Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Mark Orment. And I'm David Smith. Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes,

00:00:08 ◼   ► so let's get started. So this last week,

00:00:12 ◼   ► was it last week? I don't even know what is time. Recently,

00:00:16 ◼   ► I submitted a substantial update to WatchSmith,

00:00:20 ◼   ► my kind of like super customizable Apple Watch application.

00:00:24 ◼   ► And it sort of brought to the end a period

00:00:28 ◼   ► of work that has been certainly unique in

00:00:32 ◼   ► not for a good way, you know, sort of recently, where it's like I think it's a good

00:00:36 ◼   ► update. I spent a lot of time, probably about three or four months of work, working on it.

00:00:40 ◼   ► But, and I was, you know, I'm proud of the work that I was able

00:00:44 ◼   ► to do, but man, the actual process of getting it done

00:00:48 ◼   ► and bringing it to this point was rough. And I think

00:00:52 ◼   ► it is easy and I think common in

00:00:56 ◼   ► kind of the social media, podcast, whatever kind of, these

00:01:00 ◼   ► kind of communication things that you very often kind of like hear,

00:01:04 ◼   ► you hear the good and you sort of hide the bad. And this is

00:01:08 ◼   ► the classic thing of like you'll see. It's like when you see, you only see people on Instagram

00:01:12 ◼   ► like being happy and on vacation and everything's wonderful. You don't see the

00:01:16 ◼   ► you know, the tears, when everyone's crying in the long road trip

00:01:20 ◼   ► when the car, you know, the car gets a flat tire and things. Like that's just, there's a lack

00:01:24 ◼   ► of sort of balance to a lot of those things. And I think that's often

00:01:28 ◼   ► the case. And this particular update for me was something that I think was very difficult

00:01:32 ◼   ► and I think there's certainly given broadly where we are in the world and what's

00:01:36 ◼   ► going on, it was something that I think is good for us to talk about

00:01:40 ◼   ► and something to just sort of be transparent about. That it isn't always

00:01:44 ◼   ► good and happy and sometimes updates don't go the way you want them to and sometimes

00:01:48 ◼   ► the process of getting there and our ability to work, our ability to focus,

00:01:52 ◼   ► like, can be impacted by so many things. And for me,

00:01:56 ◼   ► recently, obviously, like this is about a year into, you know, a global

00:02:00 ◼   ► pandemic that has created tremendous amounts of anxiety, uncertainty

00:02:04 ◼   ► and complexity into our lives. And, you know, it sort of

00:02:08 ◼   ► creates a huge number of mental health challenges and just even just sort of

00:02:12 ◼   ► attention challenges of knowing what to think about and not having the sense

00:02:16 ◼   ► like being able to close out the world and focus in on some code.

00:02:20 ◼   ► It's like sometimes that's great and sometimes it's like I love it and it's this welcome escape

00:02:24 ◼   ► that's really cool to kind of be able to, you know, if I can get into that place

00:02:28 ◼   ► it's wonderful to shut out the world and what's going on. But sometimes it's just like

00:02:32 ◼   ► painfully frustrating and I'm just like trying to, like I'm just sitting there in Xcode trying to

00:02:36 ◼   ► do something and I just can't because my mind's racing around thinking

00:02:40 ◼   ► about other things. So, yeah, it's like that's sort of where I am but I think it's something that's important

00:02:44 ◼   ► for us to talk about. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think

00:02:48 ◼   ► there's a few different angles on this obviously. I mean, first of all, starting with

00:02:52 ◼   ► the Watch Smith, first of all, congratulations on a big new release. That's important.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Thank you. You know, it is important to celebrate

00:03:00 ◼   ► when we have big releases. I learned that from you.

