Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► So I've been away for a few weeks and I haven't been paying as much attention to the internet

00:00:05 ◼   ► as I have been previously. And then I'm sitting in Magor Office yesterday

00:00:11 ◼   ► and I get a push notification from YouTube that CGP Grey is live. It's like this is new!

00:00:18 ◼   ► So I open the YouTube app and there is this big screen with a chat window on the right hand side

00:00:26 ◼   ► and all these numbers and it says intermission. So I'm like what's this chat thing? So I go

00:00:32 ◼   ► up and I sign up for Discord and I appear in this chat room and then I'm entered into

00:00:38 ◼   ► the world of CGP Grey Gaming Live Streamer. What is going on? I feel like I've caught

00:00:47 ◼   ► you in the act. That's how it felt to me. It's like all of a sudden I go to CGP Play

00:00:54 ◼   ► which was set up a long time ago.

00:00:56 ◼   ► There's like six videos there.

00:00:58 ◼   ► They're all like two hours long.

00:01:00 ◼   ► You're talking about your levels and your frame rate.

00:01:03 ◼   ► I'm like, who is this person?

00:01:05 ◼   ► And I pop into the chat and then you started laughing

00:01:09 ◼   ► 'cause you knew I'd found you at that point.

00:01:11 ◼   ► You've been rumbled.

00:01:12 ◼   ► - You didn't find me.

00:01:14 ◼   ► I was just doing my own thing.

00:01:17 ◼   ► And you finally noticed, that's all.

00:01:21 ◼   ► All I will say is we have a very good working relationship, me and you, and we share things like this with each other when we're trying new stuff out.

00:01:29 ◼   ► You didn't tell me about this one. You just went off on your own and got your gaming software.

00:01:36 ◼   ► I don't like the implication there. First of all, Myke, there are many things that you don't know about.

00:01:41 ◼   ► I have a whole secret life of secret projects.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Well, I have secrets too, okay?

00:01:47 ◼   ► It's not a competition. It's not a secret competition, Myke.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Wait, if it's the secret competition we wouldn't even know about it, right?

00:01:54 ◼   ► Well, you know, I guess, I guess yeah, maybe not.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Um...

00:01:58 ◼   ► But yeah, I just, you know, I'm just trying something out, just playing around.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I'm just messing around on the internet, Myke.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Don't you worry.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Don't you worry.

00:02:08 ◼   ► I got my eye on you.

00:02:10 ◼   ► You're up to something.

00:02:11 ◼   ► I don't know what it is yet, but I know you're up to something.

00:02:14 ◼   ► I'm not up to anything.

00:02:16 ◼   ► I don't even know what I'm up to.

00:02:19 ◼   ► Happy episode 50, Gray.

00:02:21 ◼   ► It is our golden anniversary.

00:02:24 ◼   ► - Happy cortex-iversary.

00:02:26 ◼   ► - No, I think that cortex-iversary is held back

00:02:29 ◼   ► for birthdays of the show.

00:02:31 ◼   ► - What?

00:02:31 ◼   ► Oh, is that for birthdays for the show?

00:02:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:02:34 ◼   ► We fell into that a whole while ago.

00:02:36 ◼   ► I realized that we've actually used a name before,

00:02:38 ◼   ► but we can maybe call this a cortex-iversary too.

00:02:41 ◼   ► There can be many cortex-iversaries,

00:02:43 ◼   ► like how the queen has many birthdays,

00:02:44 ◼   ► we have many cortex-iversaries.

00:02:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just funny, she gets to cheat,

00:02:48 ◼   ► she has like three birthdays.

00:02:49 ◼   ► Like, wait a minute.

00:02:50 ◼   ► How did you wrangle that out?

00:02:51 ◼   ► The answer is, she's the queen.

00:02:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, if you can make up all the rules,

00:02:55 ◼   ► I'd have 10 birthdays.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Why not?

00:02:57 ◼   ► Bring me all the presents.

00:02:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:59 ◼   ► Give me a parade.

00:03:00 ◼   ► I want a parade.

00:03:01 ◼   ► - It's my birthday twice today.

00:03:02 ◼   ► You have to bring me two presents.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been

00:03:06 ◼   ► a parade for episode 50 of the show,

00:03:07 ◼   ► but like, you know, whatever.

00:03:09 ◼   ► People don't want to put that together, that's fine.

00:03:12 ◼   ► But here we are.

00:03:13 ◼   ► It's episode number 50.

00:03:15 ◼   ► And I mentioned this in our last episode,

00:03:17 ◼   ► that I wanted to take episode 50 as a time to look back on the show a little bit.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Yes.

00:03:23 ◼   ► We've been doing this for what, five years now?

00:03:27 ◼   ► I think it's something like that.

00:03:29 ◼   ► I actually genuinely don't have any idea how long we've been doing it.

00:03:31 ◼   ► It's about two years.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Wow.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Which I never quite remember that it's been that long.

00:03:39 ◼   ► Like it doesn't feel like it's been two years.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Yeah, that doesn't feel right at all in my head either.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Yeah, we started the show in June 2015, so we're rounding up on two years.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess that makes sense, right? Because last summer...

00:03:53 ◼   ► How do I phrase the way my brain is putting this together? I was going to say,

00:03:58 ◼   ► last summer existed and was not the nightmare summer of when we started Cortex.

00:04:04 ◼   ► Yep.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And we're coming up on a new summer. So yeah, I guess, yeah, that would make sense about two years.

00:04:10 ◼   ► About two years.

00:04:12 ◼   ► So over this time, I think we have imparted all the wisdom that we have, right?

00:04:17 ◼   ► We're out of wisdom, this is actually the last show.

00:04:19 ◼   ► No, don't say stuff like that! Because when you say things like-

00:04:23 ◼   ► Are we not supposed to tell the people that this is the last show?

00:04:25 ◼   ► Don't do that! Don't do it, it's not fair! You're being mean now to the listeners.

00:04:30 ◼   ► It's not fair to be that way.

00:04:33 ◼   ► You're under a different impression!

00:04:35 ◼   ► Oh, I thought we were doing a very different show today, Myke.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Sorry to say buddy, checking the contract, you're still going. You ain't getting away

00:04:43 ◼   ► from me yet.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Oh no, why did I sign this?

00:04:46 ◼   ► You ain't getting away from me yet, I've got you. We're going to be doing this for a long

00:04:50 ◼   ► time to come.

00:04:51 ◼   ► I'm going to send a message to my lawyer.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Well it's too late for that. It's too late for that. I've employed a vast team to make

00:04:57 ◼   ► sure that you're not going to get out of my clutches. But we are going to take some time

00:05:02 ◼   ► to look back at the show and a couple of things. I asked our listeners to provide us with some

00:05:08 ◼   ► sometimes where we said some stupid things.

00:05:10 ◼   ► And then also for people to tell us

00:05:12 ◼   ► what they've learned over the show.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Every now and then, I think you've said this,

00:05:15 ◼   ► you gotta review and summarize.

00:05:17 ◼   ► And this is a review and summary

00:05:19 ◼   ► of the last 50 episodes, I think.

00:05:21 ◼   ► I think we should start off with some

00:05:24 ◼   ► of the stupid stuff we said.

00:05:25 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:05:26 ◼   ► - So there's one for me and one for you here,

00:05:28 ◼   ► which I think are kind of hilarious.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Bernardo wrote in to remind me

00:05:33 ◼   ► that on episode one of the show, I said,

00:05:36 ◼   ► I have an iPad, I just don't use it ever.

00:05:38 ◼   ► The only thing I ever use it for is video.

00:05:40 ◼   ► And I remember, I have vivid memories

00:05:44 ◼   ► of recording episode one of the show.

00:05:46 ◼   ► - Oh, do you?

00:05:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I remember it vividly.

00:05:49 ◼   ► And I remember at that point,

00:05:51 ◼   ► I took a look to my right hand side

00:05:53 ◼   ► and my iPad was sitting there underneath a book.

00:05:56 ◼   ► So at that point, I really was not on the iPad train

00:06:04 ◼   ► in any way.

00:06:05 ◼   ► No, no.

00:06:06 ◼   ► - I think also like I listened to the clip

00:06:08 ◼   ► and you at that point really were not Eva.

00:06:11 ◼   ► Like you were using them more,

00:06:13 ◼   ► but like pretty much primarily for consumption

00:06:16 ◼   ► at that point.

00:06:17 ◼   ► - Is that how I described it at the time?

00:06:19 ◼   ► - Kind of like you talk about it being

00:06:21 ◼   ► like a great entertainment device.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - Hmm, I feel like we have to go back

00:06:26 ◼   ► and look at the record.

00:06:27 ◼   ► 'Cause I think maybe I was agreeing with you

00:06:29 ◼   ► that it's good as an entertainment device.

00:06:31 ◼   ► But I always wrote scripts on an iPad, like a lot.

00:06:35 ◼   ► - All I have is the words that you said,

00:06:38 ◼   ► and luckily there is a record.

00:06:39 ◼   ► And I said this wouldn't be a clip show,

00:06:41 ◼   ► but now we're only five minutes in

00:06:43 ◼   ► and I'm gonna play a clip.

00:06:44 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:06:45 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:06:46 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:06:48 ◼   ► - Is it fair to say maybe your iPhone

00:06:50 ◼   ► is the most important of the two?

00:06:52 ◼   ► - Ooh, that's a hard, if I had to pick between the two,

00:06:54 ◼   ► if I could only have one, that's a difficult question.

00:06:57 ◼   ► I'd have to sit down and think about that for a while.

00:07:00 ◼   ► that's not immediately answerable.

00:07:02 ◼   ► - Wow, that's surprising to me.

00:07:03 ◼   ► I guess that shows a difference in the way

00:07:04 ◼   ► that me and you work.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Like I don't even use an iPad.

00:07:07 ◼   ► I have one and I just don't use it ever.

00:07:08 ◼   ► - Right.

00:07:10 ◼   ► - Because my iPhone is like,

00:07:12 ◼   ► that's like the most important device that I own, I think.

00:07:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's closer for me.

00:07:19 ◼   ► My iPads do not live unloved on the floor

00:07:22 ◼   ► somewhere in my house as presumably yours does.

00:07:25 ◼   ► - It's like somewhere.

00:07:26 ◼   ► If I ever need it, I always have to search for it.

00:07:29 ◼   ► It's never in a place that's immediately obvious.

00:07:32 ◼   ► Like the only thing I ever, ever use it for

00:07:34 ◼   ► is to watch video on.

00:07:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're very good for browsing stuff.

00:07:38 ◼   ► (gentle music)

00:07:41 ◼   ► I feel like using an iPad for writing

00:07:45 ◼   ► was always the thing that attracted me

00:07:46 ◼   ► at the very first of the iPad.

00:07:47 ◼   ► Like that's the whole reason I bought an iPad,

00:07:49 ◼   ► was I remember looking at my wife's iPad,

00:07:51 ◼   ► which I originally thought was like,

00:07:52 ◼   ► oh, this will just be a thing used for video.

00:07:54 ◼   ► And then I saw her using it, I was like,

00:07:55 ◼   ► ooh, that looks really interesting.

00:07:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:07:59 ◼   ► And I think I might start using this

00:08:01 ◼   ► since I was borrowing hers all the time back in the day.

00:08:04 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, no matter what I said in the clip

00:08:07 ◼   ► the mic just played, without a doubt,

00:08:10 ◼   ► the iPads were way closer to toys two years ago

00:08:16 ◼   ► than they are now.

00:08:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, even if you were doing a bunch of writing

00:08:20 ◼   ► on them then, and I've been through phases

00:08:22 ◼   ► of whether they were useful for me

00:08:24 ◼   ► from a productivity perspective or not

00:08:26 ◼   ► over the last seven years that iPads have been around.

00:08:29 ◼   ► But I wasn't in the place with them ever than what I am now

00:08:34 ◼   ► and I think it was the same for you, right?

00:08:35 ◼   ► Where if somebody asks you what is your primary computer,

00:08:39 ◼   ► we would both say iPad, but we weren't in that point then.

00:08:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, that just wasn't really possible previously

00:08:45 ◼   ► because of software limitations

00:08:46 ◼   ► and because of hardware limitations.

00:08:48 ◼   ► And yeah, I think both of us have come to the conclusion

00:08:51 ◼   ► that we think of our iMacs now as production machines.

00:08:56 ◼   ► - Workstations.

00:08:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, like yeah, workstations to be set up

00:09:02 ◼   ► with particular tools for particular purposes

00:09:05 ◼   ► and that our iPads have taken over the role

00:09:08 ◼   ► as general function computer, right?

00:09:11 ◼   ► Like the device that can do a bunch of stuff.

