ToDo or not ToDo

[00:00:00] Welcome to MSP 1337. I'm your host, Chris Johnson, a show dedicated to cybersecurity challenges, solutions, a journey together, not alone.

[00:00:20] Welcome everybody to another episode of MSP 1337. This week I'm joined by Jason Sleggel of, well, C in RW. Can I get it?

[00:00:33] You are sweet. You get it. Got it. All right. It doesn't stand for anything.

[00:00:39] It doesn't. No, like computer network. We say computers never work right, but it's got a long story behind it that's irrelevant.

[00:00:49] It's one of the things that I'm going to do a whole episode on it. Yeah, I thought about changing it at one point, but then it's like now people know us as that so I can't and it's a four letter domain name.

[00:00:58] Nice. Yeah, and that is hard. So this week, her, your LinkedIn post about organization and strategy around things like you're to do, like you're so I use these little, these little to do cards that I put on and usually if it doesn't get done during the week, it then has to get moved into the digital space so that it's visual all the time.

[00:01:21] And the reason I wanted to have you on since well for one, you haven't been on the show. But the conversation around to do tasks, how we manage our calendars and really that work life balance kind of comes back to which got me thinking about things like events and things that show up that we need to address.

[00:01:42] And when we are distracted or don't have time, our good time management with our eight to five if you will, we tend to miss stuff and we miss stuff that could have catastrophic consequences because we didn't plan or didn't have, you know, the mental headspace to recognize it for what it is.

[00:02:04] So I thought I bring you on and talk about this a little bit, and we talked a little bit before the show walk me through sort of like because you've, I mean, you've tried it all like you're the guy that should be doing like YouTube videos of like here's why fill in the blank doesn't work. Yeah, for me.

[00:02:21] I mean, I'll do that YouTube video once I find something that does work. I am self diagnosed. I've never actually been diagnosed but I 100% have ADHD. I check all of the boxes. Yeah.

[00:02:32] It's been one of those things that it that's a lack of a co a couple cognitive function executive functions right like that I compensate for with other executive functions that I lean on.

[00:02:43] And so I've been able to make it work but it comes with the bit of scatterbrain right it's like I'll, I'll forget to do things and trust my wife absolutely crazy because it's like he walked by that thing seven times.

[00:02:57] I'm like, yeah, it wasn't on my headspace to deal with it. So whenever my brain didn't let me see it. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, it's a time my mind and focus is elsewhere. So you know, I've over the years tried a lot of things I'm back to a panda planner now.

[00:03:11] I have found that analog works better for me only because I force myself to write any tasks that I missed the day before into the next day and eventually it's so sick of copying them day to day just do them so I no longer have to do that.

[00:03:25] You know, I read this article about the sort of the art of using a planner or some sort of analog.

[00:03:33] You know the and remarkable and some of the devices out there that are like that bring that fairly close at least as far as how our brain cognitive feels and senses that was interesting about the article was talking about how it's less about you ever looking at that to do or that item ever again that when you write it down on a piece of paper your brain is recording it at the same time saying this is something that I have to get done.

[00:03:58] So so along those lines like we think about like our space that we live in and this is really why I wanted to do this because obviously it's a security show but like events and incidents that we have to respond to those are not being written down on a piece paper and put it in front of us and we're not the ones that are saying oh this came out I should write this down as a thing I need to address it's like I had there and toggling don't respond you know this is false or this is you know if I'm actually doing it.

[00:04:28] So like talk to me about like and you've been in this world as long as I have like when we tried to enforce things like if it's not in connect wise didn't happen and like drag and make sure your calendars filled up and make sure you're putting those things on the calendar.

[00:04:42] And I look back now and the one thing that I wish I would have done a better job is the art, the art of pulling the things that I need to do into time slots on my calendar so that i'm actually committing to doing them when when I drag them onto those time slots.

[00:04:59] Yeah, I mean there's that piece of it right like I'm really bad at that I had one scheduled this morning because my team I don't do a lot of operational work this morning but I'm in the middle of this very odd scope virtualization project.

[00:05:14] And I'm the only one with the technical skills to do it so my team keep scheduling me I was scheduled at 11 to work on it or 10 to work on it for an hour and a half I spent 10 minutes on it like I it.

[00:05:25] I my brain just doesn't I don't need that I don't drag stuff into slots on the calendar what's more useful to me is to is I create tasks I estimate how long I think they're going to take.

[00:05:39] And so if I have a 15 minute gap between my next meeting because my life is meetings now i will try to select the most important task on my task list that I estimate will take 15 minutes so I can try to just get it done during that time slot and that's the thing that's been the secret to me to online.

