Episode 3

 
Matt: Hello, and welcome to Working on Something New the podcast for and about makers and founders. I'm your host, Matt Johnson and I'm myself a founder and product manager.

Thanks for joining us for another episode where we interview a maker about their journey, their project, and their vision for the future. 

Working on Something New is powered by my company. Taskable: unified tasks and calendar for all day productivity. Taskable is productivity software that helps you manage your most valuable resource - your time - by integrating with the tools you already use to bring everything into one place, helping you plan your priorities and time block your calendar. Find us at taskablehq.com.

For this week's episode, we interviewed Christina Armstrong. Christina is a content creator and coach who recently moved to Santa Cruz, California. She is building Organizing Higher. A YouTube channel and productivity consulting business. Organizing Higher helps knowledge workers go from overwhelmed to overjoyed through content, as well as personalized productivity consulting and one-on-one coaching calls to address each client's pain points. In this episode, Christina and I discuss the Getting Things Done productivity methodology, how to create a YouTube channel, the importance of narrowing down your audience, and why you should just get started. Let's jump into the episode

Thanks Christina for joining us. Could you just give us a little bit about your background, what you're working on? Things like that.

Christina Armstrong: Yeah. Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. My name is Christina. Let's see background about me. So by education I have a degree in psychology and a master's in higher education. So all my background is in higher education and student affairs. So education in general was really pivotal for transforming my life and I really, really value education in general.

And so I've been in higher education and higher education space for about over 10 years now. And just been working on, on that and anything related to education either formally or informally, that's pretty much what I do.

Matt: And could you talk a little bit about Organizing Higher and the project you're working on on the side

Christina Armstrong: Yeah, so let's rewind the tape a little bit back to August of 2020, right. There was like kind of a lull in activity for a lot of folks. They were just kind of sitting at home, waiting for things to get back to normal. And I was at a state in my life where I was kind of coming out of a, a dip in my life and I was recovering from that and wanted to try something new and I saw no pun intended. like, I wanted to try something that I'd never thought of doing before. And that was to start a YouTube channel. I was like, oh, okay. I've, I've watched YouTube. It seems pretty easy to record something. I don't mind speaking in front of people. And so it was about August, 2020 that I created my first YouTube video. And it was absolutely terrible. Looking back on it, I I committed the ultimate YouTube sin at the time. Anyways, I recorded it vertically on my phone, which now that they have YouTube shorts, like that's not as much of an issue, but back then it was a big deal.

But I just started making videos. I started talking about stuff that were of interest to me, and that was related to productivity and kind of time management stuff. I, you know, it was always all really kind of organic. I think when I first started out, one of the, the mistakes that I made looking back is I was imitating what I was seeing on YouTube.

Right? So like, oh, YouTube videos, they've got this background music and they talk like this and they're doing promotions. And so my earlier videos were like that. And as I got more practice and just, you know, you practice by doing like, you're not gonna get better. Until you're really bad first. So I did a couple more videos, more videos.

Eventually I ended up getting a little bit better and I put out one video where I talked about how I was using Todoist as a tool with GTD getting things done methodology. And I did that video in passing, you know, and a couple of weeks later I realized like it had a couple hundred views. I was like, oh, okay.

Well, clearly people are like interested in this. So I started talking more about todos and GTD and because so much of that is just authentically how I'm moving through the world. I think people really resonated with that. And then it just kind of took off from there. So I started talking a lot about how I, as a full-time mom with a full-time job was just managing life and how GTD and to dos was helping me do that.

I think a lot of people related to some of the things that I was talking about, whether they were a mom or not, or whether they working full-time or not So, yeah, I just, I had a Instagram page for a while. I've kind of fallen off the Instagram cuz I don't, I'm not into social media anymore. But yeah, and then I was really grateful that I actually got asked to be a coach, a GTD coach because someone in the GTD coaching area saw one of my videos on YouTube.

So it kind of just, you know, things have, have popped up for me, which has been really great and all because I had this weird idea to like, yeah, I'm gonna start a YouTube channel. Let's see what happens.

Matt: It's it's funny, you mentioned that sort of mimicking or copying sort of what you see people in YouTube videos. You're I noticed like there's these YouTube influencers that have like that YouTube voice, or like the way that they sort of present things and making some YouTube videos myself, I thought like, oh, maybe I should copy that.