00:09:13 ◼   ► - That was definitely one of the really interesting things

00:09:15 ◼   ► that I noticed by looking over the arc of the show notes.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Basically, a couple of weeks after we started the show,

00:09:21 ◼   ► IOS 9 was released. Well, like, you know, it was previewed at WWDC. Oh, wow. Okay, interesting.

00:09:27 ◼   ► And then that starts everything, right? Because it was IOS 9 that enabled people to be able

00:09:32 ◼   ► to use IOS more productively on an iPad. And then it kind of moves on from there, all the

00:09:36 ◼   ► way up to the point where I buy one iPad on a whim and then the second one just because.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Yes, yes. This could go from having one iPad under a book to two iPads in constant use.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Yep, multi-pad lifestyle.

00:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah, it's important.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Richard wrote in to say that on episode 4, you said, "There's no point for anyone in the world to have two Apple Watches."

00:10:02 ◼   ► Okay, I feel the need to contest this. You're probably going to have to play another clip.

00:10:12 ◼   ► We're going really far in our no-clip show.

00:10:15 ◼   ► Right, yeah. This is not a clip show, but...

00:10:17 ◼   ► Except...

00:10:18 ◼   ► Except, well, uh...

00:10:19 ◼   ► I feel at such a disadvantage because I feel like I'm going to be arguing...

00:10:22 ◼   ► I'm arguing without hearing what I said back in the day.

00:10:25 ◼   ► But I am... because I am willing to bet that what I was discussing was in the context of the limitations of the Apple Watch at the time.

00:10:34 ◼   ► Because if you remember when the Apple Watch first came out, there was no way to have more than one Apple Watch paired to a phone.

00:10:41 ◼   ► paired to a phone.

00:10:42 ◼   ► You can't make the argument that like,

00:10:44 ◼   ► "I said something because I didn't know the future."

00:10:46 ◼   ► That's not how this works.

00:10:48 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:10:49 ◼   ► Right? Like, that's not how it works.

00:10:50 ◼   ► All I'm saying is, if the context of this is

00:10:53 ◼   ► "We say stupid stuff,"

00:10:55 ◼   ► I think the full context of that quote is not dumb.

00:10:58 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, given the limitations at the time,

00:11:00 ◼   ► it would have been dumb to have two watches."

00:11:01 ◼   ► Yeah, but then mine's fine too,

00:11:03 ◼   ► because back then, the iPad really was really good for video and not much else.

00:11:07 ◼   ► I think I was making that argument for you earlier.

00:11:09 ◼   ► It's not that like me and you are categorically stupid. It's that given what we know now with hindsight these things are funny

00:11:16 ◼   ► That's what this is. I don't know. I feel like I feel like well

00:11:20 ◼   ► Let's listen to decide when they listen to that clip

00:11:22 ◼   ► But I bet there is some context about given the limitations of the device at the time

00:11:26 ◼   ► It would be dumb to have more than one watch now. It's obviously great to have two watches. Yeah, I guess maybe even three

00:11:34 ◼   ► You don't do you know I don't know I don't I don't know but it has crossed my mind like oh I could imagine a

00:11:40 ◼   ► Situation where three would be really useful why not for huh?

00:11:42 ◼   ► Well now four is crazy. There's no reason in the world for anyone

00:11:46 ◼   ► Episode 75

00:11:56 ◼   ► In episode 50 I think my contract ends at episode 74 Dustin. I just don't do this to people you know

00:12:03 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:12:05 ◼   ► [music]

00:12:07 ◼   ► You have to unpair the watch

00:12:09 ◼   ► and like go re-go through a kind of

00:12:11 ◼   ► load from backup

00:12:13 ◼   ► irritating semi-setup process

00:12:15 ◼   ► for switching over the watches

00:12:17 ◼   ► so even

00:12:19 ◼   ► if you wanted to be a crazy person

00:12:21 ◼   ► who had redundant watches, which I think

00:12:23 ◼   ► is a little bizarre

00:12:25 ◼   ► Apple is saying no

00:12:27 ◼   ► on this one. They're putting down their foot

00:12:29 ◼   ► and going "you can't have redundant watches"

00:12:31 ◼   ► I don't know if you can start throwing the bizarre tag around.

00:12:34 ◼   ► You do have like three iPads in use.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Yes, but there are uses for all those iPads.

00:12:39 ◼   ► Yeah, but there will be a use for the two watches.

00:12:41 ◼   ► One to track your sleep.

00:12:43 ◼   ► One to go about your day with.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Okay, but even if you could pair two watches,

00:12:50 ◼   ► this whole notion of using the watch to track your sleep as a redundant one,

00:12:54 ◼   ► that wouldn't work anyway. The watch isn't designed for that.

00:12:57 ◼   ► And I don't think this sleep tracking with the current state of it would even work overnight anyway.

00:13:02 ◼   ► So there is no point in the world to having two Apple watches.

00:13:08 ◼   ► This is a solution for nobody's problem.

00:13:12 ◼   ► This accomplishes nothing.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Whereas there are many cases of more than one iPad being useful.

00:13:23 ◼   ► There was also a time when you said no more than 10 episodes, so, you know, I'll look at you.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Overworked.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - D'oh. - Overworked like a beast of burden.

00:13:33 ◼   ► - Uh-huh. - That's what I am, Myke.

00:13:35 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm. - Just a slave producing content.

00:13:37 ◼   ► An endless stream of content.

00:13:39 ◼   ► That's my life.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Is that...

00:13:41 ◼   ► Is that what you do?

00:13:43 ◼   ► - Huh? An endless stream? - That's what it feels like, yeah.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - I don't... No. - That is, that is, that's what I feel like.

00:13:46 ◼   ► I feel like CGP Grey.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Production of an endless stream of content.

00:13:49 ◼   ► It never ends, from my perspective.

00:13:51 ◼   ► Well if you keep adding things to it that is true.

00:13:55 ◼   ► Yeah that's that's what I'm saying that's what I'm saying.

00:13:57 ◼   ► You don't have yourself to blame.

00:13:58 ◼   ► It's just like a waterfall of content.

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00:16:10 ◼   ► If you don't love it, they'll pick it up and refund you everything.

00:16:13 ◼   ► You can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by going to casper.com/cortex and using the code CORTEX.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Terms and conditions apply. Thank you so much to Casper for their support of this show.

00:16:23 ◼   ► show. One of my favorite things about the follow-up that we get from this show is

00:16:27 ◼   ► when people write in to say that something that we've spoken about has

00:16:31 ◼   ► made a big impact in their life and it's kind of like the reverse of care techs

00:16:36 ◼   ► which is a thing that we try and do every now and then and I continue to

00:16:39 ◼   ► encourage people to send things like this into us like questions you know

00:16:43 ◼   ► where they maybe need some advice from us if they think we're in a position be

00:16:46 ◼   ► able to help but the other side of it is when people write in and say how things

00:16:50 ◼   ► that we've spoken about on the show have just helped them. And I wanted to cover a few of

00:16:54 ◼   ► those as well as just some people that have made some interesting changes that are like

00:16:58 ◼   ► having listened to the show. Erebus66 on Reddit wrote in to say of a few things that they

00:17:04 ◼   ► have done since listening to Cortex and I feel like that they, more than anybody, encapsulated

00:17:09 ◼   ► the whole run of the show into their life. So this person says, "Now I listen to thunderstorm

00:17:15 ◼   ► sounds throughout my whole day because it occupies the part of my mind that can't stand

00:17:18 ◼   ► and silence but still lets me think.

00:17:20 ◼   ► - Oh, fantastic.

00:17:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, they got it.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Except when I'm at the gym when it's Girl Talks all day.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Which is quite possibly the best motivational album

00:17:29 ◼   ► ever created.

00:17:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't listen to that at the gym

00:17:32 ◼   ► but that could make for some really good gym music.

00:17:34 ◼   ► - Oh, it's good at the gym.

00:17:35 ◼   ► It is good at the gym.

00:17:36 ◼   ► You should do that.

00:17:37 ◼   ► But then you might start writing accidentally

00:17:39 ◼   ► and then who knows what's gonna happen.

00:17:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, the whole point of this

00:17:42 ◼   ► is you have to train your brain for different contexts.

00:17:44 ◼   ► So it can't be gym music because it's work music.

00:17:47 ◼   ► BillTalk has more than one album.

00:17:49 ◼   ► No, there's only one album that exists and that is All Day.

00:17:52 ◼   ► Interesting. They go on to say, "I've got GTD systems on every device and my email inbox

00:17:57 ◼   ► is always at zero." Now, I'll say they didn't learn that from us because...

00:18:00 ◼   ► I was going to say, you're doing way better than me on that one.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Yeah, you've definitely passed us in the getting your inbox to zero thing. "I now have personal

00:18:10 ◼   ► finance trackers that I've built in Excel because no app would do what I needed."

00:18:14 ◼   ► I understand that.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I know. They can forecast my spending and savings 12 months into the future. I want

00:18:20 ◼   ► these. Spreadsheets. Personally.

00:18:22 ◼   ► It sounds like this person has built an unintentional business. You can start selling these spreadsheets.

00:18:30 ◼   ► My smartwatch notifies me when to do my laundry and charge my toothbrush and even go to sleep

00:18:34 ◼   ► because it's in my calendar, stored on my ever-muted phone.

00:18:39 ◼   ► Since I started listening to Cortex about 18 months ago, I don't feel like I have intentionally

00:18:43 ◼   ► changed anything dramatically. I feel more like the things that I have learned and drip-fed

00:18:47 ◼   ► into my daily life and routines have just allowed me to be more myself, allowing me

00:18:51 ◼   ► to see a future horizon in all the different directions of my life."

00:18:55 ◼   ► I like this paragraph because I think this sums up me. I haven't really tried to make

00:19:02 ◼   ► any big changes specifically because of what I've learned over this show, and later on

00:19:08 ◼   ► in the show I'm going to say what I feel like I have learned and how I have changed. But

00:19:12 ◼   ► But most of the things that I've done, they've just happened because of us talking about

00:19:18 ◼   ► this stuff.

00:19:19 ◼   ► I don't think there are many things, if any, that I did as like this big experiment with

00:19:23 ◼   ► maybe the exception of time tracking.

00:19:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:26 ◼   ► No, I totally agree with you.

00:19:29 ◼   ► And I like this comment as well.

00:19:30 ◼   ► It's funny, I was actually just talking to my wife about this the other day, about how

00:19:36 ◼   ► It is rare that there's a big conscious thing that changes your life for the better.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Like those events happen, but most of your life is about constantly making small little changes over time.

00:19:52 ◼   ► And then it's only like when you look back you realize like, "Oh, I've changed over the past year, I've changed twelve things."

00:19:58 ◼   ► Each of which has had a positive influence on the way that I live or the way that I work.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And like that kind of slow, small, even sort of like semi unintentional positive changes,

00:20:15 ◼   ► those are the things that really make daily life more frictionless and really add up.

00:20:23 ◼   ► At home I am a better, more relaxed and more available person to the people I care about than I was before.

00:20:29 ◼   ► At work I can tell you that I have spent exactly 45 hours, 48 minutes and 37 seconds on my

00:20:35 ◼   ► current web development project.

00:20:38 ◼   ► Outside of work I'm meeting with an app developer tomorrow to start work on a side project.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Oh exciting!

00:20:43 ◼   ► Side projects are always exciting.

00:20:44 ◼   ► I would love to know, because this person wrote into us a while ago and I've been saving

00:20:48 ◼   ► it, I would love some follow up, Erebus66, how is that side project going?

00:20:54 ◼   ► I'd love to know.

00:20:57 ◼   ► And Anna1642 and Matt have both switched to using the Dvorak keyboard as their primary

00:21:03 ◼   ► keyboard.

00:21:04 ◼   ► I would say that Anna1642 and Matt, godspeed to you, but I think that you're both very

00:21:11 ◼   ► brave for doing this.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I'm going to get you to switch to Dvorak, Myke.

00:21:15 ◼   ► That's something I'm telling you will not happen.

00:21:17 ◼   ► It's going to be really easy, especially when you're using an iPad all the time.

00:21:21 ◼   ► That Dvorak is going to be super easy to switch to.

00:21:23 ◼   ► That hasn't changed.

00:21:24 ◼   ► There's nothing still that can do that for you?

00:21:26 ◼   ► No.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Apple developers, if you're listening, I'm just gonna throw it out there.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Dvorak layout.

00:21:32 ◼   ► What about Bluetooth keyboard?

00:21:34 ◼   ► Do you use a Dvorak Bluetooth keyboard for your iPad?

00:21:36 ◼   ► Yeah, luckily that is a setting that has been in there for forever, that when you're using

00:21:41 ◼   ► an external keyboard you can set it to be Dvorak.

