Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► New year, new backup recording setup for you, Myke. I've got something different this time.

00:00:06 ◼   ► New month, new month.

00:00:07 ◼   ► No, new year, new year, new backup recording setup.

00:00:10 ◼   ► New month, new system.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Yeah, I think I'm a genius this time, though, because some of my previous systems,

00:00:16 ◼   ► they've been a bit wonky. You know, they've had various problems, but this one is like,

00:00:20 ◼   ► "Oh wow, why didn't I think of this before?"

00:00:23 ◼   ► I've taken my lav mic and I've bluetacked it to the side of my main microphone.

00:00:31 ◼   ► And this seems like it's perfect. How did I not think of this before?

00:00:35 ◼   ► I don't know, but this is genius. So this is my new backup recording system.

00:00:39 ◼   ► So you should be very happy. I'm speaking directly into two microphones.

00:00:44 ◼   ► There's not a microphone on the other side of the room acting as a recorder.

00:00:49 ◼   ► There's not a microphone on a travel stand on my desk to knock onto my keyboard to cancel

00:00:55 ◼   ► the recording that I'm currently doing.

00:00:58 ◼   ► So little lav mic, little blue tack, good to go.

00:01:01 ◼   ► I actually kind of like this.

00:01:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's perfect.

00:01:04 ◼   ► If you're gonna do it, you might as well do it this way.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this is the perfect one.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Speaking of this actually, these various ways in which you've destroyed my hopes of a good

00:01:15 ◼   ► episode recording over the last year.

00:01:18 ◼   ► That's unfair.

00:01:19 ◼   ► There is a Cortex anime that I recommend everybody go watch that I don't think you've seen yet,

00:01:22 ◼   ► which you need to watch so we can put it up.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:01:26 ◼   ► Where a very wonderful animator, H.M.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Boutet, did something really special when it comes to levels, levels, conversations.

00:01:32 ◼   ► I don't want to spoil it, but it's so good.

00:01:35 ◼   ► It's just so good and well worth watching.

00:01:38 ◼   ► But I'm really happy that it's like new, was it new decades, dawn, again, also includes

00:01:46 ◼   ► new microphone systems again.

00:01:49 ◼   ► - This one, mark my words, never gonna change.

00:01:53 ◼   ► (beep)

00:01:54 ◼   ► - Every year, I like to do a little time tracking comparison

00:01:58 ◼   ► with you.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:02:00 ◼   ► - So this, I think first started,

00:02:01 ◼   ► it was part of our yearly themes episode,

00:02:03 ◼   ► but as that just got longer and longer,

00:02:05 ◼   ► I've ended up pushing this out to like a thing

00:02:07 ◼   ► that I do in January.

00:02:09 ◼   ► This is actually different now

00:02:10 ◼   ► than how we've done it in the past.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:02:13 ◼   ► - Because since our last time that we looked at this,

00:02:15 ◼   ► I would always bring out my toggle reports

00:02:18 ◼   ► and would look at my toggle reports of the year.

00:02:20 ◼   ► But now, wonderful app Timery, favorite app,

00:02:23 ◼   ► has actually added reporting of its own.

00:02:26 ◼   ► So the reports that are generated in the screenshot,

00:02:29 ◼   ► which is in the show notes,

00:02:30 ◼   ► of my year-over-year time tracking totals

00:02:34 ◼   ► were actually generated in Timery this time,

00:02:37 ◼   ► which I think looks much cleaner.

00:02:39 ◼   ► - It's very nice.

00:02:40 ◼   ► - I'm not surprised about a lot of this

00:02:42 ◼   ► from like a top-line perspective,

00:02:44 ◼   ► kind of looking at year over year.

00:02:46 ◼   ► In 2020, I logged 1,507 hours of work.

00:02:51 ◼   ► In 2021, I logged 1,544 hours of work.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - That's actually crazy how close that is.

00:02:59 ◼   ► - Yeah. - That's interesting.

00:03:01 ◼   ► - I think it's especially intriguing to me

00:03:02 ◼   ► because in 2020, I didn't have any time off

00:03:05 ◼   ► and in 2021, I took like a two week vacation.

00:03:08 ◼   ► - Yeah. - So there's like,

00:03:09 ◼   ► I don't know, however many,

00:03:10 ◼   ► maybe it was like another 50 hours or something

00:03:13 ◼   ► that would have been logged otherwise.

00:03:15 ◼   ► I would just again make this clear,

00:03:17 ◼   ► 'cause I think people get confused about this

00:03:19 ◼   ► and I understand why.

00:03:20 ◼   ► I only log when I'm actively working on something.

00:03:23 ◼   ► So all of that unintentional time

00:03:26 ◼   ► that you might have in your workday,

00:03:28 ◼   ► I don't log that.

00:03:29 ◼   ► So if I'm not actively involved in a task, I don't log it.

00:03:33 ◼   ► So on average, my working hours are like,

00:03:36 ◼   ► I log maybe like five and a half hours

00:03:39 ◼   ► of productive time a day.

00:03:41 ◼   ► where I'm actually, my work day usually starts

00:03:44 ◼   ► between nine and 10 and ends between six and eight.

00:03:47 ◼   ► But there's just time in my day where I'm not working

00:03:50 ◼   ► because I'm a human being, you know?

00:03:51 ◼   ► - Right. - You know, so I kind of really,

00:03:53 ◼   ► it might be a better way for me to say,

00:03:55 ◼   ► this is my productive time, not my working time.

00:03:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

00:03:58 ◼   ► - That's what I track, I track my productive time.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Because for me, I can have these weird pockets in a day

00:04:03 ◼   ► because maybe I have something going on between nine and 10

00:04:07 ◼   ► and then my next thing starts at five o'clock.

00:04:10 ◼   ► It's just like, that's just how my weird day can be sometimes.

00:04:14 ◼   ► But I would say by and large, everything is held kind of in the way that I would expect.

00:04:20 ◼   ► So like podcast recording time is relatively steady.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Editing time has gone down by a decent chunk, but that was because I moved more editing

00:04:29 ◼   ► away from myself.

00:04:32 ◼   ► Show prep goes up.

00:04:33 ◼   ► I always want that to go up.

00:04:35 ◼   ► Like if there's one thing in these top three going up, I would like more preparation for

00:04:39 ◼   ► for my shows, 'cause the more prepared I am,

00:04:42 ◼   ► the better the content is.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Look at old Cortex brand rising up the ranks there.

00:04:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, Cortex brand has shot up what,

00:04:48 ◼   ► like 100 hours roughly? - 100 hours year over year.

00:04:51 ◼   ► - Jeez.

00:04:52 ◼   ► - There's a load of reasons for this though.

00:04:54 ◼   ► I mean, one, I do spend a lot more time

00:04:56 ◼   ► working on our business.

00:04:58 ◼   ► Another is we have like a monthly call,

00:05:01 ◼   ► which is just focused on talking about Cortex brand stuff.

00:05:03 ◼   ► So all of these hours are being logged in now.

00:05:06 ◼   ► This actually did make me realize

00:05:09 ◼   ► that I think I need to now start breaking out

00:05:12 ◼   ► what that is into more projects.

00:05:15 ◼   ► - Okay, so you want to subdivide

00:05:18 ◼   ► how you're tracking Cortex brand.

00:05:19 ◼   ► - Because if I tracked Relay FM,

00:05:22 ◼   ► it would be like 800 hours.

00:05:25 ◼   ► - Oh, right, right, okay, yeah.

00:05:27 ◼   ► - Right, where now Cortex brand,

00:05:29 ◼   ► I mean, it never was, but like,

00:05:30 ◼   ► as I'm now doing more and more

00:05:32 ◼   ► and spending more and more time on it,

00:05:34 ◼   ► I'm doing lots of different types of things.

00:05:36 ◼   ► Sometimes it's admin,

00:05:38 ◼   ► Sometimes it's product design.

00:05:40 ◼   ► I think I need to start looking at separating those out.

00:05:43 ◼   ► - In Timery, when you, like, are you thinking

00:05:47 ◼   ► of having them as different top level projects?

00:05:50 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:05:50 ◼   ► - Like, I'm actually just looking at this,

00:05:51 ◼   ► at the Timery reports, and I can't remember,

00:05:55 ◼   ► when you click on that little arrow next to Cortex brand,

00:05:57 ◼   ► does that just show you the logged entries,

00:05:59 ◼   ► or does that show you sub-projects in that entry?

00:06:02 ◼   ► - I mean, I think if you had sub-projects,

00:06:04 ◼   ► or if you named them, I think it would,

00:06:06 ◼   ► but I don't do any of that.

00:06:08 ◼   ► I tag the podcast stuff, so recording, editing and show prep, I tag those with the related shows.

00:06:15 ◼   ► But outside of that I just project, that's everything I do.

00:06:19 ◼   ► So when you hit the little arrow next to podcast recording and time rate, it shows you the tags for,

00:06:24 ◼   ► like the time spent in tags for the different time tracked or not? I'm just curious.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Oh no, it doesn't show tags there. I guess that would be the descriptions. That's all of the descriptions.

00:06:35 ◼   ► So, if like, I think you do some of this sometimes, do you?

00:06:38 ◼   ► Like you write down what you're doing.

00:06:39 ◼   ► I know a lot of people do this, it's like a thing.

00:06:41 ◼   ► It makes sense, like you write down what task you're up to.

00:06:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm only asking because we discussed it a couple episodes about sort of rethinking

00:06:49 ◼   ► the time tracking, which is where I am, and this is one of those areas where I'm trying

00:06:54 ◼   ► to mentally re-categorize the way I do a bunch of stuff, and this is always the problem that

00:06:59 ◼   ► everyone has at the beginning of time tracking, right?

00:07:01 ◼   ► Where you're like, "How do I categorize a bunch of different things?"

00:07:04 ◼   ► And so I'm just, I'm not quite, I haven't settled on how to try to track sub stuff,

00:07:11 ◼   ► but also have an overall picture of what's going on.

00:07:13 ◼   ► So I was just curious if you had any thoughts, like mechanistically what you're going to

00:07:18 ◼   ► do with tracking subcategories of Cortex brand so that you can have it broken out.

00:07:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it will probably be like Cortex brand admin, Cortex brand design.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Like that's how we'll do it for now, I think.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Right.

00:07:29 ◼   ► Okay.

00:07:30 ◼   ► This is like a top level thing.

00:07:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:32 ◼   ► Okay.

00:07:33 ◼   ► like I would, you know, I'd be intrigued to see what that would look like because at the moment

00:07:36 ◼   ► that is just one huge bucket and that bucket is becoming an increasingly large percentage of my

00:07:42 ◼   ► time. Yeah and especially since like we just started this year breaking out the separate

00:07:48 ◼   ► Cortex brand calls which has which has been a great thing to do. I think also like a theme on

00:07:53 ◼   ► the show over time has been like oh separate out different activities into different areas

00:07:57 ◼   ► And it was very good when we realized, oh, we should have two calls a month, one that's

00:08:02 ◼   ► just the Cortex brand stuff and one that's just the podcast.

00:08:06 ◼   ► You want to know in that business how much time are you spending gabbing on the phone

00:08:12 ◼   ► with Gray versus how much time are you spending in product design or admin or all the rest

00:08:17 ◼   ► of it.

00:08:18 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:08:19 ◼   ► I think once something crosses a hundred hours of work, you probably want to at least be

00:08:24 ◼   ► aware of what the subcategories are.

00:08:26 ◼   ► so that's that's one and again that's like part of your structure it's like

00:08:31 ◼   ► that structure that structural stuff that I need to work on. Streaming doubled

00:08:36 ◼   ► but that makes sense to me because I started streaming like halfway through

00:08:39 ◼   ► 2020 and I still stream keyboard related stuff once a week on a Friday and so

00:08:44 ◼   ► I've just been doing that more and more so that's just remained as part of my

00:08:48 ◼   ► time tracking stuff. The relay FM general admin stuff this is calls and just

00:08:54 ◼   ► general administrative stuff I do for Relay FM.

00:08:56 ◼   ► It's funny, it's lower down the list,

00:08:58 ◼   ► but more hours than the year before.

00:09:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I was just looking at.

00:09:01 ◼   ► - But one of the reasons for this is like,

00:09:03 ◼   ► you'll notice in 2020, membership was more hours,

00:09:08 ◼   ► 60 hours than the 29 hours in 2021.

00:09:13 ◼   ► So it was a lot of our admin calls were actually focused

00:09:16 ◼   ► around the membership program.

00:09:17 ◼   ► So I would attract those as pure membership calls.

00:09:20 ◼   ► - Right, okay, that makes sense.

00:09:21 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause we were setting everything up then.

00:09:23 ◼   ► So that's probably where that stacks differently.

00:09:25 ◼   ► - I like this big drop in Mega Studio,

00:09:27 ◼   ► 60 hours last year and down to 15 hours this year

00:09:31 ◼   ► for setting it up, I presume is what that is.

00:09:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's setting up stuff.

00:09:34 ◼   ► - That's one we would definitely hope

00:09:36 ◼   ► trends downward over time.

00:09:37 ◼   ► - Until the next one.

00:09:39 ◼   ► - Until Mega Studio 2, yes.

00:09:40 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:09:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, Podcastathon definitely took more time.

00:09:45 ◼   ► I'm actually quite surprised about it though.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Like I know it took more time,

00:09:48 ◼   ► but considering how tumultuous the planning

00:09:50 ◼   ► of the 2020 Podcastathon was,

00:09:52 ◼   ► I'm surprised that it took more time to do this year.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Oh, I know what this was.

00:09:58 ◼   ► I know what this was.

00:09:59 ◼   ► We did a lot more like streams leading up

00:10:01 ◼   ► to the podcast-a-thon.

00:10:03 ◼   ► - Ah, that makes sense.

00:10:04 ◼   ► - So those hours really, they really racked up

00:10:07 ◼   ► compared to 2020.

00:10:09 ◼   ► - I would like to know what you categorize

00:10:10 ◼   ► as self-improvement here.

00:10:12 ◼   ► I'm just curious as to what like,

00:10:13 ◼   ► what goes under that category.

00:10:14 ◼   ► - So this is like, this is all like year of refinement stuff

00:10:19 ◼   ► hanging over. - Okay.

00:10:20 ◼   ► So sometimes this is like maybe meeting a friend for lunch

00:10:25 ◼   ► with the implicit idea that we're gonna talk about

00:10:28 ◼   ► how we're doing as people, all that kind of stuff.

00:10:32 ◼   ► Sometimes these conversations just occur, right?

00:10:35 ◼   ► But sometimes I feel like, at least with some friends,

00:10:37 ◼   ► like that's the point of our meeting

00:10:40 ◼   ► or like having a call or whatever,

00:10:41 ◼   ► just to like, how are you doing?

