0:00:00I have some follow up.
0:00:01Oh, we're just jumping into this? Okay.
0:00:02Well, I don't know. Do you want to?
0:00:04I guess so. I don't know how to do this.
0:00:06Neither do I.
0:00:08I figure we just do it and see what happens.
0:00:10Go for it. Follow up.
0:00:11[DING]
0:00:12After last week's traumatizing experience,
0:00:16I've taken some steps in my life to try and change my habits.
0:00:20It was not traumatizing.
0:00:22It was traumatizing for me. I was thinking a lot about what I'd done.
0:00:26[LAUGHTER]
0:00:28Okay.
0:00:29So in our show notes, you will find two images.
0:00:34And if you click those images,
0:00:35you will see how my iPhone currently looks.
0:00:38- Oh, it's still rocking that background, huh?
0:00:41Still rocking that wallpaper.
0:00:42- Yeah, that's the next step.
0:00:45It's baby steps, baby steps.
0:00:47Come on.
0:00:48I was hoping for a bit more congratulations
0:00:50over what I've done to my home screen.
0:00:52- I'm saying that the first thing that catches my eye
0:00:54is that wallpaper.
0:00:55But for the listeners,
0:00:57Myke has gone from three iPhone screens down to two, if you're showing me everything.
0:01:02Yes, it looks like you just have two.
0:01:04And your home screen now is a nice row of 4x4 instead of 4x7 or whatever the heck it was last time.
0:01:14And you don't have any folders or any other nonsense. No periscope on your home page.
0:01:19So I would say this looks much improved.
0:01:23there's still room for improvement. The wallpaper obviously, the four icons in
0:01:28the dock, the very fact that Twitter is on your phone, but much much improved so
0:01:33I will congratulate you on your baby step.
0:01:36So my main problem right now is I want to
0:01:39have one more row of icons. I don't want to have two gaps like you know a double
0:01:44space that's not really what I want but I can't think of four apps to go there.
0:01:49You know I have a solution for this problem of yours. If you put four folders as the very top row on your phone
0:01:56Then you won't have the double gap.
0:01:58So that's something I want to do, but I cannot bring myself to
0:02:03Put everything that's on my second screen to four folders. I tried and this was at the moment as far as I could go
0:02:10And I'm trying I am trying so like you see on the second screen
0:02:15gonna have those four apps, iA writer, Scratch, Inbox and Spark. They're like
0:02:20testing apps, I'm trialing those, which is why they're there. But putting all those
0:02:26folders in, like I tried to put clock and settings into folders and couldn't do
0:02:30that because they're too like muscle memory. So then I only really have space
0:02:34for two. It's been horrible. Basically after we recorded last week I was going
0:02:39to meet a friend and I had like a 90 minute train journey. For 90 minutes I
0:02:43I sat and did this on the entire train journey,
0:02:46like disgusted at myself.
0:02:48I sat and moved apps around on my screen.
0:02:51My phone felt like it was on fire.
0:02:52- If there's one thing we know,
0:02:54it's that rearranging icons on iOS
0:02:58is a pleasurable experience.
0:03:00It's not frustrating in the slightest
0:03:02to try and move icons around on iOS.
0:03:04They make that really great.
0:03:06That's lovely the way Apple handles that.
0:03:09- And I'm starting to get used to it a little bit more,
0:03:12but I'm still sometimes like,
0:03:14I don't even know where anything is anymore.
0:03:16And then I kind of have a tiny, tiny breakdown
0:03:19and then I get over it and use search.
0:03:21- I'm glad this podcast is improving your life, it seems.
0:03:24- Well.
0:03:26- It's better now than it was a week ago.
0:03:30- I think so.
0:03:31So great.
0:03:33Last week we spoke about the devices that you use, right?
0:03:36This week, I wanna talk about where you use them.
0:03:39Like working environments.
0:03:42as well because I know that you have a selection of places
0:03:45that you like to do your work in.
0:03:46So I wanna kind of talk about them
0:03:49and understand why you have so many
0:03:51and kind of what the different uses are for each of them.
0:03:55I also want to talk about this redundant bag thing
0:03:59that you have.
0:04:00- Okay, where do you wanna start?
0:04:01- So I think, I assume that you probably have a,
0:04:05no matter where you are, a set of things
0:04:08that you like to have around you at all times, right?
0:04:11There is-- I imagine that there is a--
0:04:14even though the location changes and some of the components
0:04:16change, that there is a kind of a template of things
0:04:19that you like to have.
0:04:21I have a minimal functional working environment, I guess,
0:04:26sounds like what you're kind of asking about,
0:04:28which is what is the smallest number of things
0:04:30that I require to effectively get work done?
