Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm recording, I've got the backup recording going.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Are you actually recording though?

00:00:03 ◼   ► Okay, I'm looking at the recording. I see the waveform going up and down.

00:00:08 ◼   ► Right, because I have had multiple occasions recently where you have said

00:00:12 ◼   ► "I'm recording" and I remember you saying "I'm recording"

00:00:15 ◼   ► I've got the backup recorder going as well.

00:00:16 ◼   ► But in the audio that I am provided by you, I never hear the words "I'm recording".

00:00:22 ◼   ► So are you recording?

00:00:23 ◼   ► There's 100% chance that I'm recording.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Although you can never be 100% sure, so I'll say 99% sure that I'm recording.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Levels levels.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Levels levels.

00:00:32 ◼   ► I very frequently have people ask me, "Have you ever spoke about why you use a to-do app,

00:00:41 ◼   ► and what other apps that you use?" And my usual inclination for that answer is like,

00:00:47 ◼   ► "Yes, but on 20 episodes of Cortex, I have no one place that I could even start to imagine

00:00:53 ◼   ► Pointing you to write and it's easier now for like when someone says to me yearly themes

00:00:58 ◼   ► I know those episodes now right and like we've condensed it over time

00:01:02 ◼   ► So now on every yearly themes episode we talk about the themes in the abstract a little bit before getting into the rest, right?

00:01:10 ◼   ► But what I thought of outside of the original set of episodes and then some that's come since there are

00:01:18 ◼   ► Some core parts of productivity like to-do apps email time tracking

00:01:23 ◼   ► Communication and calendaring these are things that we talk about all the time. They're very important

00:01:30 ◼   ► We talk about the apps that we use but maybe not so much for a while

00:01:35 ◼   ► Have we spoken about why we do these things that we do?

00:01:39 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. So I thought for episode 101 we could do productivity tools 101

00:01:45 ◼   ► I think you like that mainly because of how it works with the title and I completely agree.

00:01:50 ◼   ► It's two parts of it. I like how it works with a title and I'll never forget the episode to point people to.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Yeah, that was your main pitch to me.

00:01:57 ◼   ► It's like, look, I want to be able to have an episode when people ask,

00:02:00 ◼   ► "Can you tell me about why you use these systems that you can point them to?"

00:02:05 ◼   ► And you're like, "I'll never forget the number 101, so let's just make it that episode."

00:02:10 ◼   ► And I completely agree.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I think probably the one to start with is to-do systems because it is the core of productivity, right?

00:02:18 ◼   ► Like it's the very central part is your task manager.

00:02:23 ◼   ► So I was thinking about this earlier today and there is no one true way of being productive, right?

00:02:30 ◼   ► There's no one answer for everyone. There's no one system that's going to work for everyone.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Each person needs to pick and choose the parts that work for them and the parts that don't

00:02:42 ◼   ► work for them.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And this is the process of figuring out how to manage one's own life, is finding the parts

00:02:47 ◼   ► that work for you.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And even though there isn't one true system, I think sometimes you can divide people up

00:02:55 ◼   ► into a spectrum.

00:02:57 ◼   ► And I think one of the biggest spectrums of how people manage their life is the spectrum

00:03:04 ◼   ► of task manager and calendar.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Some people are much more on like the calendar is primary

00:03:12 ◼   ► and the task manager is secondary.

00:03:14 ◼   ► And some people are more task manager is primary

00:03:17 ◼   ► and calendar is secondary.

00:03:19 ◼   ► I think both of us are pretty heavily on the task manager

00:03:23 ◼   ► as foundational side.

00:03:25 ◼   ► And so I think that like,

00:03:26 ◼   ► that's why we're going to start here

00:03:29 ◼   ► because to both of us,

00:03:30 ◼   ► I think it's sort of inconceivable

00:03:32 ◼   ► of if you were taking someone whose life is disorganized and they're holding up this mess

00:03:39 ◼   ► which is their life and they're saying "how do I get started trying to get all of this in shape?"

00:03:43 ◼   ► Both of us would say "to-do system, this is where you need to start, this is where it all begins."

00:03:50 ◼   ► I think part of the reason for me as to why I believe that as strongly as I do is I think

00:03:57 ◼   ► people that believe in the to-do system as core still use calendars frequently,

00:04:04 ◼   ► but from my experience of people that believe in calendars as the ruler don't necessarily even use

00:04:11 ◼   ► a task list of any kind. Just everything goes on the calendar. Just in my experience of people that

00:04:19 ◼   ► run in one of those ways, that kind of seems to be the way that things break down. Because I believe

00:04:24 ◼   ► both are very important. And I wouldn't say equally important, but they, I believe, are

00:04:31 ◼   ► mutually important. Like, you should use both. Because they need each other, I think, to be able

00:04:36 ◼   ► to work effectively. But I, like you, believe that the to-do system is the core of everything.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Because one of the main things for me is I also am aware of myself enough that I know that,

00:04:49 ◼   ► no matter how many tasks I set for myself on a day, I won't always do them all. And one of the

00:04:55 ◼   ► great things about a task list of any kind is that you have the ability to move stuff. You see that

00:05:02 ◼   ► they're overdue. You didn't complete them. But with a calendar, by and large, it's gone once the

00:05:09 ◼   ► day has passed. Unless you have a system of checking the previous days, but if you're doing

00:05:15 ◼   ► that, then you really ought to be using a task list or to-do system of some kind, because

00:05:21 ◼   ► at that point, that's the life that you're living.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree. Like, I think to try to really start at the foundation of this, of… there

00:05:30 ◼   ► was a long-ago, long-dead-now version of Grey, who never used a to-do system, and floated

00:05:39 ◼   ► through life just like, you know, sometimes doing stuff and sometimes not doing stuff.

00:05:45 ◼   ► And eventually he got to a point in life where he realized he could not manage all of the

00:05:50 ◼   ► things that needed to get done.

00:05:52 ◼   ► And it is so specific to me of exactly when that moment was when I was in teacher training

00:05:57 ◼   ► school and they gave me this enormous list of a hundred plus things that all had to be

00:06:05 ◼   ► completed in order to get your teacher certification.

00:06:08 ◼   ► And I remember like, "Oh no, I'm never going to be able to keep track of all of this."

00:06:14 ◼   ► because some of them were really huge items, some of them were really teeny tiny small ones,

00:06:18 ◼   ► and I'm like "I'm never gonna keep track of this." And so one of my very first versions of trying to

00:06:25 ◼   ► figure out how am I gonna actually get all of these things done was taking this huge list that

00:06:33 ◼   ► the university gave me and turning it into a spreadsheet and trying to be like "Okay,

00:06:38 ◼   ► Let me try to break this down in a way so that this is the list that the university is going to use

00:06:45 ◼   ► to decide whether or not I become a teacher, but I need to turn this into a list that makes sense for me.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Aha, right, like this is a criteria that they have. Now let me make it into a selection of

00:06:59 ◼   ► things that I need to have achieved. Yes, and even just like wording changes,

00:07:04 ◼   ► or "What do these things mean in my own life?"

00:07:07 ◼   ► A to-do system, if it's functioning well, this is part of the job that it does.

00:07:12 ◼   ► It's like, it's your translation of what the external world is requiring of you.

00:07:20 ◼   ► And like, getting it into a frame that makes sense for you.

00:07:24 ◼   ► Everybody's brain is different, and you just want to have stuff organized in a particular way.

00:07:32 ◼   ► And so like that was one of the very first times I was actually getting serious about trying to keep track

00:07:38 ◼   ► because I knew like, I knew me and I was like, "I am gonna totally fail if I just try to do this the way I've done school before of like,

00:07:46 ◼   ► I'll remember most things," right?

00:07:48 ◼   ► And that's the other big part of a to-do system is don't try to remember stuff.

00:07:54 ◼   ► I think this can also be a very regular progression for people in life is that

00:08:00 ◼   ► You're growing up and the world manages a lot of things for you

00:08:06 ◼   ► and you can sort of get by by just remembering things but like again at some point in life

00:08:12 ◼   ► usually past the point when you should have recognized it you come to a stage where it's

00:08:18 ◼   ► just like there's there's too many things to remember you you cannot rely on your own brain

00:08:24 ◼   ► to keep track of all the things that you need to know.

00:08:28 ◼   ► And the penalties for forgetting things start to become real.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Yes, yes. They're not pretend penalties like in school where they're like, "Oh,

00:08:36 ◼   ► you're gonna have a conversation with the teacher and they're gonna be very upset with you." And

00:08:42 ◼   ► it's like, "Okay, and then what?" "Well, then you go back to class." Right?

00:08:46 ◼   ► Like, yeah, no, then they start becoming, you know, real, meaningful, impactful on the rest

00:08:54 ◼   ► of your life kind of problems. And this is also the part where for me I started keeping track of

00:09:00 ◼   ► a notebook, of just like writing stuff down in a notebook and referring back to it. People often

00:09:07 ◼   ► ask me like, "Oh, when you first started using a notebook, like what was the system? What were you

00:09:10 ◼   ► doing?" And the answer is there was no system at all. It was just getting in the habit of

00:09:16 ◼   ► if there's something in your head, get it out of your head and put it on a piece of paper. And

00:09:23 ◼   ► as long as you come back to that piece of paper on some regular basis,

00:09:27 ◼   ► you'll start to build up your own kind of system.

00:09:31 ◼   ► Like, of course we spend pretty much all of our time talking about how

00:09:35 ◼   ► our apps and devices are the things that we use to keep track of this stuff,

00:09:41 ◼   ► but pen and paper is the absolute best way to begin.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Oh, for sure.

00:09:47 ◼   ► With making lists.

00:09:49 ◼   ► And this is like, you know, take notes and that kind of stuff,

00:09:52 ◼   ► but making lists, lists of things you want to do, lists of things you should do.

00:09:56 ◼   ► And that's how I started, right? Like I was kind of predisposed to this.

00:09:59 ◼   ► My entire working life I've always had some kind of to-do list checklist,

00:10:04 ◼   ► because I was perfectly placed for it as a person that has a predilection for two things,

00:10:10 ◼   ► pens and paper and nicely designed apps.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Oh right, of course. Yes, that makes much more sense that this path was much more obvious to you

00:10:17 ◼   ► than it was to me.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Because I wanted to have an excuse to use pens and paper, or like, OmniFocus looks like

00:10:25 ◼   ► a nicely designed application for the iPhone.

00:10:27 ◼   ► I'll get that boy in his first banking job that nobody cares about him, but he's got

00:10:34 ◼   ► like a 25 pound application that he's using, right?

00:10:37 ◼   ► Like yeah, that's what I'm gonna do.

00:10:40 ◼   ► But you know, so I have always found it very easy to start this stuff, because I wanted

00:10:48 ◼   ► to use the things that were involved in it.

00:10:50 ◼   ► But if you don't come at it from my perspective,

00:10:53 ◼   ► and most people don't, they come at it from Greg's perspective,

00:10:56 ◼   ► starting in the same places, pen and paper, is perfect.

00:11:01 ◼   ► Because it removes, by its simplicity,

00:11:06 ◼   ► the complications that any application will give you.

00:11:10 ◼   ► Like any half-decent application,

00:11:12 ◼   ► all of the apps that we'll talk about today,

00:11:14 ◼   ► of the stuff that we use, they want projects from you.

00:11:18 ◼   ► They want dates and times from you.

00:11:21 ◼   ► They want notification access.

00:11:24 ◼   ► They want to be able to integrate

00:11:26 ◼   ► with this part of the system.

00:11:28 ◼   ► They want so much and it can seem like a big hurdle

00:11:31 ◼   ► to jump over, but if you just start by getting a notebook

00:11:35 ◼   ► of any kind and a pen of any kind and just writing down

00:11:38 ◼   ► every day, like these are the things I have to do

00:11:40 ◼   ► or want to do or a combination of the both,

00:11:43 ◼   ► you check them all off, and then the next day,

00:11:45 ◼   ► you just write that list out again.

00:11:47 ◼   ► Like, that's the start of any of these types of systems.

00:11:51 ◼   ► And no matter what you end up graduating to,

00:11:53 ◼   ► and maybe it's nothing, because for many people,

00:11:55 ◼   ► this is a perfectly valid way to keep it going,

00:11:58 ◼   ► is just to write out a pen and paper list every day.

00:12:01 ◼   ► No matter what it is you end up graduating to,

00:12:03 ◼   ► you will benefit from having spent the time

00:12:05 ◼   ► at these real basics.

00:12:06 ◼   ► If you really don't want to use a pen and paper,

00:12:09 ◼   ► any notes app, just like a bulleted list, right?

00:12:12 ◼   ► like Google Keep, Apple Notes, they'll all let you make checklists, right?

00:12:17 ◼   ► You can just use those and it's nice and simple.

00:12:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:20 ◼   ► I mean, my entire teaching career when I was teaching physics, I ran all of the

00:12:26 ◼   ► organization of, you know, what classes do I need to prepare for, what needs to be

00:12:31 ◼   ► done.

00:12:31 ◼   ► That was an entirely paper-based system.

00:12:34 ◼   ► Sometimes I was just using index cards and sometimes I was using some pieces of

00:12:39 ◼   ► paper on a clipboard and teaching is a job where there's like there's a million

00:12:42 ◼   ► things to keep track of and paper is totally up to that task like you don't

00:12:47 ◼   ► need a digital system. Again if someone is listening to this and they're at that

00:12:52 ◼   ► starting point where they just feel overwhelmed right you know like they've

00:12:57 ◼   ► come to this show because someone has said oh start with this episode if you

00:13:01 ◼   ► don't know where to start right and then like okay well the probability then is

00:13:04 ◼   ► as the person who might be feeling overwhelmed about like,

00:13:06 ◼   ► "What do I do?"

00:13:08 ◼   ► And you have a problem with that of like,

00:13:11 ◼   ► you want to try to solve this feeling of overwhelmedness

00:13:15 ◼   ► and you wanna try to solve like, I don't know what to do.

00:13:17 ◼   ► So you have a problem,

00:13:19 ◼   ► which is that your life is disorganized.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Well, if you're trying to also learn a to-do app

00:13:25 ◼   ► at the same time, now you have two problems, right?

00:13:28 ◼   ► And it's like, this doesn't help you at all.

00:13:31 ◼   ► And yeah, any notebook will do,

00:13:34 ◼   ► One of my favorite things to do with people when they're overwhelmed is to either take like a bunch of A4 pages and cut them in half or take index cards and just like

00:13:46 ◼   ► start writing down on each half sheet of paper or each index card something that's on your mind.

00:13:53 ◼   ► The garage is a huge mess like and you put that on one index card. Just like start writing down this stuff that's on your mind and

00:14:02 ◼   ► This is where I really think paper does have an advantage that there is something more real

00:14:08 ◼   ► about physically writing with your hand

00:14:11 ◼   ► to get out the thoughts in your head than typing them in a list.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And it's still something that I do now years later as a person who feels like I have my life very well organized.

00:14:23 ◼   ► Three, four times a year, like, I'll just sit down with some index cards or some paper and just start

00:14:29 ◼   ► writing out some stuff as a kind of calibration of where I am.

00:14:34 ◼   ► And when you do that, you'll naturally start to see...

00:14:39 ◼   ► You know, the reason why I think like index cards are half pieces of paper is you kind of start to see,

00:14:44 ◼   ► "Oh, these things are all related," right?

00:14:47 ◼   ► You know, or "These things are connected to each other," or like,

00:14:50 ◼   ► "This thing really needs to happen before this thing?"

