0:00:00Previously on Cortex. What I did and what I was kind of alluding to is this thing where I have spent a very
0:00:08significant part of January breaking down the entirety of
0:00:14How do I work? What are my systems around work? How do I use task management? How do I organize notes?
0:00:20Breaking down absolutely everything to nothing and
0:00:24starting over
0:00:27You've got the voice for that
0:00:29That was really good. You should look into that.
0:00:33I swear to god I would do voiceover work if I could.
0:00:35Would you?
0:00:36I really would. It seems great.
0:00:38Shall I try it as well?
0:00:39Yeah, you go ahead.
0:00:41Previously on Cortex.
0:00:43Mmm.
0:00:44Oh, I should maybe try it with the American accent? I think it works better with the American accent, right?
0:00:49Can you do it with an American accent?
0:00:50Shall I see? Let's see what happens.
0:00:52Previously on Cortex.
0:00:54No, that is terrible. That's not an American accent at all.
0:00:57Previously on cortex. This is getting worse. You need to abort Myke. I
0:01:01Just end up just moving further and further south down my American accent attempt
0:01:07Yeah, your first go was the best and your last go was the worst
0:01:11All right. Well, at least we know the two of us who do the voiceover work when it's time for the movie
0:01:15So yeah last time mm-hmm. You spoke a little bit about the fact that you had decided to
0:01:25Go bare bones with your task management
0:01:29Break everything down go to a new
0:01:33unmentioned location
0:01:36somewhere in England I suppose and
0:01:40Or I don't know. Maybe you went to the continent. Who knows I was in an undisclosed location in
0:01:47Finno Scandia that my wife sent me to
0:01:50Because you were
0:01:55She knows me. She knows me very well. She was like, "Hey buddy."
0:02:01"It's time to start making some money again." "You need to get out of the house and you
0:02:05need to reboot." So you were flown off to a faraway land and
0:02:13you broke everything down and you started over for your review of the year and you did
0:02:18it on pen and paper, which is very different to the usual grey way of iPads and the like
0:02:27that we believe in. So you decided to break it all down. And I wanted to kind of touch
0:02:32on this a little bit. When did you first realise that pen and paper was a good system to kind
0:02:39of do a re-tooling of your task management?
0:02:43Okay, Myke. We need to... we need to rewind all the way back to a childhood gray.
0:02:51A little gray from a long time ago. My father is a lawyer and he's always had around the house
0:02:59these legal pads ever since I was a little kid. And they have always been a thing that I would like sketch on
0:03:09and write on and always felt like an external thinking tool.
0:03:18Like, how do I think? I need to write something down.
0:03:21Ever since I was a little kid, this is always a thing that I have done.
0:03:25And throughout my life, as I have transitioned from various tools
0:03:31and different ways of working,
0:03:34I have always been aware that there is something that is just different about paper that is really helpful in some scenarios.
0:03:47And when I was a teacher, I ran my whole system entirely on paper because I found that that was actually the best tool to solve the problem that I was trying to solve at that time.
0:04:01And if for some reason I went back to being a teacher,
0:04:04I would almost certainly do the same thing again.
0:04:07That I would run that system on paper,
0:04:10because there are cases where paper is just better.
0:04:13Like having a clipboard with a bunch of sheets arranged in a particular way,
0:04:17sometimes you're never going to beat that.
0:04:19Not even with an iPad.
0:04:21But more importantly, there's two things that I did at the beginning of the year.
0:04:25It's breaking down the organization system and doing the review.
0:04:30These are slightly different tasks.
0:04:34So in doing a big review,
0:04:36when I say here that I am using paper,
0:04:39that is paper in quotation marks
0:04:42because I was actually using good notes on my iPad
0:04:46with paper templates.
0:04:49So I actually worked with Frank,
0:04:52a designer that you have worked with for Relay,
0:04:54who is fantastic.
0:04:56And I knew I was gonna be doing just a ton of this,
0:04:59thinking work for my seasonal review.
0:05:03And so I messaged Frank and I asked him to create for me
0:05:07a whole bunch of templates that were
0:05:11legal pad papers. So I had him
0:05:15essentially recreate from my
0:05:19childhood all of the possible paper templates
0:05:23a man could want. And so I was like, "Listen buddy,
0:05:27I'm gonna be doing a bunch of writing and a bunch of thinking. I'm gonna need some graph papers,
0:05:32I'm gonna need some yellow legal paper, I'm gonna need wide line, I'm gonna need narrow line,
0:05:37I'm going to need them in blue and green and pink. And he ended up creating for me just a fantastic
0:05:43set of these papers. Even added in a very extremely subtle soft paper texture,
0:05:50which was really nice. He's a professional, you know. He's very professional.
0:05:55These things were just great and this is a case where for thinking about stuff paper
0:06:02I find this this useful
0:06:04tool that's hard to
0:06:06In some sense, it's hard to say what's going on
0:06:09But it allows it allows me to kind of like write out and sketch out some ideas you have this this freeform
0:06:16Nist to it. It's like you're not constrained into a particular application
0:06:20And so when I was doing a bunch of the reviews and thinking about my workflow
0:06:24So it was really much a process of like, I'm just going to sit here in this undisclosed
0:06:28location in Finiscandia and I'm going to have this digital paper in front of me.
0:06:34All right, so okay, you lost me just a touch here.
0:06:38There was never actual paper.
0:06:40No, we'll get to the real paper, Myke.
0:06:42Don't worry, there's real paper.
0:06:43There is real paper.
0:06:44We're going to get to that in a minute, right?
0:06:45Okay, good, good.
0:06:46But I just want to, I want to specify like there's two different things here.
0:06:48Okay.
0:06:49I'm sitting down with the digital paper and I'm just kind of writing out and going through the seasonal review.
0:06:55The seasonal review has like a bunch of questions that I sort of ask myself and things that I'm thinking about.
0:07:00But I do really like having the digital paper for this stuff because I do like to keep a record of the previous reviews that I have done.
0:07:09And so I want to be able to kind of sometimes go back and see like what have I looked at in the past, like what has been on my mind.
0:07:15And so I do like to have a record of this stuff and
0:07:19there's an enormous amount of like sketching and other things that I'm doing that help with thinking through things
0:07:28so something else that I did was like I
0:07:31by hand
0:07:33recreated a little overview calendar for the entire year and I was using that to
0:07:38Roughly plan out like when are things going to happen in the year? What are the periods of the year where I'm going to be?
0:07:43busy, what are the periods where I'm not going to be busy, and this is a case where
0:07:49like doing it by hand even though in some ways it's like well that's
0:07:53ridiculous you could download a PDF that would have an overview calendar for the
0:07:56year and just fill that in. It's like yes that's true but there's something about
0:08:01doing it this way that is intentional that it it it slows you down and it
0:08:09focuses your mind very clearly on the task at hand. So I find this just a
0:08:16ridiculously useful and very valuable process to kind of like rethink
0:08:23absolutely everything about what I am doing. And in the process of doing this I
0:08:30realized that I wanted to rework my entire organization system which brings
0:08:38us to the actual physical paper, Myke. Are you happy? We get to the real paper at this
0:08:43point.
0:08:44I am very happy, but there's something that I want to go back to.
0:08:47Okay.
0:08:48Tumbling across "I want to redo my entire organizational system" is quite a revelation
0:08:54to have. I just, I feel like I just have to point to that. Like, how do you get there?
0:09:01Well...
0:09:02Like, that's not your run-of-the-mill, everyday kind of thought, which is like, I want to
0:09:06you do everything, especially as someone you really pay a lot of attention to this, like
0:09:12this is something that you've fiddled around with for an amount of time and had come to
0:09:16a place where you'd stuck to, right? So, you know, over this show we spoke about you moving
0:09:21to to-do, away from OmniFocus and back to OmniFocus because it gave you what you needed
0:09:26with the right trade-offs and that was where you had stayed and it really sounded like
0:09:30I'm there, I'm in it, GTD forever.
0:09:34I think there's an undercurrent of GTD not working that great for me in the show when I do talk about it sometimes.
0:09:40- Yep.
0:09:41- This to me fits into this question of, though I didn't have the word for it at the time,
0:09:46the year of
0:09:49redirection.
0:09:50- Mmm.
0:09:50- And so what's occurring here is as I was doing this big review and as I was spending a bunch of time
0:09:58concertedly focusing on how do I work. I was just thinking of a lot of the ways that in the previous year I had had
0:10:06frustrations or
0:10:08difficulties or like a lack of smoothness in a bunch of the ways that I work.
0:10:13And
0:10:16the thing that I was thinking about when I decided okay, I'm going to start over and
0:10:20build up.
0:10:22It is like I am still in this process now. I don't have a definitive answer for like what have I built up to?
