Christina: My name is Christina Crook and I am the author of the joy of missing out. I want to welcome you to the Jomo cast, a brand new podcast for founders and creators seeking joy in a digital age.

Jomo is the joy of missing out on the right things. Life taking things like toxic hustle, comparison, disconnection, and digital drain in order to make space for life giving commitments that bring us peace, love, meaning, and joy.

JOMO is a movement born out of our extreme attachment to the online space and an effort to reassess our relationship with it. But what about when your work life is inextricable not only from a screen, but also from social media? It can be a tricky balance, but one that my guest, Aaron Reynolds, meets with clearheaded experimentalism that has resulted in a number of practical shifts in his life, large and small, and much wisdom for us to learn from.

 Aaron states that his mission in life is “to make social media less of a hellscape, by making it more fun and playful.” He runs a number of wildly successful social media accounts, the primary one of which is called Effin' Birds. If you haven’t checked it out yet, do yourself a favor and take a joy break after this episode to go skim his content. 

 Our 2019 interview took place in my home office and feels like a meeting of friends, because it was. Aaron and I admire each other’s work and gain a lot from each other’s expertise. I hope you enjoy my interview with the creator of Effin’ Birds - the one, the only, Aaron Reynolds.

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I am very excited to introduce you to my friend, Aaron Reynolds. Aaron is a person who describes himself as very online. He runs a number of wildly successful social media accounts, the primary one of which is called Effin' Birds. It basically is what it sounds like, historic illustrations [00:01:00] of birds, truly beautiful illustrations with hilarious phrases that Aaron has created.

And, Aaron's mission in life, which I just love, is to make social media in his own words, less of a hellscape, making social media more fun and playful. We're all spending a lot of time in those spaces and Aaron's working hard to make it a more joyful space. Aaron's someone I met at Fireside Conference, an incredible tech conference, uh, where there's no technology present.

It's actually at a summer camp and it's a completely unplugged. And Aaron started subscribing to my work and following along and finding that, uh, the Jomo quests and messages I was sending him were really having a positive impact on his life. Aaron is maybe one of the most unexpected Jomo advocates, but he is, he's a patron of this work.

He has bought into the Jomo message and tries to employ as much of that as possible, [00:02:00] even with the incredible technology demands on his life. So if you're someone who describes themselves as very online that your work demands you to be in that space, I think you'll learn a lot from Aaron's story. Hope you enjoy it.

I'm talking to Aaron Reynolds, Aaron Reynolds is a jack of all trades, such an interesting individual. We're going to talk about all the things, but really the reason why I wanted to have this conversation with Aaron is because he is someone who describes himself as very online. 

Aaron: Yes, very online. I've been trying to be less online while still being online enough to do the things that I need to do.

Right. So like that's hard. That's what that is. 

Christina: Yeah. So, okay. I wanted to start off today by, um, finding out if there's one thing people wouldn't know about you, if they followed you on the internet. 

Aaron: I think that, um, I spend a lot more time stressing out about things, then it, then I present, you know, [00:03:00] and I, I do that on purpose.

Like I want to present like a very, one of my goals with social media is to try to make social media more fun, less stressful. And so if I am presenting a picture of me being stressed out about what I'm doing, it's like, no, no, no, it's not going to work out. And so, and actually the thing is my stress level has gone way down over the last, uh, four or five months, and I've done that. Like I've had to take a lot of steps to make that happen, but, um, I am, everything is a lot less off the cuff and a lot more thought through and a lot more planned than it appears. It has to have the appearance of being like effortless and fun, but there's like a lot of work that goes into everything.

And so I like, I, like two days of my week are me sitting down and writing jokes, like, eight hour day of, of doing that. And that's like, and you know, and for, for something that's supposed to look like, it was a reaction in the moment and tossed off [00:04:00] the fact that I'm putting 16 hours of, you know, people. 

Christina: They don't know. 

Aaron: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 

Christina: Yeah. So you don't want them to know, and that's a part of the brand and that's part of what you're doing, but. Because you've been at this for some time now you're able to be in that place of sort of less anxiety and more confidence. 

Aaron: Yes. A lot of it was figuring out how all this stuff would work.

Um, we were just talking about how, uh, what scheduling tools I use. And before I was using those, I was doing a lot more stuff manually. And before I figured out a, um, a strategy for scheduling, it was a lot more shotgun approach. It was me. Uh, cause I, I, I very effectively use reruns, you know, because the thing about, especially about Twitter is if you didn't see it in the moment it went away, unless it, unless it was incredibly popular.