00:14:53 ◼   ► And with just paper on a desk, you can move it around

00:14:58 ◼   ► and put things that are related near each other.

00:15:01 ◼   ► And again, I think that process of physically moving the things in your life around

00:15:07 ◼   ► is much more helpful than digitally moving items up or down a list.

00:15:13 ◼   ► If you want to feel like you're in control of something,

00:15:15 ◼   ► physically moving it will definitely help you.

00:15:18 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:15:19 ◼   ► Yes, I have power over this task,

00:15:22 ◼   ► because I can move it anywhere on this desk.

00:15:24 ◼   ► This task can't move me, look how flimsy it is!

00:15:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just a piece of paper. Yeah, that's an excellent point there. So that is the great

00:15:32 ◼   ► place to start. And once you've done that, then you can start looking at some of the specifics of,

00:15:38 ◼   ► okay, you know, how do I want to organize this? And you should almost certainly start with paper

00:15:43 ◼   ► lists. But even then, you've now separated the get everything off your mind phase from the,

00:15:49 ◼   ► how do I want to organize it going forward phase, which is completely impossible if you're just

00:15:55 ◼   ► starting with a to-do app that you're not familiar with.

00:15:58 ◼   ► No matter how simple it looks,

00:16:00 ◼   ► like they all have their weird quirks

00:16:02 ◼   ► that Paper just doesn't.

00:16:03 ◼   ► So I think that's really a place to start.

00:16:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, starting with a very, very, very simple

00:16:09 ◼   ► not to-do app.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Pen and Paper, thoroughly recommend,

00:16:12 ◼   ► but if you really don't wanna do that,

00:16:13 ◼   ► every device has a Notes app, use the Notes app.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Once you start doing that for a while,

00:16:19 ◼   ► I think you'll start to get an idea

00:16:20 ◼   ► of to what things feel important to you.

00:16:22 ◼   ► So like one of the things that pushed me to an application

00:16:26 ◼   ► was all right, I like having this stuff,

00:16:28 ◼   ► but I want something to tell me to do it.

00:16:32 ◼   ► So therefore, I needed notifications, right?

00:16:34 ◼   ► Like that if, you know, I can write these things down,

00:16:37 ◼   ► but I still have to remember that this task

00:16:38 ◼   ► has to be done at two o'clock on Wednesday.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Well, when you start getting to those kinds of areas,

00:16:44 ◼   ► that's where you need to start looking

00:16:45 ◼   ► for an application of some kind.

00:16:48 ◼   ► And there are many, many options.

00:16:51 ◼   ► think it would be too much for us even to try and list the things that we've used.

00:16:56 ◼   ► But I think these days, there really are… I think that there's even more kind of like

00:17:03 ◼   ► agreement on the stuff that people use. Even in like the last couple of years, it feels

00:17:08 ◼   ► like there are less of these types of applications now.

00:17:10 ◼   ► B: Oh, do you think there's been a… because I don't follow the market very closely,

00:17:15 ◼   ► but do you feel like there's been a consolidation of to-do apps over time?

00:17:18 ◼   ► Yes, and I think there's a couple of reasons.

00:17:20 ◼   ► One, too many means that they can't all exist, right?

00:17:23 ◼   ► You can't make enough business models that way.

00:17:25 ◼   ► And there's also been consolidation for purchases,

00:17:28 ◼   ► like our good old friend Wunderlist is gone now.

00:17:31 ◼   ► - Oh, I know that Wunderlist disappeared.

00:17:34 ◼   ► - Did it take the app dying for me

00:17:36 ◼   ► to get you to say it that way?

00:17:37 ◼   ► - It caused a great disruption in the life of my assistant

00:17:41 ◼   ► who ran everything on Wunderlist,

00:17:44 ◼   ► and she was going down on a sinking ship

00:17:47 ◼   ► and there was a lot of like, "Help, help, what do I turn to?"

00:17:50 ◼   ► So I'm very aware they're gone.

00:17:52 ◼   ► - The original founder is starting a new app

00:17:55 ◼   ► called Superlist.

00:17:57 ◼   ► They're serious, like they are.

00:18:00 ◼   ► I don't know when it's coming,

00:18:01 ◼   ► but like that's the thing that's happening.

00:18:03 ◼   ► - Right, but you need a silly way to say that one.

00:18:05 ◼   ► You need to be able to call it like Mooperlist or something.

00:18:07 ◼   ► - Well like Supperlist.

00:18:10 ◼   ► So these days, I think really, Todoist,

00:18:15 ◼   ► I think Todoist is king because it's everywhere.

00:18:17 ◼   ► So like it's the easy recommendation.

00:18:20 ◼   ► But then depending on the platform you use, there are other options.

00:18:24 ◼   ► Obviously, we are both way more familiar with the iOS side.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Yeah. And so like OmniFocus things, they're like the big these these three.

00:18:33 ◼   ► They're like the big heavyweights in this from the sense of they are popular,

00:18:37 ◼   ► but also they have a lot of potential complexity to them.

00:18:41 ◼   ► You know, you can add your due dates and times,

00:18:44 ◼   ► but you can also start adding projects and tags,

00:18:48 ◼   ► contexts and all these wild things,

00:18:51 ◼   ► which really you should only start looking into

00:18:53 ◼   ► if you feel that your needs are not being met.

00:18:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, obviously I'm not very familiar with Todoist

00:19:00 ◼   ► because I find myself physically repulsed by it

00:19:02 ◼   ► every time I try.

00:19:03 ◼   ► - It's getting better all the time.

00:19:05 ◼   ► - I'm sure it is, but I just found like,

00:19:07 ◼   ► oh, the physics of the way this button slides, I hate.

00:19:11 ◼   ► Everything about it just rubbed me the wrong way,

00:19:13 ◼   ► but to be fair I haven't used it in a while.

00:19:15 ◼   ► But this is also the thing where

00:19:17 ◼   ► selecting a to-do app for yourself

00:19:19 ◼   ► can be really picky.

00:19:21 ◼   ► Yes, it's a difficult task to undertake.

00:19:23 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think it's why

00:19:25 ◼   ► even if there has been consolidation

00:19:27 ◼   ► in the market, there's still like

00:19:29 ◼   ► infinite room for new players to come in

00:19:31 ◼   ► and try because everybody's always picky

00:19:33 ◼   ► in their own little ways.

00:19:35 ◼   ► This is one of the things where

00:19:37 ◼   ► it's kind of funny that paper

00:19:39 ◼   ► kind of has a psychological advantage

00:19:41 ◼   ► because you never find yourself thinking,

00:19:44 ◼   ► "Oh, I wish this paper did this."

00:19:46 ◼   ► Right?

00:19:46 ◼   ► Like your brain just accepts it

00:19:48 ◼   ► as a physical object in the world.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Whereas with to-do apps,

00:19:51 ◼   ► you're always gonna be a little bit like,

00:19:52 ◼   ► "I wish it did it this way."

00:19:54 ◼   ► My flow of recommendation would be,

00:19:58 ◼   ► you know, if you're picking an app for the first time,

00:20:02 ◼   ► I usually recommend things to people.

00:20:04 ◼   ► I think it's a nice combination of looks good,

00:20:09 ◼   ► It's easy to use and it has some, but not too much level of complexity in it.

00:20:16 ◼   ► Uh, so like things is my starting recommendation.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I find things are difficult starting recommendation.

00:20:23 ◼   ► Okay.

00:20:24 ◼   ► Why?

00:20:24 ◼   ► Because it's, it's in the sense of applications expensive and unlike.

00:20:30 ◼   ► To do it and only focus has no get in the door for free.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Yeah, that is true.

00:20:36 ◼   ► That was true.

00:20:36 ◼   ► I think things is a good second step after reminders.

00:20:40 ◼   ► I find myself always forgetting reminders these days from these lists.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Reminders has a lot of the basics in it now, which it didn't before.

00:20:51 ◼   ► So reminders is another option for a first step.

00:20:54 ◼   ► But I do agree with you.

00:20:59 ◼   ► It's designed so well, it makes it nice to use.

00:21:03 ◼   ► I find that it has some fundamental problems which stop me from using it.

00:21:07 ◼   ► Like this is something that I've noticed along with like some friends for years.

00:21:12 ◼   ► Like this is pretty esoteric, but it's important for me.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Like if you have a repeating task, you cannot complete it before the day it's due.

00:21:20 ◼   ► OK, right. I see what you mean. Yeah.

00:21:22 ◼   ► So if I have a repeating task every Wednesday, but on Monday

00:21:25 ◼   ► I completed that task, it won't let me check it off until Wednesday.

00:21:28 ◼   ► And that's just like, what are you doing? Right.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Like it's such a weird quirk.

00:21:34 ◼   ► So there are things like that where it's like,

00:21:35 ◼   ► that would frustrate me too much.

00:21:37 ◼   ► And this is the thing you've got to understand

00:21:39 ◼   ► about all these types of applications.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Like none of them will work the way

00:21:42 ◼   ► that you want them to completely.

00:21:44 ◼   ► And it's about what level of this is okay enough.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Because all of these applications are built

00:21:50 ◼   ► by people with their opinions.

00:21:52 ◼   ► And this is a very particular part,

00:21:56 ◼   ► I would say probably the most particular of all of these,

00:21:59 ◼   ► like even more so than email.

00:22:01 ◼   ► the to-do system, people want it to work the exact way that they want it to work, and

00:22:05 ◼   ► nobody wants to work the same as anybody else.

00:22:08 ◼   ► Yes, yeah.

00:22:09 ◼   ► That's what I mean by there's always infinite room for new entrants into the market, because I do think it is

00:22:16 ◼   ► literally the most picky software category that can possibly exist, that also a large number of people use, and are like

00:22:25 ◼   ► "I just wish it was a little different this way." I guess I sort of bounce off reminders,

00:22:30 ◼   ► but you might be right that I should update that of like

00:22:32 ◼   ► Reminders is the place to start if you're willing to pay for a thing that looks beautiful

00:22:37 ◼   ► Things is a place to start because I do think things maximize is on the beauty scale

00:22:43 ◼   ► Yes, but it is both of those apps. I think

00:22:47 ◼   ► once you get the hang of putting your life in lists

00:22:51 ◼   ► and

00:22:53 ◼   ► You you start to think about the concepts of the repeating tasks and all this other stuff

00:22:58 ◼   ► You will know very quickly if you're the sort of person who is going to outgrow those apps.

00:23:05 ◼   ► And then that's where for me, OmniFocus sits at the top of the list as an extremely heavy weight

00:23:13 ◼   ► option. But you'll know if you feel like this isn't working for me. And Todoist also seems

00:23:20 ◼   ► like it has much more flexibility. It's not OmniFocus level though.

00:23:24 ◼   ► I didn't say that it was. Nothing is.

00:23:26 ◼   ► You'll know if you outgrow reminders and you're looking for something else.

00:23:29 ◼   ► I thought it might be useful for us to talk about, at a basic level, what our systems look like.

00:23:35 ◼   ► So for me, every task that I enter gets two things, and that's really the core of my system.

00:23:45 ◼   ► So every task gets a due date and time assigned to it. Even if I don't really have a set time or

00:23:54 ◼   ► or date that something needs to be completed,

00:23:56 ◼   ► I will just assign one to it.

00:23:58 ◼   ► And then I can choose later on if I want to move it.

00:24:01 ◼   ► But I think to myself, either A,

00:24:03 ◼   ► when does this need to be done by,

00:24:06 ◼   ► or B, when would I like this to be done by?

00:24:08 ◼   ► That's every time I start a task, I put that in there.

00:24:11 ◼   ► Because then it always shows up

00:24:14 ◼   ► in my list of upcoming tasks in Todoist.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Because otherwise they kind of like sit off on the side

00:24:19 ◼   ► and I may forget about them.

00:24:21 ◼   ► And I very frequently review what I've got

00:24:23 ◼   ► the next few days and move them around. The second thing that every task gets is a project.

00:24:29 ◼   ► And I break these projects down into different areas of responsibility in my work or personal

00:24:37 ◼   ► life. So I have projects that are focused around preparing for shows, editing shows. I have them

00:24:43 ◼   ► for general admin stuff. I also have personal and long-term personal projects, that kind of stuff.

00:24:49 ◼   ► So I have these little buckets that I will put my tasks into.

00:24:53 ◼   ► And this just helps me kind of visually see what areas I need to be thinking about.

00:24:58 ◼   ► But also if I think to myself, oh, I want to just sit down and do some editing today,

00:25:04 ◼   ► what editing projects do I have upcoming? I can click in and see those.

00:25:08 ◼   ► Now, my system is purposefully kept quite basic in this way.

00:25:13 ◼   ► I think this is like the most basic an advanced system can be, is to have these things,

00:25:18 ◼   ► is to have a sense of setting due times on everything and setting projects for everything.

00:25:25 ◼   ► Because then you can start going to other levels and Gray will have these I'm sure where

00:25:29 ◼   ► you're like setting start dates and defer dates and tags and locations and all that

00:25:36 ◼   ► kind of stuff. And I have dabbled in it but for me personally I have felt that none of

00:25:42 ◼   ► those things helped me be more productive and if anything increase the amount of time

00:25:47 ◼   ► it would take for me from having a thought to getting it into Todoist. So now I have basically

00:25:53 ◼   ► boiled my system down to the basics of like a task has a name and it has a date and time set to it

00:26:02 ◼   ► and it will have a project set to it. In some instances I may add some notes to the task

00:26:08 ◼   ► or I may add some dependent tasks to that one task, right? So like yes I also need to do these

00:26:14 ◼   ► three other things to call this one thing complete, but that stuff is rare for me. It

00:26:19 ◼   ► really is kind of just the project and the due time.

00:26:22 ◼   ► This is another one of these things about learning how you work.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Yes.

00:26:27 ◼   ► Because everyone who uses a to-do system, I think it tends to coalesce around something

00:26:34 ◼   ► in that to-do system which is primary for them. And the system that you're using I think

00:26:39 ◼   ► is the most common, where people put a due date on every item.

00:26:43 ◼   ► That is the most important part.

00:26:45 ◼   ► The projects I could take or leave, the most important part is having a due time because

00:26:48 ◼   ► otherwise I'll tell you it's not getting done.

00:26:50 ◼   ► But this is what I mean is like so your system then you think of all of the things in terms

00:26:57 ◼   ► of this of like there is the due date and the due date is central and I think like that's

00:27:03 ◼   ► a really common system.

00:27:05 ◼   ► It doesn't work for me.

00:27:06 ◼   ► I hate the due dates and it's also why like oh I find other systems frustrating but this

00:27:11 ◼   ► This is where you just need to learn what it is that works for you.

00:27:16 ◼   ► And so one of the main reasons why I stick with OmniFocus is I almost never use due dates.

00:27:23 ◼   ► Like I'm on the extreme opposite end of mic.

00:27:25 ◼   ► In my whole system, very, very few things have a due date attached to them.

00:27:31 ◼   ► Because conceptually for me, if there is a due date that's attached, it has to mean like

00:27:37 ◼   ► Like there's a real hard external problem that occurs if this due date is missed.

00:27:45 ◼   ► What I end up doing is I have a system that is primarily based around availability.

00:27:52 ◼   ► Like which tasks are available to me to do right now?

00:27:57 ◼   ► And this is where OmniFocus and our old friend, remember the milk, are the only two task managers

00:28:06 ◼   ► I've ever come across that handle this kind of availability-centricness as well as they do.