0:04:34And that would be an iPad, an external keyboard
0:04:38for that iPad, an iPad stand, and a pair of headphones.
0:04:43Like that's-- without those things,
0:04:46I'm probably not going to get very much done.
0:04:49And that is the minimum number of things
0:04:51that I would require to have an effective little office
0:04:54environment if I'm traveling, for example.
0:04:57So there tends to always be a computer device
0:04:59or some description, whether it be your iPad,
0:05:02or you said you had a MacBook Air, right,
0:05:04or your Retina iMac.
0:05:06Yes, yes.
0:05:07there's a computing device of some kind and there's a keyboard to type?
0:05:11Is that what you're asking about? I input things into computers. This is how I
0:05:15work. I work with computers. Yeah, I wondered if maybe, because I know that
0:05:19you write scripts on paper sometimes, right? That is a thing that
0:05:23you do. When you do that, do you like, like you shoot computers
0:05:27do you go somewhere and just with a notepad or are you still in that
0:05:31kind of scenario, there's a computer around still? I am capable of
0:05:35getting work done without any computers under certain circumstances.
0:05:40Because the main thing that takes up most of my working time is
0:05:45writing and largely rewriting.
0:05:49And so sometimes that writing can take three different forms.
0:05:55I either need to talk through a script that I'm working on out loud.
0:06:00I need to write that script or edit that script on a computer, or sometimes I do print out the scripts and then I edit them by hand.
0:06:12It's that last mode which is an interesting one for me sometimes because...
0:06:18The writing process is weird. I'm aware that sometimes my brain just feels a great resistance to writing.
0:06:27Like, "Oh, don't want to write today."
0:06:29And sometimes writing with paper and pen is a way to kind of force my brain to get started on this project.
0:06:39So on some mornings if I can just feel that there is some resistance to actually wanting to get work done today,
0:06:46one of the tricks that I can do is basically just grab some printouts of the projects that I am currently working on and a pen,
0:06:54and then just go off and, like, go to a cafe nearby and just only have those items with me.
0:07:02And this is a way to kind of force myself to work out of just sheer lack of options.
0:07:07There's nothing else to do. You don't have your computer with you, you just have some paper and you just have a pen,
0:07:13and there's nothing else. There's only this, so I guess we're going to sit down, brain you and me,
0:07:18and we're going to edit this script together.
0:07:20So I guess that really is the minimum working environment, but that's not a very frequent thing that happens.
0:07:28That's more like a little brain trick for myself to try to get things started on a day when they might not otherwise get started.
0:07:35When you're in that kind of isolation mode, do you have your phone with you?
0:07:39Yeah, that's the tricky thing. I try not to bring the phone with me.
0:07:45And obviously it is way more effective if I don't bring the phone with me.
0:07:49Cuz then you literally have nothing.
0:07:51Like, there's nothing.
0:07:53Exactly. Like, "What is this, 1995? I have gone to a place and I just, I have nothing with me."
0:07:59And that is one place where I have done a little bit of very limited experimentation now with the Apple Watch.
0:08:07Because having headphones and music is really helpful. That's kind of the breaking point here.
0:08:12point here as I always think, well I do want to bring just my phone so I can listen to some music
0:08:16to block out all of the other people in the cafe. But then you know your tricksy tricksy brain is
0:08:21like, hey on the phone there's things that are not work maybe we could do those instead. And so the
0:08:26watch has actually been helpful. I've done this a couple times now with the watch of just pairing
0:08:30Bluetooth headphones to the watch and going out with just some papers and a pen and then sitting
0:08:35down and writing. Because then there really are there really are no other options. That's really
0:08:40interesting as an idea I hadn't thought of that I don't have Bluetooth headphones
0:08:43so I'd never even considered it like I haven't put any music on my watch at all
0:08:47because I have no way of playing it but that's that's really smart like that's
0:08:52one of those things where you're like huh this device does make a difference
0:08:56the other thing is I don't know just as just as a general working philosophy I
0:09:00feel like you have to be really open to tricking your own brain it's like you
0:09:07You almost have to think of your brain as a kind of adversary in some ways.
0:09:11Yeah, I love that. That's really... I like that a lot.
0:09:15Well, but it's true that your brain is...
0:09:19It's like 80% monkey and 20% human
0:09:23is how the brain is. And you just have to hope that the human is able
0:09:27to be in control, but you know there are plenty
0:09:31of times when the human brain is not going to be in control and you have to like plan for those
0:09:35contingencies about what kind of structure can we set up so that the monkey doesn't have
0:09:39any options except to do what I want.
