Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► So Myke, I'm walking home today and suddenly my Apple Watch starts going crazy.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping.

00:00:10 ◼   ► I look down and this is what I see.

00:00:14 ◼   ► I've sent you something on iMessage.

00:00:15 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I told you this would happen!

00:00:18 ◼   ► I remembered you, Myke, saying this was going to happen.

00:00:22 ◼   ► And, uh, yes, so I sent Myke a screenshot of my Apple Watch screen that had too many

00:00:30 ◼   ► Buy Milk reminders that had scrolled off the visible, the visible area from both recording

00:00:37 ◼   ► and editing the show.

00:00:38 ◼   ► My watch wanted to remind me to buy milk when I left the office.

00:00:42 ◼   ► I'm so happy that this happened to you, especially today.

00:00:45 ◼   ► I told you this was going to happen.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Yes, well I was extra confused today and it took me much longer than normal to figure out what the situation was.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Why do I have all of these reminders?

00:00:57 ◼   ► I'll just say something like, "Hey Siri, remind me to buy milk when I leave the office."

00:01:04 ◼   ► Like that kind of thing, that's what I use reminders for.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I remind you about my milk when you leave work.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Thank you Siri, see? That's it.

00:01:13 ◼   ► That's the case where I use it sometimes, and it's great.

00:01:18 ◼   ► And now, when I get back to my office, which is, what,

00:01:21 ◼   ► 2,000 miles and at least two months away,

00:01:25 ◼   ► I will buy some milk.

00:01:26 ◼   ► As soon as you leave it, you're going to be like, OK.

00:01:30 ◼   ► You'll come home that day, and you'll

00:01:31 ◼   ► put the milk in the fridge and say,

00:01:32 ◼   ► there's so much milk here already.

00:01:34 ◼   ► What?

00:01:34 ◼   ► What happened to me?

00:01:35 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:01:36 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:01:39 ◼   ► I'm probably going to put in a flashback to that.

00:01:42 ◼   ► The flashback to that is exactly what the people need.

00:01:45 ◼   ► You have to do the flashback sounds as well.

00:01:47 ◼   ► [HARPSES]

00:01:50 ◼   ► I don't know why we as a civilization

00:01:52 ◼   ► have standardized on the harpy, watery sounds

00:01:56 ◼   ► as the flashback sound, but this is where we are.

00:01:58 ◼   ► First usage of flashback sound.

00:02:01 ◼   ► I don't think that's going to be a very fruitful Google search.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I've given up on that.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Wow, that was fast.

00:02:07 ◼   ► That didn't take long.

00:02:08 ◼   ► Yeah, all the results were nothing.

00:02:11 ◼   ► I'm not wasting time.

00:02:12 ◼   ► Yeah, we don't have any time to waste.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Because Myke, I figure you have 90 minutes with me at most before I start to fall apart.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So we can't spend any time googling about what's the origin of the flashback sound.

00:02:28 ◼   ► And we've only spent 30 minutes together, which is very rare.

00:02:31 ◼   ► I mean, usually we will spend at least two hours before we start recording.

00:02:35 ◼   ► Today's got to be business.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Business only today.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Boom, boom, boom.

00:02:39 ◼   ► We got to get stuff done.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Extenuating circumstances, which again, I know you hate this phrase, but in a very out

00:02:46 ◼   ► character move for you, you just like arrived in London a mere couple of hours ago and here

00:02:55 ◼   ► we are recording a podcast. What a thing.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Yes, three hours ago I was on a plane from America and now I'm recording a podcast with

00:03:05 ◼   ► you which is not something I want to do. Not obviously recording a podcast with you Myke,

00:03:11 ◼   ► I'm always very happy to do this. High on the list of things that you want to do. High

00:03:14 ◼   ► on the list of things that I want to do. Low on the list is recording after having just

00:03:19 ◼   ► arrived home. I do this every now and then, I will arrive home from a trip and I will

00:03:25 ◼   ► record. And it is a very disorienting experience. As I warned you at some point during the episode

00:03:32 ◼   ► today you're likely to get a little bit loopy because that's what happens to me.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Yeah I mean we're recording today because there's literally no other day

00:03:41 ◼   ► that could work for us for doing the show. We moved it like twice already and

00:03:47 ◼   ► here we are. And also I asked you today to move it sooner which sooner in time

00:03:54 ◼   ► which may be the first time I've ever done that because I always want to push

00:03:58 ◼   ► things back. And also, also, this is the first time ever Gray has showed up to record, ready

00:04:04 ◼   ► to record, before the scheduled time. Okay, now that's, that's just slanderous. This is

00:04:11 ◼   ► totally true. This is not slanderous by any way. When you work with somebody for four

00:04:16 ◼   ► years, which is how long we've been doing this show for now, which is a wild thing to

00:04:20 ◼   ► think about, during any collaborative process like that, you just learn how the other person

00:04:25 ◼   ► I'm sure that there are many things that you know about me, right?

00:04:28 ◼   ► That are just like, I know Myke's gonna react this way,

00:04:30 ◼   ► so I'll work with him within these parameters.

00:04:32 ◼   ► - Yes. - And one of those,

00:04:33 ◼   ► for working with you, is we will set a time.

00:04:36 ◼   ► That time is when you will start to get ready,

00:04:38 ◼   ► not when we will start recording.

00:04:42 ◼   ► - That's true, that is true.

00:04:43 ◼   ► - So I know that like when we say,

00:04:45 ◼   ► all right, record at three o'clock,

00:04:46 ◼   ► we will be on the phone together probably about 3.30.

00:04:49 ◼   ► But that's just the way it is. - Yeah, that's fair.

00:04:51 ◼   ► - Because then I now know,

00:04:52 ◼   ► so I start my preparation at three.

00:04:54 ◼   ► I'm never sitting here ready to record when we say we're gonna record.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Yeah, that is totally fair. But you are right. Today, as soon as I walk through the door,

00:05:04 ◼   ► basically, said hello to my wife, and I was like, "I gotta get ready for Cortex."

00:05:09 ◼   ► Honey, I know I haven't seen you in a few weeks, but Myke's waiting.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Yeah, well, the thing was, I was standing at the baggage carousel thinking about,

00:05:19 ◼   ► "Oh God, there's a show later today.

00:05:21 ◼   ► And I've just stepped off this plane.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And what's a-coming is jet lag."

00:05:27 ◼   ► But I thought, "If I wait too long,

00:05:32 ◼   ► the jet lag is going to hit."

00:05:34 ◼   ► So what I need to do is a podcast shock and awe campaign

00:05:39 ◼   ► to my body.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - To the senses.

00:05:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, just, "Hey, you're up.

00:05:44 ◼   ► We're gonna walk home and we're basically gonna go

00:05:47 ◼   ► straight into the recording booth.

00:05:49 ◼   ► there's gonna be nothing that even resembles relaxation.

00:05:52 ◼   ► It's like, nope, I'm not gonna take a shower and get cozy.

00:05:57 ◼   ► No, it's like straight off the plane,

00:05:59 ◼   ► right into the recording booth

00:06:00 ◼   ► because I know full well if I don't do this,

00:06:01 ◼   ► I'm just gonna die.

00:06:03 ◼   ► - You're effectively still traveling.

00:06:04 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, and I think that is the way

00:06:07 ◼   ► that I'm sort of tricking my brain.

00:06:09 ◼   ► It's like, oh, we have a layover at Cortex Airport

00:06:13 ◼   ► and then we can sleep, right?

00:06:15 ◼   ► That's what this moment is.

00:06:16 ◼   ► But also to give the listeners

00:06:18 ◼   ► little bit of a sense of this. I was trying to count on the flight over, and I have been

00:06:27 ◼   ► away from home in America for 73 days.

00:06:32 ◼   ► "Summer of Grey"? My word.

00:06:35 ◼   ► Yes. It has been quite a trip.

00:06:40 ◼   ► Wait, when did it start?

00:06:42 ◼   ► Well, see, you're thinking, Myke, you're thinking, Myke, oh, my summer started at WWDC when we saw each other.

00:06:50 ◼   ► But I had already been in America at a totally other conference before WWDC even started.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Yes, I remember now. Yeah, I remember now.

00:06:59 ◼   ► Right? So, and then, like, after that conference, I had, like, work stuff that I needed to do at another place.

00:07:05 ◼   ► So I had like, I basically had before you saw me,

00:07:09 ◼   ► there were already three events that I had been a part of.

00:07:13 ◼   ► And then I saw you at WWDC.

00:07:15 ◼   ► And then after WWDC,

00:07:18 ◼   ► there was more things that needed to happen.

00:07:20 ◼   ► I had to go to VidCon and then after VidCon,

00:07:23 ◼   ► there was more stuff that happened

00:07:25 ◼   ► and I've only just returned.

00:07:26 ◼   ► - How was VidCon?

00:07:27 ◼   ► I haven't even asked you.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, listen, we'll get to VidCon.

00:07:32 ◼   ► - Okay, oh, we'll get to VidCon.

00:07:35 ◼   ► So this has been, I've said it every summer because it's been true every

00:07:39 ◼   ► summer. This is a total record for travel time.

00:07:42 ◼   ► And you say summer of gray,

00:07:45 ◼   ► but it's also not even over yet because you and I were just trying to plan when

00:07:49 ◼   ► are we going to record in August and realize that we only have three days out of

00:07:54 ◼   ► the whole month between the two of us that we could even possibly do it because

00:07:59 ◼   ► like in less than a week I already have another travel thing that I need to do.

00:08:03 ◼   ► and then there's two more events in August.

00:08:05 ◼   ► So it's like this summer of gray for traveling

00:08:09 ◼   ► is a tremendously long traveling season.

00:08:13 ◼   ► But yeah, so I'm very adjusted to America time

00:08:16 ◼   ► after 73 days.

00:08:18 ◼   ► And so yes, that's why it's like,

00:08:20 ◼   ► gotta record the podcast immediately

00:08:22 ◼   ► before the jet lag hits me.

00:08:24 ◼   ► - Well, you know, you're an early riser.

00:08:26 ◼   ► It's like 6 a.m. right now, so you're fine.

00:08:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it's great.

00:08:30 ◼   ► It's perfect. Everything's perfect.

00:08:33 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:08:35 ◼   ► - So nice and orderly year so far.

00:08:39 ◼   ► - I see what you're doing there, Myke.

00:08:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:41 ◼   ► - I see what you're doing there.

00:08:43 ◼   ► So last year I talked about how the travel stuff

00:08:48 ◼   ► was just a total disaster for me,

00:08:50 ◼   ► but this year, right, is Year of Order 2,

00:08:54 ◼   ► The Revenge of Order, I think, was the exact title

00:08:57 ◼   ► that I gave it before.

00:08:58 ◼   ► And then I realized I have this enormous amount of travel in the middle.

00:09:03 ◼   ► I do have to say I have a little year of order update, which is,

00:09:09 ◼   ► for a change, it's a very nice year of order update in that I knew this big stretch of time was going to come.

00:09:18 ◼   ► And so I went into the summer with the clearest mindset that I ever have had on any of my traveling trips.

00:09:26 ◼   ► of like, okay, you can't travel for so long and let things fall apart the way they do

00:09:33 ◼   ► other times.

00:09:34 ◼   ► So I have been really good about trying to maintain some kind of normal life schedule

00:09:41 ◼   ► while traveling this time.

00:09:42 ◼   ► And so it's like I've been, I made a real conscientious effort of like, I still have

00:09:47 ◼   ► to go to the gym on a regular basis, which I've been really good about.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Although I have discovered, or I should say I've rediscovered what I always knew, which

00:09:55 ◼   ► which is, I really hate exercising in the morning.

00:09:58 ◼   ► I don't have words to describe how much I hate exercising

00:10:01 ◼   ► in the morning.

00:10:02 ◼   ► - Okay, not 100% sure why that's related.

00:10:05 ◼   ► - It's related because there were some days

00:10:07 ◼   ► where stuff started too early,

00:10:09 ◼   ► and I felt like the thing that's important

00:10:11 ◼   ► is I have to keep, like exercise is part of the order,

00:10:15 ◼   ► like it's a foundational thing.

00:10:17 ◼   ► And there were some days, you know, say for example,

00:10:20 ◼   ► it's at VidCon, where the days are starting early,

00:10:23 ◼   ► and I just know full well that as soon as I leave the hotel,

00:10:26 ◼   ► like I'm never coming back until I'm ready to go to bed.

00:10:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:30 ◼   ► And so I'm--

00:10:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:32 ◼   ► - I'm sure it feels a lot like that VidCon.

00:10:34 ◼   ► Well, this might be the last time I leave this hotel.

00:10:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:40 ◼   ► - But yeah, so like I would exercise in the mornings

00:10:44 ◼   ► because I knew like if I didn't do this,

00:10:46 ◼   ► if I didn't put in the effort to do this,

00:10:47 ◼   ► like I'm just not going to.

00:10:49 ◼   ► And so that's why it's sort of,

00:10:51 ◼   ► it's related is on days when I was busy,

00:10:54 ◼   ► I was still really trying to make this effort.

00:10:56 ◼   ► And I was like, boy, do I hate exercising in the morning.

00:10:59 ◼   ► I hate it with a tremendous passion.

00:11:01 ◼   ► And I resent all of the other people who are in the gym

00:11:03 ◼   ► who look like, oh, they're having a great start

00:11:06 ◼   ► to their day.

00:11:07 ◼   ► And I'm the guy who's literally bringing in coffee with me

00:11:09 ◼   ► to sip between different exercises.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I'm like trying to wake up and get ready for the day.

00:11:16 ◼   ► So it was a little brutal, but.

00:11:18 ◼   ► - Can we talk about exercise for a second?

00:11:20 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:11:20 ◼   ► I have a thing that's frustrating me.

00:11:23 ◼   ► - What's frustrating you?

00:11:24 ◼   ► - When I hear people talking about exercising

00:11:26 ◼   ► and they talk about how it makes you happier

00:11:29 ◼   ► and releases the endorphins and all that kind of stuff,

00:11:33 ◼   ► I understand all of that.

00:11:34 ◼   ► I have never experienced this in my entire life.

00:11:38 ◼   ► No matter how frequent I am with exercise,

00:11:40 ◼   ► it doesn't make me feel happier.

00:11:43 ◼   ► - I'm with you 100%.

