Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to “The Doug Show.” I’m Doug Cunnington, and in this episode, I am gonna cover one of the more productivity-related topics, and I’m gonna make it around finishing projects and focusing up a little bit. I think this should be a little bit of a shorter episode so that I don’t ramble on too, too much.
Guitar Goals and Distractions
But I observed, uh, some distraction in myself and basically, you know, been playing guitar a little bit more, and I wanna get better and improve. Little bit fuzzy, you know, on what I actually want to do. If I was thinking, “Hey, I wanna, like learn a specific song,” it makes it very clear. But there are many options like I wanna be able to, um, improvise and jam with my friend who plays the drums, and to be able to improvise and go back and forth and have, you know, not necessarily like music theory, um, like front of mind, but so that it sounds good and, you know, it’s relatively in the right key and, you know, we can jam, right?
So fairly straightforward. It’d be cool to like play some songs that I know, um, that I’m a fan of. A lot of those end up being pretty tough and for the skill level that I’m at, it would take a huge amount of time, like several months of dedicated practice on a specific thing. So that’s– it’s a little hard.
And then I have been playing, um, some music with my wife. So she plays the banjo, and we’ve worked on a couple songs over the last couple years, and we’ll occasionally play together. So there’s a k- there’s millions of options. And then I’m like, oh, I wanna, you know, play with gear and have like other guitars and hear how they sound different and amps are interesting too, and there’s, uh, the electronics component.
So anyway, very scattered.
Business Focus Analogy
There’s, uh, all these possibilities in the world, and the analogy that I wanna draw is around online business, around entrepreneurship, projects that you’re working on. You take a, a step back and just th- you know, think maybe you are working on something on the side a little bit, or you are maybe full-time, but you have a lot of like different projects that are going on that are in many different areas, right?
All within the business, uh, side hustle or, you know, your full-time agency or whatever, but there’s all these different things that you can do. And you can go a level up, and even if you’re pretty tightly focused with your business, maybe you have, uh, maybe it’s a YouTube channel. Keep it simple, right? Very meta.
So it’s a, it’s a YouTube channel, so you know you’re creating videos. Maybe you’ve even focused down where you’re thinking, “I’m not going to worry about short form video or other little details. I’m just gonna work on the YouTube channel.” From a couple weeks ago, Paul Lipski mentioned that he doesn’t wanna do courses anymore.
He doesn’t wanna worry about, um, other products, a community. He just wants to create really good, high quality videos about AI. It’s like tight focus. He’s just worrying about that, and he’s not worrying about the monetization or the funnel design or the email list or anything else. He doesn’t even have an email list, right?
So he has focused in on the thing that he wants to work on, and then he’s ignoring pretty much everything else. And it’s pretty hard to ignore all these other possibilities that you potentially can be working on. So when you do have the focus, like, I mean, Paul has focus on the, on the business. He’s narrowed it down, but there’s still life going on.
So you have, you know, personal relationships. You have, have family, maybe, uh, other hobbies that you’re interested in that are completely unrelated. Fitness, maybe you wanna spend as much time outdoors as you can. Maybe you’re passionate about, um quilting or knitting or something like that, right? I mean, people are into all sorts of things.
Maybe you love history and you, you love to read. Maybe you’re a writer. So you have all these different things that you can work on, and no one’s immune, right? So I’m trying to paint the picture that even if you’re focused and you do have some things narrowed down, it’s still hard to not get distracted.
There’s a million things.
Finishing Projects Mindset
Um, so as I was thinking about this topic, I realized, oh, I am ac- like, one of the things I’m good at that served me well in the corporate world, surprisingly, and then transferred to my self-employment, and at this point, I’ve tried to, you know, be a little bit more chill. I’m trying to…
I think I’m still decompressing over, uh, the last few years or something like that. Maybe I’m just truly lazy, but I am good at finishing projects, like identifying what we’re trying to do, narrowing down the scope, ignoring all the other shit and many distractions that we have so that you can actually focus on the thing that you need to work on that moves you forward in the project and gets you closer to finishing.
