0:00:00So Myke, did you enjoy your Cortexmas?
0:00:04A little too much, I think.
0:00:06That's the problem with Cortexmas, is it's the time when we take a break from work and relax for a while.
0:00:12And sometimes it's a little bit hard to get back into the swing of things.
0:00:18I've been trying very hard the past couple of days just to get back into working again post-holiday season.
0:00:24and I have just failed repeatedly, but this recording of Cortex was on the schedule.
0:00:31You wouldn't let me move it, and so it's like, "Oh, I can no longer be in denial that the holidays are still going on."
0:00:37Like, "Oh, it's January 4th. That's still sort of Christmas/New Year time, right?"
0:00:41Nope, not anymore. Now we're recording. Now work for the rest of the year is starting again.
0:00:47You've tried to drop this in in a message conversation we had.
0:00:51"We are probably recording a show tomorrow."
0:00:53You knew full well that we were.
0:00:55It was just your last-dish attempt to get out of it.
0:00:58[LAUGHTER]
0:01:00It's like, I'll just give it one more go.
0:01:02Yeah, I thought maybe you'd want to push it back another week or so.
0:01:05[LAUGHTER]
0:01:06[DING]
0:01:08I received a early Christmas gift in the form of an iPad Pro coloring book app.
0:01:15Oh, finally.
0:01:16Your wish has come true, Myke.
0:01:17It's so glorious as well.
0:01:19It's called Pigment.
0:01:20Mm-hmm, and it's just superb. Is it everything that you hoped it would be about 90% of what I would like it to be
0:01:27It's missing a couple of things like it doesn't have like an eraser
0:01:30Mm-hmm
0:01:31So if you color something accidentally you have to like go in and select the white color and color it out again real coloring books
0:01:38Don't have erasers if you're a little kid and you're coloring with crayons, there's no crayon eraser
0:01:42But it also has an undo function. So I mean, yeah, you've got to embrace the technology
0:01:47I also have like one pencil and an unlimited amount of colors. I wanted you to see my work
0:01:54There's one of the links in our in our document. Oh, yeah is a selection of my favorite work
0:02:00I mean again Myke every time I see this coloring book stuff
0:02:03I want to be impressed like I was about to say oh wow that looks really great
0:02:07But then I remember of course you haven't drawn any of this the colors. Yeah, all right
0:02:13I'd choose the colors, I'd make it look the way I want, and I think I like the lion one. That's my favorite one.
0:02:18There's two lions here. Oh no, it's a bear.
0:02:20See, I thought that was a lion until I finished it. I was like, "Oh, it's a bear. That's why it's that color."
0:02:25I thought it was a lion.
0:02:27Right.
0:02:29I feel like the teacher in me wants to write on that bear, "Great effort!"
0:02:35I bet you're so condescending with your marking.
0:02:41No, you can't be condescending when it's physics. Physics is either right or it's wrong, and it's mostly wrong.
0:02:45So you never got to say great effort to someone then?
0:02:48No, because effort doesn't count at all in math and physics.
0:02:51It's like your effort is irrelevant. If this was really easy and you got it right,
0:02:55it's worth just as much as you greatly struggling and getting it right.
0:02:59Talking about struggling.
0:03:00Yeah?
0:03:01Are you back on the internet?
0:03:02So I'm gonna take a guess and say that you are in some ways because I noted
0:03:09That you were tweeting from tweet bot which means that you've at least on some devices you have it installed again
0:03:16I feel like you stalk me Myke because you're looking closely enough to see well
0:03:21What what device have I tweeted from like it's a little disconcerting when you're like, oh, I know that you tweeted from tweet bot
0:03:27I'll tell you how I noticed this right. So you tweeted a picture of your
0:03:32devices
0:03:34Right the home screens. Yeah, it was the Christmas decorating for iOS devices
0:03:39Yeah, so I went onto it and I saw that it said Twitter web client.
0:03:44So I looked at it because I was going to grab the link to talk about it at some point.
0:03:48And it said Twitter web client.
0:03:50And then I started looking around then and then saw that there was things coming from
0:03:54Tweetbot.
0:03:55Because it didn't come from Buffer, which meant that you were accessing it from somewhere.
0:04:00This is all show prep, Gray.
0:04:01Yeah, that's what it is.
0:04:03It's not stalking, it's show prep.
0:04:05It's not stalking.
0:04:06Show prep.
0:04:07Yeah, so the end of the year has come and I did the dialing down for November and then
0:04:18I said that I was going to extend it for a while and I am now slowly opening up the gates
0:04:27again to these parts of the internet that I have left behind.
0:04:32And in my own attempt at preparing for this show, I was trying to think about what are
0:04:38the lessons that I have learned from these two months of quasi self-imposed internet
0:04:45isolation.
0:04:46Can I take a quick guess and say you've learned nothing?
0:04:48Yeah, well I was just going to say, what I want to do is to come down from high on the
0:04:55mount like with...
0:04:56iPad Pro in each hand.
0:04:57chiseled on an iPad Pro that tells people here's how you should live your internet lives.
0:05:03And in the end I just have this very ambivalent feeling about a lot of it and particularly about
0:05:11Twitter. Like I'm gonna say right at the beginning I am very glad that I did this for two months. I
0:05:16think this was definitely something worthwhile to do. But it's very hard for me now to know where am
0:05:25am I going forward from this?
0:05:28So like Twitter is a good example
0:05:30because it's at the intersection of a couple of things.
0:05:33And like I realized the value that I get out of Twitter
0:05:38is being ambiently aware of what people in my life
0:05:45who I'm interested in are doing.
0:05:48And I've been really aware over the past couple months
0:05:51that a bunch of the people that I follow
0:05:53who I don't instant message with on a regular basis,
0:05:55but who I'm friendly with, like I have no idea what they're doing.
0:05:59Because I'm not on Twitter and I'm not just seeing what they're up to
0:06:02and so then I have far fewer reasons to just interact with someone.
0:06:07How do you feel about that?
0:06:08The way I feel about that is it is a kind of disconnection that...
0:06:13I wouldn't say that it isn't good, but the presence of it is good.
0:06:21Like, I like a certain amount of ambient awareness of what people are up to.
0:06:27Because, in no small part, I am the world's worst person at keeping up with people.
0:06:33Like, I am terrible about sending emails and iMessages to people.
0:06:37Like, I'm just very bad at staying in touch.
0:06:39This is just something I know about myself.
0:06:41Uh, I've known about myself for a very long time.
0:06:46Because I remember when I was graduating from high school and going on to college,
0:06:52everybody was always talking about how like, "Oh, we'll keep in touch, we'll keep in touch!"
0:06:55And I would say things like, "Oh yeah, we'll keep in touch!"
0:06:58But inside I was thinking, "I know I won't keep in touch."
0:07:00Right, like we'll never talk ever again. That's what's gonna happen here.
0:07:03"Chit chat is not one of your strong suits."
0:07:06Yeah, that's exactly right.
0:07:07"Chit chat, a certain kind of social grooming, is not my area of strength."
0:07:13And so that's where I feel like Twitter is an interesting tool for me in that it provides a certain amount of value.
0:07:20And I even just, I went through Twitter again as I was kind of preparing to come back online.
0:07:26And as you have done, I culled down the number of people I was following once again.
0:07:30So now I'm under a hundred now for how many people I'm following.
0:07:34So this is the part of Twitter that I want.
0:07:38But then I'm also really aware of one of the things that's been great over the past couple months is
0:07:43not having
0:07:46just like this source of constant distraction
0:07:51just even available, because going on it's just like, okay this is just simply not an option
0:07:55like it's not installed on any of my devices, I've set all my computers so it won't open
0:07:59like this thing just won't be there, and so I like not having the distraction
0:08:04the other thing is that if I have Twitter open
0:08:07the source of just @ messages from random people that I don't know
0:08:12don't know is a source of distraction.
0:08:15And so I've been feeling like, okay, as I'm trying to figure out how to get back onto
0:08:19the internet with something like Twitter, I almost wish there was a way on Twitter that
0:08:23I could only see @ messages from people that I follow.
0:08:28Do you know how you get that?
0:08:30Well, the web version does it, right?
0:08:32Well, if you're verified.
0:08:33What are you talking about?
0:08:34On the regular web version, there's a tab that says like "activity from people I follow"
0:08:39or something like that.
0:08:40Yeah, there is a if you're verified then like there are specific tools that you get that other people don't get which are like that.
0:08:47Oh, isn't that interesting?
0:08:50Yeah.
0:08:51I wonder if anybody who listens to Cortex happens to work at Twitter.
0:08:55Get in touch!
0:08:56I would like that as well just to have the tick. I don't need the tool.
0:08:59[Laughter]
0:09:01I, listen, if you work at Twitter, I'll take the reverse of Myke.
0:09:05You don't have to give me the verified tick. I don't care at all about that.
0:09:08I just want the tool. I just want to be able to see only @ mentions from people that I actually follow.
0:09:14So that's one of the things that like spending this time away from Twitter has distilled in my mind
0:09:19what it is that I actually want from Twitter, which is a subset of what Twitter wants to actually offer me.
0:09:26So I like I don't really know we may have an actionable point forward from here from that but...
0:09:32I'm just I need to say this because otherwise all the feedback will get lists will not help.
0:09:37Lists never help with anything. It's just when I went through my Twitter experiment,
0:09:43everybody told me that what I wanted was lists and what I don't want is lists.