[00:05:55] And so I'm going to lock some of that stuff is I suffer from analysis paralysis and yeah I've got all these things to do and I spent 10 of my 15 available minutes trying to select the task i'm going to work on and then I only have five minutes left to work on it.

[00:06:08] Well, it isn't that the same challenge we have with like sort of death by tools so you know committing to using like say your panda planner is the opposite of that it's a notebook area either filling that one out or a different one but it's not really the art of the tool you're using is really whether or not you chose a number two pencil.

[00:06:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah versus a pen like in the reality is that doesn't have really impact of any significance so the tool side of this is where I think we.

[00:06:36] We struggle the most and if you do a search on any of the app stores for to you know planners to do is like you fill in the blank there is even just if you just left it at the free category it's an infinite.

[00:06:48] You know mind warp of like you suddenly are locked in the twilight zone and you'll never leave if you're trying to evaluate to do's.

[00:06:58] It doesn't help that the most programming languages on the web like the example applications they have you right are essentially to do lists yeah I feel like it's the first thing that a lot of people end up writing yeah and so there are yeah there are a multitude of options and no I the.

[00:07:16] The most effective one I find is the one that you're going to use it doesn't matter what it is right that's a brilliant statement right there like yeah start somewhere be habitual about it so that brings us to the whole premise of having this conversation and having it be more than about the to do's and thinking about.

[00:07:34] How how we handle things like responsibility matrix how we handle things like what is being assigned to us to investigate how we handle things like email and slack and teams because these are all communication mechanisms that go hand in hand with your panda planner or.

[00:07:53] Being being effective at communicating what someone else might need to do as a result of what is.

[00:07:59] Flooding my inbox or flooding the alert boards I'm monitoring how is that like you know over the years and back to you I mean obviously you circled back to this state of getting analog with all of these external influences that are obviously driving you bonkers a little bit because you're like hey I need to do a better job of managing my time so I can do a better job of being you know aware of what's happening around me so that I can be efficient with my 15 minutes in between my two meetings.

[00:08:28] I mean it i'm not what i'm doing can work right even with sure what i'm trying to do is I constantly remind myself of like okay how much more successful could I be or how much more can I move the needle if I could utilize those gaps in the day that I spend wasting time to try to do it right so it's not so much a generally things aren't getting done.

[00:08:52] We because the important things somebody will of course remind me and it's i'm what I lack for planning I tend to make up for an execution so like you know i'm i'm an expert procrastinator and have the ability to to crap out the solution right up to the deadline but in many cases in cyber that's not really a good help right there's so much stuff that goes into that.

[00:09:14] For the tactical versus strategic right in some cases 100% right so like let's talk about this let's reframe this into the topic of your thing i would argue that left a boom we're getting mostly talk about strategic and write a boom it very quickly becomes tactical right right so I think I'm fire I need a fire extinguisher yeah I excel there because I you know those.

[00:09:43] executive functions that i've had to use to make up for the fact that I don't plan well they make me very good at the right a boom situation right like better probably better than anyone else in my team.

[00:09:56] But I very much rely on I mean we're connected by shop so we very much rely on processes and ticket templates and things like that to manage the left of boom pieces of this tickets for things that you we are about it patching right like.

[00:10:12] You know your arm animal patch on windows boxes but you also have network your own phones and printers and all that other stuff that like most MSPs probably don't touch and we have recurring ticket templates that pop.

[00:10:24] Oh you're muted Chris.

[00:10:28] I lost all of you from you.

[00:10:33] Now you have to edit.

[00:10:36] i don't have to add it now okay cool yeah you're back.

[00:10:41] I don't know what happened it's the yeti I must need a new mic any another mic i was just going to say it's it's it really doesn't matter right like if you do it or you don't do it it's a question of whether or not.

[00:10:55] I lost my train without my mic stop working.

[00:10:58] Yeah i mean there those are things that right like I think that we very much use and in where we've gotten big enough now that we are essentially dispatched were dispatched model so for like the people that work under me.

[00:11:12] They fall into that boat of their day gets painted out by the dispatcher and they work on the network device main is tickets or you know they're they're working with customer acts on trying to develop policy or in the case of thing you and I have been talking about it will be a hey I need you to do this.

[00:11:27] Supporting things so that when I go in for trust marker ready to go like it's all of those things that line up and on the so for my support and it's the people that directly work directly under me maybe not one level down but definitely two levels down they all live in diode of connect wise right.

[00:11:45] They all live in diode of tactical right like they literally everything that they have is assigned to do this thing and you just keep going through the things until you don't have any more things and then you ask for more things.