0:10:28I'm still very much in the middle of thinking about all of this and working on this, but it doesn't necessarily mean
0:10:34that I'm building up to something that is
0:10:38entirely new and different from whatever it is that I used before.
0:10:43It's like we mentioned last time when we were discussing
0:10:47talking with another person forces you to think about your reasons for why are you doing a thing and
0:10:56starting over with
0:10:58like how am I going to arrange my work? This is a way of like, oh I've built up this castle
0:11:04but let me take it apart and let me
0:11:07examine all of the individual bricks and then say like, is this brick, should this brick be here?
0:11:13Should this thing be replaced? As we're building up to some kind of structure that we're going to live in, let's
0:11:19re-examine the decisions that we made. Because maybe some of these things, and I know for a fact some of these things are built on
0:11:25foundations that are years old at this point. It's like, did these assumptions still hold true?
0:11:30Is this still the best way to work for me now?
0:11:34Maybe.
0:11:35Maybe not.
0:11:37So that's what this, like, rebuilding the system is.
0:11:41It's a way to force a re-evaluation of all of the parts.
0:11:47And yeah, it's not something that I want to do very often.
0:11:50It's been a long, long time since I've done something this extreme.
0:11:55So yeah, it's just... that's what's occurring here.
0:12:00[BEEP]
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0:14:13Thanks to Ministry of Supply for keeping me cool, and thanks for supporting the show.
0:14:17Now let's talk about the paper.
0:14:19Okay, of course you want to know. He's obsessed with the paper, Myke. You're obsessed with the paper.
0:14:23I'm not even gonna ask you what pen and paper you were using.
0:14:27Like, physical stuff. Because I know it's only gonna upset me.
0:14:30I couldn't even tell you what I was using.
0:14:33This is why I didn't want to ask, because I figured you'd either say that or you'd tell me something that would just make me sad.
0:14:38Like, "Oh, what was in the hotel?"
0:14:40I mean, that is the answer.
0:14:43We went on a quest, I gave you pens, you know?
0:14:49Yeah but it's like dude, it was in some other location, you know?
0:14:53I was working with the tools that were available to me at the time, it was fine.
0:14:55Did you just pick up the iPad that was there as well, right?
0:14:59Just whatever iPad they had laying around.
0:15:01No, I brought my iPad Pro with me and I was working on those beautiful templates that
0:15:05Frank made me.
0:15:06But no, for the actual physical paper, I used what was available to me, Myke.
0:15:12I couldn't even tell you what it was besides it was a pen and they were index cards and
0:15:19pieces of paper.
0:15:20Okay.
0:15:21I'm sorry.
0:15:22It's okay.
0:15:23It's okay.
0:15:24I don't want to talk about it.
0:15:25Okay.
0:15:26That's fine.
0:15:27Let's just move on from that.
0:15:28I don't want to talk about it anymore.
0:15:29So at what point does actual paper have to come into this?
0:15:32You've clearly gotten to a point where like, "I know what I'll do.
0:15:34I'll get this digital paper.
0:15:35That will be better."
0:15:37But then you still ended up coming back to physical pen and paper again.
0:15:40Okay.
0:15:41So, again, the digital paper is about the overall review.
0:15:46And the one thing that falls out of this
0:15:49is rework the organization system as part of this process.
0:15:52Like there's many other things
0:15:53that fall out of the overall review,
0:15:55but this is just one of those things.
0:15:57Now, why am I using actual physical paper
0:16:01to try to rework the system?
0:16:03It's because, just like the digital paper
0:16:09kind of frees you from a bunch of the constraints,
0:16:14like you can sort of do whatever you want with it.
0:16:16When I'm working with physical paper,
0:16:19it's a similar thing of, like I'm trying to write down,
0:16:22what are the things that are on my mind?
0:16:23Like what are the things that I'm trying to work towards?
0:16:26And what I ended up doing is having a bunch of index cards
0:16:31and pieces of paper and just sort of,
0:16:33like what I'm trying to do is put the work in front of me
0:16:38so that I can see it all, right?
0:16:40That I can like look at everything all at once
0:16:43and think about how do I want to arrange this kind of thing.
0:16:47And though I am a man with many iPads,
0:16:52there are not enough iPads in the world
0:16:54and it's not convenient enough to be able to have like
0:16:57a table where there's seven iPads in front of me
0:17:00where I've written a bunch of things.
0:17:02Like with actual paper, you can really spread out
0:17:04and then try to move things around and like organize stuff
0:17:07and say, "Oh, does this go over here?"
0:17:08It's a way of thinking visually and thinking physically,
0:17:13like rearranging items and moving things.
0:17:17So this is the huge advantage of using actual
0:17:21physical paper for this kind of thing.
0:17:23I also think it's a big advantage that
0:17:27if you don't know what it is that you want to do,
0:17:31you can't answer the question,
0:17:35what tool is best for accomplishing this task?
0:17:40And so many of the times when we have discussed in the past
0:17:43task managers or similar tools,
0:17:46it becomes very much a question of
0:17:49like what are the features of this task manager?
0:17:53What can it do versus what other task managers can do?
0:17:56You know the joy of switching from one task manager
0:17:59to another is really a process of learning
0:18:03how the programmers of the task manager want you to arrange all of your things.
0:18:07Yep.
0:18:08And like, anytime you use any task manager,
0:18:12doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter how fantastic it is,
0:18:16there is some process of you need to mold your mind
0:18:21to the way the programmer thinks it is sensible to organize information.
0:18:26It's just fundamentally unavoidable.
0:18:29And that is also why I always say that there is an infinite market
0:18:32for task managers because everybody thinks in a slightly different way and everybody wants a slightly different set of features and
0:18:39the market can always accept another task manager for whom some
0:18:43portion of the audience will say "Oh that is perfect for me. It does this one thing in this way that is just right for my brain."
0:18:49So putting all of the work on paper is a way to
0:18:53avoid that. It's a way to try to think about how to organize stuff without feeling constrained by
0:19:01Things like ooh, does this task manager support start dates? How does this thing handle recurring items?
0:19:07It's like that that's down in the weeds that's down in the details and I'm trying to think about it
0:19:12From a much higher level like what is the thing that I'm working on? What am I trying to achieve here?
0:19:19So I'll just say at this point that I am in Todoist now, which is something I've been talking about for far too long
0:19:27Mm-hmm the process of moving the tasks was horrific
0:19:30I can only imagine. Because it has to be done manually. Of course. And there are
0:19:40things that I like about it and there are things that I don't like about it.
0:19:43Mm-hmm. One of my biggest things that I don't like is exactly that around
0:19:47something like recurring tasks. Mm-hmm. It has the functionality for them but
0:19:52doesn't really have the UI for it. Mm-hmm. You have to write it in in the language
0:19:57that it understands.
0:19:58Yeah, I've seen that.
0:20:00There are nuances to that language and everyone that I speak to that uses Todoist is like,
0:20:05once you learn the language, you're good, which I totally appreciate.
0:20:09And it is that language that I think will be the ultimate reason I stick with Todoist
0:20:15because the idea of natural language processing or not necessarily natural language, but being
0:20:22able to speak to the application is valuable for me.
0:20:27why I don't imagine ever moving away from FantasticOwl because I know how to type into
0:20:33FantasticOwl the appointment.
0:20:37And I love that.
0:20:40And Todoist has that feature.
0:20:42I'm still getting my head around it but it is I think what will keep me there because
0:20:47I am able to talk to Todoist and say to it I want to set this task at this date and I'm
0:20:55now using projects which I've never used before because it's really easy to add those because
0:21:00you just type them in. So in a way to try and see if categorizing this and I honestly
0:21:05I think the time tracking has helped me think about projects in my to do's and I'm trying
0:21:12to match those up and seeing what that looks like like giving things the same kind of names.
0:21:20I don't know what that's going to result in yet but I feel like that there could be something
0:21:23there that helps me kind of compartmentalize my work a little better.
0:21:29I'm still playing around with the automation.
0:21:31I've signed up for Zapier.
0:21:34I want to come back to that at some point in the future.
0:21:37Yeah, that's a big thing.
0:21:39That's a whole thing.
0:21:41But Zapier is a service like If This Then That, which allows you to connect web services
0:21:46together.
0:21:47is very powerful and a lot more powerful than if this than that more complicated,
0:21:53but more powerful and it can do some interesting things.
0:21:56So I'm still playing around with all of that and trying to work out
0:21:59how to do ist can and moving to Google Calendar and all of that stuff.
0:22:04That stuff is all still at play.
0:22:06But on a general day to day, so I have been running OmniFocus
0:22:10and to do ist in parallel to make sure that they're working the way that I expect.
0:22:14It's a huge thing to do.
0:22:16That is a fun phase in any transition.
0:22:19Like this is all the kind of stuff
0:22:20I'm trying to avoid with paper.
