Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► So I might have to get a new office mic.

00:00:03 ◼   ► I haven't found you. That's not the reason.

00:00:05 ◼   ► No.

00:00:06 ◼   ► That you know of.

00:00:07 ◼   ► [Ding]

00:00:08 ◼   ► This script writing sanctuary that I have essentially created for myself.

00:00:15 ◼   ► It's being violated by a neighbor.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Even when I was a much younger person, I always knew that I wanted to try to avoid an office job.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Like this was a thing that I was just always aware of.

00:00:34 ◼   ► And all of the work that I have ever done, none of it has ever been in a real office.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Like I've worked in a library, I've done a bunch of work in science labs and universities,

00:00:47 ◼   ► and of course I've worked in schools and I've done tutoring and I've done all this kind of stuff.

00:00:51 ◼   ► But I was always like, I want to absolutely avoid an office as much as possible.

00:00:57 ◼   ► And so it's sort of funny to me to realize that now as this adult person, I have intentionally rented an office in a place.

00:01:07 ◼   ► And of course, now I do have to face some of the problems of an office.

00:01:14 ◼   ► And one of those things is neighbors.

00:01:17 ◼   ► And so, when I first rented this little writing space, everything was perfect because I didn't have any real neighbors on either side of me.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And I work really early in the morning and I work really late at night and there's usually nobody around.

00:01:33 ◼   ► So everything was fantastic. I would walk in, I would do my writing, I would usually be walking out of the building just as all of the other office monkeys were arriving, which is a fantastic feeling.

00:01:44 ◼   ► and heading out. And then doing the reverse at the end of the day as everybody's leaving the building like I'm heading back in and these are the best times for me to write.

00:01:52 ◼   ► But since coming back from the summer, the office next door to me has been rented.

00:01:59 ◼   ► And it has been rented to someone who has my exact schedule.

00:02:04 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, at seven in the morning, maybe six thirty in the morning,

00:02:10 ◼   ► there is nobody else in this entire building except two guys in adjacent offices.

00:02:18 ◼   ► One of which who wants to be talking out loud the crazy things that he is writing,

00:02:24 ◼   ► and the other one who wants to be talking to China on the phone about douchebaggy sounding business things in a really loud voice.

00:02:33 ◼   ► And I just I can't work under these circumstances Myke every morning. He's there every evening. He's there

00:02:39 ◼   ► I think I need to find another another place to work. I'm very sad. Have you ever

00:02:45 ◼   ► Communicated with this person in any fashion. No, of course not never no, he's just there

00:02:52 ◼   ► I think he's trying to avoid me and I'm trying to avoid him. Why don't you go for noise cancelling or something?

00:02:59 ◼   ► What do you mean?

00:03:00 ◼   ► Like noise cancelling headphones so you don't have to hear China calls.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Well, the problem is that I want to hear myself speak out loud.

00:03:08 ◼   ► So if I'm wearing noise cancelling headphones it doesn't really work.

00:03:11 ◼   ► But there's also the problem that I quite frankly don't want someone who can just overhear everything that I'm saying

00:03:18 ◼   ► as I'm trying to work out sentences like a crazy person saying the same thing over and over again.

00:03:23 ◼   ► But you don't know this person.

00:03:24 ◼   ► It doesn't matter if I know the person, I know they're there.

00:03:28 ◼   ► And because this office, as far as I can tell, this floor of this building, like with everywhere else in this building, was intended to be an open plan office.

00:03:37 ◼   ► They just happened to enclose it in these little cubicles, which as far as I can tell, just have plaster between all of the walls so you can hear absolutely everything that everybody else is doing.

00:03:46 ◼   ► I don't want somebody else hearing me working out my scripts.

00:03:49 ◼   ► So I think I have to move, Myke. I think this is the end result of this.

00:03:54 ◼   ► Time to pack up all of your electronics into a little napkin and

00:03:58 ◼   ► Yeah

00:03:58 ◼   ► Hire them over a stick and mosey on down to the next office space

00:04:03 ◼   ► That's exactly right, that's what I think is gonna have to happen

00:04:05 ◼   ► You gonna like seriously look for a new place now?

00:04:09 ◼   ► Do you think this is some kind of joke?

00:04:11 ◼   ► None?

00:04:12 ◼   ► Wow

00:04:13 ◼   ► Do I sound like I'm joking to you?

00:04:15 ◼   ► You do not now!

00:04:18 ◼   ► I just you know I remember how hard it was last time, why don't you just try and force

00:04:21 ◼   ► him out?

00:04:22 ◼   ► You're very Machiavellian, Myke. This would not have occurred to me.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Well, I'm just trying to help you.

00:04:27 ◼   ► You think I should be playing fight song at my speaker all morning long?

00:04:31 ◼   ► Trying to make business calls?

00:04:33 ◼   ► Yep, that song's back in my head again.

00:04:34 ◼   ► See you in six months.

00:04:36 ◼   ► Never forget.

00:04:38 ◼   ► ♪ This is my fight song ♪

00:04:41 ◼   ► Yes, now it was very hard to find this office.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I have done some preliminary scouting,

00:04:47 ◼   ► which I'm sure must look super suspicious on the security cameras,

00:04:49 ◼   ► walking all around the office and trying to see if there's any

00:04:52 ◼   ► empty places that don't have neighbors.

00:04:54 ◼   ► I may have found one office within the same floor to move at,

00:04:59 ◼   ► and I've made some preliminary inquiries,

00:05:01 ◼   ► and there may be some offices available in a building that

00:05:03 ◼   ► is directly across the street.

00:05:05 ◼   ► So I'm checking things out.

00:05:07 ◼   ► But yeah, it's not a joke.

00:05:08 ◼   ► I really have to move.

00:05:09 ◼   ► All right.

00:05:09 ◼   ► It's intolerable to have a neighbor who's

00:05:11 ◼   ► there at the same time that I want to work.

00:05:13 ◼   ► I really just want the entire floor of an office building

00:05:18 ◼   ► all to myself to work in.

00:05:20 ◼   ► And I don't think that's really too much to ask.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Well, I mean it's not too much to ask.

00:05:25 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:05:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:05:26 ◼   ► It's just way too much to achieve.

00:05:28 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:05:30 ◼   ► But so yes, I'm definitely going to have to move.

00:05:32 ◼   ► But I do find it funny...

00:05:35 ◼   ► that every time I walk in to the office,

00:05:39 ◼   ► and I see the little light on next door to my office,

00:05:41 ◼   ► I think, uh...

00:05:43 ◼   ► "What's this guy doing here?"

00:05:45 ◼   ► Right? Always like, "Don't you have some place to be, buddy?"

00:05:47 ◼   ► Right? "Don't you have some family to look after?"

00:05:50 ◼   ► or don't you just want to go home?

00:05:52 ◼   ► It's always just a funny thought to have

00:05:54 ◼   ► when I am also the person who is standing there thinking it.

00:05:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:58 ◼   ► It's like, what are you doing here at this time?

00:06:02 ◼   ► Says the person who is standing here at this time.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Nobody should be here, but of course I am there.

00:06:09 ◼   ► It sounds like from your description of his work that he actually has more of a reason to be there than you.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Yeah, as far as I can tell he definitely does.

00:06:16 ◼   ► He's always making calls to different time zones.

00:06:18 ◼   ► time zones. So he actually has a, like, he needs to be in the office it sounds like at

00:06:22 ◼   ► those particular times. I just prefer to work at those particular times.

00:06:26 ◼   ► I don't think I want this guy's job. No? You don't think you want to be making

00:06:30 ◼   ► calls to China at six in the morning? No, I don't think I want to do that.

00:06:35 ◼   ► No, it doesn't sound like fun. I did peek in his office though, because of

00:06:38 ◼   ► course you can't help but spy a little bit. Like, what does this guy do? And it was the

00:06:43 ◼   ► most hilarious stereotypical business office on the inside because he had a bunch of sticky

00:06:47 ◼   ► notes up on the wall but also also had a whiteboard with just words written on it

00:06:53 ◼   ► words like impact, swiftness, responsiveness.

00:06:58 ◼   ► Just like randomly or like were they in sentences?

00:07:00 ◼   ► No just like big big words just written out you know it's like oh this looks like the inside of a business book

00:07:07 ◼   ► right swiftness is important like okay great how do you do that?

00:07:12 ◼   ► Can he not remember that? Like does he have to write it down?

00:07:16 ◼   ► Like I would understand it being there if it was written by a boss in a bigger office, right?

00:07:21 ◼   ► Right.

00:07:22 ◼   ► But if it's just him on his own, does he need those reminders?

00:07:25 ◼   ► I don't know. I think when he's making the calls, he looks at the whiteboard with those words written on it.

00:07:32 ◼   ► It's like motivation for him.

00:07:33 ◼   ► And the word "Impact" says something to him. It speaks to him about what he does.

00:07:37 ◼   ► Oh, I think he sounds like a hard-working guy, you know?

00:07:42 ◼   ► Minutes ago you wanted me to harass him out of the office which was not my plan.

00:07:46 ◼   ► My plan was to simply relocate like a civilized person.

00:07:50 ◼   ► I never said you should, I just wondered if you had.

00:07:53 ◼   ► No, I had not. I had not.

00:07:56 ◼   ► Chase him out of town. This office ain't big enough for the both of us buddy.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Yeah but it isn't and that's the problem. It really isn't.

00:08:04 ◼   ► You should sneak in and write things on his whiteboard.

00:08:07 ◼   ► No these doors have locks. I'm not picking a lock and breaking into

00:08:11 ◼   ► somebody's office. So how did you peek in? What, through like a window? Yeah just as

00:08:15 ◼   ► with every office building ever it seems like now that the fashionable thing is to

00:08:21 ◼   ► have doors that are glass that are partially frosted but not entirely

00:08:27 ◼   ► frosted so that everybody can just look in. Have you covered yours up? No Myke I

00:08:31 ◼   ► have not covered mine up mainly because it's a real pain in the butt to try to

00:08:34 ◼   ► cover up the glass door and you know what I really don't need to draw any

00:08:38 ◼   ► more attention to myself in that office.

00:08:41 ◼   ► I already taped over some of the lights in the ceiling because the way they were glaring

00:08:46 ◼   ► off of my iPad was really annoying.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Again, I'm absolutely sure that somebody noticed that half the lights are taped off and the

00:08:54 ◼   ► last thing I need is to put a flag over the door.

00:08:57 ◼   ► I think that would pretty much guarantee that when I request to move to a different office,

00:09:01 ◼   ► they would probably just say no.

00:09:03 ◼   ► They might do it anyway

00:09:05 ◼   ► Because they're just gonna be like oh, is he done something in there that you can't talk about now. He just wants out

00:09:10 ◼   ► Yeah, there's something hidden under the floorboards like when they found me the first day digging them up

00:09:17 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, what's he doing with all the wiring down there? Just preparing the space

00:09:22 ◼   ► Never you mind nothing nothing. I need a new office now why I just can't be in that one anymore

00:09:29 ◼   ► Yeah, that will literally be my reason. The other one is no good. Can I please switch?

00:09:34 ◼   ► I've been working in the lobby of my main office to get away from the guy next door to me

00:09:40 ◼   ► Oh, but that's been a joy for everybody with my mechanical keyboard. Wait a second

00:09:45 ◼   ► Wait, I'm pretty sure has not made anybody happy. So to escape the one person

00:09:50 ◼   ► Who talks on the phone you've moved to the lobby where people are I'm sure going in and out all day

00:09:58 ◼   ► How is this better? I guess I do need to explain a few things here. The building that I'm working in made this very

00:10:04 ◼   ► very strange maneuver in that they used to have a nice open lobby with nothing in it, and then they turned it into

00:10:11 ◼   ► another open office that they could rent out to many other people

00:10:16 ◼   ► Which every time I see it, I think must be the worst open office

00:10:20 ◼   ► anywhere in the world

00:10:23 ◼   ► because the lobby is all open air and

00:10:27 ◼   ► Every echo from anywhere in the building, everyone in the lobby can hear.

00:10:31 ◼   ► The elevators talking about opening and closing their doors all day long.

00:10:35 ◼   ► It bounces off the building.

00:10:37 ◼   ► It's an absolutely terrible space for anybody to work.

00:10:40 ◼   ► But I'm presuming that it is profitable for the building owner to rent out, so they turned it into an open office.

00:10:45 ◼   ► But that does also mean that there's a bunch of places for random people like me just to sit down and work, if they want to.

00:10:51 ◼   ► And this is the key thing.

00:10:53 ◼   ► As you may remember, my actual writing space

00:10:56 ◼   ► has nowhere to sit because I asked them to take the chair away.

00:11:00 ◼   ► It only has the standing desk and so

00:11:03 ◼   ► if I'm standing up what I want to do

00:11:06 ◼   ► and what I am most effective at is pacing around

00:11:09 ◼   ► talking out loud and writing. But if I can't do that

00:11:13 ◼   ► because somebody else is in the office next door to me talking on the phone

00:11:18 ◼   ► then I have to go sit down and write silently like I used to

00:11:21 ◼   ► do in cafes a bunch. So then I have to relocate to somewhere where there's a

00:11:24 ◼   ► chair

00:11:25 ◼   ► and the only place that there is a chair is the big open air lobby downstairs.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And then I bring my noise cancelling headphones and my very loud mechanical keyboard

00:11:35 ◼   ► and just work away on a script down there.

00:11:37 ◼   ► So that's what I've been doing.

00:11:38 ◼   ► But it is non-ideal.

00:11:39 ◼   ► The mechanical keyboard is almost like bullying.

00:11:42 ◼   ► I don't think it's like bullying.

00:11:44 ◼   ► If I brought this into like a library or something, I would agree with you.

00:11:49 ◼   ► Like yes, this is totally inappropriate.

00:11:52 ◼   ► But it is already the worst open office anywhere in the world that is the loudest with the most echoes,

00:11:59 ◼   ► with elevator sounds, with everything that there could possibly be.

00:12:04 ◼   ► So I feel like me bringing a mechanical keyboard down there to work and to type on,

00:12:08 ◼   ► it can't be making it more than 1% more uncomfortable than it was before.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Why don't you just get a chair in the office?

00:12:16 ◼   ► I don't want a chair in the office.

00:12:18 ◼   ► If I have a chair in the office then I need to also have a desk that I can sit at with the chair.

00:12:22 ◼   ► This is no good.

00:12:23 ◼   ► You have them, they're just stacked on top of each other.

00:12:26 ◼   ► Right, but the lower desk is not an appropriate sitting height.

00:12:29 ◼   ► Look, it's just easier to go down into the lobby with my keyboard and I don't understand what's so hard to understand about this.

00:12:35 ◼   ► Like I just grab it and I go downstairs and this is easier.

00:12:38 ◼   ► I don't want a chair in my little office, it'll get in the way when I'm pacing around.

00:12:41 ◼   ► That would be no good.

00:12:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:43 ◼   ► Have I ever sent you a picture of this open office? I don't think I have.

00:12:47 ◼   ► There. This is a picture of it.