0:09:48How do I make the lists work?
0:09:50Well, I mean, you could, I'm sure there's something you could do with lists.
0:09:53Because people always find things to do with lists.
0:09:56I've never used a single Twitter list. I don't even really know what it does.
0:10:00Just don't. It's not going to help you.
0:10:03So what about having another account? Have you considered that? Like a private account?
0:10:10No, I don't. That's just too much trouble. That's just way too much trouble. That's just...
0:10:13The last thing I want is to double the Twitter when I'm trying to think about how do I want less
0:10:18Twitter. So what you want is an account of a small amount of people that you follow,
0:10:23so you don't see too much and you get the kind of the ambient what's going on in people's lives,
0:10:28so you feel connected to them and also for you to just see
0:10:33the mentions from those people as well.
0:10:38Yeah, like I'm like I just opened up I just opened up Tweetbot
0:10:42right now on my computer and
0:10:44you know, it says like there's a little message there that's like, oh,
0:10:48there are 200 plus tweets since the last time you looked.
0:10:51Right. But I like the thing is, what I really just want to know is,
0:10:55are there any @mentions from people who I follow?
0:11:00Like that is the valuable subset of this to me.
0:11:04And like there are definitely times when I would want to see all the @mentions,
0:11:09but I would like the default to be just @mentions from people that I actually follow.
0:11:14But yeah I guess on the Twitter webpage, right, you can just go to the people you follow,
0:11:17as you said, and you can get it sort of broken down that way.
0:11:21Is that what you want then?
0:11:22Yeah the one that you have on the Twitter website now,
0:11:25I want to be able to have that in a Twitter client. That's precisely what I want.
0:11:29Hey Gray, I have some instant follow-up for you.
0:11:31In the settings of the official Twitter app, under the notifications tab,
0:11:36you can filter it to only people you follow.
0:11:39Okay, but that's notifications. That's not a timeline though.
0:11:44Well, it says notifications tab.
0:11:45Really?
0:11:47Yeah, look at this. We're doing some real stuff here.
0:11:50Yeah, look at us. I'm gonna install it right now and we're going to see if this works.
0:11:54But just a couple other just quick things.
0:11:56While Twitter is the one that I've been thinking about the most because it's the one that I've had that kind of
0:12:01ambiently in my life,
0:12:02I've also now just been like slowly going back on Reddit and Hacker News and slowly going back to podcasts and things.
0:12:09I'm just trying to figure out precisely what I was saying months ago, which is what is the place for these things in
0:12:15my life? And
0:12:18it's
0:12:21It's interesting because I think like in some ways one of the clearest lessons is that
0:12:26Podcasts were definitely this thing that I was listening to way way too much and
0:12:33When like when January first rolled over I was like, okay
0:12:37Let me put podcast back on my phone and let me let me try doing this and I realized immediately like no way man
0:12:43I think podcasts have to stay off your phone forever
0:12:45Like there can be other circumstances in which you listen to podcasts. Like I've been trying
0:12:50just playing podcasts like over the speaker at my house while I'm like cleaning up or doing the dishes or like putting stuff away kind
0:12:57of thing. But like I'm not sure that I can actually just
0:13:00that I really want to have
0:13:03podcasts available all the time wherever I am. Like I think it's just too much of a distraction and too much of a like
0:13:10"Oh, I really like listening to podcasts. So I always want to listen to podcasts."
0:13:13So it's just it just makes me think again of that
0:13:16that little image that somebody mocked up from a previous show or it's like
0:13:20Where they quoted me as saying like I don't watch YouTube videos and I don't listen to podcasts CGP Grey professional
0:13:27youtuber and podcaster, I think that it's like that's definitely the case because
0:13:31Again, two months in I'm really aware that
0:13:34Not also following all the educational videos and all the educational podcasts like that is definitely also a big improvement
0:13:43So I think those are changes that are going to stay.
0:13:46Like, I don't think I'm going to get back into following, like,
0:13:49what are all the other videos that everybody's putting out?
0:13:51Like, I think I'm just leaving that behind.
0:13:53And all of the various educational podcast shows that I listen to,
0:13:57like, all of those I'm not going to resubscribe to.
0:14:00And even the podcasts that I do listen to,
0:14:02like, I still need to limit those.
0:14:04So it's just been an interesting experience overall
0:14:08that I'm very glad that I have done.
0:14:10I would highly recommend anybody else if they feel the same way that I was about being kind of distracted or overwhelmed.
0:14:17This is a thing to try. Maybe not for as long as I've done it, but you know, definitely try it.
0:14:21Because I feel like I have some
0:14:25inarticulate sense of a way that things should be different. But like it is really hard to talk about because
0:14:32like for example, I was on
0:14:36Hacker news the other day, which is a reddit like site which hacker news people do not want you to say
0:14:41What are you laughing at? I know you only say it because it annoys people
0:14:45No, I don't know any other faster way to describe hacker news for people who don't know what hacker news is
0:14:51but it's it's a reddit like site in some ways but
0:14:54There happened to be this the guy one of the guys who kind of runs Y Combinator
0:14:59Which runs hacker news is a guy called Paul Graham who I've been following for years who's had this very very interesting career
0:15:05And he writes these essays every once in a while, which are very interesting to read.
0:15:10And there was just a huge big brouhaha
0:15:14on Hacker News over two essays that he wrote recently which were about income inequality.
0:15:20And there were just huge discussions about these articles of people arguing like, "Is he right? Is he wrong?
0:15:26Did he totally miss the point? Has he gotten to the core of something really interesting?"
0:15:32this is exactly the kind of thing that I just didn't have any exposure to over the past couple months not going on these kind of sites
0:15:39And this to me was just a perfect example of like, "man, I just love this kind of stuff." There's something about
0:15:45certain kinds of people arguing on the internet in long comment threads that I just love, like I just love that and
0:15:58That's a thing that I don't want to eliminate from my life.
0:16:03Like I just I really get into that kind of thing. Like I love seeing people
0:16:06arguing over a topic and
0:16:11just don't know now
0:16:13how much of that I'm going to necessarily let back in because even just opening opening up the doors again to going back on Reddit
0:16:21and Hacker News, it's like boy
0:16:22It's very easy to just kind of spend an afternoon clicking around and looking at everything way past the point
0:16:29When you're really feeling like oh, this is a great comment thread and you're still just like looking for more stuff. So
0:16:34So I just don't know. I just don't know Myke but for the time being I am back on the internet to some extent
0:16:42Today's episode of cortex is brought to you kindly by audible.com audible includes more than
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0:18:29Thank you so much to audible.com for their support of this show and Relay FM.
0:18:35So it's January.
0:18:36January.
0:18:38January is the time for New Year's resolutions.
0:18:41Oh boy!
0:18:43So this was something like when I initially thought about talking to you about this. Like
0:18:48I've had the idea of New Year's resolutions in my big topic list for a while because I
0:18:53thought it would be something interesting to talk about with you. And the whole time
0:18:57that I've been thinking about it, I cannot work out in my brain what I think you're gonna
0:19:02say as to whether you set new year's resolutions because the idea of a tradition like this
0:19:09seems like something you would not get involved with because you tend not to get involved
0:19:14in traditions like this right like everyone does this thing which kind of mean is completely
0:19:20arbitrary but then the more i think about it it's like goals and objectives which is
0:19:24something that you love. So I can't work out if you set new year's resolutions or if you
0:19:33use January as a time for goal and objective setting.
0:19:39Well you got to put some money on the table Myke, make a bet. What do you think?
0:19:43Alright in the traditional sense of a new year's resolution I would say that you do
0:19:48not do that.
0:19:50You are correct.
0:19:54In the way that I think most people mean it when they say "New Year's resolutions",
0:19:59I do not do New Year's resolutions.
0:20:02Do you?
0:20:03No.
0:20:04Now, why don't you do it?
0:20:05Because I think you might be quite right in your assessment about why I don't do New
0:20:09Year's resolutions, but are those your reasons as well?
0:20:12It's just pointless to be like, "Oh, it's January, I set those goals."
0:20:16I do set goals for myself.
0:20:19I have used January as a time to set goals for myself,
0:20:23but not as like, hey, this is my New Year's resolution.
0:20:27I mean, like many people, when the New Year begins,
0:20:30I'm like, it's like a time for reflection.
0:20:32It's like, okay, let me think, okay,
0:20:34this is something I wanna try and do, that kind of thing.
0:20:37And I've used it as a way to discuss goals
0:20:39and objectives on other shows before, like we're doing now.
0:20:42And then as part of that, set goals.
0:20:44But I never treat them as like New Year's resolutions.
0:20:48It's like the same thing. It's like I'm now, I am now on a low carb diet, Gray.
0:20:53Oh really?
0:20:54Yeah.
0:20:56Really?
0:20:57Yeah.
0:20:58You sound about as happy about it as I do when I go all in on it at first.
0:21:04I'm f***ing hungry. All the time. That's the problem.
0:21:10But I, you know...
0:21:15Adina is setting meals for me because otherwise I just won't do it. Like, and as I said to
0:21:20her, a great motivation for me is to not, is to just make sure I'm just trying to not
0:21:24p*** her off, right? I just feel that this is a good motivation in my life and if she
0:21:28sets the meals, I don't want to get, I don't want to not do it because then I'm going to
0:21:32annoy her because she put all the work in. It's a great motivational tool for me. So
0:21:37I'm doing that and most of the time, like the meals are fine, I just live in a state
0:21:41of constant hunger now.
