Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► So we watched Six Days to Air, which is a documentary about how an episode of South Park is created.

00:00:08 ◼   ► And the reason this documentary exists and the reason it is interesting is that for the last number of years,

00:00:15 ◼   ► the team behind South Park, they will come up with an idea for an episode, write the episode,

00:00:22 ◼   ► animate it and voice act it within six days and then it is played to the world on Comedy Central.

00:00:29 ◼   ► So that is why this documentary team decided to come and take a look at what that process is like because I

00:00:36 ◼   ► This has never been done before that this is the only animation to be done in this way at this scale for this long

00:00:42 ◼   ► So they are wholly unique and it presents with it a bunch of very interesting challenges

00:00:51 ◼   ► That the team goes through which is what we want to look at as a way to kind of do a mini

00:00:57 ◼   ► I guess it's a kind of like a case study on how people work under pressure.

00:01:01 ◼   ► I can hardly think of other jobs that would be this kind of pressure.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Running through the roster, I'm thinking air traffic controllers.

00:01:12 ◼   ► You know, that's a lot of pressure.

00:01:14 ◼   ► But producing, creating from nothing and going to a completed show in the space of a week is insanity.

00:01:22 ◼   ► And for comparison they mentioned like The Simpsons, which is the most comparable animated show to South Park

00:01:28 ◼   ► In no small part because they have both been on the air forever

00:01:32 ◼   ► And we're sort of started around the same-ish era. The Simpsons takes months to produce each episode

00:01:40 ◼   ► So it's not just like oh they're doing it in six days and other other shows take two weeks. I know it's a it's an it's an

00:01:48 ◼   ► incredible

00:01:50 ◼   ► difference between the production cycle and other shows.

00:01:53 ◼   ► The creators of South Park, Matt and Trey, you know, they are

00:01:57 ◼   ► interesting guys. They've done a lot of different projects over the years and

00:02:01 ◼   ► when I was watching South Park when I was younger, like the show has been on now for

00:02:08 ◼   ► 20 plus years and I've seen a lot of the first 10 years.

00:02:13 ◼   ► I haven't seen a lot of it in the most recent 10 years, but when I watched it back in the sort of pre-

00:02:20 ◼   ► internet days, I remember

00:02:24 ◼   ► noting how quickly things that happened in the world were able to work their way into the show, and I always wondered like how is it

00:02:32 ◼   ► that a show like South Park is able to respond to things in the world on such a such a short time frame,

00:02:40 ◼   ► whereas everything else that's created for television

00:02:43 ◼   ► clearly is created like in a void of timelessness that it could it could occur at any point.

00:02:49 ◼   ► I always just found that notable and weird and it made South Park feel like a

00:02:54 ◼   ► special different show that it could react to something that happened last week and I always wondered and

00:03:00 ◼   ► Now I have the answer the way they were able to do that is with an insane

00:03:05 ◼   ► Working schedule that nobody else in the world would copy

00:03:09 ◼   ► So the documentary begins and when set is March 2011 and for context

00:03:16 ◼   ► The show had been on a bit of a break a longer break than they'd ever taken before

00:03:19 ◼   ► because Parker and Stone had just debuted their musical the Book of Mormon and

00:03:26 ◼   ► It was up for a bunch of Tony Awards and they just kind of got the first

00:03:31 ◼   ► Run or the first few shows out of the way before returning back to South Park

00:03:36 ◼   ► So there had been a significant period of time

00:03:38 ◼   ► Where the show had not been on the air because without Parker and Stone there is no South Park

00:03:43 ◼   ► But they couldn't make it without them as you kind of come to learn over the course of the documentary

00:03:48 ◼   ► So they took a break they took a long break and then they come back and episode one of this season

00:03:53 ◼   ► Also, just completely lucky on the documentary makers parts ends up becoming one of the most infamous episodes

00:04:01 ◼   ► That has ever been created

00:04:04 ◼   ► Is an episode called human centipad?

00:04:06 ◼   ► We don't need to go into it right like it is what it is

00:04:11 ◼   ► It's one of the most infamous episodes that they ever made, but it's just interesting

00:04:15 ◼   ► to watch how that all came together over the course of this week.

00:04:19 ◼   ► It's an infamous episode because it is iPads crossed with the human centipede.

00:04:25 ◼   ► So yeah, it's very South Park.

00:04:28 ◼   ► It is the most South Park it could be.

00:04:31 ◼   ► But because they've taken this break, one of the things that I was astounded by was

00:04:35 ◼   ► how long it took them to come up with the concept of the episode.

00:04:39 ◼   ► It's like one or two days of the six days, they're still working out what the episode's

00:04:43 ◼   ► about.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And that seems wild to me, right?

00:04:46 ◼   ► Like I assume that as the seasons go by, they have some ideas in the bank, but they started

00:04:51 ◼   ► on just like a completely blank slate trying to work out how to complete the episode.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Right?

00:04:58 ◼   ► So it's like nothing can happen.

00:04:59 ◼   ► So everybody's kind of, there's so much hanging around, like the rest of the team are just

00:05:04 ◼   ► waiting.

00:05:05 ◼   ► There's times later on in the episode where individuals are sleeping in the offices because

00:05:11 ◼   ► the script might come at 3.30 in the morning and then they can get to work.

00:05:16 ◼   ► There seems to be this just really wild work schedule that everybody goes through.

00:05:22 ◼   ► The way the show usually runs is that they build up some kind of events that are occurring

00:05:30 ◼   ► throughout the several episodes and so like there's they end up with ongoing stories that take place over the course of the season

00:05:37 ◼   ► But because because like you said they're coming back into work. It's the start of a brand new season

00:05:43 ◼   ► It's also because they've been on such a big break that I found the same thing was astounding where it's I think it's sort of

00:05:49 ◼   ► Like six people in the writers room, you know, Matt and Trey are the two main guys obviously they have the producer there

00:05:55 ◼   ► They have a couple other writers that they're people who are there

00:05:58 ◼   ► But the beginning of the documentary is just all of these shots of them just sitting there.

00:06:05 ◼   ► - And pacing. - Sitting in a room.

00:06:06 ◼   ► - A lot of pacing. - Yeah, pacing.

00:06:07 ◼   ► Yeah, looking up at the ceiling and they're just tossing out things that are zeitgeist-y.

00:06:16 ◼   ► So they're like, "Uh, there's been a lot of news about that tsunami that occurred. Are tsunamis funny?"

00:06:23 ◼   ► Right, and then looking around trying to think if tsunamis are funny.

00:06:25 ◼   ► And I agree with you. When you see that the premise of the documentary is, "Okay, it takes six days to make an episode of South Park,"

00:06:31 ◼   ► and you realize that close to a third of that time, at least on the first episode,

00:06:38 ◼   ► is just

00:06:40 ◼   ► sitting around trying to think up what the show is going to be, it makes it even more astounding. I mean, it really...

00:06:46 ◼   ► It's like the production is a lot closer to

00:06:50 ◼   ► four days to air, and we have the actual idea

00:06:55 ◼   ► on the morning of the fourth day,

00:06:57 ◼   ► that that's when it starts to come together.

00:06:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a quote from one of the producers,

00:07:01 ◼   ► and this is like at the beginning of the six days,

00:07:05 ◼   ► "There's a show on Wednesday,

00:07:06 ◼   ► "we don't even know what it is."

00:07:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:07:10 ◼   ► There is just an incredible pressure that goes to it.

00:07:14 ◼   ► And I mean, there is a part of me

00:07:17 ◼   ► that can sympathize in a very, very small way.

00:07:20 ◼   ► So, you know, I produce a number of shows

00:07:23 ◼   ► shows that are focused around news.

00:07:25 ◼   ► And sometimes you get to like

00:07:28 ◼   ► two days before the episode

00:07:30 ◼   ► and there's nothing.

00:07:32 ◼   ► But the episode is being recorded in

00:07:34 ◼   ► two days.

00:07:35 ◼   ► So like, what do you do?

00:07:37 ◼   ► And then there is this.

00:07:39 ◼   ► Do you come up with some kind

00:07:42 ◼   ► of evergreen topic, like something

00:07:43 ◼   ► that isn't news based?

00:07:44 ◼   ► Do you sit with your fingers crossed

00:07:46 ◼   ► hoping that there will be news?

00:07:47 ◼   ► Like it is nowhere near

00:07:49 ◼   ► the scale that this is at because

00:07:51 ◼   ► it's like creating something wholly

00:07:53 ◼   ► wholly larger with many, many dependencies, but I can totally understand the feeling of like

00:07:58 ◼   ► it being completely out of our hands. Like we don't know what it's going to be and eventually

00:08:05 ◼   ► there's going to have to be an episode, but as of right now no one knows what it's going to look like.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Yeah and I've there are two moments um with Trey Parker in particular where I felt like oh dude you

00:08:20 ◼   ► have all of my sympathy in the world." But one of the scenes is he's trying to work

00:08:27 ◼   ► on the script and he gets the McDonald's delivered.

00:08:29 ◼   ► I was wondering how—I specifically wrote down to ask you what you thought of Trey Parker's

00:08:35 ◼   ► script writing process.

00:08:37 ◼   ► There's a couple of things in here, but—so he's getting what looks like just the world's

00:08:42 ◼   ► worst McDonald's meal delivered to him.

00:08:44 ◼   ► Did he say, "It makes me happy for five minutes" or something?

00:08:47 ◼   ► Yeah, all right, yeah, so that's what it is. Yeah, the documentary guy asks him about like this clear two bags of garbage

00:08:53 ◼   ► he's about to pour into himself.

00:08:55 ◼   ► And yeah, and that's his reply. He's like, "Oh, it makes me happy for five minutes."

00:09:00 ◼   ► And just talking about how

00:09:03 ◼   ► at this point it's a little bit after they have come up with the actual idea,

00:09:08 ◼   ► but he still needs to sit down and turn it into a real script.

00:09:10 ◼   ► And

00:09:13 ◼   ► I have a lot of sympathy for that behavior of like, oh, he's doing something that he knows is self-destructive

00:09:18 ◼   ► but it's bringing him a little bit of joy in the middle of what is a miserable process because he clearly hates

00:09:24 ◼   ► the script writing thing and it's this...

00:09:26 ◼   ► Unlike the writer's room where they're trying to come up with the ideas and there's people and he's bouncing stuff off

00:09:31 ◼   ► and you can see that he's much more lively there, the script writing process is like, well,

00:09:35 ◼   ► it's just Trey Parker sitting in a room with a computer with no one.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Yeah, that it was wild to me that he writes it just him like they have writers

00:09:48 ◼   ► But they're not writers in this in the sense of you know, you know

00:09:51 ◼   ► I don't know what the term is but like when I think of writers like are they writing the whole episode?

00:09:54 ◼   ► Doesn't work like that. They're coming up with the ideas and helping him flesh out some of the plot points

00:09:59 ◼   ► But all of the dialogue is actually just written by Trey Parker. Yeah, it's it's it's crazy

00:10:06 ◼   ► I mean let alone the fact that they still to this day voice the vast majority of the cost as well

00:10:12 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I mean there's there's so much that they do it's it's unbelievable

00:10:17 ◼   ► But the the the reason why I had this double sympathy for him was because it's like okay

00:10:21 ◼   ► I get the like you're eating crap because you've just got a bunch of work to do and

00:10:25 ◼   ► Like that's a behavior that I have tried to breed out of myself over time and I've gotten way better about it

00:10:29 ◼   ► But it's like when I was faster at producing videos is like my health really suffered and it was like oh, yeah

00:10:35 ◼   ► Yeah, this looks familiar. I know this. I'll just be happy for a minute.

00:10:39 ◼   ► But the other thing that to me is,

00:10:42 ◼   ► again, in the smallest way, but is also now much more my world than it was years ago, is,

00:10:48 ◼   ► okay, the one thing is no more, but the new thing is where he talks about how he's sitting there writing the script and

00:10:55 ◼   ► he just knows that the entirety of the staff of the production of South Park is waiting on him to finish this thing.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And he knows that how late of a night he's going to force on everybody who works on the show

00:11:13 ◼   ► is entirely down to his ability to sit in this room and write the script.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And just the pressure of that...

00:11:23 ◼   ► You know, I have things where it's like, "Oh, I know people are waiting on me."

00:11:27 ◼   ► And it's like, "I hate that. I hate being the bottleneck. It makes me really unhappy."

00:11:32 ◼   ► And him talking about like this entire team of animators and everybody else is just waiting for him to finish it,

00:11:40 ◼   ► I thought, "I can't--

00:11:42 ◼   ► I cannot believe that the two of them have done this for as long as they have and that they're-- and that they're alive.

00:11:50 ◼   ► That this-- this has not killed them, the production of this show."

00:11:54 ◼   ► Because the final scenes for this episode are delivered to the animators 24 hours

00:12:01 ◼   ► Before they air and this is not there's no dialogue

00:12:05 ◼   ► So you still got to record the dialogue where you deliver the scenes and start the animation

00:12:08 ◼   ► Go record the dialogue get a match all the dialogue and put the whole thing together

00:12:11 ◼   ► 24 hours

00:12:14 ◼   ► Like I love there's this one moment. Um, like the 36 hour mark where this is the first time this has happened the producers

00:12:22 ◼   ► are looking for Trey Parker. They're like walking around the studio and like where's Trey? Like

00:12:30 ◼   ► they're trying to find him because they know just how horrifically late they are at this point.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Because like it seemed like this one as being the first episode was particularly bad, right? Like

00:12:42 ◼   ► they pushed it on particularly late in the whole process. And like another thing that I thought

00:12:48 ◼   ► that you I want to see what you thought is when he's talking about the script and he's still got

00:12:53 ◼   ► like five scenes to go or whatever and he's like I have to cut so much of this like he's like I've

00:12:59 ◼   ► not finished but I know what I have here is a 40 page script which is like a 40 minute episode and

00:13:05 ◼   ► we have to deliver a 25 minute episode and he's just like I have to take it all out and it's gonna

00:13:11 ◼   ► suck and it is really interesting to watch as the week goes on to watch Trey's confidence start to

00:13:17 ◼   ► to fall. Like by the end, he's just like,

00:13:21 ◼   ► this is the worst episode I've ever done. And like, and he's being legit,

00:13:25 ◼   ► right? Like it doesn't seem like he's joking.