But like, I just couldn't find putting myself to do it just cuz it felt so like forced and I guess it, it works for some, it works for those influencers. They're doing a great job. They get, you know, thousands and thousands of views on each video. But. It feels there's just that like voice you hear hear and just like instantly, you know, that's a YouTube influencer.

Christina Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, the analogy that I always think is it's kind of the difference between, you know, an, an independent artist of some sort versus an artist. That's got some type of corporation backing them, you know, they, you almost on, on principle, like they're restricted in what they're able to do and how they're able to produce and such because after a while, You, you are a person like you're a public figure and people expect you to be a certain way and, and behave a certain way.

Whereas if you're a little bit smaller and like a little bit more independent, you have so much more freedom and flexibility to like blow up your brand. If you want to, or to just say whatever you want to and not have it impact other people. So you know, it's, it's great for folks to have. Big, you know, YouTube personality and get, you know, hundreds of thousands of subscribers in all of this and have all of their merch that was never, and is not ever my goal with my YouTube channel.

It's really going back to that education piece, right. It's really to provide an educational platform for folks who were, you know, I don't, I don't know if, how familiar you are with GTD, but there's a lot of folks out there kind of learning on their own. And I notice on YouTube that there weren't a lot of people talking about GTD from.

A personal perspective. There was a lot of like technical, here's an explanation of GTD, here's a book summary, but I wasn't seeing anybody talking about how they were actually implementing it. So that back to that authenticity piece, and I think if it were coming from like a YouTuber, I don't think it would hit the same, cuz it's just not.

It's not the same, most people aren't YouTubers. Like

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Christina Armstrong: necessarily super reachable in that way, but a lot of people can relate to like, Nope, I have a boss. Like I, I have to clock in and clock out. I do an eight to five and a lot of people can relate to that.

Matt: yeah, definitely. I just, could you give a brief like intro to GTD just for the audience who's

Christina Armstrong: Yeah. So GTD in general, you know, it's, it's a, a. Way to manage your life truly is what it is. So I think a lot of people see it as maybe a time management tool. It is a systematic approach to managing all of the things, all of the inputs that you have in life. If that's. You know, in things in your email inbox, things in your mailbox, things that are going on in your life in general, and you are able to, you know, systematically go through and identify, okay, what is this?

You know, is it actionable? What's the next action. There's a whole workflow process to it. And what I. What I ultimately find value in, in using GTD is it's for me, it's not about getting stuff done, like, right. I, I wanna maximize productivity. That's not what it is for me. It's really so that when I'm doing something like this, right, like, okay, I'm gonna have this conversation with Matt.

There's nothing else on my mind right now, because I'm fully present. What we're doing, I'm not thinking about, you know, oh, I have to pay this bill or, oh, I have to make sure that I finish that project or, you know, send that email. Like that's all in my system. I know that I'm gonna gonna get to it so I can release and let go.

So, you know, it's, it's a systemized approach to managing stuff in all in your life.

Matt: Yeah, I think yeah, it was definitely, we started working on taskable before I was aware of GTD of getting things done. And then sort of, we kind of just naturally started building a product that, that had a lot of GTD elements in it. You know, having an inbox, being able to take things that were on your mind and put them somewhere so you can action them later.

And I find that just to be, and, and I think it's, it's. Like you mentioned, it's not about let's, I'm gonna 10 X my output or, or whatever, you know, maybe that's what it is for some people and great, but, but really what it's great for is just giving you that peace of mind. It's like, I can sit down with my family.

I can sit down and do this interview and I'm not worrying about that thing that I didn't write down somewhere. I know it's, it's in my system and I'll get to it when I get to it. And like, I find that, like, I worry a lot about, you know, talking about productivity and you see it a lot in, in product, you know, productivity, social media, where it's all about hustle, culture and, and 10, Xing your output when in reality for a lot of people, they just want to feel better about their work and they wanna have a better system that makes them feel more organized and makes, and then shows them the progress they're having.

And I find that to be, you know, that that element of GTD is, is is the most important for me is just, you know, let me have that sort of Zen where I know I can, I'm doing the best I can. And that's all you can really ask for.