And then it’s very important to actually finish it, to get, uh, whatever the finished product is 100%. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it should not be perfect. You don’t wanna get hung up in, you know, optimizing and trying to tweak to get that last 1%. And if you’re able to just be happy with good enough, you’ll be able to, you know, ship it, get it out the door, and keep on going.
Now, this is a little bit of a tangent, but I, I will get back on topic. I, I do– I listen to, uh, several… I, I guess they’re, they’re kind of business and, uh, self-improvement related kind of podcasts, right? So one’s called, uh, Plain English. I think that’s Derek Thompson. And then I listen to Cal Newport some.
Not every episode for either of those shows, but m-many of them. May-maybe 50%, something like that. And a lot of the titles that do get my attention that I listen to, they are around really high performers. It’s like, um, I think there’s a guy, Brad Stulberg, who’s been a guest on both of the shows, I think, and he’s all about excellence.
I think that’s his book. It’s all about excellence and, like, you know, getting just top performers to perform even better. And it’s interesting, but as I’m listening, I’m like, “Motherfucker, I’m not a top performer.” Like, I know I’m not a top performer. I’m not trying to be a top performer. And it must be, like, such a small sliver of people.
And, and I guess m-maybe I’ve heard, maybe he’s mentioned on his appearances or on his show, like a lot of, um, professional athletic teams who– I mean, those are the best in the world. They really like his stuff. But then there’s a bunch of assholes like me who, uh, I’m, I’m not, uh, I’m self-aware enough to know that I’m not gonna try to be the best at anything.
I’m not even close to it. It’s, uh, completely preposterous to think that I would be world-class in anything. And I think, um, you know, maybe even, like, uh, Tim Ferriss, uh, who, who I’m a fan of, like, he talks about, “Oh, you know, I wanna be like, you know, w-world-class and blah,” and, and I’m like, “I’m not, I’m not doing any of that shit.”
Like, I, I don’t have
Maybe this is more about me than anyone else. But I do wonder, people listening to those shows, if they’re, if they are, like, um, regular jerks like me, that, uh, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I am. I, I, I do wanna be world-class in something.” It’s like, “Get the fuck out of here. You’re not gonna be world-class at anything.”
Again, probably more about me. If that’s you out there, uh, not– I mean, someone has to be world-class in something, but it’s probably not me. It’s probably– It’s definitely not me. Anyway, so I, I do think it’s funny every now and then when people are, like, trying to optimize really tightly, like- you know, I, it must be fun.
It must be fun for you. It must be fun in that you enjoy the optimization. And I’m sure I do some things here and there, but like even things that I think that I am pretty good at, like I know I’m pretty– I, I’m so amateur compared to someone who actually puts in a lot of time. Okay, so back on topic here with the focus.
I didn’t, uh, make notes on this, so I’m just gonna give you s- a little bit of a stream of consciousness, and I will keep it a little tighter. No more rants for, for the rest. But I will have a story, um, about a dumb thing that I did in, uh, the last week or two.
Clarify Goals and Cut Options
So one of the main things you could do is just focus up.
Like I, I laid this out earlier with, uh, all these distractions that we have, and it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or who you are or any of these, uh, you know, just specifics. There’s distractions all over the place. There’s so many great options for e– I mean, even if you’re moving in a productive direction, there’s so many things that you can work on.
With the music and the guitar playing, I can log on to, uh, Pickup Music. It’s like an online, uh, like course system that a listener actually turned me on to about a year ago, and it’s great. It’s very organized, and I can go through day by day, and I know exactly what to work on. It’s right there. All I have to do is do it.
So that, that would be great for certain things. Um, but I could also work on a specific song. Like I have a music book, a tab book over there, and I’ve been working on a finger style song. And then I have plenty of guitar. I mean, there’s no… Uh, there’s just so many things I could do. I could like change strings, or I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should, you know, play this guitar versus that one.”