00:28:12 ◼   ► So like you, my basic structure is, in OmniFocus I have a bunch of folders for general areas of my

00:28:19 ◼   ► life, like, oh, this is work, here's a folder for my personal life, here's a folder for miscellaneous

00:28:26 ◼   ► things, and then within that I break it down by the categories of, like, okay, here's all the

00:28:31 ◼   ► videos that I'm working on, here are all the podcasts that are in motion, here's miscellaneous

00:28:36 ◼   ► other things that need to get done. So everything is like structured in this kind of hierarchy where

00:28:42 ◼   ► I can build out all the different parts of like what are all the steps that need to happen in

00:28:50 ◼   ► order for an episode of Cortex to go from, you know, nothing to published on my end. It's like,

00:28:56 ◼   ► okay, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Here's a whole long list of those things. You know, here's all

00:29:00 ◼   ► the steps that are necessary to get a video from conceptual phase to published. So I have that

00:29:06 ◼   ► structure, but then the thing that OmniFocus allows me to do by having stuff categorized with

00:29:12 ◼   ► their advanced features like tags is to be able to say, "In the morning, when I wake up

00:29:19 ◼   ► and I get into the office, what is it that I want to do? I primarily want to focus on

00:29:26 ◼   ► writing tasks or research tasks. And so, OmniFocus then lets me just quickly see,

00:29:32 ◼   ► here are the writing projects that past Organized U has considered to be the top three that you

00:29:39 ◼   ► should be working on. And so, I don't have to look at the whole structure of the project,

00:29:46 ◼   ► I can just pull out the couple parts that are relevant to me in that moment. So, that's what

00:29:51 ◼   ► I mean by like an availability centric process or you know sometimes I feel like I can just tell

00:29:59 ◼   ► I'm not quite in the right mood to write something but I have recorded a bunch of research questions

00:30:06 ◼   ► that I want to try to get answers to so let me try to like knock off a few of those and like here we

00:30:11 ◼   ► go in OmniFocus let me pull up like here's 10 questions I just made a quick note of while I

00:30:15 ◼   ► was working on a project of like you know how many of x is y or like when did this thing originally

00:30:21 ◼   ► start and now like use this time to go try to track down a bunch of these. And that's the sort

00:30:26 ◼   ► of system that works really well for me. But it does have a much more upfront cost in knowing how

00:30:33 ◼   ► to categorize things and using advanced features like defer dates that will hide things for you.

00:30:39 ◼   ► But the reason that is important to me is because I know from experience I cannot stand it when a

00:30:47 ◼   ► to-do list manager has any way where you can see items that you cannot check off right now.

00:30:55 ◼   ► And like, I just cannot stand that and so I'll put in a lot of effort to make sure that the system is

00:31:00 ◼   ► only showing me the things that I can do at any particular moment. So that's like the availability

00:31:06 ◼   ► system. That's what works for me. So like your most important buckets are fixed to either times

00:31:13 ◼   ► or locations, right?

00:31:15 ◼   ► B: Yeah, the way I'm slicing the tasks is, I would say, times, locations, and energy

00:31:23 ◼   ► level kind of stuff.

00:31:25 ◼   ► So I have a few ways where I can look at what are a bunch of work tasks that are easy for

00:31:29 ◼   ► me just to knock off right now.

00:31:32 ◼   ► Communications clearing is one of these things where sometimes it's like, "Oh, I have

00:31:37 ◼   ► to interact with the outside world.

00:31:39 ◼   ► me pull up this list of like everything I've made a note on that requires communications

00:31:44 ◼   ► and let me just try to clear a bunch of these and it's like oh write an email to this expert

00:31:48 ◼   ► about this thing you know or get back to this person about this thing and so like let me

00:31:53 ◼   ► just knock off a bunch of those in a row so that's the way I always want to look at that

00:31:57 ◼   ► kind of stuff.

00:31:58 ◼   ► If this sounds complicated it's because it is complicated and this is why OmniFocus is

00:32:02 ◼   ► good because OmniFocus will allow you to create effectively rules or filters which say like

00:32:09 ◼   ► "If this is set to this and this is set to this and it's these times of the day, show me this."

00:32:14 ◼   ► And so it's a very complicated system, but what makes OmniFocus the best at what it does

00:32:21 ◼   ► is if you are the type of person that wants to attach a bunch of metadata to a task,

00:32:27 ◼   ► you can do some incredibly powerful things.

00:32:29 ◼   ► But it's also why it's not a good starter program.

00:32:31 ◼   ► It's going to have way too much. It's going to really overwhelm you.

00:32:36 ◼   ► It's expert level. It really is expert level.

00:32:38 ◼   ► And it's also a lot of the stuff that I'm able to do, I'm doing because I have shortcuts in iOS that are assisting me.

00:32:47 ◼   ► So, like, I'm not interacting with the application directly. Like, I have little templates for

00:32:53 ◼   ► "This is what a video project looks like. This is what every episode of Cortex looks like."

00:32:57 ◼   ► So I'm able to put in a huge number of items that have been pre-categorized by me in the past,

00:33:04 ◼   ► because otherwise it would just be too overwhelming to do it each time.

00:33:07 ◼   ► Or, like, when I say, "Oh, this is like a research question that's related to a project,"

00:33:12 ◼   ► I have a very quick way with shortcuts where I can write as little as possible,

00:33:18 ◼   ► and shortcuts will handle just "put this in the correct place and file it,"

00:33:22 ◼   ► because that's the way I solve the problem of what you were saying before of

00:33:26 ◼   ► you don't want it to be a heavyweight issue to input something into the system.

00:33:32 ◼   ► putting something into the system should be really easy. But if you want to put something

00:33:38 ◼   ► into a complicated system in a really easy way, that does require a lot of upfront work in order

00:33:45 ◼   ► to do. Or you could run these applications the way that they were kind of created and intended,

00:33:51 ◼   ► which is you just enter everything very basically and then review the tasks and add that data

00:34:00 ◼   ► later. So you would sit down once a day or once every couple of days, look at everything that

00:34:05 ◼   ► you've entered into the app's inbox, and then assign it the information that it needs.

00:34:10 ◼   ► B: Yeah, yeah. OmniFocus does have a review feature where they specifically allow you to

00:34:15 ◼   ► see all of the stuff that they think you should be looking over and categorizing. And like,

00:34:20 ◼   ► that is totally fine. But I just find like, if you're using OmniFocus, you're probably using it

00:34:27 ◼   ► because you have a lot of items, right? Like, the people I speak to who are using OmniFocus,

00:34:32 ◼   ► none of them have a small number of projects, right? They're all doing this same thing where,

00:34:37 ◼   ► like, they've got a lot of projects with a lot of items in it. And so, I think their review can

00:34:42 ◼   ► become a little overwhelming when you start having a huge number of things. And so, the assistance in

00:34:49 ◼   ► inputting is really important. But I really love it. Like, it's totally for me, but it is a real

00:34:56 ◼   ► investment to learn how to use it properly, but once you have it, it's fantastic.

00:35:00 ◼   ► Just as a little thing here, not connected to OmniFocus in particular, but for someone

00:35:04 ◼   ► putting together their own to-do system just in general, a little tip that I really like

00:35:10 ◼   ► and I cannot remember where I originally came across this, but for almost any of these apps,

00:35:15 ◼   ► you're going to have this concept of there's a project and then the project has little

00:35:21 ◼   ► actions that you're going to complete to get that project done.

00:35:25 ◼   ► systems will have this at least the this two-tier concept project and actions and I think it's really helpful to

00:35:33 ◼   ► always try to write the project in the past tense as

00:35:39 ◼   ► in like

00:35:41 ◼   ► What is the state of the world when this project is complete? So it's like

00:35:47 ◼   ► teacher certification acquired right cortex episode published

00:35:54 ◼   ► "research thesis submitted" that kind of stuff. Like I think it's really helpful to write that in the past tense

00:36:01 ◼   ► and then you write the actions that they have to have a verb in there. There's an action that you're clearly

00:36:08 ◼   ► taking, right? "Go to

00:36:10 ◼   ► library." There's a direction there and I've just always found that really helpful

00:36:15 ◼   ► when you're looking over your projects. There's something about that past tense

00:36:21 ◼   ► writing of the project that I find really provokes my brain into coming up with what are the verbs we

00:36:30 ◼   ► need in order to make this happen. That's just my little like recommendation there for how to do

00:36:35 ◼   ► this is like I find that extremely helpful no matter which system you're using and I try very

00:36:41 ◼   ► hard to stick to that with all of my projects and all of my actions. It's like past tense and verbs.

00:36:48 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Raycon. Whether you're working from home or

00:36:53 ◼   ► working on your fitness, you want what you're listening to to be what you choose to listen to.

00:36:59 ◼   ► You don't want to be listening to your roommates on a conference call or a vacuum cleaner in the

00:37:02 ◼   ► apartment next door. Everybody needs a great pair of wireless earbuds. But before you go

00:37:07 ◼   ► dropping hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a pair, I want you to check out Raycon's wireless

00:37:12 ◼   ► earbuds. They start at about half the price of other premium wireless earbuds on the market and

00:37:17 ◼   ► and they sound awesome.

00:37:20 ◼   ► Compared to other top audio brands,

00:37:21 ◼   ► you are getting significant value for your money.

00:37:24 ◼   ► These things sound really, really good.

00:37:26 ◼   ► Their newest model, the Everyday E25 Earbuds

00:37:29 ◼   ► are their best yet.

00:37:30 ◼   ► They feature six hours of playtime,

00:37:32 ◼   ► seamless Bluetooth pairing, and more bass,

00:37:35 ◼   ► all in an even more compact design

00:37:37 ◼   ► that gives you a really comfortable,

00:37:38 ◼   ► nice and noise-isolating fit.

00:37:41 ◼   ► Raycon's wireless earbuds are super comfortable

00:37:43 ◼   ► even after long periods of time.

00:37:45 ◼   ► They're perfect for conference calls

00:37:47 ◼   ► or for listening to podcasts like this one. Raycon's wireless earbuds are stylish, they're

00:37:51 ◼   ► discreet and they are truly wireless. No cords or wires to get in the way. I was really impressed

00:37:58 ◼   ► with these. They're super small, they're very light and comfortable and they fit my ears

00:38:02 ◼   ► perfectly. The seal in them is really really good. The case is really small and packs a

00:38:07 ◼   ► powerful battery as well and the magnets are very satisfying when you open and close it

00:38:10 ◼   ► like this. It's tiny, really really small case which is awesome considering it has the

00:38:17 ◼   ► battery in that it does. It will recharge your earbuds 3 times which is fantastic. They

00:38:22 ◼   ► also have a button on the earbuds themselves which gives simple and easy controls for pausing,

00:38:27 ◼   ► skipping tracks and more.

00:38:29 ◼   ► Now is the time to get the latest and greatest from Raycon. You can get 15% off your order

00:38:35 ◼   ► at buyraycon.com/cortex.

00:38:38 ◼   ► That's B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N.com/cortex

00:38:43 ◼   ► for 15% off Raycon wireless earbuds.

00:38:46 ◼   ► One last time, buyraycon.com/cortex.

00:38:49 ◼   ► Our thanks to Raycon for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:38:53 ◼   ► This next category, email systems,

00:38:57 ◼   ► I've both been dreading the most and looking forward to the most.

00:39:00 ◼   ► The wheel.

00:39:03 ◼   ► I like talking to you about how you handle email because it's always such a fun thing for me.

00:39:08 ◼   ► Right. But then we have to talk about email apps and I will state my long-running mantra at this

00:39:14 ◼   ► point that no email apps are good. It does not exist. There is no email app which I have ever

00:39:22 ◼   ► been able to find with the exception of Juan Sparrow. Rest in peace, Sparrow. You know what,

00:39:28 ◼   ► actually mailbox I preferred mailbox to sparrow mailbox is the app that was

00:39:32 ◼   ► built by Dropbox we had a feature that I still to this day cannot believe that

00:39:37 ◼   ► nobody else has copied which is the ability to rearrange emails in an inbox

00:39:41 ◼   ► it's shocking no one will let you do that I can't believe it it was it was

00:39:46 ◼   ► like when that app was first being teased that was the thing that was

00:39:49 ◼   ► everyone was like wow right like that you would be able to just drag and drop

00:39:54 ◼   ► and just change the order arbitrarily.

00:39:56 ◼   ► I can't believe nobody's tried to do that.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Everyone's just like, look at us,

00:40:00 ◼   ► we've got a smart email inbox that uses our AI.

00:40:03 ◼   ► No, I don't want your AI in my email.

00:40:06 ◼   ► I want to just rearrange it with my own eye, right?

00:40:09 ◼   ► My own intelligence, I don't need no fake intelligence.

00:40:12 ◼   ► See, look, I've already started.

00:40:13 ◼   ► We haven't even started talking about it,

00:40:15 ◼   ► and I'm getting angry.

00:40:16 ◼   ► - Well, look, the reason it gets angry

00:40:18 ◼   ► is email's gonna make you angry, right?

00:40:21 ◼   ► And the problem with email, the fundamental problem with email,

00:40:25 ◼   ► is it's the uncontrollable interface with the outside world, right?

00:40:31 ◼   ► You can be at your desk with your nice pen and your nice paper, and you can make

00:40:35 ◼   ► the lists however you want, and nobody can come along and just like start messing

00:40:41 ◼   ► with your paper if you're just sitting, you know, sitting quietly on your own.

00:40:45 ◼   ► But if you're trying to handle your email while you're handling it,

00:40:48 ◼   ► stuff's going to come in, right?

00:40:50 ◼   ► And it's like, what is this?

00:40:51 ◼   ► It's such a frustrating thing.

00:40:53 ◼   ► Compared to most of the other things that we're going to talk about today, the

00:40:57 ◼   ► underlining, like where the data is coming from, you have no control over with email.

00:41:03 ◼   ► Like with to-do apps, with calendar apps, by and large, like whilst these things

00:41:10 ◼   ► are influenced by outside elements and maybe some of it is shared, you are still

00:41:17 ◼   ► controlling the data that gets put into the systems.

00:41:21 ◼   ► But with email, it's just coming in,

00:41:24 ◼   ► and you can't stop it, right?

00:41:26 ◼   ► Like, whatever it is, from wherever it's coming from,

00:41:31 ◼   ► it's just gonna be there.

00:41:33 ◼   ► And there are some tools that are trying to change this,

00:41:36 ◼   ► which I wanna, we're gonna talk about these

00:41:38 ◼   ► in a later episode of Cortex,

00:41:40 ◼   ► because I think it's kind of very cute and hilarious

00:41:43 ◼   ► that there are companies that are trying to change,

00:41:45 ◼   ► quote unquote, change email.

00:41:46 ◼   ► - Oh boy.

00:41:47 ◼   ► in the slack way but as in like we have changed the fundamentals of how email works. We will

00:41:53 ◼   ► park that for today. But from a perspective of how we manage email, I am much more typical.

00:42:01 ◼   ► P: Yeah, I want to know your philosophy of email.

00:42:04 ◼   ► S: Email comes in and I deal with email, right? Like I really don't… I don't prescribe to inbox

00:42:10 ◼   ► zero in the way people now believe what that means. The original intention of inbox zero is

00:42:17 ◼   ► basically as a way to categorize your email and then handle it where people think that Inbox Zero

00:42:23 ◼   ► is "get my inbox to zero" which is not correct by the basic idea of what the phrase is supposed to

00:42:30 ◼   ► mean. Nor do I think that trying to achieve Inbox Zero, which is what every email app seems to applaud

00:42:37 ◼   ► you for these days, right? Like if you have a nothing in your inbox they put up these little

00:42:41 ◼   ► graphics and they're like "ah you've got nothing in your inbox!" Like that is not a goal to try and

00:42:46 ◼   ► Aspire to because it's only going to fill up again. Even if you get there. It's going to be really fleeting, right?