00:11:44 ◼   ► - Okay, I thought if anybody would be, it would be you.

00:11:47 ◼   ► I can't relate any time in my life where exercise has made me feel happier.

00:11:52 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:11:54 ◼   ► I'm laughing because you just say it, you said it so directly and so starkly there.

00:12:00 ◼   ► But yes, I can agree with that sentence.

00:12:04 ◼   ► There's never been any time in my life where exercise has made me feel better.

00:12:09 ◼   ► The results is a different thing.

00:12:11 ◼   ► But that's not what people are talking about when they're talking about like,

00:12:15 ◼   ► it will declutter your mind and all that kind of stuff.

00:12:18 ◼   ► It doesn't do any of that.

00:12:19 ◼   ► It just adds another thing in my life

00:12:21 ◼   ► that I don't want to do.

00:12:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:12:24 ◼   ► The comparison for me is there's very much a saying

00:12:26 ◼   ► among people who write for a living.

00:12:28 ◼   ► They're like, "Writing is terrible.

00:12:30 ◼   ► "Having written is great."

00:12:33 ◼   ► That is the closest I can get with exercise is,

00:12:38 ◼   ► like I'm thinking of two mornings in particular

00:12:40 ◼   ► where I had like very busy days,

00:12:42 ◼   ► but I still did find time to exercise in the morning.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Later in the day, I can think,

00:12:48 ◼   ► oh, good on me for exercising this morning, right?

00:12:50 ◼   ► Like I'm very happy with myself for having done that.

00:12:53 ◼   ► - I don't think that's what people are talking about though.

00:12:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I know, it's like,

00:12:57 ◼   ► that is like a very abstract layers removed,

00:13:01 ◼   ► like talking myself into it,

00:13:03 ◼   ► feeling about exercise is great.

00:13:07 ◼   ► I believe people who describe this experience of

00:13:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not saying that they're lying.

00:13:13 ◼   ► - They get like a high from exercise.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Yeah. - Because it makes sense.

00:13:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's the only thing that makes sense.

00:13:18 ◼   ► - But I've just never experienced this phenomenon.

00:13:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I think this came up ages ago

00:13:24 ◼   ► when you asked me about trying out running,

00:13:27 ◼   ► because you were gonna be really annoyed

00:13:29 ◼   ► if I was another one of your friends

00:13:30 ◼   ► who got on the running train.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - Yeah. - And I did not.

00:13:33 ◼   ► - Good. - But part of the running

00:13:35 ◼   ► thing for me was as well, like giving it enough of a try

00:13:38 ◼   ► to be able to definitively say,

00:13:40 ◼   ► this experience that other people get out of running,

00:13:43 ◼   ► I am never going to get out of it.

00:13:45 ◼   ► And now I'm done, right?

00:13:46 ◼   ► Like I've given it enough of a try,

00:13:49 ◼   ► and this is just not happening.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - It is the thing I will never understand.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Again, like I know many people that love running.

00:13:55 ◼   ► I know many people that have found running later

00:13:57 ◼   ► in their lives, right?

00:13:58 ◼   ► Like that it's not just a thing

00:14:00 ◼   ► 'cause you were bad at it when you were a kid.

00:14:02 ◼   ► I cannot fathom how this is ever an enjoyable activity.

00:14:07 ◼   ► It is like one of,

00:14:08 ◼   ► I have tried many types of exercise.

00:14:11 ◼   ► Running is the thing that is the most painful to me.

00:14:13 ◼   ► It totally is true.

00:14:15 ◼   ► And I really, like, I feel so strongly about writing in this same category of

00:14:20 ◼   ► something like, "Oh, you must really love writing."

00:14:22 ◼   ► No.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I really love having, I was like, I was just talking to a friend who sort of does

00:14:29 ◼   ► similar work where he has to write stuff like this and we were both commiserating

00:14:32 ◼   ► over the same thing where other people go like, "Oh, your job must be so interesting

00:14:36 ◼   ► and you must love writing about this stuff."

00:14:37 ◼   ► I was like, "No."

00:14:39 ◼   ► I love having written, finishing a thing and publishing it and getting it out into the world.

00:14:45 ◼   ► That's great, but the process itself is not fun at all,

00:14:50 ◼   ► and exercise is the same thing.

00:14:52 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, both of these activities,

00:14:54 ◼   ► they're good for me and I feel much better later in the day if I've done them in the morning."

00:14:59 ◼   ► But an exercise high is as baffling to me as the concept of a writer's high.

00:15:04 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm really happy while I'm churning this out."

00:15:08 ◼   ► No, this is not a thing that my brain is built for.

00:15:11 ◼   ► And apparently it's not a thing that your brain is built for,

00:15:12 ◼   ► which is why we can commiserate together over this.

00:15:15 ◼   ► - Good.

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00:16:45 ◼   ► To quickly answer your question about VidCon and to sort of tie up a little bit some of my Year of Order stuff is

00:16:52 ◼   ► I very much treated VidCon and a number of the things I was doing this summer as, but particularly VidCon, as a surgical strike

00:17:01 ◼   ► as like, "Okay, I am getting into LA and boom boom boom, what are the three most high value things for me to do?"

00:17:10 ◼   ► It's like, okay, I've got one event, I've got another event, I've got two meetings,

00:17:14 ◼   ► and then I want to get the hell out of here as fast as possible.

00:17:17 ◼   ► So I was very aware that part of this concept of trying to maintain a year of order

00:17:25 ◼   ► was very much like a thing that we've discussed before is this conflict when you go to conferences

00:17:31 ◼   ► or when you're at WWDC about what are you participating in and what are you not participating in.

00:17:36 ◼   ► and you feel like, oh, you spend all of this time and effort to travel to a place,

00:17:40 ◼   ► you want to try to extract all of the value out of it that you possibly can.

00:17:44 ◼   ► And this summer for me was very much the opposite of like, okay, I am going to all of these places,

00:17:49 ◼   ► but I'm just going to try to do the smallest number of highest value activities that I can while I'm at those places.

00:17:56 ◼   ► And while that does mean for me that I like, strictly speaking, I got a lot less out of any of the particular things that I went to, I feel like it was, it was much more sustainable over the long run.

00:18:10 ◼   ► So I think this might be something that I try to maintain going forward for any kind of traveling and events that I do is like, okay, you don't have to try to extract all of the value from whatever it is.

00:18:22 ◼   ► is, try to think about what's the highest value per unit time, and then still maintain

00:18:29 ◼   ► as much of a normal life as you possibly can around the corners of that.

00:18:32 ◼   ► I can totally see how that has worked for you, right? Like, I get that. That sounds

00:18:38 ◼   ► to us-

00:18:39 ◼   ► I like the way you say that because it's very clearly something that you're like,

00:18:41 ◼   ► "I see how that works for you."

00:18:43 ◼   ► Yeah, no, but it does, and it doesn't work for many other people, I don't think. But

00:18:47 ◼   ► But if I did what you do, I would have to do what you're doing.

00:18:52 ◼   ► Like if I was away for such long periods of time, like you are, I would have to do that.

00:18:59 ◼   ► If I stayed away from home for 76 days, going from place to place, the only way that I could

00:19:06 ◼   ► keep my business running is to employ that method.

00:19:09 ◼   ► But I don't do that because that would, that wouldn't, it wouldn't work for me.

00:19:13 ◼   ► I mean, what it does is that I have these intense periods of crunch, right?

00:19:17 ◼   ► So like, because I travel to a lot of different places quite frequently, I have,

00:19:23 ◼   ► you know, like I'll have a week away, then two weeks of crunch, calm week, and then

00:19:28 ◼   ► a week away again, and that's just, that's, that's the difference between the way that

00:19:32 ◼   ► our travel allows us or will force us to work.

00:19:36 ◼   ► I don't necessarily like my method, but it kind of works for me.

00:19:40 ◼   ► Although it is actually helping me inform 2020's theme a little bit, which I've already

00:19:46 ◼   ► started thinking about.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Oh, interesting.

00:19:48 ◼   ► Yeah, but again, it's like, the type of travel that I do, I wouldn't want to operate the

00:19:53 ◼   ► way that you do.

00:19:54 ◼   ► But if I traveled the way that you did, I would probably have to do something pretty

00:19:57 ◼   ► similar.

00:19:58 ◼   ► Yeah, well, and this is also where I think the really key thing for anybody thinking

00:20:02 ◼   ► about how to arrange a life is that you need to know yourself and your own limitations

00:20:09 ◼   ► and advantages and things like that sounds so obvious and dumb, but it's actually quite

00:20:14 ◼   ► hard to do. But part of the reason why I arranged these stupidly large blocks of travel is that

00:20:20 ◼   ► I know for me, the time change is just so brutal and has such a high cost in terms of

00:20:27 ◼   ► productivity that that's why like it makes sense for me to try to bundle as much together

00:20:32 ◼   ► as is possible. Whereas when you would describe your schedule, the number of times that you

00:20:38 ◼   ► go back and forth to America in the time where I have just stayed, I would die if I did it

00:20:46 ◼   ► the way that you did it, and I would also just lose so much of the productive time after

00:20:53 ◼   ► any of those events because of that time change.

00:20:56 ◼   ► I couldn't possibly do it that way.

00:20:57 ◼   ► I really do wish I could be more like you in this case.

00:21:01 ◼   ► I wish the time change didn't affect me so much because if I could engineer it, I would

00:21:06 ◼   ► much rather be able to say like, oh, I'm going to fly to America more often for shorter periods

00:21:12 ◼   ► of time and like try to get everything out of the event that I possibly can. But I just don't,

00:21:16 ◼   ► I just don't think that's the way that works for me. It's interesting to hear you saying like that

00:21:20 ◼   ► you've been thinking about your theme for next year, because obviously the summer is the best

00:21:26 ◼   ► time to be thinking about themes. And so I too have been thinking about my upcoming theme. I've

00:21:33 ◼   ► even settled on what it's going to be, but I know that we're not allowed to talk about

00:21:37 ◼   ► this now, and so we'll have to wait until later in the year to actually visit this topic,

00:21:43 ◼   ► because Myke won't let us talk about it.

00:21:44 ◼   ► Myke

00:21:44 ◼   ► Because it doesn't start yet.

00:21:45 ◼   ► But I'm glad to see that you're slowly coming around to obviously the summer is the best time to think about themes.

00:21:55 ◼   ► I think it's fine as a time to think about them because you've done like six months, you've already done half of the year of your current theme.

00:22:02 ◼   ► I just don't think it's necessarily the right time to implement them.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Rolling into September, that's when you want to have new themes, I think.

00:22:09 ◼   ► That's the obvious time.

00:22:11 ◼   ► Well, we'll talk about that later on, I guess.

00:22:14 ◼   ► I want to say one of my trips that I'm doing, my next trip actually, is a trip that I tend

00:22:21 ◼   ► to take every year.

00:22:22 ◼   ► I didn't take it last year because we got married, not me and you.

00:22:27 ◼   ► I was going to say not us.

00:22:30 ◼   ► For everybody, I think including me and you, but nevertheless, is a trip that I take to

00:22:36 ◼   ► to Memphis every year to spend some time with my business partner Steven and we go through

00:22:41 ◼   ► a lot of the stuff that we do with the business and that kind of stuff. We just spend some

00:22:45 ◼   ► time together. But this year we are then going to be traveling together to San Francisco

00:22:52 ◼   ► because we're going to be putting on a big live show in San Francisco to celebrate Relay

00:22:56 ◼   ► FM's 5th anniversary because that's what August this year brings. So if you are going to be

00:23:03 ◼   ► in or around San Francisco on August the 22nd.

00:23:08 ◼   ► We're gonna be doing a live show.

00:23:10 ◼   ► I will put a link to tickets in the show notes

00:23:12 ◼   ► for this episode.

00:23:13 ◼   ► It's gonna feature a bunch of Relay FM hosts

00:23:16 ◼   ► and we're gonna be doing kind of a variety show.

00:23:20 ◼   ► We're working on some fun stuff for that.

00:23:22 ◼   ► So if you're gonna be around,

00:23:23 ◼   ► you should come out to the show

00:23:24 ◼   ► 'cause we're gonna try and make it as big

00:23:26 ◼   ► and as fun as we possibly can.

00:23:28 ◼   ► - It is shocking to me that Relay is five years old.

00:23:31 ◼   ► - Shocking to me.

00:23:32 ◼   ► It's just, I can't, it's, it's in, I don't know.

00:23:34 ◼   ► It's one of those things, like it's inconceivable.

00:23:35 ◼   ► It's, it feels too old and too young at the same time, but congratulations.

00:23:40 ◼   ► Happy birthday.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Oh, thank you very much.

00:23:42 ◼   ► It makes me feel confident for the next five years because I feel like we have

00:23:46 ◼   ► done five years without any major toll on our lives, if that makes sense.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Right.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Where like, I feel like, oh, we did that.

00:23:57 ◼   ► I mean, everything's good.

00:23:59 ◼   ► Like I don't feel like I have driven myself

00:24:01 ◼   ► into the ground over five years trying to like,

00:24:05 ◼   ► by hook or by crook make this business work,

00:24:07 ◼   ► you know what I mean?

00:24:08 ◼   ► And so I feel like we are operating within our skillset,

00:24:12 ◼   ► we are growing within a level that we can handle, right?

00:24:17 ◼   ► And that we're adapting.

00:24:19 ◼   ► Like I feel like we're taking things in our stride

00:24:23 ◼   ► as opposed to absolutely giving every ounce that I have.

00:24:28 ◼   ► that I have, if that makes sense.

00:24:30 ◼   ► I feel confident for the next five years

00:24:33 ◼   ► because the previous five years have gone by pretty well.

00:24:37 ◼   ► - Congratulations. - Thank you.

00:24:38 ◼   ► - On to 50, 50 years of podcasting.

00:24:41 ◼   ► - 50, 50 seems like more than I'm willing

00:24:44 ◼   ► to commit to at this moment.

00:24:45 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, all right, all right.

00:24:47 ◼   ► But another five years.

00:24:49 ◼   ► - Another five for sure.

00:24:50 ◼   ► I can do another five and then we'll reevaluate.

00:24:53 ◼   ► 50 seems like too much.

00:24:57 ◼   ► Yeah, you should be very proud of what you guys have built together.