0:22:21It's like Jesus Christ, I don't want to think about this.
0:22:23But yeah, that is a horrible phase
0:22:25where you're running two task managers
0:22:27because you want to make sure
0:22:29that the one isn't missing things
0:22:31that is still in the other one.
0:22:33- 'Cause here's the thing,
0:22:34I have an incredible level of trust in Only Focus.
0:22:38Todoist has to win my trust.
0:22:40- Oh yeah, of course.
0:22:41- Right, and just in, you know,
0:22:43like even in the adding of tasks,
0:22:44I'd be like, has it really set that to be,
0:22:47do what I think it's set?
0:22:49Like I've asked it to do this every second Tuesday,
0:22:52does it understand what that is?
0:22:53And like when adding the tasks, I was checking them off
0:22:56and seeing what date it would come up next.
0:22:59So I'm still in that process
0:23:00and it's a disgusting process to be in,
0:23:03but it's kind of just the way that these things have to go
0:23:07because unfortunately there is no share.
0:23:10I really wish that a protocol like email existed for tasks.
0:23:14Keep dreaming buddy.
0:23:16- It's never gonna happen now
0:23:17'cause we're too far down the rabbit hole.
0:23:19Why would such a thing exist?
0:23:20It's too late now.
0:23:22But I really wish that something like that did exist.
0:23:24So we could move to do applications
0:23:26as easily as we could move email apps.
0:23:29Anyone that's listened to this show for long enough
0:23:31will know that we love to do.
0:23:33So I'm very interested in continuing this path of Todoist
0:23:39and I think that once I am used to it,
0:23:43it really will be the natural language engine
0:23:46that keeps me there more than anything else.
0:23:49That that has already, by far and away,
0:23:52been the most interesting part of it.
0:23:54So far, even more interesting than the automation,
0:23:57which was the thing in my brain as the reason.
0:23:59It was the kicker, and I think as time goes on
0:24:03and I integrate the automation,
0:24:05that will become a second pillar of why
0:24:07Todoist is superior for me, I hope.
0:24:10but me just being able to type in and also with using the Amazon Echo dictate tasks with
0:24:17this natural language engine I think will become the reason that I stick with it. But
0:24:23it's it's I'm still very much in the I wouldn't even call it honeymoon phase. Basically me
0:24:30and Todoist have moved in together and currently we're finding the things that annoy each other
0:24:36about each other. We are in that phase right now and we're currently just trying to find
0:24:41some common ground on some things.
0:24:43Oh Myke, I understand your pain here. I really, really do. Everything I'm doing is trying
0:24:52to avoid this for as long as possible before I do like a "which tools am I switching for"
0:24:58thing because it is such an enormous hassle. It is always a rejiggering your brain to thinking
0:25:05the way the other thing works. It is a process of regaining trust in another. It is no fun.
0:25:13It is no fun to do. It's a thing you want to do as rarely as possible.
0:25:18You're living in fear for a while. Yes, yeah. That is an excellent way to put
0:25:23it. It's like, what terribly important thing is
0:25:27not going to happen because I switched from OmniFocus to Todoist? What is it? Is it that
0:25:34I just forget to show up for something or do I forget to send in my tax return?
0:25:40What is it that it's going to make me do?
0:25:43Or I know I have things in my various to-do applications that are sometimes years out,
0:25:50like a "remind me in two years" kind of thing.
0:25:53It's like, it's really hard to make sure that you have all of those bases covered.
0:25:59Luckily, my total amount of items is about 50 items.
0:26:04As we've spoken before, I try and run my to-do manager
0:26:09as lean as possible, so that is good.
0:26:12I can only imagine for you it is more than that.
0:26:15I don't know by what factor, but I imagine it is more.
0:26:18And I know that many people listening will run their
0:26:22to-do apps very differently to the way that I do, right?
0:26:25And we'll have more.
0:26:27and I could have more but I try my best to not do that.
0:26:31And there are other little things I still need to get used to,
0:26:33like I haven't changed over some of the templates that I made,
0:26:37but I know I can do that,
0:26:38but that's more work that needs to be done.
0:26:40And another thing about all of this is I just really hope
0:26:44that Todoist sticks because otherwise I need to do this
0:26:47all over again going back.
0:26:48- Yeah, that's the dread is doing it in reverse again
0:26:51if it doesn't work.
0:26:52- 'Cause I have done this with Todoist before.
0:26:55But my reason at that time was todoist notifications of alarms,
0:26:59like of notifying you of a task was really bad, their implementation of it,
0:27:04but they fixed that now. So that, and I didn't know that until it was too late.
0:27:08Right.
0:27:10But I have enough people that I trust that I know are incredibly productive
0:27:14people that use Todoist now that I'm willing to, to,
0:27:18to go back to it.
0:27:20Today's episode of Cortex is brought to you by FreshBooks.
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0:29:47So this brings us to the types of to-do applications that are available.
0:29:52And you touched on this a little bit about the fact that there are kind of like a couple
0:29:58of different strains that you can go here.
0:30:00You can go basic or you can go advanced.
0:30:02So I thought of a couple of examples to set the stage, Greg.
0:30:06So I was thinking about like, you know, maybe some of the ones that we've spoken about
0:30:10over time and kind of what these applications are and then some of the features that go
0:30:16go into them. So you have basic applications, basic applications like reminders, clear,
0:30:24Google tasks or Google keep. These are basically more along the lines of keeping a list and
0:30:31maybe, not always, maybe setting a due date to those items. Many people don't set due
0:30:36dates to items, they just have lists, which is a perfectly valid way of doing things and
0:30:42And it's just about kind of the way that you work and the way that you need things.
0:30:47And then you have advanced applications, applications like OmniFocus, Todoist, and they bring with
0:30:53them things like automation, functions with them to make reviews of your work, forecasts,
0:30:59like where you can see multiple days at once, and then maybe something like deferring tasks
0:31:06as well.
0:31:07And you can kind of live anywhere on this spectrum.
0:31:10I maybe run my to-do application more in the basic camp, but choose to use an advanced
0:31:17tool because I like to have, if I want it, things like automation and APIs so other applications
0:31:25can talk to my to-do app, which is what pushed me down this road, and forecasts, which I
0:31:30really like, so I can see multiple days at once and can kind of plan out what's coming
0:31:34over the next seven days.
0:31:36but I don't do a lot of the stuff that you might do when it looks like maybe running
0:31:41from a more GTD system. There are so many of those things that I don't do, like deferring
0:31:48and things like that, which you need an advanced application for. So I feel like I maybe have
0:31:55a more basic system but want to use an advanced application so I can pick and choose from
0:32:00the things that I want to use. But something like Reminders is too simple for me to just
0:32:05have this one long list that I always have to look at, or these multiple lists. I just
0:32:11don't find reminders or clear or something like that to be a robust enough application
0:32:15for me. So, it is abundant that you have in the past needed an advanced application for
0:32:22your advanced system. Do you have a feeling for where you might be falling now that you
0:32:27sat down and looked through some of this?
0:32:29It's an interesting question like and it's an interesting
0:32:32It's an interesting time that you're asking me because I don't have a solid answer.
0:32:37I would much prefer to do the show when I feel like I
0:32:40Am coming with an answer and here here's the thing that I have discovered
0:32:44what I'm doing with paper and
0:32:47what I'm thinking about with my tasks in this way is
0:32:51trying to feel the outlines of
0:32:56What have I been dissatisfied with and what am I trying to do in the future?
0:32:59And so on a very big level
0:33:03when I think about
0:33:05how I am refocusing this year is
0:33:09being aware of one of the things that I found kind of draining with
0:33:15using like a very advanced system in OmniFocus is that there was not any end
0:33:22to this system ever. Right, like there was
0:33:25sort of no sense of completion because I had an enormous number of things in
0:33:34OmniFocus and I had them tracked very very precisely and I say okay this is great
0:33:40this is a system that grew out of my previous systems over a long period of
0:33:45time but when I'm sitting here with pieces of paper trying to think about
0:33:48how do I want to work this is a problem that I feel like ah I've identified
0:33:52something here which is a lack of a sense of completion. Which is also something that my old
0:34:00system that I used to use when I was a teacher was a part of that that I was really aware of.
0:34:06Of building into that you know when the day is done because this part of it is complete the end.
0:34:13It's like, "Oh, okay, this is an interesting thing to realize that I've worked myself into a system
0:34:18that doesn't have that and that's a feature that I used to have and that I find very important
0:34:23and very helpful.
0:34:24Would you say that maybe there was something in the structure of your work now that doesn't
0:34:30inherently have that end? Like when the kids go home, there's maybe a couple of tasks left
0:34:38and then that's it, right?
0:34:40Right. So this is exactly like I'm very much of the belief like things happen because of
0:34:46like the structure in the world, right? So why did my system as a teacher have a clear end?