00:12:49 ◼   ► That's disgusting.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Yeah, isn't it awful? I will just say, however, that while I have to work downstairs, and it is non-ideal,

00:12:57 ◼   ► in the theme of open offices allow spying, the most interesting thing is that it does seem like the people working in that open office downstairs are some kind of startup accelerator.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Well, it looks like they're hamsters, to be honest, in some kind of experiment. That's what it looks like.

00:13:16 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, the physical setup is not ideal, but it's interesting to spy, essentially,

00:13:24 ◼   ► and to listen in on them practicing their startup pitches for venture capitalists.

00:13:30 ◼   ► So if I'm not writing, sometimes I'll take off my headphones and spy.

00:13:33 ◼   ► But I feel like it's not spying.

00:13:35 ◼   ► You're working in the lobby and talking out loud.

00:13:37 ◼   ► I'm just, you know, I just happen to be overhearing the interesting things that you're discussing.

00:13:41 ◼   ► Today's episode of Cortex is brought to you by Tracker.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Smart cars, smart phones, smart homes.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Technology has made everything smart but losing your possessions can sometimes make you feel

00:13:54 ◼   ► less than smart.

00:13:55 ◼   ► Now I have a habit of misplacing things at home.

00:14:01 ◼   ► I was merely the other day trying to look for something technology related for the project

00:14:06 ◼   ► that I'm working on and I could not find it in my house and it took way longer than I

00:14:12 ◼   ► wanted it to.

00:14:13 ◼   ► considering I'm looking at moving soon, it's probably best that I try and keep track of

00:14:17 ◼   ► my technology. Well this is what Tracker is all about. It is about making sure that losing

00:14:23 ◼   ► things is a thing of the past. Tracker is a coin sized device that locates misplaced

00:14:29 ◼   ► keys, wallets, bags, computers, even pets in seconds. You just pair the tracker to your

00:14:33 ◼   ► smartphone, attach it to any item and find its precise location with just a tap of a

00:14:37 ◼   ► button. It's that easy. You can track up to 10 devices at once and if you lose your phone

00:14:42 ◼   ► and you have the tracker nearby, just press the button on your tracker device and your

00:14:46 ◼   ► phone will chime, even if it's on silent.

00:14:51 ◼   ► With over 1.5 million devices, tracker has the largest crowd GPS network in the world

00:14:56 ◼   ► so your last item shows up on a map, even if it's miles away.

00:15:00 ◼   ► The tracker app records your lost items last location on their map and when another tracker

00:15:04 ◼   ► user comes within a 100ft range of the item, you'll receive a GPS update of your items

00:15:08 ◼   ► location.

00:15:10 ◼   ► You can now personalise your tracker with a laser engraved message or a custom printed

00:15:13 ◼   ► image. The lovely folk at tracker sent me some amazing Cortex branded tracker devices

00:15:18 ◼   ► and tracker is enabled by Bluetooth LE so the battery lasts for up to a year.

00:15:24 ◼   ► A pro tip, what I've been doing with my trackers, I've been putting them in my suitcases so

00:15:28 ◼   ► I can track them and make sure they're in the airport when I land so I don't have that

00:15:31 ◼   ► anxiety of waiting at the baggage claim. With tracker, you'll never lose your possessions

00:15:36 ◼   ► again.

00:15:37 ◼   ► the tracker.com but wait it is spelled like this t h e t r a c k r dot com and enter the

00:15:45 ◼   ► promo code cortex for 30% off your entire order once again that's t h e t r a c k r

00:15:53 ◼   ► dot com promo code cortex and you'll get an amazing 30% off thank you so much to tracker

00:15:58 ◼   ► for their support of this show and relay fm

00:16:01 ◼   ► Alright Myke, are you gonna talk about this project that you've been sharing with me for

00:16:08 ◼   ► the past couple of weeks?

00:16:10 ◼   ► Sending me little links, things to look at.

00:16:13 ◼   ► Obviously a project that is on your mind a lot, but that you yet seem reluctant to talk

00:16:19 ◼   ► about.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Are we gonna talk about this today?

00:16:21 ◼   ► I think we should talk about this today.

00:16:23 ◼   ► We're only talking about this today because you're forcing me to talk about this today.

00:16:26 ◼   ► I am not forcing you to talk about this.

00:16:28 ◼   ► I think you want to talk about this.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Oh, I do hard to do but it's difficult because I'm working on a new thing which is full of risks

00:16:36 ◼   ► And I feel like I'm not ready, but you're telling me now

00:16:41 ◼   ► It's now or never basically that I have to talk about this

00:16:45 ◼   ► I think we need to talk about this because you've been sending me links stuff to look at and

00:16:50 ◼   ► I think you are falling for the kind of thing that

00:16:55 ◼   ► many people embarking on new projects fall for, which is this idea that you need

00:17:00 ◼   ► some kind of perfect plan and everything absolutely ready in place

00:17:05 ◼   ► before you can go ahead.

00:17:08 ◼   ► So I disagree with your point,

00:17:11 ◼   ► but there's no point in me arguing it until we talk about it and then we can come back to that about the idea of

00:17:16 ◼   ► the perfect plan. Right, but I think from what I have seen, I think we should just we should just go from here

00:17:23 ◼   ► even if you don't feel like you're ready because you never actually will be more ready.

00:17:27 ◼   ► So what are you working on Myke? Tell the people.

00:17:29 ◼   ► A YouTube channel.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Ooooh. What are you going to do on your YouTube channel Myke?

00:17:34 ◼   ► I am working on a vlogging project. Now for anybody who doesn't know what vlogging is,

00:17:41 ◼   ► the style in which I am going to be working on is basically just showing things happening

00:17:49 ◼   ► in my life and talking about things that I'm interested in.

00:17:54 ◼   ► So it's basically just going to be me and the camera

00:17:59 ◼   ► and the viewer just maybe going around London

00:18:03 ◼   ► or I'm at home and I've got things to show

00:18:05 ◼   ► and I've got things to talk about.

00:18:06 ◼   ► That's effectively what I'm doing.

00:18:08 ◼   ► So I have many influences for this.

00:18:11 ◼   ► I've recently become obsessed with Casey Neistat

00:18:15 ◼   ► and I've been thinking about doing something like this

00:18:17 ◼   ► for a while because I've been coming more and more interested in vlogging and we've

00:18:23 ◼   ► spoken about some of the channels that I've been watching on this show and now I just

00:18:29 ◼   ► feel compelled to do this in a way that reminds me of how it felt when I was compelled to

00:18:37 ◼   ► begin podcasting. I just feel like I have a thing in my brain that I want to get out

00:18:46 ◼   ► And I feel like I have ideas of how I would do something like this and instead of just sitting and watching other people's work and being like I would do it differently.

00:18:57 ◼   ► I feel like I need to show how I would do it so just where this project came from I think.

00:19:03 ◼   ► But I have more reasons than that.

00:19:09 ◼   ► I was just going to say that as with many projects that people eventually embark on,

00:19:17 ◼   ► this is something that when we meet up on occasion in person, I feel like you have had this clearly

00:19:22 ◼   ► on the back of your mind as something you've been circling around

00:19:27 ◼   ► I don't know maybe six months, four months, like this has clearly been something that has been

00:19:35 ◼   ► mentioned, you know, talking about vloggers and talking about

00:19:38 ◼   ► how vlogs are put together, what makes vlogs interesting, what you could do in a vlog. Like this is clearly something that has been

00:19:46 ◼   ► growing in your mind over time.

00:19:49 ◼   ► And so whenever it was, maybe a week ago, when you finally sent me the first link to take a look at the first thing

00:19:57 ◼   ► that you had put together, I was happy. I thought, "Ah, here we go!" Myke's finally getting this out of his head and

00:20:03 ◼   ► He's making something happen with this

00:20:05 ◼   ► Yeah, so I

00:20:08 ◼   ► Don't yet fully have a real plan for what this is gonna result in being mm-hmm

00:20:18 ◼   ► Which is why I don't feel like I'm ready

00:20:20 ◼   ► But there are a few things that I do know

00:20:24 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. I know it won't be daily. Oh, yeah, they're not a thing you have time for in your schedule

00:20:29 ◼   ► Not right now. It may turn into that in the future, but right now it's not. And I am taking a page from your book

00:20:37 ◼   ► and I don't have a schedule in which I will be uploading videos because as it turns out right now in my life,

00:20:43 ◼   ► I don't have something to put together in video form every day.

00:20:47 ◼   ► Because there may be multiple days where it's just me at home.

00:20:51 ◼   ► I don't know if I can make a lot of interesting stuff out of that every single day.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. So I'm kind of playing around with it and just seeing what comes out. However in the last week I have made three videos

00:21:04 ◼   ► So I've been bitten by the bug

00:21:07 ◼   ► You definitely have been you definitely have been bitten by the bug. And yes, I think I think it's excellent to

00:21:13 ◼   ► Not necessarily commit yourself to a schedule starting this off even though that is

00:21:18 ◼   ► The contrary advice to the standard YouTube advice of like, oh you should definitely have a schedule

00:21:24 ◼   ► Obviously, I don't agree with that and I think that you should do exactly what you're doing here, which is

00:21:29 ◼   ► When you can put something together

00:21:32 ◼   ► Put something together

00:21:35 ◼   ► but to commit yourself to a schedule when you are running this whole other podcasting empire on the side and

00:21:42 ◼   ► May have many days in a row where your day is sitting in front of a microphone like you just you can't necessarily

00:21:49 ◼   ► commit to a particular schedule with that. So I think that this is

00:21:52 ◼   ► totally, totally the right way to go. Because this is 100% a side project and

00:21:59 ◼   ► I have my own business to run, as you say, and I can't jeopardize my real

00:22:05 ◼   ► business which puts food on my table for another little idea that I have which

00:22:11 ◼   ► might be fun. So I need to be realistic about it in that way. But I

00:22:17 ◼   ► I also feel like, at least for listeners of this show,

00:22:21 ◼   ► we know that people like to know what happens

00:22:23 ◼   ► in the life of someone who's self-employed,

00:22:25 ◼   ► and I think I can bring some of that

00:22:27 ◼   ► into these videos as well,

00:22:30 ◼   ► to kind of show what my life is like,

00:22:32 ◼   ► get a bit of behind the scenes

00:22:33 ◼   ► in the type of thing that I do,

00:22:35 ◼   ► and maybe also just talk about some of the things

00:22:37 ◼   ► and some of the challenges that I go through

00:22:39 ◼   ► in trying to run my own business.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I can see it as a kind of,

00:22:42 ◼   ► just a companion to everything that I do,

00:22:44 ◼   ► Which I guess is what a vlog is, right?

00:22:47 ◼   ► - Well, a vlog is what you make it.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Like for many vloggers, the vlog is the main thing, right?

00:22:58 ◼   ► That this is like the central point of their life.

00:23:02 ◼   ► But I think it's also very clear that for tons of vloggers,

00:23:06 ◼   ► like including Casey Neistat,

00:23:09 ◼   ► that the vlog is like an additional thing

00:23:12 ◼   ► to the prime thing that they do in their life.

00:23:15 ◼   ► And I think that that actually ends up almost,

00:23:20 ◼   ► almost always tending to be the much more interesting vlogs,

00:23:25 ◼   ► because when the vlog is the central thing in and of itself,

00:23:30 ◼   ► it's, I don't know, it just has a different feeling to me

00:23:34 ◼   ► than this person has an interesting life

00:23:37 ◼   ► outside of this vlog, and the vlog is simply showing you

00:23:42 ◼   ► little bit of what is it like to be this person. And at least for me personally, I

00:23:47 ◼   ► don't find it super interesting when it's like, what is it like to be this

00:23:50 ◼   ► person? Well this, what it's like to be this person is a person who's always

00:23:56 ◼   ► showing you what it's like to be them, right? Like if the vlog is the main thing.

00:24:00 ◼   ► So I can totally see this as something working for you as a compendium to what

00:24:08 ◼   ► it is that you're doing in all kinds of other areas. So I think this is like, this is an

00:24:13 ◼   ► interesting project for you to have on the side. Like, and I'm kind of curious to see

00:24:19 ◼   ► where this is going to end up going. But I would like to know, like you said you got

00:24:24 ◼   ► bitten by the bug as this is like a thing that you want to do, but like why do you think

00:24:33 ◼   ► that happened to you? Like why do you think this was a project that you became attracted

00:24:40 ◼   ► to over time?

00:24:43 ◼   ► So let me just take this brief aside to say that my channel is youtube.com/mikehurley.

00:24:49 ◼   ► That is that in case you want to go and watch the videos that I've put together right now.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Oh so you're going to, the ones that you have shown me you're definitely going to put them

00:24:57 ◼   ► up?

00:24:58 ◼   ► I think so.

00:24:59 ◼   ► You definitely should. Okay. This was for the listener. There was a little bit of uncertainty here where Myke was sending me videos and he's like, "Oh, what do you think about this? Maybe I'll put it up, maybe I'll tell..."

00:25:08 ◼   ► And I think you should totally put up those three videos and have them available for people. So yes, put them up. You're all locked in now. Great. Myke's first three videos, they'll be up at youtube.com/mikehurley

00:25:20 ◼   ► So you asked why? Like, why videos?

00:25:23 ◼   ► Yeah, why is this a thing that has caught your attention to the point at which it's

00:25:30 ◼   ► gotten over the barriers of like, is this a project that you should work on?

00:25:33 ◼   ► Like, why is it attracted to your attention?

00:25:35 ◼   ► Why is it a thing that you want to work on?

00:25:38 ◼   ► I learned something about myself about five or six years ago that writing is not my thing.

00:25:45 ◼   ► I can do it.

00:25:47 ◼   ► I'm competent at it.

00:25:48 ◼   ► I can put out some interesting stuff if I try hard, but I don't enjoy it.

00:25:55 ◼   ► And around that time, what I realized was I really loved podcasts, listening to podcasts,

00:26:03 ◼   ► and it became a real source of entertainment for me.

00:26:06 ◼   ► And then I thought to myself, I could do this.

00:26:09 ◼   ► So I did it.

00:26:11 ◼   ► And I've now, with a lot of hard work and some luck thrown in, I've made it into a business.

00:26:18 ◼   ► recently, maybe in the last year, I have become more interested in YouTube as a medium of

00:26:23 ◼   ► entertainment. Previously, YouTube for me was just follow the link from somewhere else

00:26:30 ◼   ► and watch this video that people are talking about. But now, I think really since I got

00:26:36 ◼   ► an Apple TV, it's become more of a thing in my life because I take breaks in my day

00:26:41 ◼   ► and one of the ways that I take breaks in my day now is to turn on the Apple TV, open

00:26:44 ◼   ► in a YouTube app and see what the algorithm is giving me.

00:26:49 ◼   ► And then I've been finding some channels along the way

00:26:52 ◼   ► and I've been watching them

00:26:53 ◼   ► and I'm finding myself gravitating more

00:26:56 ◼   ► towards watching people in their lives.

00:26:59 ◼   ► And I think part of the reason for that

00:27:02 ◼   ► is since I've started my business,

00:27:05 ◼   ► I spend a lot more time secluded than I used to.