Christina Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of there are no shortage of YouTube channels who talk about productivity and 10 Xing and all of these productivity hacks, et cetera, et cetera. But I feel like this, the piece that a lot of those is are missing is like, To what end, like, what's the point, right?

What, when you finish this race, you don't get a trophy. Like, what are you go, what are you trying to achieve? And I think with GTD it really kind of centers that, like, what is the purpose? Why, why have you decided right now at, you know, such and such time on such and such day that this is the thing that you need to be doing?

You know, it's, it's rooted in goals, vision, mission, purpose. So. There's there's that alignment, right. Instead of just like, oh, I'm doing stuff because I wanna make sure that I get everything on my to-do list done. It's like, is that even the right stuff? Like where are you even going? So people are so busy being busy that they kind of forget, you know, what's why are you doing that?

Like, what's the ultimate purpose truly. And sometimes being busy, be a distraction. And so that, that reminder Again, at the end of the day, there's no, there's no medal. There's no reward. Like you just die at the end. Right. So then when you, when you get to the end and you look back, what was it worth it?

Like, what did you accomplish over everything? And GTD really helps folks. I think, to get back to that, that place of it's all got a purpose. It's all got a means to an end.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. And so you alluded to it a, a bit earlier about sort of your motivation for getting into discussing productivity or, or getting things done. You know, you as, as a having a full-time job and, and being a full-time mom, you needed to, you know, you needed to maximize that time to focus on the important stuff.

But there's any number of, of subjects you could cover as, as a single mom or, or as someone working. Full-time so why productivity? What, what about the productivity space, you know, gets you excited to sort of spend your nights and weekends sort of working on this channel and, and things like that.

So like, you know, what, what is it about that this particular subject.

Christina Armstrong: Yeah, I think for me, you know, my background being in higher education and student affairs as a, an a industry, I would say in general, is there's a high level of burnout in that industry, particularly for kind of newer professionals. You know, they come in, they're super eager and excited. I'm sure this isn't unique to student affairs, but this was my, my lens.

You know, they come in, they're super excited. They do do, do they work, work, work. They say yes to everything. And. You know, out of, out of either college or grad school, nobody teaches you this stuff, right. They don't teach you how to do productivity. You're kind of like flailing around on your own. And some people, some people hit it, right?

Like, oh, you're doing it, you're doing it. You're getting things done. And then some folks. Just kind of struggle silently is what I would call it. Right. So they're thinking, well, no one else is stressing out. It must just be me. And so I really wanted to kind of bring folks together so that collectively people could see like, no, no, no, it's not just, you it's like.

Probably most of us. And number two, like here's what we can do about it. Number one, I I'll share my personal experience, but like let's all share our collective experiences as well, because my experience is not going to be other people's experiences. And what works for me is not necessarily gonna work for other people.

So I found that it was a, a good matchup of what I did in my job in terms of what I was seeing with some of my colleagues, my newer colleagues, And that education piece. Right? So you're, you don't learn this. So let me talk about some things that I've bumped up against on my own. And that was just the, the combination of the two, cuz you're absolutely right.

There were so many other things I could talk about as a, as a parent you know, toddler tricks and, and all these things. But it's just not, it, it's not the piece for me that I would, that I kind of resonate with from from all the identities that I have.

Matt: Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. If you have any of those toddler

Christina Armstrong: Daniel Tiger's neighborhood is an excellent instruction manual for a lot of toddler related things. So I love it. Yes, it's great. Like

Matt: tricks, send them my way. Cause tigers.

Christina Armstrong: they've got great songs. It's very wholesome. It's all Fred Rogers.

Matt: Oh, nice. Love it. Speaking of toddlers

Christina Armstrong: Yes. She's pointing out that we're all wearing headphones.

Matt: yes, we are. Cool. So I guess sort of switching gears a bit to You know, what's, what's your sort of big vision for this project. So you have your full time job. You know, and then you're working on this sort of nights and weekends on the side. So, you know, what do, where do you see it in five years?

And, and what do you think, where do you want it to take you?

Christina Armstrong: Oh, man. I have no idea. I'm not, you know, my analogy is that I am a leaf floating on the river and maybe I'll make it all the way to the ocean and, you know, big, great things will happen. And maybe I'll get. Stuck on a rock and just stay there forever. I'm not I'm not attached to the outcome of it.