0:21:43I'm saying this, it's been like four days,
0:21:46but I've been hungry for four days.
0:21:48So I'm a little bit cranky.
0:21:50I think that was what I didn't want to do the show today.
0:21:52'Cause now we're like an hour in
0:21:54and I feel like I'm gonna pass out,
0:21:55but I haven't got anything to eat for the next few hours
0:21:57because I've already eaten all the things on my meal plan.
0:22:00Anyway.
0:22:01- So you do have a new year's resolution.
0:22:05- I wouldn't even really call it that.
0:22:07It was just like, we decided we wanted to do this
0:22:11in like late November or whatever and there is no point trying to set something like that up in December.
0:22:16Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. I have, I mean we knew we were going to talk about goals today,
0:22:21but I have on here just a note about my own weight goals. Like this is something I've been setting
0:22:28and talking about on Hello Internet, but I was, as I was in like the middle of December,
0:22:36I was creeping close to my goal weight of to be under 200 pounds and it was something like December 15th or something
0:22:42I was thinking boy if I really if I really push it for the rest of the month
0:22:46Like I could be under 200 pounds before the start of the new year and realize like yeah
0:22:51but what fantasy land do you live in where between December 15th and
0:22:55January 1st is going to be the time that you are the most disciplined ever. It's never gonna happen
0:23:02And also there was this is probably the wrong way to do it but then because I knew this is coming
0:23:08I I will blew out of the war in December man. Yeah, you really stocked up. Oh, yeah the week before Christmas I had three
0:23:15lunches that included burgers in three days
0:23:19Nothing wrong with burgers on the on low carb, you know, as long as you're not eating the bread. Well, that's the thing
0:23:25Well, that's the thing is extra bread
0:23:28Bucky, but I'll have all of the bread
0:23:31Oh boy, do I miss bread. I did have a bagel today, which was great, but that's the only
0:23:37brother I didn't eat.
0:23:38Okay, yeah, let's see. So yeah, you've already fallen down here. You haven't actually done
0:23:40it for four days.
0:23:41That was part of the meal plan, man. It was part of the meal plan.
0:23:43No, there's no way a bagel is keeping you under your carbohydrate limit.
0:23:48Mm-hmm. I know.
0:23:49No.
0:23:50I don't write the meal plan.
0:23:51Okay.
0:23:52Meal plan said I could have one, so I had one.
0:23:55All right, I'm going to have to talk to Adina then. I'm going to get her sorted on you here.
0:24:00I feel like she was trying to ease me into it.
0:24:03Like I get a bagel this week, you know, next week.
0:24:06- You need to give me her iMessage.
0:24:08Nina and I need to chat about this.
0:24:10- That is never gonna happen.
0:24:11I am eating with some meals, rivitas, right?
0:24:15The other thing is, this just makes me smile,
0:24:18low carb tortillas, which their description is,
0:24:23tastes like wholemeal.
0:24:25What are you, low carb tortilla?
0:24:28What are you?
0:24:29Because you're not whole meal, right?
0:24:31What tastes like whole meal?
0:24:32I don't want to know.
0:24:33They were kind of OK.
0:24:35Kind of OK.
0:24:36Ringing endorsement.
0:24:38Most of the food I'm eating now is kind of OK.
0:24:42But anyway--
0:24:45Oh, Myke.
0:24:46So have you ever set a New Year's resolution?
0:24:50Yeah, I think the answer to that is no.
0:24:53I haven't ever really set a formal New Year's resolution.
0:24:57I almost feel like, I don't know,
0:25:00maybe this is going to sound horrifically uncharitable,
0:25:03but when people tell me, like this,
0:25:04when I used to be at school and people would talk
0:25:06about their New Year's resolutions,
0:25:08I swear, I always felt like anyone who framed their goal
0:25:13in terms of a New Year's resolution,
0:25:16all I could hear in my mind is like,
0:25:17you are planning to fail.
0:25:19Like this seems to me the way you're doing it.
0:25:21Like you might as, when people said like,
0:25:23my new year's resolution is to lose weight or whatever.
0:25:27I like in my head, I might as well have translated into,
0:25:32I wish to lose weight like that.
0:25:35That's what the new year's resolution sound like to me.
0:25:37Like people making birthday wishes. I think that's,
0:25:39that's the way it seems to be culturally done. I just, I almost,
0:25:43I just had a really hard time taking anybody seriously who was telling me about
0:25:48their new year's resolutions.
0:25:50I feel like there is a small but important difference between new year's
0:25:54resolution and using January as a time to set a goal.
0:25:57Yeah, I think there is, there is a real difference there.
0:26:00There's something about the new year's resolution phrased in that way that,
0:26:04that is just like a wish. I think that's the best way to put it.
0:26:08The reason that the new year's resolution probably began is because January is a
0:26:12great time to make a change,
0:26:14but it then over time became this like
0:26:19society thing of like, "Oh, what's your New Year's resolution? Well, if everyone
0:26:24has one, I guess I'll stop smoking." And then nobody ever does.
0:26:29Right, right, because we're all collectively holding each other's hands on this exact
0:26:33same thing of, "Let's all close our eyes and wish to stop smoking at the same time.
0:26:39Maybe Santa will bring it." Maybe he will. You are a person who strongly
0:26:43believes in goals and objectives, though, right? And not in the corporate goals and
0:26:48objectives thing. You work in a big corporation, goals and objectives become kind of a farce,
0:26:55at least they did for me.
0:26:56Yeah, how so?
0:26:58Well, it's like your objectives are set at the start of the year, so at the end of the
0:27:02year they have a reason not to give you a pay rise.
0:27:04Ooh, ouch!
0:27:06That is effectively, in big corporations, why goals and objectives are set for many
0:27:11people.
0:27:12So the goals come down from on high, and they say, "Oh, you need to reach X goals, but we
0:27:16we know these goals are never reachable,
0:27:18so then we can say, well, we haven't given you a raise.
0:27:20Is that the reason for it?
0:27:22- Yeah.
0:27:22(laughing)
0:27:23Or at least in management positions,
0:27:26they are used very frequently
0:27:27as a reason to not give somebody a raise.
0:27:29Oh, you didn't meet this performance goal.
0:27:31- Mm-hmm.
0:27:32- So all about performance management, Gray,
0:27:35that's what goals are all about.
0:27:37But there are, yeah, I'm sure that you don't do this,
0:27:41so you don't give yourself a raise.
0:27:42- I'm not in the position to just magic money from nowhere
0:27:45to give myself a raise.
0:27:46- Isn't that what happens when you put out a video?
0:27:48Isn't that what that is?
0:27:49Like magicking money?
0:27:51- It's not magic from nowhere though.
0:27:53- Well, it depends I guess.
0:27:54- But that's the feeling in a corporation, right?
0:27:56Like, oh, there's just this gigantic entity
0:27:57which can dole out money that from your perspective
0:28:00seems to come from absolutely nowhere.
0:28:02- Well, the fact that like the terms bonus pot are used
0:28:05is funny 'cause it makes you imagine
0:28:08like at the end of the rainbow.
0:28:09- Right, there's a leprechaun distributing
0:28:11everybody's bonuses.
0:28:12- Yep.
0:28:13(laughing)
0:28:14That's funny. I mean, I had just a tiny taste of that being a teacher where we had,
0:28:19they always had some awful at the various schools,
0:28:22they were called different things,
0:28:23but they were always awful and they were like self improvement targets that you
0:28:27had to set for yourself at the beginning of the year and hit at the end of the
0:28:31year. And one of, one of my bosses,
0:28:36I always loved her because she was really explicit about it. She was like, okay,
0:28:38listen,
0:28:39we're just we're just going to set these so that you can't not hit them because
0:28:44you want to be able to say you met all your self-improvement goals,
0:28:47and I want to be able to tick all the boxes that said you met them.
0:28:50Because if I don't tick these boxes, the people above me are ticking boxes that say,
0:28:55"I have ticked all the boxes."
0:28:57So all we want to do is tick a bunch of boxes all up the chain.
0:29:00That's the inverse of what I was suggesting,
0:29:03like what I'm saying about corporations.
0:29:05But that person is doing it because it's beneficial to them.
0:29:09Where in some scenarios it might be beneficial to not have people meet all of their goals.
0:29:13goals that you do at your own.
0:29:15Well, this, that's what I mean. Like this is,
0:29:17this is funny because it is the reverse. And then of course I,
0:29:21when I was in charge of a form of kids,
0:29:24I had this exact same thing then trickled down onto me where I had to have the
0:29:29kids do their little self-improvement sheets over the course of the year.
0:29:32And just as my boss was explicit with me, I always explicitly told those kids,
0:29:36okay, listen, here's the deal.
0:29:40Like, this is a bunch of nonsense,
0:29:43but we just need to make sure these boxes are ticked at the end of the year.
0:29:46And I forget what it was, but I,
0:29:48I used to have a list of 10 that I just told them to pick from of like,
0:29:53look, here's goals you like.
0:29:54There's no way for me to prove that you haven't done it.
0:29:57You can just tell me that you've done it.
0:29:58And then I can tick the box at the end of the year. And they were, you know,
0:30:01they were horrible goals. Like,
0:30:03I will attempt to be more organized over the course of the year.