00:13:28 ◼   ► No, that's, I mean, but this is, this is sort of legendary that the,

00:13:32 ◼   ► the two of them, but particularly Trey Parker always feel this way. That's like,

00:13:35 ◼   ► oh, this episode is terrible.

00:13:36 ◼   ► But I think it's also just like you've been so intensely involved in the thing

00:13:40 ◼   ► in such a short period of time that all you can see are the bazillions of its

00:13:44 ◼   ► flaws and I think this is pretty famously there's an episode of South Park that they did which is a

00:13:51 ◼   ► crossover with World of Warcraft that was actually produced with the very people who animate that

00:13:58 ◼   ► game and my understanding of it is that they thought that that episode was so terrible they

00:14:05 ◼   ► came as close as they've ever come to actually pulling it to saying like we're not going to air

00:14:09 ◼   ► at the last minute and like we'll just have to run a like a rerun in the in the space

00:14:13 ◼   ► And of course like that that went on to be one of the most famous and acclaimed episodes that they've ever done is that episode

00:14:20 ◼   ► But it's it's like you can see he is

00:14:22 ◼   ► crushed

00:14:24 ◼   ► every time at the end of these episodes, but the thing that kills me here is

00:14:28 ◼   ► This is just the start of the season. I feel like I have I have watched two men

00:14:35 ◼   ► live a year's worth of life in six days and it's not like, "Oh, it's over. Go take a break,

00:14:42 ◼   ► guys. Enjoy the weekend." It's, "Oh, no, the next episode is starting up right now."

00:14:47 ◼   ► Yeah, they get one day, right? Which I assume is not a day off.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Yeah, not in any normal sense. But the other part where I just had such sympathy is when

00:14:59 ◼   ► they're still in the coming up with the ideas phase in the first two days where they really

00:15:04 ◼   ► they just don't have anything.

00:15:06 ◼   ► And Trey mentions how he's like,

00:15:09 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm gonna try to get away

00:15:11 ◼   ► and just not think about this for a little bit."

00:15:12 ◼   ► So he goes home and turns on his Xbox

00:15:15 ◼   ► to just turn off his mind for a little bit.

00:15:17 ◼   ► But the ad on the Xbox is,

00:15:19 ◼   ► "South Park coming this Wednesday," right?

00:15:22 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:15:23 ◼   ► At this point, it's Friday and he's got nothing.

00:15:28 ◼   ► - That was, I loved that.

00:15:29 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, that's so, just so cruel, right?

00:15:32 ◼   ► Like, he can't escape.

00:15:34 ◼   ► 'Cause everything, 'cause it's at the point,

00:15:36 ◼   ► it's at the size that it is that by this point,

00:15:39 ◼   ► it's everywhere, right?

00:15:40 ◼   ► Like, and there's just, it's no escape from it.

00:15:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and as you mentioned,

00:15:44 ◼   ► I think this documentary happened

00:15:45 ◼   ► at the exact magical right time.

00:15:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:15:48 ◼   ► - Because there was probably no season of South Park

00:15:51 ◼   ► promoted more than that one.

00:15:53 ◼   ► The "We're Returning After a Break"

00:15:56 ◼   ► and also the episode where they've just produced

00:16:00 ◼   ► this incredible musical that has received all this wide acclaim.

00:16:03 ◼   ► So they're everywhere at this point because the Book of Mormon, you know, it's sweat,

00:16:07 ◼   ► you know, it had like every Tony nomination, which also happened in that week. They got

00:16:12 ◼   ► a ton of Tony nominations, right? Like because the Book of Mormon was huge. It was just huge,

00:16:18 ◼   ► right? And so there's so much pressure on them. They've probably got more people that

00:16:24 ◼   ► are wanting to see South Park than they have had in a while because they're not, they're

00:16:29 ◼   ► hot and in the news again. I can't even imagine. I just can't.

00:16:35 ◼   ► But it is like the universe is so cruel. Like this poor guy is just trying to turn off his

00:16:38 ◼   ► brain for a little bit and it's like South Park coming this Wednesday. I just can't imagine

00:16:43 ◼   ► what that feels like to be sitting there thinking like, "Oh, this Wednesday? I guess I need

00:16:47 ◼   ► to come up with it." You know? God, it's just awful.

00:16:52 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Audible. Audible has an unmatched selection

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00:17:28 ◼   ► If you've enjoyed listening to the working conditions at the South Park Studios, then

00:17:33 ◼   ► I'm going to recommend a book I read recently to you which is called Masters of Doom, How

00:17:39 ◼   ► Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner. I played a lot

00:17:45 ◼   ► of Doom when I was a kid, but I didn't really know anything about the development of it

00:17:49 ◼   ► and this book covers how John Carmack and John Romeo came together to create a thing

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00:18:20 ◼   ► and maybe give Masters of Doom a listen.

00:18:23 ◼   ► Thank you to Audible for supporting the show.

00:18:25 ◼   ► The thing about this documentary that I find so fascinating is

00:18:29 ◼   ► so many people talk about how they work better under deadlines.

00:18:35 ◼   ► And personally, that is a thing that I have not found is true for me.

00:18:39 ◼   ► I work worse under deadlines, but obviously it does work for a lot of people.

00:18:44 ◼   ► and this feels like the most extreme version of that I have ever seen.

00:18:52 ◼   ► That not only do Trey Parker and Matt Stone work well under deadlines

00:18:58 ◼   ► because they produce these very popular, very funny shows,

00:19:03 ◼   ► but they've also created around them an entire team and production company

00:19:10 ◼   ► company that just has to be filled with people who work well under deadline.

00:19:16 ◼   ► There's a quote from the animation director, I think, and he says, "If it takes you four days

00:19:22 ◼   ► to get something done, you can't contribute." Right? Like, if you are slow, they can't,

00:19:29 ◼   ► you can't work there. And like they're saying that in usual animation houses,

00:19:33 ◼   ► you have teams of people that do the specific parts, right? Storyboarding and then animating

00:19:38 ◼   ► and that kind of stuff. But the South Park team, everybody does everything because they

00:19:45 ◼   ► just don't have the affordances of time to have it go through a slow process. You know,

00:19:50 ◼   ► you get a scene or whatever that you're working on and you will do it from scratch. And there

00:19:56 ◼   ► are things that they have obviously done over time, right? Like their process has been optimized

00:20:01 ◼   ► in an animation style to allow for them to create something in that amount of time, right?

00:20:08 ◼   ► Like the well-known, like what started with literal pieces of paper cut out and moved

00:20:14 ◼   ► around in stop motion. I have no doubt that that style of animation helps them to work

00:20:19 ◼   ► a little bit faster.

00:20:20 ◼   ► Oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean there was this funny thing where, you know, now as an adult who

00:20:28 ◼   ► has a tiny toe in the world of animation, but from my perspective watching this documentary

00:20:34 ◼   ► it's really interesting just a couple of little offhanded comments that the animators make.

00:20:38 ◼   ► I was like, oh of course I can see exactly what this is, where yeah they talk about how, oh this

00:20:44 ◼   ► style is intentionally done because you don't have to actually draw every frame. That in animation

00:20:53 ◼   ► there's this process where you can have a static thing, you can draw something, and then you can

00:20:59 ◼   ► just specify, oh, it has to move from here to here, and the computer fills in that motion in between.

00:21:06 ◼   ► And I'm listening to it like, that's what I do! Like, that's exactly my animation process. Like,

00:21:10 ◼   ► I don't draw every frame. You know, every one of my videos is in a much simpler way,

00:21:17 ◼   ► but it's the same thing where I'm taking objects and specifying keyframes of this needs to move

00:21:23 ◼   ► from here to there in an arc and computer you just draw the 60 frames in between that needs to make that happen

00:21:29 ◼   ► but I was also just so aware of that that

00:21:33 ◼   ► you know their comparison to The Simpsons takes months to produce an episode is like well, yes

00:21:38 ◼   ► but this The Simpsons even if they're using computers to help

00:21:43 ◼   ► The The Simpsons is not composed fundamentally of

00:21:47 ◼   ► geometric shapes that you're sliding around and

00:21:53 ◼   ► because of the way the show is animated, they're able to do this in a way that you couldn't possibly do with anything that even looks like hand animation.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And then the other thing that I did find that comment really interesting where the lead animator says,

00:22:07 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, we don't have separate storyboarding and character design teams. Everybody just does everything."

00:22:13 ◼   ► And having had some peripheral experience with various teams of various sizes, you know, producing things for YouTube,

00:22:20 ◼   ► There really is an interesting trade-off in size and scope.

00:22:30 ◼   ► That when you do have smaller teams of generalists,

00:22:37 ◼   ► if you are also able to limit your scope in the way that South Park does with what they're trying to do in animation,

00:22:43 ◼   ► their animation is quite limited.

00:22:45 ◼   ► It's like you can work very quickly with a bunch of generalists.

00:22:51 ◼   ► And then on the other end of that spectrum, you have larger production houses.

00:22:55 ◼   ► You know, what I would imagine like someplace like Pixar,

00:22:58 ◼   ► where you might have three people who their whole specialist job is,

00:23:02 ◼   ► "What does hair look like when it's wet? How do you animate that?"

00:23:06 ◼   ► And it's like, well, then you can produce something that is incredibly beautiful,

00:23:11 ◼   ► that a team like the South Park team could never ever produce, but it's also going to take

00:23:16 ◼   ► 20 million man-hours to bring into the world.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Again, I just think like the South Park guys are so

00:23:25 ◼   ► interesting because they've clearly chosen to be optimized on a particular end of that spectrum.

00:23:33 ◼   ► Like they've chosen to keep that animation style the way it is so that they can keep themselves under

00:23:40 ◼   ► constant deadline so that they produce these shows that are relevant to the world around them as opposed to all other kinds of TV.

00:23:49 ◼   ► But, you know, I have seen, and it's very easy for people to do, where you want to expand the scope of what is possible,

00:23:56 ◼   ► and then you have to keep adding, like, "But how long does it take?"

00:24:00 ◼   ► And that's the thing that they've clearly designed everything to stay nice and short.

00:24:07 ◼   ► And in fact, there's a little part where they talk as well about how they've shortened the process over time.

00:24:13 ◼   ► And like, kind of accidentally though, right?

00:24:15 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, it was interesting that they were talking about the production of the technology.

00:24:19 ◼   ► That they're like, "Oh, we used to use these incredibly expensive $30,000 machines."

00:24:23 ◼   ► And now it's just an office full of IMAX.

00:24:27 ◼   ► That the machines have gotten fast enough, and the animation style has remained simple enough,

00:24:33 ◼   ► that it's pulled down the amount of time even further and further

00:24:38 ◼   ► that they need to produce one of those shows in terms of the animation.

00:24:41 ◼   ► And yeah, it is crazy to think that the last 24 hours

00:24:45 ◼   ► is when the vast majority of the animation actually occurs.

00:24:48 ◼   ► Like, it's just insanity.

00:24:50 ◼   ► So obviously me and you are very used to collaborating in our creative endeavors.

00:24:57 ◼   ► We work with people to have an output,

00:25:00 ◼   ► and that's what's happening with Trey Parker and Matt Stuntz.

00:25:03 ◼   ► They're collaborating and there's a moment where they sit down with Matt Stone and do kind of a one-on-one

00:25:09 ◼   ► Because looking at the show, you know, he's obviously important but doesn't seem to have as many roles in the production

00:25:16 ◼   ► Right purely because of the fact that Parker is writing it and directing the show

00:25:21 ◼   ► He does both and Parker is also the louder personality

00:25:24 ◼   ► Yes, so on camera like Parker takes up space on the screen

00:25:29 ◼   ► Just with his physical presence.

00:25:31 ◼   ► - He draws everything towards him.

00:25:33 ◼   ► And then, you know, Matt Stone's kind of talking

00:25:36 ◼   ► about the fact that they, the way that they work together

00:25:39 ◼   ► and they understand each other and they know

00:25:42 ◼   ► which one is in control in that moment.

00:25:44 ◼   ► And that has enabled them to continue to work.

00:25:47 ◼   ► It's understanding the way that each other works

00:25:49 ◼   ► and just playing into that has allowed

00:25:52 ◼   ► for their collaboration to last for 20 years now.

00:25:55 ◼   ► - I thought that little moment where they talk

00:25:57 ◼   ► each of them about the roles they play and how the other fits into this production.