00:25:01 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Myke, I don't know if you remember, but what seems like a thousand years ago, during the summer,

00:25:07 ◼   ► I sent you a message, "I can't remember why we were talking about putting the betas on our devices."

00:25:12 ◼   ► And I said to you, "Oh, it's a terrible idea, and one mustn't be too hasty about putting the betas on their devices."

00:25:22 ◼   ► and I sent you a little Lord of the Rings meme on this topic.

00:25:27 ◼   ► Which I 100% got.

00:25:28 ◼   ► Yes, yeah, and I'm sure you did 100% get.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Totally got it.

00:25:32 ◼   ► Right, but see the thing that you didn't know, Myke,

00:25:35 ◼   ► is that message really wasn't for you.

00:25:38 ◼   ► That message was for me.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I was just as much trying to tell myself,

00:25:44 ◼   ► "Don't put the beta on your device, you total moron."

00:25:47 ◼   ► So how long have you been running the beta?

00:25:49 ◼   ► In less than 24 hours after I sent you the Treebeard Mustn't Be Too Hasty meme, I had put "Developer Beta 2" on my iPad, because there wasn't even a public beta at that point in time.

00:26:07 ◼   ► I at least held till 4.

00:26:09 ◼   ► Here's the thing, like, I didn't tell you because I felt ashamed.

00:26:18 ◼   ► I was like, "I can't believe I totally crumbled."

00:26:20 ◼   ► It's like I 100% completely crumbled.

00:26:24 ◼   ► But I at least was wise because since I was traveling, I had made an iTunes

00:26:32 ◼   ► backup of my iPad before I had started this whole process, and I think it only

00:26:37 ◼   ► took me about a week before I realized I had made a terrible decision and for the first time ever

00:26:43 ◼   ► I've actually reversed on having the betas on any of my devices. Oh you're probably okay now by the

00:26:48 ◼   ► way. Two was really bad. Four is good. I'm running it. I mean I get issues every now and then.

00:26:56 ◼   ► They're like weird things that happen but most of the time just a reboot of the device fixes it.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Yeah. Look, I'm going to try to stay off the betas until the actual thing comes out.

00:27:11 ◼   ► No more betas for me. That's my policy.

00:27:14 ◼   ► You know now that you're going to put Beta 4 on your device within the next 24 hours,

00:27:18 ◼   ► right? You know that that's going to happen now because you just said that.

00:27:21 ◼   ► No, I don't think so.

00:27:23 ◼   ► Did you get a chance to use a mouse of your iPad yet?

00:27:28 ◼   ► No I didn't.

00:27:29 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:27:30 ◼   ► I didn't use the mouse.

00:27:31 ◼   ► Do you like it?

00:27:32 ◼   ► Oh my god, it's changed my life.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Really?

00:27:36 ◼   ► Yes.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Because now I can observe correct posture at all times when using my iPad on a desk.

00:27:44 ◼   ► So you have your iPad mounted at eye level now and you can use a mouse with it?

00:27:48 ◼   ► Is that what you're doing?

00:27:49 ◼   ► I have a really good stand called the Clearlook stand of a K and it's at eye level and I can

00:27:56 ◼   ► sit with my bridge keyboard like detached, I just use that keyboard because I can detach

00:28:00 ◼   ► to my iPad from it, put it in the stand, and a Logitech mouse, and it's a dream. It is

00:28:07 ◼   ► so easy to adapt. It's unbelievable.

00:28:09 ◼   ► Have you tried an external monitor with it yet?

00:28:12 ◼   ► No, I haven't tried that yet.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Come on, Myke.

00:28:15 ◼   ► I don't have one.

00:28:16 ◼   ► I literally have a spare LG monitor.

00:28:20 ◼   ► I don't think I want it.

00:28:24 ◼   ► But listen, you're actually going to be near me in less than a week.

00:28:29 ◼   ► - Oh, wait, I have my PC monitor, I could use that.

00:28:31 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, use your PC monitor then.

00:28:33 ◼   ► - All right, I'll try it.

00:28:34 ◼   ► - I was gonna try to have you drag one of these LG monitors

00:28:37 ◼   ► that I hate away from me.

00:28:38 ◼   ► - I know you were, I know you were, I didn't want it.

00:28:40 ◼   ► I was like having to find a way around it, I don't want it.

00:28:44 ◼   ► - Let's be honest here, that moment was much less about you

00:28:48 ◼   ► than it was about me trying to think about what to do

00:28:50 ◼   ► with these stupid monitors.

00:28:51 ◼   ► - I know you're trying to get rid of it

00:28:53 ◼   ► 'cause you gotta make space for a $6,000 monitor

00:28:56 ◼   ► and a $1,000 stand, I know what you're doing.

00:28:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:29:01 ◼   ► - If it's so, you have a PC monitor.

00:29:02 ◼   ► I want you to try that and report back

00:29:05 ◼   ► because I think that's,

00:29:06 ◼   ► like if you're already, you have the iPad on the mount,

00:29:10 ◼   ► you gotta go all in, do it on the external monitor

00:29:13 ◼   ► and like, and time is now a circle

00:29:16 ◼   ► and like we've come right back to,

00:29:18 ◼   ► I've turned my iPad into a computer

00:29:20 ◼   ► with an external keyboard and external mouse

00:29:22 ◼   ► and external monitor.

00:29:23 ◼   ► And you have to give that a try.

00:29:25 ◼   ► - Again, and I know when people hear this,

00:29:26 ◼   ► they think that it's insane, right?

00:29:28 ◼   ► that like why would you do this?

00:29:30 ◼   ► - It's not remotely--

00:29:31 ◼   ► - No, no, no, but I can understand why people's like,

00:29:34 ◼   ► what are you doing just using Mac?

00:29:35 ◼   ► Like I get, for this, most of the time I'm like,

00:29:38 ◼   ► no, you have no argument.

00:29:40 ◼   ► But in this case, it's like, all right,

00:29:42 ◼   ► I understand what you're saying, but who's in it?

00:29:44 ◼   ► - I disagree, there's no, no, no.

00:29:47 ◼   ► This time people have no argument.

00:29:49 ◼   ► - Okey-dokey.

00:29:50 ◼   ► - Because now it's just a question of,

00:29:52 ◼   ► oh, you have a different operating system preference.

00:29:54 ◼   ► - Right, but that's what I'm saying.

00:29:55 ◼   ► - It's gone so circle, yeah.

00:29:57 ◼   ► - That's the point.

00:29:58 ◼   ► The point is I prefer iOS, I prefer the apps on iOS, I prefer the way that I use iOS to

00:30:04 ◼   ► get stuff done, it makes more sense to me, I find it more enjoyable.

00:30:07 ◼   ► It's basically this boils it down to the absolute essence now because it's not about form factor,

00:30:14 ◼   ► it's not about hardware, this now is just about iOS and iPadOS is amazing and I love

00:30:20 ◼   ► it and I'm really excited about it and I cannot wait for all the applications to start supporting

00:30:26 ◼   ► the multiple instance stuff because I'm realizing how much of a difference it's going to make

00:30:31 ◼   ► for me to have. So like for example, you know like we spoke about a long time ago, like

00:30:38 ◼   ► basically when iOS 11 came out, the idea of having these like fixed spaces that you would

00:30:45 ◼   ► have, I can see how I'm able to do some of that stuff, right? Because let's say for example

00:30:52 ◼   ► I have my show notes for connected, right?

00:30:57 ◼   ► My show notes for connected will include

00:31:00 ◼   ► a Google Doc and an Apple Note,

00:31:03 ◼   ► and then all I need to do is be able to click links

00:31:06 ◼   ► in my Apple Note and open Safari or whatever, right?

00:31:09 ◼   ► So I can copy and paste things or read stuff from Safari.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Now, what I've been doing in the past is like,

00:31:15 ◼   ► oh, I'll have Safari on one side, Docs on another side,

00:31:19 ◼   ► and then use Notes in SlideOver.

00:31:21 ◼   ► But if I'm willing to change that up a little bit and use docs on one side and notes on

00:31:28 ◼   ► another side and then use Safari and SlideOver, then I can set up scenarios where I could

00:31:34 ◼   ► have for example just a shortcut on my home screen that I would tap it to open a link

00:31:40 ◼   ► to the Google doc.

00:31:41 ◼   ► And because the last time I would have used that Google doc, like that exact one, would

00:31:45 ◼   ► be side by side with the note in its own window, right?

00:31:49 ◼   ► So I would end up in a situation where all I need to do

00:31:52 ◼   ► is open the link to that Google doc

00:31:53 ◼   ► and the note is always gonna be there.

00:31:56 ◼   ► My connected show notes and my connected research notes

00:32:00 ◼   ► will always be next to each other

00:32:02 ◼   ► because that was the last pair that I used them in.

00:32:05 ◼   ► - So just so I understand,

00:32:06 ◼   ► can you set that up as an individual,

00:32:10 ◼   ► can you do that for multiple shows

00:32:12 ◼   ► to have a link to click that brings you into the environment?

00:32:16 ◼   ► Because right now I have a shortcut that I've built

00:32:20 ◼   ► which gives me a dropdown so I can set

00:32:24 ◼   ► both a relevant time tracking timer

00:32:26 ◼   ► and then open the Google Doc, right?

00:32:28 ◼   ► So like I just choose, I hit it,

00:32:30 ◼   ► it's like which show, I press Cortex

00:32:32 ◼   ► and it opens the Cortex Google Doc, right?

00:32:35 ◼   ► But now because the last,

00:32:36 ◼   ► because I would have basically set it up

00:32:38 ◼   ► to have these individual windows of docs and notes

00:32:40 ◼   ► next to each other for like Google Docs and Apple Notes,

00:32:45 ◼   ► So it's got like the running show notes

00:32:46 ◼   ► and my research notes.

00:32:47 ◼   ► They were always open together

00:32:49 ◼   ► because it was the last pair that I had them in.

00:32:51 ◼   ► So it just becomes a fixed window.

00:32:53 ◼   ► - That's a really interesting use case.

00:32:54 ◼   ► I didn't think about that,

00:32:56 ◼   ► that if an app supports a link like that

00:33:00 ◼   ► to a particular part of it,

00:33:02 ◼   ► that you can use that as a hook to a two app environment.

00:33:07 ◼   ► - And also, but it doesn't even need to be a link like that

00:33:09 ◼   ► because so many apps would support this in shortcuts.

00:33:14 ◼   ► So I could do it the other way around.

00:33:15 ◼   ► I could open a specific note, Apple Note, using shortcuts.

00:33:18 ◼   ► So I could just have it that way,

00:33:20 ◼   ► which is even easier to do,

00:33:21 ◼   ► but I just already have it set up

00:33:23 ◼   ► with the link to the Google Doc.

00:33:25 ◼   ► - Boy, that's very interesting.

00:33:27 ◼   ► That's very interesting.

00:33:28 ◼   ► I didn't even think about it like that.

00:33:29 ◼   ► - So then, you could even just have,

00:33:31 ◼   ► you could create a shortcut

00:33:33 ◼   ► and then you could create a home screen icon for it

00:33:35 ◼   ► and then you could just tap the home screen icon

00:33:38 ◼   ► and it would take you to that pair.

00:33:40 ◼   ► - Hmm, I might have to install the beta and give this a try.

00:33:43 ◼   ► The only problem is, I can't do this right now because Google Docs doesn't have multi-window,

00:33:51 ◼   ► like it doesn't have it, right? But you could do it with Notes and Safari.

00:33:55 ◼   ► Yeah, the reason why I got pulled by the beta is because I just so love the iPad now as my little research buddy,

00:34:06 ◼   ► and all of this multiple window stuff is the kind of thing that I found myself continually frustrated on,

00:34:12 ◼   ► like, "God damn it, I just want two Safaris so I can have one for one project and one

00:34:16 ◼   ► for the other project."

00:34:17 ◼   ► Like, that was the whole reason why I wanted to put the beta on, was so I could just get

00:34:20 ◼   ► started with that.

00:34:22 ◼   ► But I ran into too many just deal-breaking problems or complications with the beta.

00:34:26 ◼   ► But it's like, that multiple windows stuff is the thing that really pulled me.

00:34:32 ◼   ► But that is an interesting description that you've said.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm excited about it.

00:34:36 ◼   ► I'm very excited about it.

00:34:38 ◼   ► I can't wait.

00:34:39 ◼   ► I know it's going to take a long time for Google Docs to update, but it will be great

00:34:43 ◼   ► when they do.

00:34:44 ◼   ► Can't wait.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:46 ◼   ► There's one thing that, because whenever I have loaded up any of the betas, the first

00:34:52 ◼   ► thing I want to do is, of course, mess around in all of the settings for everything, because

00:34:56 ◼   ► you can often find little stuff that hasn't been mentioned elsewhere, like hiding in the

00:35:01 ◼   ► settings.

00:35:02 ◼   ► And I found one thing in the developer beta, which I was originally, I took a screenshot

00:35:08 ◼   ► I was going to send it to you and go, "Oh look,"

00:35:10 ◼   ► but then I realized I would have to confess

00:35:11 ◼   ► that I had installed the beta,

00:35:12 ◼   ► so I just saved it until this very moment.

00:35:14 ◼   ► But I'm going to send you a screenshot of a setting

00:35:18 ◼   ► that I found deep in screen time.

00:35:22 ◼   ► I couldn't get it to work in the developer beta,

00:35:25 ◼   ► but what it looks like is it's a setting

00:35:30 ◼   ► that allows you to say, "During downtime,

00:35:34 ◼   ► do you want to allow specific contacts

00:35:38 ◼   ► to still be able to reach you?

00:35:40 ◼   ► Now, like the wording on it is a little bit strange

00:35:45 ◼   ► about like specific context, is this during downtime

00:35:48 ◼   ► or like are there limits for people or whatever?

00:35:51 ◼   ► But it does look like at least in that beta,

00:35:55 ◼   ► there's the option to be able to say,

00:35:58 ◼   ► this person should still be able to get in touch with you

00:36:01 ◼   ► even if the device is in downtime.

00:36:03 ◼   ► - That's good.

00:36:04 ◼   ► If that makes it into the final thing, I will be so happy because that has always been my number one problem is

00:36:11 ◼   ► I still want my wife to be able to get in touch with me even if the device is in downtime

00:36:17 ◼   ► and it seems crazy to me like that hasn't been possible before.