00:27:10 ◼   ► Which is fine, I'm not complaining.

00:27:12 ◼   ► I love my life as it is, but I've noticed that

00:27:16 ◼   ► and I think part of it is I'm looking for,

00:27:19 ◼   ► just to see what other people are doing

00:27:21 ◼   ► and there's like a little bit of an escape

00:27:23 ◼   ► that I can take by watching somebody take a flight

00:27:27 ◼   ► to Dubai and spend a day there, right?

00:27:31 ◼   ► So I think my brain has kind of gravitated to that.

00:27:33 ◼   ► So whilst that's been happening to me,

00:27:36 ◼   ► I've becoming more and more interested

00:27:39 ◼   ► in YouTube as a medium and video as a medium.

00:27:43 ◼   ► So I've just been paying more attention to it.

00:27:46 ◼   ► And whilst I had previously been very hesitant of video,

00:27:50 ◼   ► I started to see a way that I thought

00:27:54 ◼   ► I could put things together

00:27:57 ◼   ► without your sort of time investment.

00:28:00 ◼   ► Because that was always my thinking was like,

00:28:04 ◼   ► if I made something, would it be something animated

00:28:07 ◼   ► because I don't really want to be on camera

00:28:09 ◼   ► and then thinking, oh, I have to learn with stuff

00:28:13 ◼   ► and it would take me a long, long time to do.

00:28:15 ◼   ► But I had some thoughts in my mind

00:28:18 ◼   ► where I thought to myself, I could combine some of the skills

00:28:21 ◼   ► that I've learned in crafting audio and editing audio

00:28:24 ◼   ► to allow me to create video.

00:28:27 ◼   ► So that was kind of the thesis,

00:28:28 ◼   ► is can I take these skills to help me create something

00:28:32 ◼   ► that I'm happy with with the minimum amount

00:28:35 ◼   ► of time invested?

00:28:36 ◼   ► So this was just the thing that was like bouncing around

00:28:38 ◼   ► in my brain, like can I get a good quality video

00:28:43 ◼   ► without having to make it all I do in my life?

00:28:47 ◼   ► - Right.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - So the more and more of this stuff that I watched,

00:28:51 ◼   ► the more and more I felt like I had an idea

00:28:54 ◼   ► of what was going on,

00:28:56 ◼   ► like how these things were being put together,

00:28:59 ◼   ► and like I couldn't stop seeing the seams.

00:29:03 ◼   ► Right, so when you were watching the vlogs,

00:29:07 ◼   ► part of your brain is constantly thinking

00:29:10 ◼   ► about how all of the shots are constructed.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Yep.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Like what is this person doing in this scene?

00:29:17 ◼   ► How is this shot arranged?

00:29:19 ◼   ► How is this section flowing into this section?

00:29:21 ◼   ► Like that's what your brain is kind of running

00:29:23 ◼   ► in the background while you're watching vlogs?

00:29:25 ◼   ► Yep, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it.

00:29:29 ◼   ► Right.

00:29:30 ◼   ► And then I thought to myself, maybe I should try this.

00:29:34 ◼   ► And then the thing happened to me

00:29:37 ◼   ► that I know means I have to do something now.

00:29:42 ◼   ► So in the last few years, all the projects

00:29:45 ◼   ► that I've really kind of felt like I needed to try

00:29:48 ◼   ► and go out my comfort zone a little bit and try,

00:29:51 ◼   ► they all kept me up at night.

00:29:53 ◼   ► And this kept me up at night, thinking about this.

00:29:57 ◼   ► Like I would lay in bed, I would turn everything off, I put my head on the pillow, and I wouldn't

00:30:01 ◼   ► sleep for like two hours because I couldn't stop thinking about doing this.

00:30:08 ◼   ► So I've decided to do it.

00:30:11 ◼   ► One of the big things in podcasting that we talk about all the time is discovery.

00:30:16 ◼   ► Right.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Discovery tools.

00:30:19 ◼   ► There's no way for people to find podcasts.

00:30:22 ◼   ► very very hard if you like and listen to one podcast to find other podcasts that

00:30:31 ◼   ► you you want to listen to and that that cut that comes out of the thing which I

00:30:35 ◼   ► think you and I quite like about the podcasting world which is that there is

00:30:39 ◼   ► no central authority it's just the wild wild west but a flip side of that is

00:30:46 ◼   ► since all of the individual podcasters are kind of doing their own thing and

00:30:51 ◼   ► and every podcast listener is mostly just an aggregate of all of those individuals,

00:30:58 ◼   ► there is no central authority to do the correlation and the number crunching to try to figure out,

00:31:05 ◼   ► "If you listen to this, you might also want to listen to this."

00:31:09 ◼   ► And I think podcasting will almost always be facing that kind of discovery problem.

00:31:16 ◼   ► problem. Yeah, I've basically like over the last year have realized that the only way to fix this is

00:31:23 ◼   ► a way that I'm unhappy with with my medium

00:31:26 ◼   ► Which is to give away all my control. Right, right. So what I've just what I've realized is YouTube already fixed this problem

00:31:34 ◼   ► with their algorithm and

00:31:37 ◼   ► By never letting anyone ever have the control. Right. So it's time for me to give in to the algorithm

00:31:44 ◼   ► So I'm going to YouTube.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:48 ◼   ► And if there's anything I have learned over my YouTube career,

00:31:52 ◼   ► it is

00:31:54 ◼   ► don't try to fight the algorithm.

00:31:56 ◼   ► Just accept it as a thing that exists in the world,

00:32:01 ◼   ► and don't try to fight that algorithm.

00:32:03 ◼   ► I don't think podcasting really needs the algorithm.

00:32:08 ◼   ► I mean, that's kind of the conclusion that I've drawn here,

00:32:12 ◼   ► on here is like that can live on its own and continue doing its thing. In my

00:32:17 ◼   ► opinion it's fine as it is but I want to see what the algorithm can do. I want to

00:32:23 ◼   ► see what YouTube's algorithm is capable of. Because I know I find more and

00:32:27 ◼   ► more interesting things to watch every single day because I'm feeding the

00:32:31 ◼   ► algorithm. So now I want to be a part of the algorithm.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Right. I think that's not an unreasonable thing to do.

00:32:41 ◼   ► And obviously we've discussed the YouTube algorithm many times and

00:32:46 ◼   ► of course everybody's individual experience is different, but I agree with you that I am

00:32:51 ◼   ► as far as all of the universe of things that try to recommend you stuff

00:32:57 ◼   ► you know, like Amazon tries to figure out what you want to buy, right? Or Netflix tries to figure out what you want to watch next.

00:33:03 ◼   ► I'm probably going to rank the YouTube algorithm as the best of all of the recommendation engines out there.

00:33:10 ◼   ► It's the most effective at being correct.

00:33:12 ◼   ► Yeah, how successful is it at picking the next video that I want to watch?

00:33:18 ◼   ► It's pretty successful if I'm just on YouTube and I'm looking at some stuff.

00:33:24 ◼   ► And, you know, part of that is actually this idea of like, don't, you know, don't fight the algorithm.

00:33:31 ◼   ► And this notion of YouTube discovery is part of the reason why I put the podcasts up on YouTube.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Like, I think it's, you know what, like throw it into the YouTube algorithm, right, and have it be available for YouTube to use in this gigantic stew of things people might like.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Now, obviously YouTube is not designed for podcasts, but I feel like it can't hurt.

00:33:59 ◼   ► Can't hurt to have that stuff up there.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Can't hurt to have Cortex in podcast form up on YouTube.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Just throw it in there as part of the algorithm.

00:34:08 ◼   ► But I think what you're doing by doing the vlog and looking at this algorithm is very

00:34:15 ◼   ► interesting because unlike the podcasting, which is not native, you're trying to play

00:34:21 ◼   ► native game and to see how many people will find you or find your stuff interesting to watch.

00:34:30 ◼   ► So like here's the the perfect scenario here right for me like what is the the thing that I'm

00:34:37 ◼   ► genuinely aiming for which is to be in the algorithm and to build a presence on youtube

00:34:44 ◼   ► to feed the podcasts. So the podcasts are out of the algorithm and I don't think there's ever

00:34:51 ◼   ► going to be a big benefit for the algorithm, like to take those in, because they're so long,

00:34:56 ◼   ► it's completely unideal. And hello Cortex YouTube subscribers, you're amazing, but I could never do

00:35:03 ◼   ► what you're doing. Yeah, I always find it confusing that as many people listen to podcasts on YouTube

00:35:08 ◼   ► as there are, like there are actually a surprising number of podcasts that upload to YouTube, but I

00:35:13 ◼   ► I agree with you that that's almost certainly a tiny, tiny number of people who find a thing

00:35:19 ◼   ► that they like that they didn't know about already.

00:35:21 ◼   ► Like, I'll take them.

00:35:22 ◼   ► That's great.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Welcome.

00:35:24 ◼   ► But yeah, it's not working within what YouTube really wants, which is video content that's

00:35:31 ◼   ► actual engaging video content for people to watch.

00:35:35 ◼   ► So it's like that's the business angle for me, like is building up an audience from other

00:35:41 ◼   ► areas and then letting them know that I have all these podcasts that they can listen to

00:35:47 ◼   ► as well as a way to try and get those out there a little bit more to new people.

00:35:53 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:35:54 ◼   ► So this is discovery in a double sense.

00:35:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:59 ◼   ► That by extending a pseudo-pod out into the YouTube world, you can have people discover

00:36:07 ◼   ► who you are who might not even be aware of podcasts as a thing that exists.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Or just mine.

00:36:14 ◼   ► Yeah, or just yours.

00:36:16 ◼   ► And then bring them into the fold.

00:36:18 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, I like this Myke Hurley guy.

00:36:20 ◼   ► He makes interesting videos."

00:36:22 ◼   ► And then of course, obviously, because you're making videos about what you do, it will be

00:36:26 ◼   ► obvious that you run a podcasting company, that this is a thing that you do.

00:36:30 ◼   ► And also, the things that I'll be making videos about are things that I enjoy, and I have

00:36:35 ◼   ► podcasts about everything that I enjoy. So it's all going to be, you know, I think it's

00:36:39 ◼   ► just a good way to kind of build that up. But the other part of it and the real part

00:36:44 ◼   ► of like the real reason I'm doing this is because I like to do new things. I find doing

00:36:49 ◼   ► new things fun. And this is a new skill to learn. And I also kind of need this stuff.

00:36:56 ◼   ► I need to find new things to keep myself interested in my creative work and taking risks and going

00:37:05 ◼   ► in new directions helps keep me engaged and active in stuff because I don't have a side

00:37:12 ◼   ► project anymore really and I know from my history that side projects I enjoy them so

00:37:19 ◼   ► this can now be a kind of a side project for me.

00:37:24 ◼   ► Yeah I think all creative people do need side projects.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Because I tried doing side project podcasts, but that didn't fulfill that part of me.

00:37:37 ◼   ► It still just felt like the same thing.

00:37:38 ◼   ► You're doing the same thing again in a different topic, but it's still the same thing.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Because the production is the same.

00:37:49 ◼   ► So the talking part is fun in different ways because it's about different things, but then

00:37:55 ◼   ► and it's always the same production.

00:37:57 ◼   ► And the production for video is very, very different.

00:38:00 ◼   ► And I have been surprised how much of my skills

00:38:04 ◼   ► are transferable from audio editing to video editing,

00:38:07 ◼   ► many more than I expected, to be honest.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And also Final Cut Pro is like an oasis in a desert

00:38:15 ◼   ► compared to Logic, which is just endless sand forever.

00:38:19 ◼   ► Final Cut Pro, the new one, Final Cut Pro X,

00:38:24 ◼   ► is super easy to pick up, I found,

00:38:27 ◼   ► if you've used any kind of editing tool

00:38:29 ◼   ► of any kind in the past.

00:38:30 ◼   ► There are tools in there that I'm really getting used to,

00:38:33 ◼   ► and I'm learning how to do things,

00:38:34 ◼   ► and I'm doing things that I know are silly,

00:38:37 ◼   ► but they're working,

00:38:38 ◼   ► and I'm kind of enjoying playing around.

00:38:41 ◼   ► I have been spending many hours in Final Cut Pro,

00:38:44 ◼   ► and they have been just flying by.

00:38:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:38:49 ◼   ► - I think this is an interesting thing to point out

00:38:51 ◼   ► for side projects as well that are going--

00:38:54 ◼   ► or that have a higher likelihood of being successful

00:38:58 ◼   ► is that people I see who have successful side projects,

00:39:03 ◼   ► a very common theme is that those side projects

00:39:08 ◼   ► are not out of left field from everything else.

00:39:14 ◼   ► They remind me of, I think it's Steven Johnson

00:39:18 ◼   ► came up with this term for technology,

00:39:20 ◼   ► which is called the adjacent possible of when you think about technological

00:39:25 ◼   ► progress,

00:39:26 ◼   ► there are technologies that are adjacently possible to

00:39:31 ◼   ► whatever your current level of technology is now. And I think that there's,

00:39:34 ◼   ► there's an adjacent possible for side projects with

00:39:40 ◼   ► regards to skills that is while in some sense,

00:39:44 ◼   ► maybe on the surface,

00:39:45 ◼   ► it looks like doing a vlog is not really related to doing a podcast, but you actually do have

00:39:54 ◼   ► a lot of skills that are transferable from one to another.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Stuff is new, there's enough that's new and there's enough that's different, but everything

00:40:03 ◼   ► that you have learned in the past several years about how to cut a podcast, that stuff

00:40:10 ◼   ► helps you with thinking about how to cut a vlog.

00:40:13 ◼   ► And even just-- like you said just there,

00:40:17 ◼   ► learning how to use logic, the fact

00:40:19 ◼   ► that you already know how to use logic to edit podcasts,

00:40:24 ◼   ► makes it way easier to pick up something like Final Cut.

00:40:29 ◼   ► It makes that adjacent possible much more easy.

00:40:34 ◼   ► So I think this is a good sign for a side project

00:40:38 ◼   ► when it is new, but it is also not just totally out of the realm of skills that you already

00:40:47 ◼   ► have. You can take skills that you have, apply them to this, and gain new skills that may

00:40:54 ◼   ► feed back into your main project over time.

00:40:57 ◼   ► Today's episode of Cortex is brought to you by the phone folk over at Casper, the company

00:41:02 ◼   ► focused on sleep that has created the perfect mattress that it sells directly to consumers,

00:41:08 ◼   ► eliminating those commission driven inflated prices.

00:41:12 ◼   ► Casper is revolutionising the mattress industry

00:41:15 ◼   ► by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and showrooms,

00:41:17 ◼   ► passing those savings directly to you.

00:41:20 ◼   ► And when you're getting rid of the showroom,

00:41:21 ◼   ► how do you sell a mattress?

00:41:22 ◼   ► Well, you sell it online.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Casper has a risk free online order process.

00:41:29 ◼   ► You will get a 100 night home trial with the Casper.