It's it's really, whatever happens is what happens with it. My, my goal is not to quit my job. My goal is not to become a professional YouTuber and, you know, get monetized and start selling merch and all that stuff. I think that's great for some people, but it's not It's not where I see myself, you know, five years, you know, 20 years from now, I don't wanna look back and be like, oh yes, I got my YouTube channel going.

Like, that was so great. I just, I want to continue to, I, you know, five years from now, I, the, the content that I put out is ever is evergreen. And that's really intentional, you know, five years from now, and people are still going to be struggling. With productivity. People are still going to be struggling with managing a kid and managing a job so that stuff's 50 years from now, people are gonna still be struggling with this.

And we've got, even when we've got robots running everything, you know, we've still gotta, we've still gotta program the robots. So,

Matt: Yeah.

Christina Armstrong: you know, I hope that the, the content is still. Current, I don't, I don't create content as often as I did when I first, first started, just because I've you know, started a new job.

And especially as my kid gets older and she's wants to do more things, I don't, you know, it's not like when she was young and I would do it when she was NA I would film videos when she was napping or anything like that. But you know, it's, I, I hope that the content still continues to be helpful for people.

I hope that people still find value in being able to. Kind of validate their feelings of, oh man, I'm, I'm really not getting this. Like I'm really kind of struggling. And like, it's like almost like a support group. Like, Hey, me too, we're all collectively here trying to figure out what the heck we're doing.

Like, great. Let's come in together. Let's watch these videos. Let's talk, let's, you know, kind of trade, trade ideas and such. And so that's really what I hope it help comes from it. And I've been coaching with GTD focus, which is the coaching arm of the, the GTD company. They have the exclusive rights for one on one coaching.

I really have enjoyed doing that. I hope to continue doing that for the next five years, cuz you know, again, just on a, on a, maybe more accelerated level, it's really focused, customized one to one coaching to help folks with, you know, with their why and their purpose to, to get them on track for that.

Matt: Yeah, I think that's really interesting because I think most people, when they start a YouTube channel, if they're trying to, you know, make it a professional thing or, or make it their full time job, they'd probably imagine what you mentioned earlier, which is, you know, getting thousands and thousands of views and getting a revenue ad revenue, getting, you know, selling merchs, whatever.

But it's interesting that. You started making these videos and you don't need to get millions and millions of views, but you've, you managed to have a professional outcome from it, doing the coaching because people saw your videos. So, so it's interesting just, you know, for someone starting out, maybe thinking about, well, you don't need to go down that traditional path necessarily, but by just putting that content out there, You become associated with that subject matter and people find you and, and they maybe hire you to do consulting, or maybe they help, you know, they have ask you to come in and help their team, you know, become more productive, whatever it is.

So that, it's just an interesting perspective, cuz you know, for me, if I was starting YouTube channel, I'd probably think, oh like the only way to success is, is going down that route of millions of views. But, but you've managed to find a different outcome, which is, I think really interesting.

Christina Armstrong: Yeah. And not, and again, not something that I would've planned thinking about what I see people on YouTube doing. It seems like that's. You know, there's a, there's a roadmap and this is, these are the steps that you have to hit. But in my experience, it's not been, I, I think because I wasn't so focused on that, I had a more appropriate outcome that was more aligned with, with what I would be able to do.

And I can, you know, that authenticity thing, like authenticity's such a big value for me. Like I don't wanna be in authentic. It's very difficult for me to be inauthentic for a period of time. And I think people. To authenticity, particularly in the online space once people are so, you know, produced and phony.

And I mean, I, to this day, I record videos on my phone. Like I don't, I don't have a fancy camera, you know? I mean, I guess you could argue this is a fancy camera, but, you know, I've, I, I have a external lapel mic that was like $30 and a ring, like that's a tripod and that's my investment in my YouTube channel.

So it really didn't take a lot for me to get started. And I, I think. You know, some of the YouTube channels out there would make it seem like, oh, you gotta buy the, you know, $700 camera with the $200 lens and you gotta get the $300 microphone and you can get some of that stuff if you want to. But having the equipment, you still gotta have the content and you gotta have the personality.

So you could have all this great stuff and have nobody that cares about what you're talking about.