00:36:20 ◼   ► So that was a little thing that I was very excited about.

00:36:23 ◼   ► I remember being a little grumpy after WWDC because I didn't expect to get any changes for iMessage or notification hierarchies.

00:36:32 ◼   ► But at least there's, here's a little bit of a, a little bit of a something that's still

00:36:37 ◼   ► moving in the right direction.

00:36:38 ◼   ► So I just want to thank whatever Apple engineers are working on that feature.

00:36:42 ◼   ► Honestly, I'm surprised that they have done as much as they have done.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Like, there are other little bits and bobs, right, that are in this, that have been added

00:36:52 ◼   ► to screen time and to app limits and all that kind of stuff.

00:36:56 ◼   ► Like, I, I think we originally thought this is going to be like a one and done.

00:37:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:01 ◼   ► - Because one of the things that I saw

00:37:03 ◼   ► and that is considered a resolved issue

00:37:06 ◼   ► is that downtime settings are coming to,

00:37:08 ◼   ► like they're syncing to the Apple Watch now,

00:37:09 ◼   ► which is something that we spoke about.

00:37:11 ◼   ► It's like, this is a thing that's just always been broken.

00:37:14 ◼   ► But seems like they're, I think that's the thing

00:37:16 ◼   ► that they're now trying to fix.

00:37:17 ◼   ► 'Cause this definitely felt like one of those features

00:37:20 ◼   ► where it's like, all right, we've done the bare minimum now

00:37:22 ◼   ► and wait four years for an update to it.

00:37:25 ◼   ► And then it's coming to the Mac too, right?

00:37:27 ◼   ► Which is the other thing we wanted, so.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm always happy to see continual motion.

00:37:34 ◼   ► And so that's the other reason why I felt really happy

00:37:36 ◼   ► about that.

00:37:37 ◼   ► It's like, oh, okay, great.

00:37:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it doesn't make sense necessarily to talk about this

00:37:41 ◼   ► on stage because it's a minor thing, but I'm just glad

00:37:43 ◼   ► to know that there's still an active team that's working

00:37:45 ◼   ► on this stuff.

00:37:46 ◼   ► So I was very happy about that, but I'm still gonna try

00:37:49 ◼   ► to hold off on the beta for at least until the end

00:37:52 ◼   ► of the show.

00:37:53 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you in part by Hover.

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00:38:05 ◼   ► Not just because they've been a sponsor of Cortex since the beginning,

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00:38:48 ◼   ► and obvious. I love their interface. That's why if I have an idea for a project, Hover is the place

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00:39:18 ◼   ► FM.

00:39:19 ◼   ► So considering that I think over the years, having not only just increased our traveling

00:39:24 ◼   ► time, but I mean we both just finished some travel, it made me think it might be worth

00:39:30 ◼   ► spending a little bit today talking about our bags and what goes in our bags. Because

00:39:38 ◼   ► I'm intrigued to kind of understand if and how your travel bag and a daily bag changes

00:39:43 ◼   ► for you. I am definitely in a mode where I do not have any kind of daily carry bag now.

00:39:49 ◼   ► I have a travel bag only, because I don't need a bag when I'm in my average daily

00:39:58 ◼   ► life because I don't co-work anymore like I used to or anything like that. So, like

00:40:03 ◼   ► I have other backpacks around and if I need to go somewhere in a day I'll grab one and

00:40:07 ◼   ► throw some stuff in it but I don't have a set bag like I do my travel bag which is

00:40:13 ◼   ► by and large, I add things to it every time,

00:40:16 ◼   ► but it's pretty much like it's there,

00:40:18 ◼   ► it's got its stuff in it, and I'm ready to go with it.

00:40:21 ◼   ► You know, like I have my iPad or whatever,

00:40:23 ◼   ► and then I'm good for my trip.

00:40:25 ◼   ► So I wanted to maybe spend a bit of time today

00:40:28 ◼   ► talking about what bags are using,

00:40:30 ◼   ► what goes in them, and why.

00:40:32 ◼   ► - Oh, you've caught me at a real bag transition mode.

00:40:38 ◼   ► - Okay, maybe we can talk about what's not working for you.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Well, like I'm in an interesting position where years ago I had a very, very clear.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Backpack system of like, okay, I've got these two backpacks and it depends

00:40:53 ◼   ► on where I'm going for the day, which one I'm going to grab.

00:40:56 ◼   ► And I had a bunch of redundant equipment in each of them.

00:40:58 ◼   ► And I had a little checklist to go through and make sure like each

00:41:01 ◼   ► bag was always up to date with whatever it is that I needed.

00:41:03 ◼   ► Then when I eventually got an office outside of the house, that situation

00:41:08 ◼   ► And that situation sort of crumbled away because sort of like you just said, I didn't need

00:41:13 ◼   ► to have a working bag to bring out to the coffee shop with me all the time.

00:41:19 ◼   ► But it may be coming back at least for a little while because I have abandoned the glass cube

00:41:25 ◼   ► and I am currently office-less, which I left as a situation for Future Grey to resolve

00:41:32 ◼   ► when he was done with all of his traveling.

00:41:35 ◼   ► And that's now current me.

00:41:37 ◼   ► and finding a new office is never a quick thing.

00:41:39 ◼   ► So I have been thinking about bags

00:41:41 ◼   ► and like, what do I need to do?

00:41:44 ◼   ► And I may be back to at least temporarily

00:41:47 ◼   ► a kind of a system like I used to have.

00:41:50 ◼   ► But why don't you tell me what's your current situation

00:41:55 ◼   ► so that I can possibly crib good ideas for you

00:41:59 ◼   ► and then I'll tell you what I have hacked together

00:42:01 ◼   ► at the moment.

00:42:02 ◼   ► - All right, so my current bag

00:42:03 ◼   ► is the Peak Design Everyday Backpack,

00:42:06 ◼   ► the 20 litre version, so they do a 20 and like a 30 litre.

00:42:10 ◼   ► The 30 litre is too big for me, I think,

00:42:12 ◼   ► and it's also more than I need,

00:42:14 ◼   ► because the 20 litre, I can fit everything

00:42:16 ◼   ► that I want to take with me

00:42:18 ◼   ► and still have a little bit of space in it.

00:42:20 ◼   ► So I've been very happy with that.

00:42:22 ◼   ► I've used this bag for over a year now

00:42:24 ◼   ► and I'm very happy with it.

00:42:26 ◼   ► It is, in essence, a camera bag.

00:42:29 ◼   ► That's kind of what it was designed for,

00:42:31 ◼   ► or at least it was designed by people that make camera bags.

00:42:36 ◼   ► So Peak Design make a bunch of different types of bags,

00:42:38 ◼   ► but they all have focus or features

00:42:42 ◼   ► that have been learned from having been a company

00:42:45 ◼   ► that has made camera bags for a long time.

00:42:47 ◼   ► So there's a lot of really interesting bits and bobs

00:42:52 ◼   ► that this bag has, like one of the main things,

00:42:54 ◼   ► like it all opens from the side instead of the top

00:42:57 ◼   ► is how you access the main stuff.

00:42:58 ◼   ► And then there are these like changeable,

00:43:02 ◼   ► like velcro shelves inside of the bag essentially,

00:43:06 ◼   ► which divide it up into different sections

00:43:09 ◼   ► that you can amend and change to your heart's content.

00:43:13 ◼   ► And it has a bunch of pockets and nice little features

00:43:15 ◼   ► that I like a lot that work well

00:43:19 ◼   ► for how I like to have my bag set up.

00:43:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a really amazing backpack.

00:43:25 ◼   ► In terms of, sometimes people wanna know

00:43:28 ◼   ► about like projects that I've killed.

00:43:30 ◼   ► And I think on the last show I mentioned,

00:43:32 ◼   ► I've shot a bunch of vlogs that never made it anywhere.

00:43:35 ◼   ► One of those projects I could mention here

00:43:38 ◼   ► is two summers ago or maybe three,

00:43:42 ◼   ► I can't even remember now.

00:43:44 ◼   ► I first got this backpack when I first came across it.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I basically shot a whole vlog about just traveling

00:43:51 ◼   ► with this backpack, which then I realized afterward

00:43:53 ◼   ► was like, it was just very boring.

00:43:54 ◼   ► Like it wasn't interesting.

00:43:56 ◼   ► Nobody wants to see someone travel around

00:43:58 ◼   ► with a backpack trying it out for a whole while, but.

00:44:01 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, they don't?

00:44:02 ◼   ► - I don't think that-- - This is like

00:44:03 ◼   ► the whole thing on YouTube.

00:44:04 ◼   ► Like, this is like a whole thing.

00:44:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, anyway, I scrapped it.

00:44:09 ◼   ► It's gone, it's dead, it'll never be a thing.

00:44:11 ◼   ► - It might be people don't wanna see your version of it,

00:44:13 ◼   ► but there are versions. - Yeah.

00:44:15 ◼   ► - Right, but like it's a very specific type of thing.

00:44:18 ◼   ► - But like, the reason I mention that is because

00:44:21 ◼   ► it is a bag that is actually interesting enough

00:44:24 ◼   ► that that kind of project could even be conceived.

00:44:28 ◼   ► Whereas most backpacks are much more straightforward.

00:44:31 ◼   ► And if you are looking for a backpack,

00:44:34 ◼   ► I think it's one that is worth giving a look

00:44:37 ◼   ► because it is very different from most backpacks

00:44:40 ◼   ► that you're going to come across.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And yeah, so I have kind of my own journey

00:44:45 ◼   ► that I've been on with that backpack,

00:44:47 ◼   ► which I can get to later,

00:44:49 ◼   ► but it's an interesting one to check out.

00:44:51 ◼   ► I also see them, particularly at WWDC,

00:44:54 ◼   ► I was very aware that, again,

00:44:57 ◼   ► even though it is ostensibly a camera bag,

00:44:59 ◼   ► it seemed very popular with the developer crowd as well of people.

00:45:04 ◼   ► There were a lot of everyday carry backpacks at WWDC.

00:45:07 ◼   ► And so I've been very happy with this bag and I want to run through with you my typical what goes in.

00:45:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:14 ◼   ► So my 11 inch iPad Pro is what I will take with me when I travel.

00:45:18 ◼   ► And I have the Brydge Pro keyboard with it, which kind of makes it like a nice laptop form factor.

00:45:24 ◼   ► This iPad doesn't live in this bag like it usually is a iPad that I use basically every single day

00:45:29 ◼   ► I keep it by my bed

00:45:31 ◼   ► And it's what I will use at night in the or in the morning if I want to use a iPad during those periods of

00:45:36 ◼   ► Time to read or catch up or wind down or that kind of thing

00:45:39 ◼   ► That is what kind of like my just like a nice iPad that I use at home for media stuff

00:45:44 ◼   ► But on the road is the iPad that I use for everything

00:45:48 ◼   ► One of the reasons I tend to travel with the 11 inch is in case I also travel with my MacBook Pro

00:45:53 ◼   ► But other than that, I will always travel with that one is the only iPad that I have with LTE

00:45:58 ◼   ► The ability to have LTE connection. So it is my travel iPad

00:46:02 ◼   ► It is you know, like in essence as I say said in the past in the way that people travel with a specific laptop

00:46:07 ◼   ► Right, like you you won't use a desktop at home on a laptop on the road

00:46:11 ◼   ► I use my 11 inch on the road

00:46:13 ◼   ► But then sometimes I take a MacBook Pro with me as well if I'm gonna be recording stuff and editing stuff on the specific trip

00:46:19 ◼   ► Which isn't always

00:46:21 ◼   ► I am a recent convert to the iPhone smart battery case. Oh

00:46:26 ◼   ► You finally got on that train. Yeah, those battery cases are amazing

00:46:31 ◼   ► Yep, because if you travel and you put your phone your iPhone on one of those battery cases

00:46:35 ◼   ► You do not need to charge it no matter what you do to the phone on that day

00:46:39 ◼   ► And so that's really nice, but I only use it when I'm traveling

00:46:43 ◼   ► So it lives in my bag and then I will like swap over to it at some point on the trip

00:46:47 ◼   ► Maybe when I'm leaving in the morning to get my way to the airport might be when I do it

00:46:52 ◼   ► But yeah that that's when I will switch over to the smart battery case, which is wonderful

00:46:57 ◼   ► If you use technology in the year of 2019, you need a bag which has your dongles in it

00:47:04 ◼   ► Because that's just a thing now

00:47:07 ◼   ► So I use Tom Bihn maker like a little bag called the snake charmer

00:47:12 ◼   ► Which is just like basically for this exact type of thing

00:47:15 ◼   ► It's where you put power cables and dongles and adapters and all that kind of stuff and I have it

00:47:20 ◼   ► So like I can I have adjusted my peak design like the little dividers to basically fit

00:47:26 ◼   ► Just perfectly around the exact size that the snake charmer needs and it goes in the bottom of the bag like the bottom compartment

00:47:33 ◼   ► So just stuff it in there and that's where it's got everything

00:47:36 ◼   ► That's an interesting idea. And SnakeCharmr, that is an amazing name for a dongle bag.

00:47:41 ◼   ► Yep, it's perfect, right?

00:47:43 ◼   ► A+ naming to Tom Bihn on that one, that's perfect.

00:47:47 ◼   ► Yep, and in that bottom compartment also goes my huge external battery that I have,

00:47:53 ◼   ► you know, like everybody has one of these. I have one, it's called the ZMI-QB820, and it's

00:47:59 ◼   ► very powerful, it is a 20,000 milliamp hour battery.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Whoa!

00:48:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:07 ◼   ► I got this one because it can power Nintendo Switches and MacBook Pros and all that kind

00:48:13 ◼   ► of stuff.

00:48:14 ◼   ► It has power delivery.

00:48:15 ◼   ► What are you bringing your Switch with you in your backpack?

00:48:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Why do you need such a...

00:48:20 ◼   ► Why do you...

00:48:21 ◼   ► Really?

00:48:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I haven't gotten to it yet, but most of the time I travel with my Nintendo Switch.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Alright.

00:48:28 ◼   ► It is a portable console.

00:48:31 ◼   ► I know, I know, I know it's a portable console, like I'm aware of that.

00:48:39 ◼   ► So why wouldn't I travel with it?