00:21:44 ◼   ► But it's just the annoying thing is I would use the glass keyboard more if I could use

00:21:50 ◼   ► that as a Dvorak layout, but I just can't, so I always have to type really weirdly and

00:21:54 ◼   ► slowly that way. But yeah, those brave souls who have switched to Dvorak, I wish you the

00:22:01 ◼   ► best. I do really like it, like it has personally benefited me, but I can't exactly feel like

00:22:09 ◼   ► I'm a huge evangelist about this because it is like having a lobotomy when you first try

00:22:15 ◼   ► to switch. It's like you've just lost part of your brain.

00:22:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm not interested in the switching costs for that one, I'll tell you that for

00:22:22 ◼   ► free.

00:22:23 ◼   ► >> MARTIN Yeah, and there are annoyances forever when you switch to Dvorak.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Again, worth it for me.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I've never had RSI problems in my hands with regards to typing since I made the switch,

00:22:35 ◼   ► which I did have before, which is again a thing I'll just mention for anybody who's

00:22:39 ◼   ► having that.

00:22:41 ◼   ► This might be a very good reason to switch to Dvorak, and I congratulate those who have

00:22:45 ◼   ► come to the Dvorak master race.

00:22:48 ◼   ► But there are always--

00:22:49 ◼   ► No, you can't just attach Master Race to anything that you think is better.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Because then you're going to get the PC Master Race on your case.

00:22:56 ◼   ► You know, unluckily for them, they're the inferior race. They just don't know it.

00:23:00 ◼   ► Well, I don't know man. Your iMac frame rate would maybe suggest differently.

00:23:05 ◼   ► I just haven't gotten the settings right yet.

00:23:08 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Good, good, good.

00:23:10 ◼   ► I'm still working on that.

00:23:11 ◼   ► It is funny to hear you say on your gaming live streams about having a top of the line iMac.

00:23:16 ◼   ► And then everybody just laughs at you.

00:23:18 ◼   ► We can come to that later.

00:23:20 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:23:22 ◼   ► Oh yes. Joshua started his own company.

00:23:25 ◼   ► Oh wow.

00:23:26 ◼   ► Which is kind of incredible. Congratulations to you.

00:23:29 ◼   ► Alex started using a task manager, sleep tracker, and a time management system.

00:23:34 ◼   ► And Rosemarie has joined Alex in using time tracking and overhauled their to-do system.

00:23:40 ◼   ► I like all this feedback. One thing I think I have found interesting from our more recent shows is

00:23:45 ◼   ► is how the time tracking sections

00:23:49 ◼   ► feel like they're the divisive sections.

00:23:51 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Like people are either

00:23:53 ◼   ► super into the time tracking.

00:23:55 ◼   ► - Or they just do not like it.

00:23:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, or feel like they're going to die

00:23:58 ◼   ► listening to people talk about time tracking.

00:24:01 ◼   ► Like I find that very interesting.

00:24:04 ◼   ► - Yep. - That there's like,

00:24:06 ◼   ► of almost any topic I feel like there's no topic

00:24:09 ◼   ► that has a stronger

00:24:12 ◼   ► disagreement in the audience. - Of everything we have done.

00:24:15 ◼   ► I mean, so like people will fight over Android and iOS

00:24:20 ◼   ► and stuff like that,

00:24:21 ◼   ► but they're not necessarily fighting against us.

00:24:24 ◼   ► They did over time tracking.

00:24:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, whereas it's like,

00:24:27 ◼   ► I've definitely been on the receiving end of like,

00:24:29 ◼   ► please tell me more of the exact details

00:24:31 ◼   ► of your time tracking system.

00:24:32 ◼   ► And also for the love of God,

00:24:35 ◼   ► never talk about time tracking again.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like getting my teeth pulled, I can't stand it.

00:24:40 ◼   ► I guess there's something about that I find really, really interesting.

00:24:45 ◼   ► And that actually does make me want to evangelize even more the benefits of time tracking to

00:24:51 ◼   ► everybody.

00:24:52 ◼   ► I feel like, no, people who are anti-time tracking, you just don't understand how life

00:24:57 ◼   ► changing and how fantastic this can be.

00:25:01 ◼   ► It really is.

00:25:02 ◼   ► It's changed everything.

00:25:03 ◼   ► We're not going to get into it now because we don't want to start the divisiveness.

00:25:07 ◼   ► But like I have to say, you know, I mean people know we started talking about time tracking a lot in the beginning of the year

00:25:12 ◼   ► because I was trying to do this thing of

00:25:14 ◼   ► time tracking lots of hours in the day and I've got to say like I can feel like this is

00:25:19 ◼   ► This is a thing that makes a huge difference

00:25:21 ◼   ► And if you are if you are an anti time tracking person, I'm like, I'm gonna say it again

00:25:26 ◼   ► Like just start small like just just track your prime

00:25:31 ◼   ► Working hours. It's like a little gateway drug to seeing how

00:25:35 ◼   ► useful and helpful this is.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Alright, I think I've got to pull the ripcord on this before everyone turns off.

00:25:43 ◼   ► We will come back to time tracking again one day, but we will give a lot of notice so people

00:25:48 ◼   ► can just skip it if they're not interested.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Yeah, but I do just find it interesting.

00:25:52 ◼   ► So divisive.

00:25:53 ◼   ► I tested Adina, right?

00:25:55 ◼   ► Because when we were getting the feedback from people saying they weren't enjoying it,

00:25:58 ◼   ► I asked her, I was like, "What did we talk about in the episode?"

00:26:01 ◼   ► And she didn't know.

00:26:03 ◼   ► couldn't answer when we were talking about time tracking. So I found out that she switches

00:26:07 ◼   ► off to that too.

00:26:09 ◼   ► This time tracking doesn't look like anything to me.

00:26:12 ◼   ► So don't worry listener, if you were unhappy about our time tracking conversations, people

00:26:16 ◼   ► in my own house were as well, so you're not alone. I will ask you though, because there

00:26:22 ◼   ► were many people that brought up their productivity management, has there been any movement on

00:26:27 ◼   ► your productivity management? Are you using any type of to-do app anymore or are you still

00:26:32 ◼   ► living like a man on the wind. Is that why you're driving trucks more? Because you don't

00:26:36 ◼   ► know what your tasks are? No, no, it's a free lifestyle being a trucker on the road. You

00:26:41 ◼   ► don't have to keep track of tasks. There's only ever one thing. Just your fuel and the

00:26:45 ◼   ► delivery, right? That's all it takes. Yeah, it's like, "Where am I bringing this truck

00:26:48 ◼   ► full of Lego to? Oh, I'm bringing it over there." Man, I haven't played Truck Sim in

00:26:52 ◼   ► a while. I'm getting that pull now we're talking about. Yeah, you miss it, you miss it, don't

00:26:56 ◼   ► you? I'm gonna go back to trucking. Yeah, I know you're going to. But to answer the

00:27:01 ◼   ► question what I what I have been doing is I was living just totally unhinged

00:27:08 ◼   ► for a while and I have very very special she's great totally unhinged I have very

00:27:21 ◼   ► slowly been bringing some stuff mindfully back into OmniFocus so I

00:27:28 ◼   ► So I actually cleared out the whole of my OmniFocus database.

00:27:32 ◼   ► Wow.

00:27:33 ◼   ► Which is just to start over fresh.

00:27:34 ◼   ► Wow, you burned it down, huh?

00:27:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I did.

00:27:37 ◼   ► I did.

00:27:37 ◼   ► I totally burned it down because it was, again, a thing of like,

00:27:42 ◼   ► I want to think about how am I going to use this.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And I still don't have a full system set up in a meaningful way.

00:27:52 ◼   ► But I am using OmniFocus to, again, do all the templating stuff

00:27:57 ◼   ► that we've discussed previously that they can do for a bunch of checklists.

00:28:01 ◼   ► So I have returned to using OmniFocus for those checklists

00:28:05 ◼   ► but I'm using it less than I did before, but again this is

00:28:09 ◼   ► an intentional, slow rethinking of how do I want

00:28:13 ◼   ► to use some of these tools. So there is a system, but not a full system yet.

00:28:17 ◼   ► So this is just a selection of the people that wrote in to

00:28:21 ◼   ► say that they're using these systems to do management, time tracking,

00:28:25 ◼   ► Sleep tracking, stuff like that.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Not one person wrote in to say about

00:28:31 ◼   ► their email habits changing.

00:28:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:35 ◼   ► That no one wrote in to talk about

00:28:36 ◼   ► the email apps that they're using.

00:28:38 ◼   ► Nobody wrote in to talk about like

00:28:40 ◼   ► adopting your VIP system, nobody.

00:28:44 ◼   ► We spent so much time on email,

00:28:45 ◼   ► that should have been the divisive topic,

00:28:47 ◼   ► but it was not.

00:28:48 ◼   ► But nobody wrote in to say anything about their email habits.

00:28:52 ◼   ► - I guess it's because people's email,

00:28:54 ◼   ► They've all got it locked down.

00:28:56 ◼   ► Everybody's perfectly happy with their email clients.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Everybody's doing great.

00:29:00 ◼   ► I'm using airmail still by the way in case anybody's keeping score.

00:29:05 ◼   ► I'm back to mail.app.

00:29:06 ◼   ► Oh, again?

00:29:07 ◼   ► Because unibox, it updated the week before I mentioned it on the show and it never updated

00:29:13 ◼   ► again.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:29:15 ◼   ► I think it's dead.

00:29:16 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:29:17 ◼   ► It was like...

00:29:18 ◼   ► Not another one?

00:29:19 ◼   ► Yeah, it was like mentioning it on the show, like oh it was the kiss of death.

00:29:24 ◼   ► We need to stop talking about things we like, you know that right?

00:29:26 ◼   ► Yeah, we gotta keep it secret.

00:29:28 ◼   ► Asa was convinced to buy an iPad Pro.

00:29:31 ◼   ► Said that it's basically a monster Reddit email, Netflix and YouTube device.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Which I can get behind, you know I like to do my work but I also love to watch YouTube on it.

00:29:40 ◼   ► You know, how else will I watch Grey Drive Across America on my iPad? That's where I do it.

00:29:47 ◼   ► Yeah, that's big enough you can see the chat.

00:29:49 ◼   ► Something like that. Dave says that they refuse to put any apps on the bottom row of his home screen, or more than three apps in the dock.

00:29:58 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the way to do it. That's the way to do it.

00:30:01 ◼   ► Really?

00:30:02 ◼   ► Yeah, the three apps- I don't know why you disagree with this so much, but the three apps in the dock, it looks so nice.

00:30:06 ◼   ► That's a bit of wasted space.

00:30:08 ◼   ► And the empty bottom row, it's for temporary apps.

00:30:10 ◼   ► I fill up my entire screen now, Gray.

00:30:12 ◼   ► I know you do, and it looks like garbage.

00:30:14 ◼   ► The whole thing. The whole thing is full of apps now.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Yeah, if it works for you, that's fine.

00:30:21 ◼   ► I have too many things to do.

00:30:23 ◼   ► But I...

00:30:24 ◼   ► Too many things to do, so you need all those apps.

00:30:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I need them all there.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Where else am I going to put my time tracker?

00:30:32 ◼   ► I don't think that...

00:30:33 ◼   ► That's not a valid conclusion there.

00:30:35 ◼   ► How are you doing to me?

00:30:36 ◼   ► That's perfectly valid.

00:30:37 ◼   ► You are a podcaster.

00:30:39 ◼   ► I'm a podcaster, educational video producer, live streamer.

00:30:43 ◼   ► Hey, hey.

00:30:44 ◼   ► I'm a business owner, podcaster and YouTuber.

00:30:48 ◼   ► All right. I wear those hats.

00:30:52 ◼   ► I still don't think that justifies all the apps on your phone, but you know, if you like it, that's fine.

00:30:57 ◼   ► So I have a secret about you.

00:30:59 ◼   ► This is something that I've been holding on to for about six months and have not mentioned it.

00:31:05 ◼   ► But I think now is the time to address it.

00:31:07 ◼   ► So you have been a proponent of the iPhone SE, right?

00:31:12 ◼   ► That has been something that we've spoken about in the past.

00:31:15 ◼   ► You love the little phone.

00:31:16 ◼   ► It's the perfect phone and all that nonsense when you moved away from the big phone.

00:31:19 ◼   ► About six months ago when we were in Ireland together,

00:31:23 ◼   ► I spotted you and you knew I saw you using an iPhone 7.

00:31:29 ◼   ► The regular size iPhone 7.

00:31:33 ◼   ► You don't use the iPhone SE anymore, do you, Gray?

00:31:35 ◼   ► We can't get into this, Myke.

00:31:39 ◼   ► This is like this is like a whole thing.

00:31:41 ◼   ► We can't get into this now.

00:31:42 ◼   ► All right.

00:31:43 ◼   ► This is-- we can't do this right now.

00:31:46 ◼   ► It's too much.

00:31:47 ◼   ► It's too much.

