RWL232: Mastering Deep Work and Remote Team Strategies with Alex Denning

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
0:00

Hello everybody. It's Alex again from the Remote Work Life podcast. I hope you're doing well. I have another exceptional guest with me today. I have Alex Denning, who is the founder of Ellipsis Marketing. Now, ellipsis is a digital marketing agency for WordPress businesses, and their clients are WordPress product businesses and WordPress agencies, and I want to say a big thank you, alex, to you for joining me today on the Remote Work Life podcast.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
0:31

Yeah, thanks for having me Excellent and, as I always do, I'm quite inquisitive when it comes to getting to know my guests. I want to know their backstory. How do they get to where they are now? So, alex, uh, please tell us. Tell us, how did you get to uh, becoming the founder of ellipsis?

Alex Denning :
0:55

sure? Um, so I have been working remotely full-time for the last four years now and I've been running Ellipsis for most of that time. As you mentioned, we live in the WordPress ecosystem, so WordPress powers a third of the internet and there's a big ecosystem of products and agencies product conservators around that, and those businesses help people do more stuff with their websites. So like on the agency side, for example. So like all the Facebook's non-Facebook product stuff runs on WordPress. One of our clients handles that for them On the product side. You might want a contact form on WordPress and one of our clients handles that for them On the product side. You might want a contact form and then you can post a plug-in to do that. Or you might want a contact form which integrates with your CRM and does a whole bunch of automation stuff and also lets you sell stuff and you can see how it gets out of hand quite quickly. That's where we live, that's what we do.

Alex Denning :
2:04

Um, how did I end up here? I, I guess by accident, because, um, I like solving problems, um, and, yeah, I get to solve them all day and people pay me money for them. So I've been involved in, like, the wordpress space for a long time, um. So I knew a lot of people around there, so I uh started off just doing bits of work, freelance, um, and it was stuff I enjoyed doing. And then I was as a freelancer, I was booked out the whole time. So at that point it was either like, do you do that forever? Maybe put your rates up a bit? Um, I decided that I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be able to solve more problems for people, um, so that's why I started the agency and wordpress.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
2:56

I didn't realize it was a third of the internet that wordpress powers at the minute. I'm a big wordpress fan myself. It's just such an intuitive piece of actually you know what I mean if it's intuitive to me. Maybe that's minute I'm a big wordpress fan myself. It's just such an intuitive piece of well, actually, you know what I mean. If it's intuitive to me, maybe that's because I'm in it quite often. I'm not a program or anything like that, but I can actually get work my way around it now that I've been in it for years. But it's one of those things that is just so relatively easy to understand for a newbie once you sort of get your head around it, would you say a big problem, a big project that, uh, we, the community, have been working on.

Alex Denning :
3:30

It's open source, so, like, uh, everyone can contribute. Um, a big problem we have been working on is how to make this initial experience a lot better. Um, so last year, I guess the end of the year before that um. So last year, I guess the end of the year before that uh, with wordpress 5, there was a new editor, um, which has some teething issues, but going forward, that's going to make that a lot easier to do. Um and the. The market that everyone's interested in, um is the, the small business with no website. Um, because that's how a lot of people get started and those obviously sometimes turn into bigger businesses, um, or even just medium-sized ones. Um, and it's that initial experience that, uh, we're trying to work on. So, yeah, you're I. I could tell you didn't want to say it's hard to use, yeah I didn't want to say that I mean it is at times.

Alex Denning :
4:24

We're working on it, yeah so it's hard to use.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
4:28

Don't bother using it, just go to alex and he'll sort you out. Basically is what we're trying to say. But I think what's so attractive about wordpress where small business is a business is a concern is the, I suppose, the barrier to entry. Well, if you look beyond the tech, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty good and it's you can bolt things on and it's scalable and you can make it look really professional if you're working with the right people.

Alex Denning :
4:52

So, uh, yeah, exactly so. So we don't make websites. Our clients are the people who make the stuff that you can bolt on um. So yeah, we're all all working on that yeah.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
5:04

So alex is the guy that can really sort of, yeah, um, do all the singing and dancing in terms of the, the marketing behind all of that, and but I think, yeah, wordpress is. I love wordpress. What can I say anyway? Well, alex, I mean, I know this as well from looking. Obviously, I've done my my background research on you. You did a, you did a degree in in politics and international studies and you've had quite an interesting journey since since then. Tell us a bit more about that I I'm especially interested in in mini clip yeah, so, um, yeah, so, I did a degree in politics.