Christina: Right. 

Aaron: And so the idea that I would make a joke one time and it would then be gone forever [00:05:00] is very silly.

Christina: It's 16 hour days of writing people! 

Aaron: Exactly, exactly. And so what I realized early on in one of the projects I was doing was I burned through my content four or five times faster than I needed to, you know? And so the thing, the thing about Effin' Birds is it is the, it's all the lessons I learned on all the other projects.

And so I've been like, what's the right word, I've I've conserved my mental energies more with it because I had a good plan about how it was going to go when I, when I started it. 

Christina: Okay. Let's rewind. Okay. Like a couple of years to swear track. Was that the first? 

Aaron: No. Um, so the thing is I've done a great many things and many of them are awful.

Uh, the first one that hit was a thing called Bat Labels, and all it is is screenshots of the sixties Batman series that are, that have like, uh, [00:06:00] one of the jokes in that series is that everything has a big label on it and the label is not necessarily, um, what's the right word. Uh, not necessarily descriptive.

It's there to sort of. I have to, it's hard to just not go all the way into the weeds on this, but the guy who created the series and who wrote the, like the, a lot of the episodes, uh, Lorenzo Semple Jr. raged against authority, figures and signs and labels are some of the authority figures he raged against.

So, um, so the show is filled with like absolutely nonsensical... 

Christina: So explain to people what we're talking about, which Batman? 

Aaron: 1960s, Batman, Adam West. Okay. Yeah. The greatest Batman. 

Christina: The greatest Batman, it's really true. 

Aaron: Bat Labels uh, was a project while I was sick. Cause I was trying not to lose my mind and I, I started cataloging all the labels because I thought they were really funny and I was posting them to my personal Twitter account.

And a couple of my friends said, Aaron, like we realized you're going through some stuff right now. And just enough with the Batman. And [00:07:00] I was like, oh, screw these people. I'm just giving it its own account. You know? And so that was, uh, proved to be, uh, a great idea because it has, uh, like 50,000 followers today.

There was a day where it blew up. And I, you know, I wasn't expecting that it would in that way, but, um, I got so many notifications that day that a screw vibrated loose in my watch band on my watch fell off. So it was, uh, yeah. Uh, and so like it just, um, it got to the right person. I actually tracked who retweeted it to be seen by who to be seen by who, but it sort of went up this chain from, um, a guy I know in the UK who, I don't even remember how we ended up following each other on Twitter, but I knew him from some other, like from some joke he made at one point that I thought was funny that I, that I saw and I followed him.

Um, he retweeted it and then, um, uh, a woman from the [00:08:00] planetary society. Retweeted it. And then Peter Seagal of NPR saw it and retweeted it. He actually said, um, uh, that never before, had he been so excited to follow a Twitter account, which was great. Um, and then it just like, it just sort of like started going up this chain of like, of people.

And it was funny because it taught me the, the technique of watching for the popular people in your audience and watching for what they like and making sure that you have content that they will like when they are likely to see it, which sounds like, I mean, it sounds like stalking, cause it kind of, it kind of is.

But if, if Wil Wheaton is following you with millions of followers and you can give him a thing that delights him, that he will then share with a million followers, it's like, well, you're foolish to not right. You know, to not take advantage of that. 

Christina: And bat Labels there was no business plan behind Bat Labels. 

Aaron: This was me trying not to lose my mind.

Christina: So yeah. [00:09:00] So what did it become? 

Aaron: Well, it ended up, um, I, I posted at one point I started thinking and actually at one point I got some pressure from, from my wife, which was, you're spending a lot of time on this. How does this benefit us? And that's a good and important question, you know, like you, can't just, you can't devote like full-time job hours to something and not have any thing come back from it. I mean, even if that thing that comes back from it is joy, that's great. But you know, at some point it became very like, okay, I'm going through the, like, this is a functional thing. I have to get schedules. I have to, you know, I have to be smart about it. And, um, uh, and so I thought about like, how do you, how do you monetize this in a, not scummy way?

In a way that, uh, Warner brothers and DC comics will not object to, you know, um, I mean that is because you're playing in somebody else's playground. Right. And, um, uh, one day I posted a [00:10:00] picture of the Penguin surrounded by his henchmen, and they're all wearing these black turtlenecks that have the word henchmen sewn on them in white felt letters.

Christina: And I remember, yeah. 