00:48:43 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:44 ◼   ► Okay, you know what, never mind, I withdraw my snarky remark, you bring your Nintendo

00:48:49 ◼   ► Switch with you, that's perfectly fine.

00:48:52 ◼   ► Next up is my Nintendo Switch, which I bring with a pro controller, I don't even bring

00:48:58 ◼   ► the Joy-Con anymore.

00:48:59 ◼   ► Oh god, you're bringing the Pro Controller too.

00:49:01 ◼   ► I can't use the Joy-Con for long periods of time without it hurting my hand, so I bring the Pro Controller.

00:49:08 ◼   ► Yeah, no one should use the Joy-Cons. Everyone should use the Pro Controller.

00:49:14 ◼   ► But it's particularly that you're also shoving this into the peak, everyday backpack is hilarious to me.

00:49:20 ◼   ► The middle compartment fits just this. That's all that goes in there, the switch and the Pro Controller.

00:49:26 ◼   ► I put my Switch in something called a hybrid cover.

00:49:29 ◼   ► So it's a cover but also a stand, which is a very nice little thing.

00:49:33 ◼   ► So it covers up the screen, stops the screen from getting scratched.

00:49:37 ◼   ► But you can also wrap it around kind of like iPad Smart Cover like,

00:49:41 ◼   ► and have it stand up on its own so I can like play it on a plane or I can play games wherever I want.

00:49:47 ◼   ► I, many times, I bring my Switch on a trip and don't use it.

00:49:51 ◼   ► But every time I have it with me and I do use it, I'm really happy that I brought it.

00:49:55 ◼   ► I'm still debating whether I continue to bring my Nintendo Switch with me on trips.

00:50:01 ◼   ► It might end up being that I will know in advance the type of trip where I take it.

00:50:06 ◼   ► I don't find myself playing it on planes very much because I tend to watch movies or TV or

00:50:12 ◼   ► whatever more frequently than I would play the Nintendo.

00:50:15 ◼   ► But I'm still debating on that.

00:50:17 ◼   ► I'm going to start some trips where I don't bring it and see if it makes an effect.

00:50:22 ◼   ► But on the last trip that I went on, I used it a couple of times.

00:50:25 ◼   ► So, you know, like it really I think it just it's depending on the trip now,

00:50:29 ◼   ► but it is something that I do travel with because in some instances it's a great little thing to

00:50:33 ◼   ► have with you. And it's it's not too heavy, it's not too cumbersome. And I really I'm not fighting

00:50:39 ◼   ► for space in this bag, right? So I'm not that's not the reason I wouldn't bring it. I mean,

00:50:45 ◼   ► the reason I wouldn't bring it is just because then my bag is a little bit lighter,

00:50:48 ◼   ► but I'm not struggling to fit stuff into this bag anyway.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Next up is a pen case called the NOC Co Sinclair. When I bring pens on a trip, which is becoming

00:51:00 ◼   ► more and more frequent, and I mean my good pens, my nice fountain pens, I will bring

00:51:05 ◼   ► this. I always have a Retro 51 and a Rotring 600 mechanical pencil in my bag anyway. Oh,

00:51:11 ◼   ► and a Sharpie too. But this is like if I want to bring some extra stuff. I will bring some

00:51:18 ◼   ► I will bring one of these.

00:51:19 ◼   ► It's a nice little pen case, like a nylon pen case

00:51:22 ◼   ► made by my friend Brad and I really, really love it.

00:51:26 ◼   ► For headphones, I use my AirPods most of the time,

00:51:30 ◼   ► honestly, because I like them the most.

00:51:33 ◼   ► But if I want to connect with other ear headphones,

00:51:37 ◼   ► mostly because the AirPod battery is dying

00:51:40 ◼   ► over an 11 hour flight, I keep in my bag

00:51:43 ◼   ► a pair of wired B&O H6 headphones with a USB-C dongle

00:51:48 ◼   ► permanently attached to the end of it, to the iPad Pro. These are headphones that they sound fine,

00:51:56 ◼   ► but I don't really like them very much ultimately. I don't find them particularly comfortable,

00:52:01 ◼   ► and the headband, I cannot, and this is not a thing that I experienced in the past,

00:52:06 ◼   ► I cannot get the headband to be small enough. I do not have a small head, so I don't really

00:52:12 ◼   ► understand why this is happening, but I feel like I always want the headphones to be smaller than

00:52:16 ◼   ► than they are. I don't know if I accidentally bought like the pair for big head people,

00:52:20 ◼   ► um, because I've never heard of, I know many people that have owned these headphones

00:52:24 ◼   ► and have never had this complaint, but I feel like that the headphones are too big. And

00:52:29 ◼   ► I kind of refuse to buy any more headphones for now because I don't want to and I'm

00:52:37 ◼   ► still expecting Apple to bring out some version of over ear headphones at some point and I

00:52:43 ◼   ► don't want to buy wireless headphones until I see that because the AirPods technology

00:52:48 ◼   ► works so well and you can buy some beats that have some of this stuff in it but it's the

00:52:53 ◼   ► old chips not the new chips and I'm just hesitant to buy any and I'm not a big fan of noise

00:52:59 ◼   ► cancelling and all of the other wireless headphones are like really focused on noise cancelling

00:53:05 ◼   ► so I just haven't gone down that route yet and I use these B&O headphones like I might

00:53:11 ◼   ► use them like six or seven times a year because I don't use them on every flight even.

00:53:15 ◼   ► Like I try and use the AirPods for most of the time.

00:53:19 ◼   ► So, because I can, especially with the newer ones,

00:53:23 ◼   ► because I was struggling to hear on planes with my older AirPods, I think they were just

00:53:27 ◼   ► dying slowly, right? But the new ones, they seem to be louder and

00:53:31 ◼   ► they do a good job for me. When you say you're expecting Apple to come out with over-year

00:53:35 ◼   ► headphones, do you mean with a little headband on top? Or are you talking about

00:53:39 ◼   ► about something like, okay.

00:53:40 ◼   ► - No, like a BNO H6, like a Sony MK3

00:53:45 ◼   ► or whatever they are, the Bose Quiet Comforter.

00:53:48 ◼   ► This has been a rumor for a while

00:53:50 ◼   ► and it kind of makes sense

00:53:52 ◼   ► that they would make a product like this,

00:53:54 ◼   ► 'cause it's like just a further extension

00:53:56 ◼   ► of what AirPods are, even though they do own Beats,

00:54:00 ◼   ► but I don't think that that makes a difference.

00:54:02 ◼   ► - Obviously I'm a bit out of the loop on that one.

00:54:05 ◼   ► That seems like a rumor I really wouldn't be

00:54:08 ◼   ► holding off on a headphone purchase for.

00:54:10 ◼   ► Maybe they will, I feel like I'd be surprised.

00:54:12 ◼   ► - I mean, but I don't have any that I particularly want.

00:54:15 ◼   ► Right, like I don't, I mean, I'm not dying

00:54:17 ◼   ► for a new pair of headphones.

00:54:19 ◼   ► I don't like what I have, but I don't really wanna spend

00:54:22 ◼   ► all the money on a pair of headphones

00:54:25 ◼   ► that I'm not that keen about anyway.

00:54:27 ◼   ► So, you know, I haven't tried these new ones,

00:54:30 ◼   ► the Sony ones that everybody likes,

00:54:31 ◼   ► and Bose just came out with a new version

00:54:33 ◼   ► of the QuietComfort, and maybe if I tried them

00:54:36 ◼   ► I would like them, but it's not something that I'm really that desperate for, so I have

00:54:40 ◼   ► no problem waiting. I'll probably wait until the end of the year and then think about making

00:54:45 ◼   ► a purchase. Oh, and I always have a glasses cleaner. I don't know why I felt the need

00:54:50 ◼   ► to put that in there, but if you are, I think it's more like if you're a person that wears

00:54:53 ◼   ► glasses, put a microfibre glasses cleaner in your backpack. You will thank me later.

00:55:01 ◼   ► It seems like such a simple thing, but if your glasses get dirty when you're travelling

00:55:05 ◼   ► and you then have to try and clean them with a t-shirt,

00:55:07 ◼   ► you're just never gonna be happy.

00:55:09 ◼   ► Like just put a glasses cleaner in your backpack.

00:55:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it doubles as a screen cleaner.

00:55:14 ◼   ► - It doubles as a screen cleaner, yeah.

00:55:16 ◼   ► But just trust me on that one, just put it in there.

00:55:18 ◼   ► They're kind of like the main things that I have.

00:55:20 ◼   ► You know, I'll have like various medications, right?

00:55:23 ◼   ► Like always just put some spares in the bag, you know,

00:55:25 ◼   ► like I don't know, like pain pills and allergy medicine

00:55:29 ◼   ► and all that kind of stuff, just get all that in there.

00:55:31 ◼   ► Like a little notebook, I'll put like a Field Notes notebook

00:55:33 ◼   ► or something in the bag.

00:55:35 ◼   ► And that's about it. That's about what goes in my bag.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Interesting. I may totally steal that snake charmer for my own set.

00:55:41 ◼   ► Don't steal mine, just buy your own. I need mine. It's got all my dongles in it.

00:55:46 ◼   ► But that's why I want to steal yours, is because all the dongles will be nicely arranged for me.

00:55:52 ◼   ► It's not neatly arranged. They're just in there.

00:55:55 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Well then maybe I will get my own.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a great little bag for that kind of stuff. And it does fit really nicely in

00:56:02 ◼   ► the Peak Design, if that's the bag you're still using.

00:56:05 ◼   ► So when I originally got the Peak Design,

00:56:08 ◼   ► kind of like two summers ago, I really liked it,

00:56:11 ◼   ► but by the end of the summer traveling,

00:56:14 ◼   ► a bunch of the things that were sort of different

00:56:16 ◼   ► about that bag, I ended up being a little frustrated with,

00:56:19 ◼   ► and I moved away from it for a while.

00:56:22 ◼   ► I actually bought another Peak Design backpack

00:56:27 ◼   ► while I was traveling this summer,

00:56:29 ◼   ► because I realized I'd made a terrible mistake by abandoning it and that I needed it for what I was doing.

00:56:37 ◼   ► So what I have realized for my travel setup is the mistake I was making is I was treating the Peak design more like

00:56:47 ◼   ► this is an extension of my suitcase setup and I'm going to put the most vital things that I need for traveling in this bag that is never more than a hands reach away.

00:56:59 ◼   ► So I was putting a little bit of travel stuff in there in the sense of toothpaste and a toothbrush and medications and a couple of travel-y things like that.

00:57:12 ◼   ► And then I was kind of getting frustrated with when I was on the road wanting to do like go somewhere to work.

00:57:23 ◼   ► But then I was also bringing a backpack that had a bunch of stuff that I didn't need to bring with me out to Starbucks, that kind of thing.

00:57:29 ◼   ► So the thing that I settled on this summer, which worked out really well, was to just be like, no, no, no, I'm going to have a very strict rule for the Peak design,

00:57:38 ◼   ► the Peak Design, which is this is going to contain

00:57:42 ◼   ► only what I need for like a day's worth of work.

00:57:48 ◼   ► So this isn't going to have any travel stuff.

00:57:51 ◼   ► I'm just going to put that in my carry-on bag

00:57:55 ◼   ► and accept that some of these vital items

00:57:59 ◼   ► might have to go under the plane

00:58:01 ◼   ► if I end up in one of those teeny tiny planes

00:58:03 ◼   ► or they don't let you take anything on board

00:58:04 ◼   ► except your smallest bag.

00:58:07 ◼   ► And that's been fine.

00:58:08 ◼   ► I've been much happier with that of like,

00:58:10 ◼   ► oh, what is the role of this backpack?

00:58:12 ◼   ► The role of this backpack is I should be able to grab it

00:58:15 ◼   ► at any point in time and then just go for the day

00:58:19 ◼   ► and know that I'm perfectly fine work-wise.

00:58:22 ◼   ► Because what I had been trying before is

00:58:25 ◼   ► I had bought one of the Tom Bihn Daylight backpacks.

00:58:30 ◼   ► And these are these like, it's a super thin backpack

00:58:35 ◼   ► that you can just, if you take everything out of it,

00:58:38 ◼   ► it collapses to nothing.

00:58:39 ◼   ► So you can just throw it on the top of a suitcase

00:58:41 ◼   ► and zip it up like it's absolutely nothing.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And my original thought was, oh, I will use this

00:58:48 ◼   ► to put stuff in when I want to go out to work.

00:58:51 ◼   ► But then I was routinely finding like, oh, I'm at Starbucks,

00:58:54 ◼   ► but I don't have the charger for my headphones,

00:58:56 ◼   ► or oh, I forgot to bring this other little thing.

00:58:58 ◼   ► And I hated like minding this other backpack.

00:59:01 ◼   ► And like, I never wanna have to think about

00:59:04 ◼   ► what do I need to bring?

00:59:05 ◼   ► Like that's a real frustration.

00:59:07 ◼   ► And especially when you're traveling

00:59:09 ◼   ► and you're in unusual environments,

00:59:11 ◼   ► like the probability of forgetting something

00:59:13 ◼   ► increases by 20 million percent.

00:59:16 ◼   ► - Wow, that's some interesting science you've done there.

00:59:18 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, I have some numbers to back that up.

00:59:21 ◼   ► - What do you think I've been doing for 73 days?

00:59:23 ◼   ► Just crunching these numbers.

00:59:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, while I do really like that daylight backpack,

00:59:28 ◼   ► I realized this is not the solution that I'm looking for.

00:59:30 ◼   ► So anyway, my everyday backpack is my like now work one.

00:59:35 ◼   ► And let me, let me reach over and grab it.

00:59:39 ◼   ► 'Cause I'm not prepared for this.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Let me see what I actually have in it.

00:59:46 ◼   ► Having literally stepped off an airplane

00:59:48 ◼   ► just a few hours ago.

00:59:50 ◼   ► - It's the perfect time.

00:59:51 ◼   ► - Okay, so.

00:59:54 ◼   ► - This is ASMR right now.

00:59:56 ◼   ► - No, don't.

00:59:58 ◼   ► What I don't need is more channels.

01:00:01 ◼   ► We don't need to start gray SMR.

01:00:04 ◼   ► - Oh, but you got the name though.

01:00:06 ◼   ► - No, I don't.