Alex Denning :
5:48

Um, I have never really used it. I guess it like taught me how to like think critically. Um, I do use that a lot, so I can I can write very long things, so maybe that was useful. Um, before that, though, I uh worked at miniclipcom, um, which is now a mobile games company. At the time, it was for, like, free casual games Um years ago. Minicabcom was uh like the place where you'd spend your lunch breaks, um, and I got that job because I knew someone from the WordPress community who was their director of web development, who, uh, long story short, I now co-author a weekly newsletter with um, and he doesn't. He also works remotely now and doesn't work at Winnipeg as well oh, so yeah, I did this.

Alex Denning :
6:59

I did their social media um, which is cool, and that I learned a lot about that. That was an office job in London and, yeah, it was my job to keep the community updated about the stuff we're doing with our games. That's something a lot about, like the working in a results-orientated environment.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
7:27

Yeah, it was good fun In terms of you obviously made your progress now where you, I suppose, went more and graduated towards the entrepreneurial side of things. You had WordPress, WP Shout, which looks like again very much a strong WordPress connection there, and tell us a bit about that and then, after actually actually told us about, after you've told us about that, tell us about your typical clients at the moment sure, um, so don't be.

Alex Denning :
7:58

Shout is a WordPress development tutorial blog, and and it's still going today, although I haven't run it for I think like six or seven years. Um, and yeah, it teaches people wordpress development. When I was first figuring out stuff with wordpress, uh, I wanted to know how to do things and I couldn't find that. Um, and, being quite naive at the time, I thought, oh, I know I can figure this out and I know all the answers. So I made that website and that was where I first got to see what growing an audience looked like and all that stuff. And that was really helpful earlier on for just figuring stuff out. So that's also where a lot of the WordPress connections come from. So, even though that was seven years ago, you can draw a straight line through there. That was our new Bennett mini clip, and here we are.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
8:58

And you haven't looked back since. And now you're working. You've established yourself as a freelance worker. How was that transition from freelance to to a business owner?

Alex Denning :
9:09

yeah. So, um, as I said, I was as a freelancer. I was booked out all the time, um, it was just a good problem to have, but still a problem, um. So I knew I wanted to be able to solve more problems and that meant growing a team. Um, to start with, I just gradually started working with freelancers on individual projects, um, and then over time, I started getting a bit more revenue and just took things very slowly.

Alex Denning :
9:45

Um, there are four of us now, um, we're currently hiring number five. Um, and we're now at a point where we can pick that up quite quickly. Um, because we've got all the structures in place. But it, yeah, it took a while to to really get used to it. I had to. I now don't know what's going on with client work In the best possible way, yeah, but it took me, like, I guess, a year, 18 months, to be okay with that. We're now at a point where I can totally trust my team to get on with stuff, and I guess it wasn't I didn't trust them before. It was that I just needed to let it go.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
10:28

It's funny because we just had a conversation with another remote working practitioner who's been in the game for quite a while, pilar Orti, and she was literally words you've just described there, the words you've just articulated, are just exactly what she said in terms of letting go and just allowing the team to get on with it.

Alex Denning :
10:53

Something that I kind of big, really useful book I read last year. It's called High Output Management. It's by the former president of intel. Um, there's one thing in that he was, uh, saying that he's this analogy where I want to delegate to you holding these scissors. And you give your team member the scissors, but then you hold on to them by the top so they can't take them. And then you say, why didn't you take, why aren't you holding the scissors? I, it's because you haven't let go of the scissors.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
11:27

And I just read that and thought, oh, that's me I like that analogy, though, because it's just yeah, it's good, it's good, it says everything. Only one goal. I mean, if you don't let go of the scissors, how are they supposed to get on with things and start the work?

Alex Denning :
11:41

yeah, so after uh, I, you know, let go of being responsible for holding the scissors, then we start to make a bit of progress excellent.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
11:53

So what's the makeup of your team now?