Aaron: Right. And so many people tweeted. I would buy a shirt of that. And so I had a friend of mine who's in, who's a great lettering artist, do a, not a copy of what was there, but like a beautiful hand lettered, looks like they're cut out from felt, you know, uh, lettering of henchmen. And, um, I, I asked Twitter who should make these shirts, and everybody immediately brought up a company called Cotton Bureau, which is great.

They kind of do. It's like Kickstarter-esque. The idea is you're selling for two weeks and at the end of the two weeks, they produce that many shirts. They're not, they're not like on demand shirts. They're proper screen printing, really nice high quality stuff. And it was funny because before I could reach out to Cotton Bureau, Cotton Bureau had seen that [00:11:00] they were in the conversation and reached out to me.

And, um, we started a two week campaign and I sold five times as many shirts as I had hoped to sell in the first like hour. And so, and so, you know, from there, everything that I've worked on has been like, how do I make this more something that I created, you know, and, um, less reliant on somebody else's stuff.

And like, when you look at Effin' Birds, Effin' Birds is me addressing every pain point of previous projects. Um, Swear Track, which I, I very much love, um, is all animated gifs. And do you know how much of a pain those things are to make? Like they are, it's a nightmarish old file format. That is not good. And yet it is what I have to make over and over and over again.

[00:12:00] And like, it was like, well, okay, what can I do that will have the same kind of impact is that that doesn't have the technical steps that I don't have intellectual property conflicts because I either like owner control the rights to what I'm doing. Right. You know? And so that was, there was this giant list. Like I had a huge list of here are all my pain points from all the projects so far, how do I solve all of those? And I put every one of those solutions into building Effin' Birds. So I built it backwards. I built it, um, from like, what does, what does success look like for the other things? What made them successful?

Great. Let's put those things in there. What do I hate about those things? Hates it too strong, a word, what is a pain for me about those things and, and how do I take those out of it? And so it was really like, it was designed in a very like, um, I almost want to say it was like a, a mercenary kind of project.

Like, it was like, well, what is a way that I can do this and make money at it, but you know, like, 

Christina: But that's just strategic. That's just, right. Creating a sustainable [00:13:00] life. 

Aaron: It feels like, it feels like, oh, I didn't make this project for the joy of it. And I did make it for the joy of it, but I also did it too, as like, as a job, you know. 

Christina: I think I had this sort of, I feel like a revelation this fall, where I realized if I am a responsible artist, I get to continue being one.

Aaron: Right, 

Christina: Right. In terms of creating a sustainable income at what you do and what brings to your own life and serves people. And so explain to people what Effin' Birds is. 

Aaron: So it's, um, a beautiful vintage wood cuts of beautiful, um, beautiful vintage woodcuts of birds with, um, my personal feelings attached to them.

So it'll be a, there's this duck and the duck does not look pleased to be there and in, uh, uh, a lovely script that matches the style of the woodcut of the duck. It says, I bet this problem would go away if we had more fucking meetings. And, [00:14:00] and so that, um, I sell a lot of coffee mugs with that on it. Uh, Lovely lovely person who works at Volvo sent me a picture from a meeting at Volvo headquarters where that mug is on the table, the greatest.

Uh, so that's like that's kinda of Effin' Birds in a nutshell, it is how am I feeling about things and pairing it up with a beautiful, you know, bird artwork. And I mean, it's, it's evolved into like, um, there are it's, it's a store and there are mugs and there are decks of playing cards and there are, um, I'm very, I, I love playing cards, so it was, uh, like a dream come true to make a deck of playing cards, um, and like pins and all that kinds of good stuff.

Yeah. 

Christina: Okay. So how much would you say technology dominates your life? 

Aaron: Oh, a lot. Like, um, I. We had the, we actually played the screen time comparison game, uh, the other day on our phones [00:15:00] and, uh, uh, my family and me, my three boys and my wife. And for the record, I did not have the highest screen time in the family.

Though, it was only counting screen time on my phone and not on the computer. Right. So, you know, that's not fair cause there's, you know, those, the eight hour days of writing are on the computer. So probably inflate the number by 16 hours. It's one of those things where I get up in the morning and I read all my replies.

Okay. Right. Yeah. And then I make scheduled time throughout the day for things. I try to keep an eye on the news and stuff like that, so that I'm able to react to how people are feeling in the world. Because one of the great things about having a deep queue of birds and Effin' Birds, is it again, they can feel like they're off the cuff and of the moment, because it was a feeling I had six weeks ago about something [00:16:00] that's relevant today.

It was scheduled for next week, but guess what? It's coming out today. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of like shuffling around the queue. And so when I talk about my stress level, my stress level gets higher as the queue gets lower. So tomorrow is a writing day for me, which means my queues have like only five or six things in them right now.