01:00:08 ◼   ► Okay, so in the slot in the top,

01:00:10 ◼   ► what will just barely fit is the big iPad Pro

01:00:15 ◼   ► and a 15 inch laptop.

01:00:20 ◼   ► - Oh, 15, I have a 13 and it would crunch its way in there.

01:00:25 ◼   ► - It'll just fit and I also have the keyboard case

01:00:28 ◼   ► on my iPad, I honestly think if it was one millimeter

01:00:32 ◼   ► thicker with those two things, it wouldn't fit.

01:00:35 ◼   ► But it'll like, what, it'll just make it.

01:00:40 ◼   ► But you're definitely compromising on some of the interior

01:00:42 ◼   ► space at that point, 'cause you can see like it's bulging,

01:00:45 ◼   ► it's bulging out from there.

01:00:47 ◼   ► - It's one of those situations where you then open

01:00:49 ◼   ► the laptop and you see the keys imprinted on the screen.

01:00:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:00:54 ◼   ► You've pushed it to its maximum.

01:00:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's as far as you wanna go.

01:00:58 ◼   ► But this is also partly why I have decided that I really want to try to get a smaller laptop next time around.

01:01:05 ◼   ► Especially with some of the screen sharing features.

01:01:08 ◼   ► You're going to be so sad. You're just going to be so sad.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Again, the rumor is the next big change is a 16 inch MacBook Pro.

01:01:17 ◼   ► Which is going to be all the bells and all the whistles and it's going to be amazing.

01:01:21 ◼   ► And that's the one you're going to buy because you're going to be really excited about it.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Well, my frustration is that's going to be the new shiny laptop and that there just isn't

01:01:32 ◼   ► going to be a smaller shiny version.

01:01:35 ◼   ► They will make a smaller shiny one, but it will be later because the rumors are saying

01:01:40 ◼   ► that this laptop is going to be very expensive because it's going to be all brand new, so

01:01:44 ◼   ► they have to only make it in the big one.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Yeah, so I don't know what's going to happen, but I expect to be frustrated with what are

01:01:51 ◼   ► my choices for equipment.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Plus, let's not even discuss the additional complication of still like, "So what machines

01:01:57 ◼   ► can run that nice display?"

01:01:59 ◼   ► We don't know.

01:02:00 ◼   ► We'll find out later.

01:02:01 ◼   ► So I'm expecting to be very frustrated computer-wise in a couple of months.

01:02:03 ◼   ► I can't wait to come to your house and see that display and the Mac Pro that you buy.

01:02:08 ◼   ► In the meantime, I have some of these two things shoved into my everyday Peak backpack.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Alright.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Stuff that I've got in the top.

01:02:21 ◼   ► So I have my absolutely vital refuse to step on a plane without them noise cancelling headphones.

01:02:29 ◼   ► Which one do you use?

01:02:30 ◼   ► You use the old Bose QuietComfort 35s, right?

01:02:33 ◼   ► So I use those for a while, but when I say I refuse to step on a plane without them,

01:02:39 ◼   ► I mean that quite literally.

01:02:42 ◼   ► And on one of my more recent trips, I can't remember what happened, but I lost the Bose

01:02:47 ◼   ► or I just forgot to pack them or something.

01:02:50 ◼   ► And I was at an airport and I realized I did not have noise canceling headphones and I

01:02:53 ◼   ► went to one of those like Best Buy vending machines.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Which I always felt like, "Oh, who are the poor bastards who have to use these things?"

01:03:03 ◼   ► Well guess what, it was me.

01:03:04 ◼   ► They only exist for that exact situation that you're in.

01:03:08 ◼   ► Yes, that's precisely why.

01:03:11 ◼   ► And out of the machine popped the new version of the Sonys, which are the XM3s.

01:03:17 ◼   ► xm3s? Yeah, there's like something something something 1000 something something something

01:03:22 ◼   ► three. Yeah, they're terrible. I don't understand. Sony can come up with names like Walkman,

01:03:29 ◼   ► Trinitron, like fantastic brand names, but then they just like, I don't understand 1000

01:03:37 ◼   ► xm3 nonsense. Like just just sort it out, Sony. Yeah, it's it's a terrible name. WH-1000

01:03:46 ◼   ► XM3. That is the name of these headphones.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Very memorable, easy to communicate to other people.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Rolls off the tongue.

01:03:53 ◼   ► Rolls off the tongue, but they are amazing for noise cancelling. They're clearly better

01:03:59 ◼   ► than the Bose headphones that I was using, but they're also like the latest generation

01:04:03 ◼   ► of this stuff.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Lots of people are, I mean it's now a toss up between these and the brand new Bose ones.

01:04:10 ◼   ► Like I've seen a bunch of different reviews, some people are saying Sony still wins, some

01:04:14 ◼   ► saying that Bose are taking the crown again. So, yeah, more for you to think about when next time

01:04:18 ◼   ► you lose your headphones. Yeah, but like I'm totally, I'm very happy with these. I find them

01:04:23 ◼   ► very comfortable. But I like, I will not get on a plane without them. And so, but you know, when I

01:04:30 ◼   ► was on the plane previously, like I slept the whole night playing airplane noises over my noise

01:04:35 ◼   ► cancelling headphones, right? On the planes. I know you like that so much, Myke. It's the best.

01:04:40 ◼   ► you could do you could choose anything anything I love that you choose just the

01:04:45 ◼   ► same noises I'll cancel out that airplane noise give me my own I want my

01:04:50 ◼   ► own airplane noise no it's it's the people my no I am the thing out the

01:04:54 ◼   ► you want to cancel out the people you want to cancel out the crying babies

01:04:57 ◼   ► you want to cancel out the conversations like I get it but it's just still

01:05:00 ◼   ► hilarious to me that you play more airplane noise I see the logic right

01:05:03 ◼   ► because then there's nothing disorientating happening you know

01:05:06 ◼   ► listening to a rainforest, you know where you are, but it's still just brilliant.

01:05:11 ◼   ► Yes, okay, I'm glad that makes you happy. Okay, in addition then I also have Kindle Oasis,

01:05:17 ◼   ► not the current latest latest but the previous generation Kindle.

01:05:22 ◼   ► This is the square one, right?

01:05:23 ◼   ► This is the square one. I have a like a travel case for it just because I'm much more

01:05:28 ◼   ► rugged with it and I think it needs something to protect the screen a little bit and it's a case

01:05:33 ◼   ► that folds out into being a nice little stand so it's just easy to like put on a tray table

01:05:37 ◼   ► and read a book.

01:05:38 ◼   ► With that, it frustrates me how much space this thing takes up, but I have the Logitech

01:05:44 ◼   ► Ergo trackball mouse.

01:05:47 ◼   ► That's what I use with my laptop and I find it most comfortable, especially for traveling,

01:05:52 ◼   ► because you can be in a small space and not have to move the mouse around, you're just

01:05:56 ◼   ► using the trackball.

01:05:57 ◼   ► So I've got that in there.

01:05:59 ◼   ► I've got one of these lacy, rugged drives that you see every YouTuber in the whole wide

01:06:05 ◼   ► world using.

01:06:06 ◼   ► That's the Time Machine.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Oh, the orange one?

01:06:08 ◼   ► Yeah, the orange one.

01:06:09 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know when we all got together and decided these were the ones, but it's

01:06:14 ◼   ► like okay, this is what every YouTuber uses, and I'm not too afraid of dropping it because

01:06:19 ◼   ► it has all of this extra casing around it.

01:06:22 ◼   ► So yeah, I've got that thing in here to be the time machine, which has totally saved

01:06:30 ◼   ► my butt a couple times.

01:06:33 ◼   ► And then what do I have shoved in the bottom here?

01:06:35 ◼   ► Okay, so then I have some filming stuff.

01:06:39 ◼   ► So I have the Moment case for my phone, which allows you to put these extra lenses on your

01:06:48 ◼   ► iPhone and I've got one of the Moment wide angle lenses which are really nice for getting

01:06:54 ◼   ► much broader shots sometimes with the iPhone.

01:06:59 ◼   ► Also for the iPhone I have this very little Shure microphone that will plug into the lightning

01:07:06 ◼   ► port of the iPhone and I use this for backup recordings of podcasts on the road and I also

01:07:14 ◼   ► have recorded more than a few ads on the road using this microphone on the phone, which

01:07:21 ◼   ► can be, if you're in a quiet environment, like just passable for a real microphone.

01:07:28 ◼   ► So I've got that.

01:07:30 ◼   ► And then, the very bottom here.

01:07:33 ◼   ► What else do I have?

01:07:38 ◼   ► - Oh, I have a super slim external battery

01:07:43 ◼   ► with just a lightning cable on it

01:07:44 ◼   ► as emergency backup for the phone.

01:07:46 ◼   ► I don't have a 20 million milliamp battery for my Switch

01:07:50 ◼   ► because I don't carry my Switch with me.

01:07:51 ◼   ► - It charges everything, everything.

01:07:53 ◼   ► It will charge everything multiple times.

01:07:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I honestly find it's only the phone

01:07:59 ◼   ► is the thing that I ever run into a problem with,

01:08:01 ◼   ► so I just have this little tiny battery

01:08:03 ◼   ► to act as the backup for.

01:08:05 ◼   ► I don't wanna be stuck somewhere.

01:08:07 ◼   ► I just need to charge the phone up once.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - I also have one of those Mophie ones

01:08:12 ◼   ► with the integrated lightning cable in my backpack as well.

01:08:17 ◼   ► It lives in my dongle bag.

01:08:18 ◼   ► - And then I have this camera that I totally am in love with

01:08:26 ◼   ► which is the DJI Osmo Pocket.

01:08:32 ◼   ► It's this really tiny little gimbal camera

01:08:37 ◼   ► but it is amazing.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Like I got it for this trip for a couple of projects

01:08:44 ◼   ► and it is a fantastic ratio of quality to size

01:08:49 ◼   ► and so this thing is just gonna live in my backpack

01:08:53 ◼   ► for forever because it is really tiny

01:08:57 ◼   ► but can get just much better, more stabilized shots

01:09:01 ◼   ► than the iPhone ever can.

01:09:03 ◼   ► So it's a fantastic, fantastic little camera

01:09:06 ◼   ► to just have on you.

01:09:07 ◼   ► And it weighs nothing and it comes with a nice little case,

01:09:10 ◼   ► so I can easily just throw it in the bag.

01:09:13 ◼   ► So now, you know the Everyday Backpack

01:09:16 ◼   ► has these two wings on the side

01:09:19 ◼   ► where you can put other stuff?

01:09:21 ◼   ► So the two wings I divide into technology and biology.

01:09:26 ◼   ► So the technology wing is where all of my dongles live.

01:09:32 ◼   ► So that's where I try to keep it

01:09:37 ◼   ► so that I have a wire for everything.

01:09:39 ◼   ► So it's like I've got the USB-C wires,

01:09:41 ◼   ► I've got the micro USB, I have an Apple Watch charger,

01:09:44 ◼   ► I have a spare Apple pencil in there

01:09:47 ◼   ► just in case I ever lose the main one

01:09:48 ◼   ► that's attached to my iPad,

01:09:50 ◼   ► because boy is it annoying if you don't have the pencil.

01:09:52 ◼   ► So that's where all like

01:09:53 ◼   ► miscellaneous little technology junk lives.

01:09:58 ◼   ► A CF card reader,

01:10:00 ◼   ► because Apple won't put a CF card reader in the laptop.

01:10:03 ◼   ► - Wait. - You know how people

01:10:04 ◼   ► are like, oh, I'm so angry

01:10:05 ◼   ► they don't have the headphone jack?

01:10:07 ◼   ► People are like still angry about that.

01:10:09 ◼   ► - Like an SD card?

01:10:10 ◼   ► - Oh yes, I always think of them as like compact flash.

01:10:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a very specific thing you're asking for.

01:10:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, no, it's yeah, SD card reader is what I mean.

01:10:19 ◼   ► I don't know why in my head I always think them as CF cards,

01:10:21 ◼   ► but yeah, there's no SD card reader,

01:10:23 ◼   ► so I have like that little adapter thing.

01:10:26 ◼   ► - No one's asking for a compact flash card reader on this.

01:10:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I guess not.

01:10:30 ◼   ► But yeah, I think though I might steal your idea

01:10:36 ◼   ► and maybe change the technology thing

01:10:38 ◼   ► to just all exist in one of those snake charmer bags

01:10:41 ◼   ► 'cause I have a little bit of space to spare

01:10:43 ◼   ► in my main compartment.

01:10:44 ◼   ► And I do find the side wings,

01:10:47 ◼   ► they're sort of my least favorite part about the backpack

01:10:51 ◼   ► because I think on the 20 liter version,

01:10:54 ◼   ► a lot of their pockets are too small

01:10:56 ◼   ► to actually be useful.

01:10:58 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:10:59 ◼   ► - In like old orientations.

01:11:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just too small, so I might get rid of that.

01:11:04 ◼   ► But then my biology side is basically all of the stuff

01:11:09 ◼   ► that you need for being a machine made out of meat.

01:11:15 ◼   ► So I have aspirin for headaches,

01:11:19 ◼   ► I have earplugs for noise canceling,

01:11:22 ◼   ► I've got a couple medications.

01:11:24 ◼   ► I always keep with me a spare like sleeve of contact lenses

01:11:27 ◼   ► just in case, in case either my glasses break for some reason or if I'm wearing contacts.

01:11:34 ◼   ► Every once in a while, like you'll accidentally kind of knock a contact out or just some contact

01:11:39 ◼   ► doesn't feel right.

01:11:41 ◼   ► So it's very important to always be able to see.

01:11:44 ◼   ► So I have some some backup eyes, basically.

01:11:48 ◼   ► And then I have I always try to keep like three little food supplements.

01:11:53 ◼   ► So there's like a pack of...

01:11:55 ◼   ► Do you hear that?

01:11:57 ◼   ► There's a pack of my preferred beef jerky that I keep in that side and like a little

01:12:01 ◼   ► thing of pistachios or almonds or something like that.

01:12:04 ◼   ► So that's the that's the biology side of I always have some food and some like basic

01:12:11 ◼   ► stuff to fix being a human and that lives on the other side of my backpack.

01:12:17 ◼   ► But so though I think that's just about everything.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Yeah that's everything that is in the backpack coming straight off of a trip.