0:09:42That is very hard.
0:09:44Don't get me like it's really easy to say, it's very, very hard to do.
0:09:49So a lot of things in my working environment are about trying to minimize any kind of friction,
0:09:56like trying to have really clear guidelines for, "Oh look, the work, it's over here and
0:10:01it's easy to do."
0:10:04But yeah, the writing with no other options is like a last resort of trying to get this
0:10:12process started.
0:10:14When you work, what can and can't you listen to, and does this change depending on the
0:10:18type of work that you're doing?
0:10:20I have a bunch of different playlists for different kinds of work that I'm doing.
0:10:25And I try to actually kind of set up different associations with different kinds of music
0:10:30for different sorts of work.
0:10:32Let's say for example I'm doing work that I absolutely loathe, which is generally administrative
0:10:37work of some sort or another.
0:10:40Emails, paperwork, stuff that requires my attention but doesn't necessarily drive the
0:10:46business forward in a really valuable way, but that still has to get done.
0:10:52That I have a kind of electronica sort of playlist that I listen to of high energy music,
0:10:59but that also has no lyrics in it.
0:11:03Because I feel like I need something to try to help keep me going on boring work.
0:11:09But it can't have words in it, because if it has words in it, then it crashes in my
0:11:13brain with trying to write an email to someone.
0:11:15It just won't work at all.
0:11:16Or if I'm just trying to fill out boring tax paperwork, I can't have a voice in my ear
0:11:22that is also talking.
0:11:24So that's one kind of playlist that I listen to.
0:11:27And then I have a variety of other different kind of melodic playlists that I listen to
0:11:30either if I'm writing or if I'm reading.
0:11:34But one of the things that is interesting to me is that there is an album that I have
0:11:38listened to more than any other, which is Girl Talks All Day.
0:11:44I don't know if you're familiar with this or not.
0:11:45It's one of the greatest albums for concentration on the entire planet, yes.
0:11:50I am familiar with it.
0:11:51Okay, it's interesting that you say that.
0:11:54I can't remember how I first found this, but it is, for those who haven't ever heard it,
0:12:00it's a remix album is the way to describe it, but that doesn't give it credit for the
0:12:06genius that it is.
0:12:07This guy basically took the catchy parts of a whole bunch of songs and put them together
0:12:11in very interesting ways and made this whole new album.
0:12:14And more importantly, it's a single album.
0:12:18It's not really broken up into individual songs.
0:12:20It's like one hour long track that changes tone as it goes on.
0:12:26Would you say, is that a fair way to describe it?
0:12:28I always have a hard time trying to describe it.
0:12:30Yeah, it's mashups basically.
0:12:33But it's done in such a way that it's just like a snapshot of music and it all ties back
0:12:40into each other.
0:12:41And Girl Talk is an artist and he has a bunch of different albums.
0:12:44I prefer Feed the Animals, which is just another one that I really, really love.
0:12:51But they're all just fantastic.
0:12:55For me, I've tried a few of the other albums.
0:12:57I've never quite gotten into any of the others, but I know the reason for that.
0:13:03The reason is I have listened to Girl Talk all day on repeat.
0:13:08I don't know how many times.
0:13:09Hundreds of times is very easy to say.
0:13:13And that is the only exception to the "no words" rule.
0:13:20That I can listen to that album when I am writing.
0:13:24And I find it very helpful to listen to that album on repeat when I'm writing.
0:13:30And I try to build up this little association with my brain of various things.
0:13:35Like okay, we're sitting down in this environment and this album is playing now.
0:13:40You know what you're supposed to do, monkey brain.
0:13:42supposed to write now. And it is very helpful and it's because I have listened to that one
0:13:49so much it's like the words aren't even registering in my brain as words anymore. So they don't
0:13:54have this kind of collision. So it's very strange but if not at the very beginning part
0:13:59of writing a script but when a script has gone through a couple of drafts so there's
0:14:03some kind of structure to it then I can very easily put on girl talk all day and just write
0:14:08while I'm listening to that. So that's something else that's kind of in my working environment,
0:14:14I guess is the way to describe it. I have another album that I listen to for the same kind of
0:14:20purpose, and it's called "Retroactive Part 1" and it's by... there's a record label
0:14:29called Bravewave, and they tend to do composition for video games. They've actually... they did the
0:14:37the music for inquisitive on relay FM and they also do the theme song for
0:14:41virtual relay FM we ever we use these guys to help us with some of our music
0:14:46because it's all just fantastic stuff and the guy the composer of this album
0:14:51his name is Keiji Yamagashi he's done some incredible music in the past like
0:14:57just a bunch of different games and this album is just incredible and it's like
0:15:01you know a lot of chiptune type stuff and it's video game sounding music but I
0:15:06I put this on and it's like, okay, I'm in full concentration mode now.