Alex Denning :
11:56

you said you've got four on the team yeah, so, um, we have a head of content and conversions and Natasha leads our content and conversion focused projects. So that's like regular content marketing stuff, which is probably most of our work day to day, as well as our copy projects. And recently we've had an email into the mix as well, um, because again, it was just responding to what people were asking us for. Um, and people were asking us for email or other people weren't doing their email and it was a really good opportunity, so we figured we needed to step in for people. Um, uh, kaylee's our SEO specialist. She's our SEO content manager. She does our specialist SEO stuff and also a lot of the content process. She joined Zella this year Just more capacity and expertise around SEO, which has been great so far. Peter handles our promotion and outreach stuff. We're currently hiring a conversions manager, um, who's gonna just add more capacity, um, for our conversion focus projects.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
13:20

Okay, okay yeah, that's good. I mean what I'd suggest as well. If that is you, if you're listening out there and you are a conversions manager or have worked in cro, yeah, yeah we stopped using cro because our clients didn't know what it meant.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
13:42

Yeah, exactly cro, if you, if you know what that word means, then you're probably the person for this job. So what I urge you to do is get across to Ellipsis' website, which is getellipsiscom, and have a look before you reach out and speak to anybody or reply to the job or anything like that.

Alex Denning :
14:07

look at the website something I should do which I haven't done is we don't have a careers page, so if you want to actually apply, uh it's off.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
14:13

we work remotelycom I'll tell you what, though. There's so many small businesses that don't have a careers page, but I think just as important as the career having a careers page is have is having the content, so that people can understand what the business is about.

Alex Denning :
14:28

And yeah, so we do have that, and we're so small that when people tell me that they've been following us for a long time in their cover letters, I just don't believe them there's a tip for you don't just uh put that into your cover letter.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
14:46

Make it a bit more, pay a bit more attention to detail, and I think it would help as well if you know a thing or two, I guess, about wordpress, I'd assume yeah, although that's not actually, that's not as essential as you would think, we can teach the wordpress stuff.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
15:02

I want the like marketing expertise okay, well, big clue for you there. I mean, it's not every day that you get to hear the founder or the the owner of a business talk about the kind of person that they want in the job, so it's a massive clue for you there. If you're, you're out there listening and you need need work at the moment. So check out, get ellipsiscom and the team's content, seo, promotions and outreach and you're that conversions person who's just waiting to apply to this job.

Alex Denning :
15:32

Yeah.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
15:33

Okay, who knows, who knows, okay. So we've talked a bit about Ellipsis and how it all got together and a little bit, I suppose in a little while we're going to talk about what this podcast was really. What I really want to talk about this podcast because Alex is really focused on really being able to focus while working, and I know that's a big problem, especially for people who are new to remote work, but it's not exclusively to that, um, to those sorts of people, because remote work has its challenges in terms of work and in the I guess, in the climate that we're living in now, we're not going to obviously go too much into that, but in the climate that we're living in now, I myself am at home. Believe it or not, I'm at home with my kids you would never know but I'm mixing homeschooling with work. So I'm trying to really put slots in place where I can do the homeschooling, which we did a bit in the morning, and then focus on my work and then other stuff around that.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
16:45

So alex, I hope can help me in terms of understanding what's called deep working. Have you ever heard that expression before? Deep working? So we're going to focus a bit on that in a moment, but before we go to that, I want to talk a bit more about your team, alex. In terms of what because I mean I know there's some, obviously, managers out there, they're listening in terms of how they've gone from being in a co-located scenario to now being in a scenario where they're forced to work remotely and they've had some challenges themselves or having some challenges themselves. What challenges do you have when you were first starting out, other than you mentioned the, the trust issue and the letting go issue, any other challenges that you had?

Alex Denning :
17:28

yeah. So, um, I do think that doing remote work is hard. I think it's really good, but I also think it's hard, um, and it's. It took me like years to get properly into a rhythm that really worked long term. So if, yeah, as we're recording this, there's a global pandemic going on, and if you are working from home for the first time, or you normally do it one or two days a week, and now you're doing it all the time, it is going to be a shock, and my fear is that unless yeah, I guess unless people take the, I feel like people might have a bad time and that would be bad, and that, instead of this being a great remote work opportunity, people might experience it for the first time. I think it's rubbish. Um, yeah, yeah, and then go back to it. It is hard, it doesn't require adapting. Um, there's a couple of things that we do. So this deep work idea is a thing that I like.