00:41:34 ◼   ► You order it online, they send it to you,

00:41:36 ◼   ► you can sleep on it at home for 100 nights. If you don't love it they'll pick it up and

00:41:41 ◼   ► refund you everything. Casper understands the importance of sleeping on a mattress before

00:41:45 ◼   ► you commit, especially because you're going to give a third of your life to it. Now, that

00:41:51 ◼   ► mattress that I spoke about, it is award winning, developed by Casper, has a sleek design and

00:41:55 ◼   ► it is sent to you in an impossibly small box so you can easily get it up the stairs. In

00:42:00 ◼   ► addition to the mattress, Casper now also offers an adaptive pillow and soft breathable

00:42:04 ◼   ► sheets as well. Their mattress provides springy latex and supportive memory foam to create

00:42:09 ◼   ► a mattress that has, and you know this, just the right sink and just the right bounce and

00:42:14 ◼   ► it keeps your temperature regulated through the night as well. Mattresses cost well over

00:42:18 ◼   ► $1500 usually but Casper Mattresses cost $500 for a twin size, $600 for Twin XL, $750 for

00:42:24 ◼   ► full size, $850 for Queen and $950 for King and they are made in America. You can get

00:42:30 ◼   ► $50 towards any mattress purchase by going to Casper.com/Cortex and using the code CORTEX

00:42:36 ◼   ► at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Thank you so much to Casper for their support of this very show.

00:42:41 ◼   ► The thing that I found the weirdest and the thing that I knew was going to be the hardest

00:42:45 ◼   ► is being on camera. Yeah is it really comfortable to point uh your phone I guess or whatever you're

00:42:51 ◼   ► using at yourself and talk? So I'm using my phone right now and I'm going to continue using my iPhone

00:42:56 ◼   ► for the time being because the camera on the iPhone

00:42:59 ◼   ► is really good.

00:43:00 ◼   ► I've been shooting in 4K.

00:43:02 ◼   ► I'm uploading in like 1080p, like there's no point

00:43:07 ◼   ► right now in uploading these things in 4K.

00:43:09 ◼   ► But I have 4K video.

00:43:11 ◼   ► There are a couple of issues with that,

00:43:15 ◼   ► that the camera can be a little shaky at points

00:43:17 ◼   ► and the audio isn't the best, but I'm trying to

00:43:21 ◼   ► add small pieces of equipment to deal with those things.

00:43:25 ◼   ► So I'll let you know what I end up going with there,

00:43:28 ◼   ► but I'm tinkering around with a few things.

00:43:30 ◼   ► I did consider buying a point and shoot camera for this,

00:43:34 ◼   ► but decided against it.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Just a few people who know me well enough said to me

00:43:40 ◼   ► that you will stop doing this if you have to have equipment

00:43:43 ◼   ► that you need to take out into the world.

00:43:45 ◼   ► Like you have this big fiddly camera

00:43:47 ◼   ► that you need to deal with, that's gonna put you off.

00:43:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's going to be a barrier

00:43:51 ◼   ► to putting something together.

00:43:52 ◼   ► So I'm going with just iPhone for the time being.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - I think that's a good decision.

00:43:56 ◼   ► And as we discussed on earlier shows,

00:43:59 ◼   ► I think people, it's easy to overvalue production quality.

00:44:04 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:44:05 ◼   ► - Right, it's like, you know what?

00:44:07 ◼   ► Your 4K video on your iPhone,

00:44:10 ◼   ► it's probably good enough, right?

00:44:12 ◼   ► Like it probably looks good enough.

00:44:14 ◼   ► - The thing that was hurting me the most is the audio

00:44:16 ◼   ► because that's what I do.

00:44:19 ◼   ► But audio in the YouTube world seems to be nowhere near

00:44:23 ◼   ► as important because I hear some truly terrible things

00:44:28 ◼   ► from time to time. - Oh yeah.

00:44:29 ◼   ► - So I'm working out how to do that

00:44:31 ◼   ► and I'm seeing what kind of microphone solutions

00:44:33 ◼   ► I can use for my iPhone to try and make it

00:44:36 ◼   ► a little bit better, but I'm also seeing what I can do

00:44:39 ◼   ► in the edit for it.

00:44:40 ◼   ► But being on camera is awkward.

00:44:44 ◼   ► And I am a British person,

00:44:47 ◼   ► So awkwardness is embedded deep within me.

00:44:51 ◼   ► And I have been trying to record myself in the street,

00:44:59 ◼   ► talking to my phone.

00:45:00 ◼   ► Right.

00:45:01 ◼   ► And I'm trying to get over that, because it's weird.

00:45:06 ◼   ► Well, from the video that you sent me the first time,

00:45:09 ◼   ► the very first one where you're talking into your phone,

00:45:12 ◼   ► you're walking down the street, looking like a real vlogger,

00:45:15 ◼   ► Myke.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Yep, that's vlog 000.

00:45:17 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:45:19 ◼   ► It was funny to see you doing that.

00:45:21 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, okay, here's Myke being a real vlogger."

00:45:23 ◼   ► What I wondered though was,

00:45:27 ◼   ► was this the first take?

00:45:29 ◼   ► Or were there many tries of

00:45:31 ◼   ► trying to walk around talking into the phone before you got something that was actually usable?

00:45:36 ◼   ► It was the first take, but it was after many attempts at pressing the record button.

00:45:43 ◼   ► which I kept bailing on.

00:45:46 ◼   ► - Right.

00:45:46 ◼   ► - So I was walking down a street

00:45:48 ◼   ► and I think I got three quarters of the way

00:45:49 ◼   ► to my destination before I was actually able

00:45:51 ◼   ► to film anything.

00:45:52 ◼   ► It's like, oh, there's too many people around.

00:45:56 ◼   ► So I'm just trying to get used to that.

00:45:58 ◼   ► And I feel that it's just something

00:46:00 ◼   ► that I will eventually get over.

00:46:02 ◼   ► But like even just talking into the camera at home is weird.

00:46:06 ◼   ► Like I never know where to look.

00:46:08 ◼   ► I'm trying to look at the lens.

00:46:11 ◼   ► - You have to look at the lens.

00:46:12 ◼   ► That's what you have to do.

00:46:13 ◼   ► every now and then I just look somewhere else

00:46:16 ◼   ► for reasons I don't understand

00:46:18 ◼   ► 'cause it's like keeping eye to contact with somebody

00:46:21 ◼   ► which I'm not the best at.

00:46:22 ◼   ► So I'm trying to work these things out of myself

00:46:26 ◼   ► but as with most things that I've ever done,

00:46:31 ◼   ► I feel like it is kind of best

00:46:32 ◼   ► to work these things out in public

00:46:34 ◼   ► which is why I'm going to be publishing

00:46:36 ◼   ► all of the test videos that I made.

00:46:38 ◼   ► - Great, great.

00:46:39 ◼   ► I'm very happy to hear that

00:46:41 ◼   ► because that was my thought as well.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Like, look, you've made these three videos.

00:46:45 ◼   ► I think they're good enough to put up, right?

00:46:47 ◼   ► It's not like, oh, Myke, Myke,

00:46:49 ◼   ► you've done something terrible.

00:46:50 ◼   ► Like, no, I think you've made three interesting videos,

00:46:52 ◼   ► right, as like first vlogs.

00:46:54 ◼   ► And at this point, it's like you are well past

00:46:58 ◼   ► the proof of concept.

00:47:00 ◼   ► Can you film, edit, put together something

00:47:03 ◼   ► that could be a vlog on YouTube?

00:47:05 ◼   ► Like the answer to that is totally yes.

00:47:08 ◼   ► And so at this stage, the only way you're going to make any

00:47:11 ◼   ► real progress on like what is this going to be

00:47:16 ◼   ► is to just make it live and to start that feedback loop of

00:47:21 ◼   ► people are looking at a thing

00:47:23 ◼   ► you know, as soon as it goes live it's going to be totally different in your mind

00:47:29 ◼   ► from how you're thinking about it now as we're having a conversation right when it's still private

00:47:33 ◼   ► it's like, it's a theoretical thing but I guarantee you when you

00:47:38 ◼   ► press the button to make it public

00:47:40 ◼   ► Something internal about you will feel very differently about those videos.

00:47:45 ◼   ► Because right now I'm proud of them.

00:47:47 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:47:49 ◼   ► As you should be, Myke.

00:47:51 ◼   ► So actually, let's talk about comments.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Okay.

00:47:54 ◼   ► Because I think this leads very nicely into that.

00:47:57 ◼   ► Okay.

00:47:58 ◼   ► I have had a real internal struggle with the comments.

00:48:01 ◼   ► What do you mean? There's no comments? You haven't put any videos up?

00:48:04 ◼   ► Well, the comments that will exist.

00:48:06 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:48:07 ◼   ► as to whether to deal with that, whether to even have them turned on. I've kind of gone back and

00:48:15 ◼   ► forth about it because do I want, I mean no I don't, but do I want people leaving comments

00:48:21 ◼   ► about my appearance? Because that's definitely going to happen at some point and I need to

00:48:31 ◼   ► work out if I'm able to... I have to work out how I deal with that because that's going to be very

00:48:39 ◼   ► new for me. This is a whole new world of things to get used to. You know, I'm pretty used to

00:48:47 ◼   ► the criticism, constructive and not... and unconstructive that gets thrown my way

00:48:53 ◼   ► throughout my daily life because I've done a thing for a long period of time.

00:48:58 ◼   ► But this is a new thing to deal with.

00:49:02 ◼   ► And the decision that I've come to is that I need to embrace the medium,

00:49:06 ◼   ► so I will be leaving all the comments on.

00:49:10 ◼   ► Oh thank god, okay.

00:49:11 ◼   ► Right, but I need to work out how I deal with it.

00:49:13 ◼   ► I was like, as you were talking, I was trying to mentally build up the arguments

00:49:19 ◼   ► to try to be like "Myke, you really need to have those comments on!"

00:49:22 ◼   ► I know the problem with leaving them off is inviting them to be worse than they ever could be,

00:49:28 ◼   ► but it's about the getting over the mental barrier of allowing the world to comment on me

00:49:36 ◼   ► and basically inviting criticism. But that's just something I'm just gonna have to take in my stride

00:49:44 ◼   ► because the whole point of this project is to understand YouTube at a deeper level.

00:49:51 ◼   ► So I need to give myself in to the platform.

00:49:55 ◼   ► And part of the platform historically is comments.

00:50:00 ◼   ► It's a big part of what helps people make their videos.

00:50:05 ◼   ► And it creates community around someone.

00:50:10 ◼   ► And so I figure I need to let it fly and deal with it accordingly.

00:50:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that that's the only way to do it, especially, especially if you're doing

00:50:24 ◼   ► a vlog.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:26 ◼   ► But if you if you if you started a vlog, and you turned comments off,

00:50:30 ◼   ► It's a mistake.

00:50:31 ◼   ► Not only is it a mistake, I think it is almost an aggressive maneuver.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Right?

00:50:37 ◼   ► Like that's, that's how I would perceive it.

00:50:39 ◼   ► It's like, here's my life.

00:50:40 ◼   ► Yeah, just accept it.

00:50:42 ◼   ► Right.

00:50:43 ◼   ► I have filmed a thing and I have put it out into the world and I will receive no commentary

00:50:50 ◼   ► on it.

00:50:51 ◼   ► This is for you to merely enjoy!

00:50:54 ◼   ► Right.

00:50:55 ◼   ► And it's like, do you know who puts out YouTube videos and turns off the comments with the

00:51:00 ◼   ► very attitude of "we have made a thing for you to merely accept and enjoy"?

00:51:06 ◼   ► Apple.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Right?

00:51:08 ◼   ► No comments on Apple's videos.

00:51:09 ◼   ► But I think they are the height of that example of like,

00:51:13 ◼   ► and Apple hath come down from the mount with AirPods, right?

00:51:18 ◼   ► They've made a video about AirPods

00:51:20 ◼   ► and they're gonna put it up on YouTube

00:51:22 ◼   ► and there's no comments.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Like Apple is not interested in your YouTube comments.

00:51:26 ◼   ► - Verily onto the--

00:51:28 ◼   ► - Right.

00:51:28 ◼   ► And Apple can get away with it,

00:51:31 ◼   ► but it's like, it still always annoys me

00:51:33 ◼   ► that there's no comments on Apple videos.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Even though of course, what would they add?

00:51:37 ◼   ► Nothing.

00:51:38 ◼   ► have absolutely nothing of quality, but I'm just always so aware that they don't have comments.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Well, because they made the choice, right? Like the default is "Comments on" and they've decided

00:51:48 ◼   ► to turn them off. Right. And I also think if I was the CEO of Apple, I would probably say like,

00:51:53 ◼   ► you know, let's just turn those comments off, right? We have nothing to gain,

00:51:55 ◼   ► and all it does is almost certainly snarkily undermine whatever the message is we want to

00:52:01 ◼   ► get across in these videos. Because the only people that are going to comment on them are

00:52:04 ◼   ► of people that have an axe to grind.

00:52:06 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:52:07 ◼   ► But so that is the, to me, like the pure embodiment

00:52:11 ◼   ► of what I think turning off the comments largely is,

00:52:13 ◼   ► is like, I have made a thing and you are to just accept it.

00:52:18 ◼   ► And Apple can get away with that.

00:52:21 ◼   ► But I think especially if anyone out there is like,

00:52:24 ◼   ► I wanna start a vlog, but I don't want comments,

00:52:27 ◼   ► like don't bother.

00:52:29 ◼   ► Because I think it sends the totally wrong message.

00:52:32 ◼   ► See this is the thing, if I knew the comments were going to be like Twitter, I would have

00:52:39 ◼   ► no problem leaving them on.

00:52:41 ◼   ► Because the vast majority of feedback that I receive on Twitter is positive.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And a lot of times it's people who enjoy what I do telling me that, which is great.

00:52:54 ◼   ► I hope YouTube comments will be like that for me, but I don't know that.

00:53:01 ◼   ► And again, it's just like the criticism that could be levied my way could be very different

00:53:07 ◼   ► than what I'm used to.

00:53:09 ◼   ► So I'm just wondering how I will deal with that without making a video about the comments,

00:53:15 ◼   ► right?

00:53:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:17 ◼   ► I mean, look, in general, when you're starting something like this, the people who are watching

00:53:22 ◼   ► it in the beginning are the people who like you, right?

00:53:24 ◼   ► This is how they have found it in the first place.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Hello, Cortex listeners.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:53:29 ◼   ► I can't imagine there are very many Cortex listeners who are hate listening to the show.

00:53:35 ◼   ► I mean, you know, the people who like to hand wash their dishes, maybe they hate listen to the show.

00:53:40 ◼   ► But this, you know, they're just like a tiny, uninfluential, unimportant segment of the audience,

00:53:45 ◼   ► right? They probably won't leave any comments at all. But it's like the vast majority of people

00:53:49 ◼   ► who are watching the thing, like they will have found it because they listen to the show,

00:53:54 ◼   ► they're interested in the work that you do, they're going to click the link in the show

00:53:57 ◼   ► they want to see what it's like, and if they don't like it, they probably just won't say anything at all.

00:54:03 ◼   ► And if they do like it, they'll probably leave a nice comment. Like that's how things start in the beginning.