0:34:50Because there was a clearer way to end things as a teacher, right?
0:34:54And like why did the system that I built up over years as a self-employed person not have any kind of end?
0:35:00It's because, well, it's this is this is the nature of the work, right?
0:35:04This is this is the nature of what it is that I'm doing. There isn't any end. There's always more that can be done.
0:35:09It's like, okay, well
0:35:11after doing this for a large number of years, I'm realizing I don't like this so much.
0:35:15And so in redirecting how my work is going to unfold over the next year, part of what I'm really trying to do is building in regular, distinct, clear breaks and trying to really stick to those as much as is possible.
0:35:33Like, we'll see how it actually goes, but that's the idea.
0:35:36And so what I was thinking is, well, whatever system I build up, I want it to be able to support this.
0:35:43I want to have some kind of clear end or sort of cycle within the system.
0:35:52So this is an example like what are the things that I'm trying to identify around the edges
0:35:56and that's one of these things that I'm trying to identify around the edges.
0:36:00It's like can I build up something that creates a sense of completion
0:36:05that can also work with the schedule for what I'm trying to do over the course of the year.
0:36:11And so it's funny Myke because you have this list of like applications in the show notes of the various
0:36:18to-do managers and
0:36:21What are they like and you know what various features do they have?
0:36:24But the thing that I have been playing around with a little bit just
0:36:28Not even with the intention of using it as a primary task manager
0:36:32But just simply because like oh, this is the digital tool that most closely replicates the paper
0:36:37let me just play around with it a little bit is actually using Trello, which I don't know if you've ever
0:36:43Used or tried I use Trello a lot. Oh, do you? Mm-hmm? Okay, how would you describe?
0:36:49Trello to the listener because I'm not I'm not I feel like I am the worst person in the world to describe this tool because
0:36:56I think I'm using it in a way that nobody intends it to be used Trello is built from
0:37:01the process of
0:37:04Kanban, if you are familiar with that,
0:37:07if you know what that is, you can immediately visualize Trello.
0:37:12If you're not familiar with it, which many of you would not be,
0:37:17I wasn't until I used Trello for the first time.
0:37:19Imagine that you have a bunch of tasks and you write all of the
0:37:25tasks down on index cards,
0:37:26and you have a process that you need to go through to get a task to
0:37:33be complete.
0:37:34So you line up all of your tasks and they're at the starting line.
0:37:39And the process can be written out into columns.
0:37:45So you can have part one, part two, part three, and part four.
0:37:48And you move each task across the columns, so it moves from left to right, and then it
0:37:54is complete.
0:37:55That is like the easiest way that I would describe how this type of Trello system would
0:38:00work in that you what you were doing is taking things and moving them around from place to
0:38:05place and as they're being moved you can update them you can add information to them but the
0:38:10idea is that you get them from the start line to the finish line and you do that by visually
0:38:16moving them through this process moving them from column to column and they can move backwards
0:38:22and forwards depending on how you set up the columns but they were always moving through
0:38:27So the way that I use Trello a lot is for the sale of a sponsorship.
0:38:35So Stephen set this up when I told him that I feel like I didn't have a good visibility
0:38:40for how sponsors were sold through our process and I wanted to work with him so we could
0:38:46understand it a bit better together and he created this thing in Trello.
0:38:49So every sponsor is a card, so they're their own little card.
0:38:53So imagine that each sponsor is an index card.
0:38:56And we move them through our process from initial contact made to if we're progressing
0:39:01to a sale and then if we've sold.
0:39:04So that is what I use Trello for a lot.
0:39:07We also use it for when we're setting up big event and we also use Trello for goals when
0:39:12we're setting goals and even for our assistant.
0:39:15So when we're looking at trying to hire an assistant, we have a Trello board for that
0:39:18and we have all of the different tasks that we may want them to do and when they might
0:39:22do them and if it's the right person and all that sort of stuff.
0:39:25So me and Steven use Trello a lot to plan big picture stuff for the business.
0:39:30I didn't realise I was speaking to such a Trello expert.
0:39:33I thought you might have like a passing familiarity with it, but I was like, "Oh, Trello, I have
0:39:37twenty of them!"
0:39:39Yeah, I have all the great Trellos.
0:39:42So there you go, that's what I use Trello for, and considering the fact that you were
0:39:46using index cards, I'm not surprised that you're using something like Trello.
0:39:52Yeah, again, I wouldn't even say that I'm using it.
0:39:54I'm just playing around with it.
0:39:55- Sure.
0:39:56- But yes, it's an interesting thing to play around with
0:39:58because not entirely, but it does largely avoid the problem
0:40:03of like learning a specific task manager
0:40:08because it just simply doesn't do most of the things
0:40:10that most task managers do.
0:40:12- And it is very malleable.
0:40:14- Yeah, it's very malleable
0:40:16and importantly it's very visual.
0:40:18So I was like, okay, let me move these things around.
0:40:20And so I've been going through this process
0:40:22of sometimes working on paper, putting things in Trello,
0:40:25sometimes rearranging things in Trello,
0:40:27and then sometimes writing it out all again on paper
0:40:30just to think about like, ah, let me mess around with this.
0:40:33It's an iterative cycle back and forth,
0:40:36thinking about how to best organize my work.
0:40:38- Trello is really good to use
0:40:41if the work that you're doing has a process
0:40:44that is not dictated by Trello itself.
0:40:47- Yeah.
0:40:48there is an external process that has to happen
0:40:52and Trello can support that.
0:40:53So like for creating YouTube videos,
0:40:56the process can just be the different stages
0:40:58in which they are.
0:40:59And if you're working on multiple YouTube videos at a time,
0:41:02you can move them through from process part
0:41:04to process part, you know?
0:41:06- Yeah, it's relatively free form
0:41:10compared to most other things,
0:41:13which I would say is like both its strength
0:41:16and its weakness.
0:41:17But it's an interesting thing to play around with.
0:41:20I know a while back I had sort of messed with it
0:41:23a little bit just as an interesting tool to look at
0:41:25and never really thought about it much since then.
0:41:29- Yeah, it was recently acquired.
0:41:30So that is a concern.
0:41:32- Oh, I know.
0:41:33(laughs)
0:41:36It's just like, oh, the acquired news.
0:41:38- However, it was acquired by a company
0:41:41that would feasibly want the system that it is.
0:41:44- Yeah, but you know.
0:41:45- But they may just change their business model.
0:41:47Who knows? All we know is it's acquired.
0:41:49Yeah, but yeah, so it's an interesting tool just to check out and it's a thing that I've been thinking about and
0:41:54I stumbled upon it because as I was trying to work through my
0:41:58system, I did just keep thinking of
0:42:01some stuff that I have mentioned in the past as having looked at but I spent a lot of time very seriously looking at
0:42:10which is
0:42:11Scrum, which is a
0:42:15a working process that is clearly designed for teams is not at all designed for individuals
0:42:22but has some interesting parts to it that feel like, "Oh, maybe this could work with the way that I want to work."
0:42:31And it involves things like
0:42:34having clearly defined start and end times for particular batches of work, which is a feature that I'm looking at.
0:42:42And the other thing I was really aware of when I was thinking about how have I worked in the past and
0:42:46the one thing that having like a list of
0:42:51tasks that are falling out of templates that doesn't that doesn't serve so well is
0:42:57coming up with realistic estimates for how much can you do at a particular time and
0:43:07And this is something else that like a the process of Scrum attempts to do. Again with one person
0:43:13it doesn't work very well at all. It's designed for teams, but it's something that I've just been
0:43:17thinking about like, "Oh, are there pieces of this
0:43:22that I can adapt for individual use for the way that I want to work?"
0:43:27And so like this is another thing I spent some time on, you know, I read a couple of
0:43:31books on Scrum and just again, it's very funny to read a book
0:43:36It's like designed for a gigantic corporation of like how does this gigantic corporation arrange their many multiple teams across entire systems?
0:43:44It's like I'm just trying to read through it and see like is there something here that I can pull out
0:43:50For myself, but it's through through that process of like okay scrum is this process
0:43:56It uses tools like Trello. Let me just play around with Trello
0:44:00Let me just explore this a little bit while I'm in this this building up phase
0:44:05So that's where I am with my current state of things. I do have to say I feel a bit like I am a
0:44:13like I'm on a tightrope without a net because I'm not using any of my regular systems. I really did
0:44:21burn everything down to the ground. So you're like actually using no app right now? Like other than
0:44:28Trello tinker around with?
0:44:30At the moment I am literally using
0:44:32nothing
0:44:34except like some index cards
0:44:36and some Trello tinkering.
0:44:38But it is a very temporary phase
0:44:40like this doesn't last forever.
0:44:42Because this is partly like going back to
0:44:44the idiot pre-any-system
0:44:46me who like "I'll just remember the things
0:44:48that I have to do!"