00:10:43 ◼   ► Let's talk about how you are, that kind of stuff.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I don't know why this has gone down year over year.

00:10:49 ◼   ► I think maybe I was doing more of that.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Yeah, you know what?

00:10:52 ◼   ► I was doing more of that at the beginning of 2020.

00:10:54 ◼   ► That was the year of refinement, right?

00:10:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was gonna say that that trended downward

00:10:59 ◼   ► because of everything that happened in the world, Myke.

00:11:02 ◼   ► You were not able to do fancy wine tasting

00:11:05 ◼   ► at restaurants. - No, yeah.

00:11:06 ◼   ► But I wouldn't have included that in here anyway.

00:11:08 ◼   ► But there was just a lot of stuff that I was doing

00:11:11 ◼   ► and taking instructional courses and things like that.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And I just stopped doing a lot of it.

00:11:16 ◼   ► But I'm pleased that it's still there.

00:11:18 ◼   ► It's like a little more than half of where it was in 2020,

00:11:22 ◼   ► but it's still a part of it, which I'm pleased about.

00:11:26 ◼   ► - I think that's interesting as a category,

00:11:27 ◼   ► just as something that relates more directly to the theme.

00:11:31 ◼   ► Just as someone who is in the podcast business,

00:11:35 ◼   ► sponsor aftercare just makes me smile as a category of,

00:11:39 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:11:40 ◼   ► of like, ah yes, sponsor aftercare.

00:11:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, but look how much it's down.

00:11:45 ◼   ► - I'm very glad to see that you've dropped it

00:11:47 ◼   ► from 18 hours to seven hours.

00:11:50 ◼   ► I presume that a lot of the sponsor aftercare

00:11:52 ◼   ► has been passed along to others.

00:11:53 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:11:54 ◼   ► - That's great.

00:11:55 ◼   ► - But this is in everything.

00:11:56 ◼   ► So sponsor booking is down,

00:11:58 ◼   ► sponsor inquiries is down,

00:12:00 ◼   ► sponsor aftercare is down.

00:12:02 ◼   ► And that would have been like,

00:12:03 ◼   ► if you looked across the years,

00:12:04 ◼   ► something is trending down, down, down,

00:12:06 ◼   ► which just makes sense as I let go more of that

00:12:08 ◼   ► part of my responsibility in the business

00:12:10 ◼   ► to people that are better placed to do it than me.

00:12:13 ◼   ► So like that's just again,

00:12:15 ◼   ► like a really great trend down over time

00:12:17 ◼   ► and it's gonna continue to go down this year.

00:12:19 ◼   ► It won't go away, but it will continue to get a smaller

00:12:23 ◼   ► and smaller and smaller portion of what I do.

00:12:26 ◼   ► - And then I presume that workflows means automation stuff.

00:12:29 ◼   ► Is that the idea?

00:12:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like tinkering away with that kind of stuff.

00:12:33 ◼   ► And I've already been doing a little bit of that.

00:12:35 ◼   ► And I actually wanna talk about this a little later on

00:12:37 ◼   ► in the show, but I've been thinking about like

00:12:39 ◼   ► how this kind of stuff, automation stuff,

00:12:42 ◼   ► could be a part of the year structure.

00:12:45 ◼   ► I think there could be something in that

00:12:46 ◼   ► that I hadn't yet considered,

00:12:48 ◼   ► but it's been bouncing around in my brain a little bit

00:12:51 ◼   ► since we recorded last.

00:12:52 ◼   ► So for me, like if I look at this and say like,

00:12:55 ◼   ► how, where do I want this to be next time?

00:12:57 ◼   ► I want less hours overall.

00:12:59 ◼   ► - So straight up, like you want the total number

00:13:02 ◼   ► of real work hours to be less in 2022.

00:13:06 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:13:06 ◼   ► I would like an increase in Cortex brand stuff,

00:13:11 ◼   ► podcast stuff to remain basically the same,

00:13:14 ◼   ► but with the idea being some of that will naturally start

00:13:18 ◼   ► to decrease, but that might not happen this year.

00:13:21 ◼   ► It might be ready for 23 and everything admin related

00:13:25 ◼   ► to go down more.

00:13:26 ◼   ► That's kind of like if I was painting a picture

00:13:29 ◼   ► of what I want my 2022 time tracking to look like,

00:13:33 ◼   ► that's what it would look like.

00:13:34 ◼   ► - I really like that 'cause you also have a,

00:13:36 ◼   ► like a really clear top level target of these,

00:13:40 ◼   ► this number of hours should be lower.

00:13:43 ◼   ► I quite like that.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - I mean, for me, honestly, if it's not,

00:13:47 ◼   ► that's a big failure because I mean,

00:13:50 ◼   ► like part of it is, well,

00:13:52 ◼   ► if I'm going to take the 20 days off

00:13:55 ◼   ► that I said I'm going to take,

00:13:57 ◼   ► that would naturally bring it down.

00:13:59 ◼   ► - Right.

00:14:00 ◼   ► Unless you're squishing around working in extra work

00:14:04 ◼   ► at like times you shouldn't,

00:14:05 ◼   ► which defeats the whole purpose, yeah.

00:14:07 ◼   ► - And then that would be like, aha, there you go.

00:14:09 ◼   ► - Right.

00:14:10 ◼   ► - Right, like that, that's like you,

00:14:11 ◼   ► you messed up somewhere, where and why?

00:14:13 ◼   ► - Right, and then you get yourself into the bad position

00:14:16 ◼   ► where you're just running yourself ragged before the brakes

00:14:20 ◼   ► and then you extra need the brakes,

00:14:22 ◼   ► but then they're less effective

00:14:23 ◼   ► at what you're trying to have them do

00:14:24 ◼   ► because you run yourself ragged.

00:14:25 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:14:26 ◼   ► - So yeah, interesting, okay.

00:14:28 ◼   ► (chime)

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00:15:12 ◼   ► way I could try and describe what a buckwheat pillow feels like. It's kind of like a beanbag

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00:15:24 ◼   ► hotels and stuff like that. I have been sleeping on a holo pillow for nearly three years every

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00:15:58 ◼   ► You should be pretty curious to try one of these things out and you can.

00:16:01 ◼   ► You can sleep on a holo pillow for 60 nights and if it isn't right for you,

00:16:05 ◼   ► just send it back for a refund.

00:16:07 ◼   ► go to hollopillow.com/cortex right now and get your very own buckwheat pillow.

00:16:12 ◼   ► That's h-u-l-l-o-p-i-l-l-o-w dot com slash cortex. If you buy more than one,

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00:16:32 ◼   ► go to hollopillow.com that's h-u-l-l-o-p-i-l-l-o-w dot com slash cortex right now

00:16:39 ◼   ► our thanks to hello for the support of this show and relay fm while we're looking at some statistics

00:16:46 ◼   ► should we finally do the 2021 flighty stats prediction result all right so this came up in

00:16:54 ◼   ► - In state of the apps 2021?

00:16:57 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:17:01 ◼   ► - 'Cause we do it for the year,

00:17:02 ◼   ► 'cause this always messes me up, right?

00:17:04 ◼   ► So we just did 2022, right, in 2021, right?

00:17:08 ◼   ► You always wanna go the next year.

00:17:09 ◼   ► That's what you like to do.

00:17:10 ◼   ► And I don't like that, but that's what you like to do.

00:17:12 ◼   ► - Oh, right, yes, that is what I like to do.

00:17:13 ◼   ► - So two state of the apps ago,

00:17:16 ◼   ► we spoke about whether we predicted if our air miles,

00:17:21 ◼   ► the amount of miles that we have flown in 2021

00:17:25 ◼   ► would be higher or lower than what we had done in 2020.

00:17:29 ◼   ► - Right, that's correct.

00:17:30 ◼   ► - Right. - That was our prediction.

00:17:32 ◼   ► - Because it was like, well, we haven't gone anywhere

00:17:34 ◼   ► in 2020, what do we think this is gonna be like?

00:17:38 ◼   ► How optimistic do we feel?

00:17:40 ◼   ► And we both said that we've predicted

00:17:43 ◼   ► that we would both have traveled for more miles on a plane

00:17:47 ◼   ► in the calendar year 2021

00:17:49 ◼   ► than we did in the calendar year 2020.

00:17:52 ◼   ► I will say as well, Flighty actually has added a feature

00:17:56 ◼   ► quite recently that I wanted

00:17:58 ◼   ► when we were originally doing all this stuff,

00:18:01 ◼   ► which is you can now mark a flight

00:18:03 ◼   ► as like you're not on this flight.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

00:18:06 ◼   ► - Which is good.

00:18:07 ◼   ► 'Cause I know I've got some of my 2019 numbers.

00:18:09 ◼   ► I think maybe even some of my 2020 numbers,

00:18:12 ◼   ► there's a little bit in there like a flight or two,

00:18:14 ◼   ► which I don't think was me.

00:18:15 ◼   ► I was tracking a flight that Adina was on.

00:18:18 ◼   ► So I'm happy that they've added that now.

00:18:20 ◼   ► So you can keep your stats clean, basically.

00:18:23 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:18:24 ◼   ► Yeah, and my reasoning for that bet is,

00:18:28 ◼   ► I've discussed the concept before

00:18:30 ◼   ► of like don't bet against the base rate.

00:18:32 ◼   ► And so my thought is this is like a combination

00:18:34 ◼   ► of don't bet against the base rate

00:18:37 ◼   ► and a sort of regression to the mean.

00:18:39 ◼   ► That 2020, for obvious reasons,

00:18:42 ◼   ► was much lower in travel than normal.

00:18:44 ◼   ► And so you should sort of expect

00:18:46 ◼   ► the number is going to regress toward the mean and I was wrong.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Really?

00:18:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:55 ◼   ► What about the year of the voyage?

00:18:58 ◼   ► Look, okay, so I went back and I actually I cleaned up all of my flighty stats and I

00:19:05 ◼   ► put in all of the flights from 2018 to now because I actually really do like tracking

00:19:09 ◼   ► this as just a statistic.

00:19:10 ◼   ► Oh man, that's a good idea.

00:19:11 ◼   ► I should do that.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Yeah, because I just wanted to know, and I had started, I think I started using Flighty halfway through 2018.

00:19:19 ◼   ► So I went back and I filled in everything just to make sure it was all clear and just made sure I didn't have any of those random flights that weren't actually mine.

00:19:28 ◼   ► And so we can make a graph of my numbers.

00:19:31 ◼   ► So starting in 2018, it was 41 flights and 2.4 times around the world.

00:19:40 ◼   ► And I think 2018 might be my, like, peak travel year ever, maybe?

00:19:48 ◼   ► Like, that's quite a lot of flying for me.

00:19:50 ◼   ► And then it drops to 23 flights, 0.9 times around the world for 2019.

00:19:56 ◼   ► 2020 is where it drops down to six flights and 0.4 times around the world.

00:20:04 ◼   ► and 2021 ended up at five flights,

00:20:09 ◼   ► 0.4 times around the world,

00:20:12 ◼   ► but it's basically nine and a half thousand miles

00:20:16 ◼   ► versus 11,000 miles.

00:20:18 ◼   ► So I came in just short for 2021.

00:20:21 ◼   ► - I see you were wrong then, okay.

00:20:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I was wrong

00:20:25 ◼   ► and I'm sort of extra annoyed at this

00:20:28 ◼   ► because I did mention that there's a conference

00:20:31 ◼   ► that I was supposed to go to

00:20:33 ◼   ► at the very beginning of January,

00:20:35 ◼   ► which would have had me traveling

00:20:38 ◼   ► at the very end of December.

00:20:41 ◼   ► And I made a decision not to go

00:20:45 ◼   ► because of the, basically the situation

00:20:47 ◼   ► with the Omnicromicon variant

00:20:50 ◼   ► and like having to decide ahead of time,

00:20:52 ◼   ► like, am I gonna go?

00:20:53 ◼   ► Am I gonna book the flights?

00:20:55 ◼   ► And I made the call not to,

00:20:59 ◼   ► But it is one of these things that in retrospect,

00:21:03 ◼   ► I think I would have gone if I didn't have to make

00:21:06 ◼   ► the decision as early as I did about like,

00:21:08 ◼   ► am I actually gonna go to this thing or not?

00:21:11 ◼   ► - I think you made the right decision.

00:21:12 ◼   ► It was too unknown again.

00:21:14 ◼   ► - This is what I'm saying.

00:21:15 ◼   ► At the time, I think I made the correct decision.

00:21:18 ◼   ► But if I could transmit information back in time,

00:21:22 ◼   ► I would express to my past self like,

00:21:24 ◼   ► you're over concerned about this

00:21:27 ◼   ► at the time that you're worried.

00:21:29 ◼   ► if you really want to go to this conference, it is actually fine.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Maybe don't visit your parents on the way in and out, but like, it's probably fine to go.

00:21:37 ◼   ► So anyway, I did lose it, but I feel like, boy, was this—this was a close loss, but it's still a loss.

00:21:43 ◼   ► So it was—it was less for me this year than last year, which I obviously did not expect,

00:21:49 ◼   ► and really has come in as a surprise, and is obviously a side effect of,

00:21:53 ◼   ► basically, the whole pandemic situation dragging on longer than I expected.

00:21:58 ◼   ► So 2019, that's when I have my first dates too.

00:22:01 ◼   ► I'm probably gonna do what you did actually.

00:22:02 ◼   ► I like the idea of maybe filling in some old stuff.

00:22:05 ◼   ► Although I am maybe a bit too lazy

00:22:07 ◼   ► to try and find all those flights in 2018.

00:22:09 ◼   ► 2019, 25 flights, 1.9 times around the world

00:22:14 ◼   ► at 47,679 miles.

00:22:18 ◼   ► 2020, six flights, 15,765 miles,

00:22:23 ◼   ► 0.6 times around the world.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And this is, I have adjusted this.

00:22:27 ◼   ► I've gone in and removed the flights that weren't mine.

00:22:31 ◼   ► 2021, eight flights, 21,081 miles around the world.

00:22:36 ◼   ► So that is 5,000 more, I beat it.

00:22:40 ◼   ► - You must've gone somewhere quite far away, Myke.

00:22:42 ◼   ► - I did, I went to Hawaii.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Hawaii wouldn't have been enough though.

00:22:46 ◼   ► - Oh really?

00:22:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, we spent Christmas in Romania

00:22:49 ◼   ► and that was what I needed to tip me over.

00:22:52 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, that's closer than I would have thought.

00:22:55 ◼   ► I thought Hawaii on its own

00:22:56 ◼   ► would have just totally blown it out of the water.