00:03:04 ◼   ► You know, because we've talked in the past, you know, both on and

00:03:08 ◼   ► off the air about like trying to, like when we ship a major new version or the first version

00:03:12 ◼   ► of a new app, like to actually try to like take time out and celebrate our achievement

00:03:16 ◼   ► because we're doing all these non or intangible things that have

00:03:20 ◼   ► no like real world representation really. And so if you can like

00:03:24 ◼   ► congratulate yourself somehow, you know, whatever that means for you,

00:03:28 ◼   ► you know, celebrating with your family or whatever, like that's important. And so, you know, but

00:03:32 ◼   ► anyway, so congratulations on that. And I think part of

00:03:36 ◼   ► a motivational challenge, even outside of the context of

00:03:40 ◼   ► a global pandemic, which I'll get to next, but even outside of the context of that,

00:03:44 ◼   ► dealing with like shipping a

00:03:48 ◼   ► major update as opposed to a major 1.0, the

00:03:52 ◼   ► updates never get the attention the 1.0

00:03:56 ◼   ► gets. They never have the reward or the feeling of completion

00:04:00 ◼   ► that the 1.0 gets. And they usually

00:04:04 ◼   ► the amount of attention they get usually does not reflect the amount of effort that you had to

00:04:08 ◼   ► put into it. Because by definition, as an

00:04:12 ◼   ► app goes through its life cycle and matures, the kind of work

00:04:16 ◼   ► you have to do gets like less flashy and more

00:04:20 ◼   ► boring typically over time. It's like, you know, you have to like tackle technical

00:04:24 ◼   ► debt or, you know, like stability or quality

00:04:28 ◼   ► problems or usability problems. And those kind of things

00:04:32 ◼   ► usually don't really have like massive

00:04:36 ◼   ► wow factor for the users. It's more of, you're more like taking

00:04:40 ◼   ► away problems or making things 20% better

00:04:44 ◼   ► or something. But that's very different than like the big bang wow

00:04:48 ◼   ► factor of something that's brand new or like a major

00:04:52 ◼   ► new feature. You might have one or two of those in the release, but most of the time that you spent on

00:04:56 ◼   ► the release is probably doing other stuff. And so that's definitely a problem

00:05:00 ◼   ► of like the motivational crash. But I think looking at the

00:05:04 ◼   ► bigger picture here of the world we're in right now,

00:05:08 ◼   ► you know, we've both been fortunate enough not

00:05:12 ◼   ► to have lived through any of the major world wars. They predated us

00:05:16 ◼   ► and we've been fortunate enough to not have any like major

00:05:20 ◼   ► warfare happening in the places we live.

00:05:24 ◼   ► That's, you know, we're very fortunate from that. And

00:05:28 ◼   ► I think the feelings that we all have now during COVID and

00:05:32 ◼   ► during this year of constant anxiety

00:05:36 ◼   ► and turmoil, I would venture a guess feels like

00:05:40 ◼   ► a small war. Like it's not, it's different in a lot of ways obviously.

00:05:44 ◼   ► And it's not as bad in a lot of ways obviously. But

00:05:48 ◼   ► I think you can kind of trace like the general mood

00:05:52 ◼   ► of the society and like the kind of like

00:05:56 ◼   ► constant baseline stress level. I think, again I don't

00:06:00 ◼   ► think it's as bad as a war, but I think it is in like the foothills

00:06:04 ◼   ► of those mountains of like, you know, it's the same kind of feelings.

00:06:08 ◼   ► And to have that kind of anxiety

00:06:12 ◼   ► for a year, and it's not over yet,

00:06:16 ◼   ► you know, it's been a little over a year roughly, but

00:06:20 ◼   ► we're not, and I think the end is in sight, but it's not

00:06:24 ◼   ► over yet. To have that for this long, I think it messes you up

00:06:28 ◼   ► and, you know, as bad as I am about talking about wars, I'm

00:06:32 ◼   ► even worse as a psychologist, but I think it

00:06:36 ◼   ► certainly messes with our brain chemistry and our mood and our, like, just our

00:06:40 ◼   ► mental health to a large degree. To the point where like, you know,

00:06:44 ◼   ► like when you have massive adrenaline flowing for

00:06:48 ◼   ► some reason, if something scares you or makes you nervous or makes you excited, afterwards

00:06:52 ◼   ► you get this big crash and you get really just tired and exhausted

00:06:56 ◼   ► because your body just dumped all the adrenaline into your system during the stressful

00:07:00 ◼   ► thing and now you just have none left. You have no energy

00:07:04 ◼   ► left to give. I think to a large degree, that's

00:07:08 ◼   ► happening to us. Like, we have, we've had a year of

00:07:12 ◼   ► low level to mid level anxiety

00:07:16 ◼   ► and even if you set aside all the disruption, which we'll get to next, but just

00:07:20 ◼   ► the anxiety about it alone, having a year of that

00:07:24 ◼   ► is, you know, just depleting us of so much

00:07:28 ◼   ► of our energy and our ability to focus and do anything non-essential.