0:44:50Which is a terrible strategy.
0:44:52It's an absolutely horrible strategy and I'm not really
0:44:54doing it but it's like okay
0:44:56have three big things to keep in mind like the next video, the next Hello
0:45:00Internet, the next Cortex. These are the three main things that I really
0:45:04need to keep track of and so I can run on that for a little while while I think
0:45:10about how does the rest of this system work. And I think that it is
0:45:14genuinely beneficial to do this because it is just as finding the edges of like
0:45:20What do I need? What do I need to do?
0:45:22I have a little bit of support in the fact that before doing this I moved some basic
0:45:30reminder things into To Do. So there's like
0:45:34maybe 20 little recurring items in To Do. Then I'm just like I'm always gonna forget this stuff.
0:45:39Like this is just the bare minimum. It might as well be reminders.
0:45:42Yeah, and I guess between that and your calendar like
0:45:46you're getting through without the big system supporting it all.
0:45:50Exactly. And what's also funny is like, just by using To-Do and by using a calendar,
0:45:54I'm already using more tools than like many people I know use to really work.
0:45:58But from my relative perspective, it's like, this is a precarious situation here.
0:46:04So I am just playing around with these things and trying to figure out
0:46:08what is it that I ultimately want to build up to.
0:46:12And my current state is I'm trying to pull out the useful parts of systems like Kanban,
0:46:22the useful parts, or the still relevant parts I should say, of getting things done and trying
0:46:28to see if there's a way to adapt Scrum to sensible individual use.
0:46:34But I would be very curious to hear from anybody in the audience if they have any other kind
0:46:40of like actual systems that they use or that they care to recommend.
0:46:46Like I'm in a very open, accepting feedback time of my system.
0:46:51So I'd be curious to see if anybody has any thoughts on any systems.
0:46:55Leave links in the comments and I will definitely check things out and spend a bit more time
0:47:00exploring.
0:47:01Today's episode of Cortex is brought to you by DICE.
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0:47:58and Real AFM.
0:47:59It is that time again, CGP Grey.
0:48:02Ask Cortex.
0:48:03We turn to our audience of amazing people.
0:48:07Hello audience.
0:48:08Hello audience.
0:48:09And these are people that submit their questions to me on Twitter with the hashtag #AskCortex
0:48:13or they leave comments in our Reddit thread and they go through and they will give me
0:48:19some questions that they would like for us to discuss on the show.
0:48:23And we will start off today with Philophus who asked what our sleep schedules are like.
0:48:29Do you have particular times that you aim to go to bed or wake up?
0:48:33What are those times?
0:48:34Why those times?
0:48:36And what effect does this have on your productivity when you're observing them?
0:48:40Well you live on East Coast time, don't you Myke?
0:48:43Isn't that your sleep schedule?
0:48:44I live on Myke time now, I don't even anymore.
0:48:51What does that mean that you live on Myke time?
0:48:54Because it's just adapted and warped so much.
0:48:58I originally thought I was going to be living on East Coast time, but it hasn't really turned
0:49:03out to be that way.
0:49:05I go to sleep between 12 a.m and 3 a.m.
0:49:10Oh god.
0:49:11And I wake up between 8 a.m and 10 a.m.
0:49:15Oh.
0:49:16But those times do not match up in the way that you would think that they might.
0:49:21For example...
0:49:23All right, I see immediately what you're going for here, yeah.
0:49:26I went to bed at 2 a.m, I think last night, about 1.32 a.m, somewhere between there,
0:49:33and I woke up at 8 20 today.
0:49:36But the day before I went to sleep,
0:49:41I think at like 1 30 and I woke up at 10.
0:49:44- Okay.
0:49:46- It's all over the place.
0:49:47I have expressed to you the last time that we met up
0:49:51that I'm becoming more interested in sleep tracking as well.
0:49:56And this is something that is on my radar
0:49:58to try and find the tool or tools that work for me
0:50:02allow me to do this because I don't know what effect sleep has on my productivity honestly
0:50:11because my thesis is that it doesn't purely because as it stands right now my sleep schedule
0:50:20is so erratic and my productivity is not very erratic is at least the way that I feel about
0:50:29it because for me it's more like time. Like I don't feel like I'm like oh I wasn't very
0:50:36productive today so I didn't spend much time working today or I spent a lot of time working
0:50:40today and as we've already established a lot of the amount of time that I spend working
0:50:45is not like how inspired was I that day because I worked so strictly to a schedule. So there
0:50:52is a quality aspect that can't be judged by time so that's like a whole other thing which
0:50:58is really difficult to kind of nail down, but there is an inverse that I'm interested
0:51:04in which is if I work longer hours, do I wake up later the next day? That's the only thing
0:51:10I'm interested in learning right now.
0:51:12I recommend to you an app which is called AutoSleep, which is a thing that I have been
0:51:19using to track my sleeping time based, just like the time tracker toggle from the recommendation
0:51:26of Federico Viticci. I don't know if you're aware, Myke, but that guy's pretty good for
0:51:31recommending things.
0:51:32Yeah, I live a lot of my life based upon the recommendations he gives me.
0:51:36Yeah, so I've been using Autosleep, and the app does a lot of things with regard to sleep,
0:51:45but the only thing I care about really, which is what it does, is it does a pretty good
0:51:50job of estimating just the length that I was asleep. When did I go to bed and when
0:51:56did I wake up? And I want to track this because for the longest time I used to
0:52:05use an app called Sleep Cycle to do the sleep tracking, but that suffered from
0:52:10the effect of I needed to turn it on before I went to sleep and turn it off
0:52:14when I woke up in the morning. And here is the thing that I definitely know from
0:52:19from looking at that sleep data is,
0:52:21when I need the sleep data the least,
0:52:25is when I'm able to record it the most.
0:52:29So when it's like, I am bang on my schedule,
0:52:32everything's going great,
0:52:34I'm waking up at the exact same time every morning,
0:52:36I'm having a nice productive day,
0:52:37I'm going to sleep at around the same time.
0:52:39It's like, yeah, I've got tons of data
0:52:41for like perfect rock solid, every day is the same data.
0:52:46And then there'll be periods where there's like,
0:52:47There's no sleep data recorded whatsoever.
0:52:49And I was like, but that's when I want the sleep data the most.
0:52:53Because those are the periods of time where my sleep is less regular.
0:52:58I'm staying up later, which is terrible for me.
0:53:00And then I'm sleepy, and I forget to turn the app on.
0:53:03And then I'm not paying any attention to when I wake up in the morning.
0:53:05So it's like this inverse correlate.
0:53:07I have data about my sleep over the past year,
0:53:10but all it indicates to me is there's some gaps, which
0:53:13were probably not great times.
0:53:16And so I really prefer and like having something that just does it automatically so I can keep an eye on this kind of stuff.
0:53:23The reason that I do want to keep an eye on it is simply because I am really aware that the sleep cycle has a tremendous amount to do with how productive I am.
0:53:37And like if I fall out of a regular sleep cycle, that's a thing I really want to be aware of and really want to keep an eye on.
0:53:47Because that really matters for me.
0:53:49And so when I'm in sometimes the process of rebooting and like getting back into a productive phase,
0:53:57one of the primary things that I am focusing on is like boot yourself back into a regular waking cycle.
0:54:05and that has a huge effect on the rest of my day.
0:54:09So what are those times? What are those ideal times?
0:54:12Uh, okay, my ideal wake-up time is...
0:54:16is sometime between 5.30 and 6 am is my ideal wake-up time.
0:54:21And...
0:54:23Yeah, but the thing is, I'm an old man getting sleepy at 9 pm, right?
0:54:28And like, probably asleep by 10 o'clock.
0:54:32Okay.
0:54:33All right, like lying to himself about like, "Oh, I'm gonna read a book before I fall asleep," right?
0:54:38But actually like falling asleep immediately is the usual nighttime. Like, "I'm gonna read a book."
0:54:44No, I'm not. I'm gonna lie to myself that I'm gonna read a book and I'm just gonna fall asleep
0:54:47immediately. Which is also why I'm a terrible dinner companion because people are like,
0:54:53"Let's have dinner." It's like, "Okay, great." I'm like, "I made an appointment at eight."
0:54:57It's like, "Oh, f*ck, like eight o'clock at night? Like you gotta be kidding me."
0:55:02- You know, for the early bird special.
0:55:04Is that a thing we can do?
0:55:05- Yeah, exactly.
0:55:06You know, like I wanna meet you in the afternoon.
0:55:08You know, Myke, like if we ever socialize,
0:55:10like when do we socialize?
0:55:112 p.m. in the afternoon.
0:55:12- 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
0:55:13- That's my perfect, like it's great.
0:55:14That's my perfect time.