[00:11:56] Yes 100% usually don't get to the point of asking for more things because our.

[00:12:00] There's plenty running out of things and she just assigns more things you got this week so it's like chaos.

[00:12:07] Because these guys now have to self dispatched and they're just not they're just not used to doing that so yeah so at that level we do that right a boom man that's tougher it's.

[00:12:18] I.

[00:12:20] You can't be strategic when right a boom takes place you have to be strategic in how you're going to address if right a boom of curse yeah.

[00:12:30] Correct but there are things that you need to do right like increasingly.

[00:12:36] And this is I don't know maturity am I part or less stupidity am I part i am very much cognizant of risk profiles and things like.

[00:12:49] Chain of custody and evidence collection and you know making sure like hey let's a lot of incidents we when we declare an incident right and we have a couple of months in a lot of them turn out to be false.

[00:13:02] But when we declare an incident that incident gets a slack channel and we tell everyone that all the conversations for that incident happened in that slack channel when we move the conversation there.

[00:13:11] Because then I get time stamped evidence of what happened there are stuff we would we need to talk about that I don't want to be discoverable spin up a signal group.

[00:13:22] We'll set one or we'll set day or week disappearing messages on it and those conversations happen there right in the thought and the idea there is that.

[00:13:32] Now I have a good timeline of the things that happened because one of the things that I find out of this is it's very easy, especially for somebody like me to just go in and fix the problem right like but the.

[00:13:46] After the event there's a bunch of other work like the event and immediate recovery from the event is just the first 20 or 30% of the actual work right the 70% is on the back end when lawyers and insurance companies and people need pay back and like all that other stuff comes in.

[00:14:07] It used to be the case that you could just smash through that 20 30% no one was filing with insurance everything and life went on and everyone was happy right but those days are.

[00:14:15] If they're not completely behind us there very soon to be completely behind us so the the chain of custody and all of the evidence collection and documentation what you actually did is very important.

[00:14:29] So going back to the initial LinkedIn post about what's in your to do and what's on your schedule I mean is not that exercise play very much into this because the reality is if you can't pinpoint when.

[00:14:44] You don't have evidence to support the task completion we're right back to this doesn't hold up very well when someone asks for proof yeah if you're building a program and it's now done.

[00:14:58] Well yeah obviously that you did at some point do that the problem is I can't confirm the timeline so like where were you between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

[00:15:09] I was working on the program we showed the program didn't get done until the following you know Thursday like so that's not holding up so this kind of goes hand in hand with that like if you're in right of boom everything has to be tracked and yet if you're not in the habit of doing.

[00:15:27] Something as simple as writing down what you have to do or the tasks that you have to complete are you going to do that when you're in a right of boom situation yeah.

[00:15:37] Some of that comes down to the stuff you do left the boom is wish I think you're driving it right it's like we have we for internally we have an instant response plan for us.

[00:15:48] We develop them for clients to the ones for clients in many cases don't end up as being is detailed as the one you have right but it's like we do I want to know.

[00:15:58] In any event it doesn't have to be cyber could be tornado could be fire could be flood could be.

[00:16:03] Cyber yeah what are my order of operations what can you not live without like what systems are required to be payroll what systems are required for basic business functionality so we start developing things like.

[00:16:15] I book any systems into three levels of criticality like immediately needed like very nice to have and can wait till whenever right yeah I need my ghost powder my red bull like yeah yeah you need it.

[00:16:31] In all those fails in a business when you have an event the most important thing in the end it comes down to can you run payroll right.

[00:16:39] Right because if you can't on payroll and you can't pay people you will very quickly find you don't need people and nothing else matters right so it's things like that right it's like.

[00:16:48] You know if you're if you're a manufacturing company in you in you require you know then HMI's in the PLC is to be able to produce your widgets you better be able to get those like those are pretty critical right there's no business without so it's things like that and.

[00:17:05] At the same time right it's like we also record in those documents like what the procedure are is to declare an incident and then we use a tracking form internally I think it came to me off of one of the contia calls it was.

[00:17:19] It may have been the ERT we somebody shared one that I think it was Justin the tech road guy shared one that he uses uh and we adopted it and it's uh.

[00:17:29] I have an incognito form and it's got like all the information about the incident and then it kind of pokes people for the types of things we need to collect and.

[00:17:38] Sure right like evidence of uh like an exigence yeah yeah what I mean exigence exigence turns that form into a platform right sure internally we're still internally using a form to do it but exigence is an awesome platform for that uh but it also includes things like you know.

[00:17:57] Documenting what initial access is right so that you're sure that you actually have it because I have seen multiple multiple times and we've we've had customers.