0:15:09And I use this a lot when I ever do script writing and stuff like that, I use this album.
0:15:15Because it really, it's the same idea. When I hear it, it's like, oh, okay, it's concentration time.
0:15:23Like, and it just locks me in and I kind of can just do what I need to do.
0:15:27Yeah, I think the music is helpful both because of its association factor.
0:15:33Like, many routines are just about trying to associate particular activities with particular actions.
0:15:38But the music, I think, is helpful because it's like it, it engages the part of your brain that wants to get distracted.
0:15:46You know, it's kind of like you've given the monkey a Rubik's Cube to play with, right?
0:15:50And it's really focused on that, and so it can kind of let the human part of your brain get to work and be focused,
0:15:57instead of constantly looking over your shoulder and going like, "Hey, what about this other thing?
0:16:01other thing? Hey, why don't we go over there? Why don't we do this other thing over in this place?
0:16:05I feel like that's what the music is doing, is it's like occupying
0:16:09the distractable part of your mind. It's not so much even that it's helping
0:16:13you focus, it's just keeping something else in your brain
0:16:17busy and spinning away from you, so that you can actually get something
0:16:21done. Do you have a bag that you kind of carry around? Or
0:16:25because, you know, I know that you have these different setups, it seems like you kind of have stuff
0:16:29where you need it to be, but do you carry stuff around with you in a rucksack or a briefcase
0:16:34or anything like that?
0:16:35If we talk about my working life for the past few years, a big part of that is actually
0:16:44working in London.
0:16:46Like I live in central London, I really love the city, and one of the reasons that I love
0:16:51it is because, I mean I've been here 12 years now and for that entire time I have always
0:16:59loved to just take a backpack and go out into the city and walk around and then find a place
0:17:07to sit down to work for maybe an hour and a half or two hours and then get up again
0:17:12and take another little walk and find some other place to sit down and do another burst
0:17:16of work and then get up.
0:17:18That little cycle I find is extremely conducive to working and to getting things done.
0:17:25Is location, movement, location, movement.
0:17:30I don't know why, I just find that's very helpful.
0:17:33But of course, that then requires a backpack.
0:17:36And you need to have a little mobile working station in there.
0:17:41And that's why most of the days when I go out, I have in my backpack at the bare minimum.
0:17:45I have my iPad, the iPad stand, a keyboard and a pair of headphones.
0:17:50And that's what I will take as my mobile working environment 90% of the time.
0:17:57Every once in a while I'll take a laptop but that's pretty rare and I usually have some
0:18:01specific laptop required task that needs to get done.
0:18:04But 90% of the time it's the iPad.
0:18:07So your bag, the bag that you do take with you, is that something that you pack or is
0:18:12it something that is always packed?
0:18:14it has stuff in it that stays in the bag and never leaves the bag.
0:18:18I have two backpacks that I try to keep in a constant state of readiness.
0:18:24Yes. Go bags!
0:18:26Exactly.
0:18:28I have passports in them, I have currency for different countries.
0:18:32That's right. There's $100,000 and some fake IDs and a whole life just waiting for me in Russia.
0:18:39But yeah, so I have two bags and I do my best to try to keep them packed all the time.
0:18:47Because this goes back to the idea of eliminating resistance.
0:18:51And I do a lot of things that people think are kind of weird, but if you--they're all
0:18:56unified under this idea of "I want to make it as easy for myself to get some work done
0:19:03as possible."
0:19:04And even a little thing like, "Oh, I want to go out for the day and do some work.
0:19:09Oh, my backpack isn't packed."
0:19:12It's remarkable how I can find that kind of stuff will actually interfere with how quickly
0:19:18will I get ready in the morning, and then how long does it take me to get out the door,
0:19:22and then there's like this knock-on effect for the whole rest of the day.
0:19:25So at nighttime, as part of my kind of shutdown routine, I have a little note to myself to
0:19:33Just double check that the two backpacks that I have are kind of set and ready for the next day with everything in them
0:19:40That needs to needs to go and this is where we talked about last time
0:19:44I have multiple iPads and so I have like one iPad is in each and I have a little
0:19:49Station in my office where I can put the two backpacks and have both iPads
0:19:53charging one in each of them at the same time and they always just live over there and they're just set and
0:19:59and ready to go at a moment's notice.