Matt: Yeah. I think that's a great point for anyone building something new, I think is that you. Don't don't go out and spend the money before you know that there's a market for what you're doing or that you even enjoy doing it. I think it's a huge mistake that a lot of people will make is they think they have to have all the equipment, or, you know, if they're building a software product, you have to build the, every feature that you think everyone will ever need.

But really what we should be doing is just putting out the easiest thing you can, seeing how it resonates, you know, iterating on that. And maybe, maybe it's something that's useful to the world and you wanna keep doing it, or maybe it's, and, or maybe you just enjoy doing it and, and maybe it's not. And so better to learn that quickly without spending a bunch of money, as opposed to, you know, I, I think that's, that's a good, that's a good advice for anyone across, like starting any, any journey regardless of sort of what medium it is On that, on that note.

You know, and, and you've kind of, sort of, you've kind of shared some, some tips already, but you know, if, to anyone out there thinking of starting YouTube channel, what would be your number one sort of piece of advice on, on, on what to do, how to get going, what they should think about.

Christina Armstrong: You know, I think the biggest number one piece of advice is just. Just make the video. Don't overthink it. It's gonna suck. Like, it's just a fact, like if you've never done video recording, if you've never produced videos, it's not going to be good. It's just, it's not going to be as good as it will be with practice.

How about that? It might be good, but it's gonna get better. So the videos that I'm producing now, Producing look at, look at me. I'm I make now versus the videos. When I first started, you know, I use a, an editing program when I'm, when I'm making my edits. And I think back to my first videos, I mean, I would literally spend hours editing these videos mostly because I didn't know what I was doing.

And I was also making them way overcomplicated. I was adding these overlays. I was adding these sound effects and all this stuff. I just recorded a video yesterday and edited it in like 10 minutes, because like there's, so people don't really, I've what I've found from my audience. People don't care about the overlays.

They don't care. They don't want the background music, my folks don't. So I'm like I was doing. All of that work and there was no value added. So I, if I get super focused on the content with YouTube, especially I think more so than, you know, maybe five years ago, five years ago, I would say YouTube was a lot for entertainment.

Right. But I even myself, I go to YouTube to figure out how to do something. Like I just bought a bike. How do I put this together? Let me look for a YouTube video because someone else has bought this bike and someone else probably has a video on putting this together. So get to the point, like don't, you know, people don't wanna watch a novel, but like figure out almost like a business.

Right? What is your ideal client? What is your ideal? Viewer, like, what do they want? What would they need and make stuff for them? There are, you know, six, 7 billion people in the world. And I'm really fortunate that so far about 1900 people have liked my have resonated with my videos enough to subscribe to my channel.

Now 1900 for me is like, Oh, my gosh that I didn't know, there were more than like maybe 50 other people that would be interested in this. So, you know, 1900 and growing it's it's, that is for me validation that at least 1900 people are being impacted in some way, by the things that I've done. And that's really, for me, super valuable.

It's very fulfilling for me. That's worth more than money for me, especially from YouTube, either the 30 cents or whatever that they give you for your views. Like it's, it's, for me, it's not about monetizing and anything like that. It's literally it's a form of giving back to other people and so much of giving comes back to you.

So I really hope, you know, I, if I have the chance to monetize, I honestly don't know if I ever will. Because now that's a whole other layer of things that I have to do and you get to file taxes on all that. And it's like, I don't know, like maybe, maybe not, but that, yeah, so that that's, you know, there's, there's a lot of little negative advice in there, but really the biggest one is to just get started, do something PI you know, pay attention to, to what you like doing.

Pay attention to you know what what's working. What's not working. There's some tools out there like SEO tools that can help you get in front of people. And those things are helpful, but you know, don't, don't overdo it and sometimes less is more.

Matt: Yeah. And I think I really liked your point too about really know who your audience is. And that's something I talked with Michael from UHY actually, they just changed the name of the company it's escaping me, but on this episode two, which is basically, you know, the biggest mistake he.

Feels like he made and, and a lot of founders make when they're starting a, a, a tech or, you know, a software product is that they want it to be everything to everyone. Which, you know, there's, you know, however many billion, 7 billion people in the world, and you can't make a product that everyone likes.

