How To Be Consistent

Monday. Monday. Monday.

Open wide dev fans, get ready to stuff your face with JavaScript, CSS, node modules, barbecue tips, get workflows, breakdancing, soft skill, web development, the hastiest, the craziest, the tastiest web development treats coming again hot. Here is Wes, Barracuda, Boss, and Scott, El Toroloco,

Come to Syntex.

Hey. What's up? Just go for it today. Wes, how's it going? How's it going? My name is Scott Talinski. I'm a developer from Denver, Colorado. And with me as always is Wes Bos. Wes. Hey. Wow. Do you get your, like, wacky Wednesday,

DJ voice on right now. Oh, lucky Wednesday.

Yeah. No. I haven't been this far. We just recorded an episode 5 minutes ago, and I was not this high energy. There was something it. About walking into the house to get a string cheese that has made me, very excited about this topic today. Cheese is always the thing I grab When I'm, like, oh, freaking starving in between recording

string cheese or some random kid snack is so what I go for. Like, I got those gummies right now. Oh, yeah. Welch's Juicefuls.

So good. Welch's Juicefuls. Yeah. I got I I got my, Galbani, string cheese right here. Got in bulk at Costco. Shout out to Costco.

Are you gonna string it? Hold on. Let's let's talk about this. You're gonna string it into some, or are you gonna eat it like a monster?

No. I'm not gonna eat it like a monster. No. I always string it. Yeah. I'm definitely a stringer.

That's something that I love to do about string cheese. I love to pull the part like it's intended to be eaten, of course, not just trying to do it like a big old hunk of cheese.

I don't know who you think I am, Wes. I'm not a savage here. Yeah.

Good.

Well, okay.

This episode of Syntax is sponsored by Century and Magic Bell, Two incredible sponsors. South Century is the perfect place to see all of your errors and exceptions happen. And let me tell you, Wes, as one is want to do, I deployed on Friday.

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Alright. Let's get on into it. The question is here. The topic of the day is how to be consistent.

This is a good one. Not to say that Scott and I are the most consistent people ever, but as part of our jobs, We have to consistently make new content. We just did an episode about how we make our content, but there's a whole bunch of tips here That are surrounding, like, how do you set yourself up so that you can be as consistent as possible when you do decide to to do this stuff? So you wanna take it off start off there, Scott? Yeah. I'm gonna kick it off here.

Yeah. It's it's fun, Wes, because I think this episode does pair really nicely with our it. Last Wednesday's episode. It's like Yeah. Yeah. This is like a red wine to the steak or whatever you're having your dinner with. It's the the nice pairing. So We talked a lot about, like, actually creating the content and planning the content, but how do you be consistent with your release of content? And if there's anything I think that, attributes to the success of both level of tutorials, syntax, anything that I've worked on in my entire career. Not only things that I've worked on, but things that I've pursued like dancing or or music or anything.

The things that have made me successful in those endeavors has always been at the forefront of it. Consistency It's always been the ability to produce and create on a regular schedule in a time and do it week after week after week.

It's so weird that you can do a podcast. Right? You can just start a podcast. And the next thing you know, it's, like, 4 years later or something. And you have all of this 400 episodes of the podcast, and you say, dang. How did we get there? Well, we got there through consistency. So, how how do you how do you start to become consistent? I think the first thing about being consistent with any of this stuff is committing to, committing to a timeline in a schedule. When we first started Syntax, we said we're gonna do 1 episode a week. It's gonna be released on Wednesday, And we're going to commit to that. We're gonna record at this time on this day. We're gonna do it every single week, and we're going to commit.

So committing to something in particular is a big deal. Now what we didn't do is we didn't say, I'm gonna commit it. I'm gonna commit to producing 3 episodes a week. I'm gonna commit to doing my, you know, just as huge amount of work per week. No. We committed to something small. Right? A 1 hour long episode every single week. That was a commitment. Is that a commitment we could keep? As as long as as long as we both committed to it, yeah, absolutely. There was there's nothing really that would get in the way it. Of recording a 1 hour long podcast a week. Right? So I think part of committing beyond just saying, yes, I'm going to do this is making sure the thing you're committing to say, yes, I'm going to do this to is a reasonable thing to commit to.