00:22:58 ◼   ► - No, I think I needed the extra

00:23:00 ◼   ► or at least it was gonna be way closer

00:23:02 ◼   ► because you know, like in 2020,

00:23:04 ◼   ► we'd started the year off in LA.

00:23:07 ◼   ► So, and then we did more flights backwards and forwards

00:23:10 ◼   ► at the beginning of 2020.

00:23:12 ◼   ► So it would have been closer than I would have expected

00:23:15 ◼   ► kind of just to really make sure that I 100% hit that.

00:23:19 ◼   ► I had to take that.

00:23:20 ◼   ► It wasn't the reason that I went to Romania for Christmas,

00:23:22 ◼   ► but sure helped.

00:23:24 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:23:27 ◼   ► It's a nice bonus.

00:23:28 ◼   ► It gives you a nice extra reason.

00:23:29 ◼   ► You go, "Oh great, now I can be right in the bet."

00:23:31 ◼   ► - Yep, and I was right and you were wrong.

00:23:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, so congratulations, Myke.

00:23:35 ◼   ► - In a completely unnecessary, but for some reason,

00:23:39 ◼   ► has become very important thing for us

00:23:41 ◼   ► 'cause we've been talking about this now

00:23:43 ◼   ► for the best part of three months, two months?

00:23:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I think it's just turned out

00:23:48 ◼   ► that flights have ended up as a proxy for world status.

00:23:52 ◼   ► And I also think flights for the situation that we're in,

00:23:57 ◼   ► they're also a kind of interesting proxy for,

00:24:02 ◼   ► I don't know if this is quite the right way to phrase it,

00:24:03 ◼   ► but like semi-optional work.

00:24:07 ◼   ► I do think there's travel which can be eliminated,

00:24:12 ◼   ► but can be good to do as well.

00:24:15 ◼   ► I think that's partly what this is.

00:24:16 ◼   ► So the question for you, Myke,

00:24:18 ◼   ► do you think you're going to do any work-related flights

00:24:22 ◼   ► next year?

00:24:23 ◼   ► - This year?

00:24:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, this year.

00:24:25 ◼   ► It's not still the Christmas season?

00:24:27 ◼   ► I think it's the Christmas season.

00:24:28 ◼   ► - It kind of does still feel like it.

00:24:29 ◼   ► - It really does, it really does.

00:24:31 ◼   ► - Do I think I will do any work-related travel in 2022?

00:24:36 ◼   ► Yes, I do, I do think that, yeah.

00:24:38 ◼   ► - You do think that, okay.

00:24:39 ◼   ► - I do think that.

00:24:40 ◼   ► I mean, the very least, the podcast-a-thon.

00:24:44 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, all right.

00:24:46 ◼   ► - Terrible things would have to happen.

00:24:50 ◼   ► and or like just huge things, insurmountable things

00:24:54 ◼   ► would have to occur for us to not be in Memphis

00:24:57 ◼   ► this time doing that.

00:24:59 ◼   ► I also expect that by the end of 2022,

00:25:03 ◼   ► I would have done some other thing,

00:25:05 ◼   ► some other event or something.

00:25:07 ◼   ► - Okay, so like some event, some conference,

00:25:09 ◼   ► something like that?

00:25:10 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Okay.

00:25:11 ◼   ► - Conferences, I doubt.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Event, I expect more.

00:25:16 ◼   ► - Okay, what do you mean by event?

00:25:17 ◼   ► What falls under that category?

00:25:19 ◼   ► I feel like sometimes you can say a thing and you're either like, you're putting something

00:25:24 ◼   ► out into the world like you're willing it into existence or you're jinxing yourself

00:25:28 ◼   ► and I don't know which one of these this would be for me.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Alright, don't let me jinx you then, that's fine.

00:25:33 ◼   ► Well I mean I can tell you and then maybe you can tell me if I should keep it in the

00:25:38 ◼   ► show or not.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Alright, and then you can censor it or not.

00:25:41 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:25:43 ◼   ► I am hoping I'll get invited to an Apple event before the end of the year.

00:25:46 ◼   ► Oh, like an Apple media event?

00:25:48 ◼   ► - Yes. - Or, ah, okay.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Surely, huh, okay.

00:25:52 ◼   ► - If there's doing them,

00:25:53 ◼   ► I hope that I would maybe get invited to one of them.

00:25:56 ◼   ► - Wouldn't that be, don't they do those in London though?

00:25:59 ◼   ► - No, they've not done that for a long time.

00:26:01 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, oh, I thought they had like local versions

00:26:03 ◼   ► in all of these cities. - They used to do that.

00:26:05 ◼   ► They used to do that.

00:26:05 ◼   ► But now if you're invited, they just invite you out.

00:26:08 ◼   ► Because the reason they used to do those things,

00:26:10 ◼   ► to my knowledge, is it wasn't reliably streamed.

00:26:13 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, right. - And they used to have

00:26:15 ◼   ► like these satellite events

00:26:17 ◼   ► where they would have a video stream.

00:26:19 ◼   ► I don't believe they do those anymore

00:26:21 ◼   ► because I know people that live all over the globe

00:26:24 ◼   ► that get invited to go to San Francisco or wherever.

00:26:29 ◼   ► So I'm hoping that if there are events,

00:26:31 ◼   ► maybe I could get to go.

00:26:32 ◼   ► Now look, if there's only doing the iPhone event,

00:26:34 ◼   ► I'm not gonna get to go for that one.

00:26:35 ◼   ► Maybe they'll do like a Mac event in November

00:26:38 ◼   ► and maybe I'll get to go.

00:26:39 ◼   ► - Okay, yeah.

00:26:40 ◼   ► I don't think you're jinxing that.

00:26:41 ◼   ► I don't think you're jinxing that at all.

00:26:43 ◼   ► 'Cause I think that's the kind of aspirational

00:26:45 ◼   ► but also non-zero probability.

00:26:47 ◼   ► Like I think it's reasonable to say

00:26:49 ◼   ► that is possible on your calendar.

00:26:51 ◼   ► - It feels much more possible now

00:26:52 ◼   ► because like on some of my other shows

00:26:54 ◼   ► I've interviewed Apple executives

00:26:56 ◼   ► and I get, you know, like when they send out

00:26:58 ◼   ► the press invites, I'm on that list now.

00:27:01 ◼   ► I mean, all it says is, "Tune in."

00:27:03 ◼   ► But like, you know, it's not,

00:27:06 ◼   ► there isn't really an RSVP, but I didn't used to get those.

00:27:08 ◼   ► - Right. - And so like,

00:27:09 ◼   ► I do get those now.

00:27:10 ◼   ► So I'm hoping that when they do events again,

00:27:12 ◼   ► and maybe I would be able to go to one.

00:27:15 ◼   ► I do think no WWDC by the way.

00:27:17 ◼   ► If we're putting our bets on that, I don't think it's happening.

00:27:19 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I would bet a lot of money on WWDC.

00:27:22 ◼   ► I've been saying this for like a year that they wouldn't do it again,

00:27:25 ◼   ► and then now it's just like, nah, who's going to be first, right?

00:27:29 ◼   ► Who wants to be the first tech company to open up their conferences again?

00:27:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I still say if I was in charge of Apple,

00:27:37 ◼   ► I would never have it in person again.

00:27:39 ◼   ► I would be delighted to have this as an excuse to say we're never doing it.

00:27:43 ◼   ► I would 100% not have it in person again.

00:27:45 ◼   ► - Oh, you agree with me?

00:27:46 ◼   ► Okay, everyone else thinks I'm crazy.

00:27:47 ◼   ► - Oh, 100% I agree with you.

00:27:48 ◼   ► No, no, I agree with you.

00:27:50 ◼   ► I agree with you big time.

00:27:51 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, great.

00:27:52 ◼   ► You're the first person I've heard say that.

00:27:54 ◼   ► - It's way better to do it virtually for everyone.

00:27:56 ◼   ► - I'm not sure it's better for all the participants,

00:27:58 ◼   ► but if I was Apple, I feel like it's obviously better.

00:28:00 ◼   ► - Oh, it's way better for the participants.

00:28:02 ◼   ► It's so much better because there's nothing going on

00:28:05 ◼   ► that's taking your attention away.

00:28:07 ◼   ► And it's not just available to like the 5,000 people

00:28:10 ◼   ► that can afford it.

00:28:12 ◼   ► It's available to everyone. Everyone gets a level playing field.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Like as long as they keep doing things to like,

00:28:18 ◼   ► and it's gotten better over the last two years.

00:28:20 ◼   ► And so when we keep finding ways to like make developers and Apple engineers

00:28:24 ◼   ► have a way to communicate during that week,

00:28:26 ◼   ► as long as they keep making that better to replace the labs and stuff,

00:28:29 ◼   ► it's way better than going in person.

00:28:31 ◼   ► I didn't really,

00:28:32 ◼   ► do they make all the technical talks available immediately online?

00:28:35 ◼   ► I didn't realize if they were doing like, cause like if,

00:28:38 ◼   ► I mean I guess there's no tickets.

00:28:39 ◼   ► You can just see that if you have a developer account.

00:28:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, so like, do you mean when it was in person?

00:28:43 ◼   ► - So what I mean is, the last one that was held online,

00:28:47 ◼   ► if you have a developer account,

00:28:48 ◼   ► can you just go watch all of the virtual talks immediately?

00:28:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:28:53 ◼   ► - I don't think I quite realized that.

00:28:54 ◼   ► - They were all just rolled out,

00:28:55 ◼   ► it was like a schedule through the day,

00:28:57 ◼   ► and they would just put them out throughout the day.

00:28:59 ◼   ► I think they maybe all dropped at once, actually.

00:29:01 ◼   ► Like, it wasn't like, this one's gonna be at this time.

00:29:03 ◼   ► It was like, this is what's gonna be on each day,

00:29:06 ◼   ► and then they just made them all available,

00:29:07 ◼   ► and you could just go and watch whatever you wanted.

00:29:09 ◼   ► And everyone could do that.

00:29:10 ◼   ► To be fair, you could do that before.

00:29:12 ◼   ► I think they used to stream them in the later years

00:29:14 ◼   ► and they would have videos.

00:29:16 ◼   ► But this is, I think it's better

00:29:17 ◼   ► 'cause it's like everyone's just level playing field.

00:29:20 ◼   ► The production value is so much better.

00:29:23 ◼   ► Like I've never watched a session before,

00:29:25 ◼   ► but I've watched some of these ones

00:29:27 ◼   ► that they've done afterwards

00:29:28 ◼   ► 'cause they're just better than they were

00:29:30 ◼   ► when they were on a stage.

00:29:31 ◼   ► Because as well, like when they're on a stage,

00:29:33 ◼   ► you'd have to sometimes fill in amount of time or whatever,

00:29:35 ◼   ► but this is just like, "Oh, it's a seven minute one."

00:29:37 ◼   ► It's like, whatever.

00:29:38 ◼   ► That's all I've got to say on this matter, I don't know.

00:29:41 ◼   ► I think it's better for them to just do it like this.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I understand that people wanna be in person,

00:29:46 ◼   ► I get it, right?

00:29:47 ◼   ► Like it was a, you know,

00:29:48 ◼   ► like it just, you bring the most amount of friends together

00:29:51 ◼   ► or whatever, I'd see people I would never see,

00:29:53 ◼   ► but you're just thinking about it logically,

00:29:56 ◼   ► this is just a better way to do it.

00:29:57 ◼   ► Like if you're the company making a decision,

00:30:00 ◼   ► I think it's done.

00:30:02 ◼   ► - Would you bet money on Apple

00:30:05 ◼   ► never doing it again in person?

00:30:07 ◼   ► Like do you think that that's what they're actually

00:30:08 ◼   ► going to do or not? It depends how much but yes I would put a bet. Hmm okay hmm

00:30:13 ◼   ► you think they'll never do it again in person very interesting. Because I don't

00:30:16 ◼   ► think it's gonna happen this year right? Mm-hmm. That's three years. Mm-hmm. Right?

00:30:21 ◼   ► Or like three WWDCs. At that point... what's the point? You know? I like your

00:30:31 ◼   ► whispered pitch of that. Because there are lots of points right? There's loads

00:30:35 ◼   ► of reasons, but if you're making the decision, you've got to ask like, "Why is this better

00:30:42 ◼   ► to go back in person again?" Because I—for the vast majority of reasons that realistically matter,

00:30:50 ◼   ► there isn't a good one.

00:30:52 ◼   ► B: Yeah, I don't know if they're gonna do—like, I'm quite interested in this question of will they

00:30:56 ◼   ► do one in person or not. I don't have an opinion on what Apple will actually do. I just feel like,

00:31:01 ◼   ► man, I would never do it.

00:31:03 ◼   ► I think we are multiple years away from a large company feeling confident from an optics perspective even

00:31:11 ◼   ► saying we invite thousands of people from all around the world to come here.

00:31:17 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:18 ◼   ► Like that just feels like I believe stuff like that's going to happen again.

00:31:22 ◼   ► I've you know I'm confident in that but I just think after a certain amount of time like three years of things being a certain way

00:31:31 ◼   ► I just can't imagine it being like,

00:31:34 ◼   ► "Oh, hey, remember how it used to be?

00:31:36 ◼   ► We're just gonna do that again."

00:31:38 ◼   ► Like that seems, it seems unlikely to me.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Especially like a cautious company,

00:31:43 ◼   ► especially a company like Apple,

00:31:45 ◼   ► which is like, people will be like,

00:31:48 ◼   ► just so excited to be the person to write the story

00:31:52 ◼   ► of all the people that had a minor COVID outbreak.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Because you know what I mean?

00:31:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that's one of my main thoughts is like,

00:31:57 ◼   ► whenever you get a bunch of people together,

00:32:00 ◼   ► As a company, you're just running the risk

00:32:03 ◼   ► of random downside events of just like,

00:32:07 ◼   ► there's people in person, stuff can go wrong.

00:32:10 ◼   ► And now one of those things is like,

00:32:12 ◼   ► oh, you were a super spreader event.

00:32:15 ◼   ► And so that's why I just look at that of like, man,

00:32:18 ◼   ► you have a bunch of people in real life together,

00:32:21 ◼   ► you're just inviting random downside events.

00:32:23 ◼   ► - I don't even think it's just COVID, right?

00:32:25 ◼   ► I think there's gonna be a certain thing

00:32:28 ◼   ► that sticks around for a long time of like,

00:32:30 ◼   ► it was an influenza outbreak.

00:32:32 ◼   ► And it's just like, that wasn't a thing

00:32:33 ◼   ► we ever paid attention to before.