00:54:08 ◼   ► I think a lot of the stuff that people complain about with the YouTube comments like that,

00:54:12 ◼   ► that will happen if and when the channel starts to grow, right?

00:54:18 ◼   ► Right? If and if and when your idea of the algorithm

00:54:23 ◼   ► picking up on your channel as a vlog to maybe recommend other viewers, like that's when that whole world

00:54:31 ◼   ► starts starting. Where you get comments from people, like drive-by comments, people who don't really know

00:54:36 ◼   ► fully who you are, who have just seen a thing, and they click on a video and you know,

00:54:41 ◼   ► and they don't like the look of you and then they say so, right? Like that's just...

00:54:44 ◼   ► But that comes later.

00:54:47 ◼   ► I don't think that that happens right in the start of it and

00:54:51 ◼   ► I always want to credit Hank Green

00:54:55 ◼   ► years ago at one of the conferences when I was talking to him made an interesting point about a

00:55:01 ◼   ► shift that happens in the comments to notice and

00:55:05 ◼   ► It's the shift when people

00:55:09 ◼   ► stop talking

00:55:11 ◼   ► to you in the comments and they start talking about

00:55:16 ◼   ► you in the comments.

00:55:18 ◼   ► Like, and that is when the tone of comments can really change.

00:55:24 ◼   ► Because, like, that's when the, like, a channel has grown and then people-- you don't have, like, your core group of supporters

00:55:32 ◼   ► so much, right? It is people there

00:55:35 ◼   ► discussing

00:55:36 ◼   ► you as also part of the video, right? But in the beginning people leaving comments will be knowing, like, oh, you're there,

00:55:43 ◼   ► you're reading the comments, and they will leave comments

00:55:46 ◼   ► to you, which has a very different character than people talking about you.

00:55:53 ◼   ► So especially when you're starting, like, I wouldn't seriously worry about people

00:55:59 ◼   ► commenting on your beard or whatever. Like, I don't think that's a concern.

00:56:04 ◼   ► Be nice out there. I've been wondering about branding of this channel as well.

00:56:09 ◼   ► and I've been thinking about what that looks like and how to go about that.

00:56:16 ◼   ► This is the marketing manager coming out from inside of you.

00:56:21 ◼   ► Also the person who's, you know, built a career and that career involves a lot of branding.

00:56:29 ◼   ► There's lots and lots of things that I've had a hand in branding now.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Good or bad, but it's just something that I think about now whenever a new project has begun.

00:56:37 ◼   ► has begun. What is the name of the project? What does it look like? So I've decided to

00:56:43 ◼   ► go with Myke Hurley as the YouTube channel name because I want it to be my name. I don't

00:56:50 ◼   ► want to give it a name. I don't know what it would be, but just like to come up with

00:56:54 ◼   ► a name. Something like Smarter Every Day, right? Like that's like a brand of its own.

00:56:58 ◼   ► It's not about the person who makes it. But I want it to be about... The videos are about

00:57:04 ◼   ► so I figured they should have my name.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And I wanted to go with

00:57:08 ◼   ► Myke Hurley, even though that's not the name

00:57:10 ◼   ► that I use in other places, just because

00:57:12 ◼   ► I think it fits for this channel a little bit more.

00:57:14 ◼   ► So that's

00:57:16 ◼   ► what I'm going with. And then

00:57:18 ◼   ► I was wondering, and I wanted to get your

00:57:20 ◼   ► opinion on this, about the avatar

00:57:22 ◼   ► that I use. Shall I use

00:57:24 ◼   ► my photo that I use in places

00:57:26 ◼   ► online, like my typical avatar?

00:57:28 ◼   ► Do you mean as opposed to creating some kind of

00:57:32 ◼   ► some kind of little logo-ified Myke Hurley.

00:57:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:57:37 ◼   ► I mean, I have like a cartoon character version of myself

00:57:41 ◼   ► that was made for some stickers.

00:57:42 ◼   ► - Oh, right, that one.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I know that one.

00:57:44 ◼   ► - Which I could also use.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Like, I don't know where to go with that part.

00:57:49 ◼   ► Because, yeah, I'm just not sure.

00:57:53 ◼   ► You might be the wrong person to ask.

00:57:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, I might be the entirely wrong person

00:58:00 ◼   ► to ask about this.

00:58:02 ◼   ► I think I would actually go with that little cartoon logo-ified sticker version of you.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's fun, right? I think it could be just a fun little thing that wouldn't have to change so much.

00:58:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:14 ◼   ► Like I feel like a photo of me would change more often.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Yeah, it's... it can last forever. I think it's relatively fun.

00:58:23 ◼   ► And frankly, I think it looks more professional from the start to have a little logo as opposed to just having your face.

00:58:30 ◼   ► So I feel like, yeah, I wouldn't go with the picture of you,

00:58:34 ◼   ► I would go with the logo-ified version of you.

00:58:38 ◼   ► That's what I would do.

00:58:40 ◼   ► - Now I have to try and work out

00:58:42 ◼   ► how you change such a thing on YouTube.

00:58:45 ◼   ► - It's very simple, Myke.

00:58:46 ◼   ► If you wanna change your profile picture,

00:58:48 ◼   ► you go to Google+, you have to change your profile picture

00:58:53 ◼   ► on the Google+ page that you have associated

00:58:56 ◼   ► with your YouTube account.

00:58:58 ◼   ► And when you change that, nothing will happen on YouTube for quite a while until mysteriously hours later when the caching updates or whatever, then your YouTube logo will change.

00:59:09 ◼   ► So it's just the obvious thing that you would expect. Go over to this Google+ page that you use for nothing else except changing the logo of your YouTube channel. That's how that works.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Oh that seems easy.

00:59:20 ◼   ► Good old Google+ integration. Everybody loves it. The best.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Okay, so I know this might be kind of a funny thing to ask you, Myke, since at the time of recording, this isn't even up yet. This isn't even public.

00:59:38 ◼   ► But, like, what do you view as the potential endgame or outcome of this project?

00:59:50 ◼   ► Like, what does this being a successful side project look like for you?

00:59:56 ◼   ► The problem is I have no real understanding of YouTube from an audience-sized perspective.

01:00:07 ◼   ► I mean, six-figure view counts sound nice, but that feels almost impossible to get without

01:00:18 ◼   ► a lot of work.

01:00:21 ◼   ► So my feeling is, if I can reach five figures within a time where I don't feel like I'm

01:00:31 ◼   ► burning out then I'll be happy because that will allow me to continue going but

01:00:37 ◼   ► that's kind of all I have I don't really have a measurement of success yet I

01:00:42 ◼   ► think I will get that once I start I need to see what the realness of it is

01:00:47 ◼   ► because even then like I'm not saying like I think I can get that mm-hmm I have

01:00:52 ◼   ► no idea what's gonna happen but I am very aware that like I'm starting at a

01:01:00 ◼   ► a good place because I have another thing that I can say to people, "Hey, go check

01:01:05 ◼   ► out this thing." So I have a way to try and get people in. So I think if I can't achieve

01:01:11 ◼   ► 10,000 views on a video within six months, then I will know at that point that maybe

01:01:19 ◼   ► I need to readdress my efforts. But there's a lot of not truly understanding what this

01:01:27 ◼   ► is going to look like from a work perspective right now. A lot of that is just going to

01:01:33 ◼   ► happen as I work through all of this. So I have no idea how many videos I'm going to

01:01:39 ◼   ► put up in a week or in a month. I have no idea right now what it will take to keep me

01:01:46 ◼   ► to do this. I have no idea how much time it's going to take me to do this because right

01:01:53 ◼   ► Right now all I'm doing is making the videos but there's more than that. You've got to

01:01:57 ◼   ► manage it all.

01:01:58 ◼   ► Right.

01:01:59 ◼   ► Like, I don't know. So one thing that I do want to do though is to address all of this

01:02:06 ◼   ► stuff honestly on this show and talk about what it's like to start and try and run this

01:02:15 ◼   ► side project and make it something meaningful. So I think that could be interesting. So I'm

01:02:21 ◼   ► I'm very open-ended on this because I have no real understanding of what is involved

01:02:28 ◼   ► until I actually go out and do it.

01:02:30 ◼   ► So like until then, I can't really make up any goals.

01:02:34 ◼   ► But I will come back to this show at some point in the near future with some more hard

01:02:40 ◼   ► and fast goals based on my experience.

01:02:42 ◼   ► Yeah, it's interesting.

01:02:44 ◼   ► It's interesting to hear you sort of throw out like a rough number and a rough timeframe.

01:02:51 ◼   ► I really kind of wish I never said that number.

01:02:53 ◼   ► - Right, but here's the thing that I wanna,

01:02:55 ◼   ► like what I wanna make so clear is again to the listeners,

01:03:00 ◼   ► it's very easy to hear something like that

01:03:04 ◼   ► and think like, oh, there's a particular goal

01:03:06 ◼   ► and a cutoff.

01:03:07 ◼   ► But I cannot, I cannot emphasize any more strongly

01:03:12 ◼   ► how different a thing is once it's really out in the world

01:03:20 ◼   ► versus once you're thinking about it before it's even started.

01:03:23 ◼   ► And so that's why I was like, I'm just kind of interested to see like, are you even going to throw out a number?

01:03:27 ◼   ► Because it's just all

01:03:29 ◼   ► incredibly

01:03:31 ◼   ► unreal before you begin.

01:03:33 ◼   ► It doesn't exist.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Right. It's just talking about clouds in the sky, right? And

01:03:39 ◼   ► like all of the various factors you can't know. You can't know

01:03:45 ◼   ► three months from now, how long does it take you to make a vlog?

01:03:49 ◼   ► Right, maybe three months from now you become a machine and you can turn out vlogs really really fast.

01:03:55 ◼   ► Yeah, because here's the one thing. I did one of them in two and a half hours.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Right.

01:03:59 ◼   ► I recorded it, I edited it, and I put it on YouTube because I have had them as unlisted videos.

01:04:05 ◼   ► And I did that in two and a half hours.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Right. You've made a thing and you put it out in the world.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Right and so like it's it's there and all I'm saying is like future Myke doesn't know

01:04:19 ◼   ► Really how much work is this going to be?

01:04:23 ◼   ► Future Myke doesn't know how successful it's going to be and I think most importantly future Myke doesn't know

01:04:30 ◼   ► How much he is going to like the thing?

01:04:39 ◼   ► Why does that elicit a laugh? Because it's true and yeah, but it's fine. I might end up hating this in a month

01:04:45 ◼   ► Exactly. It's very easy to imagine a scenario where you feel like I just I don't want to do this, right?

01:04:53 ◼   ► Like you've made videos even if they're getting views you just feel like it's not a thing that you want to do

01:04:58 ◼   ► well, like this is this is one of the reasons why I have

01:05:02 ◼   ► never had any interest in doing a vlog, like aside from my own desires to kind of live a normal relatively private life,

01:05:10 ◼   ► I just know that the the rare occasions when I've even thought about doing a vlog,

01:05:15 ◼   ► even if I was gonna do something where I'm not appearing in it,

01:05:19 ◼   ► I just personally don't like

01:05:23 ◼   ► separating a moment where it's like I'm living and doing an interesting thing from I am

01:05:29 ◼   ► Recording this to show to somebody else like I'm just aware as a personality trait. That's not a thing that I like to do

01:05:35 ◼   ► Again, like maybe I will start to hate that and then won't want to do it anymore

01:05:39 ◼   ► Right and but like that is that's why I bring it up

01:05:42 ◼   ► like this is a perfect example of a thing that you don't know where you may

01:05:45 ◼   ► Find your the the mind of future mic is split constantly thinking about am I enjoying a moment or am I recording a moment?

01:05:53 ◼   ► For to be used right in my vlog, right?

01:05:57 ◼   ► Like maybe you find out that you hate that feeling.

01:06:00 ◼   ► Maybe you find out that you really love this feeling

01:06:04 ◼   ► and you notice more in the world.

01:06:08 ◼   ► Like in your very first vlog,

01:06:09 ◼   ► you did have a little remark about how

01:06:12 ◼   ► simply by walking down the street and recording things,

01:06:15 ◼   ► like it is making you more aware.

01:06:16 ◼   ► Like it's making you more aware of what you're doing.

01:06:19 ◼   ► And so there's a possibility that

01:06:22 ◼   ► Even if the vlog does not reach successful numbers that you personally enjoy a feeling of presence that it brings to you working on this project.

01:06:33 ◼   ► And so you want to continue working on this project.

01:06:35 ◼   ► That is my ideal situation.

01:06:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:38 ◼   ► Is that it ends up not really mattering too much because I enjoy the work and put the time in.

01:06:44 ◼   ► Because that's what happened between 2010 and 2014 when I was making podcasts.

01:06:50 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:06:50 ◼   ► they weren't getting anywhere fast and

01:06:53 ◼   ► I was putting all of my time into them, but I loved doing it

01:06:58 ◼   ► So I just kept doing it and the time didn't really matter too much

01:07:02 ◼   ► That's what I'm hoping I'll get out of this is that I will make more of these videos

01:07:06 ◼   ► I will enjoy making the videos and enjoy putting them out there

01:07:09 ◼   ► Even if they don't achieve

01:07:12 ◼   ► 10,000 views in six months

01:07:14 ◼   ► Right like it then it but it probably won't matter at all

01:07:17 ◼   ► And the way that I'm feeling right now about this project is that I have been excited to go out and shoot some stuff

01:07:25 ◼   ► I've been excited every time I had an idea

01:07:28 ◼   ► to film something

01:07:31 ◼   ► and

01:07:33 ◼   ► Things like I would we're going to do some stuff on the weekend that I pulled those over. Oh, I can shoot some video there

01:07:39 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, and I'm excited about that right now

01:07:42 ◼   ► In a way that I haven't been excited for other projects

01:07:47 ◼   ► more recently. There have been things where I've been excited about them but then the

01:07:51 ◼   ► idea of the work has dawned on me but the work isn't really dawning on me right now

01:07:56 ◼   ► and I'm hoping that that remains that way because right now I am actually enjoying the

01:08:00 ◼   ► work like I'm really enjoying the edit I'm enjoying being like what I consider funny

01:08:05 ◼   ► in it you know and like doing silly things and yeah I'm enjoying the whole process right

01:08:11 ◼   ► now and my hope is that that will remain and I think I'm able to enjoy it because I don't

01:08:17 ◼   ► find it difficult.

01:08:19 ◼   ► Like the actual process of putting them together which is really the hard work, I don't find

01:08:28 ◼   ► that difficult and I'm learning and I'm fine with it and I'm actually enjoying it.

01:08:32 ◼   ► And this project gives you a reason to get out of the house more.

01:08:35 ◼   ► Honestly this is a big part of it.

01:08:38 ◼   ► I've been out of the house more this week than I would usually be.

01:08:41 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Because I am thinking about things to go and take video of.