00:26:03 ◼   ► I thought that was really interesting because I've always thought that there's this

00:26:06 ◼   ► there's this very important meta skill, which is

00:26:11 ◼   ► knowing yourself and recognizing what you're good at and what you're not good at

00:26:15 ◼   ► that can be developed. And even just in that little section, I thought like, man, these are two guys

00:26:21 ◼   ► who know really well where their strengths are and where their own weaknesses are and how they work together with each other and

00:26:29 ◼   ► you know, it's

00:26:32 ◼   ► Like it's really interesting because Matt Stone in particular is talking about a thing

00:26:36 ◼   ► that's really hard to talk about on on camera where

00:26:39 ◼   ► He's saying how when South Park was becoming popular. He was getting offered all these directorial jobs. Yes, and he turns them down and

00:26:48 ◼   ► And he turns them down because he knows that that is not his skill set

00:26:54 ◼   ► Even though to the outsiders it seems like the two of them are making South Park together

00:26:59 ◼   ► And they must be dividing these things up equally

00:27:01 ◼   ► And he recognizes like he might be able to make a few movies

00:27:06 ◼   ► But ultimately it's not where he's strong, and it just it wouldn't really go anywhere. I thought like man that is just

00:27:13 ◼   ► that is like such an underappreciated skill in a person to recognize

00:27:19 ◼   ► that what many people would think of is like, "Oh, this is an amazing opportunity," is

00:27:25 ◼   ► actually a mistake. That wouldn't be the thing to do and that his time and energy are better spent

00:27:32 ◼   ► working with Trey on

00:27:35 ◼   ► South Park, you know, and it's really interesting. And then they go talk to Trey, like, and there's these situations where like,

00:27:41 ◼   ► Trey is the louder personality, but he's not not confrontational in situations where maybe he would need to be confrontational

00:27:48 ◼   ► like and then that's where Matt Stone steps up and

00:27:51 ◼   ► You know, I just like how they both talk about this this metaphor of like being the members of the band

00:27:56 ◼   ► And it's like yeah, there may be one person who looks like they're more the lead person in the band

00:28:03 ◼   ► But the band is still the members like no one person can be the band. The band is the two of them

00:28:11 ◼   ► I just thought that I thought that was really interesting and you could just see like these are guys who

00:28:15 ◼   ► Work together a lot and and really know where their strengths lie

00:28:20 ◼   ► Whilst also remaining friends like that because one of my favorite

00:28:24 ◼   ► Examples of this is the mythbusters you familiar with the story there

00:28:29 ◼   ► No, but I'm I'm not sure what you're talking about here. So they especially

00:28:34 ◼   ► Adam Savage gives more interviews than this because he's more of a like a public person

00:28:39 ◼   ► And he is someone who has remained kind of in the spotlight since mythbusters ended

00:28:43 ◼   ► And he said this it's fact they're not friends. They seem to not particularly like each other very much

00:28:50 ◼   ► One of the quotes that Adam Savage mentions a lot is that they have never eaten a meal alone

00:28:56 ◼   ► hmm, and they work together for

00:28:59 ◼   ► 10 15 years something like that mythbusters was on the air for a long time

00:29:03 ◼   ► Yeah, and but before that Adam Savage worked for Jamie like that's how it started like

00:29:08 ◼   ► He was an employee at his prop shop.

00:29:12 ◼   ► And they can work together incredibly well.

00:29:16 ◼   ► They know what the other one is thinking.

00:29:18 ◼   ► They can have a kind of like a language between the two of them.

00:29:22 ◼   ► Apparently they argued and debated about every single point, but always at the end, one of

00:29:26 ◼   ► them knew that the other was right.

00:29:28 ◼   ► And that was the way that they worked together.

00:29:30 ◼   ► And it's so interesting to me because I can't imagine that environment.

00:29:34 ◼   ► I only work with people I consider friends.

00:29:38 ◼   ► I couldn't imagine being in that way.

00:29:41 ◼   ► But what's going on is the same thing, right?

00:29:43 ◼   ► Like, they just know how the other one works.

00:29:46 ◼   ► So whether they're friends or not, it doesn't matter,

00:29:47 ◼   ► because what you actually need to know

00:29:49 ◼   ► is to understand yourself,

00:29:50 ◼   ► understand the other person and their needs,

00:29:52 ◼   ► and then you can work together over long periods of time.

00:29:55 ◼   ► I think people assume that you should have

00:29:58 ◼   ► to be friends with someone,

00:29:59 ◼   ► but I think that they are a good example

00:30:02 ◼   ► of why you actually don't need to be.

00:30:05 ◼   ► You just have to have the fundamentals

00:30:06 ◼   ► what you'd consider a friendship, but they don't actually have to result in being friends,

00:30:11 ◼   ► which I just find that comparing to these two is just very interesting is that it's

00:30:15 ◼   ► all there. It's the same thing as that. They know the strengths and weaknesses and they

00:30:19 ◼   ► play to that. They don't overstep and they work within their boundaries. It's the same

00:30:24 ◼   ► thing.

00:30:25 ◼   ► I didn't know that about Mythbusters and I'm willing to bet that that I don't know, like

00:30:30 ◼   ► I don't want to say a noise, but I bet that's a thing that bothers a lot of people.

00:30:34 ◼   ► I think it does. Yeah.

00:30:36 ◼   ► When you're watching a show, it's like you want to think that they're friends and that

00:30:42 ◼   ► they're hanging out.

00:30:44 ◼   ► When I first found that out, I was really bummed out about it.

00:30:47 ◼   ► Because I love the show.

00:30:48 ◼   ► I love the show and they seem to work so great together and I just assumed that they were

00:30:52 ◼   ► the best of friends.

00:30:53 ◼   ► So when you hear that, you're like, "Oh no, like they're my buddies."

00:30:57 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess part of this is also I think that people might have a hard time understanding

00:31:05 ◼   ► that kind of professional relationship? Where it's like, are they friends? But they don't have to be

00:31:09 ◼   ► friends. But it doesn't mean that they hate each other, right? Like they're just, they're there,

00:31:15 ◼   ► they work together, they know how to work with each other. But that's interesting. I could,

00:31:20 ◼   ► it's interesting to hear that that's your reaction because that's what I would think most people

00:31:23 ◼   ► would feel that way. Where they're like, oh, I want to imagine that everybody's friends. Like they and

00:31:27 ◼   ► the whole crew sit down and have birthday cakes together at the end of each shoot. But it's like,

00:31:33 ◼   ► things don't need to work that way, especially like in Hollywood, right?

00:31:36 ◼   ► People don't need to be friends. They just need to be able to work together.

00:31:40 ◼   ► But it is, or at least it comes across in this documentary, that Trey Parker

00:31:45 ◼   ► and Matt Stone are clearly friends. And also, you know, thinking of

00:31:55 ◼   ► things structurally, it certainly seems like South Park is able to be what South

00:32:01 ◼   ► Park is because Trey, Parker, and Matt Stone are great friends and it seems like they might

00:32:08 ◼   ► not have a lot of friends in the wider Hollywood world.

00:32:12 ◼   ► They reference that, that they've burned all their bridges.

00:32:15 ◼   ► Yeah, it's, you know, when people say something like that in a documentary, I do always wonder

00:32:19 ◼   ► like how much do you really mean it? But I can really believe it from these two for everything

00:32:25 ◼   ► that they have done over the course of their careers. But it's like there's an interesting

00:32:30 ◼   ► moment here because it can like South Park will really make fun of celebrities

00:32:37 ◼   ► and people in the public eye in a way that very few other shows will go like

00:32:42 ◼   ► as hard into it as South Park will but I do think like that doesn't just happen

00:32:48 ◼   ► it happens structurally because of the personality of these two and because

00:32:54 ◼   ► they don't really have any connections with the wider Hollywood world that go

00:32:59 ◼   ► so far as to reject it, but the thing that like really

00:33:01 ◼   ► highlights that in the documentary is that one of the writers in the writers room works on Saturday Night Live and

00:33:08 ◼   ► explicitly says how on Saturday Night Live the the politics of making fun of

00:33:14 ◼   ► public people comes into the writing of their skits

00:33:18 ◼   ► And it's like yeah, I can see that and I would think like that's also probably one of the reasons

00:33:23 ◼   ► Why at least to my tastes South Park is way funnier than Saturday Night Live

00:33:29 ◼   ► And it's because Saturday Night Live is structurally constrained by the kinds of jokes they can make

00:33:36 ◼   ► because if they're making jokes about public figures, they can bet they're not going to get that public figure to host the show.

00:33:42 ◼   ► Or if they're making jokes about the public figure, they have to be within a certain bounds.

00:33:46 ◼   ► They can't go too far in one direction or another.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Um...

00:33:51 ◼   ► But it just... it hadn't really occurred to me until seeing that, but it's like, "Oh, right, that makes total sense."

00:33:58 ◼   ► that this is structurally why the show is able to do this and other comedies play it much more safe

00:34:05 ◼   ► when it comes to referencing specific people in the real world.

00:34:09 ◼   ► But South Park doesn't care because Matt and Trey have nothing to lose.

00:34:13 ◼   ► It's like they're not losing their friends. They don't have any friends in that world.

00:34:17 ◼   ► You know, they clearly thumb their nose at that world.

00:34:21 ◼   ► Like they did at the, was it the Oscars? Was it, is that the party that they show up in dresses?

00:34:26 ◼   ► It's unbelievable.

00:34:28 ◼   ► - Or tripping on acid.

00:34:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's funny.

00:34:32 ◼   ► I remember seeing that when it happened

00:34:35 ◼   ► and I was much younger and just thought like,

00:34:36 ◼   ► oh, those guys are just in dresses.

00:34:38 ◼   ► But watching the clip now as an adult,

00:34:40 ◼   ► particularly Trey Parker, there's a moment where it's like,

00:34:43 ◼   ► dude, you are so clearly high and on drugs.

00:34:46 ◼   ► Like I cannot believe you're just showing up

00:34:48 ◼   ► to the Oscars like this.

00:34:50 ◼   ► But yeah, that's how you don't make any friends

00:34:53 ◼   ► in the professional world.

00:34:54 ◼   ► But yes, it is very interesting to watch,

00:34:57 ◼   ► seeing that whole process,

00:34:59 ◼   ► seeing how long it takes to come up with the ideas.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Just as someone who's watched the show,

00:35:05 ◼   ► it's also very interesting to watch the writer process

00:35:10 ◼   ► where you can see them start to play with the ideas

00:35:14 ◼   ► and they start to do the voices

00:35:17 ◼   ► and you can see them come together with the puzzle pieces

00:35:20 ◼   ► of what the show should be.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Like I have to say, it was very interesting to watch that develop over time.

00:35:27 ◼   ► But towards the very end, the thing that I just could not believe is that this episode was in the end delivered five hours before the broadcast time.

00:35:41 ◼   ► That that's when they got the final render out of the animation.

00:35:46 ◼   ► And it's like they hand a tape to a guy who brings it to the machine that's going to broadcast it across Comedy Central

00:35:54 ◼   ► and it's like with a five hour, five hours to spare. It's unbelievable that they do it.

00:36:01 ◼   ► There's just some guy puts it in his car and drives it over.

00:36:04 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:36:07 ◼   ► And I bet it still works that way, you know. They're just putting it on a DVD and taking it there.

00:36:11 ◼   ► it there. I mean the thing that is worth mentioning as well because I can imagine

00:36:15 ◼   ► like if you don't see in this documentary they're like how is that

00:36:17 ◼   ► possible right because it's such a racy edgy show like how can Comedy Central

00:36:22 ◼   ► allow it well it seems like that they have developed a system and a process

00:36:26 ◼   ► where the executive producer will have multiple calls with the standards bodies

00:36:30 ◼   ► and of Comedy Central confirming all of the curse words they're allowed to use

00:36:35 ◼   ► how many they're allowed to use which ones they can replace for something else

00:36:39 ◼   ► what they can bleep, what they can't bleep, and it ends up in just this wild,

00:36:45 ◼   ► these wild phone calls that you overhear, and the executive producer's name is

00:36:49 ◼   ► Anne Garofino, and it's so funny to just watch her reading these lines in like a

00:36:55 ◼   ► totally deadpan way.

00:36:56 ◼   ► She's using a boring corporate voice to discuss the details of

00:37:01 ◼   ► exactly how graphic they can be with their human centipede, and then it's just

00:37:05 ◼   ► like, "Well, you know, happy Easter, Bob!" Right and click.

00:37:08 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, she's like, it's something like that, right?

00:37:12 ◼   ► Is it happy, is it something like that?

00:37:14 ◼   ► Just wishes them like a great afternoon,

00:37:16 ◼   ► it's just so strange.

00:37:18 ◼   ► But you can imagine after 20 years,

00:37:20 ◼   ► there is an element of trust that's built up.

00:37:22 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Right?

00:37:23 ◼   ► Like they're not gonna do something so crazy

00:37:25 ◼   ► that they would get shut down.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Like at that point, they're a well enough known entity.

00:37:30 ◼   ► And I guess this is like another sign of collaboration

00:37:33 ◼   ► that we don't get to see a lot of,

00:37:34 ◼   ► but like how they work with Comedy Central.

00:37:36 ◼   ► It's kind of strange.

00:37:38 ◼   ► So I have a question for you, right?

00:37:39 ◼   ► And I think I know the answer to this,

00:37:40 ◼   ► but I wanna ask it anyway.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Could you work in this environment?

00:37:44 ◼   ► - Oh my God, no.

00:37:45 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:37:46 ◼   ► - Again, there's a thing that I sometimes think

00:37:54 ◼   ► is underappreciated in the world,

00:37:55 ◼   ► but that some people who are very successful,

00:38:00 ◼   ► it is not obvious to outsiders

00:38:05 ◼   ► just how much of their life they are burning on the thing that they are successful with.

00:38:11 ◼   ► And I think this documentary is a great

00:38:14 ◼   ► view into that

00:38:17 ◼   ► of just

00:38:19 ◼   ► what these guys are putting into this is just inhuman.

00:38:26 ◼   ► And then when you add on top of it like other side projects that they do,

00:38:31 ◼   ► you know,

00:38:33 ◼   ► successful musicals, other movies, the video games, like all of this other stuff. It's just crazy.