0:30:08And it's like, great. Yeah. A little Susie at the end of the year,
0:30:10you can just tell me you did it and I can tick the box and we can we can both go on with our lives
0:30:15because if we don't do this
0:30:17Then you have to go to like the guidance counselor and I have to be
0:30:20Giving an explanation about why all of my students didn't reach all of their goals
0:30:24inspiring the hearts and minds gray
0:30:27I think that is inspiring in its own way right to not lie and just be like listen
0:30:32This is a valuable skill that I'm imparting to you right now
0:30:36Sometimes work is meaningless and you just need to get it done and nobody cares how well it's actually done
0:30:43I think that's an invaluable lesson
0:30:45Don't you?
0:30:48I feel like there's a line that I don't know about
0:30:53I can't say how I feel about that one. But anyway, we today are not talking about those kind of
0:31:00corporate
0:31:01academic
0:31:02totally nonsensical, existing for entirely other reasons goals.
0:31:06We're talking about actual goals that are useful to people.
0:31:11I think that's, that's what we want to talk a little bit about today.
0:31:14Now I'm going to assume that you do have lots of these types of goals and a lot
0:31:19of these goals for you are measured in metrics.
0:31:22There's a broader context here,
0:31:24which is sort of like the opening of the show is having a hard time talking
0:31:28about, uh,
0:31:29how I felt about the return of social media in its various forms.
0:31:32I sometimes have a little bit of a hard time talking about goals because my view on this
0:31:42is that the point of having a goal is not the goal itself, but it is to encourage you
0:31:54to be thinking about systems that help you reach that goal.
0:31:59I mean, maybe that sounds obvious,
0:32:00but I have just run across enough people who sort of set the goal and then they'll
0:32:08maybe attempt one or two things to try to reach it.
0:32:10They fail at those things and then like the new year's resolutions,
0:32:15the goal just gets kind of swept to the side and not directly looked at again.
0:32:20Or treated as like this is impossible.
0:32:22Yeah. Or treated like it's impossible. And yeah, so I,
0:32:26I really feel that the important thing is to think about it in a systems way.
0:32:36Like the goal is just there to stimulate your mind,
0:32:40to think about how you can change things over the course of time,
0:32:44to approach that goal.
0:32:46And yes, I agree that having numerical goals is extremely useful.
0:32:50I mean, I think maybe all of my goals can be expressed in numerical format.
0:32:58I'm just trying to mentally run through some of the main things that I have on my list.
0:33:05And yeah, actually they can all be expressed in some numerical form.
0:33:08I don't think I have any goals that are not expressed in that way.
0:33:13What type of goals do you have set then?
0:33:15And how do you record them?
0:33:16Like, do you have a list of goals somewhere?
0:33:18Yeah, actually I do keep a list.
0:33:23So one of the things...
0:33:24Okay, so let's back up a step for a second.
0:33:26So I don't do these New Year's resolutions.
0:33:28You know, again, I don't wish upon a star that things are better than they were.
0:33:31Because that goes nowhere.
0:33:33And I also think that a year is just a ridiculously long time to try to plan for anything.
0:33:39No one can really plan for anything a year in advance.
0:33:42So I do reviews basically every quarter,
0:33:51and that is my biggest time frame over which I really think about stuff.
0:33:58And so I do actually have-- I use OmniOutliner for this,
0:34:02but I have just a list of the things that I might want to attempt this quarter.
0:34:11Like, what are the goals for this quarter?
0:34:13And I like to think in three-month time frames,
0:34:17because it's relatively easy to kind of look back
0:34:20over the past three months and think,
0:34:22okay, how did things go?
0:34:24Where did things work?
0:34:24Where did things not work?
0:34:26And look forward three months and think about,
0:34:28okay, how can I possibly change things?
0:34:31You know, what could be better?
0:34:32I think that's just a much, much better human time frame
0:34:37to think over as opposed to a year.
0:34:40Because really, we don't have that many years.
0:34:43But you know, you get four times as many quarters.
0:34:45Reviewing that more frequently allows you to make more course corrections
0:34:50than just trying once a year to change something.
0:34:53So what types of things are there then, in that list?
0:34:56Well, some of the things are private things,
0:34:58but the public thing that I can say is like what we mentioned before, like weight.
0:35:01So like, I have been trying really over the past year to get my weight under 200 pounds.
0:35:08Which is I have no idea how many kilograms that is you wanted in kilograms, don't you? I don't know kilograms
0:35:14What you don't know kilograms? I'm not a European. Well, I do things in stone and pounds my friend
0:35:20Oh like a good person from the United Kingdom
0:35:23Stone has got to be the worst the worst measurement of weight in the world. Yeah, it's horrific
0:35:30I don't even know how many pounds are in a stone. It's like 12. It's 14. There you go
0:35:35You just told me that you measure things in pounds and stones, but you only have any idea about pounds and stones
0:35:40Yeah, because I just do what the what the scale tells me. It tells me like
0:35:43X amount of stone X amount of pounds like that's all I need to know but there's nothing I can't find anything that does pound to
0:35:50Stone conversions because it's just dumb any
0:35:52Conversion tool will do pounds to stone. Yeah, but I'm just typing it
0:35:56I'm just typing it into the browser and I just again do it for me. If you used Google, you'd have no problem
0:36:02Yeah, it does.
0:36:03No, it won't.
0:36:04Yes, it will.
0:36:05I did it like two days ago.
0:36:06Okay, I'm gonna type 200 pounds in stones.
0:36:09Yeah, but I don't want the stones and the pounds, not whatever.
0:36:15It's 14.2 stones.
0:36:16Yeah, so that's 14 stone, 2 pounds.
0:36:19No, that's not how the 0.2 works, Myke.
0:36:21Oh, well, just ask it for that then.
0:36:23All right, hang on.
0:36:24That's not how the 0.2 works.
0:36:27We need to take you back to school and do fractions.
0:36:29But no, you need to do point two stone in pounds. That's what you need to do.
0:36:33I feel like I'm trying your patience here.
0:36:36You are.
0:36:37Yeah, see point two stone is essentially three pounds.
0:36:41Okay.
0:36:42That's where we're going here.
0:36:44So did you get an answer?
0:36:47Yeah, I already told you the answer.
0:36:49What is it?
0:36:49It's 14 stone, three pounds.
0:36:52Okay.
0:36:53But so anyway, that is one of the goals that I've had, and I've been working towards this
0:36:57really over the past year. And the thing that I view about that goal is it's
0:37:02not the specifics of it, it's just that what this has allowed me to do is that
0:37:08over the last year I keep regularly thinking about what has gone well
0:37:13with my weight loss, what has not gone well with my weight loss, what things
0:37:16have I changed, what things seem to be working. And slowly over the course of
0:37:22the year, by paying attention to what works and what doesn't work, I have
0:37:27started to cobble together for myself a system of things that work for me and
0:37:33that if I do them my weight on average slowly goes down. And like to me
0:37:39that is the important part of this is the system of things that you do not
0:37:45just the actual goal itself. But I suppose in most instances the system
0:37:51doesn't reveal itself until you've already set the goal and start working
0:37:54towards it, right? That's where the system would fall out in most instances.
0:37:57Yeah, that's exactly it. Like, it's like you're saying your goal is to travel west.
0:38:02It's like, okay, well, you need to start moving west and you will figure out good
0:38:07ways to go and good ways to travel. Yeah, like eventually you'll work out what to
0:38:11do when you're a face of a mountain. Right, right. But the goal is just the
0:38:15direction that you're setting. But again, I only say this because I just come
0:38:18across many people who seem to think that the goal is the thing, and I think
0:38:23you really have to think about it in terms of systems.
0:38:28Like, what is it on a daily or weekly basis
0:38:32that you are actually doing?
0:38:34And be very open to the idea that many things
0:38:37that you will try may be totally ineffective.
0:38:41And the important part here is that you're just
0:38:44reviewing that and thinking, was this thing effective?
0:38:48Hmm, it seems to not be, so let me change that,
0:38:51and let me try something different,
0:38:52And let me just keep trying a bunch of different things and eventually seeing what works and and what doesn't work
0:38:58Yeah, maybe one of the things is you eat wholemeal like tortillas.
0:39:03I predict that wholemeal like tortillas will not be a thing that you will keep in your diet.
0:39:10Oh, I predict that as well. They're fine
0:39:13But I would like something else. Well, actually what I want Gray is regular tortillas. That's what I want
0:39:20Yeah, that's what you want right now.
0:39:22But it's not what I get.
0:39:23[BEEP]
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0:41:35Well, okay, so here's an example actually, just to your own particular circumstance about
0:41:41going on a low-carb diet.
0:41:43So there's various different ways that someone can try to do this to reduce the number of
0:41:46carbohydrates that they take in.
0:41:48And when I first tried this, I found that it was obviously very effective, but it was
0:41:55very hard to stick with over any period of time.