Because Let's face it. If you commit to something that's, like, way overboard at the start and you don't hit it, you don't hit 1 week Just a dream at that point. Yeah. If you don't hit it 1 week, Guess what? There's gonna be another week down the line you're not gonna get hit it, and then maybe another week, and then another week, and then another week. And next thing you know, You're skipping a couple weeks at a time. It's deteriorating, and then you don't do it at all. So committing to something that you can actually do Is a really important step, I think, in making sure that you commit to things. You can always dial it back, or you can always dial it up. We have since added the hasty treat. I I remember when we added the hasty treat, and I think at some point, we were just like, yeah, we can do this. We've been doing it. What's what's adding a hasty treat to this?

That's that's a really good point.

Next tips we have here is, like, plan and schedule for what you need to do.

If you are planning that to do something rather than just saying, oh, man, I would love to do a podcast. We see this a lot. Oh, man. I would love to do a podcast and Do 3 or 4, and then don't do it for 3 months, and then you come back and do a couple more.

That's because there's no no plan. Scott and I literally have it on the books. I don't need to ask Scott when are we gonna record next. We know we show up every Monday morning, and we just start recording, because it's just that's just our time. It's always booked off. We plan for it.

We have everything we want. Schedule it's we schedule every day at it's It's noon my or 11 my time, 9 AM Scott's time. It's the absolute first thing that he does, of the week, and it's kinda nice to be able to Just have it all scheduled in.

So, you know, like, I never book meetings on Monday. I never Yeah.

Pretty much nothing is on Monday except for, obviously, my other work. I can do that after, but, that is what my Mondays are are done for. Yeah. It's funny because I today,

as we as you say that, today is the day that I had something scheduled on a Monday early AM, but It was kind of out of the blue. John John was having a baby, so I had to take his place in the live stream. So it's like, well, we could make we could be flexible for emergencies, you know, like it, baby. Baby's coming in the world, so we can be buying a house for things like that. Buying a house. Yeah.

We can be flexible with that, but as long as we both know it. That there's the expectation that if, Monday doesn't work, then we'll have to make it up ASAP, like, very as soon as possible. Not like, oh, Well, maybe next week, we'll get to it and whatever.

Skipping a week of the podcast isn't an option for either of us. That's just not something that we even Disgust. Right? There's never been I don't think there's ever been a time where we're like, well, maybe we just don't release something this week. Yeah. I think early on we missed like 1 week.

And but Part of it and this kind of goes into the next one. This is like we batch them, meaning that we will try to be at least it. A week and a half, 2 weeks ahead of time so that if something happens and we need to totally miss a week, a week and a half, Absolutely fine. We can always we can always catch up. And then in the summer, we we we try to record at least a month and a half in advance, just so that we can take the summer off. And it's not something we're, having to do throughout the summer, which is really nice. So I think batching, creating bulk Of something. Because once you're in it, you're in it, and you can you can keep cranking them. At a certain point, you get diminishing results, but There's something to be said for. Like you said in your last episode, your YouTube videos, you can record 6 or 7 in one day. And then before you know it, that's almost 2 months worth of content. Right? Yeah. In in there are diminishing returns. Right? Like, if you're getting tired or something. But, you know, for the most part, I feel like we could record it. 3 or 4 episodes in a day before I was, like, really starting to show signs of fatigue because, honestly, I just like to talk that much.

It's it's really you. Kind of an unfortunate thing that was born with it, and my parents say, I think I got a thing for my birthday. It was like my parents were like, it's kinda funny that Scott got a career where all he does is talk, considering that's, like, his entire life is just talking a lot.

So, Yeah. I I do. I think that that's such an important thing is to batch it. And on top of that batching, it really helps, as we said in the last episode, it. That capture is king. Capturing your ideas when you have them is such an important thing because then when you go down to sit down and batch, you're not scrambling for ideas. It. When I go to batch record anything, whether it's a podcast, a YouTube tutorial, or anything, or even batch code it. On any given thing, I have a plan in place. I have ideas. I know what I'm doing. I don't show up and be like, alright.

It. Gotta figure it out. What the heck am I doing today? So having those ideas, you know, in in in, like, a code sense, not even producing content if you're a developer and you wanna stay consistent with the amount of things you're knocking out. This is where issues and to dos and all those things come into place. Because if you have it. A long list of bugs and things assigned to you or stuff you can work on at any given point. When you sit down to that computer and you say, alright. Now is gonna be the time I'm knocking this out. You're not having to search for whatever the heck it is that you're doing. I'm not I'm not doing that. I'm sitting down to actually do the thing, And I'll schedule time to find bugs, to plan, to record. I'll schedule time to write the outlines, but that's not my batch recording time, you know.