00:38:38 ◼   ► But it gets them

00:38:43 ◼   ► such an amazing level of success.

00:38:47 ◼   ► And,

00:38:49 ◼   ► I know we were discussing last time about the question a little bit about, "Oh, just because you put in the hours doesn't mean you're successful."

00:38:55 ◼   ► Even if someone, even if a genie could come along and could say to me like, "Oh, if you put in the hours,

00:39:01 ◼   ► you could be as successful as these two. Is that something you would want to do? I would say no because I just

00:39:07 ◼   ► this is a place where I do know myself and I

00:39:11 ◼   ► don't work well under deadlines. I couldn't possibly

00:39:15 ◼   ► dedicate as

00:39:19 ◼   ► much

00:39:20 ◼   ► inhuman time and energy as they do into this. So I feel like I know myself and that I am

00:39:27 ◼   ► much happier with a much diminished relatively level of success for

00:39:32 ◼   ► for not having to produce

00:39:36 ◼   ► episodes within six days and having to stay up until

00:39:39 ◼   ► five in the morning and pulling these all-nighters and eating sad McDonald's and all the rest of it. It's just I

00:39:45 ◼   ► couldn't I couldn't possibly

00:39:47 ◼   ► Even if it meant it came with all the rewards that it does. Would you Myke? Would you would you take that deal?

00:39:54 ◼   ► Contrary to almost everything else about my personality and my disposition as a human being

00:40:00 ◼   ► I have always worked and thrived in

00:40:04 ◼   ► crisis situations

00:40:06 ◼   ► so

00:40:08 ◼   ► especially when I was working at the bank if something went terribly wrong if there was something that was going wrong, I

00:40:13 ◼   ► Could and always did work very well in those environments like everything's crumbling down. How do you fix it?

00:40:21 ◼   ► to the point that like if a team member was having a crisis,

00:40:25 ◼   ► I would want to be involved in it to help because I kind of thrived on that pressure

00:40:32 ◼   ► and the kind of impending disaster.

00:40:35 ◼   ► It's very strange because there is nothing else about my personality which would indicate that I would enjoy this,

00:40:39 ◼   ► but I did.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Yeah, but I think this is a trait that some people just have.

00:40:43 ◼   ► And I think you have it.

00:40:45 ◼   ► And you know, it doesn't, it doesn't, it really doesn't gel with anything else about the way that I work

00:40:50 ◼   ► because I can be a nervous person, I can be a worrier.

00:40:53 ◼   ► It's very strange that I have those two parts of me,

00:40:55 ◼   ► but there they are.

00:40:55 ◼   ► So I don't think I could work there for very long,

00:41:00 ◼   ► but I think I could do it for a not tiny period of time.

00:41:05 ◼   ► I think for a few years, I could work in that environment

00:41:09 ◼   ► and would enjoy the last 24 hours,

00:41:12 ◼   ► and that's why I would keep coming,

00:41:13 ◼   ► why I keep putting myself through it

00:41:15 ◼   ► would be for the last 24 hours.

00:41:19 ◼   ► But I think I would burn out after maybe two or three years of it.

00:41:22 ◼   ► Like I don't think I could do it for long,

00:41:23 ◼   ► but I think it's something that I could enjoy.

00:41:25 ◼   ► Not that I ever want to work in an environment like that necessarily.

00:41:30 ◼   ► I'm not going to seek out, but if I was in it, I think I would enjoy it.

00:41:33 ◼   ► But you don't think you could do it for 20 plus years?

00:41:36 ◼   ► Most definitely not. It's wild.

00:41:39 ◼   ► People doing anything for that period of time,

00:41:43 ◼   ► the same thing is astounding to me. You know,

00:41:46 ◼   ► I used to work with people that have been in the same jobs,

00:41:48 ◼   ► in the same places for 30 years,

00:41:50 ◼   ► and I think it's an unbelievable thing

00:41:52 ◼   ► 'cause I couldn't do that.

00:41:54 ◼   ► I wouldn't be able to stay just doing the same thing,

00:41:58 ◼   ► and I find it astounding that they have kept the same roles

00:42:01 ◼   ► that they've had for 20 years, basically uninterrupted.

00:42:05 ◼   ► That is a commitment that I don't think

00:42:08 ◼   ► I could have to something like that.

00:42:10 ◼   ► - I agree with you there.

00:42:12 ◼   ► I agree with you there, but I've got to say, Myke,

00:42:14 ◼   ► I'm glad you mentioned this a while back as a thing that we should watch.

00:42:18 ◼   ► I feel like I'm really happy that I saw it.

00:42:19 ◼   ► I hope for the people who did watch it, that they found it interesting.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Even if you're not necessarily a fan of South Park. And I would,

00:42:28 ◼   ► I would be curious if the listeners out there do know of any other documentaries

00:42:33 ◼   ► in this kind of genre of following people at work or people who work on

00:42:39 ◼   ► interesting things. I would love to hear some recommendations.

00:42:43 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:42:44 ◼   ► - Because I just, I can't think of anything else

00:42:46 ◼   ► that's like this off the top of my head

00:42:49 ◼   ► and I'd be very curious to see some more.

00:42:52 ◼   ► - We could just do a rewatch of The Office.

00:42:54 ◼   ► Is that what you're asking for?

00:42:57 ◼   ► - No, not quite, no, no.

00:43:01 ◼   ► I'm looking for something that's real.

00:43:03 ◼   ► - Wait, hang on a second.

00:43:04 ◼   ► - I have bad news for you, Myke.

00:43:07 ◼   ► British Office is not real.

00:43:08 ◼   ► - I like the American one more.

00:43:10 ◼   ► - They're very different things.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Yeah, the American office is more my style of comedy than the British office.

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00:45:49 ◼   ► Okay, Myke, I have another little update for the year of order.

00:45:55 ◼   ► Order.

00:45:56 ◼   ► No, no, Myke, it's just...

00:45:57 ◼   ► No, don't say it like that.

00:45:59 ◼   ► It's not what it means.

00:46:01 ◼   ► It's not what it means.

00:46:03 ◼   ► I said it in a totally normal way, which is the year of order, right?

00:46:07 ◼   ► That's the, we have a little update for that.

00:46:10 ◼   ► So my home office at this moment is empty.

00:46:17 ◼   ► Everything needs to be redone.

00:46:19 ◼   ► There's packages that have been delivered to my glass cube.

00:46:22 ◼   ► All of that is underway.

00:46:25 ◼   ► I want to get that stuff finished.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Are you up to three desks in the cube now or are we still at two?

00:46:31 ◼   ► two desks. Why do you ask this much? [laughter]

00:46:34 ◼   ► MATT: I love it when I just make a silly joke, but it ends up turning into like there's actually

00:46:42 ◼   ► something really going on. [laughter]

00:46:45 ◼   ► AO: Yeah, well, you're rallying me already. There's two desks in the glass cube, and I

00:46:54 ◼   ► think that there are going to end up being two desks in the home office, but I need to

00:47:00 ◼   ► settle on that a little bit more before that happens.

00:47:02 ◼   ► - Hang on a second.

00:47:02 ◼   ► No, no, no. - No, we don't need to.

00:47:05 ◼   ► - We spent so much time talking about like

00:47:08 ◼   ► the specifics of the one purpose of the home office.

00:47:13 ◼   ► If it has two desks, there's two purposes.

00:47:17 ◼   ► - No, we can't get into this now, Myke.

00:47:20 ◼   ► We can't get, I refuse.

00:47:22 ◼   ► I refuse to be derailed on this

00:47:24 ◼   ► because I still have thoughts.

00:47:26 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:47:27 ◼   ► And you cut me off last time anyway with discussing the home office glass cube situation.

00:47:34 ◼   ► I had so much more to talk about but we had to bring that to a close.

00:47:38 ◼   ► Oh I wondered if you noticed.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Oh I noticed.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Let's just skip that last category.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Yeah I'm no fool. I know exactly what you were doing.

00:47:48 ◼   ► There was much more to be discussed.

00:47:50 ◼   ► You have touched upon it now but you know what? I'm refusing to talk about it.

00:47:54 ◼   ► I'm gonna let it percolate a little bit more.

00:47:56 ◼   ► I wrecked you out of that, right? That was me being the director. It's like, "Let's

00:48:00 ◼   ► start to move on."

00:48:01 ◼   ► B: Yeah, no, it's so very subtle. Very subtle there, Myke. I didn't notice at all. So anyway,

00:48:05 ◼   ► we're just gonna skip that. We're just gonna skip that.

00:48:07 ◼   ► M: Okay, okay. This is my punishment.

00:48:09 ◼   ► B; Yeah, so I don't have a long topic on the Year of Order, but I did just want to mention

00:48:14 ◼   ► something because I know it's something people are interested in, which is my eventual return

00:48:23 ◼   ► to full-on use of Task Managers this year.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Like, this is a thing that's going to happen at some point.

00:48:31 ◼   ► But I did just want to mention that I have been using Things a lot this year.

00:48:41 ◼   ► So this is Things 3 is the name.

00:48:44 ◼   ► As always with Task Managers and timers, you have to have these names that are very difficult

00:48:47 ◼   ► to talk about, and Things is one of those.

00:48:49 ◼   ► It isn't as bad as Dew, though.

00:48:52 ◼   ► is the worst, to do is close. Oh I saw another one, I saw another one that was called like

00:49:00 ◼   ► do but it was like D-O-O and I was like oh you're doomed, you're doomed from the start,

00:49:04 ◼   ► task manager. Yeah, one of my favorites though is tehduh, you've seen that right? I don't

00:49:10 ◼   ► think I've seen that one, no. T-E-U-X-D-E-U-X. Oh yes I have seen that. Tehduh. It's not

00:49:19 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the problem is there's so many task managers, right?

00:49:23 ◼   ► If you're trying to come up with a name, you're limited for things, but, uh, it's,

00:49:27 ◼   ► they, they all end up being relatively ambiguous, but I did just want to mention

00:49:32 ◼   ► things because I've been using it just a,

00:49:36 ◼   ► just a little bit sort of very informally to keep a record of some of the

00:49:40 ◼   ► projects that I have active, but I wouldn't say that I'm like,

00:49:44 ◼   ► I'm all in on using it as a task manager.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I've just been using it as kind of like a placeholder,

00:49:48 ◼   ► like where do I write down the things that I'm currently working on?

00:49:51 ◼   ► But I have to say, I just, I'm really impressed by it as a task manager.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I think the Things 3 redesign, for a long time I didn't touch Things 2

00:50:03 ◼   ► because it seemed like it was not actively under development.

00:50:06 ◼   ► It hadn't been updated in a really long time.

00:50:08 ◼   ► But Things 3 is just a really, really great update.

00:50:12 ◼   ► And I know on the show previously I have said that my sort of

00:50:16 ◼   ► default task manager recommendation if I don't know anything about a person is to just use clear and say like

00:50:23 ◼   ► Oh, just just run with clear, but since I know they have a new one in development, but it isn't available yet

00:50:28 ◼   ► but right now I think I would have to switch that to

00:50:31 ◼   ► things as

00:50:34 ◼   ► If you want to get started with the task manager, and you don't know where to begin

00:50:39 ◼   ► I really have to recommend things three as the place to start. It's just it's very simple

00:50:45 ◼   ► It's very beautiful and it has a couple of really clever

00:50:50 ◼   ► features in it that are things that I originally thought like, "Oh, I don't know about this

00:50:56 ◼   ► but I have come to love and wish that other task managers do."

00:51:01 ◼   ► Like this is the one thing that is just so simple, but when you're laying out a project

00:51:05 ◼   ► Things gives you this option to

00:51:07 ◼   ► create little subheadings and

00:51:11 ◼   ► And those subheadings aren't tasks. They're not anything.

00:51:14 ◼   ► They're just a way that you can group something into different areas

00:51:19 ◼   ► and say like, "Oh, all of these tasks go under this heading,

00:51:21 ◼   ► and all of these tasks go under this heading."

00:51:23 ◼   ► And it's so nice and freeing to have a visual distinction between things

00:51:32 ◼   ► that doesn't also have a meaning, right?

00:51:34 ◼   ► Like, these things are not subprojects or anything like that.

00:51:38 ◼   ► It's just, oh, here's some visual separation between these different tasks.

00:51:41 ◼   ► What does this visual separation mean? Nothing. It means nothing at all.

00:51:45 ◼   ► And they have a very simple way to specify tasks that you should be doing today,

00:51:50 ◼   ► which a lot of task managers have, but they have an additional nice feature,

00:51:55 ◼   ► which is you can specify, oh, this task is for this evening,

00:51:59 ◼   ► and it just moves it down to the bottom of the list.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Just a lot of really, really nice touches, and I have to say, I'm very impressed with it,

00:52:07 ◼   ► and I like it a lot as a simple task manager that isn't completely stripped back.

00:52:14 ◼   ► I don't know, have you played with it at all, Myke, or are you totally unfamiliar with things?

00:52:20 ◼   ► No, enough of my friends have been gushing over it that I decided to give it a try.

00:52:26 ◼   ► I know T.G. likes it a lot. T.G. and I were talking about things.

00:52:30 ◼   ► Yes, and that's why I decided to give it a go, just because of how much he's been enjoying it.

00:52:35 ◼   ► And I know that Steven tried it and he liked it, but it ultimately didn't work for him.

00:52:39 ◼   ► And I've played around of it very little.

00:52:42 ◼   ► But I know it's not the right app for me, just for a couple of reasons.

00:52:48 ◼   ► The main one being the way in which you select dates and alerts is so cumbersome.

00:52:55 ◼   ► It's it feels very clunky to me after having used to doest for so long,

00:53:01 ◼   ► because to doest, it's all natural language.