00:31:48 ◼   ► OK.

00:31:50 ◼   ► That was the-- I wanted to tell--

00:31:51 ◼   ► I want our listeners to know, all right,

00:31:54 ◼   ► need to know that you've been living a lie for this time.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Isn't that living a lie?

00:31:58 ◼   ► I haven't mentioned anything.

00:31:59 ◼   ► You're living a life of omission.

00:32:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:04 ◼   ► That's what being a public person in the world is.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Like, hey, guess what?

00:32:08 ◼   ► You don't always mention absolutely everything

00:32:10 ◼   ► all the time. Yeah sure well I mean we talk about every product under the sun

00:32:14 ◼   ► that we buy on this show but you neglected to mention this one. Because

00:32:18 ◼   ► it's a whole thing and I don't want I don't want to get into it right now it's

00:32:21 ◼   ► like a big story. Well I want our listeners to know we're gonna get into

00:32:25 ◼   ► this. Oh okay. All right I want everyone to go to the Reddit and and say about

00:32:31 ◼   ► how much they want us to discuss this. The fact that you neglected the SE and have

00:32:35 ◼   ► moved to the iPhone 7 because I think everybody deserves to know why.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Yeah, see, Myke doesn't even know what I've done.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Myke doesn't even have any idea.

00:32:43 ◼   ► And it's gonna be Tumbleweeds in that Reddit.

00:32:45 ◼   ► All I know is that you've done it.

00:32:47 ◼   ► And I spotted you.

00:32:49 ◼   ► And even then, you refused to talk about it.

00:32:52 ◼   ► You think you know.

00:32:54 ◼   ► You think you know, but you don't know, Myke.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Oh, is it an SE in a big case?

00:32:57 ◼   ► We'll talk about it some other time.

00:33:02 ◼   ► We'll talk about it some other time.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Right now I'm enjoying how we've improved people's lives, Myke.

00:33:06 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, nice.

00:33:08 ◼   ► - We don't need to get into like a big phone,

00:33:10 ◼   ► big phone sign tangent right now.

00:33:12 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, okay.

00:33:13 ◼   ► Should we go back to talking about the people?

00:33:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's go back to talking about the people.

00:33:17 ◼   ► - Your favorite topic, right?

00:33:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, my favorite topic.

00:33:20 ◼   ► - I think things were in to say,

00:33:22 ◼   ► this show has taught me that nobody is born

00:33:24 ◼   ► a YouTuber or a podcaster.

00:33:26 ◼   ► Now that line is the most beautiful backhanded compliment

00:33:31 ◼   ► I've ever received.

00:33:33 ◼   ► - How is that backhanded?

00:33:35 ◼   ► It's like, because it's like these two,

00:33:38 ◼   ► they're not very good.

00:33:39 ◼   ► They found their own way.

00:33:40 ◼   ► They don't have natural born talent.

00:33:43 ◼   ► I know we've spoken about it.

00:33:46 ◼   ► - But that makes it sound like you believe

00:33:49 ◼   ► you were predestined to be a podcaster, right?

00:33:52 ◼   ► And you're like, who's this person telling me

00:33:55 ◼   ► that I was not born to be a podcaster?

00:33:57 ◼   ► - I don't know about that one.

00:34:00 ◼   ► I know what they're trying to say,

00:34:01 ◼   ► but there's a part of me that's kind of just like,

00:34:03 ◼   ► He doesn't have any real talent.

00:34:08 ◼   ► Listen I think things in the Reddit, I really like that line.

00:34:11 ◼   ► I appreciate it.

00:34:12 ◼   ► Don't listen to that.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Oh I do appreciate it.

00:34:14 ◼   ► But I also see a different side to it.

00:34:16 ◼   ► I'm choosing to believe that they mean it in a good way.

00:34:20 ◼   ► Before the show in my head, Grey was just meant to be a YouTuber and you just had the

00:34:23 ◼   ► talent of a podcaster.

00:34:24 ◼   ► The course of this show helped me to realise that you're just a once bank manager or

00:34:28 ◼   ► marketer who spent enough time doing something interesting that you became very good at it

00:34:32 ◼   ► and well known for it. Gray is just a high school physics teacher who got fed up and

00:34:36 ◼   ► wanted to do something completely on his own and just got good at making interesting videos.

00:34:41 ◼   ► I don't say this as an insult, I say that as a realisation that all the people and internet

00:34:51 ◼   ► celebrities I know are no different than me, except that they tried something and succeeded,

00:34:55 ◼   ► and now I'm trying something too and striving for success. So thanks.

00:35:00 ◼   ► I was making fun, I was making fun.

00:35:02 ◼   ► - Well, don't get all sensitive now, Myke.

00:35:05 ◼   ► - Oh, come on, you make me out to be a bad person.

00:35:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:35:09 ◼   ► I can't allow that.

00:35:11 ◼   ► - You left yourself open.

00:35:12 ◼   ► - I know I did, I know I did.

00:35:13 ◼   ► That was a bad move, I made a misstep.

00:35:15 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:35:16 ◼   ► I mean, it is a good point,

00:35:17 ◼   ► 'cause I think it's something that me and you

00:35:19 ◼   ► have tried to talk about a lot.

00:35:21 ◼   ► And there's a couple of strands to it.

00:35:22 ◼   ► You know, like we talk about the fact

00:35:24 ◼   ► that people have talent.

00:35:25 ◼   ► I mean, there are people that have differing skills,

00:35:27 ◼   ► some people are better at some things than others. But really you can get by in a lot of ways by just

00:35:33 ◼   ► really trying hard and working at something, you know. And because, you know, I don't know if

00:35:38 ◼   ► necessarily me or you have any real talents that make us good at what we do, except we put in a lot

00:35:44 ◼   ► of time and work to try and get to the places that we're at. Like I really like this because,

00:35:50 ◼   ► you know, I mentioned before back when I was just a physics teacher,

00:35:55 ◼   ► I was always trying to encourage the kids who were interested in doing a thing

00:36:02 ◼   ► that you could just start in life. Just get started.

00:36:06 ◼   ► It is at the same time the most useless advice you can possibly give someone

00:36:11 ◼   ► and the most true advice that you can possibly give someone.

00:36:14 ◼   ► If you want to try to do a thing, just try to do the thing.

00:36:19 ◼   ► You don't need certification or predestination from somebody else.

00:36:26 ◼   ► You can just give it a go and try and repeat and iterate and see what works and see what doesn't work

00:36:35 ◼   ► and try to follow the paths that seem like they're more promising than the paths that are less promising.

00:36:39 ◼   ► And yeah, that is the big difference. The difference between someone who tries anything at all

00:36:45 ◼   ► and doesn't try anything is just like infinite.

00:36:48 ◼   ► So just give it a shot.

00:36:51 ◼   ► It's good advice but it's such annoying advice.

00:36:54 ◼   ► It really is. I know how it feels to hear that from people.

00:36:58 ◼   ► It's like the same one as when someone says "How do I grow my YouTube channel or podcast?"

00:37:03 ◼   ► and the answer is "Keep making great things."

00:37:05 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

00:37:06 ◼   ► It is good advice but the worst advice.

00:37:10 ◼   ► Yeah, or it's like Nike telling you that with regards to exercise, just do it.

00:37:15 ◼   ► And like, go f*** yourself Nike.

00:37:18 ◼   ► You do it!

00:37:20 ◼   ► Like I know how that feels, right? But then at the same time it's like,

00:37:25 ◼   ► well I guess they're not wrong about like, you know, going for a run. I guess I just have to do it.

00:37:30 ◼   ► There's no one else who's gonna do it for me, right? Like I've got to do it.

00:37:33 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:37:33 ◼   ► But yeah, it doesn't help that they're still telling you to just do it.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and it is strange to be in the situation where I remember being on the other side of that.

00:37:44 ◼   ► Like I remember being the student and hearing other people say this kind of thing.

00:37:48 ◼   ► And so then it's weird being on the opposite side being like, "No, but for realsies."

00:37:53 ◼   ► You really just have to register a YouTube account and just try. But that is the truth.

00:38:00 ◼   ► I still have really strong feelings,

00:38:04 ◼   ► like emotional feelings and memories

00:38:06 ◼   ► to when I was trying to make something of myself

00:38:09 ◼   ► and I would see people overtake me.

00:38:12 ◼   ► And it was like, why did I get to?

00:38:15 ◼   ► And at the point where I felt like I was good enough

00:38:19 ◼   ► and I felt like people with equal skill to me

00:38:22 ◼   ► were having more success.

00:38:23 ◼   ► And I remember feeling like, why is this happening?

00:38:28 ◼   ► I remember all of that stuff.

00:38:30 ◼   ► There's a conversation that goes around all the time about like how much of success is the result of like hard work and how much

00:38:36 ◼   ► of it is luck, right and this is like

00:38:38 ◼   ► conversation that happens all the time and

00:38:40 ◼   ► You know people say like oh, it's it's it's all luck right or it's all hard work and it's obviously

00:38:47 ◼   ► Some combination of the two. Yeah, and I think you can drive yourself

00:38:52 ◼   ► Crazy because you can see situations like like what you're just describing there where?

00:38:58 ◼   ► You, Myke, are trying to get started and you can see people who you think have the same level of skill as you

00:39:05 ◼   ► surpassing you and

00:39:08 ◼   ► at a certain level like yeah, how successful someone is does largely come down to a question of

00:39:14 ◼   ► luck. Like it definitely does

00:39:17 ◼   ► but regardless of that

00:39:21 ◼   ► you have to work to put yourself into a position where you can be exposed to lucky situations

00:39:28 ◼   ► Yep, right. And so when someone says like, oh, it's all it's all just luck, right if people do well in the world or not

00:39:34 ◼   ► It's like well

00:39:36 ◼   ► Nobody gets lucky by sitting on a couch all day doing nothing. All right, like that happened to nobody

00:39:40 ◼   ► Even the people you suspect may have done very little to get their success. It's like they've done more than you think

00:39:47 ◼   ► and so that you that's why the

00:39:50 ◼   ► You have to just make a YouTube channel or you have to just start with a podcast or you have to just start your project

00:39:55 ◼   ► on the side, whatever it is.

00:39:57 ◼   ► That's why that is the most important thing

00:40:00 ◼   ► because it puts you in a position to potentially be lucky.

00:40:05 ◼   ► And that's the big difference.

00:40:07 ◼   ► Like that is what can make all of the difference.

00:40:09 ◼   ► - And even if luck is what gets you there,

00:40:11 ◼   ► it's hard work that keeps you there, right?

00:40:14 ◼   ► Like you can be lucky, it kind of goes around, right?

00:40:17 ◼   ► Like hard work gets you to the place

00:40:19 ◼   ► that you need to be to be lucky,

00:40:20 ◼   ► but then you can't just ride the luck.

00:40:22 ◼   ► You then in some ways have to work harder

00:40:24 ◼   ► because you're in a place now.

00:40:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, you have to do maintenance on it as well.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Like it's a little feedback cycle,

00:40:30 ◼   ► but I get bothered by it sometimes

00:40:33 ◼   ► 'cause when I see people say like,

00:40:33 ◼   ► "Oh, success is entirely dependent on luck."

00:40:36 ◼   ► It's like, well, that sounds like a great excuse

00:40:39 ◼   ► to do nothing is what that sounds like, right?

00:40:41 ◼   ► Like that's kind of what you're telling yourself.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Like, oh, if I sit here and never start any side projects,

00:40:47 ◼   ► maybe I'll just be lucky like Steve Jobs.

00:40:49 ◼   ► I was like, I don't think it's gonna happen, right?

00:40:52 ◼   ► This is not the way this works.

00:40:53 ◼   ► Was he lucky? I don't know.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Yeah, he was.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Paradosent was wrote in with some brief thoughts on how Cortex has changed their

00:41:01 ◼   ► life.

00:41:01 ◼   ► I found the show in the late summer of 2015 when I was drowning in work because

00:41:04 ◼   ► one fifth of our department was out on maternity leave and I was picking up a lot

00:41:08 ◼   ► of the slack.

00:41:08 ◼   ► It was too much and I was too unorganized and then to compound matters some RSI

00:41:12 ◼   ► problems were occurring.

00:41:13 ◼   ► I think that I had already jumped to a Mac and I was certainly on an iPhone at

00:41:16 ◼   ► this point,

00:41:17 ◼   ► but I wasn't all in on Apple and I wasn't really thinking about workflow and

00:41:20 ◼   ► productivity in the terms that Gray and Myke presented it.

00:41:23 ◼   ► I then bought my first iPad, bought another iPhone, bought a pen tablet, Macs at home

00:41:27 ◼   ► as well as work, much more careful and thoughtful use of email, calendaring, rules, iOS, notes,

00:41:32 ◼   ► task lists, vunderlist, workflow, the whole nine yards.