0:55:15Like if everything's going great,
0:55:17I've done all my work in the morning
0:55:19and now you get me for the afternoon time
0:55:21when I'm not gonna get any work done anyway
0:55:23and it's nice and early.
0:55:24Like that's what I wanna socialize with people, 2 p.m.
0:55:27and nobody else in the world wants to socialize
0:55:29at that time.
0:55:30But you know for me that that's a bigger thing like maintaining the regular sleep schedule
0:55:35it's a big deal and I have found that earlier is is
0:55:39Definitely better by like a huge order of magnitude in terms of actual productivity
0:55:44Previously on the show. I recommended the retro 51 tornado as a pen. Oh, this is your pen thing. Okay
0:55:52Mm-hmm Brian has written to ask
0:55:54What is the fountain pen?
0:55:56equivalent of this
0:55:58Is this the pen addict all of a sudden? What happened here?
0:56:01Yes, yes it is. Look, every now and then I want to throw one in for me, you know?
0:56:05This is just for my enjoyment right now. So Brian, I would recommend the pen that you have
0:56:12already pointed out that your partner is using, and this is part of the reason that you want to
0:56:17do this, is to buy your partner a gift. I would recommend the pen called the Pilot Metropolitan
0:56:22because it is a cheap pen, it's a cheap fountain pen, and it works great.
0:56:26But if you want to go a little bit more than this, I would recommend for you a TWSBI Eco
0:56:31as a next move up. I will put links in the show notes to these.
0:56:36That's good call.
0:56:36And I also, this is a pen that, thank you, this is a pen that takes ink,
0:56:40like you need a bottle of ink for this. And I will also put a link to a line of inks that I
0:56:46think work really well with this. It is called the Pilot Iroshizuku line of inks. So they will all be
0:56:52in the show notes and I will recommend to anyone listening to this show to try out either
0:56:58the Retro 51 Toneo, the Pilot Metropolitan or the Fisbee Eco if you have any care at
0:57:04all for pens because they are a fantastic trio.
0:57:08Yeah, don't just use whatever pens they have in the hotel.
0:57:11Don't.
0:57:12Myke does not approve.
0:57:13You deserve better, listener.
0:57:15You really do.
0:57:18R. Elvin asked, "What did you both want to be when you grew up?"
0:57:21Well you wanted to be a professional podcaster, right Myke?
0:57:25Only from the age of like 20, 21 maybe.
0:57:30Oh okay.
0:57:31But I had dreams as a kid, you know.
0:57:33What were your dreams Myke?
0:57:35So I wanted to be a few different things.
0:57:36I did actually want to be a radio DJ so...
0:57:39Okay so essentially a podcaster, yeah.
0:57:42But that was when I was really young.
0:57:44And then as I grew up a little bit there were two things that I really wanted to be.
0:57:50One of them was a teacher.
0:57:53Specifically for children with special needs was the thing that I was very interested in
0:57:58as a young man.
0:57:59I could see that.
0:58:01It was something that I was very passionate about, but then kind of moved away from as
0:58:06I got older just because I also became quite career minded.
0:58:11And it seems like at least in teaching, you're quite boxed in to the amount of movement that
0:58:17you can take and advancement that you can take.
0:58:19There aren't a lot of paths, it seems.
0:58:21Yeah, that is definitely correct.
0:58:24And I just learned about myself as I grew up that I needed to be challenged, and that
0:58:30I felt like I would run out of challenges before I then had to be something that maybe
0:58:35I wasn't interested in being, which was like a headmaster.
0:58:38Yeah, this is actually a perennial problem at a bunch of schools, is retaining ambitious
0:58:43talent precisely because of that, that it's a very narrow pyramid to climb in only one
0:58:50direction and very often people don't want to climb in that direction but they want to
0:58:56continue advancing and this is definitely like a career problem that some teachers do
0:59:02run up against.
0:59:06Then I wanted to be a police officer.
0:59:09That I cannot see. Thumbs down.
0:59:11I know, right?
0:59:12And this was the job that I had that I was something that I was sure I wanted to do until
0:59:18maybe I was like 17.
0:59:20It was something that I really wanted to do and it wasn't that I wanted to be a beat cop
0:59:26like patrolling the streets of London.
0:59:28Right, with your billy club.
0:59:29I wanted to be a detective.
0:59:31That's what I wanted to be.
0:59:33That was something and it's still something I'm very interested in.
0:59:37I wanted to be a detective.
0:59:38I wanted to solve crimes.
0:59:40Hm.
0:59:41I cannot see that.
0:59:43That's my eclectic list of jobs.
0:59:45Cannot see that, Myke.
0:59:46No.
0:59:47I am not physical enough to be a police officer.
0:59:49This was what I realised in my life, is that there is a lot of it that I wouldn't be good
0:59:55at, so I did not pursue it.
0:59:58I'm not tough enough, basically.
1:00:00I think you're doing a better job as a professional podcaster than you would do as a police officer.
1:00:05Just gonna put that out there.
1:00:06Thank you so much.
1:00:07Why did you want to be when you grew up?
1:00:11I mean, when people ask this kind of thing
1:00:15I feel like what this question is asking is, what did the dumb kid version
1:00:19of you want to do? And I feel like I have very little patience for
1:00:23most of this kind of stuff. Like when I was a kid I had all sorts of dumb
1:00:27ideas about things that I wanted to do, but it's because as a kid you don't know anything about
1:00:31the working world. And even here, like into the teenage years
1:00:35I think I think this is the same thing. It's like Oh Myke you want to be a police officer?
1:00:38But like you haven't thought anything at all about what being a police officer really entails. I wanted to drive cars really fast
1:00:43Like this is yeah, this is this is like your idea when you're younger about what the working world is like
1:00:50And and so yeah
1:00:53There's a bunch of stuff that like my parents tell me that younger me was interested in doing when he grew up
1:00:58But I feel like I don't really care what that kid thought about anything
1:01:02He didn't know anything about anything.
1:01:04But what did he want to do though? Come on.
1:01:06Just, yeah, like, oh, it's like
1:01:08Uhh, what was my other thing?
1:01:10Apparently at some point I wanted to be a paleontologist
1:01:12It's like, because of like dinosaurs
1:01:14and I haven't thought anything at all about what being a paleontologist is like
1:01:16It's like, oh, you ride dinosaur skeletons all day? Surely being a paleontologist is like, no, you're outside in the hot sun
1:01:23moving a toothbrush over a bone for hours if you're lucky
1:01:27Right? It's like, ugh, no, it's a terrible, it's a terrible thing
1:01:30I think the first serious career that I had a somewhat reasonable idea about, which is the same reason that I didn't go into it, was that when I was in college, I was really aiming towards being a college physics professor.
1:01:49I thought like, this is a thing that I really want to do.
1:01:53And over the course of being at college
1:01:57was a process of coming to the conclusion that
1:02:01like, this is not a job that I would really want to do.
1:02:05There are parts of it that I would really want to do, like driving a fast car,
1:02:09but the actualness of becoming a physics professor
1:02:13I realized like, across every front
1:02:17is like, this is no. Like, this does not match up with me.
1:02:22It's like,
1:02:24realizing that I am neither smart nor patient enough to do a PhD program. It's like, there's no way this is gonna happen.
1:02:31I will lose my mind if I have to do this.
1:02:33Realizing I did-- I ran-- at some point I ran some numbers on
1:02:39like, how many
1:02:42PhD tenure track positions are there in the United States every year
1:02:47versus how many physics graduates are there. It's like whoa these are
1:02:52terrible numbers and
1:02:55Just realizing like a bunch of things about myself as well like I just don't have the temperament to focus on a single task
1:03:01for three to six years
1:03:04So all of this is what like turned me away from what I would say was the first
1:03:11seriously considered
1:03:13Maybe actually possible thing that a younger version of me would have wanted to do when he grew up
1:03:21Thomas wants to know did you ever get a VR headset?
1:03:27Now I got a PlayStation VR headset. I really like it a lot. I know you do. There are some good games
1:03:35There is not enough good games. I'm hoping for more good games in 2017. I have cast an eye
1:03:41I've been
1:04:02There is also like word of oculus trying to create their own
1:04:07All in one unit. Mm-hmm. Same as HTC is doing the same also
1:04:12Microsoft later this year will be showing off their next Xbox which
1:04:17They've said will have VR capabilities
1:04:20Microsoft have had a good partnership with oculus
1:04:23I'm wondering if that's what they're gonna go down and then will they be able to support PC games there
1:04:28This is a there is I expect by the end of this year that I will have some other
1:04:32Equipment in my house because you can never have enough never enough immersion in VR. What did you buy?