0:20:01- That is just so beautiful.
0:20:04Like, you know, there is the place with the two iPads
0:20:07and they're both charging and they're ready to go.
0:20:09Like that way of working, this is it, right?
0:20:12'Cause I suffer from the same thing that you do.
0:20:14If I plan to do something and just the tiniest thing
0:20:18gets in the way, it's like, well, day's over.
0:20:20Can't go work now because a shoelace has snapped
0:20:24or something, you know, I just can't deal with it.
0:20:27So having that... removing the resistance from allowing you to do something is so important
0:20:34and if you are a person that works that way, finding ways to get around that stuff is incredibly useful and remain unproductive
0:20:42I feel like we could do a whole show kind of talking about routines
0:20:46but there's... when you work yourself into a situation where you are a self-employed person
0:20:51and you don't have anyone to report to, and then this is extra true, this is somewhat true for you, but it is extra true for me,
0:20:58that you don't necessarily have anywhere in particular to be at a particular time, like you just let the whole day is free in front of you.
0:21:08It turns out it is remarkably hard sometimes to keep on track when you don't have external pressures and external deadlines.
0:21:20And yes, I have discovered the same thing too, that the way my day goes in the morning determines how the whole rest of the day goes.
0:21:28Which kind of sounds crazy because I used to work as a teacher and I was like, "Hey, guess what? If you have a bad time getting ready in the morning, like you still need to be at a particular class at that time and you need to be doing this thing."
0:21:39And there's like this whole train that you just step on that takes you through your whole day when you are employed and somebody else is telling you what to do.
0:21:48to do or if you have meetings throughout the whole rest of the day. But when you don't
0:21:52have that external structure, it is much more important that certain things go smoothly
0:22:00to kind of help you along with like here's how the day is going to go, here's how work
0:22:06is going to play out. And yes, so my bags are one of the very many things that I have
0:22:12set up to try to make it as easy as possible for me to work. Do you want to
0:22:17hear--I don't know if you want to hear this--do you want to hear my bag checklist?
0:22:20Yes. Where is this checklist live? This lives in OmniFocus. Just about every
0:22:28other week I do this kind of big review and one of the things on that review is
0:22:32to completely empty the two backpacks and then go through all of the items and
0:22:38make sure everything is everything is there or to remove any extraneous items
0:22:43that have somehow gotten into the bag. So it's very easy just to like have
0:22:47receipts or like stuff you just throw into the bag without thinking or "ooh I
0:22:52need this thing over here" and to take something out and then forget that you
0:22:55know it's like I just want to make sure that at least every two weeks I have
0:22:59reestablished that these two bags are in their their kind of perfect state. So
0:23:05So here's the list, and I've arranged a list of that when I'm going through it, it's easier for me to have like both backpacks next to me and just check off these items.
0:23:13Okay, so this template is in OmniFocus and then I can invoke it and go through all of the items.
0:23:19So I need to check each bag has its appropriate iPad.
0:23:24Now the one bag is for a regular day and the second bag, the blue bag, is for if I'm going to the gym.
0:23:33And this is why there are two of them because the gym bag needs to be a little bit different than the regular day bag
0:23:39But I want both of them just set at a moment's notice. Okay
0:23:42So iPad in each then the gym bag additionally gets gym clothes
0:23:49Flip-flops so we don't have to walk with bare feet in the area in the back of the gym
0:23:54And then you the gym membership card in the gym bag as well
0:23:57Then each bag requires a 12 watt charger each bag requires a 2 meter lightning cable
0:24:05Each bag requires a micro USB cable each bag requires a Logitech keyboard and
0:24:13Then again each I'll just each bag gets each of these things
0:24:17There's also an iPad stand a small packable umbrella a pack of caffeine pills a pack of
0:24:25Aspirin. Wait, come on. A small screen cleaner. No, no, we're stopping. We're going back
0:24:31You know, you're not just bro- caffeine like pro plus kind of stuff? Yeah pro plus kind of stuff
0:24:36Well, that'll come up on another show. Don't you worry about that? Okay?
0:24:39Okay, so the caffeine pills the aspirin a small screen cleaner like one of those little wipes you can clean off a screen
0:24:47a 50 pound note a
0:24:50protein bar, a small pack... Why do you have a 50 pound note? A small pack of almonds,
0:24:56a spare pack of AAA batteries... What are the batteries for? And then... wait I'm not talking about...
0:25:04And then each bag gets a noise cancelling headphone plus the case for
0:25:10the noise cancelling headphones. So those are the items that each bag is required
0:25:14to have and then the gym bag also has just gym stuff in it. So there we go. So I
0:25:18So I run through that checklist once every two weeks to make sure all of these items
0:25:21are in each of the bags.