Alex Denning :
18:42

Personally, I'm a big fan of um. We structure our communication asynchronously. Um, whether you want to do that for working from home for two months, I don't know, because it requires, like, I guess, if you, if you, communicate differently, it requires a totally different way of working, of course. So we use Basecamp, and that means that it is set up for asynchronous communication, ie everything's on a task and when you need something, you can say what you need on that task. It then goes to whoever you've sent it to and they've got the time to write like a proper response when it suits them, um, rather than just sending off pings through slack or whatever um and demanding uh attention immediately. That lets people like we talk about protecting attention um, and respond when they're able to. For me, that that is that unlocks like the. The big benefit of uh remote work, which is you can set up your day to be able to focus how you want to do. If you've got to deal with uh like teaching your kids in the morning, then you can set aside the time later on, um to make the progress. That's really interesting, um. We'll talk about them more in a second.

Alex Denning :
20:14

One of the other things, though, that we have done, that has been um really good, and I don't know that that many remote companies do it. We sat down to try and work out what was good and bad about being remote, and one of the things you do lose is kind of just spontaneous collaboration, yes, so we just tried to work out how to add that back in. So we ended up with a monthly co-working day. So we specifically set aside a day where we specifically co-work and we do screen sharing and we do a group call. I'll do a team update to start with and then we'll go through some general issues and then, if we've got specific things to work through even if we don't need everyone there, we've got everyone there and then that creates the opportunities for the more random collaboration you might get.

Alex Denning :
21:14

In an office you also lose some general chats harder. Yeah, definitely, if you use Slack, maybe you can have a general channel or a random channel and do that kind of thing there. As we don't, that's a bit harder. So solution again we just schedule a monthly call in which we just have a chat. I know some people do that weekly because we're in different time zones. We found that monthly worked better.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
21:53

Is everything that you do? Is everything that you do asynchronous, then, given that you're in different time zones?

Alex Denning :
22:00

so, uh, we default to asynchronous, um, it probably sounds a lot more efficient than it is in the. I haven't looked at base camp since we started recording, but as soon as we're finished I will check it, um, and if if anyone needs anything from me, I will respond to that immediately. Base camp also does have one-to-one chat as well as group chat, um, and we do use those a fair bit. In general, though, the like general approach is to uh respond asynchronously, um, and when you do need that time to to say I'm doing something else, I'm not going to respond to stuff.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
22:42

Uh, that's absolutely fine no, I get it and I it's. I hear what you're saying as well about the adaptation and I I am slightly worried as well in terms of the, the, the actual. You mentioned the pandemic because originally the kind of posts that you were seeing across social media were okay. So now that we're we're being forced to work remotely, everybody's going to see the benefits of working remotely. But that's not necessarily the case because there's so many. There is a period of adaptation and you know, my fear is that people may kind of shy away from it because of the. This whole experience is just everything on top of them all at once, when you know that this experience that we're we're I guess we're in now to me is not really a true reflection of what it is to to be able to work remotely because you have so much more food in them than you do right at this moment, you know.

Alex Denning :
23:40

So, yeah, yeah, so I'm working from home right now. I normally go to a co-working space. Even that's uh, that's just like going to an office and I spend my mornings there and I cycle in and it's nice being at home all the time. I don't like doing that and I sort of like took some time to adapt. What getting a co-working space was actually one of the things that uh took that time, um, and was really helpful. So, so, if it isn't because you're having a crisis, just give it a bit more time.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
24:13

Yeah, well, yeah, I'd second that because it's just, you shouldn't be stuck in one room or one place, you should have a bit of variety there. But yeah, we can't because of the way things are at the moment. But okay, well, yeah, I mean similar challenges. I mean, don't just think you're alone in terms of the challenges. As you've heard, alex has had his challenges. It's taken him a while to adapt. It took me a while to adapt as well. So I just think the best thing to do is just talk to somebody who has either had similar challenges to yourself or just just talk, just just um, talk about them, and, like Alex did he, they talked about you know what the benefits are and what remote work is all about, and I think that communication in itself, getting it out into the open, can actually, uh, at least start to remedy the situation. You know?

Alex Denning :
25:12

Yeah, for sure.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
25:15

In terms of, you know, let's talk pre-pandemic. Yeah, what effect did remote work have on your life in general?