01:08:47 ◼   ► And I'm doing this at a good time for me because with the house stuff, which is so close now,

01:08:52 ◼   ► I will be doing a lot of back and forth to the new house, doing things for the house like going furniture shopping,

01:08:58 ◼   ► things that could be interesting to make videos about,

01:09:02 ◼   ► like as I transition from living at home to having my own home and kind of what that

01:09:09 ◼   ► Process what that arc is going to be like i'm coming into this video making and I think this

01:09:15 ◼   ► actually might even be part of the reason why I want to do this is I am about to begin an arc

01:09:19 ◼   ► It's a good time

01:09:21 ◼   ► right now I can tell a story and that story will be about how and what it's like for me to move

01:09:28 ◼   ► and have my own home so

01:09:32 ◼   ► that stuff is already starting to seep into the videos just accidentally because it's the thing

01:09:38 ◼   ► that's on my mind the most right now so I'm excited about it and I'm interested in it and

01:09:43 ◼   ► I'm like a dog of a bone about things and I kind of can't let go of this idea I feel like I have

01:09:51 ◼   ► to just go and do it so that's what I'm doing all right let's hope it works so go to youtube.com/mikeherley

01:10:00 ◼   ► Don't forget to subscribe! Subscribe to my videos.

01:10:03 ◼   ► What you have to tell them, Myke, is go to your channel, watch your videos,

01:10:08 ◼   ► and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe.

01:10:10 ◼   ► Like, comment, and subscribe.

01:10:12 ◼   ► You have to say that at the end of every video, otherwise the people won't do it.

01:10:16 ◼   ► You'll see that the third video, so there will be three videos, there might be more by the time

01:10:23 ◼   ► the channel goes live, when the podcast goes live. In the third one of those, 000B,

01:10:29 ◼   ► I put my first subscribe thing at the end and it is an emojified version of me begging.

01:10:36 ◼   ► So I figure that is my approach to asking people to subscribe is to plead with them to do so,

01:10:43 ◼   ► which I'm doing right now on the show as well. Please go and subscribe to my channel.

01:10:47 ◼   ► And all feedback is welcome. Like from the listeners of this show,

01:10:52 ◼   ► I would like to hear all of the feedback that they have because I know this is a group that I can

01:10:57 ◼   ► and trust.

01:10:58 ◼   ► You heard the man. Go to his YouTube channel. Good luck Myke.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Thanks Gray. Oh and thanks so much for making me talk about this today.

01:11:06 ◼   ► See? I know it's good for you.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Mmhmm.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Today's episode of Cortex is brought to you by Squarespace, the simplest way for anyone

01:11:15 ◼   ► to create a beautiful landing page, website or online store. Start building your own website

01:11:19 ◼   ► today at squarespace.com and enter the offer code 'Cortex' at checkout to get 10% off

01:11:24 ◼   ► your first purchase. With easy to use tools and templates, Squarespace helps you capture

01:11:30 ◼   ► every detail of what drives you. Because if it's worth the effort, it's worth sharing

01:11:34 ◼   ► with the world. You'll be able to share it in a simple easy way with beautiful professionally

01:11:39 ◼   ► designed templates. You don't need to know any coding, you don't need to have ever developed

01:11:43 ◼   ► a website before. All you need to know is how you want it to look. Because with their

01:11:47 ◼   ► drag and drop page building tools, you can very easily drag and drop things around, make

01:11:52 ◼   ► that website look and feel exactly how you want. You don't need to worry about upgrading,

01:11:56 ◼   ► you don't need to worry about security, you don't need to worry about stability, Squarespace

01:12:00 ◼   ► takes care of all of this with their state of the art technology. This is why they're

01:12:03 ◼   ► trusted by millions of people around the world, including me. I've used Squarespace for years,

01:12:08 ◼   ► we even use Squarespace at Real AFM to set up our blog and store because they do it better

01:12:12 ◼   ► than anybody else, why would we bother doing it? Their store is fantastic, their commerce

01:12:16 ◼   ► platform allows anyone to sell physical and digital goods and they are there when you

01:12:20 ◼   ► need them for anything. If you have any question about Squarespace, they have a 24/7 support

01:12:25 ◼   ► team with live chat and email. They have teams located around the globe so they're there

01:12:29 ◼   ► to help you when you need it. Squarespace also has a dev platform so if you do understand

01:12:34 ◼   ► code and you want to get in and tinker, you can do that too. If you sign up for a year,

01:12:38 ◼   ► you'll get a free domain name allowing you to choose exactly what you want your site

01:12:41 ◼   ► to be called and their plans start at just $12 a month. Sign up for a free trial today

01:12:46 ◼   ► with no credit card needed and start booting your own website straight away by going to

01:12:50 ◼   ► squarespace.com when you decide to sign up make sure that you use the offer code

01:12:54 ◼   ► Cortex to get 10% of your first purchase and show your support for this show

01:12:58 ◼   ► thank you so much to Squarespace for supporting Cortex and Relay FM

01:13:02 ◼   ► it has been six months since we last took a look at our home screens and

01:13:07 ◼   ► this is when Christopher requested that we take another look at them because at

01:13:12 ◼   ► least your device has changed significantly since the last time that

01:13:16 ◼   ► we spoke about this, looking at our iPhones you moved down to the ridiculous phone, the

01:13:21 ◼   ► tiny ridiculous phone, and then I stuck with the correct phone, and we haven't, I have

01:13:27 ◼   ► not seen this home screen, I don't know what it's like, and I'm interested to see it.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Is that how you're trying to brand this? Is that how you're trying to brand the SE as

01:13:34 ◼   ► a ridiculous phone? It is ridiculous.

01:13:37 ◼   ► I disagree with you, it is ridiculous.

01:13:40 ◼   ► Like, it's ridiculous in many senses of the word.

01:13:44 ◼   ► Even if you say it's a good phone,

01:13:48 ◼   ► and even if I agree it's a good phone,

01:13:50 ◼   ► it's still ridiculous because of the way that it is made.

01:13:54 ◼   ► It is a phone which is old, which has new stuff in it,

01:13:56 ◼   ► which has never happened before.

01:13:58 ◼   ► It's ridiculous.

01:13:59 ◼   ► - It's not a ridiculous phone.

01:14:00 ◼   ► - Also, it is ridiculous anyway,

01:14:03 ◼   ► because it's so tiny,

01:14:05 ◼   ► and I don't understand how you're able to use that today

01:14:09 ◼   ► to do anything really.

01:14:12 ◼   ► So I wanna see what your home screen looks like

01:14:14 ◼   ► because I'm hoping that what it displays

01:14:15 ◼   ► is that you don't do anything on your phone

01:14:17 ◼   ► because you can't.

01:14:18 ◼   ► - I feel like you're like real bitter

01:14:22 ◼   ► about my having walked away from the six plus

01:14:27 ◼   ► in this way that I just, I find it so funny.

01:14:30 ◼   ► - I just think you made the wrong decision, Gray.

01:14:33 ◼   ► - It strikes me as funny, Myke.

01:14:35 ◼   ► All I'm doing is trying to optimize the devices in my life for the purpose that I want them

01:14:43 ◼   ► to serve.

01:14:44 ◼   ► That's what I'm doing with the tools that I have.

01:14:47 ◼   ► And as listeners will almost undoubtedly realize at this point, I have seen your new 7+ phone

01:14:59 ◼   ► and I was unconvinced to upgrade.

01:15:03 ◼   ► Yes, the cameras are awesome. No, I don't like the home button.

01:15:08 ◼   ► But I just don't want to use a bigger phone.

01:15:11 ◼   ► So, if I don't want to use a bigger phone, then it is not ridiculous to stick with my SE.

01:15:16 ◼   ► It is the correct choice to stick with my SE.

01:15:19 ◼   ► And I'm very happy for you that you have a phone that you like.

01:15:22 ◼   ► Well, come on then, show me what you got.

01:15:24 ◼   ► Okay, so I'm going to send you what the phone looks like at literally this moment.

01:15:29 ◼   ► I've done the same for you too.

01:15:31 ◼   ► Okay. I don't actually know if it's going to be that different from last time, because

01:15:37 ◼   ► I don't remember what it looked like last time. There's only one thing that I think

01:15:41 ◼   ► I may have changed. But, I can't remember. Do you even have the link? Do you have the

01:15:46 ◼   ► link on hand to the last time we talked about this?

01:15:48 ◼   ► Of course I do. Because I'm actually curious. Okay. Oh. Alright. You're very prepared.

01:15:54 ◼   ► I've sent you the link. Look at this ridiculous phone. The icons look ginormous because the

01:16:02 ◼   ► screen is so tiny. Okay so I've immediately noticed something here. You have two todo

01:16:13 ◼   ► apps now running what seems to be concurrently. You have todo and omnifocus. These are quite

01:16:21 ◼   ► similar applications in what they provide, but you have them both running because there

01:16:25 ◼   ► are unread counts on each of them.

01:16:28 ◼   ► And I am very, very intrigued as to what you're doing here.

01:16:33 ◼   ► Yeah, you're trying to figure out what's going on.

01:16:37 ◼   ► Even for me and you, this is a whole different level.

01:16:40 ◼   ► As always, I do like to try to spend a lot of time thinking about the tools that I use

01:16:45 ◼   ► for various purposes.

01:16:46 ◼   ► And I'm realizing the last time we discussed this, I was in the process of trying to use

01:16:52 ◼   ► To-Do as my main task manager, which didn't work out and I switched back to OmniFocus

01:16:57 ◼   ► as my main one.

01:16:59 ◼   ► But there are-- different task managers are better or worse at different things.

01:17:08 ◼   ► And I'm not exactly sure when I did this, but essentially I have found that there are

01:17:20 ◼   ► several different kinds of tasks in my life that benefit from splitting into separate

01:17:28 ◼   ► task managers.

01:17:30 ◼   ► And so OmniFocus for me is the big guns in this scenario.

01:17:35 ◼   ► OmniFocus is where I do all of the templating stuff, where I have checklists for projects,

01:17:43 ◼   ► for all the podcasts, for the videos.

01:17:47 ◼   ► It's the heavy weight, "here are the projects that I'm managing in my life" kind of thing.

01:17:54 ◼   ► But there's a whole bunch of little tasks that I--for the longest time I've always been

01:18:02 ◼   ► keeping in my main task manager, but I have benefited from pulling them out, and this

01:18:06 ◼   ► is what I'm doing with To Do.

01:18:08 ◼   ► Oh no, here we go.

01:18:10 ◼   ► What do you mean, here we go?

01:18:11 ◼   ► You're like triggering thoughts in my head again.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Okay, so let me run through what's going on here, right?

01:18:19 ◼   ► So, Myke, you know you're going to be happier after you listen to me explain something,

01:18:25 ◼   ► and you see if it's applicable to your life.

01:18:27 ◼   ► This is the problem, is that I see things that you do, I think they're bonkers, and

01:18:35 ◼   ► then you find a way to convince me in a way that I'm uncomfortable with.

01:18:42 ◼   ► Look, I'm just explaining what I do, and if you can derive value from that, I'm very happy

01:18:47 ◼   ► for you, that you can find a better way to do things.

01:18:50 ◼   ► By the way, I hate washing the dishes now, just as a bit of follow up, because now whenever

01:18:54 ◼   ► I wash the dishes, I can't stop but think about you.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Just so you know.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Good.

01:19:00 ◼   ► I hope you and all the listeners think about me every time they wash a dish by hand.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Okay, so here's what I'm doing with splitting these tasks.

01:19:11 ◼   ► And the easiest thing to explain is that a thing that I've done for a while is I find

01:19:20 ◼   ► And it really useful to have a kind of, what I call like a boot up and a shut down checklist

01:19:27 ◼   ► that bookends the day.

01:19:29 ◼   ► That when I get up there's a bunch of little things that I just want to do to get the ball

01:19:32 ◼   ► rolling and then at night time when I'm kind of getting ready to end the day there's also

01:19:38 ◼   ► a bunch of little things that I want to do.

01:19:41 ◼   ► And so I used to just have all of this stuff in the main task manager, which we'll just

01:19:44 ◼   ► say is OmniFocus right at this point.

01:19:46 ◼   ► So I used to keep everything in OmniFocus and I had a bunch of perspectives set up so

01:19:51 ◼   ► that it's like, oh, I could look at a particular perspective and just see all of these little

01:19:56 ◼   ► boot up and shut down tasks.

01:20:01 ◼   ► But it always caused a problem where somewhere in my system, whether it was on my phone or

01:20:07 ◼   ► on my computer, I do let badges through, like I'm trying now with badges on the phone a

01:20:11 ◼   ► little bit.

01:20:12 ◼   ► But I want to see like a number of what are the things that I have to do today.

01:20:18 ◼   ► But it was always annoying when I'd be combining two different kinds of things.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Like OmniFocus is heavy hitting, here are the main projects, here's your big stuff.

01:20:29 ◼   ► But if the number of like items I need to do to say finish getting up a podcast or finish

01:20:35 ◼   ► working on a video, if that number is also combined with other minor things that need

01:20:42 ◼   ► to happen but are not like vitally important stuff. Like take your vitamins or you know make

01:20:49 ◼   ► sure the house is locked up right that like that kind of stuff. It bothered me to not have like

01:20:56 ◼   ► what I was always thinking of is I really wish there was some way in OmniFocus to have two

01:21:00 ◼   ► different badges so I could like categorize things as like here's just stuff that you need to do

01:21:06 ◼   ► because you're alive right and there's things that need to happen right someone needs to take out the

01:21:11 ◼   ► on a somewhat regular basis.

01:21:13 ◼   ► And then there's also things that are incredibly vital to do.

01:21:18 ◼   ► And so this is the separation that I've done with To Do and with OmniFocus,

01:21:25 ◼   ► which I'm very happy about, is pulling out a lot of minor recurring stuff into To Do,

01:21:32 ◼   ► mainly so that I can take OmniFocus more seriously, in a sense.

01:21:38 ◼   ► in a sense. Like to understand when I'm looking at OmniFocus, like these are the things that need to happen

01:21:44 ◼   ► today and that it's not getting lumped in with a bunch of routine stuff, which

01:21:51 ◼   ► ultimately like I can skip but it's better if I do, but is skippable if something is really occurring. And so that's

01:21:58 ◼   ► that's one of the reasons why I've pulled this apart.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And I have to say I'm very very happy with this.

01:22:06 ◼   ► So I've actually been using To Do and OmniFocus together and figuring out which kinds of tasks go into what.

01:22:18 ◼   ► And one of the other things that I quite like is I have also set it up so that on my phone in the new widget screen, which is in iOS 10, both To Do and OmniFocus have widgets.

01:22:33 ◼   ► So I have it set up as well so that I can even just slide over and in the widget screen just immediately see like what are all of these badges in To-Do and in OmniFocus.

01:22:42 ◼   ► So I can almost kind of treat the widget screen as though it is a single To-Do app.

01:22:48 ◼   ► It isn't really, but I'm sort of faking it by putting those two widgets at the top and next to each other.

01:22:55 ◼   ► So this I feel like gives me a pretty good overview of what's going on.

01:23:00 ◼   ► It's like, I can look at my tasks, understand the relative importance of what those badges mean,

01:23:07 ◼   ► and I can also still check off items throughout the day relatively easily

01:23:13 ◼   ► without jumping in and out of two different apps.