01:12:25 ◼   ► That's my backpack setup Myke. There you go.

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01:14:12 ◼   ► So I feel like I can't let this episode go by without talking about the Theme System

01:14:15 ◼   ► - Oh, well, we have to talk about the theme journal

01:14:19 ◼   ► after what happened last time.

01:14:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, so, all right, well, look,

01:14:24 ◼   ► you never really know how something's gonna go

01:14:27 ◼   ► when you're trying something new,

01:14:28 ◼   ► and we spoke on our last episode in person,

01:14:31 ◼   ► which feels like a very long time ago now,

01:14:33 ◼   ► about, you know, I, especially more than you,

01:14:37 ◼   ► was very nervous about putting

01:14:39 ◼   ► the theme system journal on sale.

01:14:41 ◼   ► I was worried we wouldn't sell them.

01:14:44 ◼   ► and we sold out in 90 minutes of the episode being posted.

01:14:47 ◼   ► I was absolutely blown away.

01:14:49 ◼   ► I consider it one of my greatest personal accomplishments

01:14:53 ◼   ► because people seemed excited about something

01:14:56 ◼   ► that I'd kind of like conceived, designed, and made.

01:14:59 ◼   ► Like it was like a dream of mine

01:15:00 ◼   ► to be able to make a product like this

01:15:03 ◼   ► and people seemed very excited about it.

01:15:05 ◼   ► So it sold out incredibly fast.

01:15:07 ◼   ► So many people have been asking what the plan is now.

01:15:12 ◼   ► The plan is, I'm literally making 10 times more.

01:15:16 ◼   ► That's the plan.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Which is in and of itself, horrifically nerve-wracking.

01:15:23 ◼   ► So basically right now, if you go to quadtexmerch.com,

01:15:27 ◼   ► you can find the theme system journal listed there

01:15:30 ◼   ► and there is an email sign up thing.

01:15:33 ◼   ► You can put your email address in there

01:15:35 ◼   ► and as soon as we have the next round

01:15:38 ◼   ► of the theme system journal in stock,

01:15:39 ◼   ► you'll get an email to tell you it's in stock.

01:15:41 ◼   ► I would love to tell you when that's going to be.

01:15:45 ◼   ► Soon is the answer. They're being made right now.

01:15:49 ◼   ► I want to talk about a little bit of the frustrations, some new frustrations

01:15:53 ◼   ► I have with the manufacturing process, talk about that in a minute. But we have more being made

01:15:57 ◼   ► so if you are interested, put your email address into that box

01:16:01 ◼   ► which is at cortexmarch.com and Cotton Bureau will send you

01:16:05 ◼   ► an email when we have more in stock. This is another example of the

01:16:09 ◼   ► the uncertainties of physical products.

01:16:12 ◼   ► And you said you were more nervous than I

01:16:16 ◼   ► when we put it up for sale.

01:16:18 ◼   ► But I think that's because when I saw it in real life,

01:16:22 ◼   ► I felt like, oh, this is great.

01:16:25 ◼   ► The instantiation of it for the first version

01:16:31 ◼   ► came out really well.

01:16:32 ◼   ► And I got to see that in person when we spoke last time.

01:16:36 ◼   ► But you just don't know.

01:16:38 ◼   ► And, you know, like I've dealt with trying to get iterations

01:16:43 ◼   ► on physical products made and it's always shocking

01:16:46 ◼   ► how long it takes.

01:16:47 ◼   ► And even when you think you have the quote final version,

01:16:50 ◼   ► like you just never really know

01:16:52 ◼   ► until you have a real production line set up.

01:16:55 ◼   ► And like my, I expected that we would sell out.

01:17:00 ◼   ► I didn't think it was going to be 90 minutes,

01:17:04 ◼   ► But this is also a case of just the tremendous difficulty

01:17:09 ◼   ► of trying to guess about an unknown demand in advance,

01:17:16 ◼   ► which is just fundamentally impossible.

01:17:18 ◼   ► And then also knowing that if you guess really wrongly,

01:17:22 ◼   ► you could be left with stock that now you have to manage

01:17:25 ◼   ► and becomes a sort of problem.

01:17:27 ◼   ► - Because now I'm making another really big guess,

01:17:30 ◼   ► and I'm trying to make an educated guess.

01:17:32 ◼   ► And my plan is that this order that I've made

01:17:34 ◼   ► will be for many, many months of stock that we will have.

01:17:39 ◼   ► That's my hope.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I don't know what's gonna happen.

01:17:42 ◼   ► We could put them on sale and they could go again.

01:17:45 ◼   ► Or we could put them on sale

01:17:46 ◼   ► and we have enough for the next year.

01:17:48 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:17:49 ◼   ► But I'm betting with it and I'm like, okay,

01:17:52 ◼   ► this is, I'm gonna try and make an educated guess about this

01:17:55 ◼   ► because I would ideally like to have enough stock

01:17:58 ◼   ► to last us the rest of the year.

01:18:00 ◼   ► I don't know what the amount is gonna do.

01:18:03 ◼   ► So it is literally 10 times is the amount that I'm ordering,

01:18:07 ◼   ► which is a lot more, but we're just gonna go with it.

01:18:12 ◼   ► - We spend a bunch of time trying to talk about this.

01:18:16 ◼   ► When I first saw the actual prototype,

01:18:21 ◼   ► I was immediately thinking that we should order more,

01:18:23 ◼   ► but it's just a guess, who knows?

01:18:25 ◼   ► I could be wrong.

01:18:27 ◼   ► It is difficult to describe how nerve-wracking it is

01:18:30 ◼   ► when it is your own money on the line of like,

01:18:32 ◼   ► we need to buy these things in advance to sell them.

01:18:35 ◼   ► But the thing about selling out so quickly,

01:18:39 ◼   ► it's not like we underguessed a little,

01:18:41 ◼   ► I think we underguessed way too far.

01:18:44 ◼   ► - No, we underguessed significantly.

01:18:46 ◼   ► - We overshot under by a lot.

01:18:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, so again, it's like,

01:18:51 ◼   ► one of the reasons I'm ordering 10 times the amount

01:18:53 ◼   ► is because within 48 hours,

01:18:55 ◼   ► 10 times the amount of people that bought the notebook

01:18:58 ◼   ► or that we had available, put their information

01:19:00 ◼   ► into the tell me when there's more field in the website.

01:19:04 ◼   ► Now I know how these types of things work

01:19:06 ◼   ► and I know that there's only going to be a percentage

01:19:08 ◼   ► of those people when they get that email

01:19:10 ◼   ► that actually buy it, but the demand for the book

01:19:15 ◼   ► was pretty significant, which I will say right now,

01:19:19 ◼   ► I am absolutely flattered by and it is a very wonderful

01:19:24 ◼   ► feeling for me that people seem so excited about it

01:19:27 ◼   ► and I am genuinely sorry that we did not have enough

01:19:32 ◼   ► to meet the requirements of our listeners.

01:19:36 ◼   ► Like, I really wish, look, nobody wishes

01:19:39 ◼   ► that we have more of these than I do.

01:19:42 ◼   ► No one on the planet wishes that we have more of these

01:19:45 ◼   ► than I do because I want people to have this thing

01:19:48 ◼   ► and I hate that we have to wait

01:19:50 ◼   ► because I don't know when it's gonna be.

01:19:52 ◼   ► I know it's still many weeks away

01:19:54 ◼   ► before we will have these to sell again

01:19:56 ◼   ► but I do know that they're being made.

01:19:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's also,

01:20:00 ◼   ► again, as people who are making things

01:20:06 ◼   ► that we want people to enjoy,

01:20:08 ◼   ► it's a weird experience knowing that somebody

01:20:11 ◼   ► who listened to Cortex right when it came out

01:20:15 ◼   ► and said, "Oh, I just wanna finish the show

01:20:17 ◼   ► "and then I'll order that journal,"

01:20:19 ◼   ► would have missed it.

01:20:20 ◼   ► - Yes. - Right, like,

01:20:21 ◼   ► that's an unsatisfying experience for a listener

01:20:25 ◼   ► that we have unintentionally created

01:20:27 ◼   ► through the way that we did this.

01:20:29 ◼   ► It's like, that shouldn't be the case.

01:20:31 ◼   ► Like, while it's great that it's sold out,

01:20:33 ◼   ► you don't want it to be like someone who listened

01:20:36 ◼   ► to the show the minute it came out,

01:20:38 ◼   ► and the first thing they did was they went to go order one,

01:20:40 ◼   ► and they were too slow.

01:20:40 ◼   ► Like, it's a bad experience.

01:20:42 ◼   ► - And that was like pretty much everybody's experience,

01:20:45 ◼   ► right, was like, as soon as we said,

01:20:47 ◼   ► go to cortexmarch.com and buy it, they couldn't,

01:20:50 ◼   ► because they weren't there anymore.

01:20:52 ◼   ► And like, so, you know, I don't want that to happen,

01:20:54 ◼   ► which is why I am ordering so many.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Like I really feel like we can't sell out this fast again

01:21:01 ◼   ► with the amount that I've ordered.

01:21:02 ◼   ► That is like my feeling on this.

01:21:04 ◼   ► So, but that's my hope, right?

01:21:07 ◼   ► That's my hope.

01:21:08 ◼   ► Like that we are like intentionally ordering

01:21:11 ◼   ► to the point that I feel like it shouldn't happen.

01:21:14 ◼   ► But I will say, if you're on the email list,

01:21:17 ◼   ► when you get that email, buy it as soon as you can,

01:21:19 ◼   ► because I don't know what's gonna happen, right?

01:21:21 ◼   ► Like we don't know because we were clearly

01:21:24 ◼   ► so thrown off guard this first time, I don't know what the next time is going to be. So

01:21:30 ◼   ► it has been a really interesting experience for me. It has been really nerve-wracking

01:21:35 ◼   ► to see them arriving with people. Like people have been taking pictures and we've been getting

01:21:38 ◼   ► feedback. Most of the feedback that we've been getting tracks with what I was already

01:21:41 ◼   ► thinking which is great. Like the things that people say "I would like to see this, I would

01:21:45 ◼   ► like to see this" it's like "yeah I agree with you" so that's good news.

01:21:49 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. It's been very interesting to see the feedback and see how people are using

01:21:52 ◼   ► it's like I really do appreciate that people are taking the time to write out and send

01:21:59 ◼   ► in detailed feedback.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Oh, I've been getting great, just like great feedback.

01:22:03 ◼   ► Like people have been sending it on Reddit, they've been emailing it to me, like it's

01:22:05 ◼   ► been wonderful.

01:22:06 ◼   ► Like it's in, it's, I'm just really pleased to see that people are seeing what I see,

01:22:12 ◼   ► which is great.

01:22:13 ◼   ► And, but the overall feedback has been excellent and I am so thrilled by it.

01:22:20 ◼   ► the way that people talk about the quality of the book which is for me

01:22:23 ◼   ► right now the most important thing. Like the inside layout is the thing that's

01:22:27 ◼   ► more subject to change than the actual quality of the notebook itself. So now as

01:22:32 ◼   ► well like I have been using it myself every day for the last couple of months

01:22:35 ◼   ► and I am now a point where I'm gonna stop calling it a beta. That came for me

01:22:42 ◼   ► from a place of insecurity with the product and with my cons... I was like I

01:22:48 ◼   ► I felt like an imposter, right? Like it's that imposter syndrome again.

01:22:52 ◼   ► Oh, I'm so happy, Myke. I'm so happy that you're here.

01:22:56 ◼   ► Because again, I have this very different experience of when I saw the thing in real life,

01:23:04 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, this is totally a great product one."

01:23:06 ◼   ► And I know that you felt much more uncertain about it at that point in time.

01:23:11 ◼   ► But it's also because you were so much closer to the thing,

01:23:15 ◼   ► so it's harder to view it in an objective way.

01:23:18 ◼   ► And yeah, like I think it is a real version zero for people to try and give feedback on.

01:23:27 ◼   ► But it's also like the thing that exists is an actual usable product as well.

01:23:32 ◼   ► And I'm really happy to hear that you feel that way about it too.

01:23:35 ◼   ► That like you've come around to this.

01:23:37 ◼   ► What the book needs the most, and one of the main reasons I was calling it a beta,

01:23:43 ◼   ► is it needs instructions.

01:23:45 ◼   ► That's what it needs.

01:23:46 ◼   ► It needs something to say this is what you use each section for.

01:23:50 ◼   ► And I feel like we haven't had a way to explain it really clearly.

01:23:54 ◼   ► There are a bunch of people that just get it, but there are people that don't get it as much.

01:23:58 ◼   ► So what I'm going to do, by the time

01:24:02 ◼   ► that the next set goes on sale, is there will be an

01:24:06 ◼   ► online set of instructions. I'm going to build a website

01:24:10 ◼   ► that people can go to and the instructions will be there.

01:24:14 ◼   ► and then when we make a revision to the notebook,

01:24:17 ◼   ► which will happen at some point,

01:24:18 ◼   ► hopefully for the third printing,

01:24:22 ◼   ► there will be like a basic instructions page,

01:24:25 ◼   ► which says, here's what you can roughly use the book for,

01:24:29 ◼   ► go to the website, because the website will have actual,

01:24:33 ◼   ► I'm gonna take scans of some of the pages in my notebooks

01:24:36 ◼   ► and people can see how I use it.

01:24:38 ◼   ► And I wanna really go into more detail

01:24:41 ◼   ► and also adapt it over time,

01:24:44 ◼   ► because my feeling is as the book changes,

01:24:47 ◼   ► and if it changes, it will become more and more difficult

01:24:50 ◼   ► to make those changes in the notebook itself

01:24:53 ◼   ► from an instructions perspective.

01:24:55 ◼   ► So we may as well have a website for it

01:24:56 ◼   ► because then the website can become a home

01:24:58 ◼   ► for more information about the theme system in its entirety.

01:25:01 ◼   ► So that's my plan now, and I'm pretty happy with that.

01:25:05 ◼   ► I still need to complete the website.

01:25:08 ◼   ► It's not even nearly at a point yet,

01:25:11 ◼   ► but I'm working on that.

01:25:12 ◼   ► And that's how I want to kind of bridge the gap.

01:25:15 ◼   ► And what that also does for me is the first edition,

01:25:18 ◼   ► it's just a reprint of what we made before.