Alex Denning :
25:35

life in general. So I guess the main thing is that, uh, the most like practical thing is that my wife needs to move for work, like two years ago, and sure, no problem. And if, uh, I'd been stuck somewhere else, that would be really difficult. Having that, uh, flexibility is huge. And if she needs me again like I guess I missed my co-working space but, uh, I'm sure they'll have me back or I can find a new one is those I can work from anywhere. That's the big one.

Alex Denning :
26:03

Um, and yeah, I mean, internally, we talk a lot about like setting the environment that you need personally to be able to do really good work. Um, and that is, uh, yeah, I mean that's like what that's. One of the things that really motivates me is having a really good impact, having to do really good stuff. Um, and yeah, this like deep work idea we've touched on is one of the ways that I personally find really effective for me to be able to do that. Um, like, I guess I run a remote business and that's pretty cool, I think, if we'd have to, if we'd have to get an office or whatever.

Alex Denning :
26:52

That's a whole different world. I don't know how to lease an office. I don't want to know how to lease an office.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
26:58

I don't blame you with all the costs and all that sort of thing, but if you're comfortable in that environment, which not everybody's comfortable with remote work, but if you are, then do it, okay, well, I I mean, as we've touched on deep work, let's let's get into the whole topic of deep work, because this could provide you with some, some ideas in terms of, uh, not just the scenario you're in at the moment, but your future, how you can apply it to, to your work in general, not you know. So let's, let's get into that, shall we? What? What does it mean? What does deep work mean? And sure, yeah, let's do that.

Alex Denning :
27:35

Do work as a thesis by a computer science professor called cal newport um, in which he argues that being able to focus for sustained periods of time is increasingly a competitive advantage and that we've forgotten how to do it. And people mainly do so-called shallow work, which he defines as things that aren't hard and or you could easily train someone to do in, say, six months, um, whereas a deep work is a thing that provides these outside returns for and it is something that, specifically, you can do, no one else can do, um, and that's where you really drive value. And, yeah, I came across this idea when I was starting to work remotely. That's really shaped how I do it. It is not especially complex, that's basically it. He has written a book on it which I'd probably recommend, but it's like okay, the book's good because it repeats the message so much, um, if you just got it from that brief summary, then you're all good well, what I'll do is I'll leave any sort of resources that we talk about in the show notes, because I think this is useful.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
29:02

This is really not. It's useful, yeah, so I'll leave that in the show notes. What I'm going to ask as well about I mean, obviously we're on this segment now about deep work. What are there any particular sorts of tasks that deep work is suited to, or is it just generally across the board?

Alex Denning :
29:17

yeah, so, um, what cal recommends is splitting up your deep and shallow work. Um. I also mix in another book recommendation, uh, something called a book called work clean, uh, which is actually about how chefs organize their uh workstations, and one of the ideas in that book is is process time, um, and if, if you're a chef like you, you need to chop up your veg before I don't know what I'm talking about. You gotta chop out your veg before you do the other chef stuff, that's really on the side yeah, um, so in in practical terms, that just that idea from that book was really helpful.

Alex Denning :
30:08

Um, and say I schedule in, say after lunch, half an hour process time and that's where I deal with my emails. That's how I go on slack and check um any wordpress stuff. So I go on twitter, um, and respond to anything that needs like under five minutes, say anything over, that is your deep work, um, and I guess you might need to. So like sending a specific hard email could be one bit of deep work. Got a right proposal. Um, you might specifically schedule that in um, say we're working on, say I'm working on some strategy stuff for a client. I like to work out the whole day for that and I don't have any process time on those days, and that means that when you say, have your lunch, you've got the opportunity to take a break. But also maybe you come up with the extra ideas which are going to move the needle for the client.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
31:06

Right, and that deep work, yeah, you've kind of given a good, a good view of that, so it could be anything. I suppose it's not necessarily a standard time, but anything over that's anything. That is not quick work, essentially something that requires you to really sort of focus, sit down and really um, let's call it 20 minutes, 20 minutes?

Alex Denning :
31:34

okay, it's an email that requires a like, just a response, then that's ideal candidate for your process time. Um, if it's something that requires more thought, it's something to set aside. So the big advantage of that is, uh, that you are much more effective with what when you are doing stuff. So it's not, oh, I see an email, I reply and it interrupts me and I get back to doing whatever I was doing before. Is you? Because you focus all your attention and don't have these distractions available? Um, it means that you're able to get them much more rich insights and better results that only you can get, um, and that's why it's so powerful and what are your?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
32:26

how do you go about achieving an environment? I don't know Achieving your environment for deep work.