Like, what do I want to work on? So even if I’m moving in a good direction where I’m practicing something in a very dedicated, deliberate practice kinda way, I can still be moving in too many directions. And you could do this in your business where perhaps you’re looking at all the different possibilities, and you’re just spreading yourself too thin in many different areas where maybe, you know, you’re, you’re like, “Okay, I need to publish more, um, content online.
I need to send emails, and I also need to, uh, you know, chop up my long form videos so I could put it on Shorts.” And, and all of a sudden, it… You’re spending all this time in many different areas, and you’re making very little progress in the, the one thing that you actually want to like make progress in.
So the key thing here is to make sure your goal is pretty clear. And this is one area where with the guitar stuff, I’m not quite sure because there’s several things that I want to do. So what I really need to do is find the specific thing that I do want to work on and focus hard on that. I am very good at focusing on a specific thing very hard for a, a long period of time.
Great for entrepreneurship. Um, it’s like there’s– It’s like the edge of stubbornness, but also, you know, willing to be flexible when things change. So, you know, if, if I’m working on something, but then there’s an external force that happens and I’m like, “Okay, I actually need to adjust here.” So you could pivot a little bit, keep moving in the right direction, and adapt if you need to.
But at the same time, again, I have the stubbornness where I can work on something for a very long stretch of time when it sometimes doesn’t show much progress. Which is– I mean, I think it’s very similar for, uh, you know, music specifically. I assume it’s also similar for some language learning kind of stuff, where it’s like repetition, repetition, and then suddenly, like, connections are made in your brain and you’re actually able to do a little bit more than you’re, than you were able to just a couple days before.
You kinda hit plateaus and then level out, and then you, like, jump again, and it’s kinda surprising ’cause it feels like you had not been making any progress. So figuring out your goal, very key. Focusing up, which means essentially figure out, figuring out the stuff that you’re not going to work on. So that’s a tough one.
I mean, you kind of potentially could make a list where you have to keep yourself away from specific things that tend to distract you, which is, um… That’s a tough one because those are things that are pretty good. Those are very good choices for you to spend time on, but in order to finish the, the main project, the thing that you said is the main priority, you have to not do the other things that are, like, number two, number three, number four.
You have to ignore those others. You have to make, uh, difficult choices, and that’s why it’s hard. That’s why it’s very hard to ignore those things that are actually good uses of time. They’re just not a good use of time right now. So I think if you’re able to do a good job on that, most of the time, you know, nobody’s perfect, we get distracted.
It’s, it’s okay, you know, as long as you recenter and get back to the things that you’re supposed to work on, you’re probably going to be okay. Now, for me, you know, I gotta take my own advice here ’cause, like, I’m thinking, “All right, what, what do I actually wanna work on? Like, what, what’s most important to me?”
And I think I should work on… And I’m just talking about, you know, the guitar stuff. Really, I should probably focus on being able to play some songs. Like, specific songs. Some that I, you know, I already– Like, I knew how to play at some point, but I forgot. So those should come back pretty quickly. But I think that, that could be pretty fun for me to be able to play along with songs and actually play it, um, pretty well, maybe put my own spin on some stuff, and I, I would enjoy that a lot.
And, I mean, those can kinda transfer when I’m playing and jamming with my friend. I was about to say when I’m playing with my friend. When I’m playing music with my friend, when I’m jamming, and, uh, that could be pretty fun to, you know, have a backing track. He’s on drums, and then I could play the guitar parts.
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. So with all that said, the main thing is figuring out the shit that you’re not gonna work on, and that should move you in the right direction.
Define Done Exit Criteria
And then a tip on the, the finishing. So… Or a few tips on the finishing. N-n-number one, if you can Outline your exit criteria from a project management standpoint.
So it’s like the minimum criteria that you need to have whatever your deliverable or your finished product, whatever that is, you need to know what, what that is ahead of time, right? You need to determine what that is before you’re judging if it’s ready or not. Because if you’re, like, looking at it, whatever it is, let’s say it’s just some document.