00:42:52 ◼   ► Yeah

00:42:52 ◼   ► Well for me my basic philosophy is try and have as little email in my inbox as possible

00:42:58 ◼   ► Because it has been dealt with

00:43:01 ◼   ► Right, so which so I think really my personal philosophy is closer to the original

00:43:05 ◼   ► idea behind inbox zero of

00:43:08 ◼   ► Process the email, right?

00:43:11 ◼   ► Like that's what you're supposed to do and for me that takes forms of either a replying to it or be removing it

00:43:17 ◼   ► Right, like that's kind of how I deal with my email

00:43:19 ◼   ► But I am much more traditional and I have notifications for my email

00:43:24 ◼   ► So I want to know when the emails coming in in case it's something important and I will handle the email

00:43:30 ◼   ► My personal rule is to not let my email inbox scroll off my iPhone too far

00:43:36 ◼   ► Like I don't want

00:43:38 ◼   ► - I like the immediate addition there of too far.

00:43:41 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:43:42 ◼   ► - Well, 'cause again, it's like,

00:43:44 ◼   ► if I am being too rigid with this,

00:43:47 ◼   ► then I am imposing upon myself something

00:43:50 ◼   ► which I can't control

00:43:52 ◼   ► because the email's going to keep coming.

00:43:54 ◼   ► - Right.

00:43:55 ◼   ► - So like for me, with my task lists,

00:43:57 ◼   ► I try to not let my daily tasks go into double digits.

00:44:02 ◼   ► - Right.

00:44:02 ◼   ► - And so I can control that by moving things around.

00:44:07 ◼   ► But the way I would control email is just like,

00:44:09 ◼   ► I'll just delete everything.

00:44:10 ◼   ► But that's not helpful, right?

00:44:13 ◼   ► I can't just keep deleting emails until I'm at the level

00:44:16 ◼   ► that I want to be at visually, you know?

00:44:19 ◼   ► So multiple times a day, we'll handle my email.

00:44:22 ◼   ► A lot of my email is handled as it's coming in.

00:44:25 ◼   ► I'll see something that I want to respond to

00:44:27 ◼   ► and I will respond to it or I will remove it, right?

00:44:30 ◼   ► Like one of the reasons that I have notifications

00:44:33 ◼   ► is so I can triage my email as well.

00:44:35 ◼   ► So when I come to my email inbox,

00:44:37 ◼   ► the stuff that I didn't want to see has been archived

00:44:40 ◼   ► because I archived it when the notification came in.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And I use a service called Sanebox

00:44:46 ◼   ► that does some email filtering for me.

00:44:48 ◼   ► So like some of the newsletters that I receive

00:44:50 ◼   ► can actually just be put into a folder

00:44:52 ◼   ► so it's not filling up my inbox, which I enjoy,

00:44:55 ◼   ► because otherwise the newsletters that I'm paying for,

00:44:58 ◼   ► they would be archived

00:45:00 ◼   ► because they'd be taking up space, you know?

00:45:02 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:45:03 ◼   ► I feel like I'm very typical in like email is a massive part of my work.

00:45:08 ◼   ► And so handling it in a prompt manner by replying to the messages is effectively

00:45:13 ◼   ► how I handle email.

00:45:15 ◼   ► And I think that that is a very typical system for most people in any type of

00:45:20 ◼   ► corporate job, right?

00:45:22 ◼   ► I learned these skills working in a corporate environment.

00:45:26 ◼   ► I don't necessarily think that they are the best thing for people's mental

00:45:31 ◼   ► health to like always be in the email.

00:45:33 ◼   ► So it does require some level of self-control, which I've just built over time.

00:45:39 ◼   ► But I feel better knowing what's happening with the type of job that I have.

00:45:45 ◼   ► And so getting email coming in via notification works better for me.

00:45:50 ◼   ► And I've noticed a better improvement for me since I stopped getting those notifications

00:45:54 ◼   ► on my wrist and just left them on my phone.

00:45:57 ◼   ► I feel like that's much better for me.

00:46:00 ◼   ► getting the notifications but like they're not physically interacting with me anymore

00:46:05 ◼   ► by tapping me on my wrist to tell me the notifications here. That's just my general

00:46:09 ◼   ► role of Apple Watch now. Like my Apple Watch is on Do Not Disturb all the time. It is not a

00:46:15 ◼   ► notification device for me at all anymore which is kind of funny because that's what it initially was

00:46:19 ◼   ► when I started using one. But yeah, so that's where I am with email though. Like the email comes in,

00:46:24 ◼   ► I try and manage the email and that's it. You're triaging like the triage at a hospital when

00:46:30 ◼   ► people come into the emergency room like right away, you know, try to take care of that.

00:46:34 ◼   ► I'm triaging in the sense of how triage should be done, like, which is right away.

00:46:39 ◼   ► Like if you're triaging in a hospital by letting everybody build up and just deal with it in

00:46:44 ◼   ► two weeks, like, that's bad triage.

00:46:46 ◼   ► Yeah, that's how I triage.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Yeah, which is bad triage.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Once every two weeks we decide what's urgent.

00:46:52 ◼   ► No, people should 100% listen to you when it comes to how to handle email and not listen

00:46:58 ◼   ► to me.

00:46:59 ◼   ► somewhere in the middle is like ideal but I think that the realistic part of it is that my way of

00:47:05 ◼   ► managing it is kind of the way that it needs to be managed because that's the expectation of the world.

00:47:12 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah I'm in a bit of a not helpful to most people situation of being able to largely ignore

00:47:22 ◼   ► email mostly and also being at the receiving end of a ridiculously large amount of email.

00:47:30 ◼   ► So like I'm just at an odd intersection. But the thing that I can say here though is that

00:47:36 ◼   ► I've been using emails slowly much more because of some project shifts that sort of coincided with

00:47:44 ◼   ► Year of Clarity stuff where I've had to be able to interact with the outside world more in a direct

00:47:50 ◼   ► way. Like if I'm reaching out to experts for things like I need to be able to reply to those

00:47:55 ◼   ► people and like get their feedback back. And you know, if I'm arranging things, I need to be able

00:48:00 ◼   ► to know if something has changed on a more frequent than never basis like it was before.

00:48:05 ◼   ► So it's been kind of interesting to me kind of coming back to email. But my triage system, which

00:48:12 ◼   ► I do think would still work, even if you're using email much more frequently is I use email

00:48:17 ◼   ► exclusively on my Mac because of one feature of Mail, the default application that Apple has,

00:48:26 ◼   ► which is these smart mailboxes where you can set a bunch of rules. And so I've returned to the

00:48:33 ◼   ► the thing that I did years and years ago when I was more an email of of using smart email boxes to

00:48:40 ◼   ► to be able to triage the category of people.

00:48:45 ◼   ► And so it's like, okay, I use Apple's VIP system

00:48:48 ◼   ► to tag people who I want to be able to reply to

00:48:51 ◼   ► on a relatively quick basis.

00:48:53 ◼   ► So that's like my assistant or other people

00:48:56 ◼   ► that I'm working with or experts relevant

00:48:59 ◼   ► to an ongoing project.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Like I can tag those people as VIPs.

00:49:04 ◼   ► And it does allow me, by then just having those people

00:49:07 ◼   ► one particular group. It allows me to very quickly see, "Has that person gotten back to me or have the

00:49:13 ◼   ► plans changed at all?" and I was like, "Nope, okay, fine." And I can just kind of close it. So

00:49:18 ◼   ► it pulls out those important things to me. And then my second level down is everybody else who's

00:49:25 ◼   ► in my contact book on the computer in some way. So it's like, "Have I ever created a contact card

00:49:31 ◼   ► for this person and in many ways that is now my real inbox and I do my best to clear that one,

00:49:39 ◼   ► although it can still be quite a lot sometimes, especially because I'm not looking super frequently.

00:49:43 ◼   ► The real killer thing to me about the smart mailboxes is adding a bunch of rules so that

00:49:50 ◼   ► I can pull out all of the automated notifications that you get in email from like a million billion

00:49:55 ◼   ► systems. There is some of this that you could do with Gmail, right? Oh yeah, yeah, I like, I know

00:50:00 ◼   ► know that this is possible in Gmail, I just like, I find the, because I use Apple's smart

00:50:07 ◼   ► features in a bunch of other apps, like I'm already really familiar with the system and

00:50:11 ◼   ► it works like it works with a bunch of other stuff.

00:50:13 ◼   ► It's criminal that they still have not brought these to iOS.

00:50:16 ◼   ► I'd like, I remember thinking like, oh, this, this will be here any day. And it's

00:50:19 ◼   ► like 10 years later, they still have not imported it over. And same with smart albums on iPhoto

00:50:24 ◼   ► and smart, smart playlists are to some extent on the music, but yeah, I think it's crazy.

00:50:30 ◼   ► But yeah, so I do now try on a regular basis as part of my like reviewing the system to

00:50:35 ◼   ► clear at least like the top two levels of the VIPs and people who are in my address

00:50:41 ◼   ► book in some way and then look at all the automated notifications.

00:50:45 ◼   ► And then after that is like the like the pit of infinity of just like all of the random

00:50:50 ◼   ► emails from people I have no idea who they are.

00:50:54 ◼   ► I can't fathom you ever opening that folder.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Well, that's why I mean it's like the pit of infinity because what happens is…

00:51:00 ◼   ► Like looking into the Ark of the Covenant.

00:51:01 ◼   ► Yeah, by the time I've cleared the messages that I need to try to reply to, I'm so exhausted

00:51:07 ◼   ► already, right?

00:51:08 ◼   ► That I'm like, "I don't want to deal with this."

00:51:11 ◼   ► And again, why I'm in a situation that's not really applicable to many people, but

00:51:16 ◼   ► I think the people who are actually trying to get in touch with me and trying to figure

00:51:20 ◼   ► out like, "Oh, I think I have something that's useful for Gray.

00:51:24 ◼   ► what's the best way to get in touch with him are realizing like he's got a contact form on his

00:51:29 ◼   ► website that says please use this to get in touch that's probably the way and then like my assistant

00:51:34 ◼   ► is elevating those interesting messages up to me so it's like there is a really big filtering

00:51:40 ◼   ► effect here which is like one follow the rules right like yeah you can follow the rules then

00:51:47 ◼   ► maybe i want to hear what you have to say yeah yeah it's it's a bit like um you know a pro tip

00:51:53 ◼   ► for anybody who's applying for a job. For almost any job, the rules about how you're supposed to

00:51:59 ◼   ► apply for the job are part of the application. So even if there's something that you think is

00:52:05 ◼   ► dumb with the way they want you to apply, they're seeing can you follow the rules.

00:52:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, like whenever I've been hiring in Relay FM, like I want a resume and a cover letter,

00:52:16 ◼   ► and if you didn't provide a cover letter, well, I'm not gonna read your resume now.

00:52:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:52:20 ◼   ► Because I asked for something and you decided not to do it or didn't read and I think both of those

00:52:28 ◼   ► two things would maybe indicate to me that I'm not sure how well we could work together.

00:52:33 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's roughly the way that I'm doing things now and the only like tip that I have here

00:52:39 ◼   ► is for me, email is largely interruptive, so it's a thing that I want to make a decision about.

00:52:48 ◼   ► I am sitting down and this is part of my, like an omni-focus, this is part of my clearing the

00:52:53 ◼   ► communications hierarchy. It's like, okay, I've cleared the top couple levels and now I'm getting

00:52:58 ◼   ► down to email and like I'm making a decision that I'm going to try to go through some emails.

00:53:02 ◼   ► And so because of that, because there's basically never going to be anything in email that's actually

00:53:07 ◼   ► urgent for me to deal with, I turn off all the notifications because they wouldn't help me with

00:53:12 ◼   ► the way that I work. Yeah, it doesn't make sense for you. And again, like for a lot of people,

00:53:16 ◼   ► I think a really great way to handle email is to have no notifications,

00:53:20 ◼   ► but to have a set time every day that you would sit down and look at it.

00:53:24 ◼   ► In previous careers, that's what I've done.

00:53:27 ◼   ► But like, right, I will look at email between 9 and 10 and between 4 and 5,

00:53:31 ◼   ► and that's going to be it.

00:53:33 ◼   ► And for many people in many careers, that's enough.

00:53:37 ◼   ► That really is enough.

00:53:39 ◼   ► But for a couple of reasons for me, one being that I do have things

00:53:44 ◼   ► that tend to be quite time sensitive and two, I have just learned over time

00:53:48 ◼   ► that I feel better that way, right? Like I've tried both models and the idea of

00:53:54 ◼   ► at four o'clock sitting down opening up my email and there being 40 things in

00:53:58 ◼   ► there, I hate that feeling. So dipping my toe into email frequently throughout the

00:54:03 ◼   ► day, marking off and getting rid of the things I don't want to deal with,

00:54:07 ◼   ► assigning things to other people quickly, I'll get to that in a moment, and then

00:54:11 ◼   ► leaving myself with the things that I have left, that can be useful for me and

00:54:16 ◼   ► then it also allows me to start linking these two things that we've been talking

00:54:21 ◼   ► about together. So I might have an email which I'm aware of is gonna take some

00:54:26 ◼   ► time to prepare a response to, so then it goes into Todoist. I will make a task,

00:54:30 ◼   ► right? Right, respond to this email and then that's out of the mental system then.

00:54:35 ◼   ► And even if I want to, then I could put it in a folder to deal with it later on.

00:54:39 ◼   ► Yeah, and this again goes back to the point that there's no one system for anyone and

00:54:45 ◼   ► my suggestions would be career suicide for many people and

00:54:50 ◼   ► Also, your suggestions would be career suicide for people like you've got a you've got to figure out what part of this works for you

00:54:56 ◼   ► I'm gonna say that my system is less

00:54:58 ◼   ► Significantly than yours, but oh, oh, yeah, but there are some people right where I think we know at least one person

00:55:07 ◼   ► through email the way you do.

00:55:08 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:55:09 ◼   ► I guess the only tip that I'll suggest here

00:55:12 ◼   ► that really does work for me that I find really helpful

00:55:14 ◼   ► is always sorting by sender, not sorting by date.

00:55:17 ◼   ► I find particularly as I move down the hierarchy,

00:55:21 ◼   ► that becomes more and more useful is,

00:55:24 ◼   ► let me just deal with all the messages from this person at once.

00:55:27 ◼   ► Or when you're getting into the automated messages stuff,

00:55:31 ◼   ► where it's like, oh, here's 20 messages from Amazon

00:55:35 ◼   ► that are all related to various purchases.

00:55:37 ◼   ► Like, is there anything that I care about in here? No.

00:55:39 ◼   ► Okay, I can just like archive 20 Amazon messages all at once, that kind of thing.