00:32:35 ◼   ► But I could imagine news articles written about this

00:32:39 ◼   ► and people caring about it

00:32:40 ◼   ► in a way we never would have cared about before.

00:32:44 ◼   ► Because there's gonna be all this like,

00:32:47 ◼   ► stuff that sticks around for a while, like contact tracing.

00:32:50 ◼   ► I think that we're just gonna have these things

00:32:53 ◼   ► that just, they hang around for a really long time.

00:32:58 ◼   ► even after we've gotten through all of this,

00:33:01 ◼   ► which I still think is like a significant amount

00:33:04 ◼   ► of time away, and then there's gonna be,

00:33:06 ◼   ► I think, multiple years at least afterwards

00:33:08 ◼   ► of like these hang-on things that we haven't gotten rid of.

00:33:13 ◼   ► And I just think that like, I don't think

00:33:17 ◼   ► that that kind of outlook on the world gives itself

00:33:22 ◼   ► to like, hey, I'm a tech company

00:33:25 ◼   ► and I'm gonna hold an event.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Like festivals will come back before all that stuff

00:33:31 ◼   ► because it's like, well, music festivals,

00:33:32 ◼   ► what are you gonna do?

00:33:33 ◼   ► They're music festivals.

00:33:34 ◼   ► This is the, well, the entire business of this company

00:33:37 ◼   ► is music festivals.

00:33:38 ◼   ► Who's gonna blame them, right?

00:33:39 ◼   ► But if you're like Microsoft, Google and Apple,

00:33:43 ◼   ► their entire business is not to develop a conference

00:33:45 ◼   ► that they have once a year.

00:33:47 ◼   ► - Right.

00:33:47 ◼   ► - And like they've proven that it's not necessary for them.

00:33:50 ◼   ► So, and then all of these other things

00:33:53 ◼   ► are gonna start dying off.

00:33:54 ◼   ► Like E3, the gaming conference, it's gone now, I think.

00:33:57 ◼   ► Like when we're recording, it's like,

00:33:59 ◼   ► they canceled the in-person event, which is June.

00:34:02 ◼   ► And then it seems like they've canceled their online event

00:34:04 ◼   ► and like, that's just gonna go away now.

00:34:06 ◼   ► And then there'll be other things that pop up,

00:34:08 ◼   ► which is like all of the gaming companies

00:34:10 ◼   ► having their own events, 'cause who needs E3?

00:34:12 ◼   ► It's just like, there will be these ebbs and flows.

00:34:15 ◼   ► And I just think that like Google, Microsoft and Apple,

00:34:20 ◼   ► they have like the sliding scale

00:34:21 ◼   ► of a requirement to do this thing.

00:34:23 ◼   ► And I think it goes in that exact opposite.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Apple's feels the least important to Microsoft,

00:34:27 ◼   ► who they do it biggest and boldest

00:34:30 ◼   ► because they also use it as like a sales event

00:34:33 ◼   ► for their services, right?

00:34:35 ◼   ► So I feel like their one, like build,

00:34:37 ◼   ► I reckon is most likely to come back

00:34:39 ◼   ► out of the three of them.

00:34:40 ◼   ► But I still don't,

00:34:41 ◼   ► I still think we're multiple years away from that

00:34:42 ◼   ► 'cause it's just too much risk.

00:34:44 ◼   ► There's your aside about tech conferences.

00:34:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just find it interesting

00:34:48 ◼   ► trying to make predictions, you know, in this way.

00:34:51 ◼   ► And that's when I've just thought about a bunch of like,

00:34:53 ◼   ► what will happen with this stuff, you know,

00:34:55 ◼   ► because I went to those Apple conferences

00:34:57 ◼   ► and I can just easily imagine

00:34:59 ◼   ► never going to one of those Apple conferences again

00:35:01 ◼   ► because they never happen.

00:35:03 ◼   ► - And like things will change, right?

00:35:05 ◼   ► Like we thought about like,

00:35:06 ◼   ► well, when we're comfortable to do so,

00:35:08 ◼   ► like we would do live shows again,

00:35:10 ◼   ► but they wouldn't be as part of that.

00:35:12 ◼   ► - Right. - You know?

00:35:13 ◼   ► Like maybe we do,

00:35:14 ◼   ► oh, we're gonna do a live show in San Francisco

00:35:16 ◼   ► on such and such date, which is the thing we did.

00:35:17 ◼   ► So like our fifth anniversary show,

00:35:20 ◼   ► I think it was the, maybe the biggest

00:35:21 ◼   ► or second biggest live show we'd ever done.

00:35:23 ◼   ► and it was just like on a random date in August.

00:35:26 ◼   ► But like you can do it.

00:35:27 ◼   ► And like, you know, we're not gonna put like 700 people

00:35:30 ◼   ► into a theater in San Jose on like a random time,

00:35:34 ◼   ► but you can do these other things.

00:35:35 ◼   ► We've done live shows before, like we do that.

00:35:37 ◼   ► It's like stuff like that I can imagine, right?

00:35:39 ◼   ► Rather than like, oh, well, the only reason

00:35:41 ◼   ► we're doing a live show

00:35:42 ◼   ► is because the Apple conference is in town.

00:35:44 ◼   ► It's just, I just, I don't know if I see that stuff

00:35:48 ◼   ► happening for a while.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Like, you know, if I'm proven wrong on this,

00:35:52 ◼   ► like I would feel happy in a way because it means that the situation has improved faster

00:35:57 ◼   ► than I imagined. But I just, I feel pretty confident in my outlook on this.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Okay, so what is your final prediction for overall flights for you for 2022? Up or down?

00:36:10 ◼   ► Up. Up. Okay.

00:36:12 ◼   ► Up. It needs to be up from 2021.

00:36:14 ◼   ► But like not to like 2019 levels, right? Okay. But it will be up. Because, you know, there

00:36:20 ◼   ► There will be some European, like maybe a couple of European trips in there.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Maybe one more American trip than 2021.

00:36:27 ◼   ► Okay.

00:36:28 ◼   ► What about you?

00:36:29 ◼   ► It's gonna be up.

00:36:31 ◼   ► And I'm extremely confident that it's going to be up.

00:36:35 ◼   ► Right.

00:36:36 ◼   ► Because I too have a trip booked for Hawaii.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Oh yeah!

00:36:43 ◼   ► Okay, I wondered if you were gonna mention that.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:48 ◼   ► I love the difference in the way we both mentioned this.

00:36:53 ◼   ► Like, "Go into Hawaii!"

00:36:54 ◼   ► Oh man, it's so good.

00:36:54 ◼   ► "I'm going to Hawaii."

00:36:58 ◼   ► You're just like this shrinking, as you're saying.

00:37:02 ◼   ► - It's very physically uncomfortable states

00:37:08 ◼   ► and there's jellyfish everywhere.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Yes, so that is on my calendar for next year.

00:37:16 ◼   ► And it does- it also just totally makes sense, just as last year, I was like,

00:37:20 ◼   ► "I am seeing my family, and that is going to happen."

00:37:25 ◼   ► Part of that was also just arranging for- my wife's family is in Hawaii, and it's like,

00:37:29 ◼   ► she has not seen them in forever, so we are also going to go see them, so.

00:37:33 ◼   ► - It's only fair. - Yeah.

00:37:35 ◼   ► We just- we were gonna do both trips at the same time as well, like,

00:37:38 ◼   ► that just didn't make sense for a variety of reasons, so.

00:37:40 ◼   ► We scheduled this out of like, "Okay, I'm gonna do my trip,

00:37:43 ◼   ► and then we're gonna do a trip to Hawaii," so.

00:37:46 ◼   ► And since I'll be stopping off and seeing my parents on the way as well, I feel like

00:37:50 ◼   ► going to Hawaii and back on its own basically gets me, I think it would actually have me

00:37:58 ◼   ► go past my previous year's flights, having a stop off in North Carolina.

00:38:02 ◼   ► So 100%.

00:38:03 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that would for sure, right?

00:38:05 ◼   ► Yeah, 100% I'm going to beat next year's flights, even if that ends up being the only

00:38:09 ◼   ► trip that I do.

00:38:10 ◼   ► Which I really hope that it is not the only trip that I do.

00:38:14 ◼   ► But so what I've got one thing alone that'll have the flights be higher than before, which

00:38:19 ◼   ► I think is good.

00:38:20 ◼   ► My 2018 numbers are probably too high for how much flying happens.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Like I don't think I need to do that much travel, but...

00:38:26 ◼   ► No, you know you don't.

00:38:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Right?

00:38:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:30 ◼   ► You know you don't.

00:38:31 ◼   ► But the last two years we're definitely under whatever is the optimal amount of traveling.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Somewhere in the middle, right?

00:38:35 ◼   ► I think we're both feeling that.

00:38:37 ◼   ► Somewhere in the middle is what we would prefer.

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00:41:08 ◼   ► Speaking of travel, I wanted to give a piece of follow up about travel focus modes. Because

00:41:15 ◼   ► if you remember some time ago, I think this may have also been in State of the Apps. Yeah,

00:41:20 ◼   ► it was because that was where you really wanted to talk about focus modes, was during State

00:41:24 ◼   ► the apps. I set up my travel home screen for my trip and I just wanted to say it worked great.

00:41:31 ◼   ► Oh great yeah. The idea of a travel focus mode that did not work out for me because I have

00:41:37 ◼   ► decided the focus mode system by and large is not what I want because of how tricky it is to maintain.

00:41:45 ◼   ► What do you mean? So with the focus mode system right you are starting with no one can contact

00:41:51 ◼   ► you no apps can get through and then you have to manually add in all the things you want to get

00:41:56 ◼   ► through. I would prefer it the other way around. I would prefer to remove things. The people part,

00:42:05 ◼   ► I would like to add people but to remove apps as being able to notify me because let's imagine

00:42:13 ◼   ► I have a travel focus mode that I set up and then in two years time from when I set that up

00:42:20 ◼   ► I have a new chat app like there's the slack replacement that everyone's using right?

00:42:25 ◼   ► and I go traveling but I want that app to still get me but I don't remember I need to add it into

00:42:33 ◼   ► the focus mode as allowing as like being allowed to notify me like just the idea of me having to

00:42:40 ◼   ► remember every app I might possibly want and adding it in doesn't work for my brain where

00:42:46 ◼   ► I would prefer to be like hey I don't want to hear from you while I'm doing this and then remove it

00:42:50 ◼   ► from the focus mode.

00:42:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I was just quickly looking and I'm actually surprised that there isn't a way that you

00:42:57 ◼   ► can just do that.

00:42:58 ◼   ► They don't let you select all apps.

00:43:01 ◼   ► There's no option where you can just say select all, add all of them and take them off.

00:43:04 ◼   ► And that new stuff will just come in as normal until you tell it no.

00:43:08 ◼   ► That's what I would want.

00:43:09 ◼   ► That just creation process just fits me better as someone who's moving around and that's

00:43:16 ◼   ► just what I would prefer.

00:43:17 ◼   ► I do just want to pause there.

00:43:19 ◼   ► I'm fairly certain, although now you're making me doubt myself,

00:43:22 ◼   ► that I think that when you do add a new app,

00:43:27 ◼   ► it will put, not an interruptive notification,

00:43:30 ◼   ► but it will put something on your lock screen

00:43:32 ◼   ► the first time you get a notification saying,

00:43:34 ◼   ► hey, do you want this to come through or not?

00:43:36 ◼   ► I think that's the time sensitive notifications thing,

00:43:38 ◼   ► which is a whole different fish.

00:43:41 ◼   ► So I would prefer that.

00:43:43 ◼   ► However, the focus mode that I have that I use the most,

00:43:47 ◼   ► or the two that I use, the fitness and recording ones,

00:43:49 ◼   ► they're great, I'm happy that they exist

00:43:51 ◼   ► and they're not gonna change 'cause it's like,

00:43:53 ◼   ► during these times I don't wanna know anything

00:43:55 ◼   ► except maybe there's one thing, so that's great.

00:43:57 ◼   ► But the idea of having a travel focus mode for me,

00:44:00 ◼   ► it's just too complex.

00:44:02 ◼   ► And I just use Do Not Disturb a lot more often.

00:44:05 ◼   ► But I ended up really loving travel home screen.

00:44:10 ◼   ► - Okay, what'd you put on it?

00:44:11 ◼   ► And I ended up with that travel home screen

00:44:13 ◼   ► being my home screen for the entire time I was away.

00:44:17 ◼   ► 'Cause originally for me, it was just gonna be,

00:44:19 ◼   ► hey, while you're moving around, right?

00:44:21 ◼   ► But I ended up basically having a combo

00:44:24 ◼   ► of travel and vacation home screen together.

00:44:27 ◼   ► And it ended up, I added a couple of things to it

00:44:29 ◼   ► from the last time.

00:44:30 ◼   ► I added a carrot and fantastic cow to that,

00:44:35 ◼   ► which made sense for me for when I was traveling.

00:44:37 ◼   ► But other than that, it remained the same.

00:44:39 ◼   ► It was like I had my Tripsy and Flighty as widgets,

00:44:44 ◼   ► and then I added Carrot and Fantastical on top of those.

00:44:46 ◼   ► I had my Notes stack of widgets

00:44:49 ◼   ► with the relevant trip that I'm on,

00:44:52 ◼   ► the Find My ones for my AirTags,

00:44:55 ◼   ► and then just Camera, Instagram, Maps,

00:44:57 ◼   ► the Wallet app, Messages, Slack,

00:45:00 ◼   ► the airline that I was gonna be using next,

00:45:02 ◼   ► and then a relevant app.

00:45:03 ◼   ► So for example, when we were going to Disney,

00:45:05 ◼   ► I had the Disneyland app on there.

00:45:08 ◼   ► - What about the tides?

00:45:09 ◼   ► were you tracking the tides?

00:45:10 ◼   ► - Wasn't tracking the tides this time,

00:45:12 ◼   ► but if I ever need to track the tides

00:45:14 ◼   ► and see whether, is it Eastbourne is receding or not,

00:45:17 ◼   ► then I know I could add that into a stack

00:45:19 ◼   ► for that very important info.

00:45:21 ◼   ► - Okay, right, yeah.

00:45:22 ◼   ► - So I really enjoyed the travel home screen.

00:45:24 ◼   ► So that was a good addition that I'm gonna keep using.

00:45:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is quite nice to have something like that

00:45:29 ◼   ► for when you're just in that different mode.

00:45:32 ◼   ► And it's interesting to hear that it's still useful to you

00:45:33 ◼   ► just as the home screen,

00:45:34 ◼   ► even if it's not the complete focus mode.

00:45:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I wasn't expecting to have it to the whole time.