1:04:38Okay, like I have bought nothing because I think I need a new house before I can get a VR head
1:04:45So yeah, this is the problem. This is the problem if you really want that the big the big equipment it is
1:04:53Difficult I've used a HTC Vive. I have not spoken about this on this show. Mm-hmm
1:04:58And I think that it's a great system
1:05:01but some of the things that are good about it are things that I don't like about it and I
1:05:05Like that you can move around but every now and then I'll bump into something and then that ruins the experience
1:05:11So I trip over the cable and that ruins the experience. So it's a great system, but I don't like it so much and also
1:05:16What everybody said that they loved with the controllers?
1:05:20but those controllers are not as good as the Oculus Touch controllers and
1:05:24We had used those a long time before they came out like six or seven months
1:05:30So we were starting I think at a better level and I find the Oculus Touch controllers to be vastly superior to HTC's
1:05:36Just in the way that they feel and the way that you use them
1:05:39So I still maintain that my favorite system that I have used is the oculus
1:05:44Yeah, I mean this is the problem
1:05:46I have this feeling of like go big or go home with VR and there are some VR options
1:05:53but I just I feel like that oculus experience was just
1:05:56so good
1:05:58that I feel like I either want to wait for other systems to catch up to that or I want to replicate that and
1:06:04if I'm trying to replicate it at the very least it's like
1:06:08you know this this flat that I'm living in London is like there is no there is no place for this and
1:06:13and it requires a rethinking of everything in, like, our room, which is the kitchen and also the living room.
1:06:22And it's like, where would this go? This would go nowhere.
1:06:25So, I do keep piling up a list of reasons why my wife and I maybe should move.
1:06:33And on that list of reasons, I would have space for new VR equipment.
1:06:39probably the least convincing item that is on there for her, but I feel like it is very
1:06:45convincing for me.
1:06:47You need a mega office, man.
1:06:48Wait a minute. I'm gonna disagree with you on that actually, because I don't think you
1:06:53should have your VR headset in your mega office. I think you need clean, distinct, different
1:06:59contexts for working.
1:07:01Video games are part of my work, Gray.
1:07:04That is a lie. You should not tell yourself that.
1:07:08I have a video game podcast. I have one. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know Myke, but I feel like that
1:07:14Come at me. that video game podcast exists to support this idea.
1:07:20Mega Office serves two main roles in this home. It is one where Myke can do work and
1:07:30two where Myke can put all of the stuff that shouldn't be in the rest of the house and
1:07:35This just becomes my space. I have a sofa. The sofa is perfectly positioned in front of the TV. Mm-hmm
1:07:42It's brilliant that that works for you
1:07:44But the the whole reason that I have an office that is outside of the house is I I know I can't work like that
1:07:50Like I need
1:07:52The different environments to be as clean and as clear as possible
1:07:56So no, you can keep the outside of the house office
1:08:00But then also have the inside of the house office now, which has the VR equipment in it
1:08:05No, that's not gonna happen Myke. It's not gonna happen. This is a life hack my friend
1:08:09No, it isn't it's a terrible idea
1:08:12Crc 128 wants to know if I skip a YouTube ad do you get anything for it? I don't know the answer to this
1:08:20Oh, really? You don't know the answer you as a YouTube creator. You don't know
1:08:24so I think the short answer to this is
1:08:29No, if you have one of those YouTube ads where it's running down a little timer that says you know you can skip this in
1:08:345 4 3 2 1 if you immediately press that
1:08:37The YouTube creator does not get a cut of the ad revenue
1:08:42But there is a question of how quickly do you skip it? I don't know the exact boundaries
1:08:49I think they move them around sometimes, but there is a system of partial payouts
1:08:55Depending on how much of a skippable ad you have watched on YouTube. Right, I expect it's a percentage probably, right?
1:09:02Yeah, whatever it is
1:09:03It's like, you know
1:09:04They take 50% of the ad revenue if you watch 50% of the video and then at 75% they take all there's there's something
1:09:10In that boundary and I know that there's some lower boundary where there's like a small amount that is taken
1:09:16but if you if you hit it on like
1:09:18Exactly when it's up. It's count as a as an unwatched ad in the system. So you don't get any money for that
1:09:25Okay, that's good to know. I've noticed the thing recently which I think is kind of cool.
1:09:29I've seen a bunch of companies creating like three second ads.
1:09:33Oh yeah, I haven't actually noticed that.
1:09:35Yeah, I've noticed this from a few. Like either it's a company that it's just their entire
1:09:39YouTube ad is like five seconds long. And there's nothing. There's no skipping. It's
1:09:45just a five second ad. So it's within the realms of what people will expect. I've also
1:09:50seen a couple of things where you'll see a company do a 5 second ad and then the 30 second
1:09:56ad and the 5 second ad is there to try and entice you.
1:10:01Ah I see.
1:10:03I find that stuff really interesting like people playing with it and I've been, I watch
1:10:07more of those ads honestly because they grab me and then I watch the thing.
1:10:12If you are a company that makes ads, there you go, you want my ad money, that's how you
1:10:15get it.
1:10:165 second ads.
1:10:18Thomas wants to know, what is Gray's spreadsheet program of choice and why?
1:10:23Ooh, um, I use Apple's numbers actually.
1:10:30In theory I should be using Excel.
1:10:35A long time ago I actually had a job that was essentially just using Excel professionally
1:10:40in a way.
1:10:41Excel is vastly more powerful.
1:10:44it can do a lot more.
1:10:46But for the spreadsheets that I use now,
1:10:50I use Numbers because of two things.
1:10:54The first is it does just look nicer.
1:10:57Like it takes a lot less effort
1:10:59to make a Numbers spreadsheet look nicer.
1:11:02And the second thing which I really love
1:11:06and I can't believe Excel hasn't copied in some way
1:11:10is the way that Numbers allows you to have,
1:11:13you don't have to be working with a single infinite grid in all directions.
1:11:18You can just drop down a little mini grid and move it around.
1:11:23So it's like you're working on a blank piece of paper.
1:11:26And you can have like multiple grids all over the place and like different,
1:11:30yeah, it's interesting.
1:11:32Yeah. And, and that allowing you to rearrange things,
1:11:36I find hugely helpful for the source of spreadsheets that I want to create where
1:11:41I'll have a bunch of, like, it's not programming or anything, but it's like, I'll have a spreadsheet
1:11:46where I want to just put in some inputs and then get the outputs displayed in some different
1:11:50way.
1:11:51And it's like, yeah, I could do this with Excel and you sort of fake it with hiding
1:11:56some of the cells, but it's just much nicer and much easier and faster to get it good
1:12:00looking if you can just drop down a little table and say, "I want it to go exactly here."
1:12:05And then maybe I rearrange it later, go, "Oh, no, I'll put it over there.
1:12:07It's better in this spot."
1:12:09I just really like numbers for that and it's a feature that I use a lot.
1:12:15Like a ton of my spreadsheets are a very large number of individual tables that I'm putting data into
1:12:23and rearranging in a way that I could do it with Excel, but it would be more of a pain in the butt to do with Excel,
1:12:29even if it is the more powerful tool.
1:12:32And it definitely is a thing that I run into often-ish enough that there's something I would like to do
1:12:38would be trivial to do in Excel which numbers just simply can't but I'm willing to take
1:12:43that trade off for the way that it looks and the way it's easily rearrangeable.
1:12:48Dylan wants to know, now that editorial has been updated for the iPad Pro, where are we
1:12:53standing? Have we already moved away to applications like OneWriter or Bear? And if so would we
1:13:00move back? So I have personally moved all of my writing of this kind to the iOS app
1:13:06I think that it's really nice and it works very well for me for writing what I write in it which tends to just be
1:13:13Copy for our ads I write that in bear. I am NOT going to be switching back to editorial for for my work there
1:13:21Purely because I am concerned at the rate of advancement of the application
1:13:27I was on the beta but it took a very very very long time for that app to come out of beta for this version
1:13:34So I'm I'm gonna stick with bear for the time being
1:13:38yeah editorial was my primary app for a very long time for doing the writing and
1:13:43For the video scripts and for some other things that I write
1:13:49I'm now using
1:13:52Ulysses as the primary app which I don't think we've talked about very much at all
1:13:55No
1:13:56But Ulysses has some features that I really really like
1:14:00It's one of those apps that it like I played around with it for a little bit
1:14:04And it takes a while to like change your mind a little bit to take full advantage of the way that this can work
1:14:10and I have to say like the
1:14:12the rules for rulers videos that I did
1:14:15those
1:14:17relied very heavily on some of the features that Ulysses has where
1:14:22If you're working with it the way it wants you to work you can rearrange sections quite easily
1:14:29You can see a little like outline of what it is that you're working on the side and move sections up and down and I was
1:14:35doing that constantly on those videos and
1:14:38That is a kind of feature that I have a very hard time now imagining
1:14:43Using any kind of writing app that doesn't have some ability to do this
1:14:48To replicate information on the side and a quick ability to rearrange the sections
1:14:54so that has become just an absolute vital feature and
1:14:59editorial doesn't have that and
1:15:01There's also some stuff with Ulysses because it's working in
1:15:06Dropbox there's some fancy stuff that I don't really need to get into right now, but in the way that
1:15:11My assistant can also have access to a subset of the things that I'm working on on
1:15:17Ulysses on her end through Dropbox and everything like syncs in a really nice way
1:15:21But she doesn't have to have access to everything that I'm working on like there's some nice things that I can do with this app
1:15:28so that's why it has taken the primary place as the app that I'm working in and
1:15:32For everything else. I'm also using bear as a kind of scratch pad or
1:15:39List maker or just for various miscellaneous things. I have to say I'm really impressed with that app
1:15:45I really like some of the color schemes in the way they arrange things. So those are the two apps that are my
1:15:50primary writing apps at this point
1:15:53Adrian would like to know how your betrayal of the MacBook adorable has been going.