So just focus on the people who really, really want what you're building and just build it for them and only think about them. And I think, you know, that's great advice from creating content to creating software products into, to anything else. So,

Christina Armstrong: Yeah, and talk and talking about productivity, you know, productivity is so vast. And so I'm really kind of laser focused on GTD. It's a very small sec of productivity, but there's a fair amount of people out there that are using it. So it's, it's a neat, it's a niche enough market that I'm gonna get the attention that for, for people and it'll be value added.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. And so, so yeah, so you're, you're working on this, on the side. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, you're balancing full-time job, full-time parent and side project. How do, how do you make it happen? Like how do you know what's, what's your, what's your day look like? What is your, how do you sort of manage your energy for doing all those things all at once?

You know, how does it work?

Christina Armstrong: You know, I practice what I preach, so GTD for sure. I would not be able to do this without GTT. So it, it helps me to be present to be focused. I also find that it helps me to. Kind of be honest about what I can do versus what I can't do. So I might have grand ideas to, you know, oh, I wanna make, you know, a video every week or I wanna make a video every month.

You know, I, like I said mentioned earlier, I had to scale back on making videos because I went from working from home when it was a lot easier for me to kind of squeeze videos and, and do that to working back, you know, on site. Had to shift some stuff. And then when I added on the the coaching aspect had to shift some stuff.

So I, I, I'm really honest about what I can do, what I can't do. I'm honest with people around me about what I can do, and that includes my daughter. So. You know, we live in Santa Cruz and she, we just moved here at the end of March and she loves, I dunno if you've been in Santa Cruz, but there's the boardwalk here and all the rides and such and EV literally every day, mom, can we go to the rides?

Like she asked to be like an hour ago. I was like, girl, they're not open yet. But you know, I, I. I know every single time, every weekend she is going to ask me to go to the boardwalk. So I need to make sure that I can create space on my calendar, that I'm not, overcommitting giving her time away to, you know, oh, I'm gonna make a video.

Right. And I've, I've, I've talked about that on my channel. Like I, the, the people that watch my videos are strangers. I don't get paid for that. And like pleasing strangers is not really high on my list of priorities. So my relationship with my daughter though, is very important to me. So with GTD, that's the kind of stuff that it helps you to think about, you know, of all the stuff that you could be doing, what is going to get you closer to vision, mission, purpose, like, okay.

If I have a vision of having a certain type of relationship with my kid, making memories of going to the boardwalk every Saturday, and she always gets her face painted for. She's got expensive taste. She always wants the like $30 face. Paint's like, you can't get the $10 one. You don't want the $5 one. No, she wants the 31, but why? Because that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go the boardwalk. You're gonna your face painted.

Matt: Oh, my gosh. I'm jealous.

Christina Armstrong: Not right now. See right now. No, after my call. Yes. Viv.

Matt: we're we're all. We're almost done. We'll get you to the boardwalk soon.

Christina Armstrong: But, but that's really a lot of how I, how I do it. It's, it's keeping perspective using GTD not overcommitting myself using GTD. And, and then just, you know, when I'm doing something I'm, I'm fully present and I'm all in for as long as I'm able to be, and I'm really thoughtful about. Also feeding into myself.

So my, my kiddo goes to see her dad on every other weekend. And so those are my recharge weekends. That's my time. So I'm thoughtful about giving my time to other people like, oh, I wanna hang out with my friends. I'm an introvert. So hanging out with other people is not necessarily a recharging activity for me.

You know, maybe, maybe a phone call or something like that, but in general, it's you. Rest laying on the couch, I'm into true crime. So I watch investigation discovery all the time. So, you know, do a Sodoku puzzle and watch investigation discovery. And that's my recharging time. So it's just knowing what I need for myself.

And just holistically being able to, to do all of that is what really makes a huge difference for me.

Matt: Gotcha. Great. Yeah. And, and I remember I we collaborated on the blog post a little while back and I remember sent, I sent you an email asking if you, if you wanna do it and you sent a very, it's a great email. And, and I, I thought a lot about it where you, you say basically like, yes, that sounds great.

I can get to it in three months cause I have all these other things going on. And, and that, that transparency is really useful as someone sort of, you know, I'm asking something of you and, and to be able to just say, you know, I can't devote, I can't put my energy into that now, but I can in a few months and, and just that, you know, being, be able to be up upfront with someone makes it, you know, it's like, okay, that makes sense.