00:07:32 ◼   ► It's certainly, you know, it's certainly going to have a lot of mental health ramifications

00:07:36 ◼   ► for a lot of people for a long time. And it's very hard to

00:07:40 ◼   ► see that, like, when you're in it, but like once the adrenaline

00:07:44 ◼   ► starts fading and we start solving things, like, I think a lot of

00:07:48 ◼   ► us want to, you know, once widespread vaccination has been achieved, which I think

00:07:52 ◼   ► we're actually very impressively on the way to, at least in the US, but

00:07:56 ◼   ► you know, once that has been achieved, I think we're going to have like two

00:08:00 ◼   ► conflicting feelings. We're going to be like, first of all, we're going to want to, like, go to a restaurant and go

00:08:04 ◼   ► party with our friends and, you know, do all those things, go on vacation, whatever.

00:08:08 ◼   ► But I think we're also just going to be so exhausted from

00:08:12 ◼   ► the crash after all this stress. And I think it's important to

00:08:16 ◼   ► expect that and to forgive ourselves for that in advance

00:08:20 ◼   ► if it hasn't happened yet, because that's going to happen. And

00:08:24 ◼   ► we're stuck with that no matter what. And that's a part of our process.

00:08:28 ◼   ► That's a part of us coming down from this awful period when we

00:08:32 ◼   ► can finally relax about it. And all of that

00:08:36 ◼   ► is compounded and made much worse

00:08:40 ◼   ► by the massive amount of lifestyle disruption

00:08:44 ◼   ► and work disruption that this has also caused.

00:08:48 ◼   ► You know, most of our kids haven't been in school. Many of us

00:08:52 ◼   ► have increased workloads or increased burdens

00:08:56 ◼   ► because of the changes that have been put in place by society.

00:09:00 ◼   ► We're probably doing all or most of our work in the home.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Those of us who are lucky enough to still have work. Many people are facing

00:09:08 ◼   ► financial problems. Many people are just very stressed and very, you know,

00:09:12 ◼   ► cooped up in their homes. They're putting pressure on their families, on their relationships.

00:09:16 ◼   ► If they have kids, then you have the school situation to deal with, which is

00:09:20 ◼   ► a huge thing. And so there's all this additional stress,

00:09:24 ◼   ► all the additional overhead. And all of this has made it so hard to work

00:09:28 ◼   ► for the last year. For so many people. That hasn't

00:09:32 ◼   ► escaped us either. You know, we're app developers. We're very fortunate that we can

00:09:36 ◼   ► do this job from home most of the time and it's fine.

00:09:40 ◼   ► And the app development market seemingly mostly wasn't hurt

00:09:44 ◼   ► as a market demand factor by all this.

00:09:48 ◼   ► But all those factors still affect us. All those

00:09:52 ◼   ► mental health and pragmatic factors and

00:09:56 ◼   ► your changing environment, that all still affects us.

00:10:00 ◼   ► And it affects people in different ways depending on their situation and their mental health and everything.

00:10:04 ◼   ► But you and I are not immune to this. I have had a terrible

00:10:08 ◼   ► year for productivity. And I think that's

00:10:12 ◼   ► okay. If you look back at major world

00:10:16 ◼   ► problems and everything, nobody looks back at the time they were alive

00:10:20 ◼   ► during a war and says, "Wow, I wish I had gotten more work done that year."

00:10:24 ◼   ► You can't focus on that. And in retrospect, you realize

00:10:28 ◼   ► that doesn't really matter. We just had to get through it and hope everyone gets through it okay.

00:10:32 ◼   ► And I think that's how this is. We're getting through this year.

00:10:36 ◼   ► We've gotten through year one. Hopefully there isn't a year two.