Alex Denning :
32:38

So I need to know I'm not going to be distracted. That's a good one. I know a lot of people use noise-canceling headphones. I actually use commercial ear defenders.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
32:50

Okay, Fair enough, that is really focusing. Oh my gosh.

Alex Denning :
32:55

Yeah, because I just couldn't find any noise-cancelling headphones I liked. I'll blame you, I'll put those on. So if I'm at the co-working space, for example, I found I wasn't getting good deep work there and it was because there was too much happening. So I needed to block out sounds and I now sit in the corner. So I just know I'm not going to be distracted If I am at home. I just find having headphones on helps. Just a personal thing.

Alex Denning :
33:29

Um, and yeah, I mean it's like the system has taken me is always evolving. I have a daily planner which has hours and I block out um process time and deep work time in that. So I know, like after this call, I'm going to do this, as we discussed. I'm realistically going to respond to my base count messages and then I've got something else to do. That means a lot of friction because the next action you've got to take is kind of automated there's no, the procrastination happens when you're not sure what to do next. Automated, there's no, the procrastination happens when you're not sure what to do next. So this just makes it easy to realize what you've got to work on.

Alex Denning :
34:12

Um, well, the deep work stuff is taking breaks as well. Um, so I take a lot of breaks and I eat a lot of food because I found that's what I need to uh be able to do this stuff effectively. For a while the focusing is tiring and for a while I get to half past five and I just want to sit on the sofa all evening. That's no use. So, uh, I now take a slightly longer lunch break and might have more to eat and the.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
34:42

You know, that's fixed it but you find that you get more done then than you used to before deep work for sure.

Alex Denning :
34:50

Yeah, um. I now, for one of my things this year is actually do less work um, so I've cut my hours slightly, um, and I'm pretty sure that I get more done?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
35:06

yeah, do you also, I guess. For this, then to work, you also have to your team has to know when you've got these sections of right exactly yeah, right.

Alex Denning :
35:18

So if, if you were working on a in a business where, uh, fast responses were valued, um, this would be tricky or you'd have to set. You'd have to clearly set boundaries to like 10 till 12 in the morning, like, uh, I'll get back to you after lunch or whatever, and that time um is my set aside time. There are ways like that you could deal with it. I know some people put it on their calendars, um, when they're dealing with uh, protecting their time, like that, and that also lets your team know what's happening. So one of the things that well, I guess one of the things that I get to do because I am my boss, is that I can set those expectations internally and it's like we trust you to get on with stuff. We need to keep stuff moving, but it's a balance.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
36:18

And is deep work, then is that something that you think, like you said, it may suit some businesses, it may not, but if you are in that, if that is part of your, I suppose your culture, I guess in many ways um, is it something that everybody needs to be, um doing, or does it suit some people and not others? I guess?

Alex Denning :
36:45

yeah. So this is something that works for me, um, and I'm happy to preach it, but it's not something that's going to work for everyone. With all this like productivity stuff, it's all about working out what works for you and having a continually evolving system. I think before I did this, I had like other stuff, and there's there's. There's no shortage of advice on the internet about how to do your work. Yeah, often from people who don't, who aren't doing their own work, because they're writing the advice Exactly.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
37:17

So I'm hesitant to.

Alex Denning :
37:19

I don't think anything works for everyone. Um, I think deep work can work for, uh, pretty much every like knowledge business, and I suspect so. And the example this is something that comes up in the book the examples of where there is pushback because thinking, oh, that I can't do that because I have these special circumstances. My clients need to hear back from me faster. The cow talks about in the book, like they probably don't would your. Does your client want to have an email? I responded to within five minutes, or is half an hour? Okay, and they get better results as a result. They'll take the better results, of course.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
37:58

And I suppose that's what remote work is all about is the outcomes, is the results.

Alex Denning :
38:07

So it's not. Yeah, it's all about freedom, and maybe you're working from a different time zone or whatever. Yeah, you know, those are some of the nice things that currently we can't leave our houses, we don't get but normal times that's, yeah, what remote actually looks like.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
38:27

And I mean you talked about your process. Do you have like a typical day then, in terms of is it hyper structured?

