[00:00:00] Third day straight, thinking about quitting
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Shawn Buttner: It's happened again. For the third day straight, you're producing your episode, you're pulling your hair out, wondering why you're suffering so much in the process. Sometimes you even think about quitting altogether. And this is a really real moment for me a couple of months ago producing episodes of this show with Claude.
The episode shape, because I was in the middle of a rebrand, changed three times in two weeks. And so trying to run automation and things to help you save time while the process underneath it is changing is maddening. And when it would produce things then, the recording document was clunky to speak through.
So I'd have to stop mid-take and re-record the next day.
If you've ever spoken to yourself, "Not this again," or, "If I just fix this one thing, it'll all work and be okay," or, "How are other people doing this easier?" Or, "Why isn't this working for me right now?" Then this is the episode for you,
We're gonna talk about what's going on and what you can do about it. Because workflow isn't separate from your creative work, and it isn't for other people. It's the creative work, and it's more for you. So how does improving your workflows and clarity around your workflows make you a better input and creator?
[00:01:24] Show Intro
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Shawn Buttner: If you've come from a previously successful career and now you're a year or three or five into your creative career, and the breakthroughs are not showing up, this show is for you. Input/Output runs on one idea: you are the ultimate input into your creator system. Get yourself clear, and the output follows.
I'm Shawn Buttner, and let's get into it.
[00:02:01] The goal: a workflow tailored to you
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Shawn Buttner: So where are we trying to go here? The target output is something I'm calling the tailored shirt. Jeremy Enns, in his episode engineering training, talks about if the production is full of ease, you'll stick with it, and you'll make episodes quicker and more effectively every week,
Now, I've had two guest episodes with the assistance of Claude mapped from my manual processes, and it's much quicker and much smoother than it would be me just doing it alone or what I was doing a couple of months ago. And to be fair, this is only about eighty percent mapped. As a former automator, for Apple, I know that people skip the things they think are obvious or things you thought you've communicated and spoken out loud.
You only catch them in production or while you're making the thing. for example, in, in my process, I had a checkbox that said, "Include this file in script." I have three files that get generated for a interview, and I missed it on an episode and, you know, had to restart, and that's just part of the process.
But it gets quicker and better the more that I do it. And I have f- a feedback loop within my Claude setup to help me with this, to figure out what went right, what went wrong, and to keep a note of what I didn't say and what needs to happen. And, I'm also providing Claude feedback as, "Hey, this is what I liked," or, "This is where I felt frustrated," as a way to improve the process of it,
and working on a process like this, I like to think about it as a new shirt tailored for you. And what do I mean by this
[00:03:41] Copying Brendon Burchard
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Shawn Buttner: Early on, my idea of being a creator came from Brendon Burchard. He would post four times a week, show up consistently, and advise you that it would just magically work, and that's my words, not his. Brendon was also the person who certified me in high performance, and so I started a coaching business w- with this idea of being a creator and his process of being a coach, it- without putting any of my voice into it.
And I was copying his high performance verbiage and, and process and how he ran his business, and it worked really well for him. And that's what makes it so compelling to try. When you see a mentor, when you see how they're doing things, it's inspiring, and it's also very easy to come down on yourself when it doesn't work for you.
Now, I'm a card-holding introvert, Getting on camera and posting was so much harder for me when I didn't feel connected or I didn't feel my personality in the process, and that's shirt note number one.
[00:04:44] Shirt 1: the copied shirt
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Shawn Buttner: This is a shirt that you take from somebody else that's in their size and measurement, and it fits loose or tight, or it's uncomfortable, or it's unflattering. And this is proven in that, first 10 years of my career, I created 700 videos on YouTube, which I mentioned in episode six, and that's how I got comfortable on camera.
And that, that was because of Brendan's advice of just post all the time, post consistently, and you'll get better. But once I got comfortable with being on camera and, and talking, that became the default, and I never looked back at how I could own that creation process in a way that got me the results that I wanted or needed for my business.
[00:05:29] Shirt 2: the 20-year shirt
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Shawn Buttner: And if you've ever thought to yourself, "Why do I feel stuck when I know the process?" it's probably this next shirt, which is you've worn a shirt for so long that you get attached to it and you never change it. this is the 20-year-old shirt you have in your closet that has holes in it, that's faded, that has the colors all goofy.
It's raggedy. When people see you in it, maybe it's not the best impression Maybe it's not functional even, and it's not warm when it's cold But you love it, and you don't question it at all.