00:10:40 ◼   ► And we all have to give each other a break

00:10:44 ◼   ► and cut each other some slack and realize everyone's going through

00:10:48 ◼   ► an increased stress time and hopefully come out of it okay.

00:10:52 ◼   ► And so looking back on the year for you and for me, I've gotten

00:10:56 ◼   ► way less done than I wanted to. Way less.

00:11:00 ◼   ► But I also have to realize I have to forgive myself because

00:11:04 ◼   ► this was not normal. This is possibly a once in a lifetime

00:11:08 ◼   ► kind of year. It's okay to have gotten

00:11:12 ◼   ► very little done. And it's okay to have now to have a huge

00:11:16 ◼   ► amount of trouble getting yourself into work mode. Because I'm the same way.

00:11:20 ◼   ► I still now have a huge amount of trouble working.

00:11:24 ◼   ► I have so much trouble focusing and getting myself started and plowing

00:11:28 ◼   ► through anything of any complexity. But I have to just realize, you know what,

00:11:32 ◼   ► cut myself some slack and forgive myself.

00:11:36 ◼   ► So sometimes I think the hardest part for me is that sense of

00:11:40 ◼   ► because what you and I do is ostensibly

00:11:44 ◼   ► very straightforward in the sense that I go

00:11:48 ◼   ► and I sit down at a computer and I push some buttons.

00:11:52 ◼   ► That's what my job is in terms of it's not physically difficult or

00:11:56 ◼   ► physically demanding. And it's all in my head.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And I think that's where so often the mental and

00:12:04 ◼   ► cognitive challenges are so easy

00:12:08 ◼   ► for me to be hard on myself about them. Because it feels like it should be, well, why can't I

00:12:12 ◼   ► just focus? And you just kind of want to will yourself to do it because in

00:12:16 ◼   ► many ways it is an act of will. It's coming from my brain.

00:12:20 ◼   ► But I think that makes it kind of, that's

00:12:24 ◼   ► where the challenge is. Because most of the difficulty that I felt this

00:12:28 ◼   ► past year is not physical, thankfully, in terms of

00:12:32 ◼   ► the nature of what has happened to me is that I've had to stay home and be

00:12:36 ◼   ► worried. And that's physically fine

00:12:40 ◼   ► in terms of I'm just as healthy as I was a year ago

00:12:44 ◼   ► for the most part. But in terms of mental health, it's like

00:12:48 ◼   ► all of the difficulty and all of the challenges is up in my

00:12:52 ◼   ► brain. And it makes me think of it in a way that's like

00:12:56 ◼   ► how if I was running, if I just went out my door right now

00:13:00 ◼   ► and just started running, I could run for a while, probably,

00:13:04 ◼   ► before at some point I'll just fall over.

00:13:08 ◼   ► And I'll kind of reach the end or I'll have to start walking or whatever that is.

00:13:12 ◼   ► And I feel like in some ways, for me, and I felt this in a weird way

00:13:16 ◼   ► more in maybe the last three months when I was working on WatchSmith than I did in the

00:13:20 ◼   ► preceding nine months. It's like I just hit that point where

00:13:24 ◼   ► suddenly I had to go from running to walking. For whatever reason

00:13:28 ◼   ► my brain was just like, "No, I can't

00:13:32 ◼   ► keep doing this. I just need to sort of

00:13:36 ◼   ► throttle back and take it easy." And it's

00:13:40 ◼   ► a weird feeling because at the same time I know

00:13:44 ◼   ► what it is to be productive. I know what it is to be able to

00:13:48 ◼   ► put myself into the zone and be working with great

00:13:52 ◼   ► productivity and with great creativity and I know what that

00:13:56 ◼   ► feels like. And I think in some ways knowing what that feels like

00:14:00 ◼   ► makes it hard when it's something that isn't there. That isn't this thing

00:14:04 ◼   ► that I feel like I can just reach for. And to

00:14:08 ◼   ► belabor my metaphor, it's that sense of if I'd gone and just run a marathon

00:14:12 ◼   ► and then someone says, "I

00:14:16 ◼   ► need you to just run for another hundred yards." I'd

00:14:20 ◼   ► want to try and I feel like I probably could, but I'd have to be way slower or I'd only

00:14:24 ◼   ► be able to run for fifty yards before I'm just like, "No, I'm at the end." And it's that sense

00:14:28 ◼   ► of it isn't that I don't know how or that I couldn't run, but it's like that capacity

00:14:32 ◼   ► is spent in some ways. And it's a really complicated

00:14:36 ◼   ► thing when it feels like it's just in your brain.