Alex Denning :
38:35

I do the same thing every single day.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
38:37

I was going to say, yeah, you sound like you structure everything to the end.

Alex Denning :
38:44

Some of my team don't and one of Peter, travels a lot. I don't work and travel because I just can't. Um, yeah, I didn't say anything every day and uh, I just find that helps me. That's what works for me.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
39:02

May not work for everyone and I think you're right, and I think that that's what it comes down to. It comes down to what works for you. But I mean, in that sense, you can also you can also have a hybrid, I suppose, where you're doing a bit of deep work and you're doing a bit of shallow work, or you know working how you want to work, if you see what I mean. So it doesn't necessarily have to be deep work throughout the whole day, or or a certain set structure or criteria throughout the whole day. I think I wanted to get alex on and talk about deep work is deep work because I want you to, I suppose, be familiar with it and aware of, of a method of, of doing better work, and listen to his strategies as well and his mindset about, about getting things, things done.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
39:50

And I, I, I, when I come to think of it now, I do have periods. I did where, even though I didn't know it, where I do do deep work, although what I need, probably need to do is have more focus periods, especially now because I'm still getting to grips with the whole homeschooling plus plus work scenario. So I'm going to sort of start to really sort of well have started to designate areas of my calendar to do focused pieces of work, and then you know, mixing it in with other stuff as well, you know excellent do you?

Alex Denning :
40:26

want to talk. Do you want to talk tools quickly? And yeah, let's talk tools.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
40:29

Yeah, let's talk about tools. Let's talk about tools go for it in.

Alex Denning :
40:31

about tools Go for it In terms of the tools that you use. I've tried literally everything. So here's the kitchen. So I've got this thing here. This is a Timeler Okay Timeler. It's a little like eight-sided dice, essentially. But you put what you're doing, this is what it says email. You put what you're doing to like this one says email. You put it you're doing on your desk, and then it connects your computer via bluetooth and then it tracks your time wow, okay pretty simple like you could.

Alex Denning :
41:02

Just. This costs like 50 quid. You could just make it, get a dice and write some things on it and that would be fine. Um, the real benefit of this is it. It makes you consciously say I'm doing this now, and then you put it down and then your computer goes. Time started tracking.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
41:19

That's pretty cool oh, that is very cool. Who makes that? Do you know, is it is it's uh, I think it's.

Alex Denning :
41:25

It's an independent company. If you google time, you'll find it mueller.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
41:29

Okay, I'll have a look for that. Never come across that in my life.

Alex Denning :
41:31

Okay, that's a time pretty cool uh, I use a mac app called focus, or do you think it's like? Hey, focuscom? Uh, for blocking websites. That was a huge thing to start with. I don't use that so much anymore. All of these like block your facebook news feed, block your twitter, whatever it is, um, if you're in the habit of constantly checking stuff, then having a thing to stop you from checking it is very helpful. Um, and there I'm sure there are like chrome versions or windows versions or whatever. Um, I, I have a kitchen timer on my desk, so if I want to do something for an hour, like put it on for an hour, I just find like the ticking reminds me to keep focused.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
42:19

I tell you what certain background noises can be stimulating in that sense, and ticking.

Alex Denning :
42:25

That's another thing about setting intentions. It's like I'm going to do this for half an hour off the go and then when you get to half an hour and it rings, you know you've done it or you haven't, in which case you can deal with that. Then why not? Why not? Yeah, uh, yeah, and just like in general, I don't have like email open other than when it's processing time. Um, that's slack open, facebook, twitter, all that stuff I'm guessing you don't.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
42:54

You don't have things like your, your social open, obviously, and news. I suppose the temptation nowadays is to be constantly especially if people are not used to working from home is to be constantly checking on the news yeah, I should get the newspaper, which is unheard of.

Alex Denning :
43:13

What's a newspaper people are saying I know? Uh, yeah, so, uh, cam newport has a very good blog, he's a deep work guy and uh, one of the things uh that he mentioned in a passing comment was how about getting the newspaper, and that's so. I get the economist weekly, um, and, yeah, I really like it. It shows me like what has happened and I I don't miss anything. I do miss things, but it doesn't matter. I get what's happened after it's happened, not what's happening. But what am I going to do with?