[00:06:07] Shirt 3: the fabric shop
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Shawn Buttner: So that's why you feel stuck when you know the process. But back to July, I was also trying to build tools around a process that was still moving, and that's the third shirt, and that's going to the fabric shop, the intention of buying, you know, the fabric to make a shirt. You find the fabric you love, you wrap yourself in it like a toga, and then you go outside to show people it instead of actually turning it into a shirt that fits you.
What this is, is really doing is getting so excited about the tools that you're neglecting the process and why you're doing it. Now, all three of these different shirts, none of these treat the workflow as your own creative work, right? It's something external. Each one of these can feel like a personal failing when it's really a fit problem.
And when you copy anyone successful, figure out how to apply it to your life and your situation to get that tailored new shirt. Because the workflow that you are doing is the creative work, and it's the creative work that you do for you
[00:07:23] Why my workflow kept breaking
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Shawn Buttner: So one of my coaches, Jeremy, talks about when you are making podcasts that you really want to make it easy to produce and repeatable because if it's repeatable and easy to do, you'll be more likely to follow through and make the dang thing, and you'll be able to have a greater impact. It'll do more for you and more of you can pour into the work.
And so He was helping me see the shirt that wasn't working, which is that I've gotten comfortable with just trying to be comfortable on camera and not on the craft of making a YouTube video or my podcast.
And what caught me up in July is building the process at the same time as building the tool that would help me with the process. Which what I needed to do at that point was to slow down and take an inventory of the manual steps I would do to make an episode without using a computer as much as possible.
Not sum it up for AI to use and execute, what I thought was happening or thought needed to happen. And what I found, there were a ton of steps and assumptions I made along the way that I hadn't expressed. Everything that I thought I was doing, AI tried to implement, and it just didn't do it right, and it didn't do it right because I told it not to do it right.
[00:08:46] Your workflow is working exactly the way you designed it
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Shawn Buttner: And it's one of the truths of automation, that I learned when I was at Apple. The computer does exactly what you tell it to do, even when you think it's something else. And your workflow is working exactly the way you designed it. So if you are feeling frustration in the process when you try to do it every week, it's because you designed that frustration to be in there.
The great news there is you can now redesign that process to be more in line with what you need and who you are and what feels fun and good, because we want our workflows to be fun and good as much as possible
[00:09:28] Redesign: slow down first
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Shawn Buttner: All right, so how do we shift or transform here? It's a four-part move. but the first thing before we get into those four, four parts is you have to first slow down. Because in the excitement to use the tool, to implement the new thing, we skip ahead or we make assumptions about how things actually work, and we ignore the real source of truth and how we really use things.
I've recently been working on my morning process so that I can start the day strategically and with knowing the first big thing I have to do without getting pulled into the operations of podcast production, answering emails, and all that. And I went and started working on this process because I started thinking about where do I actually do my work, and where's my, like, one hub that I should be going to every day or need to be going to every day, and how do I define that place if it's not just one place?
[00:10:34] Step 1: Define
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Shawn Buttner: And that leads to the first part of this four-part process, Which is to define the questions and goals for your important processes. So again, those questions for me are, where do I do my work? Where's my hub? How do I define it? Uh, the second step then is to map, step-by-step, your best version of a process.
[00:10:59] Step 2: Map your best version
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Shawn Buttner: So when I'm looking at my morning process, and what I had been doing, which is just having one page in my Notion setup that had a bunch of different reports and workflows and triage buckets and things that I needed to do. But I needed to take a step back and map out, not the work that I was doing every day, but the best version of it grounded in what I know worked for me.
And I know the process that works for me in the morning on my best days when I'm the most productive and most happy about the work I'm doing is it starts with journaling and thinking about the day. And it's not reacting to my calendar and email unless I have an early meeting, early morning commitment that requires that.
But in the best version, I'm journaling first. Then I'm deciding what work needs to happen that day and creating time blocks on my calendar, filling those time blocks with the work, and then also thinking about what's the number one most important thing to finish that day so I can start with that, so every day feels like I'm moving forward.
And thinking about the, that idealized process reminded me of things I had forgotten and reminded me that the order matters, this was my high performance work, showing up in my process in a way that worked for me, and that was really fun.
[00:12:28] Step 3: Compare
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Shawn Buttner: And it grounded it in what worked and kept me from overengineering it. So the next step then is to compare against what's, what you're actually doing. So, you know, I had what I was doing every day, and I just explained that a little bit. I had the map of the best days and what they looked like, and so I had to compare what I was actually doing.