Next one we have here is to be accountable to somebody else. So in my in my JavaScript 30 course, I tell people to go and get an accountability buddy, it. Because it's it's one thing to sign up and say, yeah. I'm gonna do this 30 days of JavaScript, but it's another thing to, like, Stuff comes up and whatever, and it's very hard to be consistent with that type of thing. But if somebody else is on on the line, Like expecting you to do it.

It's much harder to let that type of thing slide. And for us, Like, I think one of the biggest parts of us not missing, podcasts is that we literally have sold the sponsorship spots for them. Yes. That would be That would be money down the drain, and the sponsor would be mad because they're expecting it to get leads from doing the podcast and all that. So There's that. And then Scott I'm expecting Scott to show up. Scott's expecting me to show up. Right? And it makes it much easier Then if it were just me and I whatever. I'm just gonna let it slide. You know? It's it's my own thing. Yeah.

It. It is it's such a huge thing in outside of coding or YouTube tutorials. One of the things I used to do to make myself accountable for anything, and I guess I guess this even goes for, like, conference talks is to sign up for the thing.

And the thing that you can't, like, not show up to. Right? Like, it. I get I get hired to do a conference talk. I cannot not show up to that. So for me, I have to be there. I used to do that for b boy battles because I you know, I get nervous about performing, and I've done it's funny. I I did, like, stage shows where I was the only person on the stage it. Dancing and spinning and whatever. And then I did things with my team and my crew where we're getting to the the finals and high pressure stakes. But let me tell you, every single one of those things, If it was like, hey. Today is the day of the thing. You wanna do it? I would be like, I don't know. But because the fact that I was just like, oh, yeah. This thing's off in the future. Let me sign up for it. It. Let me just hold myself accountable to be at this thing. I have to be there. And then as the date comes and gets closer closer. Yeah. I I'll panic and freak out or whatever.

But at the end of the day, I gotta show up because I I made the commitment to do it. I show up. I do the thing, and I'm much Better off for it every single time. So accountability is really a huge thing. And, again, like, we're not just, you know, held accountable To the sponsors, we're held accountable to each other, because, like, if I were to not show up for an episode because I'm feeling bad, Wes is going to really not have a good time. He's gonna be very upset. Right? And, like, imagine I just didn't show up to record one day or Wes just didn't show up to record. That would greatly hurt our relationship as cohosts as well. So we're not only held accountable by our sponsors, but we're also held accountable by each other And they show up and yep. And and that's actually it's it's funny because they do talk about things like dad's dad's strength. Right? Yeah, in in sports, Sports player has baby, then their stats go way up. And it's funny because there was that inside of me when my child came into this world. I was suddenly having to be accountable for that child as well. Yeah. Oh, I had the same thing. Yeah. And that accountability really had really stepped up my output, but it just made me, like, Taking the perspective a little different things. Like, I need to be on my game at all times not because of, I want to be or I need to be for me, but because other people are expecting of me to be on my game at all times. Yeah. There's something to be said said for that. It's,

we're looking for a house right now. And my wife like, I'll tell this. The story is crazy. So my wife is anxious about a lot of stuff and very nervous to, just talk to strangers and things like this. And, there's this 1 house in our neighborhood that we would love to live at, and she saw, She saw that there was a moving truck in the in the thing, and she went and knocked on the door and said, hey, are you gonna sell this place? Because we'll buy it. It. And I was like, you did what? And then she goes, and then she invited me in and gave me a tour of the house.

Wow. I was like, oh my gosh, Caitlyn. That's She's like, I don't know what's gotten into me, but, like, I'm like, that's because it's something like, you are trying to provide a nice place for your a family to live in. You know, like, that's it's something that is bigger than you. You're trying to provide for them. And there's there's just something to be said for for that type of thing. You know, it's CS.

You will be the winner.