00:53:04 ◼   ► and once you get used to typing in

00:53:08 ◼   ► take out the trash at 4 p.m. pound sign personal

00:53:12 ◼   ► and then what that does is takes the task,

00:53:15 ◼   ► puts a reminder in and an alert for four o'clock

00:53:17 ◼   ► and it puts it in my personal project group.

00:53:20 ◼   ► That's wonderful and all of that and things,

00:53:23 ◼   ► you're hitting a bunch of buttons

00:53:24 ◼   ► and hitting a bunch of drop downs

00:53:25 ◼   ► and they're repeating task, UI is not good.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I love the design

00:53:34 ◼   ► and some of the thoughts behind it.

00:53:35 ◼   ► I mean, it is a beautiful iPhone app

00:53:38 ◼   ► in which Todoist is kind of like

00:53:40 ◼   ► just a decent looking cross-platform application, right?

00:53:43 ◼   ► Like that's how it looks.

00:53:44 ◼   ► - Even decent there, I feel like that's stretching.

00:53:47 ◼   ► - No, it doesn't, no, but it's fine, right?

00:53:48 ◼   ► Like it's not offensive because it's so plain.

00:53:50 ◼   ► - I'm not saying it's offensive,

00:53:52 ◼   ► but it's not great, it's not great.

00:53:54 ◼   ► - But ultimately what I'm looking for in my task manager

00:53:57 ◼   ► is the functionality that I want as opposed to the design.

00:54:02 ◼   ► And whilst things design is wonderful,

00:54:06 ◼   ► they're missing a bunch of things.

00:54:07 ◼   ► I mean, and also like,

00:54:08 ◼   ► whilst I don't use a ton ton of it,

00:54:09 ◼   ► like having the web API stuff is important to me now,

00:54:13 ◼   ► because I like to have things going on their own.

00:54:15 ◼   ► And just as an option for the future,

00:54:17 ◼   ► I don't really want to shut that sort of stuff off.

00:54:19 ◼   ► But yeah, I've tried things.

00:54:20 ◼   ► I don't know if it would be my recommendation for people,

00:54:24 ◼   ► but I can see why it would be somebody's,

00:54:26 ◼   ► if that makes sense.

00:54:27 ◼   ► Like, it's not what I would give.

00:54:29 ◼   ► I would still recommend Todoist,

00:54:31 ◼   ► especially because Todoist you can try for free.

00:54:33 ◼   ► I don't even think things has a subscription plan.

00:54:36 ◼   ► And it is a, in the world of applications,

00:54:39 ◼   ► a relatively expensive application,

00:54:41 ◼   ► and you have to buy it on all platforms individually,

00:54:45 ◼   ► but it is beautiful.

00:54:46 ◼   ► And if you really care about design in your applications,

00:54:51 ◼   ► like you really, really care,

00:54:52 ◼   ► then this is probably the one you should try.

00:54:54 ◼   ► - I agree that I would have a hard time

00:54:58 ◼   ► if I had to use that as my main and only task manager forever,

00:55:03 ◼   ► that the limitations I would find really frustrating.

00:55:06 ◼   ► But there's two things here.

00:55:07 ◼   ► I always find it an interesting thought experiment

00:55:11 ◼   ► about if you had to make a recommendation

00:55:13 ◼   ► and you didn't know anything about the person,

00:55:16 ◼   ► like what would you recommend?

00:55:18 ◼   ► If you knew someone was going to buy a Mac,

00:55:21 ◼   ► but you didn't know anything about them,

00:55:22 ◼   ► like what would you recommend as the default Mac?

00:55:24 ◼   ► Like it's just an interesting thought experiment

00:55:26 ◼   ► and I feel like Things is my task manager recommendation.

00:55:30 ◼   ► If I didn't know anything about the person,

00:55:31 ◼   ► what would I do?

00:55:32 ◼   ► I would do that.

00:55:33 ◼   ► But also, I just wanna recommend it

00:55:35 ◼   ► because I have really enjoyed it

00:55:37 ◼   ► because I think that there are times

00:55:40 ◼   ► when the limitations are helpful.

00:55:42 ◼   ► It's the very fact that Things is lacking

00:55:46 ◼   ► some of the more complicated features

00:55:48 ◼   ► that has, while I'm still feeling out the edges

00:55:52 ◼   ► of what does the year of order mean,

00:55:54 ◼   ► it's forcing me to be more limited

00:55:58 ◼   ► in what I'm actually keeping track of right now.

00:56:01 ◼   ► And it's the same reason why if someone has no experience

00:56:04 ◼   ► with task managers whatsoever,

00:56:06 ◼   ► I always recommend someone just starts with paper.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Like just get a notebook and paper and write things down

00:56:11 ◼   ► because you don't even know where you wanna begin

00:56:13 ◼   ► and like force yourself with the simplicity of that.

00:56:17 ◼   ► - Before we move on from this topic,

00:56:18 ◼   ► do you have any thoughts about OmniFocus 3,

00:56:22 ◼   ► like the upcoming announcements and stuff of OmniFocus 3?

00:56:25 ◼   ► Yeah, well this is one of the questions, right?

00:56:29 ◼   ► If I can't stick with things for forever, where am I gonna go?

00:56:33 ◼   ► And we see on the horizon there, OmniFocus.

00:56:37 ◼   ► And the thing I love about OmniFocus,

00:56:40 ◼   ► their strongest suit as always, is

00:56:43 ◼   ► hiding from you the things that you can do nothing about right now.

00:56:48 ◼   ► That to me is such a killer feature, it's why I always

00:56:52 ◼   ► I always come back to OmniFocus and I'm always happy when they publish their roadmap at the beginning of the year

00:56:59 ◼   ► because of course I'm intensely interested in what they're doing

00:57:02 ◼   ► and especially having been away from task managers for so long, I feel like I'm coming back to it with different eyes.

00:57:10 ◼   ► One of the things I'm really, really glad to see that OmniFocus is doing

00:57:14 ◼   ► is they are finally getting rid of the concept of contexts

00:57:20 ◼   ► and replacing them with tags.

00:57:23 ◼   ► I feel like that is a huge improvement

00:57:25 ◼   ► so that you can have a task

00:57:28 ◼   ► and you can put an arbitrary number of tags associated with it

00:57:32 ◼   ► rather than having to pick a single context.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Which they discuss in their blog post that this is a thing that as time has gone on

00:57:42 ◼   ► that people who are unfamiliar with getting things done

00:57:44 ◼   ► have a hard time understanding this concept of what is a context supposed to be

00:57:49 ◼   ► and I've always argued that I think in

00:57:52 ◼   ► as time has gone on, one of the ways that getting things done has not held up

00:57:56 ◼   ► is this idea that your work is

00:58:00 ◼   ► so clearly defined by the physical world

00:58:02 ◼   ► and that was what contexts grow out of

00:58:06 ◼   ► is this idea of these physical constraints

00:58:08 ◼   ► we just kind of don't live in that world anymore

00:58:12 ◼   ► I think this doesn't make sense for most people the way it used to.

00:58:15 ◼   ► So, I gotta say, I am really, really glad that they're bringing in tags and they're ditching contexts.

00:58:21 ◼   ► I'm super happy about that.

00:58:23 ◼   ► There's a bunch of other great features. I like it. It looks like they're improving notifications.

00:58:28 ◼   ► They're changing around the design, which I think can be improved.

00:58:32 ◼   ► They're working on automation. Of course, I always love automation.

00:58:35 ◼   ► There is one question, though, that I have from reading this blog post.

00:58:39 ◼   ► where I was reading a section real close, and it's like, "I can't quite figure out what you mean by this Omni group."

00:58:46 ◼   ► And it is their section on how dates are managed with OmniFocus.

00:58:52 ◼   ► Because I love OmniFocus, but the one thing that really kills me sometimes

00:58:59 ◼   ► is the way that at least currently they handle dates,

00:59:03 ◼   ► where there's this strange thing where if you have a task and you assign a due date to it,

00:59:09 ◼   ► it remembers what time zone you're in when you assign that due date,

00:59:14 ◼   ► but there's no way to modify or change that time zone.

00:59:18 ◼   ► And I think had I been using OmniFocus over the previous year with the amount of travel that I have been doing,

00:59:26 ◼   ► that would have driven me crazy,

00:59:30 ◼   ► because I was just constantly in different time zones or working with different things and like to have tasks

00:59:35 ◼   ► that have this invisible time zone associated with them would be madness.

00:59:41 ◼   ► And my whole system revolves around the idea of gray master time.

00:59:46 ◼   ► That almost every single one of my tasks is due or needs to be done relative to me and my time.

00:59:57 ◼   ► not relative to like, what is the time in California right now?

01:00:01 ◼   ► Or what is the time in New York?

01:00:02 ◼   ► And this is one of the reasons that I love and use Todoist,

01:00:05 ◼   ► because it will do this.

01:00:07 ◼   ► When you arrive in a new place, it asks you,

01:00:09 ◼   ► do you want to change your task to this time zone?

01:00:12 ◼   ► And if you say yes, if you add a task

01:00:15 ◼   ► that was going off at 12 o'clock in London,

01:00:17 ◼   ► it will go off at 12 o'clock in New York, right?

01:00:19 ◼   ► Like it just changes all of your task times for you.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Todoist is great because it asks.

01:00:26 ◼   ► the vast majority of task manager systems don't even ask.

01:00:31 ◼   ► They just assume that the time is relative to wherever you are.

01:00:36 ◼   ► So like if you set a reminder in Apple, say like, "Oh, remind me about a thing at 2 p.m."

01:00:40 ◼   ► and you get on a flight and change time zones in the meantime,

01:00:43 ◼   ► it'll remind you at 2 p.m. wherever you landed.

01:00:46 ◼   ► And it's the same thing with things.

01:00:47 ◼   ► Same thing with almost every single task manager I've ever used.

01:00:50 ◼   ► It's just OmniFocus has this one, this like weird feature.

01:00:54 ◼   ► And they do discuss in their article talking about how the dates are going to change that

01:00:58 ◼   ► currently there are five different times that are tracked with each task,

01:01:03 ◼   ► but the user only has access to two of them, and I'm wondering like, "What the heck are those other two? I don't understand!"

01:01:08 ◼   ► But so anyway, I am

01:01:11 ◼   ► deeply, deeply hoping that this is

01:01:15 ◼   ► addressed at OmniFocus, that you can set a task to be a floating task, that it does not have a time zone.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Again, not least because I'm still looking at this year where there's going to be a lot of travel ahead and

01:01:29 ◼   ► If this hasn't been addressed, I'm going to need to figure out

01:01:36 ◼   ► what is it that I'm going to do with my task management system.

01:01:40 ◼   ► But if it has been addressed, then I feel like almost certainly a couple months from now

01:01:46 ◼   ► I'll be telling you about like, oh, this system that I've set up in OmniFocus.

01:01:49 ◼   ► But in general though, OmniFocus, like, it looks really great, the road map and the things

01:01:54 ◼   ► that they're doing. I hope to God that they've fixed the time zone thing. They're doing a

01:01:59 ◼   ► really interesting idea with collaborations. I'm very curious to see where it goes, and

01:02:04 ◼   ► I think it's just a great piece of software. Although I think also a custom icon wouldn't

01:02:09 ◼   ► go astray.

01:02:10 ◼   ► MATT GAUNT (V.O.): Ah, custom icons, huh? How are those working for you?

01:02:14 ◼   ► Well, you know, Myke, I think the thing is a custom icon.

01:02:18 ◼   ► You need custom icons.

01:02:20 ◼   ► All apps should offer custom icon colors because

01:02:23 ◼   ► when you're trying to arrange a home screen, colors are very important.

01:02:28 ◼   ► You can't have too many of the same colors near each other.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Or if they're colors that you don't like, you don't want them on your home screen.

01:02:34 ◼   ► So custom icons, very important for home screen arrangement.

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01:05:09 ◼   ► You can't just mention it. Mention what?

01:05:12 ◼   ► You can't just throw home screen arrangement around as a phrase, you know. You have to

01:05:17 ◼   ► give it up. Let's see what you got. We have not exchanged our home screens since we moved

01:05:22 ◼   ► to the iPhone X. It feels like we do home screens every week,

01:05:27 ◼   ► Myke. We do this all the time. It's like once a year we do this.

01:05:31 ◼   ► [laughter]

01:05:33 ◼   ► And I want to see if the iPhone X has changed things for you.

01:05:37 ◼   ► I will mention that the wallpaper, the Cortex wallpaper that the wonderful designer Forgotten

01:05:45 ◼   ► Tail put together for us was painstakingly updated for the iPhone X.

01:05:52 ◼   ► I was helping him out with it and we were trying to get it to just work just right.

01:05:58 ◼   ► It has been painstakingly updated so it aligns properly.

01:06:02 ◼   ► So, you know, I know a lot of people like that wallpaper

01:06:05 ◼   ► and it's still available

01:06:06 ◼   ► and there is now a true black version.

01:06:08 ◼   ► - Ooh, nice, nice.

01:06:09 ◼   ► - On the OLED screens, it is black.

01:06:11 ◼   ► It's not blue or gray anymore.

01:06:14 ◼   ► So that's the thing that is available.

01:06:16 ◼   ► There are a couple of options

01:06:17 ◼   ► and that's still available for free

01:06:20 ◼   ► and I'll put a link in our show notes

01:06:22 ◼   ► if you wanna grab that, but it has been updated.

01:06:24 ◼   ► So if you have an iPhone 10,

01:06:26 ◼   ► then you may wanna check it out.

01:06:28 ◼   ► So, okay, let's exchange home screens here.