00:45:39 ◼   ► Like for me, it was like, you're getting on a plane today,

00:45:41 ◼   ► here's your home screen.

00:45:43 ◼   ► But it ended up being just the right amount of stuff

00:45:46 ◼   ► and the right amount of information

00:45:48 ◼   ► for when I'm vacationing.

00:45:51 ◼   ► If you set up any more focus modes since we last spoke.

00:45:53 ◼   ► - It's one of those things I've been playing around

00:45:55 ◼   ► with it more, but I don't have anything really concrete

00:45:59 ◼   ► to report.

00:46:00 ◼   ► I find myself, as always with this stuff,

00:46:03 ◼   ► you immediately start wanting more features instantly.

00:46:06 ◼   ► And one of the things I was thinking about,

00:46:08 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, just like I can change all these apps on my home screen, I immediately also want the computers to be able to be different too."

00:46:16 ◼   ► I was thinking about that, like, "Oh, it would be nice if I had kind of changed the way my computer desktop works when the different home screens come up."

00:46:24 ◼   ► So, no, I haven't done anything that's really concrete to report with the focus modes, but I have...

00:46:29 ◼   ► I mean, we can talk about this a little bit later, but I've found myself, like...

00:46:35 ◼   ► Sort of like we discussed last time with with the themes. I feel like I'm still really in the middle of this

00:46:40 ◼   ► This is one of these things I can really feel my brain like

00:46:43 ◼   ► churning over a bunch in a way and I just haven't quite

00:46:48 ◼   ► Resolved where it is that I'm gonna be with this. I hope that they're gonna add more to it. WDC

00:46:54 ◼   ► Hmm, but I doubt it. I was I was like, oh, that's something I would not bet money on

00:46:59 ◼   ► That's almost that phrase

00:47:01 ◼   ► I kind of wish I would stop saying it because I feel like I'm always just setting myself up for disappointment

00:47:06 ◼   ► Like they will add something to this feature, but it probably be in a couple of years

00:47:10 ◼   ► It's not good no year-over-year iteration on this I doubt yeah

00:47:13 ◼   ► Apple's not great at improving a new software feature two years in a row

00:47:18 ◼   ► I feel like they have a really terrible track record on that. That's definitely a lesson learned from multiple

00:47:23 ◼   ► WWDCs the only thing I can think of where they've done this

00:47:28 ◼   ► consistently is shortcuts. Every year, shortcuts gets some new stuff. Now, you may end up with

00:47:35 ◼   ► some things still broken or not the way you want them for a long period of time, like

00:47:39 ◼   ► folders. We wanted folders for a long time until they added them. But there is always

00:47:45 ◼   ► new stuff being added to shortcuts every single year, and that isn't the same for everything

00:47:50 ◼   ► that they do.

00:47:51 ◼   ► So how's your theme going, Myke?

00:47:53 ◼   ► - Pretty good, you know, I will say like,

00:47:55 ◼   ► compared to previous years, I was really,

00:47:58 ◼   ► I really only started my theme

00:48:01 ◼   ► like the very end of December.

00:48:03 ◼   ► But I do, you know, in past years,

00:48:05 ◼   ► I've been starting it in kind of like November,

00:48:08 ◼   ► because that's when I've decided on it.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Once I've decided on my theme,

00:48:11 ◼   ► I have to set up my new journal and start immediately on it.

00:48:14 ◼   ► Like, I feel like once I know what my theme is,

00:48:18 ◼   ► I don't wanna keep doing the old theme,

00:48:20 ◼   ► out with the old and with the new.

00:48:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes total sense, I get that.

00:48:23 ◼   ► - So my theme, the year of structure,

00:48:25 ◼   ► what I've been doing for the last 30 days or whatever

00:48:30 ◼   ► is really paying attention to what my days feel like.

00:48:35 ◼   ► And I'm currently like really focused

00:48:39 ◼   ► on where my free time is and trying to work out

00:48:43 ◼   ► what's causing it or what's taking it away.

00:48:45 ◼   ► And what I've noticed so far in January

00:48:48 ◼   ► is that my diary feels way better right now.

00:48:51 ◼   ► like my calendar feels way less restrictive

00:48:54 ◼   ► than the tail end of 2021.

00:48:56 ◼   ► And like, I think that indicated that like,

00:48:58 ◼   ► I had a lot more going on then,

00:49:01 ◼   ► which kind of makes sense to me.

00:49:02 ◼   ► I kind of established really that

00:49:04 ◼   ► I have a few busy periods in the year

00:49:06 ◼   ► and the end of the year is one of them,

00:49:08 ◼   ► like especially like November, December.

00:49:10 ◼   ► This is mostly dictated by like Apple events

00:49:13 ◼   ► and the podcast of fun, things like that.

00:49:15 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm recognizing now

00:49:17 ◼   ► like some paying attention,

00:49:18 ◼   ► okay this time of the year less going on I'm also calmer and like still feeling

00:49:25 ◼   ► the good effects of time off so less tense so like that's been helping a lot

00:49:28 ◼   ► and what I'm trying to focus on at the moment is what I am enjoying about

00:49:34 ◼   ► having that space as well as why it's there and then when I'm recognizing that

00:49:40 ◼   ► I have some free time making the most of it in some way whether that's just doing

00:49:45 ◼   ► something for me, maybe it's playing some more video games, or maybe it's spending

00:49:50 ◼   ► the time to sit down and draw out some product ideas or sit down and think

00:49:55 ◼   ► about some show topic ideas that kind of stuff. So like I'm trying to make the

00:50:00 ◼   ► most of it so later on I can remember and stay focused on why I want to make

00:50:06 ◼   ► sure I have this time right so like I'm being conscious of it right now so

00:50:11 ◼   ► spending that time well so if I allow myself to start drifting in the opposite

00:50:16 ◼   ► direction I can feel bad about it. I was like no you like that remember so this

00:50:22 ◼   ► is what you could because again it's like one of the things that I am aware

00:50:25 ◼   ► of and I know I got to do is cut things right? I know I have to cut things

00:50:32 ◼   ► out the problem is I don't really want to do that like I don't want to cut

00:50:37 ◼   ► projects out because I love all the things that I do but I know that if I don't I'm

00:50:41 ◼   ► gonna end up back in the situation that I was in but worse so I know I need to

00:50:48 ◼   ► do that and so by proving to myself why this is good to have this extra time in

00:50:53 ◼   ► my days it will help me make the tougher decisions down the road I think about

00:50:58 ◼   ► what that's gonna be and I am coming to terms more with the fact that I'm going

00:51:04 ◼   ► to have to do this, like more than a month ago from now.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Is January, you have more free time in January just because your recording schedule is lighter?

00:51:13 ◼   ► Like is that what's actually causing you to have more free time like this?

00:51:16 ◼   ► I mean my recording schedule is mostly the same throughout the entire year with the occasional blip,

00:51:21 ◼   ► but it's all the other stuff that's around it.

00:51:24 ◼   ► Okay, okay.

00:51:25 ◼   ► You know, whether it's like big episodes or like additional planning,

00:51:29 ◼   ► and or like it's also a lot of it is for me,

00:51:32 ◼   ► it's not actually a lot of the time,

00:51:34 ◼   ► it's how I'm feeling and how that affects everything.

00:51:37 ◼   ► Like if I'm feeling more stressed, everything's worse,

00:51:39 ◼   ► you know, et cetera, et cetera.

00:51:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true.

00:51:42 ◼   ► - And what I'm also trying to do at the moment

00:51:44 ◼   ► is to be more intentional about the time that I have,

00:51:47 ◼   ► whether it's like doing nothing,

00:51:50 ◼   ► but making sure I'm aware that I'm making that choice

00:51:54 ◼   ► or doing something with that time.

00:51:56 ◼   ► So it is going back to that intentionality.

00:51:59 ◼   ► stuff that you've spoken about a bunch.

00:52:01 ◼   ► But it's like, it's totally cool

00:52:02 ◼   ► if I'm just gonna like rebuild a keyboard.

00:52:06 ◼   ► But just be aware of the fact that this time

00:52:08 ◼   ► is like a gift for myself,

00:52:10 ◼   ► rather than just like spinning around on my chair

00:52:14 ◼   ► in the studio and being like, what shall I do?

00:52:16 ◼   ► You know?

00:52:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:52:18 ◼   ► So I'm being a little bit more careful with my calendar

00:52:23 ◼   ► and trying to structure things more correctly.

00:52:25 ◼   ► You know, like if I have two things

00:52:28 ◼   ► that are gonna take up a bunch of time,

00:52:29 ◼   ► try and put those on the same day

00:52:31 ◼   ► rather than different days,

00:52:33 ◼   ► 'cause then lose one day, not two days.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Like I had a family thing,

00:52:37 ◼   ► and I also wanted to have lunch with someone,

00:52:39 ◼   ► and I decided to put those on the same day,

00:52:42 ◼   ► 'cause they wouldn't have over that anyway,

00:52:43 ◼   ► but that means, well, that's one day lost,

00:52:45 ◼   ► not like over half of two days lost.

00:52:48 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:52:49 ◼   ► - And then something happened recently

00:52:51 ◼   ► which was really like reinforced everything.

00:52:54 ◼   ► It had a bit of a work drama,

00:52:56 ◼   ► just like a whole thing.

00:52:58 ◼   ► Some paperwork got messed up and we had to fix it,

00:53:00 ◼   ► but it was like a load of ramifications from it.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And it took up an entire day of my time.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Now it just so happened that that day

00:53:10 ◼   ► had nothing on the schedule.

00:53:11 ◼   ► So I was able to fix it in one day with a clear head.

00:53:16 ◼   ► And if I would have been busy,

00:53:19 ◼   ► especially unnecessarily busy on that day,

00:53:22 ◼   ► it wouldn't have been taken care of so easily

00:53:24 ◼   ► because it was one of those things

00:53:26 ◼   ► where it's like issue has been highlighted,

00:53:28 ◼   ► I can do this thing, pass it over,

00:53:30 ◼   ► but then I need to be around

00:53:32 ◼   ► to talk through more of it later on.

00:53:34 ◼   ► And I don't know when that's gonna be in the day.

00:53:37 ◼   ► And like, if I wouldn't have been like empty that day,

00:53:40 ◼   ► it would have been way more stressful, more of a nightmare.

00:53:43 ◼   ► And so like, it was just another thing that again,

00:53:45 ◼   ► if I'm thinking about it, it's like, all right,

00:53:47 ◼   ► why did this go well for me?

00:53:49 ◼   ► Well, because I had the time and space to handle it.

00:53:53 ◼   ► So this is like, at the moment,

00:53:56 ◼   ► I'm really in that like, this is what I was talking about,

00:53:58 ◼   ► the exploratory phase of what this theme is going to mean.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Like the difference in my 2022 theme to my other themes

00:54:06 ◼   ► is like, I usually go in and I'm like, right,

00:54:09 ◼   ► I know what I wanna do and now I'm gonna go do it.

00:54:12 ◼   ► Like, or like day one, I'm doing it.

00:54:15 ◼   ► And, but it isn't like that for me this time.

00:54:17 ◼   ► It's like day one, I'm starting to work it out.

00:54:20 ◼   ► What does this mean?

00:54:21 ◼   ► What is this going to mean?

00:54:23 ◼   ► And that's the bigger difference for me this time.

00:54:25 ◼   ► but I feel like I'm in that mode and I'm coming to 2022

00:54:29 ◼   ► with the right frame of mind.

00:54:32 ◼   ► And I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far.

00:54:34 ◼   ► So there was one thing I mentioned earlier,

00:54:37 ◼   ► like I was thinking about this,

00:54:38 ◼   ► if there are maybe ways that I can,

00:54:41 ◼   ► something I hadn't thought about before,

00:54:42 ◼   ► but could be cool like to use my technology

00:54:44 ◼   ► and my computer to help add more structure and systems.

00:54:47 ◼   ► Like I was thinking like maybe more automation stuff.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Like I'm not sure, but like,

00:54:51 ◼   ► it's just like an idea I had in my head where it's like,

00:54:54 ◼   ► oh, like, is there a way that I can use my apps

00:54:58 ◼   ► and computer more efficiently

00:55:01 ◼   ► to help me build this structure?

00:55:03 ◼   ► Like, I have a calendar app,

00:55:06 ◼   ► but can the calendar app help me more?

00:55:09 ◼   ► Like, you know what I'm saying?

00:55:10 ◼   ► Like, I feel like computers can do really smart things.

00:55:14 ◼   ► What can I do?

00:55:15 ◼   ► How can I leverage all of the stuff that I use

00:55:18 ◼   ► to help me reinforce and build that structure?

00:55:21 ◼   ► Like, this is just something which I had this thought today,

00:55:24 ◼   ► I wrote it down in a document and I'm like,

00:55:25 ◼   ► oh, I want to noodle on that one a little bit.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Like what could that mean?

00:55:29 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:55:30 ◼   ► - Right, so you don't have any specifics.

00:55:31 ◼   ► - No, not at all.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Not at all, but it was just something where I thought,

00:55:35 ◼   ► hang on a minute, like maybe there's something in this.

00:55:38 ◼   ► 'Cause like, you know, like we have so many friends

00:55:41 ◼   ► like David Sparks, it's like,

00:55:43 ◼   ► I feel like David's computer just like can run

00:55:45 ◼   ► his entire life for him.

00:55:47 ◼   ► Like just like presses one button on his stream deck

00:55:49 ◼   ► and he's got like an entire day planned out.

00:55:51 ◼   ► And like, I figure like just maybe if I took a 10th of what David and Rosemary do in Automators,

00:55:56 ◼   ► like maybe I could make this a little bit easier for me.

00:55:59 ◼   ► So like, that's just something I'm considering a little bit more.

00:56:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:03 ◼   ► I mean, I think, I think that's always something that is more of the dream than the promise.

00:56:10 ◼   ► I'm really resistant to jankiness.

00:56:12 ◼   ► Right.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Like this, this is, this is the issue of, I feel like critical skills for becoming good at automating things are also

00:56:21 ◼   ► identifying what actually is automatable.

00:56:25 ◼   ► In most normal circumstances for normal jobs,

00:56:30 ◼   ► the number of things that are actually automatable

00:56:33 ◼   ► is unfortunately smaller than you initially think it is,

00:56:37 ◼   ► because you do run into this issue of

00:56:40 ◼   ► computers need things exactly the same every time.

00:56:45 ◼   ► And you just don't realize how many tasks

00:56:47 ◼   ► aren't literally exactly the same every time.

00:56:51 ◼   ► And if you have to start building in like a decision tree

00:56:53 ◼   ► into your automation, you very quickly run into the like,

00:56:57 ◼   ► this is not actually helping.