00:14:40 ◼   ► I should just be able to sort of turn it on or turn it off.

00:14:44 ◼   ► There's nothing physically wrong with me, but that's that challenge of mental health, I think,

00:14:48 ◼   ► where it's like motivation and especially I think creativity

00:14:52 ◼   ► is something too. I feel like I'm in a place where I can

00:14:56 ◼   ► do the mechanical parts of my job with reasonable

00:15:00 ◼   ► consistency. There are parts of what I do that are like when I'm

00:15:04 ◼   ► just doing my accounting. I just need to go in and I need to download my

00:15:08 ◼   ► transactions from my bank and put it into my QuickBooks file and do the

00:15:12 ◼   ► stuff. It's very mechanical. Those things feel

00:15:16 ◼   ► fine, but it's the things that I need to be creative with and I need to

00:15:20 ◼   ► like, this morning I was dealing with one of those weird edge case bugs where I

00:15:24 ◼   ► was hitting a limit in iOS and I needed to work out a way around it. And it's like

00:15:28 ◼   ► coming up with a creative solution to work around a bug is often something

00:15:32 ◼   ► that I love. It's often something that I think part of what makes me good at my job is being

00:15:36 ◼   ► good at coming up with weird sort of sideways solutions to problems.

00:15:40 ◼   ► And it was really interesting where it's just like, I feel like I'm doing this with a

00:15:44 ◼   ► you know, it's like I'm doing that running, but I'm running it with like a weight vest on. It's just harder to

00:15:48 ◼   ► do it and everything just feels sort of more challenging than

00:15:52 ◼   ► I know that it can feel. And so it's like it's just a

00:15:56 ◼   ► tough place to be.

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00:17:14 ◼   ► So yeah, I think what you just said

00:17:18 ◼   ► about starting up and kind of stalling or it's an increased

00:17:22 ◼   ► load, like I felt a lot of that too in a combination

00:17:26 ◼   ► of the time that we're working in right now and also where

00:17:30 ◼   ► I'm at with Overcast right now. In addition to all the

00:17:34 ◼   ► burden of the world and of whatever

00:17:38 ◼   ► home, increased difficulties and overhead and stuff like that,

00:17:42 ◼   ► I'm at a place in Overcast where

00:17:46 ◼   ► it's a mature app and I want to do big things with it.

00:17:50 ◼   ► And the big things I want to do often require making large under the hood

00:17:54 ◼   ► changes or things like server work that

00:17:58 ◼   ► are just like huge motivation killers or at least they

00:18:02 ◼   ► dramatically increase the cost or the burden of

00:18:06 ◼   ► making a change. And I went through a bunch of server migrations earlier

00:18:10 ◼   ► this spring which as we talked about some of which were pretty rough and that's a

00:18:14 ◼   ► motivation killer. A lot of the things I want to do require

00:18:18 ◼   ► me to bring my old code base into new languages or new

00:18:22 ◼   ► APIs and that requires a ton of work. A lot of what I want to do

00:18:26 ◼   ► is prohibitive because I have

00:18:30 ◼   ► a large existing app with a large existing user base. And there are certain changes that I'd

00:18:34 ◼   ► be interested in making or trying but because it would be pretty different

00:18:38 ◼   ► from what I have now and that would just anger so many people and I've

00:18:42 ◼   ► seen other podcast apps try to make certain changes and they

00:18:46 ◼   ► do not, they get raked over the coals for it because

00:18:50 ◼   ► podcast has become part of someone's major daily workflow and when you change

00:18:54 ◼   ► the way they work, even if you think it's a change for the better, there's going to be a large portion of your user base

00:18:58 ◼   ► who disagrees. And so I'm like, in addition to the

00:19:02 ◼   ► world's burden right now, a lot of the things that I've tried to do

00:19:06 ◼   ► have either been like spinning my wheels or it's like starting in fifth gear.