0:41:58I was like, man, if I'm having a bunch of low-carb days in a row, I can see on the scale
0:42:04that my weight goes down, but I was just being honest with myself and saying like, "Okay,
0:42:08yeah, but I have a hard time doing more than four or five days in a row before I just like,
0:42:13I need a pizza." Right, and you just eat the pizza. And so I tinkered around with it and
0:42:18eventually discovered that for me anyway, like one of the little tweaks that really
0:42:23worked was it's not strictly slow carb, but like allowing myself to have cheese as part
0:42:31of this diet. So like little snacks of cheese throughout the day. And like that made all
0:42:36of the difference in the world, just this little change. It's like, okay, this is technically
0:42:41a worse slow carb diet than I should be doing. But this tweak makes enough of a difference
0:42:50to me that it works better over the long run. Like my weight loss might be slower than it
0:42:55would be if things were perfect, but I'm not a perfect human being and I need something
0:43:00that's like easy to snack on that I actually like to snack on and so like this change makes
0:43:05a difference so that that to me is like part of the system like I'm changing the diet and
0:43:10the way that I eat things to make the changes over the long term.
0:43:16I like cheese.
0:43:17Yeah, do you like cheese?
0:43:18I do like cheese.
0:43:19Yeah, are you eating cheese?
0:43:22Not as much.
0:43:23Yeah.
0:43:24See, you might you might be where I am in a little while.
0:43:28I hope so. I might, I might just keel over. So far the jury is out. I'm assuming that
0:43:40not all of your goals are personal goals though. You have business related goals, right?
0:43:44Well yeah, so this is, this is the other thing is like I find it very, very helpful to be
0:43:49able to track numerically what it is that I've actually set as goals. So with the weight
0:43:57weight loss thing, for example, like my scale automatically logs the weight and I have spreadsheets
0:44:03about that and I like to be able to look at the trends over the long term.
0:44:09Like I think that's also a very helpful thing is the longer time frame that you can possibly
0:44:13look at something, that to me is just very helpful because it changes the focus from
0:44:19like just today to what is the overall trend.
0:44:24And while I do embarrassingly make my weight public on Twitter because my scale tweets
0:44:29automatically when I step on it, I do have a bunch of private spreadsheets that I just
0:44:34keep that are related to business stuff.
0:44:38And so in there is where just about every month I go through and I take a look at some
0:44:44of the numbers for the business that I'm working on and I have a bunch of numerical goals that
0:44:51I like to keep an eye on.
0:44:53I find it extremely helpful to be able to say look at a graph
0:44:56That's like the business over the last 24 months and see what are the trend lines like are these lines going up?
0:45:03Are they going down which way do I want them to go?
0:45:05What things have I changed that have affected these lines like I almost don't know of any other way to
0:45:10Think about and to make progress than this like if if you're not
0:45:16Tracking it on a line graph like I have a very hard time
0:45:21Feeling like are you making any progress really? Like how do you know if you're making any progress?
0:45:25I think everybody should definitely learn at least the basics of how to use Excel or how to use numbers to be able to
0:45:31Track this kind of stuff. Yeah, that was a task that I went through a month or two ago
0:45:37We should just like plotting out a few different metrics that my business
0:45:42Generates and just looking at how they operate in conjunction with each other
0:45:45And it just helped me think about what what do I need to do next?
0:45:50Yeah, yeah, if you don't have an actual thing to look at you don't realize how fuzzy your thinking is about stuff
0:45:57until you see it in front of you and
0:46:00Okay, this is exactly what's happening. It is, I mean the human brain as we've discussed before it's like it is a nemesis of yours
0:46:08it's just it remembers things incorrectly it tries to distract you and
0:46:12It is so easy to have a wildly wrong
0:46:17estimate of where you actually are or like how much you've actually made progress on a thing and
0:46:22With the weight again going back to that like I have found having it on a graph and being able to look at it
0:46:29Incredibly helpful because it cuts away any of this
0:46:33Imagination stuff that the brain does about like oh, how's my weight been changing?
0:46:37I think it's been going down like has it though? Like is that what the graph says?
0:46:41No, that's not what the graph says at all. Like your brain just lying to you to make you feel better and
0:46:46with business stuff like it's just
0:46:49Shockingly helpful to be able to see that I mean I think I mentioned before
0:46:55that when I was trying to make it full-time on
0:46:59YouTube I
0:47:02had a goal which was to get to
0:47:05200,000 subscribers by a particular day and
0:47:08I figured that that like that was the number that I needed
0:47:11to be able to quit and like the way I knew that is because I had a bunch of spreadsheets that were giving me
0:47:16information about okay, how much revenue is the YouTube business generating? Like what is the rate of growth here? And
0:47:22if I can get to this number by this day
0:47:25I can be reasonably confident that this thing has reached the point where it's going to take off and
0:47:30like having that spreadsheet was
0:47:34extraordinarily helpful. Like the goal of 200,000
0:47:40wasn't the important thing, but that spreadsheet and keeping track of it was extremely important because it kept bringing my mind back to this
0:47:48idea of
0:47:49Okay, how can we get more subscribers?
0:47:51Or and I had little calculations on there like how many days are left how many subscribers short am I so like on average how?
0:47:58Many subscribers per day do I need to pick up and like focusing on that is the really helpful thing like that is extraordinarily
0:48:06helpful. One of my big goals, and it was a goal that I set, which is a pretty simple goal for me,
0:48:11is just knowing how much money the business needs to generate on a monthly basis to keep everyone in
0:48:17a good kind of setting. That's an important goal that I try and meet, which is a good one for me,
0:48:23which is informed by a lot of that kind of planning stuff. And it's funny, but it is a
0:48:29goal, right? That's an amount of money I have to get every month, and I now know the system in
0:48:33place which helps me try and get that. And there are things that are outside of my control,
0:48:38but then when things are outside of my control, I then learn how to control them differently
0:48:41the next time.
0:48:42Yeah, that's exactly it. You have to plan for stuff not always going right. That's part
0:48:49of it, and I think that's where people often fail on the goals. It's like, "Oh, the first
0:48:53time they fail, they're just like, 'Oh, okay, well, you know, put it to the side.'" But
0:48:56no, no, no, you don't understand. You can build a system to be prepared for certain
0:49:01kinds of failures. Like that's a super important part of this. This is all part of the system,
0:49:07it's just trying to figure out how to put in buffers for example, so that if something
0:49:13goes wrong then you have a little bit of a backup to fall back on. But yeah, if you have,
0:49:20I'm going to guess that for you, just simply knowing that you have a certain number in
0:49:25terms of advertising revenue that you need to hit every month, like that probably focuses
0:49:31your mind more when you are in selling advertising mode. Like you know what the minimum bar is
0:49:37that you need to hit.
0:49:38Yeah, it also adds pressure in its own way. But the pressure is there for a reason.
0:49:44Yeah, the pressure is there to make you actually do something.
0:49:49Which is useful. Especially when you're on a low-carb diet.
0:49:54Right, when you just want to lay on the couch and do nothing at all. That's what you want
0:50:00to do right now. Yeah, it really is. It really is. This chair that I'm sitting in is not
0:50:06optimal for my current state. Yeah, it's too optimally comfortable? Is that your problem?
0:50:10No, it's in the inverse. I want to be in a relaxing chair and I'm in an uncomfortable
0:50:15chair. Oh poor Myke. It doesn't sound like your system's working very well right now.
0:50:22No, not right now. I gotta talk to Adina. Please don't. I'm going to. I'm gonna find
0:50:28out our contact information. So to me, I think if any if anybody is in the mind
0:50:34frame right now of setting goals, which they may very well be because it's
0:50:39January, New Year's resolution time, yeah yeah wishing time, to me that like the
0:50:45most the most fundamental thing is just continually revisiting whatever it is
0:50:57you're trying to do. And like this is how a person changes their life is by
0:51:06setting up a continuous self-evaluation loop. And it's not strictly speaking
0:51:15goals but when I think back to like a real changing point in my life was when
0:51:22I started doing like getting things done and I came across a system which talked
0:51:26about how to organize things.
0:51:27It wasn't even so much the getting things done system.
0:51:30I always think the thing that mattered the most, like the absolute life-changing thing,
0:51:35was that after reading the Getting Things Done book, I had a notebook in my pocket always
0:51:42that I wrote things down in and I routinely went back and looked through the things that
0:51:49I wrote down.
0:51:51And like that little tiny loop of, I don't even want to call it self-accountability,
0:51:58but just like a self-reflection loop of like looking at the things you wrote down last
0:52:02week and kind of forcing in your mind much more clearly the notion of like, "Oh, there's
0:52:06a past me and there's a current me who's reading this thing that past me wrote, and there's
0:52:11a future me who will read the things that current me is now writing."
0:52:15I think setting up this, this like temporal responsibility is how you can bootstrap your
0:52:23life into a better situation.
0:52:26And so like if you, if you're trying to set some goals, the important thing is whatever
0:52:30you're going to do, make sure that you are re visiting them on a regular basis.
0:52:37Like this is the absolute key because if you force yourself to keep revisiting them, if
0:52:45If you're not getting closer to your goals, it forces you to think about why.
0:52:51What is it that has happened over the past week or two weeks that has not caused motion
0:52:57in the direction that you want?
0:52:59That is really the key thing, is this self-evaluation loop.
0:53:04Keep revisiting it.
0:53:07Keep thinking about it consciously.
0:53:08Because if you don't, it just goes away.
0:53:10And I think that's why the New Year's resolutions go away.
0:53:13because people think about them on January 1st, and then they just don't really think about them ever again.
0:53:19Like that's why they just disappear over time.
0:53:23Like that to me is the real core and that is like the fundamental system of all systems
0:53:30is the very notion of just revisiting what it is that you do and thinking about it.
0:53:37Like that is the thing that changed my life.
0:53:40having a little notebook and going back to it on a regular basis.