00:55:43 ◼   ► So I almost always try to sort by sender instead of sorting by date,

00:55:49 ◼   ► and I just find that makes it faster in batches sometimes of like,

00:55:52 ◼   ► there's three emails from this person,

00:55:54 ◼   ► I can quickly see only if the most recent one is relevant and just kind of get rid of it and

00:55:58 ◼   ► not feel like my brain has to boot up each time of like

00:56:03 ◼   ► Going down a list and being like oh, this is another message from this person

00:56:06 ◼   ► Is this relevant to the thing before like no no, I've already taken care of like this person and that's all closed

00:56:12 ◼   ► You know from an app perspective you mentioned Apple mail

00:56:14 ◼   ► Which even though you are using for a complexity thing like it has some powerful

00:56:21 ◼   ► Rule systems in it on the Mac the Apple mail system itself is one of the more basic email apps that you could find

00:56:27 ◼   ► Oh, yeah. Yeah, the actual interface of it is super basic, which I also value

00:56:32 ◼   ► you. Yeah. And feature wise, like in the sense of what an email app is expected to do in

00:56:38 ◼   ► the year 2020, Apple Mail is very low down in the totem pole.

00:56:42 ◼   ► It's a dinosaur. There's no boomeranging or whatever.

00:56:46 ◼   ► Snoozing tends to be the nomenclature these days. And so these are, you know, Gmail is

00:56:53 ◼   ► better at this kind of stuff as in like having modern features like Gmail will do like automatic

00:56:58 ◼   ► sorting for you if you want to, right? So it can automatically sort away

00:57:03 ◼   ► newsletters and stuff like that. And that's really great if you use Gmail. If

00:57:08 ◼   ► you don't use Gmail and use other email services, then you need to think about

00:57:12 ◼   ► other third-party apps. And there are many, there are many. And they all differ

00:57:17 ◼   ► in some way. The application that I have settled on is Spark. I don't particularly

00:57:24 ◼   ► like a lot of the app, like from a design perspective. There are things that

00:57:28 ◼   ► don't like about it but it has some features that I really have come to

00:57:34 ◼   ► value which is why I use it. So there are two key features for me these days for

00:57:40 ◼   ► why I use Spark. One is it has the ability in two taps for me to make an

00:57:47 ◼   ► email a PDF and then to upload it to somewhere. And this is really important

00:57:53 ◼   ► for me for accountancy purposes.

00:57:56 ◼   ► So I get an email receipt, I turn it into a PDF,

00:58:00 ◼   ► and then I have a shortcut that uploads it

00:58:02 ◼   ► to a specific Dropbox folder,

00:58:04 ◼   ► which is fed into a system that my accountant needs.

00:58:06 ◼   ► Right, so that's like super useful to me.

00:58:09 ◼   ► Every other application, it seems to be a pain, right?

00:58:11 ◼   ► Like you have to go to the print menu,

00:58:13 ◼   ► and then like you can have a PDF, like I hate that.

00:58:15 ◼   ► - You print a PDF to your fax machine, yeah.

00:58:18 ◼   ► - Yes, it's wild.

00:58:19 ◼   ► And then the other one, the most important thing

00:58:22 ◼   ► is that Spark has an email team system,

00:58:25 ◼   ► so you can share email with other people.

00:58:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's always sounded really killer to me,

00:58:30 ◼   ► as far as a feature.

00:58:31 ◼   ► - It's amazing.

00:58:32 ◼   ► I love that part of it.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Like, really, that's the main reason that I use Spark,

00:58:36 ◼   ► and won't look at other email apps now,

00:58:39 ◼   ► unless they have a similar system,

00:58:40 ◼   ► and there are not a lot that do.

00:58:42 ◼   ► So basically, this allows me to take an email message

00:58:45 ◼   ► that was sent to me, and put it in somebody else's inbox,

00:58:49 ◼   ► and have them handle it.

00:58:51 ◼   ► and then also have a conversation in line

00:58:55 ◼   ► that the recipient of the email does not see.

00:58:57 ◼   ► So I can talk to somebody like,

00:58:59 ◼   ► what do you think about this?

00:59:00 ◼   ► Can you do this?

00:59:01 ◼   ► Can you handle this?

00:59:01 ◼   ► And it's like a chat which is around the email.

00:59:04 ◼   ► It's a very cool system, it's very powerful.

00:59:07 ◼   ► If it went away, I would be devastated.

00:59:09 ◼   ► So that's why I use Spark.

00:59:12 ◼   ► - This here is also just an example of like,

00:59:14 ◼   ► yeah, I'm using a really simple and old app

00:59:17 ◼   ► that hasn't changed in, I mean,

00:59:20 ◼   ► basically a decade has been pretty much untouched.

00:59:23 ◼   ► And this is just another one of these cases

00:59:24 ◼   ► where if you're organizing your life,

00:59:27 ◼   ► like one of these key things to be aware of

00:59:29 ◼   ► is what do you want to spend your time on?

00:59:32 ◼   ► And like I have spent a lot of time

00:59:36 ◼   ► trying out all of the different to-do apps

00:59:37 ◼   ► and knowing them well and seeing what works

00:59:40 ◼   ► and what works for me.

00:59:41 ◼   ► And like that's a place that's worth investing in

00:59:44 ◼   ► because it's an area where I need a lot of complexity.

00:59:46 ◼   ► And it's also something that is open on my computer

00:59:49 ◼   ► 24 hours a day that I'm always looking at. And email is a system that I spend an hour on

00:59:55 ◼   ► once a week or once every 10 days. And so for me, like investing time into what is the app that

01:00:03 ◼   ► could have me handle email the most efficiently is like a terrible return on investment in my time,

01:00:08 ◼   ► because I'm already using it so poorly that I just don't even consider like, "Oh, let me investigate

01:00:15 ◼   ► what the other email options are because it's not remotely a relevant bottleneck in my own process.

01:00:21 ◼   ► And I think this is something that you always have to keep an eye on.

01:00:24 ◼   ► David: But I think the thing that we've highlighted here for email

01:00:28 ◼   ► is that both me and Gray have established a thing which is really important to us and dictates the

01:00:34 ◼   ► choices that we make. So you want smart rule systems and I want team sharing, like delegation.

01:00:41 ◼   ► and those two things dictate the applications that we've ended up sticking with.

01:00:45 ◼   ► And I actually think this is an important part of choosing an email app now,

01:00:50 ◼   ► because all email apps, with the exception of Apple Mail, try to be everything and

01:00:55 ◼   ► don't really have the, in a lot of cases, like the design decisions that to-do apps do.

01:01:03 ◼   ► So this is why, like, whilst there are lots of to-do apps, there's lots of email apps,

01:01:07 ◼   ► I don't say there are no good to-do apps. There are good to-do apps, because a lot of them come

01:01:11 ◼   ► with an idea behind them. I feel like most email apps these days, they try to be everything

01:01:16 ◼   ► and they can't all be everything and I just think that ultimately they leave things behind.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And all of the best email apps that I've enjoyed have had a principle behind them and have

01:01:28 ◼   ► been designed thoughtfully about like this is how we want to help you handle your email

01:01:33 ◼   ► and I just don't really feel like that's the case these days and therefore all email apps

01:01:38 ◼   ► so bad. No email apps are good. You just have to find the one you like the most. You hate

01:01:45 ◼   ► the least.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Like the mmm, actually.

01:01:48 ◼   ► I can't bring myself to say like the most. I've tried basically every single email app

01:01:53 ◼   ► and there's always a problem. And look, I'll just say before people tell me the app that

01:01:58 ◼   ► they've used, I guarantee you I've tried it and there's something that I don't like about

01:02:01 ◼   ► it. One of the big problems for me is the services supported by an app. There are some

01:02:07 ◼   ► some apps that are fantastic if you only use Gmail, but I don't. So I can't use that application.

01:02:14 ◼   ► So like this happens a lot. So I just want to try and cover a few of these bases here.

01:02:19 ◼   ► Right, right. I know what you're doing. You're trying to like head off all the recommendations

01:02:24 ◼   ► and let me tell you abouts, right? Yeah.

01:02:26 ◼   ► Yeah, because trust me, I've tried them.

01:02:29 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace and create

01:02:35 ◼   ► A website for your next idea.

01:02:37 ◼   ► Squarespace will help you with a unique domain name, give you the ability to

01:02:40 ◼   ► customize award winning, beautiful templates and so much more.

01:02:44 ◼   ► No matter what type of website you want to create, Squarespace is the all in

01:02:47 ◼   ► one platform that will let you do it.

01:02:49 ◼   ► They have all of the functionality you could ever want.

01:02:52 ◼   ► If you want to start a blog, you can do that.

01:02:53 ◼   ► A portfolio, you can do that.

01:02:55 ◼   ► A site for your business, you can do that.

01:02:56 ◼   ► What if you want to sell physical or digital goods?

01:02:59 ◼   ► Squarespace can help you do that too.

01:03:01 ◼   ► There's nothing to install, patch, worry about or upgrade

01:03:04 ◼   ► because they cover all of that for you.

01:03:07 ◼   ► You don't have to worry about it at all.

01:03:09 ◼   ► And they have award winning 24/7 customer support.

01:03:12 ◼   ► So if you need help, they're there.

01:03:14 ◼   ► I've used Squarespace for years for so, so many projects,

01:03:17 ◼   ► actually like a decade now.

01:03:19 ◼   ► I've been using them for websites that I've been making,

01:03:21 ◼   ► because when I want to get something online, I want to get it online.

01:03:24 ◼   ► I don't want to have to think about setting up a website itself

01:03:27 ◼   ► and trying to work out how to do that from scratch.

01:03:29 ◼   ► I know how to build Squarespace websites because they're easy to do.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I'm comfortable with it.

01:03:33 ◼   ► It makes me feel confident in being able to get what I want on the web.

01:03:37 ◼   ► Their plans start at just $12 a month, but you can sign up for a trial today with no

01:03:41 ◼   ► credit card required.

01:03:42 ◼   ► So go to squarespace.com/cortex.

01:03:44 ◼   ► You can try it out right now, build your entire website, and then when you want to launch

01:03:48 ◼   ► it to the world, if you use the offer code "CORTEX" you will get 10% off your first purchase

01:03:52 ◼   ► of a website or domain.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Once again that is squarespace.com/cortex and the code CORTEX to get 10% off your first

01:03:59 ◼   ► purchase and support the show.

01:04:01 ◼   ► Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of Cortex and Relay FM.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Should we talk about time tracking?

01:04:09 ◼   ► Honestly this is the one that I get the most.

01:04:11 ◼   ► I know it's almost a meme at this point that on our show we talk about time tracking, but

01:04:15 ◼   ► one of the main reasons we're doing this episode today is because of all of these things, the

01:04:20 ◼   ► that I hear about the most frequently is people asking, "Can you give me an overview or

01:04:27 ◼   ► tell me where to go to get an overview of your time tracking system?" And so now we

01:04:32 ◼   ► are providing it in this episode.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:04:35 ◼   ► And I think it's because time tracking I think is one of the newer, especially from

01:04:41 ◼   ► like doing it with your devices, some of the newer productivity ideas. Email, to-do, calendars,

01:04:48 ◼   ► Calendars, they've been around for a very long time.

01:04:52 ◼   ► Right, yeah. Calendars have been around since the Mayan civilization.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Well, calendars have been around for all of time, I guess, because otherwise it wasn't being recorded.

01:05:01 ◼   ► Would- I would just suppose-

01:05:02 ◼   ► No, time still happens if there's not a calendar to report it. I can-

01:05:06 ◼   ► If a calendar falls in the woods-

01:05:09 ◼   ► If a big bang happens in the nothingness, does it still expand? Yes. The answer is yes.

01:05:14 ◼   ► Someone had to write it down eventually.

01:05:16 ◼   ► Nevertheless, I feel like time tracking is one of the more new things for people to do of their own choice.

01:05:22 ◼   ► Like, the idea of timesheets has been around for a long time, right?

01:05:26 ◼   ► But that's typically something enforced upon you by an employer.

01:05:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, like, that the people are asking about it,

01:05:36 ◼   ► because what it also just occurs to me is, I wonder if there's a little bit of the,

01:05:40 ◼   ► like a horror movie effect here where people are intrigued because they're also a little scared,

01:05:46 ◼   ► right? Like, you know, what will if I open this time tracking door, what's behind it?

01:05:51 ◼   ► And the answer is like, it's gonna be scary. I would say it's clarity. That can be good or bad.

01:06:01 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. What you will learn is something about how wrong your brain is in estimating something,

01:06:09 ◼   ► whether it's that you work too much or not enough.

01:06:12 ◼   ► So that's the main reason why I started this.

01:06:18 ◼   ► You go back far enough, you've been doing this,

01:06:20 ◼   ► you had been doing this for a while,

01:06:22 ◼   ► and I, through having a bunch of conversations

01:06:25 ◼   ► with you on this show, realized that I wanted

01:06:28 ◼   ► to get a little bit more clarity,

01:06:29 ◼   ► especially as I was navigating through self-employment,

01:06:33 ◼   ► about how many hours I was actually working

01:06:36 ◼   ► compared to how many hours it felt like I was working.

01:06:39 ◼   ► And that is completely for me, and maybe for you too,

01:06:44 ◼   ► the reason that I time track is to help me reframe

01:06:48 ◼   ► my mental model of what I'm spending my time on

01:06:53 ◼   ► when it comes to work.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Because when I'm working, I set a timer,

01:06:58 ◼   ► and I put basic information as to what I'm doing

01:07:01 ◼   ► over that period of time.

01:07:03 ◼   ► So then on a basis that I set,

01:07:06 ◼   ► you know, or really for me whenever I want to,

01:07:09 ◼   ► I can review that data to see over a period of time

01:07:13 ◼   ► how much have I worked.

01:07:15 ◼   ► Sometimes it can be to check something that I'm feeling

01:07:18 ◼   ► or it can be to help me make some plans.

01:07:21 ◼   ► So for example, sometimes I'll get to the end of the day

01:07:24 ◼   ► and I'm like, I am exhausted.

01:07:26 ◼   ► And I'll look at my time tracker and be like,

01:07:28 ◼   ► oh, I've logged 10 hours, 12 hours of work today.

01:07:32 ◼   ► That's why.

01:07:33 ◼   ► And that can just be a useful thing sometimes

01:07:36 ◼   ► for me to check that against myself.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Or I'm exhausted.

01:07:39 ◼   ► Oh wait, I've logged four hours of work today.

01:07:41 ◼   ► So there's another reason.

01:07:43 ◼   ► What's that reason?

01:07:44 ◼   ► So stuff like that, it can give me those answers.

01:07:47 ◼   ► Or evaluating a new project.

01:07:50 ◼   ► I have a new thing coming up or I have a new place

01:07:52 ◼   ► that I want to put some time into.

01:07:54 ◼   ► Let me take a look overall over the last year

01:07:57 ◼   ► about how I spent my time.

01:07:59 ◼   ► Is this the right thing for me to be spending time on

01:08:02 ◼   ► based upon where I'm already putting my time?

01:08:06 ◼   ► So if I feel like, oh, I have a new podcast

01:08:09 ◼   ► that I wanna start, but I'm not sure if I wanna edit,

01:08:12 ◼   ► I feel like I do too much editing,

01:08:14 ◼   ► and then I take a look at the figures and realize,

01:08:16 ◼   ► oh boy, I'm doing more editing

01:08:17 ◼   ► than I even thought I was based on hours,

01:08:20 ◼   ► then I would make a decision about this project

01:08:23 ◼   ► as to either to not do it or to get external help

01:08:26 ◼   ► to help me push something forward.

01:08:29 ◼   ► So these are the types of things that you can learn

01:08:33 ◼   ► about yourself when you're time tracking.