00:19:10 ◼   ► You try to do something and you're just like, oh no, to do this I have to do all

00:19:14 ◼   ► of that first. And so you rip out all that or you

00:19:18 ◼   ► make some giant migration or you refactored all this stuff or whatever it

00:19:22 ◼   ► is and at the end of the day then I have an update that took

00:19:26 ◼   ► me four months to write and it has like no new features.

00:19:30 ◼   ► And that's also very hard for motivation. So for me it's

00:19:34 ◼   ► been the combination of the world and that.

00:19:38 ◼   ► And as part of my ability to try, or as part of my efforts

00:19:42 ◼   ► to try to deal with the world, I have made changes

00:19:46 ◼   ► to my life to prioritize my own mental and physical health more than before.

00:19:50 ◼   ► So on the mental side, I moved to the beach.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I'm so happy here. Like winter is usually very hard for me.

00:19:58 ◼   ► I get very depressed in the winter. I'm really not a winter person.

00:20:02 ◼   ► This winter was not so bad because I love it here and it's different, and winter's

00:20:06 ◼   ► better here. And it's still winter, it's still really cold, but I just

00:20:10 ◼   ► like this place a lot more and the conditions are a little bit different, a little bit more mild, a lot more sun.

00:20:14 ◼   ► So it was just a very pleasant

00:20:18 ◼   ► winter for me and being at the beach now and being here in this fall and

00:20:22 ◼   ► the spring, it's amazing that this place that I would only be able to be at due

00:20:26 ◼   ► to school for two months a year and I would wait all the

00:20:30 ◼   ► other ten months. I was like counting down the days to those two months and now I'm just

00:20:34 ◼   ► here all the time. And I couldn't be happier about that.

00:20:38 ◼   ► That being said, being at the beach makes certain things harder.

00:20:42 ◼   ► My mail doesn't come to my house. I have to go

00:20:46 ◼   ► to the post office every couple of days and pick it up because of where we

00:20:50 ◼   ► are. It's an odd place. And packages, same thing, I have to

00:20:54 ◼   ► walk a wagon to a boat that's a half mile away

00:20:58 ◼   ► and then walk it back. And that's how I get packages.

00:21:02 ◼   ► So certain parts of the life have overhead. If I want to go

00:21:06 ◼   ► grocery shopping in the middle of winter, I have to go walk that half mile with a wagon,

00:21:10 ◼   ► go onto a boat for 45 minutes, and then get into my car,

00:21:14 ◼   ► drive somewhere, go shopping, go back to the car, put everything in the wagon, bring it back to the boat,

00:21:18 ◼   ► come back. So certain things take way more overhead.

00:21:22 ◼   ► And so certain common errands take more time. But I'm also happier.

00:21:26 ◼   ► And on the physical health side, I've increased

00:21:30 ◼   ► my workouts. I'm now doing them more days a week than I was

00:21:34 ◼   ► before with a trainer. And I'm trying to get more exercise in other ways as well.

00:21:38 ◼   ► And I'm trying to eat healthier and cook more and go out to restaurants less,

00:21:42 ◼   ► which that's not hard right now, but in general.

00:21:46 ◼   ► And so all of those things take time. And those blow little

00:21:50 ◼   ► holes in the day. And in addition, all the regular

00:21:54 ◼   ► COVID stuff, there's lots of holes blown in my day anyway for just things like,

00:21:58 ◼   ► "Oh, we have this need and we have to go get a test or

00:22:02 ◼   ► the vaccine, thank God." Or, you know, whatever. Or, you know, there's been a scare

00:22:06 ◼   ► at school and so they shut down the school for a few days. And then we have to deal with that

00:22:10 ◼   ► and deal with home school stuff. So there's all these little holes being punched throughout

00:22:14 ◼   ► the day as a result of either the world we live in right now or of

00:22:18 ◼   ► my own efforts to make myself physically or mentally happier to get

00:22:22 ◼   ► through all this. But all of those come at the cost of work time.