00:41:35 ◼   ► Cortex helped me get organized during a difficult time and set habits that have served me well

00:41:40 ◼   ► ever since, and made the transition to a new job much easier.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Oh, congratulations.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I guess that's someone who maybe used some of our email knowledge.

00:41:48 ◼   ► Did they mention email in there?

00:41:50 ◼   ► I don't even think they did, Myke.

00:41:52 ◼   ► years of email. Okay, alright, there you go. You have something to hang your hat on.

00:41:57 ◼   ► This does remind me about RSI stuff. The Wacom tablet has become so

00:42:03 ◼   ► indispensable for me over time. Oh yeah? Yeah, I mean I couldn't imagine using a

00:42:10 ◼   ► desktop computer without it now. Yeah, see, it's one of those things like once you

00:42:15 ◼   ► start using it as your main input device you feel like, "How did I ever use a

00:42:20 ◼   ► computer before this. Yeah it really is awesome. I recommend people try it out

00:42:24 ◼   ► and remember set the settings to pen mode. It's very important that you do

00:42:28 ◼   ► that but one-to-one mapping of the screen to the tablet is very important.

00:42:32 ◼   ► You're not gonna like it at first but trust us it's the way to go. The only way

00:42:35 ◼   ► to go. I do continue to really like the combo of the Wacom and the Magic Trackpad.

00:42:42 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. Like that really works for me so I kind of operate a Mac with two hands.

00:42:47 ◼   ► You've got to make a video of that for your vlog one day so you can actually just show

00:42:50 ◼   ► people what you're talking about.

00:42:51 ◼   ► Yeah, it is.

00:42:53 ◼   ► This reminds me of when people ask me to make a video about making a show, like recording

00:43:00 ◼   ► like everything that goes into making a podcast.

00:43:02 ◼   ► And I'm like, I don't think you know how boring that would be to watch.

00:43:07 ◼   ► That falls squarely in that pocket, I think.

00:43:09 ◼   ► No, but Myke, you're a vlogger now.

00:43:11 ◼   ► You have to use tricks like you have some exciting music, you do a bunch of rapid cuts.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Yeah, and you make assembling a podcast look like it's an exciting event as opposed to just hours of silence.

00:43:23 ◼   ► I guess that's the challenge, right? How can I do that? How can I make it look like my work is really interesting every moment?

00:43:29 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what you're doing. You're painting a picture of your life, which is not accurate at all.

00:43:34 ◼   ► I don't know when I'm going to do this, but I accept the challenge. I will make it work. It will be like 25 seconds long. That's how I do it. Bunch of whiz bang.

00:43:44 ◼   ► Today's episode of Cortex is brought to you by Blue Apron, the number one recipe delivery

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00:44:42 ◼   ► that you may cook on your own. You can re-cook some meals because you get the recipe cards

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00:45:47 ◼   ► Jon created some artwork to show off

00:45:52 ◼   ► how the show has changed things for him.

00:45:55 ◼   ► And I have included a link in our show notes

00:45:59 ◼   ► for this week's episode.

00:46:00 ◼   ► So you can go and look at the artwork.

00:46:02 ◼   ► - I like this.

00:46:03 ◼   ► - I would say that one thing that's changed for Jon,

00:46:07 ◼   ► if not before, his just general look is a lot like me,

00:46:10 ◼   ► you know, bearded and glasses.

00:46:12 ◼   ► So bravo on that one to start with.

00:46:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're always trying to infect people

00:46:17 ◼   ► with your beards.

00:46:18 ◼   ► - Some things that have changed for Jon,

00:46:20 ◼   ► checklists are in there, we can see checklists,

00:46:23 ◼   ► reviews, so like performing reviews,

00:46:26 ◼   ► which I know is a big thing for you.

00:46:28 ◼   ► You still on seasonal?

00:46:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I still like seasonal.

00:46:30 ◼   ► - Seasonal, okay.

00:46:31 ◼   ► Being packed up for a trip in advance,

00:46:33 ◼   ► something that we both believe in quite strongly,

00:46:36 ◼   ► redundant bags and all that.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Another person listening to Girl Talk,

00:46:40 ◼   ► although they're not listening to All Day

00:46:42 ◼   ► by the looks of the artwork.

00:46:44 ◼   ► It's one of the other ones.

00:46:45 ◼   ► - No.

00:46:46 ◼   ► - One of the other albums,

00:46:47 ◼   ► one of the ones you don't believe in.

00:46:49 ◼   ► And using an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

00:46:51 ◼   ► - Fantastic computer.

00:46:52 ◼   ► - Oh, and I see one roll of toilet paper

00:46:54 ◼   ► means I really have zero rolls of toilet paper.

00:46:57 ◼   ► It's tucked away in the corner over there.

00:46:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:59 ◼   ► - It's a very important life lesson.

00:47:01 ◼   ► - Very, very important life lesson.

00:47:04 ◼   ► There are a couple of people that wrote in

00:47:05 ◼   ► with some of just their favorite things

00:47:06 ◼   ► that have happened in the show.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Brent reminded me of the story

00:47:11 ◼   ► when you bought the first iPad Pro in London.

00:47:14 ◼   ► - Oh God.

00:47:15 ◼   ► - That's so good.

00:47:17 ◼   ► - I don't like to think about that.

00:47:18 ◼   ► - That's such a good episode.

00:47:20 ◼   ► I'll put the link to that episode in the show notes.

00:47:22 ◼   ► It's so funny when you were just like

00:47:26 ◼   ► having the most un-CGP Grey experience of your life.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:47:32 ◼   ► - It was great.

00:47:33 ◼   ► of the interaction. So close to me and Tim Cook.

00:47:36 ◼   ► I'm glad everybody enjoyed that. But mostly for me it felt like, "Why has God made my

00:47:41 ◼   ► life so hard?"

00:47:45 ◼   ► You deserve it.

00:47:48 ◼   ► Now this is a name that, like, if I say this name I'm gonna be performing the cardinal

00:47:52 ◼   ► sin of triggering Amazon echoes. So I can't say it.

00:47:57 ◼   ► You're too sensitive about this, Myke.

00:47:58 ◼   ► Alright, here we go then. Sorry everyone.

00:48:01 ◼   ► You just say Alexa.

00:48:02 ◼   ► No, don't do that. You can't throw them in there.

00:48:05 ◼   ► No, you can.

00:48:06 ◼   ► No, you can't throw them in there like that.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Yeah, you say, "Alexa, subscribe me to CGP Grey," right?

00:48:11 ◼   ► And then that's how that works.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Okay. "Alexa says..."

00:48:16 ◼   ► Oh, no, mine is not gone off.

00:48:17 ◼   ► It was making a flashing light.

00:48:18 ◼   ► It thought it was going to get me, but it didn't get me.

00:48:20 ◼   ► "They now have backups for everything, and two is one, one is none."

00:48:26 ◼   ► People still say that to me all the time, you know.

00:48:28 ◼   ► See, it's a catchy phrase, right?

00:48:31 ◼   ► It is, it is. You created that phrase, right?

00:48:34 ◼   ► No, that's not right. That's not right at all.

00:48:36 ◼   ► That's not how that works?

00:48:37 ◼   ► No.

00:48:37 ◼   ► Okay.

00:48:38 ◼   ► I'm the popularizer of the phrase.

00:48:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:41 ◼   ► I still can't remember what the feedback was. Was it a, like, my impression was it was originally

00:48:47 ◼   ► a military phrase but maybe it came from somewhere else.

00:48:49 ◼   ► I think it's a military phrase.

00:48:50 ◼   ► But maybe it's, you know, like you go back to the Pharaoh's tomb in Egypt and they're like,

00:48:54 ◼   ► "Oh, one pyramid is okay but two pyramids is better." Like, yeah, it might just,

00:48:57 ◼   ► it might have been like a very old phrase.

00:48:59 ◼   ► Yeah, that happens. There's things where they're like, "Oh, Shakespeare wrote an emoji."

00:49:03 ◼   ► Right? Like those types of things. They come back to get you.

00:49:07 ◼   ► But I do think about that quite a lot, "Two is one, one is none."

00:49:11 ◼   ► That made a big impact on my life.

00:49:13 ◼   ► It's important.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Why don't we talk about what we have learned from the show?

00:49:17 ◼   ► What have you learned from Cortex, Myke?

00:49:19 ◼   ► I think one of the biggest changes in my life, as I alluded to earlier, is the multi-pad lifestyle.

00:49:24 ◼   ► being a person who not only uses the iPad primarily, but multiple.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I know many people that use the iPad, not many people understand multi-pad.

00:49:34 ◼   ► I feel like we're a persecuted bunch.

00:49:36 ◼   ► We are.

00:49:37 ◼   ► A persecuted, misunderstood group.

00:49:40 ◼   ► Right, that's the multi-iPad lifestyle, people.

00:49:42 ◼   ► I've kind of settled in to how I use mine more now.

00:49:46 ◼   ► Mhm.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I tend to use the large iPad Pro at home,

00:49:50 ◼   ► and the smaller iPad Pro when I'm out of the home.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Hmm, interesting.

00:49:55 ◼   ► I find the smaller iPad Pro is easier to travel with, right?

00:49:58 ◼   ► Because it's smaller and I used a Logitech Create keyboard case, which is a vastly superior

00:50:03 ◼   ► keyboard case to Apple's.

00:50:06 ◼   ► But on the big iPad Pro, it's just too big and heavy.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Like it's just not very nice to use.

00:50:12 ◼   ► So even though I keep that large iPad Pro at home, I just don't like the case on the

00:50:16 ◼   ► big iPad Pro.

00:50:17 ◼   ► It just, it kind of ruins it for me a bit, to be honest.

00:50:21 ◼   ► On the smaller one it's perfect, it has back click keys and everything and I really really

00:50:25 ◼   ► like it for that.

00:50:26 ◼   ► Yeah I just think that's funny because that's the exact opposite of what I do.

00:50:30 ◼   ► My smaller iPad is the home one and the bigger one is the go outside one.

00:50:34 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:50:35 ◼   ► And I actually just had one of these days where it feels like oh this is a really nice

00:50:40 ◼   ► use of technology where I just went out intentionally just for the morning and I only brought, like

00:50:47 ◼   ► I didn't bring my backpack. I didn't bring anything

00:50:48 ◼   ► I just grabbed the iPad Pro and like walk through the park and then sat at cafe and did some work

00:50:54 ◼   ► I ended up just spending the whole day out

00:50:56 ◼   ► doing work at various locations and

00:50:59 ◼   ► There's one of these times where it just felt really nice. So like oh I have this clipboard sized thing

00:51:04 ◼   ► that is a functional general-purpose computer and I

00:51:08 ◼   ► can I feel like I can just grab it and just go out and and be relatively

00:51:14 ◼   ► encumbered and not have to have anything else and it's really nice to work that way, it

00:51:18 ◼   ► really is.

00:51:19 ◼   ► There is one thing that might kind of help dictate my choice here, which is that my smaller

00:51:27 ◼   ► iPad is the one that has an LTE connection.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Ah, okay, well yeah, that's going to make a difference.

00:51:33 ◼   ► So that is another reason why I use that one for travel more than the big one.

00:51:38 ◼   ► You know, if we ever get the iPad that we want, the 10-inch one that kind of sits between

00:51:44 ◼   ► the middle of them, I wonder if and how things might change for us.

00:51:47 ◼   ► Because you know, that's a small iPad with many of the benefits of the big ones, so says

00:51:51 ◼   ► the rumors, but I don't think Apple's ever making new products, so it's not a problem.

00:51:57 ◼   ► Time tracking and deciding hourly rates has been a big thing for me, not so much a big

00:52:03 ◼   ► thing for all of our listeners.

00:52:06 ◼   ► I told you a couple of weeks ago that whilst I have not done anything as scientific as

00:52:11 ◼   ► you, I have sat down and worked out from a basic perspective what I earn from the work

00:52:17 ◼   ► that I do hour by hour.

00:52:19 ◼   ► I'm not gonna lie, I feel like this is a major accomplishment on my part because I have been

00:52:22 ◼   ► bullying you about this since before we started Cortex, right?

00:52:28 ◼   ► Probably since the first time I met you and was like, "Oh, you gotta do this.

00:52:30 ◼   ► You gotta work out what your hourly rate is."

00:52:33 ◼   ► It informed a couple of small changes for me.

00:52:36 ◼   ► Small as in not huge things,

00:52:39 ◼   ► but they're making a big impact.

00:52:42 ◼   ► It's just getting myself some time back

00:52:44 ◼   ► for stuff that I was making barely no money for.

00:52:47 ◼   ► I was very interested that like,

00:52:49 ◼   ► most of my recording falls within a range,

00:52:51 ◼   ► like all of the shows that I do.

00:52:53 ◼   ► Fall within a range, which I'm happy with.