And I'm like, AHHH! You know, it's like, what am I going to, am I going to be able to, you know, am I going to be able to get through whatever happens today? Of course, I'm of course I'm going to be able to, but like, it's like, I feel like I'm going to be able to do a less good job of it if I don't have the content there.

Yeah. 

Christina: Preparing in advance. So obviously technology dominates a lot of your life. Is it working well for you?

Aaron: Yes, but I had to, like, I had to make some changes. Um, I, so actually one of the things I was thinking about it on the way here, uh, something I started doing, I just a few weeks ago is I stopped bringing my headphones with me places when I commute, because I [00:17:00] realized I don't spend enough time thinking, you know, I don't spend enough time just with myself and not some other external stimulus, uh, because every, every part of my commute was, uh, an audio book or a podcast or, uh, or music. And every part of me walking was was those things and, um, uh, you know, uh, put on a, like a podcast when getting in the shower or something like that.

And it's like, you know what? I realized, I need a little more space for my brain to breathe, you know, for, for a time where I'm not evaluating a second stimulus on top of what's happening around me. And, um, that has been really good. And I only realized that I needed it after forgetting my headphones one day and having a long, boring bus ride that turned out to be very productive.

You know, I kept, I kept [00:18:00] going back and writing things down, uh, during it. And I was like, wow, maybe I should just do this on purpose sometimes. And so that's been great and, and getting to a place where I don't. I mean, notifications are the devil. 

Christina: They are the devil. I concur as Aaron takes a sip of tea. 

Aaron: Um, notifications are the devil.

And I like, I work hard to, to have relevant ones, you know, because there are things that I would want to be notified that are beneficial to me to be notified of. And there are things that are, that are just not, and, um, even taking, and actually what I love about the revision to iOS is that you can start saying right from the notification screen, deliver this notification to me differently.

Right. There's one, uh, the one I started using all the time was deliver this silently because, um, I do want some breaking news notifications. Yeah. But I don't need them. The second they come out, they can [00:19:00] wait until I looked at my phone, you know? And so that has been, that has been a really great one, I think something like 75% of my notifications are delivered silently.

So there's a notification list that I'm not going to feel bad if I don't get all the way through and that, um, you know, it's. You know, it's, it's always a work in progress. You got to keep thinking about it. 

Christina: Well, and this is really why I started the podcast I'm launching the podcast is because every person has different, personal and professional demands.

There is no one size fits all answer to this problem of digital overwhelm. Like we, you are a person that's very online. All of the work that you do is in an online space, you're listening to podcasts, you can learn from podcasts, you can deliver better podcasts. You are watching other Twitter feeds that you can learn from them.

You're watching your own for the same reason. So the demands on you are completely different from, someone... 

Aaron: But, you know, I'll tell you something. Uh, there was a story that I laughed at that, uh, like a long time ago that I started to realize [00:20:00] was not funny. Um, that was actually very sensible and it was about how Prince doesn't didn't didn't listen to any music that wasn't his music.

Christina: Wow. 

Aaron: Right. And at first I was like, oh, that's so Prince, you know, you know, but then, then I was like, well, if he spends so much time creating music, does he care about other music? Does he have the bandwidth to care about other music? You know, like, and I'm not a person who's saying I don't listen to other podcasts and I don't follow other things on Twitter, but I make a real point of not venturing out into the Twitter timeline, except for every once in a while. I read my replies, but I am frequently a selfish Twitter user. Uh, and I can't use the, like the official Twitter app doesn't let you [00:21:00] do that. The official Twitter app tries to put your replies in with things that are popular and trending and stuff like that. And like, that makes me crazy. I ended up using, I use tweet bot, which I like, but there are lots of good Twitter apps out there and it just has a tab for your replies.

And there are days when I don't leave the reply tab. I'll read that because I do want to read all of those and hear how people are feeling and, you know, and hear what they want to say to me, but I can stay in there and just not venture out into the wider world of Twitter, because that place, if you are a person with, with empathy, it can eat you alive, you know, like it's.

Christina: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Especially when you're putting things out into the world on a regular basis, right. You're not just there to consume news. You're, they're actively creating and putting things out into the world. I did have a note here, cause you'd mentioned to me in advance of this conversation about how the official Twitter app is by design our "worst enemy."[00:22:00] 

And we are trying to again, engage more minimally. 