00:22:26 ◼   ► Those all come especially at the cost of contiguous blocks of work time.

00:22:30 ◼   ► So I might have four hours in the middle of a day to work, but it has

00:22:34 ◼   ► ten holes punched in those four hours. And so it's hard to get into any kind of

00:22:38 ◼   ► big coding job. So that's all been adding up for me and it's made it

00:22:42 ◼   ► a really hard year. And sometimes I do really feel

00:22:46 ◼   ► guilt about that. I feel like I should have gotten more done this year. And I feel

00:22:50 ◼   ► a lot of pressure, mostly from myself. I mean, my users are very kind

00:22:54 ◼   ► and mostly are not pressuring me. But it's mostly just myself pressuring myself. Like, I

00:22:58 ◼   ► feel like I should have gotten a lot more done. I feel like I should be getting more done now.

00:23:02 ◼   ► And I always feel like I'm working on the wrong thing. But the time to

00:23:06 ◼   ► work on the right thing never seems to come.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And I feel like it's the same way. I mean, it's weird. I have the

00:23:14 ◼   ► I put a lot of burden on myself because

00:23:18 ◼   ► in a weird way, I feel like my reputation is that I'm super productive

00:23:22 ◼   ► and I'm like, Mr. Productivity launched 56 apps.

00:23:26 ◼   ► That's who I am. And I think so. When I'm not productive,

00:23:30 ◼   ► I often feel like doubly I put on myself that I'm like, who are you?

00:23:34 ◼   ► You're the guy who's supposed to be able to

00:23:38 ◼   ► make all the things and you're not able to do that.

00:23:42 ◼   ► I definitely put that on myself. It's not like other people are telling me that. But it's

00:23:46 ◼   ► hard. But yeah, and then all the things we do, I've been

00:23:50 ◼   ► trying very hard to be consistent with working out or be consistent with a lot of the

00:23:54 ◼   ► other things that I know are important right now to

00:23:58 ◼   ► and that honestly are also helpful with things like mental health. I think I'm

00:24:02 ◼   ► confident that I feel better and my mental health is better when I work out more

00:24:06 ◼   ► or when I eat better and sleep better. All those things that are

00:24:10 ◼   ► easy to let slip.

00:24:14 ◼   ► But I know that it's that consistently showing up to those things.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And even if some days it's like my workout is not great or my workout

00:24:22 ◼   ► is just like, I'm here and I'm doing something and I'm not doing nothing.

00:24:26 ◼   ► And it's like being able to hopefully just, I think I've gotten better at being like, that's okay.

00:24:30 ◼   ► Like for a while I would want to like, if I'm going to work out, I want to feel like I worked out.

00:24:34 ◼   ► And it's like, now I want to work out. I just want to do it. And

00:24:38 ◼   ► I feel like in some ways, the weird thing I've found with work, and this is not like

00:24:42 ◼   ► I have a solution. This is a strategy that sometimes is helpful.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I just realized in most things in life, it's really all we have.

00:24:50 ◼   ► It's like a series of strategies that are sometimes helpful. And it's like all I have is just

00:24:54 ◼   ► keep showing up. That's really all we can do.

00:24:58 ◼   ► It's like you're just, not in a slavish way. Some days

00:25:02 ◼   ► I'm just like, I don't have it today. And I just get up and walk away

00:25:06 ◼   ► and go for a walk outside or whatever it is. But in a sense that

00:25:10 ◼   ► you just got to keep trying.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Sometimes it just gives yourself the opportunity that sometimes you'll

00:25:18 ◼   ► hit it right. For whatever reason,

00:25:22 ◼   ► things will align and you'll be able to get some good work done. And you can celebrate that and be glad of it.

00:25:26 ◼   ► And sometimes you won't. And sometimes you just have to forgive yourself for that and just

00:25:30 ◼   ► be flexible. But all I've been able to find in the last year

00:25:34 ◼   ► is that sense of if you just keep showing up,

00:25:38 ◼   ► it's better than giving up, I guess.

00:25:42 ◼   ► And that works in the same way with so many parts of our lives.