Let’s say it’s a, a long essay or something like that. You could read it and think, “Oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna tweak it a little bit more,” endlessly. You could continue to tweak it forever and improve it and distill it and rephrase it and, you know, ch- change this or that indefinitely forever and probably still be able to make small improvements over time.
But you need to figure out, like, the right criteria for the acceptable, you know, good enough finished product. And, you know, maybe for me, for the music, maybe I’m thinking, you know, I sh- I should be able to, like, learn a specific song and, like, record it and play it and, like, be happy with the finished product.
I’m very good at the good enough, uh, judgment, so I think that would be the thing. For me, I would probably stop too soon, and there’s two spectrums here. Like some people like me, I would stop too soon before I have it in whatever the top, um, 25% of what I could do, right? This, this is probably close enough for me, right?
75, 80% of my capability is pretty fucking good. That’s good enough for me. And some people, maybe they never ship stuff because they get really close, and then they, they just don’t finish it. So one other example, like from a home improvement standpoint, let’s say you put in new flooring, and then you don’t finish the quarter round around the edge.
It’s pretty much done, but it looks a little unfinished, and you know it, other people know it, but it’s easy to just be like, “The flooring’s down. We can mostly operate. Who cares if it’s not fully polished?” Which if that’s good enough for you, then it’s good enough. But perhaps your significant other or partner is like, “You gotta put the fucking quarter round up.”
Like, it looks unfinished, and it’s clearly unfinished. And I’ve– I know people that basically have, um, whatever, 15 home projects that are all like 90% done, and they’re not 100% done. So like maybe their exit criteria would be like get the flooring in including the quarter round. Like that’s the cherry on top.
That gets you to the 90%. And there’s another set of people that don’t finish because they’re continuing to improve. So that’s the example of like continuing to edit an essay or maybe you have a YouTube video, and you could, you could keep editing and essentially keep improving for years for a creative endeavor like that.
For the music stuff, maybe I just, you know, I’m like, if I could play it most of the time, if I can get a couple recordings and, you know, not for public consumption, just for me to go through the, um, exercise of playing it and recording and that sort of thing. So those are, are pretty key. You gotta figure out what done is, and you need to figure it out ahead of time You have something to evaluate when you get to the point where it is time to go ahead and figure out is this good enough or not. And I– That is the main thing. I mean, it, it is, um, it’s, it’s simple to finish projects, but it is not easy, right? Figure out the things that you have to work on. Don’t work on other stuff.
Work on the things that get you closer to your goal and, uh, adapt if you need to. You know, things don’t have to be perfect. They just need to be good enough, and then you can ship stuff. And for me, like shipping and getting iterations and, um, just more practice, like that works really well for me. Some people are a lot more…
They wanna have a much, um, a more polished, finished product, and that is fine. It’s just a different threshold and different priorities and maybe skill levels and things like that where I’m like, “Ah, I don’t care enough to do some things,” um, you know, that top 5%.
Amp Mishaps and Wrap Up
So the funny story, I got a, uh, a new amp the other week.
Actually, it’s a vintage amp. It’s a Gibson Discoverer. It is a GA-8T, and I think it’s about a 10-watt tube amp and 12-inch speaker, really cool sounding tremolo. And hopefully I’ll be able to, to play it. It’s actually in the repair shop right now. So I bought it, uh, obviously used from a guy up in Fort Collins, which is about an hour away.
And I mean, this guy has a beautiful collection of vintage amps, a couple, uh, very few newer ones, but he also has a bunch of, um, resonator guitars from like pre-war. So those are like the usually metal bodies, but they have like the little disc, the resonator in there. And he had I don’t remember, 10, 15, like very old.
Most of them were old, um, just n- national guitars. So cool looking. So anyway, I got this, um, this amp. It was on Facebook Marketplace, and he put a new speaker in there, a very nice, uh, high quality premium speaker in there, and it’s a t- 12-inch speaker. Speakers have to be broken in. So I think, you know, typically, you know, th- th- this is what I read online.