Aaron: And that's it, right? Because it is designed to keep you on Twitter longer. And I mean, that's, that makes sense to them from a business perspective, their, their metric of success is that people stayed on Twitter longer and engaged with Twitter more. And so when they want to show that to investors and when they want to show that to advertisers, you know, if the, if people are, if everybody's doing what I'm doing, that's bad for, for Twitter's bottom line, because how they measure success.

I, you know, I don't count as success for them. I don't think. 

Christina: And yet you're creating tons of content for them. I mean, you are someone that's very active in this space. You're just not doing it within the app itself. 

Aaron: That's exactly it. Right. I like, I have the official Twitter app on my phone. I use it to pin tweets.

Christina: Yeah. 

Aaron: Um, I use it. Uh, what's the other thing I use it for, if somebody puts me into a group direct message, I can't read those in a third party app. So every couple of days I go and look in my direct messages in the official app but [00:23:00] like, that's it.

Christina: So, I'm not sure how I came across this, but I noticed somewhere in one of your feeds that you made a decision a little while ago about how you're going to structure your work life. And you, I think posted a picture of something you were building in Lego with one of your kids. Do you know what I'm talking about?

There was a L it was, you were talking about a Lego project that had sort of sat dormant for a long time. 

Aaron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was actually, speaking of sixties Batman, it was the sixties bat cave, and I got it for Christmas 2017 and we finished building it shortly before Christmas, 2018. Um, and it was because it was in a box for seven or eight months half-completed because there just wasn't time.

And I, it was really funny when I evaluated all the pressures on my time and started thinking about like, you know, if I want to have a more normal [00:24:00] life. And I want to have good quality time with my kids and my wife and like, and, and see my friends, which has been a thing that has been very hard, um, because I worked so much, uh, that I needed to get back at least 20 or 30 hours a week that I was putting into stuff. 

Christina: That is a huge amount of time.

Aaron: That's a lot of time. And, and when I looked at. What I could give up to the tune of 20 or 30 hours, it was scrap a project entirely or don't make new things. Or, um, I did toy for awhile with the idea of taking projects in and out of reruns. You know, I'm only going to work on this one for the next two months and that one's going to go in reruns.

And then when I come back to that one, this one's going to go and reruns, and I've done that before, like when I need a break or when I, when I'm not feeling a thing. Cause that's a thing that happens. Um, although, you know what, I, there's a, there's a great benefit to working when you don't [00:25:00] feel it because sometimes you make your best stuff.

Sometimes you just have to say, you know what, it's working day, sit down and do your damn work. Right. But, um, I realized that the thing. Needed to go was my day job. And that was a terrifying realization, but it was a realization that, it like lined up with the fact that, you know, Effin' Birds is a reasonably profitable enterprise.

It, I mean, I have three employees. I have a, a web guy, a customer service guy and a shipping guy, um, uh, entirely because I don't want to do those three jobs, but because, it generates enough money to warrant that. Yeah, exactly. To warrant that and to have somebody do that as a full-time job, because I looked at it and I could, I could make more money.

I could make the shipping guy's money, but I would spend my day putting things in boxes. I'm like, oh, I don't want to do it. Sorry, Ryan. Sorry, Ryan. But that's your job. Not my job. Exactly. Thank you, Ryan. [00:26:00] Um, but you know, I. When I evaluated that. And then I looked at, um, I had the opportunity to write an Effin' Birds book, uh, which is coming in, uh, the fall, this coming fall, probably October.

Uh, yay. 

Christina: Perfect time for Christmas. 

Aaron: Perfect. The fact that it is positioned as a Christmas book is a lot of pressure on me. 

Christina: Don't you remember the book, Why Won't You Go The Fuck to Sleep or whatever? That was a great seller. 

Aaron: But, um, yes, I just need to, I need to get on that same train. Um, so yeah, I, I had that opportunity and it came with a like, I mean, not like it's not a million dollar advance, but like a good amount of money as an advance. And I realized I would have to spend the time to, to write the book. And I looked at what the time commitment of that was. And I just, I said, you know, this is an incompatible with me [00:27:00] also having a 40 hour day job and running these projects. And I did go to my employer at the time.

He was a great employer and I worked there for 11 years and, um, and I said, Hey, look, I have this opportunity to write this book. Uh, Is there a way that I can either work part-time for a while or take a leave of absence. And I, I got told that, um, I was going to have to make a choice between these things, and I think it really surprised them when two days later I quit.

Right. But I did, you know, and, and it was the right thing to do, but it was very stressful at the time because, you know, when you have a nice, steady well-paying job that has good benefits and a good stock plan and a good RSP, it's very hard to say goodbye to that and say, you know what, I'm just going to make all my money on Twitter.