0:25:23And there are no follow up questions, which is very nice.
0:25:24Great.
0:25:25So that's just, I think it's all pretty straightforward.
0:25:26No.
0:25:2750 pound note.
0:25:28Why is there a 50 pound note in there?
0:25:32Why do you think there's a 50 pound note?
0:25:33Do you not take your wallet with you?
0:25:35Okay, so this is, this is like a pro tip for everybody.
0:25:39This is like a life tip.
0:25:41I have found it useful to have on hand just some backup cash for minor emergencies or
0:25:51problems.
0:25:52Now, these things rarely happen, but every once in a while it really helps to just have
0:26:00some additional cash on hand for...
0:26:04I guess the thing that has happened most often in London is that for some reason I've forgotten
0:26:10my keys, for example. And then, like, okay, well now I'm kind of stuck out in the world
0:26:17and I just want to make sure that I have a little bit of additional cash because things,
0:26:23like when one thing in life goes wrong, suddenly a bunch of things in life can go wrong. And
0:26:29it always happens that if you forget your keys, this is also the time that the wallet
0:26:32isn't in your pocket because you were just going outside, you know, briefly for a moment.
0:26:37weren't intending to do a whole bunch of things.
0:26:40So if one thing goes wrong, a bunch of things goes wrong.
0:26:43And I want to have little capacitors almost,
0:26:46little bits of backup system to make sure
0:26:48that life can get back on track or kind of go smoothly.
0:26:52And so just having a little bit of cache
0:26:54available if there's some kind of problem is helpful.
0:26:59I feel like I need a better example to try
0:27:01to convince you of this.
0:27:02No, no, no.
0:27:03It's not-- I'm just interested by it,
0:27:05because I assume that you are probably not a cash person.
0:27:09- The thing with the 50 pound note
0:27:11is that this is something that has become
0:27:13less and less of a problem over time.
0:27:17Like I'm aware that this is kind of an old habit now
0:27:20as opposed to an actual necessity.
0:27:22Because, I mean even like with my iPhone,
0:27:25I can pay for some limited stuff
0:27:28or you can get help with an iPhone.
0:27:30Like this isn't like a big deal.
0:27:33A long time ago when I was traveling in America, I used to have a key ring that had a special
0:27:39little fob on the end that you could stick some money into, and you could put like a--
0:27:45you could cram in like just barely like a hundred dollar bill into this, so you would
0:27:49always just have on hand like an emergency hundred dollars.
0:27:52That thing was very useful in the kind of pre-iPhone world, and I mean there was one
0:27:57time when my wife and I got into a car accident, and we needed-- basically we needed to call
0:28:03like a taxi cab company to drive us and our stuff to the nearest hotel, but they wouldn't
0:28:07take credit cards, and so like knowing that you just have some cash on hand to try to
0:28:12like solve this little bit of a problem is a security that you don't need it almost all
0:28:18the time, but every once in a while it turns out to be very useful. So that's why it's
0:28:23there. It's just like if I find myself out of the house, I have this little bit of backup
0:28:28money even if other things go wrong. Like oh, my credit cards are declined and I'm locked
0:28:32out of the house, well, I don't have to just be stuck in the city with no money.
0:28:36I can just get like a sandwich and some water or whatever. Like that's why it's there.
0:28:40I guess that was kind of the route that I thought it was gonna go, but
0:28:44it was just still interesting to me that it's there, you know? Because I just can't
0:28:48imagine you being a cash person, so... but that totally makes sense. I get that.
0:28:52The cash isn't for me. I have no use for the cash. It's to give other
0:28:56people in exchange for goods or services to alleviate problems. That's like...
0:29:00the cash isn't for me, it's for other people.
0:29:02That feels like a life lesson in general.
0:29:06Money's not for me, man.
0:29:08Yeah, that's how the money works.
0:29:11It's not like, looking at the list,
0:29:14like the protein bar that I keep in my backpack,
0:29:17that's for me, that's not for other people.
0:29:20Other people can't have my protein bar.
0:29:22That's the difference between these items.
0:29:25I'm very happy to say that this episode of Cortex
0:29:28is brought to you by the good people of OmniFocus.
0:29:32OmniFocus is the task manager that I use to run my whole life.
0:29:37It's one of the most important apps that is available to me everywhere I need it.
0:29:43It's on my phone, it's on my Mac, it's on my iPads.
0:29:47It all syncs together so that I always know that I have a complete list of everything that I need to get done.