01:08:35 ◼   ► You know, like I hear something from friends of mine

01:08:39 ◼   ► where they're like, oh, I spent all this time

01:08:42 ◼   ► on this project and I've put it out there

01:08:44 ◼   ► and sales were okay on it.

01:08:47 ◼   ► I don't know if it was the right decision to make.

01:08:50 ◼   ► But from my perspective, if you don't know how long

01:08:52 ◼   ► it took you to build that thing,

01:08:54 ◼   ► you're never gonna know the answer

01:08:56 ◼   ► as to whether it was worth it or not.

01:08:58 ◼   ► you know, like the amount of hours you put into it,

01:09:00 ◼   ► the amount of money you see from the end of it, right?

01:09:02 ◼   ► So this is especially important

01:09:03 ◼   ► if you're self-employed and making things.

01:09:05 ◼   ► Then you can work out an equation

01:09:07 ◼   ► as to how much money your time was worth.

01:09:10 ◼   ► These are important things that, in my perspective,

01:09:12 ◼   ► you can't have without some kind of time tracking system

01:09:16 ◼   ► because your brain is not reliable enough.

01:09:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I mean, the reason that I time track

01:09:21 ◼   ► is very different from this,

01:09:22 ◼   ► but I think it's important for everyone,

01:09:24 ◼   ► but especially if you've become self-employed.

01:09:29 ◼   ► Nobody ever wants to do it, but I really think every newly self-employed person

01:09:34 ◼   ► has to have time tracking as a part of this process because

01:09:39 ◼   ► I think there's a very common experience for people who are self-employed to

01:09:44 ◼   ► dramatically overestimate the amount of time

01:09:49 ◼   ► Not that they're "working" in quotes, but that they are "usefully working."

01:09:54 ◼   ► Right, so...

01:09:56 ◼   ► This is one of the things I implore to people is...

01:10:00 ◼   ► If you're self-employed, and so the money you earn is directly proportional to the useful work that you produce,

01:10:10 ◼   ► be really strict about tracking the time that you are actually doing the thing that produces the value.

01:10:20 ◼   ► And you have to separate this from the concept of in a traditional job where like,

01:10:27 ◼   ► you're at that job for a set period of time and like, you've been working all day because you were at work.

01:10:33 ◼   ► And like, that is just not the same if you're self-employed.

01:10:37 ◼   ► And I think time tracking really helps focus that quite sharply in people's minds.

01:10:42 ◼   ► And the reason why I say it's a horror is because anyone who has done this

01:10:48 ◼   ► universally are shocked at how little of the time that they think of as "I'm working"

01:10:56 ◼   ► is the core value production time of whatever it is they're doing.

01:11:02 ◼   ► And so for me the example with this is it's quite clear is time tracking writing. Am I writing a

01:11:10 ◼   ► script? And I'm extremely strict with that timer of like this starts and like the timer can only run

01:11:21 ◼   ► if my fingers are moving right or if I'm saying the script out loud and if I'm not doing those

01:11:27 ◼   ► things like the timer cannot run. You know, if you're a computer programmer it should be the

01:11:32 ◼   ► same thing. Like are you actively working on the code is the thing to be tracking not am I sitting

01:11:40 ◼   ► at the computer? And I think it's just so easy to trick yourself in into this and you know especially

01:11:48 ◼   ► for a newly self-employed person to feel like oh I'm working 16 hours a day and it's like guarantee

01:11:55 ◼   ► you aren't and you just will not be able to have a sense of this. And while like all of work is

01:12:02 ◼   ► useful to track, I implore people to really focus on like what is the core value production and be

01:12:10 ◼   ► super strict about that one because everything else is kind of peripheral around it. And,

01:12:16 ◼   ► you know, in most jobs you can kind of think about like what is the core thing that really needs to

01:12:24 ◼   ► always be done that like has to be done? Back when I was a teacher, like what is the core thing?

01:12:30 ◼   ► There's many things you need to do, but the core thing is lesson planning because if you don't have

01:12:37 ◼   ► lessons for tomorrow, like the day is going to come and you are going to be screwed if you have

01:12:43 ◼   ► nothing to do all day. It also clarifies like marking that homework, it can wait, right? Like

01:12:50 ◼   ► you can start to use time tracking partly to like, sort out the priorities of things in your life.

01:12:57 ◼   ► So, I really implore everyone to do this, at least for a little bit.

01:13:03 ◼   ► And I'm always suspicious of when people are resistant to it, where they're like,

01:13:07 ◼   ► "Oh, I don't need to do this. I've got everything under control." And I'm like,

01:13:11 ◼   ► "Nope, that is- I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to the sneaky, lying part of your brain

01:13:17 ◼   ► that like wants to get away with stuff when you don't want to actually keep track of things.

01:13:22 ◼   ► So I will say this though, that like a key difference between us that I've been aware

01:13:27 ◼   ► of over the years is while I time track both much more than you, so I time track basically

01:13:34 ◼   ► every hour that I'm awake I'm running a timer, with some new small exceptions we can talk about

01:13:38 ◼   ► next week, but generally like I'm always running a timer. But I only really look at that data

01:13:46 ◼   ► on a daily basis of the program that I'm using, which is the same one you're using behind the

01:13:52 ◼   ► scenes, Toggle. If you have it in a web browser, they'll provide you like a little chart of how

01:13:56 ◼   ► you're spending your time for the day. But that's really all I ever use it for. And so, because I've

01:14:03 ◼   ► been time tracking for so long and I don't need to do as much of that like initial calibration as

01:14:10 ◼   ► when someone starts, I'm largely using time tracking as like an intentionality assistant.

01:14:15 ◼   ► And so for me it's become much more like pressing the timer for "I'm writing" is part of the process

01:14:25 ◼   ► of like "I'm really writing now" and like "why is this happening?" because the timer is running.

01:14:31 ◼   ► When we finish recording this episode you're going to go off and edit it and then you're going to

01:14:36 ◼   ► give that to me, and I'm going to go do the second edit."

01:14:40 ◼   ► And it's like, "What am I doing right now?

01:14:42 ◼   ► I'm gonna start the timer that says 'Cortex' because right now I'm working on Cortex."

01:14:48 ◼   ► And the thing that I really like about that is it makes it much clearer to me

01:14:53 ◼   ► what am I intentionally deciding to do.

01:14:56 ◼   ► Instead of just kind of like drifting through the day,

01:15:00 ◼   ► when the moment comes where it's like, "Oh, I've finished Cortex,"

01:15:04 ◼   ► or I've petered out of writing energy,

01:15:07 ◼   ► now in my life there's always this question which is,

01:15:11 ◼   ► "Well, what's the next timer that you're going to start?"

01:15:13 ◼   ► And so it like, it forces me to always re-evaluate at the end of each work unit,

01:15:19 ◼   ► "What's the next thing that I'm going to do?"

01:15:22 ◼   ► So it's just interesting to me that like, that's what time tracking has evolved into,

01:15:26 ◼   ► is a tool of intentionality.

01:15:28 ◼   ► And it's like, you know, you've reported on like how you've spent your time each year,

01:15:34 ◼   ► and I just don't really have any interest in that data for myself except in the most broad and brief

01:15:41 ◼   ► kind of ways. But I don't really use it as a planning tool. I use something else for that,

01:15:47 ◼   ► which we can talk about later. So that's the way it works for me.

01:15:49 ◼   ► I do think that that is a very valid part of time tracking too, of helping you set the expectation

01:15:57 ◼   ► in your mind for what you're doing at any certain time. I am sitting down to work now. I think that

01:16:04 ◼   ► That is a very important part of it.

01:16:05 ◼   ► - Or even like for the why do I run timers

01:16:08 ◼   ► for the rest of things is even just like deciding to relax

01:16:13 ◼   ► and I was like, oh, the day's over, what am I doing?

01:16:16 ◼   ► I'm sitting on the couch

01:16:17 ◼   ► and I'm watching a movie with my wife.

01:16:19 ◼   ► Like click, the timer starts.

01:16:21 ◼   ► It's like, this is what I'm deciding to do.

01:16:23 ◼   ► Great, the day's over.

01:16:24 ◼   ► And I like that as make a conscious decision,

01:16:28 ◼   ► don't just drift from task to task.

01:16:31 ◼   ► So that's what I like.

01:16:33 ◼   ► but I just realized, I assume that you're still using toggle,

01:16:36 ◼   ► but I haven't asked you in a while.

01:16:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:16:38 ◼   ► I mean, toggle is merely a backend service for the Timery,

01:16:43 ◼   ► the third party app that I love,

01:16:45 ◼   ► that uses toggles data and timers,

01:16:49 ◼   ► but it's an iOS app that is just fantastic.

01:16:52 ◼   ► And then on the Mac, I use the toggle app,

01:16:55 ◼   ► which is terrible, but gets the job done.

01:16:58 ◼   ► But that's what I use, right?

01:17:00 ◼   ► And then of course, we both have some shortcuts

01:17:02 ◼   ► that we've created that allow just being able

01:17:05 ◼   ► to set things easily and I use Timery's shortcuts

01:17:08 ◼   ► that they've created to add in to existing shortcuts

01:17:11 ◼   ► that I make to make that stuff sing.

01:17:14 ◼   ► But yeah, Toggle's service is good.

01:17:16 ◼   ► It's pretty rock solid.

01:17:17 ◼   ► I like that it also has the ability to create an account

01:17:21 ◼   ► that can have team information in it.

01:17:24 ◼   ► My sales manager, we have them track their time

01:17:27 ◼   ► through Toggle, which is useful for them

01:17:30 ◼   ► because then they can use that to bill us.

01:17:32 ◼   ► That is a useful part of time tracking.

01:17:35 ◼   ► If you are self-employed and you bill people

01:17:38 ◼   ► based on the time that you work,

01:17:40 ◼   ► this is the best way to get that data

01:17:42 ◼   ► is to actually track the time that you're doing

01:17:44 ◼   ► 'cause you're really tracking what you're doing, right?

01:17:46 ◼   ► And most of these applications, including Toggle,

01:17:48 ◼   ► will allow you to create a report based on that information

01:17:52 ◼   ► to help you do the billing that you need to do.

01:17:54 ◼   ► And neither of us bill anyone, right?

01:17:56 ◼   ► - We don't use billing,

01:17:57 ◼   ► but there is sort of one exception to looking at the data,

01:17:59 ◼   ► which I use, so this is just a little suggestion

01:18:02 ◼   ► if someone wants to use it this way.

01:18:04 ◼   ► So toggle allows you to have this additional setting

01:18:07 ◼   ► which is, they want it for like billable hours.

01:18:11 ◼   ► But I use the billable hours toggle

01:18:14 ◼   ► as time that I highly value.

01:18:18 ◼   ► So this is either the core stuff

01:18:21 ◼   ► like writing and researching a script,

01:18:23 ◼   ► but I'll also use it for exercise time.

01:18:26 ◼   ► And so I am always thinking of like billable hours

01:18:29 ◼   ► their little system just are tracked completely separately. And so I always feel like I wanted,

01:18:35 ◼   ► I do in a particular day always want to kind of hit a certain number of hours where I feel like

01:18:41 ◼   ► these are all the high value activities. So that's like the writing, it's the exercise,

01:18:47 ◼   ► it's certain kinds of reading. Those three things like, you know, these are the best ways that I can

01:18:52 ◼   ► spend my working time. So they're not billable hours, but I do love that toggle does pull those

01:18:58 ◼   ► things out and I can quickly see like I sort of don't care about the whole day but I do

01:19:03 ◼   ► care about these numbers. Like these numbers combined should always be like at a certain

01:19:07 ◼   ► point. Interesting. Yeah that's how I use the billable hours. I never would have thought to

01:19:13 ◼   ► do that. I wouldn't use that but I can see it being a thing that you could use. From a setup

01:19:19 ◼   ► perspective for me I actually have a pretty similar arrangement to how my to-do system is

01:19:26 ◼   ► by design. So when you set a time tracker you can give it a description so you can type in

01:19:31 ◼   ► freeform what you're doing and then you can add projects and tags. Now I only use projects and

01:19:38 ◼   ► tags. I never feel like I need to write a description of what I'm doing and I basically

01:19:43 ◼   ► set it up that my projects are the things in my life that I work on and by and large they are

01:19:51 ◼   ► named the same as the projects in my to-do list.

01:19:54 ◼   ► Right, so in Todoist.

01:19:56 ◼   ► I'm not like laying the state over one or the other, but it just helps me just mentally

01:20:00 ◼   ► keep track of what's being worked on because I don't have to think about like what do I

01:20:04 ◼   ► call it in Todoist versus what do I call it in Toggle.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Right, so like, you know, I'll have like sponsors, I'll have show prep and all that kind of stuff.

01:20:13 ◼   ► It's probably time for me to review these.

01:20:15 ◼   ► I would like to actually pare them down a little bit more.

01:20:18 ◼   ► And then I also use tags and the tags are the names of the shows that I'm on.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Because if I am using the podcast recording or podcast editing project, that is almost

01:20:29 ◼   ► useless for me unless I'm saying what show it is that I'm doing.

01:20:32 ◼   ► Right, because you want to be able to pull out the data per show.

01:20:35 ◼   ► Yeah, because that can differ wildly because like I don't edit every show that I'm

01:20:39 ◼   ► on.

01:20:40 ◼   ► So if I just had podcast editing and podcast recording, those numbers would be completely

01:20:44 ◼   ► wrong.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Right?

01:20:46 ◼   ► I would be making like, oh, for every minute I record, I am editing for this many minutes.

01:20:51 ◼   ► Well, that's not technically accurate.

01:20:53 ◼   ► So I like to assign the shows to it because then I can also drill that down later on as well to be

01:21:00 ◼   ► like, okay, so how many hours have I worked on Cortex versus Upgrade this year? And again,

01:21:07 ◼   ► that can work out at the end of the year, right? Like how much money did I make from each of those

01:21:11 ◼   ► shows? And then if I want to make decisions on those shows, then I can, right? So it's like,

01:21:14 ◼   ► that's why I like this data is because it helps me make decisions. I don't do that often but I've

01:21:22 ◼   ► done it on a few occasions and it has helped me come to an answer that I otherwise couldn't do.

01:21:27 ◼   ► So like I do find having this data is useful but the main reason I do it is just so I can,

01:21:33 ◼   ► I really deal with this this information in the macro, wait which one is which? Micro is small,

01:21:39 ◼   ► macro is large. Then I deal with these things in the micro. Okay. Because I always think of macro

01:21:43 ◼   ► macro lens should take pictures of things that are close up. That's where I get confused.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Yeah, because the lens is big. It lets you see things that are small.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Right, but the result is something that's small. Anyway, do you understand? I know I'm

01:21:57 ◼   ► wrong here, obviously, but do you understand how I get that wrong?

01:22:00 ◼   ► It's totally confusing. You're not wrong to be confused at all. A macro lens is a terrible name for it.

01:22:06 ◼   ► I am typically using this data to make decisions about how did I feel today. Like you, really.

01:22:13 ◼   ► it's more like today, but I then have this pool of data that exists that I can draw conclusions from

01:22:20 ◼   ► if I want to. How do you set up your projects and tags system with your time tracking?