That's like, oh, right.

Christina: That is a big, big step.

Aaron: Right? You're at the mercy of somebody else the whole time. And I mean, so one of the [00:28:00] things that I've been doing over the last six months is trying to make sure that I am as good at the social media that are not Twitter as I am at Twitter, because I do very well on Twitter and I don't do as well on Facebook or Instagram.

And so it's like, it's this uphill climb to get, when I look in, when I look in the Effin' Birds store and it tells me 90% of the sales came from Twitter, that is, that is like me going, no, no. How do I drive the other ones? And so, yeah. So as of yesterday I got to, just under for the last month, just under 50% of sales came from Twitter.

It's like, ha. And I did that without like destroying my own revenue. So it was like, yes, slowly, slowly, but surely you know.

Christina: So much learning. Oh my goodness. Okay. So you recently started to ration your creative time. Can we talk about that a little bit? I think we did actually talk. Yeah. 

Aaron: That's really those, those two days of writing are [00:29:00] like, so that I don't have to feel the pressure to be on all the time. And I don't have to feel the pressure of doing stuff any other day. If something comes to me on another day, out comes my phone, I write it in the note goes away. I stop thinking about it. Um, but those two days are our creative time, and it's, it's been good because there was, I'm trying to think of how long ago it was.

It was back before I quit my job. And I got to a point where I was so wound up all the time. Like, I felt like there was a huge amount of pressure inside my head, you know, like physical pressure. And I, I went to see Lawrence of Arabia in 70 millimeter because that's one of the few things that I will drop everything for, uh 70 millimeter Lawrence of Arabia, 70 millimeter 2001, A Space Odyssey, um, uh, Apocalypse Now, those are, you got a film print of Apocalypse Now, I'm coming to your theater. Uh, but, uh, I, so I went to Lawrence of Arabia and for three hours, [00:30:00] I sat and thought about nothing but Lawrence of Arabia. And when I came out, I felt so refreshed and I was like, wow, I clearly am screwing myself up. Because the other thing is, I, I could see my productivity going way down and it was harder and harder to do things the more stressed out I was about it. And so I really started compartmentalizing the time. It's like, Nope, this is, this is a, this is a job. This is a day that you work. These are your hours at that job. Do it. Don't take, don't take your work home with you, you know? I mean, it's hard when you work from home to not take your work home with you.

Um, but I was like, okay, I'm just going to put up some barriers and just like, and not because, otherwise I don't even have time to do the dishes, you know. 

Christina: For sure. So okay. So what are the days and what does it look like? Is the phone in the room? 

Aaron: The phone's in the room, because there will be, part of those days will also be some admin.

Those, and they're usually, they're usually Monday, Tuesday, this week, they're Tuesday, Wednesday, [00:31:00] but I put them back to back because I feel like I also get more accomplished the second day, because the first day I sort of like get into gear and the second day I, I can just sort of like vroom through things.

And, um, like there've been days, there was a day, two weeks ago. Where I made almost three weeks of content. Wow. And I was like, how did that happen? Like what a great day that was? Can I do that again tomorrow? No, but you know what? I was like, Hey, you know what? I deserve an extra day off this week. And I took one because I could.

Um, but like I do some, those days are days that like, um, uh, Nick who runs the online store for Effin' Birds will pester me for things, which is his job. You know, he will say, We need some new designs for new merchandise for the store. At which point I have to go and figure out what was popular over the last few months, and then start adapting it to something that can go on a tote bag or [00:32:00] a mug.

And, and so I, I put that in with the, the creative days, because there will be days where I struggle to write jokes. And if I'm struggling to write a joke, I can just go back and look at the old ones. Yeah. And work with them and make a thing out of them. And I was still productive and I still got stuff done and I don't have to feel bad or guilty or whatever else.

Christina: They're your creative days. It's not, you're not writing specifically, writing's the focus. 

Aaron: Writing's the focus, and if I'm not getting writing done, then I'll get something else done. 

Christina: Who designs for you? 

Aaron: Um, so the thing is the, the birds themselves are almost all by two different artists, uh, uh, Thomas Buick who made a set of books called a history of British birds in the 1800's..

They're actually very much worth reading because he is so curmudgeonly and he hates things like electricity. So it's great to like, I think he would [00:33:00] fly, that's the thing is, I actually read some of his work. I was like, man, he would be into this. Um, so the, uh, Thomas Buick and, uh, John James Audubon, uh, it was really funny.