01:23:16 ◼   ► So that's what's occurring here, Myke.

01:23:18 ◼   ► [Myke sighs]

01:23:19 ◼   ► Was that a sigh that I heard over the wire?

01:23:22 ◼   ► It's a combination of sighing and anger.

01:23:26 ◼   ► Why is that?

01:23:27 ◼   ► Because I have recently noticed that there are things that I want to put in

01:23:34 ◼   ► OmniFocus that I'm not putting in OmniFocus. And it is simple tasks, daily tasks.

01:23:40 ◼   ► And I don't really have, and I know I use a lot of productivity management tools anyway, like,

01:23:48 ◼   ► but I use them all for different purposes in the same way that you do. And I've been doing that

01:23:54 ◼   ► for a while, but there were these little daily tasks that were just not getting recorded

01:23:59 ◼   ► anywhere, and it's not like I was starting to really forget things, but they were playing

01:24:03 ◼   ► on my mind because it was stuff I had to remember to do, but I didn't want to put them in OmniFocus

01:24:07 ◼   ► because when I open OmniFocus and look at my forecast, I judge the busyness of my week

01:24:13 ◼   ► based on how that looks, and the numbers were going too high, but it was false. So I was

01:24:21 ◼   ► been taking those little tasks out and just trying to remember to do them.

01:24:26 ◼   ► That's a failing plan right there.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Just try harder, Myke.

01:24:30 ◼   ► Just try to remember.

01:24:31 ◼   ► No, that's a terrible idea.

01:24:32 ◼   ► That's not going to work.

01:24:33 ◼   ► So maybe I will investigate this.

01:24:35 ◼   ► I've been looking for reasons to try out Todoist because of some of the things that it can

01:24:40 ◼   ► do with automation and web stuff.

01:24:43 ◼   ► So maybe I will give that a go because I've just got an Amazon Echo and I believe it is

01:24:49 ◼   ► possible to hook up IFTTT when it's available in the UK with the Echo, that's a whole other

01:24:55 ◼   ► story, to speak tasks to the Echo and they'll be recorded in Todoist.

01:25:02 ◼   ► And I've been wanting to try that out when all of the pieces are in play, so this might

01:25:06 ◼   ► be a good reason for that.

01:25:09 ◼   ► Yeah, like as crazy as it sounds to be running two task managers, and I mean like when you

01:25:16 ◼   ► actually in a sense I'm running four, but we can get to that later.

01:25:19 ◼   ► I really do think that there is a lot of benefit from this split.

01:25:28 ◼   ► And I'm looking through just a ton of the kinds of stuff that I have in to do,

01:25:33 ◼   ► and they're all items which I'm really happy to have out of OmniFocus,

01:25:38 ◼   ► and they just somehow feel different.

01:25:40 ◼   ► You know, it's things like, you know, just stepping on my scale in the morning to record my weight.

01:25:46 ◼   ► I have, as dumb as this sounds, this is always vital, I have just a reminder in the morning to look at my calendar.

01:25:52 ◼   ► To just like, is there anything that's different that's happening today, or is there anything that you need to be aware of?

01:25:57 ◼   ► Like, that little reminder has saved me so many times.

01:26:00 ◼   ► Just like, look at your calendar, buddy. Just make sure everything's as you expect for the day.

01:26:05 ◼   ► There's taking vitamins, there's, you know, taking out the trash, I have

01:26:11 ◼   ► Yeah, shutting down the house

01:26:14 ◼   ► A reminder to take out my contacts at night because it's sometimes easy to forget

01:26:18 ◼   ► Just not great and I have recurring items for as well for

01:26:23 ◼   ► Roughly how often I need to do the laundry so like the thing will pop up like, you know

01:26:28 ◼   ► You should put in the laundry at this point. There's a whole bunch of minor things, but I like that

01:26:34 ◼   ► To do is pretty good about

01:26:36 ◼   ► complicated repeats, like have these things occur on these particular days or at these particular intervals.

01:26:44 ◼   ► And so I have a lot of stuff which like doesn't have to happen daily, but I just like to have in this little system.

01:26:49 ◼   ► And I just I really think that there's a benefit in

01:26:54 ◼   ► dividing these from

01:26:58 ◼   ► What OmniFocus is, is like I am sitting down and I have some work to do, right?

01:27:03 ◼   ► And what I'm not gonna do while I have some work to do is get up and put clothes in the laundry, right?

01:27:08 ◼   ► Like that's not happening right now. Like I'm sitting down and like today I look at OmniFocus

01:27:13 ◼   ► there's, you know, I have a badge of 26 things on there because I have to

01:27:18 ◼   ► run through some podcast and some video stuff today and there's like a bunch of things that have to happen today.

01:27:24 ◼   ► It's like, okay, I'm gonna grind through these have to happen items.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Yeah, so one of the things for today is like it's time to take out the trash.

01:27:32 ◼   ► But you know what? I don't need to do that.

01:27:33 ◼   ► Like I don't need to see that when I'm sitting down at the computer and trying to get a podcast out.

01:27:38 ◼   ► Right? Like that's-- I can look at To-Do when I'm on a little break and say like, okay, I'm gonna do these things and

01:27:45 ◼   ► when I'm sitting down and I'm working I can open up OmniFocus and it's a cleaner division. So this is

01:27:52 ◼   ► This is something I'm trying and I have to say I like it better than

01:27:56 ◼   ► Simply having a single to-do application which is trying to cover all of the bases for all things

01:28:06 ◼   ► Gosh darn you CGP Grey

01:28:11 ◼   ► I'm just I'm just telling you what I do and if it sounds like a good idea

01:28:15 ◼   ► I can't I can't help that like that's just this is the way you receive it. It seems like a really good idea

01:28:22 ◼   ► Lots of health and fitness applications on this phone.

01:28:26 ◼   ► Yeah, just as with last time,

01:28:30 ◼   ► I think I would have mentioned that this is part of the idea of

01:28:34 ◼   ► what is my phone for?

01:28:38 ◼   ► And I partly view my phone as a

01:28:42 ◼   ► health and fitness assistant. And so

01:28:46 ◼   ► I've pulled out a row of health related apps

01:28:50 ◼   ► just so that they are there and they serve as a kind of reminder

01:28:53 ◼   ► Like they're in my face that like these are things that you should be doing. So that's that's why I have them there

01:28:59 ◼   ► Because so it makes them easy to to track. I like having them there as a reminder

01:29:04 ◼   ► although I am

01:29:07 ◼   ► This is this is the problem with these things

01:29:08 ◼   ► I am slightly annoyed because I don't really use one of those apps anymore, which is the food tracking app

01:29:16 ◼   ► which is called Lifesum, which I will if you use a food tracking app. I totally recommend this but in the in the past year

01:29:23 ◼   ► through consistently using this food tracking app I

01:29:27 ◼   ► have essentially successfully changed my diet in terms of what do I just normally eat on any particular day?

01:29:35 ◼   ► And so I feel like I don't actually need to use this anymore as a behavior change app

01:29:42 ◼   ► And also in particular I used to really love a feature that they had for the Apple watch

01:29:47 ◼   ► Which would kind of tell you how hungry you are

01:29:49 ◼   ► Which was like a totally amazing and surprisingly useful feature

01:29:54 ◼   ► Which again, I highly recommend if you're trying to change your diet, like you should use LifeSum. It's incredibly effective

01:30:00 ◼   ► But since I have also changed to doing

01:30:06 ◼   ► fasting in the morning so I don't have breakfast, I usually don't eat until around lunchtime. That totally throws that feature off as well.

01:30:12 ◼   ► So it's like I feel like I don't need to stay on top of what I'm eating

01:30:15 ◼   ► because I have changed my diet pretty successfully and

01:30:19 ◼   ► the little app for the watch which used to be super useful is not super useful if you

01:30:25 ◼   ► skip a meal a day because it's always freaking out that you're you're dying of starvation.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Which is not true because it turns out that breakfast is a lie. It is not necessary.

01:30:33 ◼   ► However,

01:30:36 ◼   ► I can't have a hanging row of apps, right?

01:30:39 ◼   ► If I get rid of that one Lifesum app, I have nothing else to put in its place on that nice little health row.

01:30:46 ◼   ► And then I'd have a hanging apps on the bottom, there'd be one blank space.

01:30:50 ◼   ► So for the moment it is there simply because I have nothing else to put there.

01:30:55 ◼   ► And I need an app to take up a slot so that the bottom row is nice and even.

01:30:59 ◼   ► So the bottom row doesn't go all uneven.

01:31:01 ◼   ► Or worse, mess with that middle row which is do, clear, to do and calendar which is

01:31:08 ◼   ► all related to how do I work during the day, that row.

01:31:12 ◼   ► Like that middle row is nice and solid and it's all related.

01:31:16 ◼   ► There's one essentially placeholder app because I have nothing to put in its spot.

01:31:20 ◼   ► That's sad.

01:31:22 ◼   ► Why is that sad?

01:31:24 ◼   ► Well you know, it would be nice if the symmetry was all there, I know how much you like that.

01:31:31 ◼   ► You do have to make your phone layouts aesthetically pleasing.

01:31:35 ◼   ► I understand that.

01:31:39 ◼   ► I don't worry about that as much as you do, but I know that you really care.

01:31:44 ◼   ► Yeah, your phone, looking at your phone, you have an unsymmetrical phone layout with Snapchat

01:31:51 ◼   ► being the golden icon that is uneven at the bottom on that page.

01:31:55 ◼   ► Yeah, there's a really good reason for that though.

01:31:58 ◼   ► I'm sure there is.

01:31:59 ◼   ► I'm sure there's a really good reason.

01:32:01 ◼   ► I'm forcing myself to try and use Snapchat.

01:32:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, have fun with that buddy.

01:32:06 ◼   ► - The best way for me to force myself to do it

01:32:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:32:09 ◼   ► is to have a glaring reminder there, constantly.

01:32:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, that is, I do agree,

01:32:16 ◼   ► like that's the purpose of having the blank row

01:32:18 ◼   ► on the bottom of your home page,

01:32:20 ◼   ► is to allow you to put in stuff that you want

01:32:23 ◼   ► for a different reason.

01:32:24 ◼   ► So like, okay, if you are trying to use Snapchat,

01:32:29 ◼   ► and you want to put it in that bottom space

01:32:30 ◼   ► to force you to use it.

01:32:31 ◼   ► I can understand that.

01:32:33 ◼   ► But it sure does stick out like a sore thumb

01:32:36 ◼   ► on the bottom there.

01:32:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, again, it's like that's the point, right?

01:32:40 ◼   ► The reason it's there is because I know how much

01:32:42 ◼   ► it's gonna stick out.

01:32:43 ◼   ► So that's what it's there to kind of push me to be doing.

01:32:47 ◼   ► I mean, I urge people if they've not heard

01:32:49 ◼   ► our previous episode about this,

01:32:50 ◼   ► to go and listen to it, to understand like

01:32:53 ◼   ► why you have the folders that have just one app in them.

01:32:55 ◼   ► Like there's a whole reason for that,

01:32:57 ◼   ► which is the same reason as last time.

01:32:59 ◼   ► So there will be a link in the show notes

01:33:01 ◼   ► to our previous episode where we discuss that

01:33:03 ◼   ► in a bit more detail.

01:33:05 ◼   ► - I just realized that those folders seem so normal

01:33:07 ◼   ► and so obviously the correct solution to me

01:33:09 ◼   ► that it doesn't even occur to me at this point

01:33:10 ◼   ► that anyone would even question it.

01:33:12 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, yeah.

01:33:13 ◼   ► - Why would you wonder about those folders at the top?

01:33:15 ◼   ► It's just, it's self-evident that this is,

01:33:17 ◼   ► this is the best way to do things, right?

01:33:21 ◼   ► Like this is obviously the thing.

01:33:23 ◼   ► - I don't see an email app on your phone.

01:33:25 ◼   ► Yeah, there's still no email on the phone. There's no Safari on the phone.

01:33:30 ◼   ► Like this again is my idea of like, what is the phone for?

01:33:34 ◼   ► The phone is for this like health assistant.

01:33:39 ◼   ► It's there to hopefully nudge me about the things that I need to do during the

01:33:44 ◼   ► day because like it's always there.

01:33:47 ◼   ► So this is a sensible place to like check off to do items or to have,

01:33:52 ◼   ► do remind me at a particular time to do a thing.

01:33:55 ◼   ► And it does have minimum communication there with messages.

01:33:59 ◼   ► But this is my idea of what is the phone for.

01:34:02 ◼   ► And I just think the phone is not the place that I am most effective at email.

01:34:08 ◼   ► So I don't really want it there.

01:34:10 ◼   ► And I don't really want to have the distraction of randomly looking up stuff on the internet.

01:34:15 ◼   ► So that's why those items are not there on the phone.

01:34:19 ◼   ► Like I intentionally remove them to have the, to minimize the role of the phone in my life.

01:34:27 ◼   ► What else do you think when you look at my phone?

01:34:30 ◼   ► Your phone looks largely the same to me.

01:34:33 ◼   ► It is, it is largely the same as last time.

01:34:36 ◼   ► You haven't changed all that much.

01:34:37 ◼   ► You're running lots of beta versions.

01:34:39 ◼   ► Look at you, the cool kid with all these beta versions of these apps.

01:34:43 ◼   ► Only, oh I have three.

01:34:45 ◼   ► You have three.

01:34:46 ◼   ► You have three there.

01:34:47 ◼   ► Yep.

01:34:48 ◼   ► I'm cool like that.

01:34:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, you are cool like that.

01:34:51 ◼   ► You have 12 unread messages.

01:34:53 ◼   ► - A combination of being in group messages now

01:34:59 ◼   ► that didn't exist before,

01:35:01 ◼   ► because lots and lots of people now

01:35:03 ◼   ► because of how good messages is on iOS 10,

01:35:06 ◼   ► and moving conversation groups

01:35:08 ◼   ► from other places to messages, that's what I'm finding.

01:35:11 ◼   ► So I'm finding myself receiving more and more messages.

01:35:14 ◼   ► Plus every time somebody sends a sticker,

01:35:15 ◼   ► it's another message which Apple you did so badly.

01:35:20 ◼   ► It shouldn't be a notification for every sticker.

01:35:22 ◼   ► - To get notifications for all the stickers?

01:35:24 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Okay, right.

01:35:25 ◼   ► I didn't realize that.

01:35:26 ◼   ► - That shouldn't be the case.

01:35:27 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

01:35:29 ◼   ► So you receive these notifications,

01:35:31 ◼   ► which a lot of the time is just the sticker,

01:35:33 ◼   ► just you don't see it in context

01:35:35 ◼   ► till you open the message,

01:35:36 ◼   ► which doesn't make any sense.

01:35:38 ◼   ► So that's part of the problem there, yeah.

01:35:40 ◼   ► - So that's why you're juggling all of those iMessages.

01:35:43 ◼   ► Yeah, plus we record for so long.

01:35:46 ◼   ► Just everyone I know has contacted me

01:35:49 ◼   ► in that period of time,

01:35:50 ◼   ► so that's why I have 12 unread messages.