00:56:58 ◼   ► Like now I'm just spending time building

00:57:00 ◼   ► some weird janky system that's going to fall apart

00:57:03 ◼   ► the moment that I go through with it.

00:57:05 ◼   ► I'm not meaning to dissuade you there,

00:57:06 ◼   ► but it is one of these things of--

00:57:08 ◼   ► - I know what I'm willing to accept of this stuff.

00:57:10 ◼   ► And like, there are a lot of things

00:57:12 ◼   ► that are like automatable.

00:57:14 ◼   ► Like, you know, a lot of people use tools

00:57:15 ◼   ► like Keyboard Maestro, which is a great Mac app.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I think you use it for some stuff.

00:57:20 ◼   ► And some of the stuff that Keyboard Maestro can do

00:57:22 ◼   ► is like, oh, we could place your windows for you

00:57:24 ◼   ► and move them around.

00:57:25 ◼   ► But what I don't like about it

00:57:26 ◼   ► is you see the computer doing it, and I do not like that.

00:57:29 ◼   ► - Why don't you like that?

00:57:30 ◼   ► Because that's so satisfying.

00:57:31 ◼   ► - No, I hate it.

00:57:33 ◼   ► I hate like pressing a button

00:57:35 ◼   ► and then like everything's like moving piece by piece

00:57:37 ◼   ► in front of you.

00:57:38 ◼   ► It just feels like to me,

00:57:39 ◼   ► if I accidentally bumped the mouse,

00:57:41 ◼   ► I've deleted my entire hard drive.

00:57:44 ◼   ► this is how these things make me feel.

00:57:46 ◼   ► So like I tend not to tool around with them too much.

00:57:50 ◼   ► So this is kind of like, I'm pretty hesitant to things that,

00:57:53 ◼   ► it's why I like shortcuts, honestly,

00:57:56 ◼   ► because it's doing things in like an approved way

00:58:01 ◼   ► and not doing things in a weird way.

00:58:06 ◼   ► It's like why I've really gravitated towards shortcuts.

00:58:08 ◼   ► And like, don't get me wrong, it has its own jankiness,

00:58:12 ◼   ► but it's like agreed upon jankiness.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Where something that keyboard maestro,

00:58:16 ◼   ► like at the moment where an app is pretending to be my mouse,

00:58:21 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't know, man, that doesn't feel right.

00:58:23 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:58:25 ◼   ► I'm not sure if you're supposed to be allowed to do this.

00:58:28 ◼   ► And so like that, I kind of feel like I can draw a line

00:58:31 ◼   ► with it sometimes, but I know that these tools

00:58:34 ◼   ► can also just be used to run scripts and stuff

00:58:36 ◼   ► and I'm cool with that.

00:58:37 ◼   ► And so I don't know, I'm trying around, I'm playing around,

00:58:41 ◼   ► Everyone's using Stream Decks these days,

00:58:43 ◼   ► and I broke out my old Stream Deck

00:58:44 ◼   ► and I put some shortcuts on it and stuff.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And I don't know, I'm gonna,

00:58:49 ◼   ► something that I've just got in my mind,

00:58:50 ◼   ► but I have no idea what that means yet.

00:58:52 ◼   ► - Right, so you don't like watching the computer

00:58:54 ◼   ► do stuff for you.

00:58:54 ◼   ► So presumably you don't suffer from progress bar disease

00:58:58 ◼   ► where you just can watch a progress bar complete.

00:59:01 ◼   ► And it's like, wow, that was a satisfying experience.

00:59:04 ◼   ► - Wait, is this the thing that you enjoy or?

00:59:06 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:59:08 ◼   ► - I literally have to tell myself sometimes,

00:59:10 ◼   ► "Hey, you can't just watch this progress bar complete."

00:59:13 ◼   ► I will totally zone out and just watch a very slow progress bar complete,

00:59:17 ◼   ► and it's like, "Wow, that was great."

00:59:18 ◼   ► - Jeez.

00:59:19 ◼   ► - No, no, don't do that, dude.

00:59:21 ◼   ► That's a terrible use of your time.

00:59:22 ◼   ► - I mean, if you want to know where your taste in video games comes from,

00:59:25 ◼   ► I think I found it.

00:59:26 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:59:27 ◼   ► My God.

00:59:28 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:59:30 ◼   ► I will do literally anything else than watch the progress bar.

00:59:33 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:59:35 ◼   ► - I want to do literally anything else,

00:59:36 ◼   ► but I constantly have to remind myself, like,

00:59:39 ◼   ► don't do that.

00:59:40 ◼   ► It's like when you load a bunch of footage into Final Cut,

00:59:43 ◼   ► it creates like a hundred progress bars,

00:59:45 ◼   ► each of which are the program transcoding the clips

00:59:48 ◼   ► that you've just loaded in.

00:59:49 ◼   ► I have to make sure I walk away from the computer

00:59:51 ◼   ► 'cause I'll just watch every single one.

00:59:52 ◼   ► - It's like Christmas for you.

00:59:53 ◼   ► - It's like, yeah, it's like that's the worst use

00:59:55 ◼   ► of your time ever.

00:59:56 ◼   ► You know, this is literally what the computer

00:59:58 ◼   ► is supposed to do.

00:59:59 ◼   ► It does this and you don't have to sit here.

01:00:02 ◼   ► So that's why it's just funny to me.

01:00:03 ◼   ► It's like, oh, watching Keyboard Maestro move stuff around

01:00:05 ◼   ► is the most satisfying, but Myke hates it.

01:00:08 ◼   ► It's funny because with the progress bar thing, I would understand that more if you couldn't

01:00:13 ◼   ► do anything else on your computer at that moment.

01:00:16 ◼   ► You could just, any other app, anything else, you could just select any of them and do anything

01:00:22 ◼   ► else.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Yeah, but it's hard to look away.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Turns out.

01:00:25 ◼   ► It's like, oh wow, 13%.

01:00:28 ◼   ► 14%.

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01:02:19 ◼   ► How's your year theme going so far?

01:02:21 ◼   ► I'm worried about your theme, Gray.

01:02:23 ◼   ► I'm not gonna lie, I've been thinking about it.

01:02:24 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

01:02:25 ◼   ► Why are you worried?

01:02:26 ◼   ► It's okay, it's interesting.

01:02:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm worried it's too big.

01:02:29 ◼   ► I totally get that.

01:02:30 ◼   ► I totally get that.

01:02:31 ◼   ► Because it's like, I'm thinking about mine, right?

01:02:33 ◼   ► And I'm like, 20 days into the year, and I've just spoke for 15 minutes about all the stuff.

01:02:38 ◼   ► And then I'm like, how is your new decade Dawn theme going?

01:02:43 ◼   ► It's like, if we're looking at the decade, it's like a minuscule percentage, if it's

01:02:48 ◼   ► completed so far.

01:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah, so I'm actually looking at it in a little bit of a different way of that.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Like I'm not trying to, the framing isn't like, oh, what percentage are we through the

01:03:00 ◼   ► decade?

01:03:01 ◼   ► one of those, like that horrible Twitter account of percent of year complete and it's like

01:03:05 ◼   ► goddamn I hate you.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Matt>> We went through this before. We ended up finding the app.

01:03:08 ◼   ► James> Yeah, I mean, I meant to install it on my computer and then after the show I was

01:03:13 ◼   ► like you know what don't do that.

01:03:15 ◼   ► Matt> No, we just realized, I wish I would have known this at the time, you would have

01:03:18 ◼   ► just stared at that app for the rest of your life.

01:03:21 ◼   ► James> Yeah, that's why I haven't installed that.

01:03:23 ◼   ► Matt> What happened to Gray? Oh, well he found this. He found this application that could

01:03:29 ◼   ► tell him 70 years into the future and he just couldn't break his attention from it.

01:03:34 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm not thinking of like a progress bar filling in the decade. Like I'm not, I'm

01:03:38 ◼   ► really not thinking about it in that way. The reason I pause there is just, again, like last

01:03:43 ◼   ► time I feel like I'm in the middle of something and I actually feel like we're in fairly similar

01:03:49 ◼   ► places and part of this is just, it's interesting, like I still feel like I'm coming out of the,

01:03:57 ◼   ► like, feeling quite tapped out phase that I discussed last time. Like, I can feel that that's

01:04:02 ◼   ► not quite over as I've tried to reboot some video projects, but it's been one of those times where

01:04:09 ◼   ► it's very hard to point at something specific and actionable, but I really feel like my brain has

01:04:19 ◼   ► been churning over quite intensely thoughts about my YouTube channel and the way that I

01:04:28 ◼   ► make videos all month. Like I feel like some part of my brain is really busy on this and

01:04:37 ◼   ► the reason why I'm not concerned about the theme being like new decades dawn is I feel like it

01:04:44 ◼   ► actually gives me a bunch of space to feel, "Hey, think about what this means for a while."

01:04:53 ◼   ► And I have a bunch of thoughts about the way I want to do videos in the future that are forming

01:05:00 ◼   ► out of this, you know, and this is one of those cases where it's like I don't really want to get

01:05:03 ◼   ► into the specifics of what I'm thinking because I think that's that is a kind of like jinx yourself

01:05:08 ◼   ► or it's just I don't like talking about the way some of that stuff works.

01:05:12 ◼   ► We'll get to it, right? Like if you do any of these things, we'll get to it later, right?

01:05:18 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, like I can have thoughts about videos in the future which sort of express how I'm

01:05:22 ◼   ► thinking about things. But yeah, so it's been, like it's just been this really weird interesting

01:05:27 ◼   ► time where I feel like, oh, my last actual video was the "Someone Dead Ruined My Life" video,

01:05:33 ◼   ► and I've just been churning over like, okay, what does the next 10 years mean for me?

01:05:41 ◼   ► And I'm actually quite fine with spending a bunch of time on this.

01:05:46 ◼   ► And like, it does feel that the long-term horizon for this theme...

01:05:52 ◼   ► It feels like it's created space for me to take some time and think about this.

01:05:58 ◼   ► And I mentioned it kind of offhandedly last time about YouTube being this funny career where,

01:06:05 ◼   ► unlike the rest of the entertainment industry, there aren't season breaks as there are between TV shows,

01:06:12 ◼   ► or the sort of downtime between projects that's normally built into things, like YouTube is,

01:06:17 ◼   ► "Hey, you can upload at any moment, so you should always be uploading."

01:06:22 ◼   ► And just thinking about this concept of trying to have something like what the traditional entertainment industry has done forever,

01:06:30 ◼   ► I think the timing has just worked out great that, hey, you know what's the worst year

01:06:34 ◼   ► of the month to upload anything to YouTube by a huge margin?

01:06:40 ◼   ► It's January.

01:06:41 ◼   ► So I'm also kind of happy just continuing to mull over stuff and not feeling a huge

01:06:48 ◼   ► amount of pressure right now because if there's gonna be any time that makes sense as a natural

01:06:53 ◼   ► season break. It is January because it is just terrible on YouTube during this time,

01:07:00 ◼   ► and then it slowly gets better as the year goes on.

01:07:04 ◼   ► My rough plan is that I need to set up for myself a great occasion to get back into working

01:07:13 ◼   ► on the next video, but I haven't quite settled on where and when that's going to be.

01:07:19 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't know, it's just a funny place.

01:07:21 ◼   ► I do not have lots of specifics to talk about while I still feel like I've been thinking

01:07:25 ◼   ► about it quite a lot.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And I'm actually totally happy with that state.

01:07:29 ◼   ► I'm pleased to hear it.

01:07:31 ◼   ► I think, you know, for me, the way I was concerned about your theme is, you know, I've come to

01:07:37 ◼   ► the conclusion that I've very poorly named my 2021 theme and made it this, like, albatross,

01:07:46 ◼   ► honestly, like, with its size.

01:07:48 ◼   ► as we went through in the last episode.

01:07:50 ◼   ► And since I felt so much better about it

01:07:52 ◼   ► after we spoke about it,

01:07:54 ◼   ► because I realized I had actually done what I wanted to do.

01:07:57 ◼   ► But when I kept thinking about "Reinvention",

01:08:00 ◼   ► it was just too much, you know, like I just couldn't.

01:08:03 ◼   ► "Reinvention" was just a silly name.

01:08:06 ◼   ► And so, and I feel like really my mood towards my theme

01:08:10 ◼   ► was down on the fact that I felt like I was,

01:08:13 ◼   ► could never achieve this thing.

01:08:15 ◼   ► And obviously, if you're only gonna do this for a year

01:08:18 ◼   ► or maybe two years to have this theme,

01:08:20 ◼   ► you know, as you sometimes would do,

01:08:22 ◼   ► is still not a decade.

01:08:23 ◼   ► So that was just like the thing

01:08:26 ◼   ► that I was just concerned about.

01:08:28 ◼   ► But I get you are coming to it from the place

01:08:31 ◼   ► that I ended up realizing I should have,

01:08:34 ◼   ► where it's like, no, this isn't about

01:08:36 ◼   ► in this 12 month period I would have been reinvented,

01:08:40 ◼   ► it's giving myself the foundation to do that.

01:08:43 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Moving on.

01:08:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean- - You know this now,

01:08:47 ◼   ► which is great, but I just wanted to talk about that.

01:08:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think it is funny that last time

01:08:54 ◼   ► we just commented on how like, oh,

01:08:56 ◼   ► foundation is such a great name for a theme,

01:08:59 ◼   ► but I think we are both doing

01:09:00 ◼   ► what are actually quite foundational themes this year.

01:09:04 ◼   ► Like you're laying a bunch of foundations for next year,

01:09:07 ◼   ► and I feel like I'm basically doing the same thing.

01:09:10 ◼   ► - I think we have weirdly landed in a very similar space,

01:09:14 ◼   ► which is we have both been doing this stuff that we do for 10 years.

01:09:18 ◼   ► I've only been professional for half of that time,

01:09:22 ◼   ► but I've been doing it for that amount of time.

01:09:24 ◼   ► And we're both thinking about like, we've, we've hit like for,

01:09:28 ◼   ► for different reasons, almost a point where it's like, okay,

01:09:33 ◼   ► I can do this thing or I know how to do this thing,

01:09:36 ◼   ► but I want to do it a bit differently or I want to focus on something else as

01:09:39 ◼   ► well.

01:09:41 ◼   ► what does it take to do that and move forward from here?

01:09:45 ◼   ► And so I think that it's interesting to me

01:09:48 ◼   ► that we're commenters from very different places,

01:09:50 ◼   ► but I think that there is an undercurrent

01:09:52 ◼   ► which is pretty similar right now.

01:09:54 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, totally.