0:29:53The great thing about OmniFocus is that it scales for what you need it to be.
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0:30:10One of the things I like about it is how OmniFocus allows me to slice and dice the various actions that I have in my system.
0:30:18So at any moment I can pull up all of the actions that are, say, due today.
0:30:23Or I can see all of the things that I need to do that are related to Cortex.
0:30:27That's what's on my screen right now as I'm recording this ad, actually.
0:30:30I can just press a button and see all of my Cortex-related tasks,
0:30:34because that's what I'm sitting down to work on now.
0:30:37And when I'm done with this ad, I'm going to go out and run a few errands,
0:30:41and there's just a button that I press on OmniFocus that shows me all of the errands that I have to do.
0:30:46That ability to see the tasks that you need to see right now and to ignore everything else in your system is
0:30:54the reason that I use OmniFocus because it is built into the program from the ground up.
0:31:00We're going to put the link in the show notes at omnigroup.com where you can go check out OmniFocus
0:31:07and you should definitely give that a little click and take a look at it.
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0:31:52It is an amazing program and you should definitely try it out today.
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0:32:02try out OmniFocus today.
0:32:04Let's get back to talking about working environments.
0:32:07So I assume you have a home office.
0:32:08Is that a dedicated room in your house?
0:32:10Yes, I'm talking to you right now from my home office.
0:32:14Do you have a standing desk, a seated desk?
0:32:16Do you have a big desk, a small desk?
0:32:18- I had originally intended to set up my office
0:32:20in a whole bunch of ways when we moved into this apartment,
0:32:22which is still in my mind the new apartment,
0:32:24although we've been living here
0:32:25for like a year and a half now.
0:32:27And I intended to get a standing desk,
0:32:29but this is just one of these things
0:32:30that has fallen through the cracks.
0:32:32So I just kind of have a normal black sitting desk
0:32:36that I'm in front of right now,
0:32:37and this is the one that my iMac is on.
0:32:39But yeah, it's a dedicated room in my house.
0:32:41I have a door that I can close, which is very exciting,
0:32:43because I used to live in a-- technically, it was a more than one room apartment with
0:32:49my wife, but I always describe it to people as functionally a studio, because the place
0:32:56that we lived was so small that while, yes, there is a door between the living room and
0:33:02the bathroom, it didn't make any practical difference in all the ways that you might
0:33:07want to imagine that a door would make a practical difference with a bathroom situation.
0:33:11So in our current living environment, it's still, I still walk around sometime and think,
0:33:17"Wow, we have doors and rooms!
0:33:19Like this is amazing!"
0:33:20"What's in here?"
0:33:21Exactly.
0:33:22"It's another room!"
0:33:23It is, it is a novelty that, I mean, again, we've been here a year and a half, but my
0:33:31wife and I will still remark on the fact that it is possible for one of us to not know exactly
0:33:37where the other person is. Because for the majority of our married life, we lived in
0:33:43a space where you could either always see where the other person was, or they'd be behind
0:33:48the door, right? And you knew that they were like behind that one door. So there was never
0:33:53any mystery about where the person was.
0:33:55Well that's great. Oh, he's behind the door.
0:34:00Exactly. So that's why like having having an apartment now that has doors and an apartment
0:34:06where I can have a dedicated office,
0:34:09this feels like amazing, amazing luxury to me.
0:34:13It's quite the upgrade.
0:34:14- What do you like about working at home?
0:34:18Like, is it more relaxed?
0:34:19Do you like that like snacks and drinks are always there?
0:34:22(laughing)
0:34:25- See, the thing is, you're starting from a false premise.
0:34:27It is convenient to work at home,
0:34:29but I'm not exactly sure that I really like
0:34:31working from home, which is one of the reasons
0:34:34So I very often go out into the city to just work from random places, or I go to the co-working
0:34:41space that I pay money to rent.
0:34:44So I very much like the ability to work from home, and there are certain things that are
0:34:50just easier to do when you're working from home, because I now have a dedicated place
0:34:55where I can have paperwork that I need to deal with, or I have all the equipment that
0:34:58I'm familiar with around me.
0:35:00I think I like working from places that are not my home much much better even though working from home is is very convenient
0:35:07Although you're working from home, right? You're calling me from like your bedroom or something, aren't you?