00:52:56 ◼   ► I didn't really have many really big outliers.

00:53:00 ◼   ► but I plan to revisit this more scientifically

00:53:04 ◼   ► at some point in the future.

00:53:05 ◼   ► But I just wanted to sit down one day,

00:53:07 ◼   ► I had some spare time,

00:53:09 ◼   ► and just pull up a couple of episodes,

00:53:11 ◼   ► pull out a pen and paper,

00:53:12 ◼   ► and just scribble some numbers down.

00:53:14 ◼   ► And I was pleased by what I found, honestly.

00:53:17 ◼   ► One of the reasons that I've avoided doing this

00:53:19 ◼   ► is I thought it was gonna expose some horrific truths.

00:53:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, you were expecting to be made very sad.

00:53:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it turns out that it's not as bad

00:53:28 ◼   ► as I thought it was gonna be.

00:53:30 ◼   ► Maybe if I do some real scientific tracking,

00:53:33 ◼   ► I will learn something different.

00:53:35 ◼   ► But just my back of the envelope math was good.

00:53:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's all anybody needs, right?

00:53:41 ◼   ► It's just a back of the envelope calculation,

00:53:44 ◼   ► just to give you some vague boundary to think about.

00:53:49 ◼   ► I think everybody imagines that I'm calculating this down

00:53:53 ◼   ► to the second and to the penny,

00:53:54 ◼   ► but it's like you don't need it that precise.

00:53:56 ◼   ► You just need like a one significant figure number

00:54:00 ◼   ► just to have as a ballpark for when you're thinking about making decisions?

00:54:04 ◼   ► A lot of the stuff that I've learned and a lot of stuff that I've moved with is stuff

00:54:07 ◼   ► that we've kind of come to a decision together or we've worked on something in a way that

00:54:12 ◼   ► we're moving together towards something.

00:54:15 ◼   ► And I think a lot of the iPad stuff is that way.

00:54:17 ◼   ► I think the thing that has made the biggest impact on my life is something that you have

00:54:20 ◼   ► taught me, which is that work should be able to happen without you.

00:54:24 ◼   ► And this has made the single biggest impact on my life over the last two years.

00:54:29 ◼   ► That comes in sometimes in the sense of automation,

00:54:32 ◼   ► which is fine, and that's great.

00:54:34 ◼   ► But the biggest one is hiring someone

00:54:36 ◼   ► and having somebody who helps you, having an assistant.

00:54:40 ◼   ► It hasn't been very long that I've had an assistant.

00:54:43 ◼   ► It's maybe a couple of months, if that.

00:54:45 ◼   ► But the change this has made in my life,

00:54:47 ◼   ► I cannot even begin to describe to you.

00:54:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:52 ◼   ► - You don't have to describe because I understand.

00:54:54 ◼   ► Like, I completely understand.

00:54:56 ◼   ► - It's massive.

00:54:58 ◼   ► It's just massive.

00:55:00 ◼   ► The amount of hours that I'm saving,

00:55:03 ◼   ► they're not like 50 hours a week, right?

00:55:06 ◼   ► I'm saving a handful of hours at the moment

00:55:08 ◼   ► and it's increasing over time as we're learning

00:55:12 ◼   ► which and what things will be given to my assistant.

00:55:15 ◼   ► But it's just what it's doing for my general mental state

00:55:20 ◼   ► is fantastic.

00:55:22 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:55:24 ◼   ► - I'm so happy to hear this and I also just wanna take

00:55:27 ◼   ► moment to stress that this is connected to the previous thing about having an idea, like a ballpark idea about what your time is worth per hour

00:55:35 ◼   ► because this is, like having someone to help you with anything

00:55:41 ◼   ► you don't have to be running like a gigantic YouTube channel or a podcasting empire in order to be able to do this

00:55:48 ◼   ► like if you just know what your time is worth, the only question then becomes like are there people who can help you with things

00:55:55 ◼   ► for less than that many dollars per hour.

00:55:58 ◼   ► And if the answer is yes, then you might want to consider this.

00:56:02 ◼   ► And I think I've told you, I don't know if I've actually told you this or not, but

00:56:07 ◼   ► when I was a teacher, I came

00:56:11 ◼   ► very, very close to shipping

00:56:15 ◼   ► my students' homework to India to have it marked, to have it shipped back.

00:56:19 ◼   ► No, you're not telling me this.

00:56:22 ◼   ► I came very, very close to doing it.

00:56:26 ◼   ► In the end, I decided not to,

00:56:28 ◼   ► not because it wasn't a brilliant idea

00:56:30 ◼   ► and my ROI calculation said that this totally made sense

00:56:34 ◼   ► in terms of like, how much would it cost me?

00:56:36 ◼   ► How long could it take to get it overnighted to India,

00:56:39 ◼   ► like to have it returned, right?

00:56:40 ◼   ► And like, I was trying to think about all of this,

00:56:43 ◼   ► these kinds of things, like how to make this work.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And I was like, I had it all like ready to go.

00:56:47 ◼   ► But then I realized like, I will be fired immediately.

00:56:51 ◼   ► Like if anybody finds out that I have done this, right?

00:56:53 ◼   ► This is--

00:56:53 ◼   ► You'd never be able to get a job again in teaching.

00:56:55 ◼   ► You'd be done.

00:56:56 ◼   ► Yeah, that was the reason I was like, you know what?

00:56:59 ◼   ► This is too far.

00:57:00 ◼   ► It's like I have lots of little tricks as a teacher

00:57:02 ◼   ► that I'm using to save time.

00:57:04 ◼   ► But this is one where it's like there's

00:57:07 ◼   ► a downside, which is essentially like an insta-kill downside.

00:57:10 ◼   ► And I was thinking like, man, if some truck in India

00:57:14 ◼   ► turns over and all the homework is lost, I'm like, oh, great.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Now I'm in real trouble.

00:57:19 ◼   ► So I didn't actually do it.

00:57:20 ◼   ► But it didn't change the fact that when I was a teacher,

00:57:24 ◼   ► I did have some small stuff that I was outsourcing

00:57:29 ◼   ► through overseas outsourcing companies

00:57:32 ◼   ► to just have people help me with stuff.

00:57:35 ◼   ► And it was like, it's super cheap,

00:57:37 ◼   ► and it worked in my favor.

00:57:39 ◼   ► And so this is not just like you're running

00:57:42 ◼   ► a successful podcasting company.

00:57:44 ◼   ► This is why I think it's really important to know

00:57:48 ◼   ► how much is your time worth

00:57:51 ◼   ► so that you can think about having somebody help you.

00:57:53 ◼   ► Or even just like,

00:57:54 ◼   ► this is how specialization in the economy works.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Like, is there just a service that can be provided

00:58:00 ◼   ► that will take less time to do this

00:58:02 ◼   ► than you would take to do it?

00:58:04 ◼   ► Like, maybe that's worth doing.

00:58:05 ◼   ► It's just, it's such an important way to think about stuff.

00:58:09 ◼   ► But like, I do have to agree with you, Myke.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Like, when you start doing this,

00:58:13 ◼   ► again, it's just like the hiring thing,

00:58:16 ◼   ► know we say like oh you always hire too late if you're a business. I think

00:58:22 ◼   ► it's a similar thing of like getting someone to help you everybody does this

00:58:26 ◼   ► too late and when you do it it makes such an enormous cognitive difference

00:58:33 ◼   ► even if it isn't saving you huge numbers of hours. I just know that there are

00:58:39 ◼   ► things that I don't really enjoy doing. Somebody else might. And that's

00:58:45 ◼   ► That's the experience that I've had so far and it's wonderful.

00:58:51 ◼   ► And the reason that I don't enjoy some of these things is I've done them for nearly

00:58:54 ◼   ► three years every week and they were fun initially but after a while the fun wears off some of

00:59:01 ◼   ► these tasks and now I don't need to do it anymore.

00:59:04 ◼   ► Or like there were things that I was doing because nobody else would or could but they're

00:59:10 ◼   ► not my skill set and it's somebody else's skill set.

00:59:13 ◼   ► Yeah, and there's also a way in which sometimes it's easier for somebody else to do a thing

00:59:19 ◼   ► because they don't have like an emotional baggage attached to whatever the task is.

00:59:24 ◼   ► And this is also an interesting phenomenon of trying to get people to help you is you

00:59:28 ◼   ► realize like, oh, for this other person, this task is way easier and way faster to do than

00:59:32 ◼   ► if it is for me to do.

00:59:33 ◼   ► Because for them, it's just a task.

00:59:35 ◼   ► But for me, it's something that's like, like comes with emotional baggage.

00:59:38 ◼   ► Like, oh, so man.

00:59:39 ◼   ► Yeah, like, or I've been doing this for so long, or like, oh, this is a thing that I

00:59:42 ◼   ► just don't want to think about and for the other person like it has none of

00:59:45 ◼   ► those connotations. Yeah a lot of this stuff gets done faster because I was

00:59:48 ◼   ► putting it off. Yeah yeah that has been my experience is there's a whole

00:59:54 ◼   ► category of things that it's not like I couldn't do them but if I had to be the

01:00:00 ◼   ► person who would do it I just know they would never happen and and it so that

01:00:04 ◼   ► makes a huge difference. I've learned that there will never be a perfect email

01:00:07 ◼   ► email app. No Myke you gotta hold out hope. No I've given up. No I still have hope. I've

01:00:16 ◼   ► given up Gray. There will never be a perfect email app. Because any email app that seems

01:00:21 ◼   ► like it's going to be amazing, even nobody wants to buy it or somebody buys it and shuts

01:00:24 ◼   ► it down. I guess you're right. There's two outcomes. It gets bought or it doesn't get

01:00:30 ◼   ► bought and both of them end in misery. Yeah. There's no good solution for email. There's

01:00:37 ◼   ► And the one that I've settled on is fine,

01:00:41 ◼   ► but every now and then I send an email and the app crashes

01:00:44 ◼   ► and I don't know it's crashed and the email's never sent.

01:00:47 ◼   ► You know?

01:00:48 ◼   ► So like I now have a new habit of checking

01:00:50 ◼   ► that emails are sent, which is so annoying to have to do that

01:00:55 ◼   ► but this app does like 90% of the other things

01:00:58 ◼   ► that I need it to do, but like the 10% that it doesn't do

01:01:01 ◼   ► or does badly, it does really badly.

01:01:03 ◼   ► So there's never gonna be a perfect email app.

01:01:05 ◼   ► There just won't be.

01:01:06 ◼   ► And I've just come to accept it. I'm not upset about it anymore. I'm not angry. I'm in the

01:01:13 ◼   ► acceptance stage.

01:01:14 ◼   ► I'm still going to hold out hope. But it might be irrational hope.

01:01:17 ◼   ► I've learned that making YouTube videos is interesting.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Yeah, you still enjoying that?

01:01:22 ◼   ► I am.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Good.

01:01:25 ◼   ► My kind of feeling towards like how often I make videos and why has changed, right?

01:01:30 ◼   ► As kind of the initial excitement has worn off, like I've realized that I would very

01:01:34 ◼   ► quickly I've just started making very very boring videos if I kept up with the pace that

01:01:38 ◼   ► I was keeping up with.

01:01:40 ◼   ► So like I've kind of settled into doing them the way that I want to when I want to and

01:01:45 ◼   ► kind of I think I'm trying to do one a month.

01:01:47 ◼   ► I've been a bit late because of my travel but I'm currently making like a really big

01:01:51 ◼   ► travel vlog which might be out kind of around the time that this episode goes out because

01:01:55 ◼   ► I've basically been traveling for the entire month of April.

01:01:59 ◼   ► So I'm making one big vlog for that and I have some ideas for some other videos that

01:02:03 ◼   ► that I want to do that are based at home

01:02:05 ◼   ► as well as traveling and stuff.

01:02:06 ◼   ► But I still feel like I'm really playing around with this

01:02:10 ◼   ► and trying to work out what it is for me.

01:02:12 ◼   ► So kind of not putting all of my time

01:02:15 ◼   ► into thinking of this stuff

01:02:16 ◼   ► is turned out to be the right thing for me, honestly.

01:02:19 ◼   ► - Oh, good.

01:02:20 ◼   ► Well, I enjoy your vlogs.

01:02:23 ◼   ► - Thank you.

01:02:24 ◼   ► - I like it when they come out.

01:02:25 ◼   ► It's interesting to see.

01:02:27 ◼   ► And I've said it's interesting to see them change over time.

01:02:32 ◼   ► And I also find it just interesting,

01:02:34 ◼   ► it's like, oh, you're a person I know,

01:02:38 ◼   ► starting down this path and seeing things change over time.

01:02:42 ◼   ► Whereas any of the other vloggers or YouTube people

01:02:47 ◼   ► that I watch, it feels like they have just always existed,

01:02:49 ◼   ► like they've always just been around.