01:06:31 ◼   ► - Okay, Myke, I've shown you my home screen.

01:06:34 ◼   ► It's time for you to show me yours.

01:06:35 ◼   ► - Oh, you've done a whole big thing again.

01:06:37 ◼   ► Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

01:06:38 ◼   ► - I haven't done a whole big thing again.

01:06:41 ◼   ► I have not done a whole big thing again.

01:06:43 ◼   ► And what you have just sent me,

01:06:44 ◼   ► you have no right to talk about ugly.

01:06:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do.

01:06:48 ◼   ► This is terrible. - No, you don't.

01:06:49 ◼   ► - This is terrible. - Yours is terrible.

01:06:51 ◼   ► Yours is really, this is--

01:06:53 ◼   ► - No, no, no, no.

01:06:54 ◼   ► - Myke, I feel like we're starting all over again.

01:06:56 ◼   ► This is like the first time we exchanged home screens.

01:06:59 ◼   ► - My home screen looks like how people's home screens look.

01:07:03 ◼   ► It's a wallpaper and there's a bunch of apps.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Yours is like, oh, here's a grid of 12,

01:07:09 ◼   ► smack bang in the middle of the phone.

01:07:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, your home screen looks like

01:07:13 ◼   ► people's home screens look like,

01:07:14 ◼   ► which is what garbage looks like.

01:07:16 ◼   ► It's not a comparison.

01:07:17 ◼   ► You're like, oh, my screen looks like most people's

01:07:20 ◼   ► because I always peer over everybody's shoulders

01:07:22 ◼   ► to see what their home screens look like

01:07:24 ◼   ► and most people's home screens make me want to vomit.

01:07:26 ◼   ► And this is a very busy mic.

01:07:31 ◼   ► This is a real busy screen.

01:07:34 ◼   ► - It's just a full screen.

01:07:35 ◼   ► It's what should be in there, fill it up.

01:07:37 ◼   ► - It's very colorful.

01:07:39 ◼   ► - So this is a special members only Relay FM wallpaper

01:07:44 ◼   ► that I have.

01:07:45 ◼   ► So if you want to get that wallpaper,

01:07:47 ◼   ► you have to be a Relay FM member.

01:07:48 ◼   ► We have a whole pack of wallpapers

01:07:50 ◼   ► and this is one from the remaster podcast that I do.

01:07:53 ◼   ► and I love it very much, it's nice and bright.

01:07:55 ◼   ► I spent a lot of time trying to get it aligned.

01:07:57 ◼   ► It's not perfect, but it's as close as I can make it happen.

01:08:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, here's the thing.

01:08:03 ◼   ► I like the remaster artwork, retro video game thing, globe.

01:08:08 ◼   ► It's sort of tronny and also Epcot century.

01:08:12 ◼   ► The remaster artwork, one of the best artworks

01:08:15 ◼   ► on the whole of the relay network.

01:08:18 ◼   ► I don't like that you've just zoomed in on the central part so that it's just gross purple.

01:08:25 ◼   ► This is how the wallpaper is.

01:08:27 ◼   ► This isn't the artwork.

01:08:28 ◼   ► This is just the wallpaper.

01:08:29 ◼   ► This is just how it is.

01:08:31 ◼   ► No, you've chosen this and I'm not a fan.

01:08:36 ◼   ► Not a fan at all.

01:08:37 ◼   ► I think it's really ugly.

01:08:39 ◼   ► I never expected you to be a fan but I think that you are working with some grotesquerie

01:08:43 ◼   ► right now with this situation you've got going on.

01:08:47 ◼   ► Why is everything in the middle?

01:08:49 ◼   ► I don't understand.

01:08:51 ◼   ► Can I, before we get there, can I, can we just, we need to focus on you for a minute.

01:08:55 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:57 ◼   ► Okay, it's ugly, we can just get past that.

01:09:00 ◼   ► Sure, sure.

01:09:02 ◼   ► I mean, look, Myke, it's like you're trying to pick all of the colors in the world because you've also gone with a custom p-calc icon which has the rainbows around it.

01:09:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:11 ◼   ► You've chosen icons to make more colors all over the place.

01:09:15 ◼   ► A white color.

01:09:16 ◼   ► Yeah, again, it's clown vomit.

01:09:19 ◼   ► The only one you've actually gone the other way with is the bear icon.

01:09:22 ◼   ► You've chosen the black and white bear icon.

01:09:25 ◼   ► No, you don't choose the icons.

01:09:27 ◼   ► I choose the theme.

01:09:29 ◼   ► I wish they would separate those two things.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Yeah, seriously, bear developers, if you're listening, the fact that you have to choose

01:09:36 ◼   ► your theme and your icon at the same time and they have to match is crazy.

01:09:40 ◼   ► I want a big bright blue bear icon and the true black theme in the inside of the application.

01:09:47 ◼   ► That's what I want.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I have definitely moved back towards all color again.

01:09:53 ◼   ► I'm in an all color season for whatever reason.

01:09:56 ◼   ► It's the reason for the colored season.

01:09:58 ◼   ► That's where I am right now.

01:09:59 ◼   ► I can't explain why.

01:10:01 ◼   ► We're getting very wonka here.

01:10:03 ◼   ► Okay, it's the season for colors.

01:10:09 ◼   ► Why is it so full?

01:10:12 ◼   ► Why have you felt the need to use up every single space?

01:10:16 ◼   ► I'm a busy guy.

01:10:17 ◼   ► I've got a lot of things to think about.

01:10:19 ◼   ► I need access to stuff immediately.

01:10:21 ◼   ► It has to all be there.

01:10:23 ◼   ► I mean, there are a couple of applications that I don't necessarily need on the home

01:10:26 ◼   ► screen, but then it's going to throw out a whack balance-wise, right?

01:10:30 ◼   ► I have like maybe one or two that I would move away, but then…

01:10:33 ◼   ► Yeah, there's always a bit of balancing.

01:10:34 ◼   ► It's understandable.

01:10:35 ◼   ► couple in there in here that I probably don't need to be there but I look at my

01:10:41 ◼   ► home screen every now and then and I evaluate and there is nothing I would

01:10:44 ◼   ► take off that screen right now. Okay and we have covered many of these apps many

01:10:50 ◼   ► times but I also feel that this is there's a few on here that I have no

01:10:56 ◼   ► idea what these things are. What is Pipedrive? Oh Pipedrive is a sales

01:11:01 ◼   ► management CRM tool. That's my big grown-up adult application.

01:11:08 ◼   ► We've discussed that. My corporate sales app.

01:11:12 ◼   ► Right, with the mandatory lowercase letter logo. Okay, great. What is Anchor?

01:11:18 ◼   ► Okay, so Anchor is an audio social network. They are a sponsor on Relay FM and I've been playing

01:11:26 ◼   ► around with their application. Okay, all right. Does that make sense? That's for work?

01:11:30 ◼   ► it too much. But yeah, it's a cool app. I like it.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Okay. And Canary? I don't know Canary.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Canary is my home security system.

01:11:38 ◼   ► Oh, right. Okay.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Right. So that's the home security camera. Little Buster, we call him.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Right. That makes sense.

01:11:46 ◼   ► Yep. He busts the criminals. We call him Buster. That's his little name.

01:11:49 ◼   ► Right. Busting criminals all day.

01:11:51 ◼   ► He's crime busting. It's usually just me walking around though, honestly, at like 1.30

01:11:55 ◼   ► in the morning.

01:11:56 ◼   ► Busting you.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Got me again!

01:11:58 ◼   ► I see you're also a cool guy who's on not one, not two, but three test flights with

01:12:03 ◼   ► these apps.

01:12:04 ◼   ► What can I say?

01:12:05 ◼   ► See that?

01:12:06 ◼   ► See the Instagram one up there?

01:12:07 ◼   ► Look at me now.

01:12:08 ◼   ► I'm super fancy.

01:12:09 ◼   ► No, I know.

01:12:10 ◼   ► That's the thing.

01:12:11 ◼   ► It's like, "Ooh, you're on the Instagram test flight.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Isn't somebody fancy?"

01:12:13 ◼   ► I know.

01:12:14 ◼   ► What can I say?

01:12:15 ◼   ► These people just need my good opinions, you know?

01:12:18 ◼   ► Yeah, there you go.

01:12:19 ◼   ► They certainly don't need your good design opinions though, that's for sure.

01:12:23 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

01:12:24 ◼   ► Yeah, okay.

01:12:25 ◼   ► Yeah, they don't need that at all.

01:12:26 ◼   ► expanse of disgusting darkness with these weirdo icons.

01:12:33 ◼   ► I couldn't possibly look at this purple monstrosity all day.

01:12:36 ◼   ► Folders with one application in them and a bunch of dots.

01:12:40 ◼   ► I've been doing that for years!

01:12:41 ◼   ► And it never looks any better, Gray!

01:12:44 ◼   ► It doesn't get better all the time.

01:12:45 ◼   ► I look at my home screen and it's barely changed.

01:12:47 ◼   ► You have such a misbalance of color as well, like the three green applications and they're

01:12:54 ◼   ► They're all kind of spread out weirdly.

01:12:56 ◼   ► And then there's green in the maps icon.

01:12:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, no.

01:12:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll give you that.

01:12:59 ◼   ► The green is a thing that needs to be worked on.

01:13:02 ◼   ► But that is partly Bear's fault.

01:13:04 ◼   ► Like I can't choose the color bear icon that I want,

01:13:07 ◼   ► which has like knock-on effects.

01:13:08 ◼   ► So yeah, I agree.

01:13:10 ◼   ► This screen is not what I want the final version of it to be,

01:13:13 ◼   ► but I think it is clearly way better

01:13:16 ◼   ► than your disgusting home screen.

01:13:17 ◼   ► - I disagree.

01:13:18 ◼   ► What are you using Filmic Pro for?

01:13:20 ◼   ► - Okay, well, let me paint a word picture for the people, Myke.

01:13:24 ◼   ► so that the listeners can understand.

01:13:25 ◼   ► - No, no, 'cause you're gonna paint it nicely.

01:13:27 ◼   ► People need to just go to our show notes

01:13:28 ◼   ► and open this horrific image

01:13:31 ◼   ► that I've been put in front of my eyes

01:13:33 ◼   ► with just this weirdo square of applications

01:13:36 ◼   ► sitting in the middle of this screen.

01:13:37 ◼   ► It's such a waste, such a waste.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, so rather than junk up my home screen

01:13:44 ◼   ► and take every available slot,

01:13:46 ◼   ► like I'm some kind of app hoarder,

01:13:49 ◼   ► I have chosen instead to do a little bit

01:13:52 ◼   ► a 4x4 grid of apps on my phone. I don't need all of those slots occupied.

01:14:00 ◼   ► Space is a luxury, Myke, and so I have luxurious space on my phone.

01:14:05 ◼   ► How are you doing this, by the way? Well, what you're asking here is, I have the

01:14:11 ◼   ► grid centered on the phone because with the iPhone X and with the OLED screen, black backgrounds

01:14:21 ◼   ► just look fantastic. Like the black levels are great. It makes everything else pop.

01:14:26 ◼   ► And that's always a thing I've really liked about the backgrounds that I choose is trying to pick backgrounds that

01:14:32 ◼   ► highlight the applications that don't detract.

01:14:35 ◼   ► And I don't know if I'm going to stick with it indefinitely,

01:14:39 ◼   ► but I have been enjoying the pure black background as a novelty with iPhone X.

01:14:45 ◼   ► And because it's pure black,

01:14:50 ◼   ► It now allows me to use that trick where you can put fake icons above the actual apps.

01:15:00 ◼   ► So all I did was I made a fake icon in Workflow where it's just purely black color,

01:15:07 ◼   ► and then I added that to the home screen.

01:15:09 ◼   ► So there's four dummy apps with invisible names that are taking up the top row

01:15:15 ◼   ► top row just to move the grid down so that it's centered on the screen.

01:15:21 ◼   ► If you can have the invisible names, why do you have the dots there for the folders?

01:15:26 ◼   ► I have the dots there for the folders because I think it looks visually on, like, if I could,

01:15:34 ◼   ► if I could, I wish I could add an accessibility feature on iPhone called "Your app names are

01:15:42 ◼   ► dumb and I don't want to see them."

01:15:44 ◼   ► because they turned off the names of the apps in the dock.

01:15:47 ◼   ► I know it drives me crazy like again every time I see the the app names I

01:15:53 ◼   ► just I feel like those app names are there for idiots and it's like yeah

01:15:57 ◼   ► anyone who uses their phone any amount of time knows what the icons are. Nobody's

01:16:01 ◼   ► reading it and going like hmm where did my calendar go? No, music, photos, no, audio, whatever.

01:16:09 ◼   ► - Oh, that's camera. - Oh, there it is.

01:16:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it's so stupid.

01:16:13 ◼   ► It's so stupid and I hate it.

01:16:16 ◼   ► I hate it so much.

01:16:17 ◼   ► I've hated it since the dawn of the iPhone,

01:16:20 ◼   ► having the stupid words there.

01:16:21 ◼   ► - Especially when some of them don't fit

01:16:23 ◼   ► and they like do the little dot, dot, dot.

01:16:25 ◼   ► That is a problem of being on so many cool guy betas

01:16:27 ◼   ► is that sometimes the little--

01:16:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, you run out of space.

01:16:30 ◼   ► - The dot squishes the name up,

01:16:32 ◼   ► you know, so that can be a real problem.

01:16:34 ◼   ► - It is, but it really is.

01:16:36 ◼   ► It really is a real problem.