00:25:46 ◼   ► And that's sort of the only thing that I've found to kind of get me through in some ways

00:25:50 ◼   ► is that feeling that if I can keep showing up, then it'll get

00:25:54 ◼   ► better. And it's like the outside world will hopefully get better.

00:25:58 ◼   ► That my work will get better. My motivation, your motivation,

00:26:02 ◼   ► it's unlikely to be like this forever.

00:26:06 ◼   ► I think it's in some ways the strange thing of you and I have both been

00:26:10 ◼   ► independent developers for a decade or something.

00:26:14 ◼   ► And I've gone through these cycles for, you know, there have been periods where it's like things are

00:26:18 ◼   ► going great. There have been periods when things are going really not so great. And it's like

00:26:22 ◼   ► the longer perspective value you have, I think a better sense of

00:26:26 ◼   ► the cyclical nature of these things definitely becomes more visible.

00:26:30 ◼   ► Yeah. And then finally to close out this week,

00:26:34 ◼   ► or this two weeks, I'd like to maybe

00:26:38 ◼   ► give like a public service announcement. How all of us are feeling right now,

00:26:42 ◼   ► you know, all of us out there, we've had our own burdens

00:26:46 ◼   ► and stresses and challenges throughout this time. Everyone has had

00:26:50 ◼   ► burdens and challenges and stresses throughout this time. And so when you are

00:26:54 ◼   ► dealing with someone else, when you need someone else

00:26:58 ◼   ► to do something for you, whether it's like, you know, somebody

00:27:02 ◼   ► who needs to do work for you, or somebody who like, you're waiting on something

00:27:06 ◼   ► from them, or even your bosses or whoever it might be that like, you know, other people

00:27:10 ◼   ► in your family, any other people you deal with in your life, cut everyone some slack

00:27:14 ◼   ► right now. And continue cutting them some slack for a while.

00:27:18 ◼   ► Like a year at least. Because we're all exhausted.

00:27:22 ◼   ► We're all stressed. We're all tired. We've all gone through a lot of, you know, stuff during this.

00:27:26 ◼   ► And so try to give everyone a break around you.

00:27:30 ◼   ► Because whatever you've been faced with, you know,

00:27:34 ◼   ► they've had their own stuff too. And everyone's trying the best we can.

00:27:38 ◼   ► And just kind of, in general, like, cut society some slack

00:27:42 ◼   ► right now. And, you know, lay off of people as much as you can.

00:27:46 ◼   ► Give people a break. Give people slack. Give people the benefit of the doubt.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Because everyone needs that right now. And I hope for your sake, everyone out there,

00:27:54 ◼   ► I hope everyone does that for you. And I certainly hope that we can,

00:27:58 ◼   ► you know, help guide everyone in that direction.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Kindness and respect never go out of style.

00:28:06 ◼   ► The whole controversial thing is I think we should be giving people that kind of slack all the time. But, you know, we'll save that discussion for another time.

00:28:12 ◼   ► Turns out, you know, kindness and compassion and giving people a break and assuming the best instead of the worst of people,

00:28:18 ◼   ► that's actually kind of good all the time. But, well,

00:28:22 ◼   ► I know that that's a reach for a lot of people. So we'll start with, in the wake of a global pandemic,

00:28:26 ◼   ► give people a break. We'll move into the, you know,

00:28:30 ◼   ► kindness forever angle a different time.

00:28:34 ◼   ► After people have caught us a break on this one.

00:28:38 ◼   ► Well, it's like, "If this was helpful to you," I think it was a little

00:28:42 ◼   ► group therapy session for me and for you too,

00:28:46 ◼   ► Margot. If that's what it was for you, then know that you're not alone.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Because I think that's also helpful. It makes me think of the line at the end of

00:28:54 ◼   ► it's like being alone is far worse than

00:28:58 ◼   ► just being, you know, going through something difficult is always bad, but going through it

00:29:02 ◼   ► alone is doubly so. Oh, yes. Yes. So, anyway,

00:29:06 ◼   ► we're here for you everyone. And best of luck getting through all this.

00:29:10 ◼   ► Care for yourself, care for others, and we will talk to you in two weeks. Bye.

00:29:14 ◼   ► [ Silence ]