01:02:50 ◼   ► And so it's interesting to see you begin this

01:02:53 ◼   ► from the ground up.

01:02:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've gotten a comment of that kind

01:02:57 ◼   ► from a bunch of people on YouTube,

01:03:00 ◼   ► just saying that they can see a progression and usually you don't.

01:03:04 ◼   ► Usually you see someone when they're established. That's been interesting for me and it's also

01:03:09 ◼   ► been one of the reasons that I'm being a little bit more considerate about what I'm doing

01:03:14 ◼   ► because there are people there whilst I'm still trying to work out what the hell's going

01:03:18 ◼   ► on. I've taken a more CGP Grey approach to my YouTube schedule than a Myke Hurley approach

01:03:25 ◼   ► to it, honestly.

01:03:26 ◼   ► Disappointing, you know the most the most important thing with YouTube channels is having a regular schedule

01:03:32 ◼   ► And it just it seems like that's what those game streaming right. It's every day. No was it every day eight o'clock or something?

01:03:38 ◼   ► That's just I think that's what it is

01:03:40 ◼   ► Every day don't try to turn this around Myke every day 8 p.m. CGP play get your streams on

01:03:47 ◼   ► Haven't you haven't you read the the YouTube guide to making great content on YouTube and like number one thing is a schedule

01:03:54 ◼   ► Every every every week it's gonna be a new Myke Hurley episode

01:03:58 ◼   ► You got to train the audience that they know to tune in at 7 p.m.

01:04:01 ◼   ► I tell you what, we'll get on it together and we'll cross promote right every week. We'll both be there

01:04:07 ◼   ► 7 p.m. Eastern Time

01:04:10 ◼   ► Go to CGP play and you'll get your streams and you really try to play and get you trying to push this logs

01:04:17 ◼   ► That's what people can look out for there might never be a stream again. I don't know why you're trying to push this

01:04:23 ◼   ► You bought software. There's gonna be a stream again

01:04:25 ◼   ► That tells you nothing tells you nothing ROI my friend ROI

01:04:30 ◼   ► I think overall as well

01:04:32 ◼   ► One of the things that cortex has done for me is to allow me to enjoy my work more

01:04:36 ◼   ► Because I am more considerate about new projects and more considerate about how I weigh up my time

01:04:41 ◼   ► and I've decided and learned to put focus in the things that I like doing and

01:04:45 ◼   ► Optimize my way out with the things that I don't mm-hmm. What about you me Myke? Uh-huh?

01:04:52 ◼   ► Well, come on, don't be this, don't play it like that.

01:04:59 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, no, like here's the interesting thing.

01:05:02 ◼   ► I saw this in the show notes when I was looking at this a couple hours ago, trying to get

01:05:06 ◼   ► ready for the show.

01:05:08 ◼   ► And I was trying to think about things and I was like, hmm, okay, what have I learned

01:05:12 ◼   ► from the show?

01:05:13 ◼   ► And I wrote down like the first bullet point thing that popped into my head was like, oh,

01:05:16 ◼   ► I've learned about web APIs, right, which without the show I would never, I think I

01:05:20 ◼   ► I never would have gone down the kind of path to think about that as much and recognize this is a kind of important

01:05:25 ◼   ► Programmer's tool that that's useful to have but then like I was like, okay. Well, that's one thing

01:05:31 ◼   ► but but I feel like

01:05:33 ◼   ► Okay, so I can name something in particular but in one way, I don't think that's super interesting

01:05:39 ◼   ► because

01:05:41 ◼   ► What I feel like I have learned is that this show is

01:05:46 ◼   ► Not a productivity show at all. Oh

01:05:50 ◼   ► That's not really what this is, Myke. I think it's the thing that we touched upon a few episodes ago.

01:05:58 ◼   ► This idea of like an ongoing

01:06:02 ◼   ► conversation about

01:06:06 ◼   ► working and stuff in our lives.

01:06:08 ◼   ► Like

01:06:10 ◼   ► shows always have to kind of like find what they are and

01:06:13 ◼   ► I think that's what this show is. Like in a very funny way, I was thinking about it earlier today and

01:06:20 ◼   ► and I was realizing like oh this show has become what in retrospect seems very obvious

01:06:26 ◼   ► which is it is an extension of our lunches that we used to meet up for in London before we were

01:06:34 ◼   ► doing the show right which thinking back upon it it's like oh right of course we're doing sort of

01:06:41 ◼   ► exactly what we used to do except just over lunch but now we're doing we're doing it with an audience

01:06:48 ◼   ► present and with an audience that is

01:06:51 ◼   ► interactive in some way giving us feedback and that we're talking to it kind of makes sense because

01:06:57 ◼   ► It was the conversations we were having over those lunches

01:07:00 ◼   ► Which was what made me think that it could be interesting for us to have a show together, right?

01:07:05 ◼   ► Yeah, that that's that's why that's why you started to pursue me as intensely as you did

01:07:10 ◼   ► Yep to lock me down into this contract a lot of long-term deal for a very long-term deal

01:07:16 ◼   ► But what I think is interesting about that is it's like it's just going back to what it was saying before

01:07:21 ◼   ► and going back to all of this feedback from people about the 50th episode that a

01:07:26 ◼   ► thing doesn't need to be explicitly about

01:07:30 ◼   ► productivity in order to be helpful. It just means like the for the listeners and for us is

01:07:38 ◼   ► like we're coming together and we're sort of discussing in general ways our working lives.

01:07:45 ◼   ► Sometimes it's in very specific detail. Sometimes it's broad overview. Sometimes we're just sort of goofing off and it's like vaguely related to work, but not really.

01:07:53 ◼   ► But what matters is this

01:07:56 ◼   ► conversation that loops back upon itself and so

01:08:01 ◼   ► it's very hard for me to say like, "What have I specifically learned from the show?"

01:08:06 ◼   ► I have a hard time coming up with the exact bullet points, but I know

01:08:11 ◼   ► without any doubt that because of this show I have been much more

01:08:16 ◼   ► mindful of my work in a whole bunch of ways over the past two years than I would have been without it and

01:08:23 ◼   ► I hope that for listeners of the show they have

01:08:28 ◼   ► that same experience that if we're talking about time tracking and you find that that is totally irrelevant to your life

01:08:37 ◼   ► The detail of that doesn't matter so much as if you're listening to the show on a regular basis

01:08:44 ◼   ► It is a reminder for for you to be mindful of the way that you work as well

01:08:51 ◼   ► so I feel like it's it's almost like a meta lesson here that a

01:08:55 ◼   ► thing doesn't need to be about productivity to be in some sense productive and

01:09:01 ◼   ► And that's that's what this is like you and I we're kind of having lunches together again

01:09:07 ◼   ► but with a larger group of people.

01:09:10 ◼   ► That's what this show is.

01:09:11 ◼   ► - Getting me all emotional over here.

01:09:13 ◼   ► - Don't cry, Myke.

01:09:15 ◼   ► - I'll try not to.

01:09:16 ◼   ► - Okay, 'cause that'd be really embarrassing.

01:09:18 ◼   ► We'd have to cut that.

01:09:19 ◼   ► - Happy 50th, everybody.

01:09:22 ◼   ► - Happy 50th, everybody.

01:09:23 ◼   ► (chime)

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01:11:19 ◼   ► Before we wrap up today, I want to address our poor last episode. That poor little episode,

01:11:27 ◼   ► it didn't do nothing wrong.

01:11:29 ◼   ► To be fair, that was entirely my fault.

01:11:32 ◼   ► Well, you know, these things.

01:11:36 ◼   ► We spent a lot of time on the last episode talking about how we were unhappy at the rate

01:11:42 ◼   ► at which Apple was producing new products.

01:11:46 ◼   ► I think like maybe a couple of days after that episode went out, Apple went on record

01:11:51 ◼   ► about the fact that they're working on a new Mac Pro and they kind of broke from tradition

01:11:55 ◼   ► to actually explicitly address a product that they had in the works.

01:12:00 ◼   ► So this all came out during the time between the episode being recorded and being released.

01:12:05 ◼   ► What this did allow me to do was go in and cut out the moments where we explicitly said

01:12:10 ◼   ► they should just tell us they're working on a new Mac Pro.

01:12:13 ◼   ► So I did get to do that at least.

01:12:16 ◼   ► But unfortunately this was one of those times where, this doesn't happen very often for

01:12:19 ◼   ► us but where something may change in between recording and release.

01:12:23 ◼   ► So it did make me want to just address this with you a little bit.

01:12:27 ◼   ► To catch everybody up, Apple had a bunch of journalists come to see them at their offices

01:12:32 ◼   ► and they went through a few things and they kind of accepted blame as much as they would

01:12:38 ◼   ► that the Mac Pro that is currently for sale is not good and that the way that they designed

01:12:44 ◼   ► it was suboptimal to the point where they couldn't update it in a way that people needed

01:12:49 ◼   ► and that they're working on a new Mac Pro and they have really powerful iMacs coming

01:12:53 ◼   ► later this year and we're probably gonna see this new Mac Pro maybe next year.

01:12:58 ◼   ► They didn't really give a time frame on it but basically said not this year.

01:13:01 ◼   ► Yeah, interesting phrasing.

01:13:04 ◼   ► Yeah, because it's, I mean, from everything that we've seen and everything that I've heard,

01:13:09 ◼   ► this change that Apple actually working on a new Mac Pro was very recent to them bringing

01:13:14 ◼   ► those journalists in.

01:13:16 ◼   ► And they basically were like, right now we decided to do this, we need to curb the current

01:13:21 ◼   ► rhetoric that when we don't care about professional users anymore. So I wonder, you were definitely

01:13:27 ◼   ► harsher than me in your feelings about this. Like I kind of said on the episode, I just

01:13:34 ◼   ► want to see some kind of torch from them and I'll believe that they actually do care. And

01:13:39 ◼   ► you were basically like, no, I need multiple years of proof. So I wonder if this has changed

01:13:44 ◼   ► your feelings at all about the way that you feel Apple is treating you as a professional

01:13:48 ◼   ► user of its products.

01:13:49 ◼   ► Well, on the one hand, I think this is really funny because this is the kind of thing that

01:13:54 ◼   ► I never really thought Apple would ever do.

01:13:56 ◼   ► Well, no, this completely bucks all trends, you know.

01:14:03 ◼   ► I think I brought this up on the last episode that Apple is a company of traditions and

01:14:08 ◼   ► schedules and they're not anymore.

01:14:11 ◼   ► And so they're breaking a lot of what we know them to be.

01:14:14 ◼   ► And this is another example of that, where Apple never talks about future products.

01:14:20 ◼   ► And now they have.

01:14:21 ◼   ► To the point, like, so early they don't even have anything to show.

01:14:25 ◼   ► If they ever talk about a future product, it's ready to show you but it's just not shipping

01:14:29 ◼   ► yet.

01:14:30 ◼   ► This is like, we haven't even got design for this thing, but we can tell you we're doing

01:14:34 ◼   ► it.

01:14:35 ◼   ► Yeah, it's so early that the impression that I get is like, we actually just have a whiteboard

01:14:39 ◼   ► somewhere where we decided that this was a thing that we were going to do.

01:14:42 ◼   ► There's a Trello board, we know that much.

01:14:44 ◼   ► Outside of that we have nothing.

01:14:47 ◼   ► That's what it feels like, yeah.

01:14:52 ◼   ► Has a physical thing happened anywhere in the world?

01:14:54 ◼   ► I suspect maybe not.

01:14:57 ◼   ► But it's also a thing that in retrospect I was thinking about is, I think it's a really

01:15:03 ◼   ► sensible decision because they're talking about a future product for such a relatively

01:15:08 ◼   ► small portion of their overall user base.

01:15:13 ◼   ► What does it matter?

01:15:14 ◼   ► It doesn't because those people are buying it no matter what.

01:15:17 ◼   ► The reason Apple keeps their secrecy is so they can have their big reveals of their products

01:15:22 ◼   ► where the whole message is controlled.

01:15:25 ◼   ► But with something like this, the market is so small and that market's buying it no matter

01:15:29 ◼   ► what it is because they need it.

01:15:31 ◼   ► And so it's just interesting to think about like, oh, it never occurred to me, but yeah,

01:15:36 ◼   ► particularly the Mac Pro subsection of the market.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Like, why not just give them a release schedule?

01:15:43 ◼   ► Why not just say, "Here's our whole roadmap for this project,"

01:15:47 ◼   ► and it hurts them not at all really.

01:15:51 ◼   ► There's no way it's going to be some big seller if they have an amazing surprise.

01:15:55 ◼   ► It doesn't affect anything.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Whereas for the iPhone and the iPad,

01:16:01 ◼   ► you can see that it makes sense that Apple wants to have some

01:16:04 ◼   ► some sort of drama around the release events.