I started with the Buick images and I got approached by the Audubon society, and they asked if I would consider using them. I was like, it's like, oh, you know, like, would you guys be okay with that. And they're like, well, first of all, they're in the public domain. We don't have to be okay with it. Oh, well, that's nice.

But then we came to a nice little, like, you know, um, uh, there's uh, there's the John James Audubon Center in Mill Grove where they keep like the, the, the birds of America, like the big elephant folio of it. And like it's devoted to, you know, his, like his life and career and all that kind of stuff. And plus it's like a bird sanctuary and all sorts of other stuff.

So, um, There's a bunch of merchandise on the site that have Audubon birds on them. And so like, uh, a very large amount of the proceeds of those. Just go to the John James Audubon Society. 

Christina: The actual words then though, I mean, like the actual designs. [00:34:00] 

Aaron: I like, I spent a lot of time. Uh, I can, I can get into trouble browsing typefaces. Because I'll be like, oh, I'll put this one in the car and this one in the cart and this one in the cart, I gotta like, it's like, Hmm.

I got to stick with indie designers. I can't afford these big name typefaces. Although the one that I use, that's called Elegy, that's on the, um, on the Audubon ones. That was an expensive, expensive font, but it was worth it because it's beautiful and it's an engraver style font, and it's the right thing. But I actually, I buy a lot of fonts from a guy named Tom Chalky.

Who's a, this he's a guy in the UK who, uh, he has two different services. He has a, um, you know, buy this font, you know, for, for very reasonable prices, um, you buy a small license or then you buy a big license, if you're going to do, like, I keep upgrading my licenses to big licenses with him. Um, but he also has a subscription service.

You pay this much per month or this much per year. And every time I have a new thing, you just get it [00:35:00] right. It's like, you know what? I was like, I was about six months into using Tom Chalky stuff. And I was like, Nope, the subscription let's do this. 

Christina: That's smart. 

Aaron: Support the stuff you like to, you know? 

Christina: Um, recently Aaron and I had a conversation about mindfulness and I am by no means, a mindfulness expert, but I care very much about mindfulness. And I think that with all the work I'm doing with Jomo, it really is about a mindful approach to how we consume and also produce content digitally. Um, but Ellen Langer is actually one of the sort of, you know, leading thinkers in the field of mindfulness.

And I came across this book in the Harvard business review, it's Harvard Business Review Press. The book is called Emotional Intelligence and Its Mindfulness. But there's just a quote from Ellen Langer that I thought we could just discuss briefly. So the question, so she's in an interview with a woman named Alison Beard and Alison Beard asks, how has technology changed our ability to be mindful?

Is it a help or a hindrance? And Ellen's response is [00:36:00] "Again, one can bring mindfulness to anything. We've studied multitasking and found that, if you're open and keep the boundaries loose, it can be an advantage." Which I found actually very surprising. "The information from one thing can help you with another. I think what we should do is learn from the way technology is fun and compelling and build that into our work." 

Sort of reflecting on what you were saying before about putting quite clear, you know, lines and compartments around our creative work, I just wondered what you thought of that, because I think in my own life, that that can be true, right.

When I do connects to another idea, absolutely, and I feel like sometimes I'm overwhelmed by all the connections because everything is interconnected. Um, and yet we need those boundaries. What would you say to that?

Aaron: I think the thing is. I'm certainly not, I'm not an enemy of technology when it comes to this stuff because it's, it's how [00:37:00] we use it.

It's just like, you know, when I was growing up, the battle was, uh, first over how much television children watch, and then it was over the headphones for my walkman. And I mean, as a kid, I spent a lot of time with the headphones in, but I listened to a lot of great music and I came out fine and I don't think it, like, I don't think it made me less conscious of my surroundings, but I have to take that into account when I think of talking to my own kids about when they have their headphones in, or when they're watching a video on YouTube or, or playing a game, you know, it's like, What's my perception of this versus how I was feeling when I was doing this 30 years ago. And so it's hard to kind of cast myself back into it and, and, and get to that place.

But [00:38:00] I have to not have the knee jerk reaction of, because it is screen time, it is bad, you know. If not for screen time, I would not have reconnected with someone who was, you know, one of my greatest friends growing up, who we are, not in a place where we can visit each other or see each other with any regularity.

But we went from a decade of having no contact, to having plenty of contact and it's been great to have them back in my life and it's, you know what, so what it's through a piece of glass and plastic and it doesn't matter, you know? And so I think that that's, that's really it, you know, we have to, it is what we make of it.