01:16:37 ◼   ► So while in theory you would think, oh, you hate these words,

01:16:42 ◼   ► so you wouldn't wanna have anything below the folders,

01:16:44 ◼   ► the four folders on the top,

01:16:45 ◼   ► I find that I tried it by putting invisible names

01:16:48 ◼   ► in those folders,

01:16:49 ◼   ► but then it just looks visually unbalanced

01:16:52 ◼   ► because all of the icons have something below them,

01:16:55 ◼   ► these stupid words.

01:16:56 ◼   ► So I feel like I need something below the folders,

01:17:00 ◼   ► otherwise it just looks like there's too much space

01:17:03 ◼   ► between the top row and the next row.

01:17:05 ◼   ► So I put the dots there

01:17:06 ◼   ► because I find them the least visually intrusive.

01:17:08 ◼   ► And that's why they're there,

01:17:09 ◼   ► it's just as visual balance,

01:17:11 ◼   ► but they don't have any real function.

01:17:13 ◼   ► - You ever tried emoji?

01:17:14 ◼   ► - I tried it once, but there's a problem that I don't,

01:17:20 ◼   ► I'm not a fan of the design of the Apple emojis.

01:17:22 ◼   ► I think they look dumb.

01:17:23 ◼   ► And I found them just more distracting

01:17:26 ◼   ► to have on the home screen.

01:17:28 ◼   ► There are places where I use emojis.

01:17:30 ◼   ► I actually do use emojis a lot

01:17:31 ◼   ► in my time tracking system with toggle

01:17:34 ◼   ► so that I can visually identify stuff faster than reading.

01:17:38 ◼   ► But it works there, but I don't like them on the home screen. I just don't like the look of them.

01:17:43 ◼   ► They're too 3D for my liking, and so that's why I don't have them there.

01:17:48 ◼   ► Even though I think that it would kind of make more sense to have an emoji that represents what each of these folders are,

01:17:54 ◼   ► but rather instead I'm trying to pick the one icon that you see in the folder to be representative of what that folder is.

01:18:03 ◼   ► That's kind of how I'm labeling these folders.

01:18:05 ◼   ► But yeah, so I have the top four folders,

01:18:08 ◼   ► which are there simply to act as categories

01:18:11 ◼   ► to sort all of the apps that I don't want on my home screen

01:18:16 ◼   ► into.

01:18:17 ◼   ► And so those categories are-- the first one

01:18:20 ◼   ► has the Settings app in there, and that

01:18:21 ◼   ► is the miscellaneous category.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Everything that doesn't fit anywhere else just goes in there.

01:18:28 ◼   ► The next one over has Carrot Weather,

01:18:30 ◼   ► And that contains all of the apps that are...

01:18:33 ◼   ► I don't know a good way to describe this, but in my head I think of them as location-based.

01:18:41 ◼   ► So they have something to do with where I currently am.

01:18:44 ◼   ► So these are like flight tracking apps, or ride sharing apps, or I put the wallet app

01:18:50 ◼   ► in there, or if a conference I'm going to has an app, like I put that app in there.

01:18:54 ◼   ► or food delivery services, or train ticket apps, like all of that kind of stuff is sort

01:19:00 ◼   ► of location based.

01:19:02 ◼   ► Do you ever do like a time sensitive promotion of an application to the front page of the

01:19:07 ◼   ► folder?

01:19:08 ◼   ► One of the reasons I like to have space is so that I can have that bottom row available

01:19:14 ◼   ► to put stuff down.

01:19:16 ◼   ► And normally when I'm traveling, there'll be two apps that will go in that bottom row

01:19:22 ◼   ► and it will usually be...

01:19:23 ◼   ► On the main screen.

01:19:24 ◼   ► On the main screen, yeah.

01:19:26 ◼   ► It'll usually be the flight tracker, and I'm still using flight logger as my main one for

01:19:31 ◼   ► that.

01:19:32 ◼   ► I gave-- I'll need a recommendation.

01:19:33 ◼   ► I did give App in the Air a try.

01:19:35 ◼   ► It's interesting, but I'm still sticking with flight logger as my main one.

01:19:39 ◼   ► It's pretty heavy-handed, but I do like it.

01:19:41 ◼   ► It is also definitely better than it used to be.

01:19:44 ◼   ► Like, if I had to use it, I wouldn't be upset.

01:19:46 ◼   ► But I'll put flight logger on that bottom row, and then the other thing I'll put in

01:19:52 ◼   ► in the bottom row, which is sort of silly, but I'll put the wallet app down there because

01:19:57 ◼   ► like if, I don't know, I find when I'm traveling I'm always real panicky about how long will

01:20:04 ◼   ► it take me to access whatever ticket I have in my Apple Wallet for whatever it is that

01:20:07 ◼   ► I need.

01:20:08 ◼   ► And so I have the wallet available everywhere.

01:20:11 ◼   ► Like I have it in the control center and then I'll put it on the home screen and then some

01:20:17 ◼   ► tickets but not all tickets, frustratingly, will show up as notifications on the lot.

01:20:21 ◼   ► I want every way to be able to open up that wallet immediately because I'm always just like real panicking when the guy comes over

01:20:28 ◼   ► It's like tickets, please. Like I don't know. Hold on a second. I'm the idiot with my phone, right? Yeah

01:20:32 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel that like there's a there's a train

01:20:35 ◼   ► Line in London called the Docklands light railway the DLR. Yep, and

01:20:39 ◼   ► unlike any other of the

01:20:42 ◼   ► Tube lines or the kind of TFO rail lines. There's no barriers for this train

01:20:49 ◼   ► You and there's no drivers for the train. There's no drivers

01:20:52 ◼   ► But there's a conductor

01:20:53 ◼   ► Or you could come up and down and check the tickets because instead of doing the barriers

01:20:57 ◼   ► Where like you have to have the barrier to press it to get through you kind of work on a system of I'm gonna

01:21:03 ◼   ► Touch my oyster card or my iPhone to the to the scanner and I'm gonna get on the train

01:21:08 ◼   ► So because they have that kind of honor system

01:21:11 ◼   ► they have a conductor periodically who may come and check and I feel like such a tool when I

01:21:16 ◼   ► double tap my watch and hold my wrist up for this person to scan my wrist to make sure that I touched

01:21:22 ◼   ► in on the pad correctly. I feel like such an idiot in those moments. I have to agree. While

01:21:29 ◼   ► a lot of the ticket stuff will show up on the watch, I feel socially reluctant to use the watch

01:21:35 ◼   ► as a ticket. Yeah, I never do it. It's just because it's Apple Pay and I use it on Apple Pay all the

01:21:41 ◼   ► time but for like tickets for planes and stuff I would honestly typically still

01:21:46 ◼   ► use the paper one if they give it to me but other than that I will always use my

01:21:51 ◼   ► phone I like a paper ticket just in case you're in such a high-pressure situation

01:21:57 ◼   ► right when you're in the airports it's like if they're gonna give me a paper

01:22:01 ◼   ► ticket I'll take it because I have a backup I don't print out the paper

01:22:04 ◼   ► tickets but I'll say this I have never regretted it when someone gives me a

01:22:09 ◼   ► a ticket. Like if a thing comes up and I need to go to the gate agent.

01:22:13 ◼   ► Yeah, never print it, but if they offer to give me it or they give me it at the

01:22:17 ◼   ► check-in desk, that's what I'll use for the rest of the time.

01:22:20 ◼   ► I will always take it, and there is one real disadvantage, which I think is a

01:22:24 ◼   ► real structural disadvantage in an airport, especially when lots of people

01:22:28 ◼   ► are using e-tickets, which I'm just aware of.

01:22:31 ◼   ► A huge proportion of people are using the tickets on their phone. Like that has

01:22:34 ◼   ► really skyrocketed in airports, and the big disadvantage is everyone

01:22:39 ◼   ► is real gentle with your phone and a lot of the scanners are built so that you just you have to

01:22:45 ◼   ► give the person your phone to scan in the ticket. Yeah. And there's this weird like people are

01:22:52 ◼   ► holding it just on the tops of like nobody wants to really grab anybody else's phone and I really

01:22:59 ◼   ► do think that that slows things down. So and but it's also why that's in many situations like using

01:23:06 ◼   ► the watch it's like oh come on you know I need to take your whole arm.

01:23:10 ◼   ► It's like you know twist your arm around and yeah it's never it's never gonna work but again I'm

01:23:15 ◼   ► always like I'm very nervous on the lines about having my iPhone ticket ready because I'm just

01:23:22 ◼   ► I don't want to be the person who's holding it up and every once in a while I've been like I've been

01:23:26 ◼   ► so anxious about having the ticket ready that I'm fiddling around with it so much that I'll like lock

01:23:30 ◼   ► the phone right before them and I'm like oh no right and now now here I am like now I'm that guy.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Then you become the British person.

01:23:37 ◼   ► Fumbling around, making little noises.

01:23:41 ◼   ► Yeah, it's terrible.

01:23:42 ◼   ► But so that's why I'll put the wallet in that bottom space, because any button,

01:23:47 ◼   ► no matter where I can be, to get to the wallet, to get to the ticket,

01:23:50 ◼   ► is what I want as fast as possible.

01:23:51 ◼   ► So that's the one folder.

01:23:54 ◼   ► The next folder over, which has the toggle timer in it,

01:23:57 ◼   ► that's representative of a bunch of apps that I just use for work stuff in one form or another.

01:24:02 ◼   ► Toggle app still kind of sucks, right?

01:24:05 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not great. And it's probably not very long-lived on my phone either,

01:24:11 ◼   ► because I can't trace it exactly, but somewhere in my system, something isn't ending timers correctly.

01:24:20 ◼   ► And so I end up with these weird, super long recorded times.

01:24:26 ◼   ► That problem in my system is me. I'm that problem. I woke up this morning to a 19-hour

01:24:34 ◼   ► invoicing timer. Yeah, see like I'm always I'm always firing off timers so I don't

01:24:40 ◼   ► have that problem but every once in a while there's some timer where it like

01:24:43 ◼   ► it weirdly thinks that even though I have launched 20 timers in the day there

01:24:47 ◼   ► was one timer from the morning that has also been going on all day long and I'm

01:24:52 ◼   ► I think it's the iOS app that's doing it but but either way I just I have it

01:24:56 ◼   ► there as a label that this is the folder for work stuff I don't use it a lot and

01:25:02 ◼   ► and I'm probably gonna take it off my phone relatively soon.

01:25:05 ◼   ► And then the next one over has the Apple Watch in it,

01:25:07 ◼   ► and then that just has a bunch of health-related apps

01:25:09 ◼   ► in there.

01:25:10 ◼   ► So I have those four folders on the top

01:25:13 ◼   ► for these sorting purposes, so it does make it easier

01:25:16 ◼   ► when I need to manually find an app,

01:25:18 ◼   ► I have an idea of where it probably is.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And also, frankly, it is, like you were saying

01:25:23 ◼   ► with filling up the slots on your phone,

01:25:26 ◼   ► that you do run into these balance problems

01:25:29 ◼   ► of I actually don't have a ton of apps

01:25:31 ◼   ► I really would want on the home screen.

01:25:33 ◼   ► There's lots of stuff that I'm happy to search for.

01:25:36 ◼   ► And so the four on the top is, again, a kind of visual balance thing.

01:25:41 ◼   ► I could get away with one folder, but one folder looked really ugly, and four is fine.

01:25:46 ◼   ► And I'm looking for more spaces on the home screen anyway, so I don't mind putting those four across there.

01:25:52 ◼   ► But yes, I will acknowledge that the color arrangement and exact location of some of these apps is not the best,

01:26:01 ◼   ► But this is partly coming off of the graycation and not having settled entirely on what the new phone will be.

01:26:08 ◼   ► That's partly why that the screenshot that I gave you is taken-- Filmic Pro is on there,

01:26:13 ◼   ► which is the camera that I can use for some vlogging stuff, because I was in a place where I was doing some

01:26:19 ◼   ► vlogging recording, but that's--

01:26:22 ◼   ► that's not an app that needs to live on the home screen under normal circumstances. So that's gonna go.

01:26:27 ◼   ► How many vlogs are you gonna record before you release one?

01:26:31 ◼   ► Just I vlog every day. I just never put them out

01:26:37 ◼   ► The question is Myke what is a vlog?

01:26:41 ◼   ► I can say that I have made several short vlogs that I've realized

01:26:48 ◼   ► Oh, this is boring as all hell and I just got rid of it

01:26:51 ◼   ► So like that that has happened a number of times. If a vlog falls in the woods and there's no one around

01:26:56 ◼   ► If a vlog is uploaded to YouTube and nobody likes it, did it exist?

01:26:59 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:27:00 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:27:01 ◼   ► But so anyway, Filmic Pro is gonna go off.

01:27:03 ◼   ► And then of course that has huge knock-on effects of everything else.

01:27:07 ◼   ► And also the arrangement of to-do tasks on the bottom row.

01:27:12 ◼   ► That is ultimately going to change.

01:27:13 ◼   ► But you just happen to be seeing it where it is right now.

01:27:18 ◼   ► Are there any other questions about this particular setup?

01:27:21 ◼   ► Evernote man, Evernote.

01:27:22 ◼   ► It's just never gonna go away, is it Evernote?

01:27:25 ◼   ► It's just there forever. I love it.

01:27:27 ◼   ► Here's the thing though.

01:27:28 ◼   ► This is actually-- it's been a long time since Evernote has been on the home screen of my phone.

01:27:34 ◼   ► And part of this was just accepting as part of the Year of Order, like,

01:27:42 ◼   ► "Evernote's just gonna be with you, man. It's just gonna be here. There's no way you're ever walking away from that."

01:27:47 ◼   ► Embrace it.