01:22:26 ◼   ► See now this is where I'm just the total opposite because my time tracking system is

01:22:31 ◼   ► I only use the top level, like tags and stuff, I've never touched it. Descriptions,

01:22:37 ◼   ► never written a description. Yeah see I've never written a description either, so you're just using

01:22:41 ◼   ► like projects then? Here's the thing, I'm using projects and the reason I use projects

01:22:46 ◼   ► is because you can have them show up as different colors in the little pie chart that's toggle

01:22:51 ◼   ► makes. The colors are so important. Yeah and so for the videos trying to hour track the

01:22:57 ◼   ► particular videos is not really useful. I know I tried it briefly for a while but I

01:23:04 ◼   ► was like this is dumb, this is not really helpful. I don't actually, because of the

01:23:08 ◼   ► the way my video production process is, like, I just don't really care about how many hours

01:23:14 ◼   ► were spent on one project versus the other. Like, there just isn't actionable information

01:23:20 ◼   ► for me in the same way because those projects are largely defined by how interesting I think

01:23:25 ◼   ► they potentially are. And it's like, if something's interesting and it's going to take a million

01:23:28 ◼   ► hours, like, well, that's the way I make the videos. And there's nothing actionable going

01:23:33 ◼   ► forward with that. So that's why I only track in extremely broad ways of like, I'm writing,

01:23:40 ◼   ► but I don't have sub tags for which project is this. Or I'm doing video editing right

01:23:46 ◼   ► now. And I don't do sub tracking for that. For me, the main thing with the time tracking

01:23:51 ◼   ► is the colors are really vital. So it's like, I use dark blue for the high value work time.

01:24:01 ◼   ► And I use light blue for things like administrative tasks or, you know, like email or any of that

01:24:07 ◼   ► kind of stuff.

01:24:08 ◼   ► I use my least favorite color purple.

01:24:11 ◼   ► What do you got against purple?

01:24:13 ◼   ► It's just it's not a nice color.

01:24:14 ◼   ► But I use purple specifically for what I think of as like transition periods that need to

01:24:21 ◼   ► happen but are also kind of danger zones.

01:24:24 ◼   ► So it's just like when you wake up in the morning, how long is it before you actually

01:24:29 ◼   ► start working?

01:24:30 ◼   ► So like I have a little timer and it's called "boot up".

01:24:32 ◼   ► It's like when I wake up in the morning, like I hit the boot up timer and that starts adding like this ugly purple

01:24:37 ◼   ► to the timer of my day.

01:24:40 ◼   ► And so it provides like a little incentive always of like you want the least amount of purple.

01:24:44 ◼   ► So those kinds of like have to get done but are not intrinsically valuable in and of themselves transition tasks

01:24:51 ◼   ► I'll use that way or colors that are like for free time stuff is a lot of yellow or green and so

01:24:58 ◼   ► This is where, like, I really like being able to see the colors because I can just have a very quick sense of how the day is going.

01:25:04 ◼   ► And I find it quite motivating to be like,

01:25:09 ◼   ► "Keep the colors that you like or that represent good things in your life large,

01:25:14 ◼   ► and keep the colors for things that are not good as small as possible."

01:25:18 ◼   ► The most dreaded color on my calendar is black, which is for unintentional time.

01:25:24 ◼   ► and that's where if I've started a timer but for whatever reason I don't actually do the thing that

01:25:30 ◼   ► the timer said like "oh I need to research some facts about this project" but I got distracted

01:25:37 ◼   ► by Reddit it's like "oh no once I realize I've been distracted by Reddit and it's two hours later

01:25:42 ◼   ► and I've been looking at like power washing videos I've got to go to that timer and you can just

01:25:47 ◼   ► quickly change the project" and so I'll change that project name to like "unintentionality"

01:25:52 ◼   ► which means like, you didn't do the thing you intended to do, and this is like the worst way

01:25:57 ◼   ► to spend your time. So that's how I use those colors on a daily basis. But I'm not very specific

01:26:04 ◼   ► with the details of which project is related to what. I just don't find that useful or actionable

01:26:10 ◼   ► for me. It was. I get it, because I've heard you mention it a few times. It does always make me

01:26:14 ◼   ► chuckle about the idea of tracking unintentionally used time, because it's like, how do I know I'm

01:26:19 ◼   ► doing it and I know you do it after the fact, right?

01:26:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:22 ◼   ► But it's still like a funny, it's just like a funny thought, right?

01:26:26 ◼   ► Like if someone just coming cold to that be like,

01:26:28 ◼   ► "How did you track time where you weren't paying attention? How did you do it?"

01:26:32 ◼   ► I get why it's funny, but I really think it's actually one of the most vital parts for me.

01:26:37 ◼   ► This is why like always run a timer, make some things really easy.

01:26:41 ◼   ► And for catching yourself when you've gone off track,

01:26:45 ◼   ► this is super easy because you can look at the timer that says "writing" and realize,

01:26:52 ◼   ► "oh wait a minute, I'm still like puttering around because I actually realized I needed to

01:26:57 ◼   ► fill up the coffee and I didn't get started and then like..." So now I can just say like,

01:27:01 ◼   ► "oh this was unintentional time, like this was this was epic fail and I know exactly how long

01:27:07 ◼   ► I spent not doing the thing that I intended to do." And I have to say like by doing that over the

01:27:13 ◼   ► years I've definitely gotten much much better about the intentionality of like what am I

01:27:18 ◼   ► doing right now? Like I have to use that less and less and I think it's because it provides

01:27:23 ◼   ► that feedback of like I don't want to have to put black on this calendar so what am I

01:27:28 ◼   ► doing? And if I'm realizing like I'm not in the mood to get this high quality task done

01:27:35 ◼   ► I'm gonna make a decision okay you know what I'm gonna read a book for a while or I'm gonna

01:27:40 ◼   ► to watch some YouTube videos and I track that time differently. Like, I've intentionally

01:27:46 ◼   ► decided to do this other thing and that's way better than unintentionally just doing

01:27:53 ◼   ► it because I feel like that decision is really important. But again, like that, this is,

01:27:58 ◼   ► this is the way that I'm using the time tracking is like this decision aiding tool. I will

01:28:02 ◼   ► say if someone does want to run a lot of timers, my suggestion here, if you're using iOS is

01:28:08 ◼   ► I have the same stack that Myke does, you know, toggle.

01:28:12 ◼   ► I'm using Timery as the interface for toggle.

01:28:16 ◼   ► But the primary reason I'm using Timery

01:28:18 ◼   ► is because it has amazing integration with shortcuts.

01:28:21 ◼   ► But here's like the great pro tip on time tracking.

01:28:25 ◼   ► I make shortcuts for all of the various timers

01:28:28 ◼   ► that I want to run.

01:28:30 ◼   ► And what you can do in shortcuts is turn every shortcut

01:28:36 ◼   ► into a little app, a little pseudo app on the phone.

01:28:40 ◼   ► So you can say like,

01:28:41 ◼   ► "Make this shortcut exist on my home screen."

01:28:43 ◼   ► And I just put all of those little pseudo apps

01:28:46 ◼   ► in a folder on my phone so they just disappear.

01:28:49 ◼   ► But when I go to TimeTrack,

01:28:53 ◼   ► I always do it on the phone,

01:28:55 ◼   ► and I swipe down on the phone

01:28:56 ◼   ► to pull up that little search bar.

01:28:58 ◼   ► And you know how iOS has the suggested apps

01:29:01 ◼   ► that you should use at any particular time?

01:29:05 ◼   ► Because you now have all of your little timers are pseudo apps, I've found that iOS actually

01:29:11 ◼   ► gets pretty good at guessing which timer do you want to run when.

01:29:17 ◼   ► That is clever.

01:29:18 ◼   ► Yeah, so I would say like probably at this point, 90% of the time if I pull down on the

01:29:26 ◼   ► phone to like pretend like I'm going to search, one of the top three pseudo apps is the timer

01:29:32 ◼   ► that I want to run at that moment.

01:29:34 ◼   ► And so it's great.

01:29:35 ◼   ► There's only a couple of other timers that I use super frequently that I put in the little

01:29:38 ◼   ► widget, you know, to slide over with Timery.

01:29:41 ◼   ► But that's what I do for running a bunch of timers if you also want to be the sort of

01:29:45 ◼   ► person who's always running timers.

01:29:47 ◼   ► So that works really well for me.

01:29:48 ◼   ► And something that I like about Timery and its shortcut support is you then have the

01:29:52 ◼   ► ability to add that into the flow of another shortcut.

01:29:57 ◼   ► So for example, I have a shortcut that's called Show Prep.

01:30:00 ◼   ► And when I tap it, it asks me what show are you preparing for.

01:30:04 ◼   ► So I would tap, say, Cortex, and it will open the Cortex Google doc for me and also set

01:30:11 ◼   ► a time tracker for preparing for Cortex.

01:30:17 ◼   ► Or I have another one which I run to just like get my phone ready for when I'm recording,

01:30:22 ◼   ► so like set it on Do Not Disturb and stuff like that.

01:30:24 ◼   ► Make sure the volume's down, all those things.

01:30:27 ◼   ► But it will also look at my calendar and set a recording timer with the tag, the name of

01:30:34 ◼   ► the next upcoming event on my calendar.

01:30:37 ◼   ► And I have the events named just right.

01:30:41 ◼   ► So it will say, for example, upgrade.

01:30:44 ◼   ► It's just the name of the calendar event.

01:30:46 ◼   ► I don't need it to be anything more than that.

01:30:49 ◼   ► So then it just adds the tag of the word upgrade, which is the same as the tag in my time tracker.

01:30:55 ◼   ► So it can just pull that data in,

01:30:56 ◼   ► throw it into the tag field, and then it's all set.

01:30:59 ◼   ► It's little stuff like that.

01:31:00 ◼   ► You're playing around with it, but I like that.

01:31:03 ◼   ► So I like building my time trackers

01:31:06 ◼   ► in as just automatic parts of a shortcut,

01:31:09 ◼   ► which will enable me to do the work

01:31:11 ◼   ► that I'm trying to do at the moment.

01:31:13 ◼   ► So I like that.

01:31:14 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by ExpressVPN.

01:31:18 ◼   ► Working from home, you might not be thinking

01:31:19 ◼   ► about internet privacy

01:31:20 ◼   ► since you're on your home network, right?

01:31:22 ◼   ► We all know that encoding to Windows exists,

01:31:24 ◼   ► But did you know that even in incognito mode,

01:31:27 ◼   ► your online activity could still be traced?

01:31:29 ◼   ► Even if you clear your online browsing history,

01:31:31 ◼   ► your ISP, your internet service provider,

01:31:33 ◼   ► could see every single website you've ever visited.

01:31:36 ◼   ► That is why you may want to use ExpressVPN

01:31:38 ◼   ► to make sure that your ISP and nobody

01:31:40 ◼   ► can see what sites you're visiting.

01:31:42 ◼   ► Instead, your internet connection is rerouted

01:31:45 ◼   ► through their secure servers.

01:31:46 ◼   ► Your information is your information.

01:31:48 ◼   ► If you want to keep it private, you should have that option.

01:31:50 ◼   ► And ExpressVPN allows you to do it.

01:31:52 ◼   ► Each server of theirs has their own IP address shared among thousands of users,

01:31:56 ◼   ► which means that everything you do is anonymized and can't be traced back to

01:32:00 ◼   ► you. It also encrypts 100% of your data with best in class encryption.

01:32:04 ◼   ► One of my favorite features about ExpressVPN, I have two actually,

01:32:08 ◼   ► one how fast it is to turn on and the fact that it doesn't affect my internet

01:32:12 ◼   ► speed. Like I don't notice when I have it on,

01:32:14 ◼   ► it's not like everything gets super slow and I can also switch my location to

01:32:18 ◼   ► enjoy content from other regions and the fact that I am able to stream video in

01:32:22 ◼   ► while using ExpressVPN just shows how efficient it is, which is awesome.

01:32:26 ◼   ► ExpressVPN is rated number one by Tech Radar, Wired, The Verge and more.

01:32:31 ◼   ► Use the internet and confidence on every device that you own.

01:32:34 ◼   ► Just tap one button and you are protected.

01:32:37 ◼   ► Protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three months free

01:32:41 ◼   ► at expressvpn.com/cortex.

01:32:44 ◼   ► That is e-x-p-r-e-s-s vpn.com/cortex for three months free

01:32:49 ◼   ► with a one year package that you're a one more time.

01:32:51 ◼   ► expressvpn.com/cortex.

01:32:54 ◼   ► Our thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and Relay FM.

01:32:57 ◼   ► Communication.

01:32:59 ◼   ► So we spoke about email, but you know, there's more communication than email.

01:33:04 ◼   ► There's been a lot of communication apps that have been created to try and get

01:33:06 ◼   ► rid of email. I mean, Slack is the main thing here, I think, for work communication.

01:33:12 ◼   ► Then you've got messaging apps, right?

01:33:15 ◼   ► So iMessage, that kind of thing is like another part.

01:33:18 ◼   ► But the only reason I really wanted to talk about the communication apps today is to highlight

01:33:24 ◼   ► something that you imparted upon me, which has been very useful in many of my creative

01:33:31 ◼   ► projects with people that are also my friends, which is conversation silos.

01:33:37 ◼   ► So I really just wanted to mention this again today as an important thing to think about

01:33:41 ◼   ► as a productivity philosophy thing, especially if you work with somebody that you also have

01:33:47 ◼   ► a friendship with, which I think is something that lots of people are doing more and more

01:33:51 ◼   ► these days. And that is the idea of having multiple places where you talk to the same

01:33:56 ◼   ► person but you talk about work in one place and everything else in another. So for me

01:34:03 ◼   ► and Grey, we have now three places where we talk. So we have iMessage, where by and large

01:34:12 ◼   ► iMessage is we just talk like friends unless, and we're both pretty good at this, like if something

01:34:17 ◼   ► is urgent we know we can reach each other always by iMessage. Right. Right, so like for example

01:34:24 ◼   ► if when we record today I need if I needed to start editing immediately and it's two hours later

01:34:30 ◼   ► and I don't have your audio the place that I'm going to message you is iMessage because it's

01:34:35 ◼   ► urgent communication and it's most like I would expect you're most likely to be looking at iMessage

01:34:40 ◼   ► than Slack, right? But by and large for all work stuff related to the show, we will talk

01:34:47 ◼   ► in the Relay FM Slack, and then we also have a Slack for Cortex brand, which is everything

01:34:53 ◼   ► else related to our business together. And the value in having these silos is it means

01:35:00 ◼   ► that work and personal do not get intermixed with each other. And to maintain a friendship

01:35:09 ◼   ► you work with someone, I find this incredibly important to make sure that you're keeping

01:35:13 ◼   ► those things separated so that you can have those spaces that are safe.

01:35:17 ◼   ► I think one of the importance of siloing is you don't want to get an iMessage from your

01:35:23 ◼   ► friend but before you're able to see the text preview or whatever of the message to start

01:35:29 ◼   ► to get a Pavlovian response of "oh is there some problem with the work?" right or "is

01:35:35 ◼   ► something that I need to handle right now?" And so by, for the most part, keeping the conversations

01:35:42 ◼   ► separate, you avoid that constant intermingling. And I also think it's good because it allows

01:35:50 ◼   ► you to be able to have a business conversation in the business environment that leaves your

01:35:56 ◼   ► friendship at the door. And you can just say like, "Okay, we got to make some decisions about this

01:36:00 ◼   ► thing and I think it's really good to be able to separate those different aspects of like what is

01:36:06 ◼   ► the relationship between these two people because it can get quite muddled up. So yeah, I'm always

01:36:11 ◼   ► in favor of siloing conversations if possible. With communication systems, you know, there are

01:36:16 ◼   ► a lot of tools. I think this always ends up being very specific to the person and what their

01:36:21 ◼   ► communication is like. So I don't have a lot to say on here except yeah, just be intentional about

01:36:28 ◼   ► which tool are you going to use for which kind of communication?