0:53:43It hardly even mattered what I wrote down in the beginning.
0:53:46A bunch of nonsense, probably.
0:53:48But like that's where it starts.
0:53:51Gray, the time has come
0:53:53to return to Ask Cortex.
0:53:55It has been a long time.
0:53:57Yeah, we had maybe what was it, three shows where we were so busy
0:54:01talking about iPad pros that we didn't have any time to talk about.
0:54:05We had so much stuff to talk about.
0:54:07There was so many iPad stories to tell.
0:54:09I have many more, but I'm holding away.
0:54:11I have to say, I am filled with more iPad Pro stories, but a feeling like I am consciously refraining.
0:54:18Because I could talk about it for forever, and I will.
0:54:23But we're trying to pull back. Today we thought we would revisit Ask Cortex.
0:54:27So worry not, ye Android user.
0:54:30Right.
0:54:32This was on our subreddit from firsttimecaller, which I love as the name for the question.
0:54:39"I have a boring monkey office job and I want to leave. I started doing some freelance work
0:54:44on the side in the morning with some success. Do you think I can leave my job? I earn about
0:54:48£47,000 in my work and I'm freelancing at about £1800 a month. Should I make the jump?"
0:54:55So my feeling on this would be that they should. Because £1800 a month freelancing,
0:55:02when you're also working a full time job, that's pretty good going. Like you're pulling
0:55:07in some serious money at that point, like this isn't just like a hobby. And I think
0:55:12that if you can pull in 1800 a month, when you're still working a full time job, if you
0:55:17were able to devote yourself to that freelancing work, if that's what you want to do, that
0:55:23freelance work, then I think that you should do it because that was the mindset that I
0:55:27I was pulling in, you know, from Relay,
0:55:31a good amount of money, like it was probably
0:55:33like two thirds of my wage or something
0:55:35before I made the jump, because I felt like
0:55:38if I can just in my evening hours and in my spare time
0:55:42pull this amount of money and imagine how much I could do
0:55:45if I was able to put all of my money into it.
0:55:48And also, some of your expenditure will probably go down
0:55:52if you stop traveling to an office every day.
0:55:55You know, all those sort of things
0:55:56when you start adding them up, it can really help.
0:55:59And so for me, I would say that if you are in this situation
0:56:02if you're earning like good money,
0:56:04like your freelance thing at the thing that you wanna do,
0:56:07I think that you should probably give it a go.
0:56:10- So of course, there's not a huge amount of detail here.
0:56:14So we have to do some speculation.
0:56:16- Yep.
0:56:17- And so just running the numbers,
0:56:19so they're pulling in about 21, 22,000 pounds a year.
0:56:24So we can say they're earning, I mean, just rounding it off,
0:56:27we can say they're earning about half as much
0:56:29from their freelancing as they're earning
0:56:31from their actual work, right, which is pretty good.
0:56:34I guess, like, I might be slightly more risk-averse
0:56:39than you are, because there's two things
0:56:43that I would want to know to feel really confident
0:56:45about answering this question.
0:56:47The first is I would want to know
0:56:49if the person has any kind of buffer fund.
0:56:53So, I think when I left my teaching job, I had...
0:57:01I think it was maybe like three months worth of expenses in the bank,
0:57:06like, just as like total emergency, kind of everything turns to crap immediately in a way that I didn't expect money.
0:57:12Maybe it was closer to four months. I don't remember exactly, but so...
0:57:16I think just for sheer sanity, I would once before making a leap like this to have some emergency backup money.
0:57:25Do you know I had none?
0:57:27Yeah, see that's terrifying to me.
0:57:29Because I'd spent all my life savings basically starting the business.
0:57:33And because I quit on a whim, right?
0:57:37The actual decision to quit was on a whim.
0:57:39It was the plan, but it wasn't going to be when it was.
0:57:41Right.
0:57:42kind of just made the decision in like a flash and did it.
0:57:46And it worked out fine, but I would agree that you should.
0:57:52Yeah, but so keep that in mind, first time caller, listening to Myke's advice.
0:57:56Yeah, in an ideal world, I maybe wouldn't have done it the way that I did.
0:57:59It was just the way that I ended up doing it.
0:58:01Yeah. So that's one thing I would want to know.
0:58:05The second thing is, for
0:58:11people I know who have gone full-time like self-employedness, one of the really
0:58:18key features is like okay so this person says they're doing freelance work on the
0:58:21side in the morning so I presume that before work they're doing I don't know
0:58:26whatever it is they do they don't specify. They're like you in the spider
0:58:28dungeon. In the spider dungeon? Yeah that was basically the way you described it
0:58:34to me the first time on the show you saying you're in places with all the spiders.
0:58:39I think the word dungeon threw me off there.
0:58:41It's the basement I would have remembered.
0:58:43That was a harsh word, but you can imagine my mental image of you doing your work.
0:58:48I really do imagine you, genuinely, just on a stool in like a dungeon-looking room with
0:58:54your laptop on your legs.
0:58:56That's how I imagine you used to do your work in the mornings.
0:58:58I'll have to send you a picture of it sometime.
0:59:03I did the writing work in the evening, but I did my – a different attempt at becoming
0:59:07full-time self-employed that didn't pan out was I did do a different kind of
0:59:09freelance work before work started. But that's another story.
0:59:14But so I guess what I'm trying to work with is I think a key piece of
0:59:18information that I've heard from other people as well is the question of demand
0:59:23for whatever it is you're doing freelancing on the side. So I think like,
0:59:29okay, maybe if we put aside emergency fund money for a moment,
0:59:33a really interesting question is,
0:59:35are you running out of spare time to do your side project because there is
0:59:41enough demand for it? Again,
0:59:44I think that is a really interesting point to reach when you realize like you
0:59:49are not able to fill the demand with the number of hours that you actually have.
0:59:54And so if, if for this person and for anybody else who works themselves into
1:00:00that same situation. I think that like that is a good indication that maybe you
1:00:04can leave your job is when people are demanding more of your time than you
1:00:10actually have available. So because this person is currently earning about half
1:00:17of what their full-time job is, if they're in a situation where they have
1:00:22hours available to fill with client work but no clients to actually fill it, like
1:00:28then that wouldn't be a good indication that this is a great time to jump ship.
1:00:32So I am much more cautious here, I don't know, but if this person has an emergency fund and
1:00:39also has clients or whatever they're doing wanting more of their time than is available,
1:00:45then I would say yes, those are both really good indications that you should make the
1:00:50jump and leave your boring monkey office job, which it sounds like you love.
1:00:57And again, look, of all the caveats, because I don't know any of the information, it's
1:01:02the worst that could happen.
1:01:03You just have to go and get another job if it doesn't work out.
1:01:06You are clearly an employable person.
1:01:08You're earning good salary, you have the skills to do a freelancing job, you could
1:01:13get another job.
1:01:14Yeah.
1:01:15Yeah, I mean, £47,000, that's already pretty well above the median income in the UK.
1:01:20So they are an employable person.
1:01:23(beep)
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1:03:16beautiful. This is a question that I have seen go by many times. People were like
1:03:21obsessed with this after we did the bag episode, like what goes in your bag episode.
1:03:25Like what bags do you actually use and what do you consider when choosing one?
1:03:29This comes from Chris. I just got a new bag, where is it? Oh a new bag, wow. Yeah well my old one was
1:03:37falling apart let me grab it. Whilst Gray talks about his new bag I'll tell you
1:03:41about my current bag. My bag is by a company called Topo Designs and it's
1:03:46called the Topo Mountain Briefcase and I love my Mountain Briefcase because it
1:03:51can be carried in three different ways. It has backpack straps, it has a shoulder
1:03:55strap and handles. I like that a lot and it's just about the right size for me to
1:04:00put even my MacBook and my iPad in the sleeve and then I can fit a bunch of
1:04:03other stuff in it and I like it a lot more than I liked any backpack I had so
1:04:08So, a big thumbs up for me on that one, the Topo Mountain Briefcase.
1:04:12Topo.
1:04:13Topo.
1:04:14Topo Mountain Briefcase.
1:04:16The thing you said there was a total deal breaker for me, is I refuse to use anything
1:04:21that is a shoulder strap.
1:04:23I think that's like a messenger bag kind of thing.
1:04:25Yeah, I think you didn't hear it.
1:04:26It has backpack straps, it has a shoulder strap and handles.
1:04:30No, no, I heard that.
1:04:31I heard that.
1:04:32I heard all those things.
1:04:33So what's the problem?
1:04:34You just don't use the shoulder strap.
1:04:35Okay, yeah.
1:04:36But I'm just saying.
1:04:37It's not a deal breaker, just don't use it.
1:04:39I don't use it, I have it unclipped.
1:04:41- No, even if it's an option, I don't want it.
1:04:43No, it's no good. - That's weird.
1:04:45All right, so if I took your current bag
1:04:48and attached a shoulder strap to it
1:04:49while you weren't looking.
1:04:50- Yeah, worthless, worthless now.
1:04:52- Okay, good to know.
1:04:53One of the things I really like about this bag
1:04:55is it's like a canvas, but it has a leather bottom.
1:04:59- Oh, gross. - So if you set it down,
1:05:03it doesn't soak in liquid.
1:05:05Why is that gross?
1:05:06Leather's just gross in a bag.
1:05:08It smells after a while.
1:05:10It's on the outside, it's not on the inside.
1:05:12It's not leather on the inside.