Next one. This sounds So cheesy, but it makes so much sense to break it down into smaller tasks. Everybody says that type of thing, but it's very real for me. If I feel overwhelmed at a task, oh my gosh. I gotta record this huge thing. I don't even know where to start, or I've gotta, write a conference talk, and, holy, this will take forever. You know? Like, you just kind of I don't feel like even starting this, so I don't even know where to start. For me, it's just break it down into smaller pieces, write it down on paper, use mind mapping software, and then I'll try to take, I know 3 or 4 things that are very doable and maybe small and just get them done. Check them off the list, and you got I get that bit of a motivation, and then try to do that every single day. If you if you write down some things that are easily accomplishable By you in that day and you do that every single day, you're gonna start to get into the habit of that type of thing. You're gonna be much more consistent.

Yeah. Yeah. Part of the consistency for me is having that that list. And I do the classic eat that frog where you you write down all your stuff and then you label them, it. You know, p 1 through p 2, whatever, where this thing is then the 1st priority. This is the thing I have to do today even if I don't want to do it. It's number 1 p one on my list, So I'm going to have to do it. I live and die by my to do list, and I make sure that everything is on that to do list. And that is a huge thing establishing consistency for me is it. Even consistently making that to do list, right, as part of my routine. I get in my office and I sketch down. I do it, on an e ink tablet with, You know, pen and paper, so to say, pen and e ink paper.

And I just write down all my to dos.

I get them all on paper. It. If I anything else comes up, I'll add it to the list later, but then I go through after that and I label them p 1 through p 4, and then I fill in it. The time for when I can do it, but that that consistency enabling and me doing that is part of what makes me consistent overall. For some reason, there's it. Just something about a open box on a to do list that makes me say, man, you got you got it. You gotta do that. You got it. I true. I I often add stuff to my list after I've done it just so I can check it off. Feels good. Feels good. Yeah. Feels good.

Yeah. Last thing we have here are no sorry. 2nd And last thing we have here is measure.

We've talked about smart goals on the podcast before.

Specific, measurable, attainable.

What's the r? Smart goals.

Man, come on. This business school business school west is failing here. Response web design.

It's for realistic or relevant.

And then t is time bound. So measure them, write those things down and measure that you are consistently doing it. Like if you wanna go to the gym 3 days a week or you want to make a 1 YouTube video a week, don't just say, I wanna go to the gym more. I wanna go do more YouTube. Yes. Yes. Yes. I wanna build more cool things. I wanna make a video a week. I wanna build 3 projects.

Write that down as make sure you can easily measure it. Either hit that goal or you didn't. Either succeeded or you failed. It's pretty cut and dry. Yeah. It's totally right. And it does feel like cheesy. Smart goals is something that you'd hear like a, you know, like a business we get away. We're gonna do smart, but it works it so well. And and as long as you're able to, keep a handle on it, I think it's one of those one of those life hacks that really does make a big difference is having those measurable goals and committing I mean, everything with this with this consistency is a lot about committing to whatever. You're right. You're committing to the it. One video a week or 1 podcast a week or whatever, and then your measure those smart goals to say, did I create 1 video a week? Yes. I have.

And so for me every single week of this this year now almost at the end of March I've done 3 videos a week For almost an entire year, and I can look at my entire YouTube catalog for the past week and say, have I hit my goal every single week? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Last one here is going to be revised. Sometimes you create a plan, you start to do plan, and you think, plan maybe not so good. It. So that your options are to just stop doing the plan or to revise the plan to change it to augmented. And if your goals are smart, you're not hitting your smart goals. It's important to know that you can adjust those. You can change them as long as you you have at least, like, Done some sort of, like, not necessarily with the full on breakdown. You know, I spend a ton of time on it, but you can really have an idea of, like, did this work out? No. Why didn't this work out? I didn't have enough time. Okay.

Let's build in more time or let's build in or make the things so that you need less time to do it.

You adjust, and then you move on, and you see if you can hit those goals moving forward from there. So don't be afraid to revise.

And to wrap up here, we had commit, capture, plan, schedule, batch accountability, Smaller smart tasks, measure, and revise.

A lot of good stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully, that was helpful. If you have any tips, CS. On the things you've learned to do consistently, make sure you tweet us at Syndax of m. I was like hearing, like, other people's approaches for how they like to to measure and view their own tasks because there's a lot of things that can be picked up there. Yeah. Totally. And and it's something we all do, whether it is coding or whether it's writing or whether it's anything creating content. So Beautiful. Alright. Thanks for tuning in. We will catch you on Wednesday.

Peace. Peace.

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