[00:18:07] Uh that'll come in for just like a one hour prepaid booking like that's the thing you can buy on uh Lauren system site and they've had an incident and they want us to help restore backups and so we caution them every time we're like you need to make sure you got the guy before you go restoring backups.

[00:18:21] Right more than once they.

[00:18:23] So we don't know what we got further back.

[00:18:25] Oh yeah we got it we got it we got it we restored backups and then the threat actors come back in there still in the system they wipe it and they wipe the backups now so now.

[00:18:32] Yeah.

[00:18:32] Oh these screwed yeah uh so you know all of those things matter very much and we record in our instant response plans you know what and that instant tracking forms what those expectations are as far as the high level tasks that need to be completed.

[00:18:47] And then it's very freeform like we we will create a ticket for the incident but like a lot of that discussion happens the real time and slack in the incident channel.

[00:18:56] So that like I'll note okay I did this right and I don't need to write up a huge policy or.

[00:19:04] Paragraphs of information about the fact that I did X the fact that I did X is noted in the chat and that'll that alone is where is where in the post incidents world and we're you know basically creating a report for it.

[00:19:16] We can go back to look at that timeline and then the I did X is usually enough to jog memories to say okay well now I can go back and provide a little more color and context and what you guys got it.

[00:19:27] Yeah I mean like it's it's funny I really I struggle with my to do's and it really wasn't the point of why we should have this conversation it was more of like thinking about the fact that if I don't do a good job.

[00:19:41] Keeping track of the things I'm responsible for how am I ever going to do a good job of tracking the things that impact others that I'm also responsible for if I don't have good habits in place and I think to your point when you have others that help facilitate.

[00:19:59] You know Jason it's time for you to execute because it's your number has been pulled and it's your turn to you know take over the controls.

[00:20:07] Well that's a whole lot different than having to be more of that strategic on your own and I think this this probably resonates with a lot of the smaller MSPs that subscribe to this is like well I am the person.

[00:20:20] Well now now you're to do lists and the things that you are putting on your calendar the things that you're having to keep track of the way you use an incident track or otherwise these are all building blocks and if you don't start with some of the easier items.

[00:20:33] I don't know about you but like I can do these to do all day long even if I never fill them out right like even if I never hit completion.

[00:20:43] But when it comes to something else happening and I don't have this habit in place I'm just working from one thing to the next as it gets put in front of my face.

[00:20:52] I will give a piece of advice which is we are word not a small company.

[00:21:03] I mean I'm 25 employees hiring well 25 and a half to have part time book keep her hiring by 26 right now right and seven years ago I'm thinking back probably

[00:21:15] No probably six years ago back when Pokemon go first came out and was like the hot craze right we were busy and bigger but I probably had more bodies than I did work in many cases because it was more of a traditional consulting model so it's real fits and spurts and the biggest single regret I have now is that I took the mindset of

[00:21:37] we'll invent that process when we need it or we'll improve the discipline around that stuff when we get there and I wasted so much time that could have been used to build those building blocks back then.

[00:21:52] And what happens is something some event takes place and you suddenly get a lot more work and now you're super busy and you are too busy to develop those processes and you really really need them and it goes back to you.

[00:22:06] You know my planner you know when I don't use my planner is one of my day is so busy that it's I could benefit the most from the plan yeah but I don't use it because the mental head trash of oh I'm too busy to spend the 20 minutes to be getting it at a fill it out.

[00:22:21] One is if I did and I had the discipline to do it it would have made the day better so don't defer that work right like go through and start putting those processes in place even if it seems like a waste of time now

[00:22:32] because if you're successful you will 100% require them later.

[00:22:36] So just ask a question because I know this is how I sometimes will look at either the day that is coming or in retrospect of the day and if I have a full calendar which often I have a couple days a week that are usually pretty full with meetings.

[00:22:52] I'm like man I did a lot today. I might have done very little that day but I've defined my yeah you know productivity by the number of meetings I attended.

[00:23:04] You know which goes back to because those are things that I'm trying to associate as tasks.

[00:23:11] Yeah I don't I can't actually view the days that I'm meeting up is like my least useful days because of the other work is still the work when the reality of it is as I live and we're in your world now that the work is the meetings right.

[00:23:26] So yeah it's tough it's that's definitely a tough mental head space I think either direction right because I'm also meeting up a lot.

[00:23:37] And I decline a lot of meetings because of it but there are many days especially Fridays for some reason like every company in the world seems to use Friday as their as their advisory call day or yeah I think I have.