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
43:47

that information? Yeah, exactly, yeah, except worry about it these days, anyway. Yeah, yeah, no, I get that, and I think I stopped getting newspapers and I I keep promising myself I need to start getting a delivery of the newspaper to you. Know it's, it's, it's good just to have something in your home sometimes, you know, just um, rather than having, like you said, constantly checking feeds or yeah. So I think, uh, newspapers are a good idea. So you got a timer. You've got, hey, you've got, hey, focus. You've got a newspaper and you've got, uh, a timer. So you've got the kitchen sink. You've got the kitchen sink. You're churning through the work by the sounds of it.

Alex Denning :
44:26

That's good, that's great yeah, I mean, it's not like I, it's not like I actually use all of those at the same time.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
44:35

They're just like things that are there. You know, I'm going to look at that Timeler because that to me, is a good idea. I'm going to look for that. So, alex, what's in the offing for Ellipsipsis? What's other than you you're hiring?

Alex Denning :
44:53

obviously that sounds like you're growing, then, right yeah, yeah, we doubled our revenue last year and we are going to try and do it again this year. Well, we need more capacity to be able to do that, and that's why we are hiring. We may need to hire someone else as well, which would be cool. That's going to let us do more stuff, um, and it's just more stuff I want to do. I like I talk a lot about solving problems. At the start, I just like solving problems, and there's more stuff I want to work on, um, and that is what drives the growth for me. We may stop when I get bored of solving problems or need to solve a different problem, but for now, there's just more I wanted to do, and I think we can help our clients a lot more. So, yeah, that's our focus this year. We're also trying to become a B Corporation. Oh, nice, nice. It's a voluntary standard for ethical businesses.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
46:02

Yeah, I used to belong to a B.

Alex Denning :
46:03

Corp. All right, yeah, yes, so far it's been hard, just a lot of requirements to meet and we don't meet most of them right now, but we're working on it. Hopefully we can do that this year and that's just a nice external standard to adhere to.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
46:27

No, that's nice, it's good and I think that growth I like the idea of growth. That's the first thing. The second idea is and I actually put out a podcast about problem solving the day I think again, now more than ever, I think people want to work with people who solve problems, as opposed to somebody coming up and saying I can do SEO or I can do content or I can help your WordPress business to get better, but how can you do that? What problems am I having that you can solve? So I like that approach, Alex. And so, before we wrap up, then, one question that I usually ask is what's the most? I? You work in cold, cold working spaces when you can and you work at home. Are there any other sort of different types of spaces that you you've worked in at all?

Alex Denning :
47:23

uh, really boring at this question. I, yeah, um, so I did try like traveling and working and I do love traveling, um, my wife and I go to a lot of places. I just found that I'm not good at work, mixing work and travel, so I don't, um, I go to a, so we're remote, but we meet up a couple times a year. So like, uh, that maybe counts. We went to the. We had a team meetup in the Netherlands, which was cool. I had some fun working from Arizona for a conference last year. I did, but it's not like I'm at the beach.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
48:05

Well, I'll tell you what, though, alex. I mean you see quite a lot of I've said this before you see a lot of videos on YouTube and across social media of these people living the laptop lifestyle with their laptop on their lap from the beach or wherever. Yes, those people do exist, cause I've interviewed some and there's some really great people doing it. But I think those people, those gurus, make it look really easy and, look, make it look as though it's a walk in the park, just to sort of rock up to the beach or to go to Arizona and just work from from anywhere. It's not, it's not that easy, it's, it's. It's. It requires planning in itself and requires coordinating, especially if you've got a team yeah, some people can do that.

Alex Denning :
48:45

I just personally can't. I'm just like, when I'm working I'm just on and I just need to be on or off for the work stuff. I can't mix it. If you can, then like go for it and just make sure you get an app that gets your sound out of your laptop.

Alex Wilson-Campbell:
49:01

Yeah, well, let's hope somebody invents something like that. Well, alex, it's been great speaking to you. I want to wish you all the best with ellipsis and I would urge, as I said, everybody to get across or go across to alex's website, which is get ellipsiscom. Um, at the time of posting this, alex is hiring, so I hope you get this message before before um, I I post before he's not hiring, so get across to getellipsiscom. And, alex, I just want to thank you for joining us on the podcast and I want to just wish you all the best with Ellipsis.

Alex Denning :
49:43

Thanks so much. It's been really good. Speak to you soon. All right Cheers.