Typically, you know, it may take like, uh, 30 or 40 hours for them to fully break in, and you, you play them loud basically. People try to take a, a little bit of a shortcut, like maybe they put a looper on and it plays music through there. So there’s some things you could do, but I’m like, “Ah, it’s… I’m…” I mean, I’m not recording in a studio or anything.
This is just for fun. So I took it to the drum box, which is like a rehearsal space, uh, close by here, and I cranked it up. So I played with my friend Tyler, who was on drums the first time, and the volume goes to… I think it goes to 10 on this particular amp. So when I was playing with Tyler, I think I was mostly around like four or five, and it was v- it’s very loud.
That, uh, that’s probably, um, 105 to 110 decibels or so, something like that. And you could play quieter, but when I was strumming hard, really driving the amp, it’s loud. That’s extremely loud. You would… I mean, that causes hearing damage, and we wear ear protection, but, like, that would cause hearing damage if you listen to it for more than like a few minutes.
Um, loud as shit. Like, you, you could feel it, you know? Sounds cool. It’s really fun. It’s great to turn stuff up. So anyway, I had it on like four or five and, um, and again, it’s only like a 10, 10 watt amp, but it sounded awesome. Sounded really awesome. So a few days later I was like, “Well, I, I still need to play this amp more to break in the speaker.”
So I went to the drum box just by myself, and I turned it up more. In fact, I turned it up to like nine, which is, um… I mean, it sounded so cool. It was even louder. So I think it was probably 110 to 115 decibels, and I think the delineation is like three dB is noticeably louder. So three dB is like the smallest amount that’s noticeably louder.
And the other thing to note is, um, it’s a logarithmic scale. So, The nerds know what I’m talking about, which I, I think that’s most of you. Similar to the Richter scale, right? So an, an earthquake, even if it just goes up a, a very small amount, um, it actually indicates, um, you know, more, more strength. A- anyway, so it’s a logarithmic scale.
It’s not linear. That, that’s the idea. It’s not linear. So anyway, I’m cranking it up and, um, play for about 40 minutes or so, and then the volume drops dramatically. And I was like, “Oh, shit. Shit, shit.” So anyway, it drops dramatically to, um… I, I actually, I was measuring it ’cause I’m just curious about the DB levels and stuff.
So it dropped down to like 70 or so. So that’s essentially, um, like you don’t have to wear earplugs. Th- that’s just like normal, uh, talking level roughly. Maybe a touch louder. But I was like, “Uh-oh.” So I, I turned it off, powered it down, ’cause the tubes could overheat. So it’s a vacuum tube, um, driven amplifier.
And I was like, “Oh, shoot.” So I waited to let it cool down, turned it back on, and then It was still quiet, so I was like, “Okay, this is not great.” I was like, “Cool. All right, I’ll go home. I’ll let it cool off a little bit more.” I checked it again when I got home, and it was actually okay. I was like, I, I turned it up to three, and it actually got louder, and it, it was working how I would’ve expected.
And then I turned on the tremolo, and then the volume went down again, and then I smelled, um, something like sort of smoky or hot or something like that. So it’s– powered it down, and I was like, “Ah, shoot.” Now, the thing is, these, um, tube amps, they have voltages inside that can kill you, and, uh, basically, if you open it up and you don’t know what you’re doing, you could accidentally, um, shock yourself very badly and potentially die.
So that is a real risk, and I– like, I’m, I’m actually interested in building some amps and, like, getting in there and being able to replace a resistor. So that, that’s what I thought. I was like, “Ah, maybe I burned a resistor.” Like, the tube was probably going out, probably burned a resistor. And, uh, turns out I, I brought it to the shop.
The guy that worked on it before, that kinda restored it, um… This is not the person that I purchased it from but just a amp repair guy, um, around here. He was able to take a preliminary look at it, and it sounds like it’s just a tube that went bad, which is completely normal. Um, you know, I turned it up and played it very loud for, you know, a long stretch, and they could’ve been old tubes.
So I think if it had brand-new tubes in there, it would’ve been fine. You know, if, if you beat up your equipment by turning it up really loud, it won’t last as long, but it still should last, you know… If I did that week in and week out, it should probably last at least a year. I mean, e-even– And the tubes are not super expensive.