So I had Claude generate a daily report, which was great, but wasn't really detailed enough, and it mixed prepping for the day with getting into work and triage. And noticing that is what got me clear on what works. It, it prompted me to ask those questions of like, "What am I doing? What's my source of truth?"
And, so that analytical part's great. But another way to compare is to notice what bugs you about your current process. you think about where can things be quicker, stronger, more productive, and more efficient. And I also talked about this in episode nine, uh, the frustration check, right?
And that is to just notice where you are feeling frustrated and get curious and, and figure out why. So that's compare.
[00:13:42] Step 4: Loop
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Shawn Buttner: The fourth and final step is to loop. It's the feedback so the process learns, and I think this is a really strong case for AI if you're like, "Why would I use AI in my business?" And I think these self-learning processes and that improve over time i- is the best thing if we can get that dialed in.
And so for me, it's creating this new morning process and then testing it for a month after I have it implemented, and that'll show me where I'm right and where I had mistakes or assumptions that didn't get incorporated into it, and that's that 80% of getting it right
[00:14:21] Each step tailors a shirt
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Shawn Buttner: And this isn't a build it once and run it for as long as I can, because that inevitably doesn't work. And it doesn't work because, we still have 20% to figure out. But each of these steps define one of the shirts that we talked about, right? the define step is the fabric shop where,you are so excited for the material, for the tool, for the thing that you,get lost in that and you don't ground it in your processes.
map the process grounded in you. And so that addresses the copied shirt when you find a mentor that you like, you incorporate what they're saying, and you make it tailored to you. Um, we have the compare, which is that twenty-year-old shirt. So you've been doing things for a long time, you grow attached to them, and you stop questioning them.
And comparing allows you to, to get curious and to maybe see that there's a better, more new way to do things. And then the loop is to close that eighty percent gap and to continually improve so things get more efficient and quicker and better.
[00:15:30] The three lenses
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Shawn Buttner: When you implement these four steps, the result you get are the three lenses because you are the ultimate i-input.
So when you have the new tailored shirt, you have a process that is very much yours with your voice all over it because you have frameworks that show up, and it shows how you work and think through things. And you can then confidently list your clear steps so that people know where they're going next, and you talk about it confidently.
explaining your process to clients works, but only after you are completely confident in the transformation and how you get there. So the three lenses again are workflow, voice, and confidence. And the steps are define, map, compare, loop. how does getting your workflows right improve you as a creator and an expert?
it delivers that workflow, that voice, and that confidence that is unmistakably you in your work Because putting yourself in it is the difference to being in that third day straight frustrated about your process and thinking about quitting to now having done two guest episodes that have run quicker and smoother with 80% of it mapped out and it gets better every run.
I am so excited to put this episode into that process for me because I know it's going to be about 83% now on this third run, and that's exciting
[00:17:03] Your move: define one process
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Shawn Buttner: So wrapping up, take a look at the main process you do for your work and do the define step in that four-step process. What open questions do you have about it? What are its goals? Where are you frustrated with it maybe? And just build that awareness because once you have awareness of what's going on in that process, you can then change.
And for help with the rest, the map, compare, and loop steps on your own processes, I do offer a creative diagnostic that goes over this and so much more. So I'll have that in the show notes if you're interested.
Secondarily, if you don't want to hop on a call, I have a free PDF called Goal Print that's at shawnbuttner.com/goalprint in the show notes. And Goal Print covers the what, and this episode covered the how. And what it's for is defining what each key process in your business is for and the outcome it serves tied to your greater goals.
Example, your website exists to build trust and show people the easiest next step towards the help that they want and/or need. And it's the define step done for you as a guided tool. You can either do that as a worksheet or I have a PDF you can feed your favorite AI tool to walk you through in a little bit more interactive way, So check that out in the show notes, and this is Shawn Buttner saying we'll see you next time
[00:18:38] Wrap Up
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Shawn Buttner: Thank you for listening to Input Output. I'm Shawn Buttner, and if you loved this episode, I hope you'd consider leaving a five-star review or comment on Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show get out there, and means more to me than you probably even know. And if you are also interested in your assessment, where we take a look at your website, help you figure out your voice, your confidence, or your workflow, get that clear so that you are putting your best foot forward online, I have a link in the show notes to sign up for a diagnostic call.
Check that out in the show notes, and we'll see you next time on Input Output