01:09:55 ◼   ► - I mean, probably helped by the fact

01:09:56 ◼   ► that we started a company together.

01:09:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:09:59 ◼   ► That might do it.

01:10:00 ◼   ► - I do think that also contributes to it

01:10:02 ◼   ► because having a new company that's a project together

01:10:06 ◼   ► also sharpens your focus about the other things

01:10:10 ◼   ► you're doing just simply by being a comparison. So yeah, I think that is partly why we might be in

01:10:14 ◼   ► similar places. And yeah, for me, like I said, it's really interesting just trying to think a

01:10:20 ◼   ► lot about, like I said last time, how YouTube has changed and what it is that I want to continue to

01:10:29 ◼   ► do, like, accepting the reality of those changes and not being a giant baby about like, "Oh, I

01:10:36 ◼   ► don't like the things that are different." And yeah, I don't know, it's been interesting. I've

01:10:39 ◼   ► I've taken time this month to talk to a bunch of people who are like colleagues in this

01:10:45 ◼   ► space and yeah so it's it has been time very well used like I've had a bunch of interesting

01:10:52 ◼   ► conversations and getting like different people's takes on like what do you feel like the business

01:10:57 ◼   ► is like now and what are you doing all of this is kind of informing a bunch of my thoughts

01:11:03 ◼   ► about what will happen in the future.

01:11:05 ◼   ► I noticed some people saying about that, that they were like,

01:11:08 ◼   ► worried that you were their only safe space on YouTube.

01:11:11 ◼   ► - What?

01:11:12 ◼   ► - Like, I was seeing people talk about this of like,

01:11:15 ◼   ► "Oh, I, you know, what I loved about Grey is that he didn't pay attention to these things."

01:11:20 ◼   ► - Oh, that's interesting. I actually didn't see any comments like that.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Yeah, so I think that's a totally fair question.

01:11:27 ◼   ► - And it's like there was a concern that like,

01:11:29 ◼   ► you were now gonna go to like the quote-unquote "dark side" of YouTube, right? And like,

01:11:35 ◼   ► focus on the algorithm making sure you clickbait and like, you know, all the things that

01:11:40 ◼   ► would worry you. Where like previously before what I think fans of your content have known is like

01:11:47 ◼   ► Gray is gonna make what gray wants to make and as a fan of gray and his opinion and his outlook

01:11:53 ◼   ► I am going to just like that rather than their feeling like

01:11:58 ◼   ► Gray is going to make what the algorithm is

01:12:01 ◼   ► encouraging him to do

01:12:04 ◼   ► Yeah, oh, I totally get that as a concern and I think this this is like what have I been

01:12:10 ◼   ► thinking about and

01:12:13 ◼   ► So one of one of the areas where I think it makes

01:12:16 ◼   ► sense to make concessions is like with the titles and

01:12:22 ◼   ► With the thumbnails as well, like that's one area where I think okay. I don't love thinking about titles and thumbnails but

01:12:30 ◼   ► Trying to do more of that also

01:12:34 ◼   ► bugging my team for every title suggestion under the sun and having my poor animator come up with like 10 different thumbnails to try.

01:12:44 ◼   ► Can I just say on that, you asked me like probably the worst question anyone's ever asked me in my life recently.

01:12:49 ◼   ► Oh did I? What would I ask you?

01:12:51 ◼   ► Which was that. So you put together a video about the theme system journal.

01:12:56 ◼   ► Uh huh.

01:12:57 ◼   ► Which I think we, I want to talk about some of the process of that in MoreText today. We haven't got time to talk about today.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Okay.

01:13:03 ◼   ► if you want all of this and more text, that's where you go.

01:13:06 ◼   ► But you said to me at one point,

01:13:07 ◼   ► "Give me as many title suggestions as you have."

01:13:10 ◼   ► And I was like, "I don't know how to do this!"

01:13:13 ◼   ► And I was like trying to say stuff,

01:13:15 ◼   ► and they were all (beep)

01:13:16 ◼   ► every single one of them.

01:13:17 ◼   ► And I knew it, but I felt like I had to contribute

01:13:20 ◼   ► 'cause we were like really trying to get this video posted.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Well, let me just try and say something."

01:13:26 ◼   ► And they were so bad, but it was like,

01:13:29 ◼   ► "I feel like I gotta say something."

01:13:32 ◼   ► Oh, it was terrible.

01:13:33 ◼   ► never ask me that question again.

01:13:35 ◼   ► - Oh right, yeah.

01:13:35 ◼   ► But you also see like how surprisingly hard it is.

01:13:38 ◼   ► - Oh, it's so hard.

01:13:39 ◼   ► I mean, look, that's why we title the episodes

01:13:43 ◼   ► of our shows the way that we do,

01:13:44 ◼   ► which is by and large either from a very strict format

01:13:48 ◼   ► of like state of the act, like you know,

01:13:50 ◼   ► and in just a year, or it's something funny,

01:13:53 ◼   ► one of us said in the episode.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Because trying to descriptively name something,

01:13:59 ◼   ► I can't do it.

01:14:00 ◼   ► I can never come up with things that are interesting or in all like

01:14:04 ◼   ► enlightening in any real way.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And one of the big problems with trying to come up with titles is, and I think

01:14:12 ◼   ► this is why you also experienced like, Oh my God, this is so hard, is you naturally

01:14:16 ◼   ► have something that comes to your mind and it just pushes everything else out.

01:14:22 ◼   ► Like it's, it becomes very hard to not think of things that are just variations

01:14:28 ◼   ► on the concept that you already have in your head.

01:14:31 ◼   ► And like, that's not actually what you need.

01:14:32 ◼   ► You need things that are legit different,

01:14:34 ◼   ► like totally different takes on what the title is.

01:14:38 ◼   ► With a couple of colleagues,

01:14:39 ◼   ► someone was trying to name something important

01:14:41 ◼   ► and I was helping a couple of people out

01:14:43 ◼   ► in like a big brainstorm session.

01:14:45 ◼   ► And it's like brutal, right?

01:14:47 ◼   ► And this was a case of, oh, we're a group of professionals

01:14:52 ◼   ► trying to title something and the just pure minutes

01:14:56 ◼   ► silence on a joint FaceTime call as we're all looking to the ceiling trying to like

01:15:00 ◼   ► throw out different ideas is very high.

01:15:04 ◼   ► There are no bad suggestions except all of the bad ones that you're all going to give

01:15:09 ◼   ► and judge each other about.

01:15:10 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, totally.

01:15:11 ◼   ► Mhm.

01:15:12 ◼   ► It's like, wait a second, how many subscribers does this guy have?

01:15:16 ◼   ► Is this the best he can do?

01:15:18 ◼   ► Yeah, and it's amazing like how tough it is.

01:15:21 ◼   ► But so like to feed into that this is this is one of these things where accepting the

01:15:26 ◼   ► realities of the way YouTube works, it does make sense to spend more time on this really

01:15:32 ◼   ► unpleasant task of trying to just come up with a larger list of titles. And I think

01:15:39 ◼   ► one of the thoughts I have is like, okay, trying to come up with better titles is good.

01:15:44 ◼   ► But I still feel like the thing that I just can't live with is titles that spoil the most

01:15:51 ◼   ► interesting thing about the video or where it's like I feel that that title makes the

01:15:55 ◼   ► video worse in some way.

01:15:58 ◼   ► And for me that like the canonical example of this is metric paper where my title like

01:16:03 ◼   ► metric paper and everything in the universe 100% performs better as a title but I did

01:16:11 ◼   ► decide to change it back to metric paper because I think the experience of watching that video

01:16:18 ◼   ► without knowing that something else is coming is a way better experience.

01:16:25 ◼   ► And so this is where it's like, I think people overestimate that when you like consider something,

01:16:30 ◼   ► they think it's a larger factor than it necessarily is.

01:16:34 ◼   ► And so this this is one of those cases where it's like, I changed the title, this title

01:16:38 ◼   ► performs better YouTube likes it better.

01:16:41 ◼   ► But I just think it makes the video worse.

01:16:44 ◼   ► And even though from a pure spreadsheet perspective, the better performing title that spoils that

01:16:50 ◼   ► something is coming will get this video more views, I do think there's some intangible

01:16:56 ◼   ► quality of the kind of people who like my stuff will experience this video better with

01:17:04 ◼   ► the less descriptive title.

01:17:06 ◼   ► So it's not like I'm just 100% running an A/B test on all of the titles and just going

01:17:12 ◼   ► with whatever is the best title that YouTube likes.

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01:19:11 ◼   ► But thinking about content that's produced, I think one of the things I've been thinking

01:19:16 ◼   ► about a lot in the modern entertainment industry is I think that there's something like, in

01:19:26 ◼   ► economics there is sometimes this concept of where like the middle gets cut out of products.

01:19:34 ◼   ► And I do think this is something that you see in the modern world increasing in a lot

01:19:38 ◼   ► of product areas where whatever it is, it's like a physical object like a chair.

01:19:44 ◼   ► It's very easy to buy a super cheap chair and you can find very expensive, very nice

01:19:52 ◼   ► chairs, but over time chairs that are in the middle are increasingly difficult to find.

01:19:58 ◼   ► And that happens because you just sort of get economically pushed towards it makes sense

01:20:04 ◼   ► to make chairs at scale, cheaply, and it makes sense to make chairs for people who really

01:20:11 ◼   ► care about chairs and are willing to spend a lot, but there's actually, as your options

01:20:18 ◼   ► increase, weirdly there are fewer people who want chairs that are somewhere in the middle.

01:20:23 ◼   ► And I think there's something like that that's kind of happening in the entertainment industry

01:20:27 ◼   ► and the online video world as well, where I don't mean this in terms of length, but

01:20:33 ◼   ► mean this in terms of content of like stuff that's in the middle it misses the mark and that's kind

01:20:41 ◼   ► of something that's been on my mind like one of the thoughts I've had is the like that last video

01:20:48 ◼   ► I did about the Tesla road trip I feel like that actually ended up being a video that is a good

01:20:54 ◼   ► example of a video that's in the middle was that video a vlog about my trip no it wasn't a vlog

01:21:03 ◼   ► about my trip. Was that video a video about the details of the, like, current state of the Tesla

01:21:11 ◼   ► autopilot system? No, it wasn't, it wasn't really that either. And so, unlike when I look at a video

01:21:17 ◼   ► like my sharks video, which I really like, which is like, "Boy, hey, you want to know about these

01:21:22 ◼   ► shark statues?" This is like the video about these shark statues. Everything you could ever want to

01:21:28 ◼   ► - Right, everything you could ever want to know.

01:21:30 ◼   ► - Right here.

01:21:31 ◼   ► - Right, and so like that last video of mine,

01:21:35 ◼   ► for various reasons, like I did want to get it out

01:21:37 ◼   ► as fast as I could, I made a bunch of decisions about it.

01:21:39 ◼   ► I was very aware of like, I've got a couple of options

01:21:43 ◼   ► of the way to go with this one.

01:21:44 ◼   ► And that one to me, like it just misses the mark,

01:21:48 ◼   ► and it misses the mark because it's this middle product.

01:21:53 ◼   ► It's sort of a vlog, but not really.

01:21:57 ◼   ► and it's sort of some information about the Tesla autopilot system, but not really.

01:22:04 ◼   ► And I think it would have been a better video if it was more of one or the other.

01:22:10 ◼   ► And I was aware of that when I was making it, but I did make a decision of like,

01:22:14 ◼   ► I want to get this out relatively fast because this is kind of time sensitive,

01:22:18 ◼   ► because it is related to the current state of what the technology was.

01:22:21 ◼   ► So this again is like one of those, I made the decision I made at the time with the information

01:22:26 ◼   ► I did and that was fine, even though now I think like, I would do that differently if

01:22:31 ◼   ► I was going to do that again. But one of the qualities that I just think about is young

01:22:37 ◼   ► me wouldn't have loved that video. And that's like, oh, well don't make videos like that.

01:22:44 ◼   ► Right? I've mentioned a number of times like going forward thinking about what am I going

01:22:49 ◼   ► to do for the channel? Like, I want to try to do more of the Grey Goes Outside kind of

01:22:53 ◼   ► And I still have not for the life of me figured out

01:22:56 ◼   ► What is gonna work here with that?

01:22:59 ◼   ► But this is one of those sorts of areas where I think just make sure you're actually making a video

01:23:06 ◼   ► that younger you would have enjoyed and this is like a key metric that has always served you well and

01:23:13 ◼   ► When I say things about like accepting the realities of the way

01:23:17 ◼   ► YouTube works now

01:23:19 ◼   ► I totally understand why people worry about like, "Oh, you're gonna do more clickbait."

01:23:25 ◼   ► But it's not actually the way that my thinking is going.

01:23:28 ◼   ► It's much more like, it's along these lines of like, there's missing middles and

01:23:33 ◼   ► YouTube rewards videos that are

01:23:37 ◼   ► the most version of whatever they are and

01:23:42 ◼   ► Oh

01:23:44 ◼   ► Oh, there's a way that I can make videos like that, which is what are the videos that are the most version of what younger me would have wanted to watch on YouTube.

01:23:57 ◼   ► This is partly what I mean by the way, my thoughts are like bubbling up around a thing.

01:24:01 ◼   ► I don't know if I'm expressing this very well at all, but like this is what's on my mind.

01:24:05 ◼   ► I'm gonna see if I can try and tease it out a little bit.

01:24:07 ◼   ► Mhm.

01:24:08 ◼   ► Can you, with that Tesla self-driving video, let's imagine we have infinite budget and time here.

01:24:13 ◼   ► Mhm.

01:24:13 ◼   ► Can you give me an example of how that could have been more mosted?

01:24:17 ◼   ► Oh yeah, totally.

01:24:18 ◼   ► So the thing that I was considering that I kept going back and forth is the alternate

01:24:23 ◼   ► version of that video is the version that I think I should have mosted and actually

01:24:29 ◼   ► made, which is, and this was the original intention.

01:24:33 ◼   ► When I did that trip, I actually had two things that I intended to film.

01:24:38 ◼   ► I wanted to film the Tesla autopilot stuff,

01:24:41 ◼   ► but I also filmed another secret project,

01:24:45 ◼   ► which may or may not ever see the light of day, who knows?

01:24:48 ◼   ► But it was another attempt of like, gray goes outside.

01:24:50 ◼   ► And this almost always happens

01:24:52 ◼   ► because I just absolutely love being able

01:24:55 ◼   ► to have a thing count twice.

01:24:57 ◼   ► I'm like, this is just so in my personality.

01:25:00 ◼   ► If I'm doing a trip,

01:25:00 ◼   ► like I really want there to be two things.

01:25:03 ◼   ► So that's partly why that happened.