1:05:14Okay, but it still smells after a while.
1:05:16Everything smells after a while.
1:05:18Not plastic.
1:05:20Does if you burn it. Anyway...
1:05:22Yeah, if you set your bag on fire and it's plastic, then it smells really bad.
1:05:25Of course you'd have something leather. That seems appropriate.
1:05:28Surpr- Is it handcrafted?
1:05:31Yeah.
1:05:32Oh god, is it really?
1:05:34Probably.
1:05:34[laughs]
1:05:35It's made in Colorado, so...
1:05:37Uh-huh.
1:05:39Yeah, this looks like your kind of bag.
1:05:41Looks like exactly what I would expect you to have.
1:05:44Mine is maroon and blue.
1:05:47Of course it is.
1:05:48I can hear your bag over there.
1:05:50I'm trying to find...
1:05:53I'm trying to be helpful here, Myke.
1:05:55I was trying to find a model number or something on it, but I can't actually find it.
1:06:00From the rustling, it sounds like it's brand new.
1:06:03No, it's like a month old.
1:06:06Sounds like you're taking paper out of it or something, like the crunched up paper.
1:06:10No, it's just made out of space age materials.
1:06:13It's not made out of the hide of a dead animal like your bag.
1:06:16Canvas, mainly.
1:06:18The canvas animals that roam the fields.
1:06:23Yeah, everybody knows about those.
1:06:25So what I'm currently using as my most often bag is
1:06:31it is from Asics and it's just it's a bag that is designed for runners which
1:06:39is not even remotely how I'm using it of course but what I was like what I'm
1:06:44looking for in a bag whenever I get something is I'm trying to find the bag
1:06:51that is the smallest lightest thing that can just hold whatever device I am
1:06:58currently using. So over the years whenever I got a bag I would say in years gone by I'd be taking
1:07:05around my Apple laptop and I'd like I'd want to find a laptop bag that it could like a backpack
1:07:11that it could just fit into and so now I was looking for something that my iPad Pro can just
1:07:16fit into and this backpack that's designed for runners is exactly what I'm looking for. Like the
1:07:22iPad it just fits in width wise and there's a little outer pocket that I can
1:07:28just have the the bare minimum of things in there but I really I really want out
1:07:33of a backpack something that is as light and as small as possible like that is
1:07:38always what I'm looking for.
1:07:39For as much as my bag was me this bag is you.
1:07:43[laughter]
1:07:45What makes you say that Myke?
1:07:47It's just...
1:07:49very utilitarian.
1:07:51Yeah, it's glorious!
1:07:52And even in this photo it looks way bigger than it actually is.
1:07:54Like it is quite small in real life.
1:07:56It's the nice way of me saying that it's ugly.
1:07:59You're not ugly, that's not what I'm saying.
1:08:02But--
1:08:03I know that's what you think you're saying.
1:08:05You think you're, oh, it's so ugly.
1:08:07It doesn't have leather stitching on the bottom.
1:08:10But we just have great disagreement here.
1:08:13I think there is much beauty to be found in utility.
1:08:16Do you have the blue one with the pink highlight?
1:08:18No, they don't have my color on here.
1:08:20a black one with neon green highlights.
1:08:23Wow, I wouldn't have expected that.
1:08:25Yeah, I felt like going crazy.
1:08:28Wow, that is kind of crazy for you.
1:08:30All right, neon green.
1:08:32Yeah, it's good. It's great. I like it.
1:08:34Runner's Backpacks.
1:08:35I find for a lot of gear, it's helpful sometimes to look at
1:08:41sporting stores or places that are making stuff that is intended to be used
1:08:46much more intensely than you're ever going to use it.
1:08:49That's like runners want the lightest of all possible backpacks. And so that's why I thought like oh
1:08:54Let me go into stores and see let me find one of those tiny backpacks that runners use
1:08:57That's what you that's what you want to do
1:08:59Next up we have from toaster 312
1:09:03What is your policy on workflow buffers like having one or two items that you keep unreleased in case you have an emergency pop-up?
1:09:10I reckon that we both would love the idea of this
1:09:14But neither of us have anything because I certainly don't and enough that I know about you would suggest that you don't either
1:09:21Wouldn't it be great?
1:09:24My new year's resolution is to have
1:09:26Yeah, I mean yeah, this sounds like a great idea I just don't have anything this is a thing that I constantly think about I
1:09:35Would just love to be able to do this
1:09:41But I have learned over time that this is just not possible.
1:09:44We were talking before about, you know, trying to plan for things and like knowing that there's going to be problems and having
1:09:51buffers in place. Like yes,
1:09:53but this is one case where I just know that the work required to make this happen is never going to happen.
1:09:59It would just be just an amazing fantasy land if I was ever able to create a video ahead of time. And more importantly,
1:10:07If I ever did through some kind of magic
1:10:11have a video
1:10:13ready in advance I
1:10:15would just end up being
1:10:17Ridiculously paranoid that someone else was going to release a video on the same topic while I was just sitting on one
1:10:23Well, you didn't worry about that anymore. Yeah, like in theory
1:10:26I don't worry about that, but it's very different if if I'd like oh I was just sitting on a thing
1:10:32We yeah, and so it would feel kind of wasted. Yeah, that would be just the worst
1:10:36This is why my vastly more modest goal, which I still fail at all the time, is
1:10:44to not be finishing animations on the day I release the video.
1:10:51Like if I could just get to that stage, that would be amazing. But it's just almost every single time
1:10:57it's like as soon as I finish that last bit of animations, like great, gotta put it up right now, this moment.
1:11:04So I do not think that I will ever have a workflow buffer for the YouTube channel. That's just
1:11:09This is not gonna happen not ever, you know
1:11:13It's it's not gonna happen you even wanted like a workflow buffer for cortex for cortex miss
1:11:19Which comes twice a year by the way Myke and I wouldn't even allow that one workflow buffer episode
1:11:26It's like no, it's not gonna happen. Well, Texas comes once a year Texas comes twice a year
1:11:30I just haven't told you yet. You're gonna have to tell me at some point
1:11:34Twice a year Myke. Do we have any other questions?
1:11:37We do very would like to know if you use a VPN when connecting through public Wi-Fi hotspots
1:11:42I do I do. I know I didn't used to
1:11:47A VPN for listeners who might be unaware. It's it's a was a virtual private network. Is that is that what it stands for? Yeah
1:11:54but it is a way if you are in a public location to
1:11:58filter your internet traffic
1:12:01through like a secure tunnel so that someone else on like the cafe's Wi-Fi can't get access to your data or anything.
1:12:08I always used to think like, "Oh, I should use a VPN,"
1:12:12but I never did because it was kind of a pain in the butt to set it up.
1:12:16But I recently discovered
1:12:18Cloak for iOS, which I highly recommend because of one feature that totally sold me, which is its ability to
1:12:26automatically turn on and turn off the VPN. So you can tell it, Oh,
1:12:31I trust my home network and I trust the connection built into my cell phone and
1:12:36every other internet connection is totally untrustworthy and it just
1:12:41automatically turns on. And that to me, that as dumb as it sounds like, Oh,
1:12:45I can't be bothered to turn on my VPN to potentially save all of my private data
1:12:49because it's three taps, but I just, I hate doing stuff manually.
1:12:53And so cloak does it automatically and I love it for that.
1:12:56So that's what I use on, I installed it on everything that I have as soon as I found
1:13:01out about that feature.
1:13:02Same.
1:13:03Yeah, you use cloak?
1:13:04Yeah, I use cloak.
1:13:05I love cloak.
1:13:06Benza would like to know what we keep in our pockets.
1:13:09I have a regimented pocket system.
1:13:12What goes in which pocket?
1:13:13Yeah, that's the only way to live.
1:13:15I assume so.
1:13:16In my right pocket goes my iPhone.
1:13:19In my left pocket are my keys and my ear pods.
1:13:24And then in my back right pocket is my wallet.
1:13:27Okay, so this has been a long struggle for me, but I've finally come to a steady state
1:13:35over the past six months, which is that I use wallet in front right pocket.
1:13:43I used to be a back pocket wallet person, but it is clearly the superior solution to
1:13:49have your wallet in your front pocket.
1:13:51Why?
1:13:52What do you make the switch? You don't go back.
1:13:55I switch when I am in places I don't know.
1:13:59I mean first of all, when you're sitting down you have the George Costanza problem that
1:14:02you're sitting on your wallet so you're never really sitting down.
1:14:04No, I just change to a slim card wallet.
1:14:07It's never slim enough. It's still always uneven.
1:14:09I have four cards. That's it.
1:14:11Not slim enough.
1:14:12There's nothing. You don't even know it's there.
1:14:14Nope. It's uneven. You're ruining your spine, Myke. Ruining it.
1:14:17What are you keeping your back pockets in?
1:14:19Nothing. Nothing goes in the back pockets.
1:14:21Keys! The book!
1:14:23The back pockets are for nothing. I see some people put phones in their back pocket, which makes me nervous to even just see.
1:14:32I don't know why you'd do that.
1:14:34Yeah, every time I see someone do that, I think, "How can you live like that?" But so, wallet in front right pocket,
1:14:40iPhone in front left pocket, and
1:14:44then the thing that I've recently switched to, which I really like, is this little
1:14:50It's not a key chain. It basically is called KeySmart. It's this little thing that turns your keys into
1:14:58into like a Swiss Army knife is what it looks like. They fold together into this little package and
1:15:06I then can use that useless little coin pocket in your jeans on the right-hand side.