01:27:48 ◼   ► and I've put Evernote on the home screen specifically so that, and it's worked so far,

01:27:56 ◼   ► I engage in a particular behavior, which is I often have a thought for some video

01:28:02 ◼   ► and in the past I would open up a note and I would write it down

01:28:07 ◼   ► and then at some later point I would cycle that note into the appropriate place in Evernote

01:28:13 ◼   ► And I've decided like, just skip that step.

01:28:16 ◼   ► Why not just accept that Evernote's here, put it on the home screen,

01:28:19 ◼   ► and put the note right where it belongs immediately

01:28:23 ◼   ► and save yourself the effort later of sorting and categorizing it.

01:28:27 ◼   ► So that actually has worked pretty well, and I'm liking the way that is.

01:28:31 ◼   ► How is the Evernote app now?

01:28:32 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:28:33 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:28:35 ◼   ► I haven't used it in a very long time at this point.

01:28:39 ◼   ► Just because Apple Notes is, it gives me everything I need.

01:28:44 ◼   ► Like I don't need any more from it.

01:28:47 ◼   ► - Like on the phone, what I would say,

01:28:49 ◼   ► it's fine for putting stuff in,

01:28:52 ◼   ► it's fine for looking stuff up,

01:28:54 ◼   ► but if you're gonna do any organization,

01:28:56 ◼   ► you better be sitting at a computer

01:28:58 ◼   ► or you're gonna hate your life.

01:28:59 ◼   ► So if I need to do any serious Evernote reorganizing,

01:29:04 ◼   ► that'll happen on a computer,

01:29:06 ◼   ► that won't happen on the phone.

01:29:09 ◼   ► Apple maps use Apple maps? I have a very particular use for Apple maps.

01:29:13 ◼   ► This is going to sound, I'm pretty sure I've told you this before.

01:29:16 ◼   ► I'm not sure I've said it on the podcast, but um, well,

01:29:20 ◼   ► you know what's coming here. I have, um,

01:29:24 ◼   ► I've increasingly had a lot of problems with motion sickness and it's very

01:29:29 ◼   ► strange. But, uh, when I'm in a car, it's, it's very often like,

01:29:34 ◼   ► I can get motion sickness if I'm not looking out the windows or I'm not like,

01:29:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:40 ◼   ► I just, this is a sensitivity that has increased over time.

01:29:44 ◼   ► Do you just get it in cars?

01:29:45 ◼   ► Do you get it in planes?

01:29:46 ◼   ► Luckily, I have not gotten it in planes.

01:29:48 ◼   ► Oof, that would be bad.

01:29:50 ◼   ► I hope that that never happens to you.

01:29:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm a little worried just because I used to never get it in cars either, and now

01:29:56 ◼   ► I do.

01:29:57 ◼   ► And so I feel like, uh-oh, there's some dial of sensitivity that is getting turned up over

01:30:01 ◼   ► time.

01:30:02 ◼   ► But if I get motion sickness on planes, like, well, I guess I'm just going to restructure

01:30:05 ◼   ► an amazing portion of my life.

01:30:07 ◼   ► Like that's what's going to happen because I'm not going to put up with that.

01:30:09 ◼   ► Anyway, I have Apple Maps there because,

01:30:12 ◼   ► I mean, genuinely Apple Maps is,

01:30:14 ◼   ► it has reached the point where it's fine for day to day use.

01:30:17 ◼   ► But the thing that is surprisingly helpful

01:30:20 ◼   ► is if I'm in a car and I'm not driving,

01:30:24 ◼   ► I put the destination into Apple Maps and it does the haptic feedback on my wrist.

01:30:30 ◼   ► And it is really helpful to actually

01:30:34 ◼   ► have a little indicator of which way you're going to turn before you turn.

01:30:38 ◼   ► And so I find that is actually helpful with the car sickness.

01:30:44 ◼   ► Interesting. So it's pre-preparing your brain for the turns.

01:30:48 ◼   ► Yeah, like I will always leave the navigation on my phone,

01:30:53 ◼   ► but it's useful because if I don't want to look at the phone,

01:30:55 ◼   ► I can just get the haptic feedback on the watch.

01:30:58 ◼   ► And yeah, it's like my brain is ready for the turns.

01:31:02 ◼   ► And people always ask like, "Oh, but what happens if the person doesn't make the turn where Apple Maps thinks it should make the turn?"

01:31:06 ◼   ► It doesn't seem to matter. It just seems to know that like

01:31:10 ◼   ► anticipation of a turn may be upcoming is actually the only information that I really want.

01:31:15 ◼   ► And it helps. But I do have to say if you are doing any kind of actual

01:31:21 ◼   ► serious drive-- like if I'm in America and I am driving to a place that I don't know, I will almost always use Google Maps

01:31:28 ◼   ► instead for the actual driving directions. Like Google Maps is a serious, like you're doing a road trip in America

01:31:35 ◼   ► you're crazy not to use Google Maps.

01:31:37 ◼   ► Not least because they have some features like saving offline maps for when you get out of cell phone access.

01:31:42 ◼   ► Like they have a lot of really great features, but I'm not really using Apple Maps for my own navigation

01:31:48 ◼   ► 99% of the time. I'm using it as like

01:31:51 ◼   ► navigational awareness.

01:31:53 ◼   ► But it's there on the home screen because when it's needed, it's needed urgently, right?

01:31:57 ◼   ► Like it's like, there's no fussing.

01:31:58 ◼   ► It's good.

01:31:59 ◼   ► Yeah, there's no fussing.

01:32:00 ◼   ► And also I do use the maps often enough.

01:32:03 ◼   ► And like I said, it's fine.

01:32:04 ◼   ► It's fine for purpose, uh, when I'm looking for things.

01:32:07 ◼   ► So I just, I just leave it on the home screen there.

01:32:09 ◼   ► In London, Google maps is so much better than Apple maps.

01:32:13 ◼   ► Like the point of interest data is better.

01:32:15 ◼   ► They have like, what time is this place busy data?

01:32:18 ◼   ► It's it really is just excellent.

01:32:20 ◼   ► Oh yeah, no.

01:32:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:32:21 ◼   ► I mean, that is the thing.

01:32:22 ◼   ► If I want to know when a place is busy,

01:32:23 ◼   ► I always open up to Google Maps.

01:32:25 ◼   ► I want to go to a place when nobody's there.

01:32:27 ◼   ► Tell me Google Maps.

01:32:29 ◼   ► That is one of the best features.

01:32:31 ◼   ► I love that feature.

01:32:32 ◼   ► - And you're still using the start and stop timers

01:32:36 ◼   ► there in the bottom.

01:32:37 ◼   ► What is that one in the middle?

01:32:38 ◼   ► Is that open like a log of your toggle activities

01:32:41 ◼   ► or something?

01:32:42 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

01:32:42 ◼   ► So this is a little bit different.

01:32:43 ◼   ► This was part of my effort to increase

01:32:46 ◼   ► the amount of time captured.

01:32:49 ◼   ► I was trying to think about like,

01:32:49 ◼   ► what timer do I hit the most?

01:32:51 ◼   ► And I've set up a timer,

01:32:53 ◼   ► I mean this is months ago, but I set up a timer which is called loading,

01:32:57 ◼   ► which I think of as like the loading screen in a video game, you know, when you're transitioning from one area to another.

01:33:03 ◼   ► And I was realizing that there's a lot of my time in life which I can categorize as like loading screen behavior,

01:33:10 ◼   ► that I've finished activity one,

01:33:14 ◼   ► I've sort of, like, "Oh, I'm gonna go get a coffee now."

01:33:17 ◼   ► in that transition period of deciding what am I going to do next.

01:33:22 ◼   ► And so, I've mentally trained myself that

01:33:26 ◼   ► if I don't know what timer I'm going to hit for the next task,

01:33:31 ◼   ► I just automatically hit the loading timer.

01:33:34 ◼   ► And what that does is it stops whatever timer was previously running

01:33:38 ◼   ► and begins this just generic "you are in a transitional state" timer.

01:33:43 ◼   ► which I really like because it helps me cut down on that transitional state.

01:33:49 ◼   ► It helps cut down on not deciding what's going to happen next,

01:33:55 ◼   ► because again, I'm aware that there is this timer in existence.

01:33:57 ◼   ► So that is by far my most frequently hit single timer, is that one.

01:34:02 ◼   ► So I thought might as well put it right in the center on the home screen in a prominent location.

01:34:07 ◼   ► So that's what I hit most of the time.

01:34:08 ◼   ► Now Myke, I know you don't like the home screen,

01:34:12 ◼   ► But here's a question that I want to know what you think of.

01:34:15 ◼   ► Here is my lock screen.

01:34:18 ◼   ► Oh, look at that!

01:34:20 ◼   ► Surprising. Surprising that would even come up.

01:34:23 ◼   ► What is that, Myke?

01:34:24 ◼   ► Is that one of these dynamic wallpapers?

01:34:27 ◼   ► Yes! It is one of the dynamic wallpapers that Apple introduced years ago

01:34:33 ◼   ► and has never updated. Ever.

01:34:36 ◼   ► But it's just the blue little colour blobs.

01:34:40 ◼   ► And what do you, do you 3D touch on it and they move or something?

01:34:43 ◼   ► Or do they just move around on their own?

01:34:45 ◼   ► They move automatically.

01:34:46 ◼   ► So whenever I pick up the phone, the little blobs come into existence and they move around

01:34:50 ◼   ► with the way the phone moves.

01:34:52 ◼   ► And I always hated those animated wallpapers.

01:34:55 ◼   ► I didn't think they'd look great.

01:34:56 ◼   ► But I'll tell you again, with the black levels of the iPhone X, it looks gorgeous.

01:35:02 ◼   ► And I always just kind of like having a little bit of, a little bit of whimsy, a little bit

01:35:08 ◼   ► of difference when you switch devices. And so this is again a thing like I don't know

01:35:15 ◼   ► if I'm going to keep this, but I like it and it's fun for having the new device. But yeah,

01:35:22 ◼   ► I like it. I like it a lot. And I was just curious if this was going to get Myke approval

01:35:28 ◼   ► or disapproval.

01:35:32 ◼   ► I think that there are better options for what you're doing, but I like that there's

01:35:37 ◼   ► something going on. So like with the with the iPhone 10 they added a bunch of

01:35:42 ◼   ► these 3d touchable dynamic wallpapers like shifting sands shifting colored

01:35:48 ◼   ► sands and stuff like that they're pretty interesting I don't use them but they're

01:35:53 ◼   ► fun. Yeah but the problem is they require an action on your part. That's true. Like

01:35:59 ◼   ► you have to like oh I'm gonna now 3d press my lock screen to see a thing move

01:36:02 ◼   ► how many times you're gonna do that I like that this just happens automatically

01:36:06 ◼   ► that they just show up and they move around and they've made them very reactive to subtle

01:36:13 ◼   ► motions in the phone.

01:36:14 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I'm just trying it out now.

01:36:18 ◼   ► You move it around and it all goes wild.

01:36:20 ◼   ► I don't think I would like that.

01:36:21 ◼   ► I originally thought I was going to try it for this and the home screen and there is

01:36:26 ◼   ► a nice touch that when you unlock the phone and you swipe up, it'll keep the bubbles in

01:36:30 ◼   ► the same spot when you go to the home screen.

01:36:32 ◼   ► But turns out that I hate that.

01:36:36 ◼   ► I can't believe you even thought about it.

01:36:38 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I tried it for maybe a day and then I was like, "What am I doing? This is terrible."

01:36:43 ◼   ► You say mine's clown vomit. They're like clown trousers.

01:36:46 ◼   ► Yeah, it would be no good. There was also a multicolored one which I was trying for a while

01:36:50 ◼   ► and then I eventually settled on the blue as my personal favorite, so...

01:36:54 ◼   ► I like that. I think it's interesting to do and it looks great on the new phone for the lock screen.

01:37:00 ◼   ► But I have one more thing to show you but I just need to grab something from the other room so I'll be back in just a second.

01:37:05 ◼   ► [Music]

01:37:15 ◼   ► I was realizing that we've discussed home screens now for a while having done this show.

01:37:21 ◼   ► And I don't think I've mentioned one thing that I particularly like to do.

01:37:26 ◼   ► So I'm going to show you--I can't show it on my phone because I don't have it set up right now,

01:37:30 ◼   ► but I'm gonna show you how I set up my iPad

01:37:35 ◼   ► when I was on my winter graycation.

01:37:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:37:39 ◼   ► What are you laughing at, Myke?

01:37:42 ◼   ► Before you say anything, I want you to realize

01:37:49 ◼   ► that when I was on my graycation,

01:37:52 ◼   ► I did this on my iPad and on my phone

01:37:55 ◼   ► for the lock screen and the home screen.

01:37:57 ◼   ► It's a snowy landscape of a forest, but in this peculiar cartoon aesthetic.

01:38:08 ◼   ► It's just a flat design aesthetic of a little forest and some snow. I'm a big believer in

01:38:16 ◼   ► changing your home screen and your lot screen for when you're on a holiday. I think it helps

01:38:24 ◼   ► make the time psychologically different. So when I go on my

01:38:27 ◼   ► gradations or my corporate retreats, I often try to find a

01:38:30 ◼   ► nice a nice little wallpaper, which is not a wallpaper I

01:38:33 ◼   ► would use normally, but something that feels like it

01:38:36 ◼   ► fits thematically in wherever wherever I am. So I had this

01:38:40 ◼   ► beautiful wallpaper on my iPad and on my home screen for my

01:38:46 ◼   ► winter gradation time. And it was lovely. And I think it's a

01:38:49 ◼   ► thing that everybody should do. And they say you're a robot.