01:25:05 ◼   ► In the infinite time version of this,

01:25:07 ◼   ► What would have happened is the other thing that I went to film,

01:25:13 ◼   ► which is just like a location that I thought was interesting.

01:25:16 ◼   ► It's not like something super exciting.

01:25:18 ◼   ► I just thought, oh, this location has an interesting story behind it.

01:25:20 ◼   ► Let me see if I can just film something about that.

01:25:22 ◼   ► I would have made that video first.

01:25:26 ◼   ► That would have gone out as like, I don't know, a five or six

01:25:31 ◼   ► minute Grey goes outside video.

01:25:34 ◼   ► And then the video that was like about the Tesla autopilot thing would have been more of a vlog about the whole trip,

01:25:45 ◼   ► which now also has the context of, "Oh hey, you know this other video that you watched? This is the trip when that video was filmed."

01:25:55 ◼   ► And also while I was doing that, I was using the Tesla autopilot the entire time.

01:26:01 ◼   ► Which also brings in a much broader scope of I'm going like, cause, oh my God, Myke,

01:26:06 ◼   ► like you won't believe how much footage I have, but like I have a ton of footage

01:26:11 ◼   ► of like driving around Cherokee, North Carolina and like going to different

01:26:15 ◼   ► places and like all of it is on autopilot.

01:26:18 ◼   ► I'm in little towns, right?

01:26:20 ◼   ► I'm on the major highways.

01:26:21 ◼   ► It's night in the fog and it's terrifying.

01:26:24 ◼   ► Like just have a ton of that stuff, which is in the context of trying this out.

01:26:30 ◼   ► and I'm also filming something else while I'm here.

01:26:33 ◼   ► That is the way to like most that other video,

01:26:38 ◼   ► but this is a case where the reason I decided not to,

01:26:41 ◼   ► like, and this was totally my fault of,

01:26:43 ◼   ► the problem with the project is that every day

01:26:46 ◼   ► that goes by, the system changes.

01:26:50 ◼   ► And so it's actually quite interesting

01:26:51 ◼   ► 'cause in that Tesla autopilot video,

01:26:53 ◼   ► I talk about the left side bias,

01:26:55 ◼   ► like the system is clearly staying on the left,

01:26:57 ◼   ► And apparently that was totally fixed in like the next version of the software, right?

01:27:03 ◼   ► So like this is the kind of thing where being aware like,

01:27:06 ◼   ► "Oh, there's a time sensitive element here changes the way I have to make a decision."

01:27:10 ◼   ► So I was aware that like the vlog version of this that I want to do

01:27:15 ◼   ► is probably something that's a lot closer to like a 20 minute video,

01:27:21 ◼   ► maybe a 30 minute video of like,

01:27:23 ◼   ► "Here's this big trip, here's all the details, here's the things that I saw,

01:27:27 ◼   ► here's like a bunch of the stuff that happened, but it also have to have a video come out before

01:27:33 ◼   ► then because otherwise it explains too much about like this other video, like they have to come out

01:27:39 ◼   ► in this different order. And this is one of those cases where I'm making a decision of how long is

01:27:45 ◼   ► that realistically going to take me to do? It's gonna be several months, you know, like if my

01:27:51 ◼   ► previous videos are anything to go by, it's gonna take a while. There's a ton of

01:27:57 ◼   ► footage going through all that footage is extremely time-consuming and so I

01:28:01 ◼   ► kind of made the call of I'm not gonna do that because if I do that who knows

01:28:07 ◼   ► how outdated everything I'm talking about is gonna be by the time that it's

01:28:11 ◼   ► done. So this is where it's like okay I ended up making a video that was sort of

01:28:17 ◼   ► in the middle of these things and it's like it just doesn't hit like it's interesting

01:28:22 ◼   ► it doesn't hit for me like I'm kind of it's like I'm happy with the way it came

01:28:26 ◼   ► out I think stylistically it's the best version of that kind of video that I could

01:28:31 ◼   ► make but it's not the maximum on some quality so that is the alternate universe in where

01:28:40 ◼   ► a different video was made.

01:28:41 ◼   ► So in like this era of Mosting videos, would you just not make that Tesla video then?

01:28:48 ◼   ► Yeah, so like I've been thinking a lot about that project and this is funny, this has actually

01:28:52 ◼   ► been an explicit instruction that I've given to the people I work with, which is,

01:28:57 ◼   ► "Hey, next time I suggest any kind of project that has not just a deadline, but has an implied

01:29:10 ◼   ► deadline. You need to tell me not to do that project and remind me of this moment." And

01:29:17 ◼   ► I think this is one of these things where I firmly believe that deadlines are counter

01:29:26 ◼   ► to quality. That like these things are always fighting each other.

01:29:31 ◼   ► - I would like to counterpoint you here. - Yep, go ahead.

01:29:35 ◼   ► - Sharks. What was it again that it was moving somewhere or doing something and...

01:29:39 ◼   ► Yeah, sharks had a deadline because it was the date that the council said that the sharks

01:29:44 ◼   ► had to move.

01:29:45 ◼   ► It was worse than that because the sharks were potentially moving at any point before

01:29:48 ◼   ► that deadline as well.

01:29:50 ◼   ► So it was like, the video needs to be out before the sharks move.

01:29:52 ◼   ► Because otherwise the video may have taken an infinite amount of time to be completed

01:29:57 ◼   ► because it's like, if you don't shut it off, right?

01:30:01 ◼   ► Where are they going to show up next?

01:30:03 ◼   ► And then do you need to go film that?

01:30:04 ◼   ► And then does that change?

01:30:05 ◼   ► So like, that would be my count.

01:30:07 ◼   ► There was a deadline on that one, and that was a great video.

01:30:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not saying that these things cannot coexist,

01:30:16 ◼   ► right, I'm just saying I think

01:30:19 ◼   ► that they work against each other.

01:30:20 ◼   ► And in my experience also, yes, I love sharks.

01:30:25 ◼   ► I literally never want a project

01:30:27 ◼   ► to be as miserable as that was again.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Like it was so unpleasant.

01:30:32 ◼   ► - Okay, so that didn't balance that one.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Yeah, but I would say that that project was also, like, weird. Like, weird, right?

01:30:40 ◼   ► Yes. There were a lot of reasons that project was weird.

01:30:42 ◼   ► Which wasn't the time.

01:30:43 ◼   ► Yeah. I guess we could put that under the category of,

01:30:46 ◼   ► there were a lot of things about that project that made it greatly uncertain on a number of vectors.

01:30:52 ◼   ► Which does not help.

01:30:53 ◼   ► What I'm saying here is, this is one of the reasons—I think I mentioned this last time,

01:30:57 ◼   ► stop me if I didn't—but I'm not going to be trying to track the, like,

01:31:00 ◼   ► get your average upload time between 31 days anymore.

01:31:05 ◼   ► I've made a decision that, like, that was very good

01:31:09 ◼   ► because for the last two years I do think I needed something to help me reboot

01:31:15 ◼   ► "Hey, you need to upload to the channel more frequently."

01:31:19 ◼   ► And I think that was totally the correct thing to get my mind back on, like,

01:31:24 ◼   ► "This is the main thing. Focus your time on this."

01:31:28 ◼   ► And now what I find myself mulling over is, "Okay, cool, like you've fixed this.

01:31:36 ◼   ► I think you need to get back to a different way of thinking about how you make the videos

01:31:43 ◼   ► and also what context do they exist relative to other videos that exist on the YouTube

01:31:50 ◼   ► platform."

01:31:51 ◼   ► So I don't know if that really answers your question or if I'm even explaining myself

01:31:54 ◼   ► well.

01:31:55 ◼   ► I feel almost like trying to explain what some part of your brain that you don't even

01:32:00 ◼   ► know entirely what it's up to is doing.

01:32:03 ◼   ► That's the way I feel right now is like I know, I have the feeling of the shape of what's

01:32:08 ◼   ► on my mind, but it's very hard to articulate in a precise manner because the process isn't

01:32:15 ◼   ► really done here.

01:32:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I would like, you know, just listening to what you're saying to kind of try and close

01:32:22 ◼   ► somebody's brackets down.

01:32:24 ◼   ► I feel like I understand what you're saying a little bit more about the mosting from the

01:32:28 ◼   ► Tesla video, right?

01:32:29 ◼   ► That like, it didn't have enough and because it was, you know, kind of like intended to

01:32:36 ◼   ► be like, here's the minimum I can do right now.

01:32:38 ◼   ► That's not enough.

01:32:39 ◼   ► There needs to be more than that.

01:32:41 ◼   ► And as you say, right, like part of that was because, well, you knew there was like a time

01:32:44 ◼   ► period on it.

01:32:45 ◼   ► Well, if there's a time limit on it, you should really only attack a project that has some

01:32:50 ◼   ► kind of deadline.

01:32:51 ◼   ► you're confident it is like a surefire success, right? Like, is what I assume you would feel,

01:32:58 ◼   ► right? Because if you're saying like, I don't want deadlines unless I believe it's good for

01:33:03 ◼   ► this project that the, you know, this is one that will have a deadline, but I really want to do it,

01:33:07 ◼   ► right? Yeah, I would, I would, I would try to like, I think I would reframe that of if deadlines are

01:33:12 ◼   ► going to exist, the project has to have much less uncertainty around it. Okay. And I think that

01:33:21 ◼   ► particular with like, I've still only done, I think, technically 11 Grey Goes Outside

01:33:26 ◼   ► videos, which is not very much, the question of "What the hell are these videos even like?"

01:33:31 ◼   ► is still too way uncertain for something that also had a deadline on it.

01:33:35 ◼   ► MATT: That makes sense, that makes sense. The one thing that I wanted to press on from

01:33:40 ◼   ► what you were saying, though, is like a concern that I have in hearing what you're saying,

01:33:44 ◼   ► you're gonna if you're removing the 30-day thing which I understand why but

01:33:53 ◼   ► then you're also more likely to stop a video idea I would just have a concern

01:33:59 ◼   ► that you're gonna really reduce the amount that you're making like it feels

01:34:03 ◼   ► like you are making the bar higher and removing this like internal clock and I

01:34:11 ◼   ► would be concerned that that means you're going to make like two videos in 2022.

01:34:15 ◼   ► Yeah I don't think it's going to be two videos in 2022.

01:34:19 ◼   ► I'm obviously over exaggerating but you understand what I'm saying right?

01:34:23 ◼   ► Yeah I totally get that. I'll just say I'm aware that there need to be counter points

01:34:27 ◼   ► and I don't quite want to go into the full details of what I'm thinking about around this

01:34:33 ◼   ► but I have some different thoughts that are around topic selection that are sort of acting

01:34:40 ◼   ► is the counterpoint to this.

01:34:41 ◼   ► - That's got, I mean, look, we can, we can,

01:34:43 ◼   ► as I said, we can come up,

01:34:44 ◼   ► we can talk about that later, right?

01:34:45 ◼   ► Like in the same way that we spoke about the 30 day thing,

01:34:49 ◼   ► after you'd done that, you know,

01:34:51 ◼   ► so we can, we can get to that later on.

01:34:53 ◼   ► But I just, at least I take some kind of comfort

01:34:56 ◼   ► in knowing that you would see that too,

01:34:58 ◼   ► that like following these ideas too strongly

01:35:01 ◼   ► without anything else going on could result in like,

01:35:05 ◼   ► I can't make videos anymore

01:35:07 ◼   ► because I've set these rules for myself

01:35:12 ◼   ► that now mean that no project can be deemed surefire enough.

01:35:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not, well, yeah, that's,

01:35:19 ◼   ► surefire isn't really what I'm,

01:35:21 ◼   ► I feel like that's a bad word for this, but yeah,

01:35:24 ◼   ► I'm aware that there needs to be a counterpoint.

01:35:26 ◼   ► I'm thinking about some of that in terms of topic selection.

01:35:29 ◼   ► But yes, I mean, I would expect that over,

01:35:33 ◼   ► 'cause I like this two-year running average

01:35:35 ◼   ► of upload frequency,

01:35:36 ◼   ► I would expect that the two year running average of upload frequency, like, that decreases.

01:35:43 ◼   ► I would expect that.

01:35:44 ◼   ► Like, already, again, if we're counting, like, the last real video, even if we count it as

01:35:48 ◼   ► the Tesla video, it's like, okay, we're still well outside the "it's been 30 days since

01:35:53 ◼   ► the last video" marker here, so.

01:35:55 ◼   ► But this is kind of why I'm also working this in with the, like, the season break is fine.

01:36:00 ◼   ► This is the time if I'm going to spend some time thinking about, like, the big picture

01:36:04 ◼   ► and the meta-ness of how I work, this is the time to take that time and sort of plan out

01:36:11 ◼   ► how do I think I'm going to tackle topics going forward. It's very funny to me, I can

01:36:16 ◼   ► totally understand why people hearing me would be worried that, like, Gray is going to follow

01:36:21 ◼   ► the algorithm, but if anything it's... I don't quite want to say it's the opposite, but I

01:36:26 ◼   ► do think it might be more not in that direction than people would expect.

01:36:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it's taking what it wants, but only giving it some of it back.

01:36:36 ◼   ► But it's not ignoring it.

01:36:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not ignoring it.

01:36:40 ◼   ► Because the algorithm would love it if you posted every week, at least on some level.

01:36:44 ◼   ► I want to push back there because this is what I mean by some thoughts around like this missing middle.

01:36:50 ◼   ► And I think if you're making videos that are in the middle, posting every week won't save you.

01:36:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't mean you specifically.

01:36:59 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:36:59 ◼   ► Like it's more like if someone is able to produce more content quicker that their audience

01:37:05 ◼   ► enjoys, the algorithm would love you to do that.

01:37:09 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:37:10 ◼   ► Obviously this means that like if you were able to almost kill yourself but produce a

01:37:15 ◼   ► video every two weeks of good quality, the YouTube algorithm I'm sure would reward you

01:37:22 ◼   ► for that.

01:37:23 ◼   ► Oh yeah, it totally would.

01:37:25 ◼   ► I guess I feel like I think I cannot over a long period of time produce a video every

01:37:33 ◼   ► four weeks that also hits the marker of younger me would really like this video. I think over

01:37:42 ◼   ► a long period of time those two ideas are fundamentally opposed.

01:37:46 ◼   ► Yes.

01:37:47 ◼   ► We sitting in silence now.

01:37:51 ◼   ► silence now yeah no i was just i was just thinking like do i have anything else to say on this topic

01:37:56 ◼   ► right now i think that could be the end of the episode by the way we only got halfway through

01:38:02 ◼   ► our document but we've been going for an hour and 47 minutes oh so the episode ends right now

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