Like, I get that rather than what a lot of people would do, which is just say, yeah, I'll do that. And then they ignore it and they ignore it and they ignore it and then they'd finally do it, you know, three months later. Anyway. So

Christina Armstrong: or even worse they say yes. And then they give you kind. Below their best work. Right? So like, oh my gosh. I said, I would, I would do this for Matt. I need to stay up until midnight, getting it done. No, no, I just that's. And I understand why people do that, cuz it's really hard to, to say no, but I have found that saying yes, on your terms, like you probably didn't take that as a no.

Right? You took that as like a yes. Just not right now. Right? So it's not like, no, Matt, sorry. I can't do that. It's like, yeah, I can totally do that. But like right now is not a good time for me, but here's when it'll be a good time and then we circle back and then we got it done.

Matt: Yeah, I think, yeah, it's very, it was very clear. It's very transparent. And that to me is just, it's, it's infinitely better than getting that. Yes. And then, you know, being ignored, little quality work. So I, I think about that a lot. It's it's just a great way to sort of interact with people and, and, and sort of make sure that everyone has the same expectations.

Cool. Well, I don't wanna keep you guys from the, or you all from the boardwalk any longer. Just a couple more questions. One is you know, what should I, anything I should have asked you that I didn't ask you? Any, any other things that you, you you wanted to share?

Christina Armstrong: Mm, just the, the one thing that I'll I'll mention, and this is something I've mentioned on my YouTube channel before, is the, the great thing about not necessarily being so attached to the outcome of this project is that I could decide tomorrow, you know, what. Nevermind. I'm kind of done with that. I'm gonna put, it was fun, you know, I'm gonna put it to the side.

And it's not attached to my, my ability to eat. It's not attached to my ability to put a roof over my head, but I think there, there comes a point where, you know, when you're working on something new and fun and exciting, it stays fun and exciting for a while. But sometimes once it starts to become attached to I'm doing this because I have to some of that fun.

Fun kind of fades from it a little bit. So I, I have found for me that having something where you do it for fun, trying something new, if that's a hobby or an activity or something like that, and you can do it for fun and not always have it being attached to monetization of some sort can be really exciting and just an exciting way to go through life.

So I, I don't see myself completely dropping my YouTube channel, but. You know, who knows if YouTube's gonna be relevant in five years too, frankly, with the way technology's moving, but it's, it's been fun and it's been exciting. And I think that for folks that are thinking about trying something new, it doesn't mean that it's you gotta do it for the rest of your life.

You know, you could try it and then decide, no, it was fun. I did that for a little while and now I'm onto something, something else, something new.

Matt: Yeah, I think that that's great advice. I think it's like knowing when to knowing when to hold, 'em knowing when to fold 'em sometimes it's not working for you. It's not working, you know, generally. And so there's no harm in, in saying, okay, let's find the next, next project to work on or go back to the day job for a little while and then, and take a break.

Awesome. Well, thank you very much. Final, final question. How can people find you? What's how do they find the YouTube channel? How do they find you? I know that you're, you're avoiding social media, so how can they get in touch with you if they have any questions about GTD or, or wanna wanna chat?

Christina Armstrong: Yeah, so a couple different areas. So my YouTube channel is just organizing higher. H I G H E R higher like higher ed. I think about, I've been thinking about a name change, but for now, just leave it. I email address organizinghigher@gmail.com. My coaching with GTD focus is just through, through them. So we could go to GTDfocus.com to learn more about. One on one GTD coaching. My Instagram page is still up. I haven't deleted it. I just haven't added any new content in maybe like 10 months or so, but there's still some good content on there that might be helpful. And you can chat with folks in the comments, but really my YouTube channels gonna be the place to find my, my newest content.

Matt: Awesome. Well, thank you again for your time. It was great chatting. It was great. Learning more about the ins and outs of, of starting a YouTube channel. And yeah, enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the boardwalk and, and hope you you'll have a good time down there on the, on the rides.

Christina Armstrong: Yes, thanks so much for having me, Matt, I really appreciated it. Thank you.

Matt: Talk, talk to you soon.

Christina Armstrong: All right, bye.

Matt: So that's it for this week's episode. Special thanks to Christina for joining us.