01:16:08 ◼   ► So, I would say I thought like, "Oh, this is good."

01:16:11 ◼   ► I would hope that maybe it's not just a one-time thing, like, "Oh, God, we effed up so bad this time, we really have to go on record."

01:16:18 ◼   ► Like, maybe this is a thing that you guys can just do with this narrow section of the pro line

01:16:23 ◼   ► and save yourself a whole lot of grumbling from the peanut gallery.

01:16:28 ◼   ► Yeah, and so I think that's a totally fine thing.

01:16:31 ◼   ► All that said...

01:16:32 ◼   ► said. Uh oh. It doesn't. You have not pleased me. That's

01:16:37 ◼   ► right. Yeah. I am I'm still I'm still sitting here upon my

01:16:41 ◼   ► throne of judgment uh unmoved because this is still just

01:16:47 ◼   ► words. You know reading over the transcript. It it feels a

01:16:50 ◼   ► bit like we decided last Tuesday we gotta change

01:16:53 ◼   ► direction and II still stand by everything I said in the last

01:16:59 ◼   ► which is, you know, even if Apple releases everything I could possibly hope for in my heart of hearts this year,

01:17:11 ◼   ► I'm still not going to feel good about it until I see that there are regular updates.

01:17:18 ◼   ► And it's really funny actually, you know, just talking about when we started this show was just before iOS 9,

01:17:24 ◼   ► which was the operating system that really kicked off everything being pro

01:17:29 ◼   ► and it's like, oh wait a minute, when I try to think like, oh how long have I been doing this show

01:17:34 ◼   ► the answer is, oh it feels like I've been doing it forever

01:17:37 ◼   ► it's like, oh yes, and that's how long I've been using the terrible multi-tasker switcher on iOS as well

01:17:43 ◼   ► right, it's for the entire length of this show

01:17:46 ◼   ► I feel like an implicit part of software is the promise of iteration

01:17:53 ◼   ► And that's what I want to see and that's what will make me feel better.

01:17:59 ◼   ► Because even if I get an amazing, gigantic iPad Pro and the new operating system has a dark mode

01:18:08 ◼   ► and has everything I could possibly want and you can do multi multitasking of multitasking inside of your multitasking.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Even if it has all of that, I'm going to be sitting there with the feeling of like,

01:18:20 ◼   ► "Okay, but do I have to expect that the way it works today is the way I'm going to have to use it for the next two years?"

01:18:30 ◼   ► That's the thing that I want to feel like has changed.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And that's also why, not to get into the whole thing again, but just briefly, that's also why the workflow acquisition concerns me.

01:18:44 ◼   ► Because now we also know that workflow is like officially they're not going to update it anymore.

01:18:49 ◼   ► And so whatever is going to happen there is going to be now involved in Apple's overall production cycle.

01:18:56 ◼   ► So I feel like I won't feel perfectly calm about this until I can see that we're not going to go through two-year gaps where nothing changes.

01:19:09 ◼   ► Then I'll feel better. Then I'll feel better.

01:19:12 ◼   ► I still have a lot of the same feelings from last time it just like my biggest point and it's just that things are different and

01:19:18 ◼   ► We need to see how they shake out. I think the schedules have all changed. Everything's different

01:19:22 ◼   ► I do feel better that they've gone on record to say that they're renewing their commitment to the professional user

01:19:28 ◼   ► That just makes me feel better

01:19:30 ◼   ► And it makes me feel better because it's such an unappled thing to do that

01:19:34 ◼   ► It means something to them so much that they decided to do it now rather than wait until

01:19:38 ◼   ► AWDC in June when it's the exact same audience that are willing to listen that they thought that it was important enough to get in

01:19:45 ◼   ► Front of it and to talk about it now

01:19:47 ◼   ► So I feel better from there

01:19:49 ◼   ► but we've

01:19:50 ◼   ► we have a

01:19:52 ◼   ► Rehash a little bit what we were talking about last time which brought many people to to question

01:19:57 ◼   ► why we are not switching and

01:20:01 ◼   ► One thing that was mentioned a lot because we mentioned switching costs and I want to take a moment to establish

01:20:08 ◼   ► what we consider switching costs to be.

01:20:10 ◼   ► Switching costs are not financial costs.

01:20:15 ◼   ► We're not talking about the price of buying

01:20:17 ◼   ► an Android tablet and a Windows PC.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Yeah, more than anything.

01:20:22 ◼   ► It's not that.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Yeah, we really need to emphasize,

01:20:26 ◼   ► it has the word cost in it,

01:20:28 ◼   ► but we're not talking about dollars here.

01:20:30 ◼   ► No, and what we're talking about is upheaval.

01:20:36 ◼   ► is the effect it will have on time,

01:20:39 ◼   ► the effect that it will have on frustration.

01:20:41 ◼   ► Me and Gray really know how to use our Macs.

01:20:46 ◼   ► Like, we really know how to use those.

01:20:48 ◼   ► We know how to use Final Cut.

01:20:50 ◼   ► We know how to use Logic.

01:20:52 ◼   ► We know everything about all of the little utilities

01:20:54 ◼   ► that we have to record.

01:20:57 ◼   ► I don't really know anything about the programs

01:21:00 ◼   ► that I would need to use on Windows.

01:21:02 ◼   ► And honestly, I don't wanna take two weeks

01:21:05 ◼   ► of my business to relearn everything. That's the big thing. This is what we're talking about here.

01:21:10 ◼   ► It's the idea of going, here is a new thing. You haven't used this either at all or in like 10

01:21:18 ◼   ► years. Learn it. Like I don't even really understand how the file structure of Windows works

01:21:25 ◼   ► anymore. You know, like where things get saved and stuff like that because on the Mac,

01:21:31 ◼   ► a bunch of that stuff just happens automatically now.

01:21:34 ◼   ► Right? Like your files just get saved for you.

01:21:37 ◼   ► And you know, it's all backed up.

01:21:39 ◼   ► I know how all of it works.

01:21:40 ◼   ► I'm sure that there are things like this for Windows.

01:21:43 ◼   ► I'm sure that there are things like this for Android.

01:21:45 ◼   ► But the thing is, we don't know them.

01:21:48 ◼   ► So if I was to say, right, I'm switching to Windows,

01:21:51 ◼   ► I can't produce shows the next day.

01:21:54 ◼   ► Like my business has to shut down

01:21:57 ◼   ► while I relearn all of this stuff.

01:21:59 ◼   ► or I can try and do them together at the same time,

01:22:03 ◼   ► which is still like, there's stuff I can't do

01:22:05 ◼   ► if I'm trying to learn it.

01:22:07 ◼   ► So the switching costs are just like,

01:22:08 ◼   ► what it would take for us to have to start again.

01:22:12 ◼   ► And all of the things that could fall out of that.

01:22:15 ◼   ► Like, if I'm trying to learn a new piece of software,

01:22:18 ◼   ► I'm gonna screw up more.

01:22:21 ◼   ► And screwing up more has many costs to it.

01:22:25 ◼   ► Like if I'm putting out shows with broken audio in them,

01:22:28 ◼   ► because I've done something stupid of an application,

01:22:31 ◼   ► it's gonna upset people and it's gonna make people

01:22:33 ◼   ► maybe not wanna listen to the episode,

01:22:35 ◼   ► it's gonna make advertisers unhappy

01:22:37 ◼   ► because I might screw up something, right?

01:22:39 ◼   ► Like there are so many things that can fall out of this

01:22:41 ◼   ► because we would effectively be changing our entire pipeline

01:22:45 ◼   ► of how our production is.

01:22:47 ◼   ► And that's a big potential risk,

01:22:50 ◼   ► therefore that's the switching cost.

01:22:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, the other thing with switching costs

01:22:54 ◼   ► that I think is, it is hard to see until you think about it.

01:22:59 ◼   ► But it is the enormous stock of knowledge you have

01:23:05 ◼   ► about a system that you don't even really realize

01:23:08 ◼   ► that you have.

01:23:10 ◼   ► And so, like when you've used a platform for 10 years,

01:23:15 ◼   ► you build up a whole compilation of index cards

01:23:18 ◼   ► that are filled with little tricks and tips

01:23:21 ◼   ► about like, oh, under this particular situation,

01:23:23 ◼   ► this thing will make this work a little bit better.

01:23:26 ◼   ► Or like, oh, I remember this problem,

01:23:27 ◼   ► I know how to solve this,

01:23:28 ◼   ► like just give me two seconds and I'll get this done.

01:23:30 ◼   ► And you just don't realize how much of that is built up.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Whereas every once in a while,

01:23:35 ◼   ► I have to help my father with his Windows PC.

01:23:39 ◼   ► And I am so aware,

01:23:41 ◼   ► like it is not that Windows is like a worst system,

01:23:45 ◼   ► but it's just like, I have no repertoire of knowledge

01:23:47 ◼   ► of how to help with even like problems

01:23:51 ◼   ► would be the most trivial of problems to solve, it's like, "I have no idea where to start."

01:23:56 ◼   ► And when you're talking about computers, it's everything, right? It's how you spend

01:24:03 ◼   ► so much of your time doing everything that you do. And then, like even just as a little example,

01:24:09 ◼   ► you talk about relearning programs, it's like, "Oh yeah, that would take some time to do."

01:24:13 ◼   ► It would take dozens of hours per application. But then when you are invested in an ecosystem,

01:24:21 ◼   ► you also know all of these ways to help out what you're doing.

01:24:25 ◼   ► And so it's like, "Oh, when I'm editing stuff in Final Cut, like I'm doing some animations,

01:24:29 ◼   ► there are now plenty of times, because I have enough experience doing podcasts,

01:24:35 ◼   ► that I'll pop the audio out of Final Cut, bring it into Logic, do a bunch of edits in Logic,

01:24:39 ◼   ► and then put it back into Final Cut." Right? And it's like, "Okay, well now here's a case of

01:24:44 ◼   ► it's not like, 'Oh, I just need to relearn the video editing software.' It's like,

01:24:48 ◼   ► I also need to relearn the audio editing software, which multiplies out if I want to do videos on a new system

01:24:55 ◼   ► How long is it going to take?

01:24:57 ◼   ► And then there are just so many ways that all of the applications that we use connect with each other

01:25:05 ◼   ► And it's a thing that you build up over time

01:25:08 ◼   ► And so when we're discussing switching costs, I think it's very important for people to understand

01:25:15 ◼   ► We're not even really talking about, "Oh, it's going to take me a couple dozen hours to relearn a professional program to the speed that I am at now."

01:25:23 ◼   ► It's like, we're talking about literally hundreds and hundreds of hours of time that you would need to invest

01:25:30 ◼   ► to get to the same level of proficiency and to have the same number of tools available

01:25:36 ◼   ► that can reproduce everything that you do all day long in professional and personal capacities.

01:25:43 ◼   ► Is like that's what the switching cost is right and that's why it is so enormous to move from platform to platform

01:25:50 ◼   ► One other one for me a lot of my business a lot of the shows that I make a based around Apple

01:25:57 ◼   ► Mm-hmm if I switch from Apple

01:26:00 ◼   ► Can I conduct my business?

01:26:02 ◼   ► Like if I become an Android user

01:26:07 ◼   ► The shows where I talk about the iPhone a lot

01:26:12 ◼   ► That's gonna get a bit more difficult to do. Yeah, that's gonna be a big problem for me

01:26:17 ◼   ► So the reason that we stick with Apple even when we're frustrated with them is because the other option is a nuclear one

01:26:26 ◼   ► Yeah

01:26:27 ◼   ► so

01:26:28 ◼   ► When we are just frustrated the beginning of our frustration is not the beginning of the switch, right?

01:26:35 ◼   ► Like yeah, if we're just starting to get frustrated which we are

01:26:38 ◼   ► It's not the time

01:26:41 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. The frustration must continue for a long period of time before we're willing to make a change

01:26:46 ◼   ► So I understand that people listen to us and they find it peculiar

01:26:50 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, and I and also understand that I'm sure many people have made that switch

01:26:55 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, but there was a reason for them that compelled them enough and we're not at that point yet

01:26:59 ◼   ► We're just now getting to the beginning of a frustration

01:27:02 ◼   ► So really let's see how the next 50 episodes go and then we'll work out where we are

01:27:09 ◼   ► You're gonna take some of these quotes for episode 100?

01:27:12 ◼   ► Yep.

01:27:12 ◼   ► When we're both on Windows 12?

01:27:15 ◼   ► Look how stupid they were, they said they would never leave Apple.

01:27:18 ◼   ► [Laughter]

01:27:19 ◼   ► By the way, if you've seen my Google Pixel 12, it's beautiful.

01:27:24 ◼   ► My Surface Studio 4 is amazing.

01:27:26 ◼   ► Yeah, look at that, the entire desk is a screen.