She's kind of hopping from foot to foot and flapping and doing jazz hands a little bit, and generally getting in the way by trying to be helpful and not actually doing anything. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

That's me.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

I was standing in the middle of a doorway, so I've got to try and pat her to get past her.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

That might be I might have done that deliberately. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

Pat your baton.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

Yeah, so yeah, in sh in very short, that was a very long-winded answer for you there, Daryl.

SPEAKER_04 41:46

That's the point I was just about to make.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

Oh, sorry, you were.

SPEAKER_04 41:48

I have forever and a day really beaten myself up about that. Because and particularly, it got worse when I did some training a while back where the there was an idea given as red, yeah, that if you were if you turned up late or you were persistently late, or you weren't on time for whatever she said the same thing in 17 different ways. Oh my furry mic's gone a bit floppy. Well let me unflop your mic. Thank you. Sorry, thank you. The point was they they would they were saying that if you were ever tardy, it was because you didn't care enough and didn't respect the person you were meeting.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

And I really beat myself up about that. Because I couldn't understand at the time, it was way pre-diagnosis. And I could not understand at the time why so often I would plan and set alarms and they would still struggle to be on time.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

Isn't that it's interesting though, isn't it? When you go into something like a business networking event, for instance, you can tell the people that are a bit like me in that they'll come in, they'll come rushing in because they've under either underestimated or got held up at work, whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_04 42:59

There are people who show up bright and early and then there's normal people.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

But it's that, and you'll go in and there's other people that just look like they've just they're slightly flustered. Yeah, can't be half off the shoulder. Yeah, usually if it's I don't know, but maybe it's just my age, but usually go first port of call is the loo, and then can then just check that I've still looked vaguely human and whiz in. And it was a real challenge for us when we were running networking events, wasn't it? Because we were and we learnt how to manage that quite well actually, yeah. Which is yeah, which is interesting because we've found a way to work where we weren't continually being really late.

SPEAKER_04 43:35

So and we worked out if we were a bit late, we worked out that we could set up the room very, very quickly. Yeah, we're gonna radioactive trace.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Yeah, fine out.

SPEAKER_04 43:43

But yeah, I I beat myself up really, really badly beat myself up for a long time about that.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:49

And now I still feel awful. Particularly if it's someone I've been late for before. This morning was a prime example. We put the dogs in doggy daycare today, and when we were arranging A few days back. Our lovely dogs hit a shell. I said, What time do you want to drop them off? And I said, Oh, about nine half nine, something like that. We actually dropped them off at 10:48. Yeah. And um I took them in, smiled, and said, I'll have them with you by 9M. And she just laughed and went, I knew you wouldn't. And she was focused. She knows what we're like. Best laid plans, and we will always have best laid plans to turn up on on time or early. Things always get in the way, and it's got to be the time blindness. And it doesn't matter how many times we've been through it, and we know this shit in the moment, it just goes.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

Yeah, it does. You could be sitting there with like you've got a whole kind of hour and a half, 90 minutes where you need to leave, and suddenly it's like, oh, I've got ten minutes. Yeah. How did that happen? Or the other way is is to stretch time.

SPEAKER_04 44:49

I think you can stretch times like, oh, I've got I've got 12 minutes before I need to leave. At least of of course I can go and take all the tiles off in the bathroom and regrout and put new tiles up.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

So bear bearing that in mind, Taz, when we're talking about kind of deadlines and things, how are we going to achieve this if we know that we have a tendency for time blindness and you know losing track of that time?

SPEAKER_04 45:11

Because I'll go into hyperfocus.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

Yeah, we go back to what can be.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Because it's something that we are interested in. It's given us dopamine because the ADHD brains love a challenge or a goal or something to something against the clock. And I'll hyperfocus. Think about it, you know, in the past few weeks, in the past two, three weeks where I've been doing a lot of writing, how many nights have I pulled an all-nighter and then carried on? Three times I've pulled an all-nighter because I've been so absorbed in the thing that I've write I'm writing that I've just kept going until suddenly it's light again.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:46

So I know that will that will happen here. We will go into hyperfocus and we'll get it done.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

Vampiric mode as we like to refer to it.

SPEAKER_04 45:55

And I think we've already said to ourselves gently, look, which are the priority books? Because if we can't get all five done, where are our priorities?

SPEAKER_03 46:03

We've got it in all different way of how far down we can go down that list. And we'll see how many we can manage today. Losing out to quality. So in other words, I'd rather produce three and be really good than have five where and not setting the standards that we like to set. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:17

So yeah. Dopamine. That's how I think we'll do it. But anyway, we'll report back and let people know if we achieved it.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

Yeah, we will.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

And where they can buy the books.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

That's after we've had a nap at the end of that, we might need a nap for a little while, maybe. Yeah. Two extra hours.

SPEAKER_04 46:34

Yeah, we'll turn up to the event we're supposed to be running. It'll be so knackered, we'll sleep through our own presentations.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

I know, and unfortunately, because it's face-to-face, we can't really put a filter on that, so we'll have bags like suitcases under our eyes probably.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

And it's and if we're playing with fire, we need to be really, really safe and on it and awake.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

Yeah, we will be.

SPEAKER_04 46:49

I know we will, I'm jesting. So, thanks, Daryl.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

Yeah, thanks for that. I think we've done like a third of an episode with that question, so thank you very much for that question.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

I think we have. Is there anything else we need to say, Ash? Are we about at wrapping up time? I've got no idea. I think we're nearly at wrapping up time. No, I did. I did. We're currently at 47 minutes thereabouts.

SPEAKER_03 47:09

Oh, that's about right. I think that's the sweet spot.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

So I think just a quick shout out

Hotline Shout-Outs And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_04 47:14

again. Thank you so much for leaving all the hotline messages. Please do keep leaving the messages. We love receiving them. You can just give us feedback or you can ask a question or give a tip that might help other people. Anything you like. The world your lobster, you can ask us anything at all, no holds barred. And if it's legal, you're in a chance of it being played on air. And remember, if you want a little business plug, remember to leave your business name as well.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Yeah, please do it. But it's great to hear from you. Thank you. Keep the messages coming, please.

SPEAKER_04 47:40

And even if you've called lots of times before, still please say your name and try to avoid saying it's blah blah blah again. Because of course, when it gets played on the podcast, other people might not have listened to that one. And it might be several weeks between before the next one gets played. So treat everyone as if it's your first message. Anyway, on that note, wherever you are in the world, I hope you've enjoyed listening. I hope you've got some tips from this. I have no idea what we've been rabbiting on about for so long.

SPEAKER_03 48:07

I'm not sure, Taz, to be honest. When we play it back next, you know, next week it'll be fun. Well, just before we go, we'll play it back because.

SPEAKER_04 48:15

No, that's good. In the spirit of it.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:17

And anyway, on that lovely note of laughter, we will see you next Tuesday. You've been listening to Autumnly Off Topic. If you've enjoyed this, hit follow and subscribe. And if you want more, come and find Autumnly Off Topic on social media. That's where all the extra bits live. Stay awesome, stay off topic, and we'll see you next time.