It’d be like 50 bucks or something like that. So it’s not, it’s not a crazy amount of money. Um, but, but anyway, I thought maybe it was a resistor, and I was like, “I don’t wanna mess with a resistor.” And because it smelled smoky, I was like, “I don’t wanna turn it back on again, because I don’t know if I burned a resistor, and then it’s going to potentially damage the original transformer, which is fairly small in that amp.”
All that to say I blew a tube, and, um, the amp will get a little tune-up. I met a really nice guy up there, uh, Jeff And he’s the, uh, the amp tech. And so I actually talked to him for a little bit. He showed me around his shop. The other funny thing is I have this other amp over, uh, my shoulder here, and I blew– Um, I put new speakers in there.
Uh, same brand as the, uh, the great speaker in the Gibson Discoverer. So I got those, and I was like, “Oh, I need to break those in.” So I took that amp to Drum Box for a couple hours on, uh, Saturday. And, uh, I blew two tubes on that one. But it did– In opening it up… And I can switch tubes. Like, that’s a simple thing, not dangerous.
Um, anyway, so I identified… Again, I cranked it up. That one’s even louder. That one’s a 40-watt 210, and I put, like, highly efficient speakers in there. It’s too lou- I, like, I’m not sure what I thought it was gonna happen, but it’s even louder. It’s insanely loud. It’s beautiful. Crazy loud. I don’t know what I thought I was gonna be doing with it, but it’s been fun along the way.
So I found that one tube was an incorrect tube in there. So I was able to put in, uh, you know, the correct spec cube, uh, tube. It, it did work f-fine, and it’s just, like, a lower, it was a lower amplification tube that shouldn’t have been in there. Um, and then I think the other tubes were actually old, and they probably just needed to be changed.
But of course, turning it up, you’re sending a lot of heat. Like, the tubes glow red in the back, or they glow orange. If it goes red or purple, that’s too hot. But it, it glows orange, and they get hot. And i-in fact, all, all the amps, they’re, they’re kind of open back. Like, there needs to be airflow in there because it does get hot.
So by turning it up, playing it loud for, you know, 30, 40 minutes, I expose the weaknesses in those tubes and, um Yeah. So I got home, my wife was like, “Oh yeah, how’d the new speakers sound?” Like, “Are you happy with it?” And I was like, “Yeah, yeah, sounded really good.” And, um, I… You know what? I think, um, I think maybe, uh, one of the tubes is bad, bad again.
I don’t, I don’t know what’s going on. So, so anyway, I’ve, I’ve been struggling a little bit. But I mean, the tubes go bad. I just happen to be playing for a long period and, you know, it– like I said, I exposed the weaknesses of the old tubes and, uh, it just happens to be, like, I th- it’s been like three weeks in a row, like, tubes went down.
And sometimes, like one of the, the other amps, uh, the, the tube went down, you know, a normal thing again, but it blew a fuse and it sounded horrific. It was like a huge popping noise and I was like, “Oh my God.” Like it sounds electrical scary. Scary out there. Okay. Somehow I made the last 10 minutes, uh, all about how, uh…
I, I love these tube amps. It is really cool. Uh, really fun stuff. So anyway, thank you for listening. I hope it was helpful. And, uh, as, uh, s- slightly related, I was invited to be on AJ Devera’s YouTube channel to talk about AI in the guitar YouTube, um, guitar enthusiast space. So that came out a couple weeks ago, b- basically like a podcast episode.
So, um, we hit it off when we were chatting when I invited him to, uh, my show and he was like, “Hey, maybe we could, you know, we could talk about this.” So it was one of those, uh, like fun episodes that I– he even mentioned. He was like, “I don’t think it’s gonna get a lot of views, but like it’s a fun topic for us to cover and we enjoy chatting with each other.”
So anyway, thanks a lot. Check out that interview. I’ll link up to it and if you have any questions or show topics or anything like that, shoot me an email, feedback@doug.show