01:36:32 ◼   ► This is not as deep as the other things in the show,

01:36:35 ◼   ► but like that piece of information I really find to be quite important to people

01:36:40 ◼   ► working today because this can be like with your colleagues,

01:36:44 ◼   ► it's very normal to become friends with people that you work with.

01:36:47 ◼   ► Just keep that work conversation outside of your usual messaging app, right?

01:36:52 ◼   ► Like talk about the other stuff that you have in common rather than did you

01:36:57 ◼   ► finish the report. Keep that in email, keep that in Slack or whatever.

01:37:02 ◼   ► I mean, Slack continues to be the only other real business communication tool

01:37:06 ◼   ► that I have. Slack continues to grow into this beast of a thing. But it's great.

01:37:13 ◼   ► Slack suffers from it not necessarily being bad in any way,

01:37:20 ◼   ► but people just start to associate what's in it with the application.

01:37:25 ◼   ► You know, everyone loved Slack when it first came around because it was different and then

01:37:29 ◼   ► they were creating communities within it.

01:37:31 ◼   ► So it's like, "Oh, I love it because it's got this community aspect to it."

01:37:35 ◼   ► But then your employer picked it up and then it became the place where work happens and

01:37:38 ◼   ► then you're just less excited about it.

01:37:40 ◼   ► Well, yeah, I also think Slack has one feature that I think is particularly guilty of removing

01:37:46 ◼   ► siloing and kind of muddying the waters of the Slack.

01:37:51 ◼   ► And that's their general channel.

01:37:53 ◼   ► And I think for even in many business-focused slacks, the general place can become a real

01:38:00 ◼   ► hotbed of nonsense that is also where friends are chatting, but this is also the place where

01:38:08 ◼   ► we work.

01:38:09 ◼   ► I can't imagine what a general room in a corporate slack must look like.

01:38:13 ◼   ► Yeah, it must look like madness.

01:38:15 ◼   ► The way I have actually set up the slack that I use for all of the video and all of my related

01:38:21 ◼   ► I've disabled the general channel. Like there is no general conversation because I really do want to

01:38:30 ◼   ► try to keep it very strict of like, "Okay guys, we've got channels for projects and like this

01:38:36 ◼   ► channel is where we discuss like what needs to be done for this project." And if there's something

01:38:43 ◼   ► that's not directly related to a project, like that's what direct messages are for. I'm the,

01:38:48 ◼   ► like this grumpy person who's like "I don't want reaction gifts, like I don't want all these other things, like

01:38:53 ◼   ► let's be very clear, like this is where we're trying to get this project brought close to completion"

01:38:59 ◼   ► and I just I often think like that general channel

01:39:03 ◼   ► I don't know, like I think that's why people were like

01:39:06 ◼   ► "Oh, Slack is so fun because there's this built-in room where we can just like hang out with our friends"

01:39:11 ◼   ► I was like, but yeah, you probably shouldn't be hanging out with your friends in Slack

01:39:15 ◼   ► you should probably find some other method for that because then now you're mixing work and

01:39:20 ◼   ► friendship in a weird way sometimes. I think this was just as it changed.

01:39:23 ◼   ► For a lot of people when Slack first came around, it was like there is a community of people here.

01:39:31 ◼   ► There is a group of people around a certain type of thing. When it first was coming onto the scene,

01:39:40 ◼   ► I think it was more like we're a large group of friends, this gives us somewhere to hang out

01:39:45 ◼   ► together. But it has become a tool which has been adopted by Workplace because that's actually what

01:39:51 ◼   ► it's for. So Discord has come in and I think has picked up a lot of the community stuff.

01:39:57 ◼   ► And Discord is similarly structured, it has its general rooms or whatever. But I think people,

01:40:03 ◼   ► and I know I feel differently about Discord because it is more just like community than

01:40:09 ◼   ► work. Let's talk about calendars. I have a very simple calendar philosophy.

01:40:17 ◼   ► Events go on the calendar, like things that are going to happen and end at a

01:40:21 ◼   ► certain time, they go on the calendar. I have a bunch of calendars, like work

01:40:24 ◼   ► calendars, personal calendars, shared calendars. I don't have a very

01:40:29 ◼   ► complicated calendar structure. Every event has a notification five minutes

01:40:37 ◼   ► before just because I like that. I feel like my calendaring is very typical.

01:40:42 ◼   ► You may have a simple calendar system but I feel like you have a lot of events on that

01:40:47 ◼   ► calendar.

01:40:48 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have lots and lots of events, yes, but I don't feel like it's

01:40:52 ◼   ► different to the calendar I kept when I had a regular job. Like the calendar when I – because

01:40:58 ◼   ► it was full of meetings. Right, so similar for me, like just recordings and calls and

01:41:03 ◼   ► meetings replaced the meetings. It was all just blocks of time, but I don't really do

01:41:08 ◼   ► anything particularly different, I feel, to the average person who uses a calendar. But

01:41:15 ◼   ► I know that you have some different uses for your calendars. You have specific calendars

01:41:21 ◼   ► that you only look at at specific times. So I think that's where I'm different. All of

01:41:26 ◼   ► my calendars are enabled.

01:41:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I am very much not a, you know, talking about the spectrum at the beginning.

01:41:31 ◼   ► Like, I don't use the calendar in the way that many people do.

01:41:35 ◼   ► In some ways, the calendar for me has two totally separate and unrelated functions.

01:41:40 ◼   ► The one function is for my one calendar that I call "changes",

01:41:45 ◼   ► which basically means any interruptions in what would otherwise be my totally internal life.

01:41:52 ◼   ► Right, of like, "Oh, here is a meeting that you need to go to."

01:41:56 ◼   ► or there's going to be a conference this week, or you have to do a call with this person at this time.

01:42:02 ◼   ► And so like I have this one calendar that just shows all of the time-based items that are different from just

01:42:12 ◼   ► what would be my normal ideal week just on my own, minding my own business.

01:42:17 ◼   ► And so in that way, my calendar is ridiculously simple because I also try extremely hard to limit

01:42:26 ◼   ► how many items are ever going to be on that calendar. It's mostly a tool for things like,

01:42:32 ◼   ► you know, if I need to do a call about something, I try to look at the calendar and then put the

01:42:37 ◼   ► calls all on the same day because I'll feel like, "Oh, as soon as a day has something like a dentist

01:42:43 ◼   ► appointment that whole day is ruined so I might as well like stack a bunch of calls or other stuff

01:42:49 ◼   ► on that day and like that's the way I use it. Yeah so like this is like that funny thing for me where

01:42:54 ◼   ► it's like "oh I have an empty day!" "Fill it up of calls!" right like that's you know it's this

01:43:00 ◼   ► sad thing that I end up doing to myself where I'm like so excited about there being an empty day

01:43:04 ◼   ► next week and then someone says "oh hey can we have a call?" and I'm like "oh I have an empty day,

01:43:08 ◼   ► I'll just put one call in here." And then three calls get stacked on that because once I add one

01:43:14 ◼   ► call, it's no longer the empty day anymore than for it's a full-up-with-calls day.

01:43:19 ◼   ► BRIAN KARDELL-SMITH Yeah, so for me, my ideal calendar,

01:43:22 ◼   ► if I look at a week, I want to have zero items on that Changes calendar. I don't want to see,

01:43:28 ◼   ► "Oh, there's a dinner that you have to go to with this thing." Nope, I want none of that. That's

01:43:32 ◼   ► always what I'm trying to arrange. MATT PORTER

01:43:33 ◼   ► Right, because any added event to the Changes calendar is going to start the cascade.

01:43:38 ◼   ► B: I feel like it changes the whole feeling of a day. I hate knowing like, "Ugh, I've

01:43:43 ◼   ► got to be at that place tonight," right? And as soon as I wake up in the morning, I

01:43:47 ◼   ► know it's coming. So yeah, I try very hard to limit what's on that calendar. So in some

01:43:55 ◼   ► ways, the way a normal person uses a calendar, I have one calendar and just events go on

01:44:02 ◼   ► that, and I try very hard to keep it nice and simple.

01:44:05 ◼   ► But the other way that I do use the calendar, which I don't know, I probably do like two

01:44:10 ◼   ► or three times a year and I actually just did it last week, is as a theoretical planning

01:44:18 ◼   ► tool.

01:44:19 ◼   ► So I will sometimes sit down and say, "Okay, I've been doing this long enough and I do

01:44:28 ◼   ► know from my daily numbers, like I have a sense of how many hours can you spend writing

01:44:34 ◼   ► on a good day, or like, "How much exercise do you want to do, you know, on average over

01:44:41 ◼   ► the course of this week?" and then like, "How many times do you have a podcast to record?

01:44:47 ◼   ► How long does that podcast take to edit?" and I start to put all of those items on a

01:44:53 ◼   ► calendar, because a week isn't quite right, I do this over a 14-day time period, and I'll

01:44:58 ◼   ► I'll build up what I think of as the theoretically perfect time period.

01:45:05 ◼   ► And it's much more that which I use to try to make decisions about what do I want to

01:45:12 ◼   ► do or what do I not want to do or if I'm going to take on a new project, where does that

01:45:18 ◼   ► project fit in here?

01:45:20 ◼   ► What am I going to take time from?

01:45:22 ◼   ► And how much downtime do I want to have?

01:45:26 ◼   ► or, you know, like, reading is an important thing for me, but I always kind of put it

01:45:31 ◼   ► off where should reading go in my life on like what I would imagine to be like, "Oh,

01:45:38 ◼   ► this would be two weeks and if I followed this calendar perfectly, I would feel like

01:45:42 ◼   ► I could not have done better in life." And I think people will hear this and what they'll

01:45:49 ◼   ► hear is that I've scheduled my time, but that's not really correct because I'm not a calendar

01:45:56 ◼   ► I'm not using this as "here is the regime that I must follow."

01:46:02 ◼   ► It's much more of just an evaluation of "you only have so many quality hours in the day,

01:46:09 ◼   ► there's only so many things that can be done," and just seeing how does this fit together

01:46:16 ◼   ► over a longer period of time.

01:46:19 ◼   ► And this I find just a really useful process, and like, the broad outlines of it doesn't

01:46:24 ◼   ► really change all that much because I know the rhythm of my own life that I'm most productive

01:46:30 ◼   ► in the very early morning and in the evening time and afternoons are sort of a more difficult

01:46:36 ◼   ► downtime and I know these rhythms but it's really useful when just thinking about what

01:46:44 ◼   ► am I focusing my time on to do this theoretically perfect week. And I always find that an incredibly

01:46:52 ◼   ► valuable thing to do, and especially like with recently, how there are many things that

01:46:59 ◼   ► will have impacted my theoretical schedule to sit down and be like, "Okay, let me think

01:47:04 ◼   ► through going forward, what do I want the weeks to look like?"

01:47:09 ◼   ► And so I don't do that often, but that is where I use the calendar as a kind of time-planning

01:47:17 ◼   ► tool and I don't stick to it.

01:47:21 ◼   ► It's not a regime.

01:47:22 ◼   ► I've never found the whole like "set a schedule for yourself" advice to be useful.

01:47:27 ◼   ► My brain just does not work that way, which is why I use more task-focused system.

01:47:33 ◼   ► But I do like using the calendar for that.

01:47:35 ◼   ► And then, just on a more minor scale, a thing that you and I were doing before we started

01:47:39 ◼   ► the call today is there is a more actionable version of this where I have a calendar where

01:47:44 ◼   ► I'm keeping track of when are things going to be posted and what's going on in the world.

01:47:52 ◼   ► So having a rough sense of, like, you know, when do I think the next video is going to

01:47:58 ◼   ► go up and, you know, when is a Cortex episode going to go up or what else is going on in

01:48:04 ◼   ► my life around those times or like what holiday is it or all these kinds of things.

01:48:09 ◼   ► So I do have a sort of broad posting/planning kind of schedule, but obviously because of

01:48:17 ◼   ► the way I work.

01:48:19 ◼   ► None of those things are certain, but it's still useful to be able to try to keep things

01:48:23 ◼   ► from overlapping too much or just being aware of, "Oh, there's a big event that's planned

01:48:28 ◼   ► for this week.

01:48:29 ◼   ► That's probably not a time where you can even conceive that you're going to post something."

01:48:33 ◼   ► So that's the other way that I use a calendar.

01:48:36 ◼   ► From a calendar tool perspective, I'm all about Fantastical.

01:48:40 ◼   ► Is there any other tool that's useful if you have an even moderately complicated calendaring

01:48:45 ◼   ► system?

01:48:46 ◼   ► No.

01:48:47 ◼   ► the one true calendar app and that's the one I use too, for sure.

01:48:50 ◼   ► I'm a big, big fan of it. They have all of the features that I'm looking for.

01:48:54 ◼   ► I've really been happy with their newest version, like with the new iPad app and stuff.

01:49:00 ◼   ► Oh, it's great. It's so good.

01:49:02 ◼   ► It's really, really very good. And it works wonderfully with the Trackpad support.

01:49:06 ◼   ► I think it's wonderful. I'm very, very happy.

01:49:09 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, there's nothing else to even discuss like, Fantastic Cal or GTFO.

01:49:14 ◼   ► Don't you use Apple Calendar for some stuff though? Or have you changed that? I know that you were using it.

01:49:19 ◼   ► The only reason I used to use Apple Calendar is because Fantastic Al didn't support the groups

01:49:23 ◼   ► on iOS, right? Like the calendar groups where you can switch back and forth. And so I used Apple

01:49:29 ◼   ► Calendar, I set it a particular way to be an alternate group that I could quickly look at.

01:49:34 ◼   ► But now that Fantastic Al has the calendar groups that you can toggle on and off on iOS, like I have

01:49:39 ◼   ► no need for Apple calendar.

01:49:41 ◼   ► Goodbye, I'll never see you again.

01:49:44 ◼   ► - Oh, so that was, I guess, Productivity 101, right?

01:49:47 ◼   ► Like, we're done now, that's all of it?

01:49:48 ◼   ► Everyone can go ahead, just go be productive now.

01:49:51 ◼   ► We've given you everything we know.

01:49:52 ◼   ► - It feels like we did a lot of it.

01:49:55 ◼   ► - I think so, like, I feel like we have given

01:49:58 ◼   ► the complete overview that I wanted to.

01:50:00 ◼   ► On our next episode, we're gonna move some of this stuff

01:50:03 ◼   ► forward a little bit, and also relate it to a video

01:50:06 ◼   ► that you just produced called Spaceship You,

01:50:10 ◼   ► which is really excellent.

01:50:12 ◼   ► If you haven't seen this video yet,

01:50:14 ◼   ► you should before the next episode.

01:50:16 ◼   ► But I wanna kinda talk a little bit more

01:50:18 ◼   ► about that idea in general.

01:50:20 ◼   ► And it's also kind of like relating

01:50:21 ◼   ► to just working from home again,

01:50:24 ◼   ► as like, going back to that.

01:50:26 ◼   ► So I think there's some really interesting themes in there

01:50:29 ◼   ► that I wanna explore,

01:50:30 ◼   ► and also check in on how we're both doing.

01:50:33 ◼   ► So go and watch that video,

01:50:34 ◼   ► link will be in the show notes,

01:50:35 ◼   ► and we'll talk about it next time.