[00:23:53] But it was the afternoons of Friday afternoon yeah yeah it's bad so my Friday is usually shot I usually work from home on Fridays because of that it's like I'm just going to sit meetings all day anyway sometimes will be at home.

[00:24:04] Yeah it's funny so I had a couple thoughts that came to mind for me so if anybody that uses like the forget it's called it's in 365 it's like it manages like how you use time and it looks at optimization for areas where you can like block out.

[00:24:21] So you can focus on different things yeah so like I have a focused time that happens in the morning and what I have found is that for the most part i've gotten pretty good at using focused time for like.

[00:24:31] I'm looking on you know what's new in cyber security some things like that but I also found that if someone needs to book time with me i'm willing to give that up and I was thinking about that yesterday after reading your thing and i'm like hmm.

[00:24:46] But I should be a whole lot more reserved about that ever being in friends upon because man my day is set based on how well I use focused time.

[00:24:56] So I guess my word of advice to people would be like take the time whether it's before your day starts like I know people are like well i'm not going if i'm not getting paid i'm not going to start until eat whatever fill in the blank time it's like yeah but like what about you.

[00:25:12] Yeah how do you get into the head space that you need to be in for whatever it is going home or going to work and taking the five to ten minutes to go all right looking ahead this is what I got to get done today and being specific or that like yeah.

[00:25:25] This isn't necessarily about the work you're going to do it's about you being in the head space to do to be successful in your job.

[00:25:32] Yeah if you read like David Allen's getting things done right like he advocates you know next action and all that things one of the things i've read a lot of people do is.

[00:25:40] You know one of the things he advocates is getting it out of your brain on a paper because then you don't just the cognitive load of constantly you know refreshing it think you remember like random computer it needs constant cognitive refreshing and it takes cycles right so.

[00:25:55] You put it into permanent storage you move it to your hard drive like your right and then you don't have to constantly refreshing your brain anymore right right if you can do that the night before then you sleep better because you're not constantly refreshing it at night or thinking about it or.

[00:26:10] What do I have to do what do I have to do I should just go back to the office yeah cuz work from home really violates that model right like you get you're not like yeah checking it out the door but if you're not ready for the next day then your brain is still at work even though you are not.

[00:26:24] Yeah 100% so that's another piece of advice to is you know just get that stuff on the paper get it or it doesn't have to be paper can be whatever digital planner here is but I think we should just say it needs to be on something paper like yeah that's fine I can do I can do some people do fine with the digital I take notes by hand a lot of times and I literally never ever read them or refer them but just the commitment exercise.

[00:26:49] Active writing it down means one I can't I have to pay attention that's the biggest thing you can't no one multitask this bullshit yeah I think I made it this far without swearing yeah you did good job no one no one multitask so I think I can multitask but I'm not and I find myself having to ask people to repeat themselves if I'm taking notes on paper I cannot

[00:27:14] I can't be over here reading slack or over here no no no I have to be focused on that's when your pen wanders and it looks like a badgie KG yeah so it's funny you say that so I would say the person if I was to ever like who's the model that you would use for note taking I would I would immediately say that would be Alex be like if you've ever seen her take notes and with with the color coding and like the multi colored pens and like we're talking like in a

[00:27:44] category like I would need a legend to look at every 15 minutes like is this where I use the purple pen like I would struggle but what I have found is that if I ever need anything I've been in a meeting with Alex she can get it and it's there in like two seconds like hold on I have that right here it's in binder B and call me like it's I have the answer I and it's there right away so I do not have that ability I do not maybe we should see if Alex can do a workshop at a

[00:28:14] comp to you but on how to how to manage tasks and and the notes for action items maybe that's what I need for our working group is someone to take better notes than me no I think we're doing all right there so any any last things Jason that you'd like to share with the audience I mean I think this is really good like we tied

[00:28:35] the ability to manage our own to do is a model for how we handle things left and right of boom do something and stick with it for 21 days before you decide it's not working because it takes 21 days on average to form a habit so if you don't stick with it for that long you don't know whether it's actually working so don't

[00:28:55] don't take a really fragmented approach to try and stuff that for three days is not working try something else for three days pick something and stick with it for three weeks and then and then assess it well and just think about your cost per day right so the panda planner what was that like 30 bucks so 21 days I mean you do the math as a couple

[00:29:11] of dollars a day yeah it's an out you in that because 90 days worth a planner right so well no I'm just saying if you're only committing to 21 days yeah that is true that is true

[00:29:20] you're like this is a the significant cost if you're committing to 21 days of the exercise yep I love it Jason I appreciate being on the show I appreciate all your work with what we do over at Comtea for those of you listening

[00:29:32] this has been an episode of msp 1337 thanks and have a great week