Right? All these things are what we make of it. And, you know, I, I have a, um, [00:39:00] 20 odd years, building a, a movie theater in my house. Like over time, I just keep every once in a while I buy a piece or replace a piece or make it better in some way. And, uh, like people who know me from high school will have seen the first steps of my home theater.

Um, I guess almost 30 years, 25 years, I've been building the theater and, uh, I could, if I wanted to like spend my whole life in that room, you know, and I don't. I feel like I would actually like to use it more than I, than I get to, and that's just cause I'm a busy person, but like you just got to find your balance and you gotta find, you gotta find your benefits, right.

Because if you are, if you are scrolling Twitter and getting nothing from it, then why are you doing it? You know? And if you are um having an argument with someone online and getting nothing from it. Why are you doing it? [00:40:00] And if you are like anything right. Where's your benefit? What are you getting from it?

You know, and just evaluate it. I mean, there's like Marie Kondo right now is, you know, does it spark joy? I mean, does it spark joy is great. What is the benefit of it? Yeah. Yeah. 

Christina: I kind of am joking in my head right now that I'd like to be the Marie Kondo of digital. Actually someone asked Marie Kondo to Marie Kondo their digital life because they realized, yeah, it helped a little bit with their space, but the thing they really needed help with was decluttering their mental, their mental life. And also just their digital space. Like there's, you know, all the backlog, all the stuff we have on a thousand hard drives, just taking up mental real estate, right?

Like half written cover letters and, you know, half-baked ideas and all the things that are just sitting there. Um, I really loved that idea. I, you, I'm going to wrap up with this. Um, you've been someone that's been really supportive, which I know surprised you, of [00:41:00] this whole idea of Jomo, you know, the conscious decision to, uh, disconnect and experience life offline.

Why do you think you're still curious about it? Or why do you think that it's important? 

Aaron: Well, I think we first met each other, um, when. Because were you at fireside for the all like the last three years. Yeah. 

Christina: I met you just after a talk that you gave. 

Aaron: Which was just when only Bat Labels was a thing.

Right. And I was not in a place where I felt like I needed what you were offering right yet, but I rapidly got to that place. And so it was really wonderful to have had the seed planted early enough that I could start recognizing when I really desperately needed to make changes. 

Christina: You have, we maybe could wrap up with this.

Um, you have one story about sort of just stopping everything and going and sitting under a [00:42:00] tree. Could you tell us that story? 

Aaron: So I really, one of my favorite things, um, uh, from, from your project has been rediscovering how much I like to get newsletters. Um, and it actually led to me subscribing to way more newsletters. And then of course unsubscribing from a lot of newsletters because you got to figure out, you know, what's, what's working for you, but, and by the way, having, uh, newsletters come in that have collected yesterday's news.

It's, I don't have to be like paying attention to it everywhere else. It's like, great. These were the most, the five important things that happened yesterday. Right? I'm on top of it. I'm good. That only took 10 minutes. Great. Um, but uh, one of your quests was, uh, in your, in your newsletter was to spend like the afternoon in the company of something green or something like that.

And I was like, I could go work under a tree. Let's go work under a tree. And I took my computer outside and I worked under a tree and I was like, oh, that was great. Well, I should just keep doing that. So I have a hammock in my [00:43:00] backyard now. It's great. 

Christina: I love it, Aaron. Thank you so much for being with me. We actually did this interview in my home office.

Aaron: Yeah. We'll talk about work-life balance and like putting up the barriers, but then more and more, we work where we live and it's, it's, it's real hard to strike that balance. It's even hard. It's hard for my family to strike that balance because, you know, if I, I mean, my kids are school age, so thankfully they go to school and I can work during that time.

But if I'm not done my work by three o'clock when people start coming home, it, it gets tough because I'm at home and I'm doing a thing that looks exactly like the person who's watching YouTube, you know, it's like, it's very hard to like, perception, right? Perception. 

Christina: Yes. A hundred percent. I think the beauty, I probably won't be doing that many more interviews in this space, but the thing I love about it is.

It is really, you know, you get to see my dishes in my sink and you get to see my [00:44:00] bookshelf, with all my husband's scifi fantasy novels. 

Aaron: I was gonna say, who reads all this Robert Jordan, over here? 

Christina: Um, but yeah, it's nice to pull back layers and remove some distance and sort of, 

Aaron: yeah, it's always better to do these things in person. I mean, The great thing about technology is you can have an interview with someone that you couldn't connect with in person, but when you can connect with them in person, it's so valuable.

Christina: Thanks for trekking across the city and being with me.