1:15:59I didn't betray anything.
1:16:02And was the Touch Bar really worth this betrayal?
1:16:05It bet- no, it betrayed me. It went up in a little puff of smoke.
1:16:09I feel like this is more a question of if I betrayed you is what's really coming out.
1:16:16Whatever it is.
1:16:17It's really coming out in this.
1:16:18There was a betrayal. And has it been worth it for you? Do you use that computer?
1:16:25Yeah, I do use that computer. It is useful for exactly the purpose that I intended it,
1:16:32which is for occasional mobile podcast recording and/or editing.
1:16:37So was the MacBook.
1:16:38Yeah, but you're asking me if I'm using it for these things. Like, yes, I use it for that.
1:16:43I do have to say I really, really like the second generation butterfly keys.
1:16:50I was always a defender of the Adorables keyboard. I think people didn't use it long enough to get used to it, and I really liked it.
1:16:57But the second generation keyboard is way better.
1:17:00And I really hope that Apple at some point updates their Magic keyboard to use those same switches. I think they're fantastic.
1:17:07Don't say that out loud.
1:17:08Why? Why?
1:17:10Because people have lots of opinions about their keyboards and I don't think people would like to hear that.
1:17:21Well, I'm not interested in what they would like.
1:17:24There's two sides of Apple here which are probably warring with each other, which is the efficiencies of scale
1:17:29versus "boy, we sure don't want to retool any of our equipment".
1:17:32I think that's the battle that would be taking place over what is the next generation of the Magic Keyboard.
1:17:37But I would love them to. I would love them to go with the efficiencies of scale argument on that.
1:17:42I have to say, I really like it.
1:17:46As for the touch bar,
1:17:52the lack of escape button is not really any problem.
1:17:56I find I hit that corner really easily every time I want to hit the escape button.
1:17:59It doesn't bother me that there's not a physical button there. I was expecting that to be a problem,
1:18:04but it isn't.
1:18:07As for the actual touch bar,
1:18:10I feel like I still need to be convinced by some software implementation
1:18:17that this is a useful feature.
1:18:19It's funny because it actually strikes me as like the reverse of a pro feature.
1:18:24Whenever I pay attention to it, it really feels like this is actually
1:18:28a feature for newbies where it's trying to show to you
1:18:34and reveal to you aspects of the program that you might not be aware of.
1:18:39And I feel like for almost anything that the touch bar is showing me,
1:18:43there's a keyboard command that I already know that I'm going to use.
1:18:46Or the additional information that it shows is not really helpful.
1:18:50It's just kind of flashy and show-offy.
1:18:52So I actually think that the touch bar is a great feature for someone new to the Mac.
1:19:00Like, I'm not quite sure who that person would be.
1:19:02But I don't think the way they sold it as like, "Oh, this is an amazing pro feature."
1:19:10I haven't seen that materialized on my end.
1:19:13So that's been my experience with the Touch Bar so far.
1:19:17Silent sense of betrayal.
1:19:21Carrie wants to know, "What is your opinion on the Amazon Echo?"
1:19:25I know you love the Amazon Echo.
1:19:27I have seen in-person demonstrations of the Amazon Echo,
1:19:31which are very impressive about how I can hear you and the commands that everybody has it do.
1:19:38I have some resistance to setting up a thing that is in another ecosystem
1:19:46and I feel less convinced by the utility of it for me personally.
1:19:51I just don't like talking to devices if I can.
1:19:57Like when I'm controlling the lights in my house, sure I can talk to Siri to do that, but I much prefer
1:20:05pressing a button and just doing it that way.
1:20:07So a lot of the Amazon Echo stuff, it's like yeah, I can see that that would be useful.
1:20:13But I always feel like I have some kind of mental resistance to
1:20:18talking as a form of computer interface.
1:20:22Like it's not my go-to.
1:20:24How do you turn your lights on and off? Because you have the Hue lights, right?
1:20:28Yeah, I have the Hue lights.
1:20:29So what is your interface for interacting with your Hue lights?
1:20:32So the Hue lights are connected into the Apple Home system.
1:20:38Yep.
1:20:38So that means on any of the iPads or on my phone, I can use the control panel to toggle the presets
1:20:45that I have. So I haven't set a whole bunch, but there's like six buttons for the various ways that
1:20:50I want most of the lights. Or the thing that happens really often is I have it, depending
1:20:57on the watch face I'm using, I either have the home button on my watch face or it's always
1:21:01in the dock of my watch. And so that's the other way that I'll adjust the lights is by
1:21:05doing that. And I know that under this circumstance it would often be faster and easier to be
1:21:13able to just speak out loud to the Alexa to ask it to change the lights instead. But it
1:21:18It still doesn't get over this mental resistance that I feel to talking out loud to a computer.
1:21:26I will always prefer the silent interface if it's an option, and I feel like voice commands
1:21:31for me are a mental last resort.
1:21:36Okay.
1:21:37That's interesting.
1:21:39Because I'm definitely the reverse for my Hue lights.
1:21:44And it's the same for Adina as well, we just walk around the house and ask for the lights
1:21:48to be turned on in the rooms that we're going into.
1:21:50I mean to be fair, my wife would probably greatly appreciate if I did set up an Alexa
1:21:55because she is obviously preferring voice interface and she tries to talk to Siri to
1:22:01change the lights, which I can only describe as a perpetual exercise in frustration.
1:22:07Right, see this is the thing.
1:22:09the echo it is a surprise if it doesn't work.
1:22:15Yeah.
1:22:16And with Ciri I have found it to be the inverse.
1:22:20Yeah, Ciri is terrible at this kind of stuff.
1:22:23Maybe you should just get one.
1:22:25But I have no use for it.
1:22:26You know, I'd be the person setting it up.
1:22:29It's really not hard to set up.
1:22:30I'm really trying mostly to convince her to use the silent interface instead.
1:22:35Just press the button.
1:22:36It works when you press the button every time.
1:22:38But I think this is also just a general problem with Siri.
1:22:42Just the other day I heard this thing, which was so frustrating to listen to, but my wife
1:22:50was in the shower and she was trying to ask Siri to record a reminder for later.
1:22:57And it's like, Siri could hear, I could hear her go like, "Hey Siri!"
1:23:03And then the phone would wake up and she would try to talk to it.
1:23:08I must have heard her try to do this thing 10 times.
1:23:10I was like, I couldn't bear to hear it anymore.
1:23:12Like I just, I had to go in there.
1:23:13Like, let me just type it in for you.
1:23:14Like, I'm so sorry that you've had this experience
1:23:17with Siri trying to listen to you.
1:23:19I understand you're in the shower,
1:23:21it's trying to hear you over water.
1:23:23It's not an optimal situation.
1:23:25But it was a thing that I was thinking like,
1:23:27I'm pretty sure an Amazon Echo would get this no problem.
1:23:30- It depends, it depends.
1:23:32Like, so we have our Echo in our kitchen.
1:23:36And if we have the extractor fan going full blast,
1:23:39it can take a couple of tries to get it to to hear you.
1:23:44But once it's heard the wake word, it does a pretty good job.
1:23:49But sometimes you have to really give it a shout to get it to wake up.
1:23:53There is a there is a problem that all of these machines have with white noise.
1:23:58But I will say that that the Echo is the best that I have found,
1:24:04primarily because it is a canister full of microphones.
1:24:08- Yeah.
1:24:09- Right, so that's why it does a better job.
1:24:10But it can still struggle,
1:24:12but I would say that it probably would do a better job
1:24:15in that scenario than Siri would have, honestly.
1:24:17- Let's just say there was definitely some shouting at Siri.
1:24:20- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:24:22- There was some shouting to be had.
1:24:26- But you know, I will say that I have been in the office
1:24:29and I have heard curse words said towards the echo
1:24:32in the kitchen.
1:24:33Like, it happens, and I do it too.
1:24:36It happens.