1:15:13I can put my keys in that previously useless pocket
1:15:18And so now everything is nice and isolated from everything else. There's not two items in any pocket
1:15:25Everything is in its own little pocket. That's the way I roll
1:15:27Do you use your iPhone left-handed? Yeah, yeah, I use my iPhone left-handed. Are you left-handed? No.
1:15:34Hmm you answered that very defensively by the way, it's okay to be left-handed
1:15:39well, just because I know where this is going because
1:15:41Everybody seems to freak out when they discover this. I know other people who do this
1:15:46Well, I'm left handed and use my iPhone with my right hand.
1:15:49Okay, yeah, so you do the same thing then?
1:15:51Yeah, I don't think it's weird that you do it. I just wanted to know if you were left
1:15:55handed.
1:15:56No, I'm right handed.
1:15:57All right.
1:15:58As humans are supposed to be, apparently.
1:16:01And why am I left handed?
1:16:03Because you are some kind of freak, that's why.
1:16:07Good to know!
1:16:10Shahar would like to know, what headphones do we use? And wonder how much of an audio
1:16:15file you are as well. Do you care about really great sounding audio? Like more than you maybe
1:16:20should?
1:16:21No, no I'm not an audiophile.
1:16:23Alright, what headphones do you use then?
1:16:25I don't obsess over things that aren't real. The Super Audio Files, they're just playing
1:16:32in an imagination land. That's what they're doing. I use two headphones depending on the
1:16:38circumstances. I use the Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling headphones most of the time.
1:16:45That's what I'm wearing right now.
1:16:47If I go out to work anywhere in public, I often like to take those because they're just great at canceling sounds.
1:16:52And they are vital for any kind of travel where there are going to be other people, particularly children,
1:17:01like on airplanes, crying babies or something.
1:17:03You just can't live without them.
1:17:06So those are my heavy lifting headphones.
1:17:12And then when I go to the gym or if I'm moving around a lot and I do want to be listening to something,
1:17:18I have the Jaybird Bluetooth headphones, which are pricey, but they are totally worth it.
1:17:26Mainly because most Bluetooth headphones are garbage with terrible battery life and terrible connection problems and terrible sound.
1:17:33And the Jaybirds are the only ones that I have tried that are actually worth the amount of money that you pay for them.
1:17:41I have a whole selection of different headphones.
1:17:43I have some Bose headphones that I don't know the name of.
1:17:47They are not noise cancelling.
1:17:49And I use these on planes and stuff.
1:17:52I can't use noise cancelling because it makes me feel nauseous.
1:17:57Yeah, if you turn on the noise cancelling,
1:18:02I think there are just some people who are built this way.
1:18:04If you put headphones on and turn on the noise cancelling,
1:18:06it freaks some people out.
1:18:08And I feel a little weird if I have them on my head and there's nothing playing.
1:18:14But I'm fine once there's music or something coming through the headphones.
1:18:18Or like I do sometimes on an airplane,
1:18:20I will play airplane engine noise through the headphones that I'm listening to.
1:18:25[laughter]
1:18:25No! Why?
1:18:27You could play any type of white noise. Any white noise.
1:18:34Yeah, but it's like a double "drown out the screaming child" effect.
1:18:38But why not like rain?
1:18:40No, it's not as good. There's something about the airplane noise, which is really good at
1:18:44masking other sounds.
1:18:47Only you would do that.
1:18:49Airplane noise on an airplane with noise cancelling headphones.
1:18:53Yeah, it's great.
1:18:54It's really great.
1:18:56You need some music. Any kind of music.
1:18:59Well, yeah, sometimes I'll listen to music, but I'm just saying if I'm trying to sleep or something
1:19:02I'll put on an airplane noise while I'm on the airplane with my noise cancelling headphones.
1:19:06It's great. Everyone should try it
1:19:08But anyways
1:19:11I was bringing that up only because I was saying like I can sympathize with people who just can't use the noise cancelling I can
1:19:16Feel like ooh if I was more sensitive to this these headphones simply wouldn't be an option
1:19:22So if anyone out there is thinking about noise cancelling headphones
1:19:25You might want to try them in a store first to see if you have a bad reaction to them
1:19:29So yeah
1:19:30Yeah these Bosons, they're like fine. Just any like Bose headphones that don't have noise
1:19:35cancelling will be effectively the same scenario. They're over the year, they're fine. I have
1:19:41just got some Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones. Sennheiser MM400X. They're not great sounding.
1:19:51The only reason I have these is they have buttons on the side that aren't touch buttons.
1:19:57They have physical buttons and they have like little ridges on them so you can control playback
1:20:02whilst walking around without looking at anything.
1:20:05That's why I got those.
1:20:07And my recording headphones.
1:20:09Recently I bought the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones.
1:20:16This was because I went to Marco's house and I put these on my head and I listened to some
1:20:22music that I know and heard things in the music I hadn't heard before so went
1:20:27with these headphones they sound great do you hear things in my voice that you
1:20:33haven't heard before with those headphones on of course mmm I hear the
1:20:37little man inside your brain that controls everything right it's pulling
1:20:41all the levers I'm on killis Gavin would like to know are we Twitter completionists
1:20:45a Twitter completionist is somebody who reads every tweet I used to be more than
1:20:50I am now. Now I'm, if I'm many many hundreds of tweets behind, I'm okay with skipping them.
1:20:56This was one of the things that came out of my time away from Twitter. But now I'm okay
1:21:02with it. I do like to read the majority of stuff because I follow these people for a
1:21:06reason, because I want to read what they have to say, but I don't go crazy about it now,
1:21:11like I used to. I'm gonna assume that you're not.
1:21:14No, I've not and I've never been.
1:21:16And it's in no small part because I've always felt that,
1:21:19you know, we're talking about Twitter again, but
1:21:22one of the benefits of Twitter is its currentness.
1:21:27Twitter feels like, "What is happening right now?"
1:21:31So even from the very, very beginning times when I first signed up for Twitter,
1:21:36I don't know, a couple years ago,
1:21:38I never felt any compulsion to read things that were in the past.
1:21:43It's it just Twitter to me feels like a very current
1:21:47present thing and so I've always found the notion of people who are Twitter completionists to be just
1:21:54Just a little weird like it, but that's not what the tool is, right?
1:21:57I mean, of course the tool is whatever people want it to be but that just seems so
1:22:01Anti my conception of what Twitter is for so I have I am NOT and have never been a Twitter completionist
1:22:10Autumn would like to know do we ever make the mistake of staying up far too late or sleeping in on a regular day? I
1:22:16Stay up far too late every day. I was gonna say you sleep in every day, don't you?
1:22:22I don't sleep in every day. I go to bed at 2 a.m. I woke up at half 9 today
1:22:26So that seems pretty early
1:22:28We were having an instant message conversation the other day and I realized it was like 830 in the morning or something
1:22:33I asked oh god, what are you doing? So early mine because I know that's early for you
1:22:37Sometimes I am awake at that time, but it is it's early if you go to bed at 2 in the morning
1:22:42Mm-hmm, but don't you go to bed at 2 in the morning because you're recording shows then what's the latest you're recording a show?
1:22:47I only now I've made some changes. I record one show every two weeks and midnight
1:22:53Starting at midnight? Starting at midnight. Oh god. What show is that? That's analog. Oh
1:22:59And then the rest of them now, I'm usually done by like 8 p.m.
1:23:03That's a rough. That's a rough time slot
1:23:06The midnight time slot. Yeah. Yeah, work in the late shift. Yeah, it is tricky. Hence why now it's every two weeks.
1:23:13So yeah, you just stay up late all the time then.
1:23:18Just you stay up to two in the morning because that's just your the way you are.
1:23:21Yeah, that's just the way I am. You can't change that. Can't change it. Can't fight it.
1:23:27So you have to be self-employed so that you can stay up until two in the morning. Yep.
1:23:31It's an absolute requirement.
1:23:34So I mean the question of course, do you ever make the mistake? The answer is of course, right? Humans make the mistake of doing this.
1:23:42Just recently as my own holiday was coming to a close, I made the mistake of like, "Oh,
1:23:47I'll just keep playing Factorio for a little while longer.
1:23:51Just a little while longer, just a little while longer." And then you realize like, "Oh, it's actually 3 in the morning.
1:23:55Like what have I done?"
1:23:57This is just...
1:23:59This is a terrible decision that I didn't even know I was making. I was just like, "Oh, I'm having a good time!"
1:24:04And then suddenly like, "Oh, I'm so sleepy. Why?" It's like, "Oh, I'm way up. I'm up way, way too late. That's why."
1:24:11So yes, of course occasionally make that mistake and
1:24:15when it's been holiday time, I am way more likely to make that mistake because I feel like, "Oh, there's no
1:24:23there's no constraints or anything." And then it is
1:24:27It is that very mistake that I find compounds for me in a bad way. Like I definitely know that I am a person who
1:24:35benefits from routine and
1:24:38no matter how much I might think, "Oh, breaking the routine is fun sometimes!"
1:24:42There is always a price to pay for it later. And so I have been
1:24:48struggling to get back into the working routine precisely because of staying up late or waking up too late in the morning.
1:24:56But now that we have recorded this episode of Cortex, the working routine is back in place.
1:25:02Thanks.