01:25:21 ◼   ► And I don't want this notebook to be more widely available

01:25:24 ◼   ► without there being a home for more instructions.

01:25:27 ◼   ► I've realized it is very difficult

01:25:28 ◼   ► to explain this system over audio.

01:25:31 ◼   ► It needs a visual component.

01:25:33 ◼   ► So I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna build that

01:25:36 ◼   ► and we're gonna make it a place for people.

01:25:38 ◼   ► So nothing exists yet, but it will.

01:25:40 ◼   ► So that's the thing that I'm working on.

01:25:42 ◼   ► but I am at a place now where I feel much more confident calling this,

01:25:46 ◼   ► like this is the first edition. There are tweaks to be made, but honestly,

01:25:50 ◼   ► now having used it for the amount of time that I've been using it,

01:25:54 ◼   ► I feel that the tweaks are iterative, not transformative.

01:25:57 ◼   ► And I was always concerned that they would be transformative,

01:26:00 ◼   ► like that we would need to like basically rip out and start again some parts,

01:26:04 ◼   ► but I don't think that's the case.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like there's some stuff that could be sized better.

01:26:08 ◼   ► we could put more days or less days

01:26:11 ◼   ► on the daily theme section.

01:26:13 ◼   ► Like I just haven't worked out what it is yet, right?

01:26:16 ◼   ► 'Cause there's some stuff like many people ask,

01:26:18 ◼   ► why are there 12 days?

01:26:19 ◼   ► Well, the reason there's 12 days

01:26:20 ◼   ► is because like 12 like columns for days

01:26:22 ◼   ► is because that's what fit.

01:26:24 ◼   ► And I can maybe make it fit a bit differently.

01:26:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's a totally reasonable point

01:26:28 ◼   ► that had never really crossed my mind.

01:26:30 ◼   ► And then I saw that in some of the feedback.

01:26:31 ◼   ► I was like, oh yeah, that is confusing if you just,

01:26:34 ◼   ► yeah, it makes more sense to, 12 is the wrong number.

01:26:37 ◼   ► - Right, but here's the thing.

01:26:39 ◼   ► What's the right number?

01:26:40 ◼   ► I don't know yet, right?

01:26:41 ◼   ► So like, we put 12 on there because 12 fit.

01:26:44 ◼   ► And because I didn't know what would I do, seven?

01:26:46 ◼   ► But that's gonna make it too big.

01:26:47 ◼   ► So 14, but that doesn't make sense.

01:26:49 ◼   ► 'Cause what about people that don't track on the weekend?

01:26:51 ◼   ► So I just picked a number, right?

01:26:53 ◼   ► Because I don't do it on the weekend.

01:26:55 ◼   ► So 14 would mean I always have extra days, right?

01:26:59 ◼   ► So it's gonna be like two and two thirds of a week.

01:27:02 ◼   ► Like it doesn't make,

01:27:03 ◼   ► so I just don't know the answers to that yet.

01:27:05 ◼   ► So there are some stuff about it,

01:27:07 ◼   ► which is like, why is it that way?

01:27:08 ◼   ► Well, because we designed it without ever having one.

01:27:11 ◼   ► So I needed to be able to have one and use one

01:27:15 ◼   ► to understand how to do it myself.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And there's some other little bits that I wanna change,

01:27:19 ◼   ► but I still think that this notebook that we've made

01:27:22 ◼   ► not only is a good product,

01:27:23 ◼   ► I feel like it lives up to the system

01:27:25 ◼   ► that I've tried to build.

01:27:26 ◼   ► So that's why it's like now, I feel like, great,

01:27:30 ◼   ► I am comfortable selling this to more people

01:27:32 ◼   ► because I think that what we have is a very good product

01:27:37 ◼   ► that from a quality perspective is better than other stuff

01:27:40 ◼   ► that I've tried from more established companies.

01:27:42 ◼   ► And I believe in the system.

01:27:44 ◼   ► I use it every day.

01:27:45 ◼   ► I'm very happy with it.

01:27:47 ◼   ► I just think I need to be able to better communicate it.

01:27:49 ◼   ► So that's the biggest change that I'm gonna make.

01:27:51 ◼   ► - But Myke, could you add a ribbon?

01:27:55 ◼   ► - Oh God, you know what I wanna do, Gray?

01:27:57 ◼   ► I really wanna add a ribbon.

01:27:59 ◼   ► So here's the thing.

01:28:01 ◼   ► The notebook is split into sections that you refer to every day. So what it really ideally

01:28:07 ◼   ► needs is a bookmark. I have learned this through using it. Bookmarks would be great, ribbon

01:28:12 ◼   ► bookmarks would be awesome, so we spoke to the manufacturer. Can we add ribbon bookmarks?

01:28:18 ◼   ► Seems easy enough, right? So you'd have two ribbons, you'd put one on where your daily

01:28:21 ◼   ► journal page is, one on where your daily themes page is for that time, and you just open them

01:28:25 ◼   ► where you need them. Great. Not great. The type of notebook that we make cannot easily

01:28:34 ◼   ► have a ribbon added to it. And the reason is, if you put the ribbon in when the book

01:28:39 ◼   ► is being made, it gets cut off when they trim the pages. So when they're done binding the

01:28:45 ◼   ► book, they trim the edges so they're uniform, right? That cuts the ribbon off. So then we

01:28:55 ◼   ► we were like, is there a different way to glue it in?

01:28:57 ◼   ► We have tried every way we can.

01:28:59 ◼   ► I've been working with,

01:29:01 ◼   ► this is the upper part of the problem, right?

01:29:04 ◼   ► Is like, there are so, there's like,

01:29:06 ◼   ► I'm a bit lost in this process.

01:29:08 ◼   ► I don't understand this process.

01:29:09 ◼   ► So I talk to Tom and Dan at Studio Neat,

01:29:11 ◼   ► who then talk to our manufacturers

01:29:13 ◼   ► and then they go out and try and make it

01:29:15 ◼   ► and then it goes backwards and forwards.

01:29:16 ◼   ► Like right now, this is not a world

01:29:18 ◼   ► that we have experience in.

01:29:20 ◼   ► So the process can be slow

01:29:21 ◼   ► and it is filled with things that I need to learn.

01:29:24 ◼   ► I will learn how to communicate better and deal with these issues, but it's going to take time.

01:29:32 ◼   ► Right now we're going to have to go back to the drawing board about adding bookmarks into this thing.

01:29:36 ◼   ► It is not going to be a part of the first edition notebook because the way that we have the process set up, I can't do it.

01:29:42 ◼   ► And we could explore other options, but it is going to delay the printing of this notebook

01:29:48 ◼   ► because it may require significant changes to need to be made to the design

01:29:53 ◼   ► if we can do it at all.

01:29:55 ◼   ► Because ribbons are usually in books with hard covers on them

01:29:59 ◼   ► because what you can do is glue the ribbon between the two hard cover sections

01:30:03 ◼   ► because the trimming is done before the cover is added.

01:30:06 ◼   ► But that's not the way that our notebook can be made

01:30:09 ◼   ► because the cover is added at a different point of the process.

01:30:12 ◼   ► It's like a whole thing.

01:30:14 ◼   ► So we would have to completely change the manufacturing design of the notebook

01:30:17 ◼   ► To add it, I think it's important, I don't think it's that important.

01:30:21 ◼   ► You can just get a bookmark of your own, right?

01:30:24 ◼   ► Yes, well this is also another example of, everybody has this experience where you sort of say,

01:30:29 ◼   ► "Oh, why doesn't product X also do Y?" It's an obvious thing.

01:30:33 ◼   ► And you look at it and you go, "Oh, why isn't there a ribbon?"

01:30:36 ◼   ► And it's like, "Oh, well, if we were going to add a ribbon, it might add a year's delay to when the next version comes out."

01:30:44 ◼   ► because then like the whole process has to start over

01:30:46 ◼   ► of like checking the quality and you'd end up

01:30:50 ◼   ► with different binding to the page sizes could be different.

01:30:53 ◼   ► And it always, again, for people who have not been involved

01:30:56 ◼   ► in physically manufacturing something,

01:30:57 ◼   ► it sounds insane to say that a reasonable estimate might be,

01:31:02 ◼   ► it would take a year to add a ribbon, right?

01:31:05 ◼   ► But it's having done this now,

01:31:08 ◼   ► I can see that it could easily be a situation like that

01:31:11 ◼   ► like that of like you just end up with these knock-on effects.

01:31:15 ◼   ► So this is a case of having to make design decisions.

01:31:21 ◼   ► And I agree, ribbons would be cool,

01:31:24 ◼   ► but not worth a year's delay in a project

01:31:29 ◼   ► that already took us way longer

01:31:30 ◼   ► than we ever imagined it was going to take.

01:31:31 ◼   ► - 'Cause I'm not using a bookmark in mine.

01:31:33 ◼   ► It takes me a couple of extra seconds to find the page, right?

01:31:36 ◼   ► And so I would like it, but it is not imperative.

01:31:39 ◼   ► And for people that it is imperative for,

01:31:41 ◼   ► you can very easily add a bookmark to this.

01:31:44 ◼   ► Like there are companies like Muji that sell ribbons

01:31:47 ◼   ► that you can stick into books for this exact purpose,

01:31:50 ◼   ► books that don't have bookmarks, right?

01:31:51 ◼   ► So like it is easy to do.

01:31:54 ◼   ► It is not an impossible thing that we would make them

01:31:57 ◼   ► and sell them to, right?

01:31:58 ◼   ► Like we just make our own.

01:32:00 ◼   ► Like is that how do you get over it?

01:32:01 ◼   ► We sell our own bookmarks.

01:32:03 ◼   ► I've thought about this, but I'm not committing to it.

01:32:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, this, yeah,

01:32:07 ◼   ► this is obviously the next logical extension.

01:32:09 ◼   ► - I even have a name.

01:32:10 ◼   ► I even have a name for it, which is Two Is One, One Is None, because you'd have to sell

01:32:15 ◼   ► two of them.

01:32:16 ◼   ► That's right.

01:32:17 ◼   ► That's kind of my idea.

01:32:18 ◼   ► We riff on that somehow, because really you need two ribbons for this notebook, which

01:32:22 ◼   ► is what I was going to do, because there's two sections you come back to.

01:32:24 ◼   ► Right.

01:32:25 ◼   ► So we actually need to sell three ribbons then.

01:32:27 ◼   ► Yes, because you need two.

01:32:28 ◼   ► Three is two, two is one, and one is none.

01:32:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:31 ◼   ► It's like we're selling hot dogs and hot dog buns in different numbers.

01:32:34 ◼   ► You can buy one journal, but you have to buy three bookmarks.

01:32:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:32:40 ◼   ► But this is an example of,

01:32:42 ◼   ► people were saying,

01:32:44 ◼   ► they wanted to hear more about the process, right?

01:32:47 ◼   ► 'Cause we spoke about it very briefly in the last episode.

01:32:49 ◼   ► But this is part of what is going on here.

01:32:54 ◼   ► It's like, we're having to make these decisions

01:32:57 ◼   ► and we're making gambles every time.

01:33:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is always a gamble.

01:33:02 ◼   ► I think our first gamble

01:33:07 ◼   ► paid off, but also was...

01:33:10 ◼   ► Yeah, but this is what I mean, like it's a funny kind of payoff.

01:33:14 ◼   ► Yes.

01:33:14 ◼   ► Like it paid off, but in a way that we actually felt like,

01:33:17 ◼   ► "Oh, we also completely missed the mark at the same time."

01:33:21 ◼   ► Yeah, we both paid off and screwed up.

01:33:23 ◼   ► Like that's...

01:33:24 ◼   ► Yes!

01:33:25 ◼   ► It was...

01:33:26 ◼   ► This is this weird thing where like, it succeeded too hard.

01:33:30 ◼   ► That's the problem.

01:33:31 ◼   ► And like, again, very happy that it happened,

01:33:34 ◼   ► but very frustrated that we didn't have more faith in ourselves, I guess.

01:33:39 ◼   ► But, like, so I will disagree with you there, though, because, again, we didn't know until the final one showed up.

01:33:48 ◼   ► It's one of those hindsight things. We never could have known until we did it.

01:33:52 ◼   ► Yes.

01:33:52 ◼   ► But I really wish we'd done it differently.

01:33:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I take us off the hook in the sense that

01:33:59 ◼   ► we purchased the correct number

01:34:02 ◼   ► given that we didn't know what it was going to be like.

01:34:05 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

01:34:06 ◼   ► - And as we said last time, particularly for you,

01:34:10 ◼   ► you had the veto on this product

01:34:12 ◼   ► that if it wasn't up to the quality that you wanted,

01:34:15 ◼   ► we were just gonna pulp the whole thing.

01:34:18 ◼   ► And at that point, if we had said,

01:34:20 ◼   ► "Oh, let's order 10,000 of them.

01:34:22 ◼   ► I'm sure this first one will turn out amazing."

01:34:24 ◼   ► And if it hadn't, then we would have really been screwed.

01:34:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause we would have had way too many of them.

01:34:31 ◼   ► Right, like we ordered kind of the smallest amount

01:34:33 ◼   ► that we could conceivably order.

01:34:35 ◼   ► There's a funny thing, you know,

01:34:36 ◼   ► like in the, because of the size of the order,

01:34:38 ◼   ► like there's a bunch of stuff that has to change.

01:34:40 ◼   ► So now I need to do and have random spot checked books

01:34:44 ◼   ► sent to me.

01:34:45 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:34:47 ◼   ► - Because we're ordering so many,

01:34:49 ◼   ► there can be production line variations.

01:34:51 ◼   ► So now before they're sent out to Kotburo,

01:34:55 ◼   ► a random selection of the books has to be picked

01:34:57 ◼   ► and sent to me so I can check the quality of them.

01:35:00 ◼   ► This is, we're entering into a new phase here, my friend.

01:35:04 ◼   ► - Yes, well, join that email list.

01:35:09 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:35:10 ◼   ► - And hopefully we will have some more journals

01:35:13 ◼   ► for you very soon.

01:35:14 ◼   ► And please keep sending in that feedback

01:35:16 ◼   ► about how you're using it and what you think about it.

01:35:19 ◼   ► It's very interesting to read

01:35:21 ◼   ► and very helpful for thinking about future iterations

01:35:25 ◼   ► on what we're doing here.