01:35:53 ◼   ► So here's the thing.

01:35:56 ◼   ► Our phones have not changed very much,

01:36:01 ◼   ► but I'm just wondering,

01:36:02 ◼   ► should we add watch faces to this at this point?

01:36:06 ◼   ► I'm kind of curious what your watch face looks like.

01:36:09 ◼   ► What does a Myke Hurley Apple watch face look like?

01:36:13 ◼   ► Alright, so I've sent you my watch face.

01:36:16 ◼   ► I have to say, Myke, I'm actually quite shocked

01:36:17 ◼   ► at your watch face.

01:36:18 ◼   ► Well, did you think it was gonna be crazy and colorful?

01:36:21 ◼   ► I, like, okay, listeners, Myke Hurley,

01:36:24 ◼   ► who started off with a clown vomit home screen on his phone,

01:36:28 ◼   ► has an entirely monochrome Apple Watch face.

01:36:32 ◼   ► I can't believe that this is your Apple Watch face.

01:36:35 ◼   ► Currently I'm wearing my black band,

01:36:38 ◼   ► so I have the second hand,

01:36:40 ◼   ► like the hand that counts seconds, white.

01:36:42 ◼   ► If I'm wearing my orange band, I have that orange.

01:36:44 ◼   ► If it's my blue, I have that blue.

01:36:46 ◼   ► But the only thing I ever change the color of

01:36:47 ◼   ► is just the second hand.

01:36:49 ◼   ► So it matches the watch, but it will always be understated

01:36:52 ◼   ► because it will be monochrome with just that splash of color

01:36:55 ◼   ► in those instances.

01:36:56 ◼   ► The watch face that I'm using is the simple watch face.

01:37:01 ◼   ► Because, and I used to love the utility face,

01:37:05 ◼   ► but what I don't like about the utility face

01:37:07 ◼   ► is that there are just random splashes of color

01:37:09 ◼   ► on the utility face.

01:37:11 ◼   ► - Yep, looks terrible.

01:37:12 ◼   ► drives me crazy. Apple ruined that. They just ruined that.

01:37:15 ◼   ► They totally did.

01:37:17 ◼   ► So now I use simple because I like the simple face. I like it to just be very understated.

01:37:22 ◼   ► I don't want it screaming more than it already does.

01:37:26 ◼   ► I completely agree. I think I used utility when the watch first came out and then when

01:37:30 ◼   ► they did that update which added the colors, I was like, "Well, you're dead to me now,

01:37:34 ◼   ► utility face," which is really annoying because utility has a key feature that I absolutely

01:37:37 ◼   ► love but it's like I cannot stand this random color. It looks awful. It looks awful.

01:37:43 ◼   ► So I'll talk you through the complications that I use.

01:37:46 ◼   ► So complications. Let's go clockwise starting upper left.

01:37:50 ◼   ► That is the timer app. It's one of the things that I do the most with my watch. This may

01:37:55 ◼   ► change now because the Amazon Echo has far superior timer features in that you can set

01:38:03 ◼   ► multiple timers happening

01:38:05 ◼   ► concurrent times

01:38:08 ◼   ► so you can ask for five minute timer and a seven minute time and a twelve minute

01:38:11 ◼   ► time and it will just

01:38:12 ◼   ► count them all up and you will be told when each of them finishes

01:38:16 ◼   ► who which the apple watch cannot do

01:38:18 ◼   ► is one time and

01:38:20 ◼   ► when i cook

01:38:21 ◼   ► i very frequently need at least two times going

01:38:25 ◼   ► so that will find i may end up changing this i don't know

01:38:29 ◼   ► but what you what goes there when i travel

01:38:32 ◼   ► So this is a little life hack for everybody.

01:38:35 ◼   ► When I travel, I replace that with my home time zone.

01:38:40 ◼   ► So the London time zone goes to the top left when I travel,

01:38:46 ◼   ► so I always know what time it is in London.

01:38:49 ◼   ► Top right, I have the activity rings.

01:38:53 ◼   ► I'm very happy today that my activity rings

01:38:56 ◼   ► are looking good, because it would be very embarrassing

01:39:01 ◼   ► to have them how they sometimes look.

01:39:03 ◼   ► Bottom right is weather, Carrot Weather,

01:39:08 ◼   ► the application Carrot Weather, which I like very much.

01:39:10 ◼   ► And they have, it's a paid app,

01:39:12 ◼   ► and they have a subscription, an extra subscription

01:39:15 ◼   ► that you can sign up for to get a complication,

01:39:20 ◼   ► a watch complication.

01:39:21 ◼   ► So I pay, it's like two pounds a year

01:39:23 ◼   ► or something for the complication, but it is my favorite.

01:39:26 ◼   ► And I love the application and the complication's great

01:39:28 ◼   ► because you can customize it

01:39:30 ◼   ► to have what elements you want, and I have the temperature and the current weather, kind

01:39:37 ◼   ► of as a glyph next to it, and then bottom left is Fantastical with my next upcoming

01:39:44 ◼   ► event.

01:39:47 ◼   ► I have to say, Myke, I feel like I'm still in shock that you would have a watch face

01:39:53 ◼   ► that looks so elegant.

01:39:54 ◼   ► This is just, I figured, like, okay, let's wait for Modular to come on through with a

01:40:00 ◼   ► bunch of garbage all over it. Surely that's going to be Myke's watch face. I'm just, I

01:40:06 ◼   ► feel like my breath is taken away. I can't believe this. It's like the absolute reverse

01:40:11 ◼   ► of your phone. How interesting. How very interesting.

01:40:14 ◼   ► Well not anymore. I think my phone is a lot calmer now.

01:40:17 ◼   ► That's true. Your phone has definitely improved. Without a doubt you have improved. That wallpaper

01:40:22 ◼   ► certainly helps. Your lovely upgrade wallpaper.

01:40:25 ◼   ► So what's going on with your watch face then?

01:40:27 ◼   ► I feel like today is Bizarro Universe Day.

01:40:33 ◼   ► Oh, have you got lots of colour on here or something?

01:40:37 ◼   ► Alright.

01:40:38 ◼   ► Am I gonna be grossed out?

01:40:40 ◼   ► Whoa!

01:40:41 ◼   ► Hey-o!

01:40:42 ◼   ► Wow, somebody believes in fitness.

01:40:46 ◼   ► So Grey has changed his watch to one of the new activity ring faces.

01:40:51 ◼   ► Mhm.

01:40:52 ◼   ► Wow, this screams so much stuff at you.

01:40:56 ◼   ► "Good context!" at the bottom.

01:41:00 ◼   ► Yeah, no, this is the... basically, if somebody just looked at

01:41:04 ◼   ► these two images... Yeah, you would not guess whose watch was whose.

01:41:08 ◼   ► Well, you would, but you'd be completely wrong.

01:41:12 ◼   ► Okay, so, yeah, this is very unexpected.

01:41:16 ◼   ► Very unexpected. Okay, so let me explain what's going on here.

01:41:20 ◼   ► I'm using this activity face, which has the bright color rings

01:41:24 ◼   ► in the center, which is kind of ugly.

01:41:29 ◼   ► I don't know, kind of not.

01:41:31 ◼   ► - If your main focus of the watch is the activity rings,

01:41:34 ◼   ► they should be in color.

01:41:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I go back and forth about this,

01:41:39 ◼   ► but here's the key thing to me.

01:41:42 ◼   ► Sort of like I said before,

01:41:44 ◼   ► I like to have little nudges

01:41:45 ◼   ► about doing what I'm supposed to do during the day.

01:41:48 ◼   ► Like this is part of the purpose of my devices

01:41:51 ◼   ► is to help me work better.

01:41:53 ◼   ► And going back to when we mentioned utility and Apple ruining it with adding little splashes of color,

01:41:58 ◼   ► the thing that I absolutely loved in utility was that it had the calendar on the bottom

01:42:03 ◼   ► that actually told you what was happening at that particular time.

01:42:07 ◼   ► Now I think the only watch faces that will do that were, before watchOS 3, utility, modular,

01:42:15 ◼   ► which I'm not a fan of, and the Mickey Mouse watch face, which is obviously unacceptable.

01:42:21 ◼   ► Why is that?

01:42:22 ◼   ► I don't need Mickey Mouse on my watch.

01:42:26 ◼   ► That's not...

01:42:28 ◼   ► I don't even have to explain this.

01:42:30 ◼   ► Like, obviously it's just unacceptable.

01:42:32 ◼   ► It's awful.

01:42:34 ◼   ► And so I was always frustrated that I felt like I couldn't really use

01:42:38 ◼   ► a watch face that was also showing me the calendar.

01:42:40 ◼   ► But with WatchOS 3,

01:42:42 ◼   ► I was pleasantly surprised to see that this activity watch face

01:42:45 ◼   ► does have the calendar at the bottom

01:42:47 ◼   ► where it actually says

01:42:49 ◼   ► "What is the thing that you're supposed to be doing?"

01:42:51 ◼   ► And I was not a huge fan of having the big super colorful rings in the center,

01:42:56 ◼   ► but I thought, "You know what?

01:42:57 ◼   ► That is a trade-off that I am totally willing to make

01:43:01 ◼   ► in order to get the calendar at the bottom."

01:43:03 ◼   ► Because what I do like to do is, in my calendar,

01:43:07 ◼   ► which has also been a helpful thing that I've been doing this year,

01:43:09 ◼   ► is block out the whole day for like, what is happening at particular times.

01:43:14 ◼   ► Like, what should I be working on? Where should I be?

01:43:17 ◼   ► I don't always follow it perfectly, but it still is a good rough outline for what's supposed to be happening,

01:43:24 ◼   ► how much time do I have available in a day to do things.

01:43:26 ◼   ► So I absolutely love that when I check the time, it also shows on the bottom of my watch, like, what in theory

01:43:32 ◼   ► should you be doing if you were perfectly listening to past use plan right now?

01:43:39 ◼   ► So that's why I've gone along with this watch face. I don't mind having the activity stuff in the center,

01:43:45 ◼   ► I like I've kind of gotten used to the the color of it and besides as the day goes on anyway

01:43:49 ◼   ► I do like to fill up the rings. So that's really great. And then I have totally done the same to watch

01:43:56 ◼   ► complications that you have done which is

01:44:00 ◼   ► using fantastic Cal in the upper left

01:44:02 ◼   ► because you can customize the icon to show you the day and date on that watch face and I'm using

01:44:07 ◼   ► Carrot weather in the top right because again

01:44:10 ◼   ► I want to see the conditions and the current temperature.

01:44:13 ◼   ► And so this is the watch face that I'm using.

01:44:17 ◼   ► However Myke, however, this is my work watch face.

01:44:26 ◼   ► So the way--

01:44:27 ◼   ► On your day watch.

01:44:28 ◼   ► Well, okay, we don't need to get into all the complications, right?

01:44:31 ◼   ► But it's like, what I also find very helpful is this idea of context setting.

01:44:37 ◼   ► And so this is the watch face that when I am working, this is what I use.

01:44:43 ◼   ► And what I really like is when I'm not working, when I feel like I am done for the day, nothing

01:44:49 ◼   ► else is going to happen, I intentionally move away from that and I switch to a different

01:44:55 ◼   ► watch face, which is this watch face.

01:44:59 ◼   ► All right, well, so for anybody, again, there are pictures in the show notes, but if you

01:45:05 ◼   ► like some theater of the mind here. Gray uses a watch face which is all black with the watch

01:45:13 ◼   ► hands and a number, one single number. I don't know what that number represents.

01:45:21 ◼   ► It represents the hour. Okay.

01:45:23 ◼   ► This is the new numerals watch face. So I have ended up using two of the new watch faces

01:45:27 ◼   ► in watchOS 3. And so...

01:45:31 ◼   ► I hate that.

01:45:32 ◼   ► Why? Why do you need a big number which is the hour? You have the watch hands.

01:45:38 ◼   ► Okay, I don't... People who use watches where you just have the watch hands,

01:45:44 ◼   ► I cannot mentally divide up a circle that accurately in my head to know what hour it is if it's not on one of the 90 degree axes.

01:45:54 ◼   ► Right? If it's not 12, 3, 6 or 9, I have a hard time telling what the heck hour it's supposed to be if it's between those things.

01:46:00 ◼   ► those things. So why don't you just use a digital watch face with no complications?

01:46:04 ◼   ► I don't know I like this one I feel like there's it's relatively simple there's

01:46:11 ◼   ► nothing going on. Do we have some form of a function here going on? I think we do

01:46:18 ◼   ► look at you now. The form of it is not getting in the way of the function but I

01:46:24 ◼   ► like I actually like the way that the big number looks. Yeah but can you tell

01:46:27 ◼   ► the time on it then? Like because if you're saying it's difficult for you to guess the number, how do you guess the minutes?

01:46:32 ◼   ► This is the same thing like how I have the fuzzy clock on my Mac.

01:46:35 ◼   ► All right, so when I look at my Mac

01:46:37 ◼   ► I've set it up so that it doesn't say the exact time, it just says 20 past 6.

01:46:41 ◼   ► All right, because I think I don't need to know the time to the minute precision.

01:46:44 ◼   ► I just need to know roughly what the time is.

01:46:46 ◼   ► So I feel like this kind of watch face is relatively relaxing because there's very little on it.

01:46:52 ◼   ► I don't need to know the time super precisely when I'm not working, right, because the workday is over.

01:46:57 ◼   ► is totally fine to just know like roughly what time it is, but if I had a watch face that was just the hands,

01:47:04 ◼   ► I would mess up what the hour is, right?

01:47:07 ◼   ► And I like, I need to know what the actual hour of time is when I'm looking at the watch.

01:47:12 ◼   ► So that's why I have an on-duty watch face and I have an off-duty watch face.

01:47:16 ◼   ► And this is what I have selected as the off-duty watch face. I think it looks good.

01:47:20 ◼   ► All right. And also this one's yellow.

01:47:23 ◼   ► Do you not like the yellow, Myke?

01:47:24 ◼   ► I think it's a horrible yellow.

01:47:27 ◼   ► I have to say, when you take the screenshot, that yellow looks really terrible.

01:47:30 ◼   ► It almost is like puce.

01:47:33 ◼   ► Yeah, looking at that screenshot, that yellow does not represent the way it actually looks

01:47:37 ◼   ► on the watch.

01:47:38 ◼   ► Like, I didn't notice this, but yeah, if I was looking at that yellow, I wouldn't pick

01:47:42 ◼   ► that.

01:47:43 ◼   ► But, I'll let you in on a little secret, which is in all of my calendars and absolutely everything,

01:47:48 ◼   ► as we've discussed before, like, you have to have colors that mean various things.

01:47:52 ◼   ► And in my whole system, yellow is free time.

01:47:55 ◼   ► So that's why the watch face is yellow. Work is over. It's just free time.

01:48:00 ◼   ► Snapchat's yellow.

01:48:01 ◼   ► It is yellow.

01:48:04 ◼   ► It's the wrong kind of yellow for you though, huh?

01:48:08 ◼   ► It's the wrong kind of app for me, that's the problem.