0:35:11Yeah, I don't have an office like my office is one corner of my bedroom
0:35:16And that's you know
0:35:18I hope to change that because I'm still living at home at the moment me and my girlfriend are saving to buy a place and
0:35:24We're only looking for two bedroom places
0:35:27Because I will turn one into a proper office. Yeah, you need an office at this point
0:35:31Yeah, I need like a real office, but I just don't have one in the current house that I'm in
0:35:35Mm-hmm, you know and I have a big sitting desk
0:35:39It's a big glass desk and I'm in the same kind of thing as you like I'm like I'm every couple of days
0:35:43I'm like, I really want to just set the desk up the way I want it to be and I just don't know
0:35:47But I like I the other day I cleared some stuff off of the desk
0:35:50So it's got more space on it
0:35:52but I have in my mind this amazing setup
0:35:55that will make me a thousand times more productive.
0:35:58- It won't.
0:36:00- Oh, but it will, Greg, I've planned it all out.
0:36:02But I just haven't gotten around to doing it yet.
0:36:06And I pay for a co-working space,
0:36:09but don't go there enough.
0:36:11And that is something that is always in my mind
0:36:14that I need to do.
0:36:15But I feel chained to my home
0:36:19because this is where my equipment is to record.
0:36:21So it's all about me trying to manage my time better.
0:36:24So there are days where I'm not recording
0:36:26so I can actually go and do it.
0:36:28Because as well, my coworking space is an hour from my home.
0:36:31- No, you'll never go there.
0:36:34- I do sometimes, I don't go there enough.
0:36:36I'm trying to go there more.
0:36:37Like basically where I live, there is nothing.
0:36:39There is no nothing.
0:36:40Like, you know, I live in a, I wouldn't even,
0:36:43it's probably more of a suburb, I guess,
0:36:45but it's way out of London.
0:36:47- Yeah, I don't even know where you are.
0:36:48I just I know you're you're east you know like vaguely
0:36:50Hundreds of miles east is the thing that I imagine like technically London, but not actually London
0:36:56Yeah, because I think the eastern border of London goes all the way to the ocean as far as I can tell
0:37:01Something like that yeah, you can see it from the top of the shard right it's like oh
0:37:06Everything that we can see from here is London
0:37:09That's that's the way that works
0:37:10But like you know if the way to think about it if you know London is I live two stops away from the end of
0:37:16the tube line
0:37:18So that's far enough out of London, right? So there's nothing here. So I'm always traveling that kind of distance to get in.
0:37:24It's a wasteland.
0:37:25Yes, it's just my house.
0:37:28Yeah, you just get off the underground and there's tumbleweeds and nothing around.
0:37:33So, you know, I don't do that enough and I want to do it more because if I have something to work on,
0:37:43I do way more work when I'm in my co-working space than what I do at home.
0:37:47So you have one, two, three, four co-working spaces?
0:37:52How many co-working spaces do you actually go to?
0:37:54- I have one co-working space that I pay money to, right?
0:37:59I have a bunch of places around London
0:38:02that are little coffee shops or other corners
0:38:05that I've found that I like to go to work in,
0:38:07but they're not official office places.
0:38:10But there is an office block that is pretty near me
0:38:14that has a floor basically that they rent out as co-working space to a whole bunch of people
0:38:20and so I pay them like a monthly membership fee to be able to have access to that space
0:38:25and I have to travel an entire 10 minutes from my house to get to that co-working space.
0:38:33Yeah you see I know that if I was that close I would be there more because I could just go there
0:38:37for a couple of hours if I want to go to my co-working space I'm there for the whole day
0:38:41because it takes me, you know, I'm like traveling for two hours, like, you know,
0:38:45there and back an hour each way. So I know if I'm going to go to the
0:38:48co-working space, that is my day as a co-working space.
0:38:50Right. So that's what makes it a bit bigger of a hurdle for me to actually go
0:38:54in with. Like there isn't even any coffee shops or anything that I could work in
0:38:58where I live. Right, because we've established there's nothing where you
0:39:01live. It's just barren wasteland. Just barren wasteland.
0:39:04My wife and I do have a bit of a joke sometimes, which is kind of terrible, but
0:39:08We talk about how when you get out to those stopped at the end of the underground lines,
0:39:14that it reminds us of Firefly and the Outer Rim planets. This is always just the way that it feels
0:39:20of like, "Oh, where have we gone? It somehow feels way empty here." Which of course is ludicrous
0:39:26because the whole country is so dense compared to many other places, but when you live in the
0:39:33the center and then you go out to the edge it can feel weirdly empty even
0:39:38though it isn't by any kind of objective standard but our our slang reference to
0:39:44basically anything beyond like zone 2 is like oh it's all just the outer rim
0:39:48planets right that's all that's the whole rest of suburban London is the
0:39:52outer rim. I mean anybody who lives in any kind of suburban environment just
0:39:58walking to places is very much not an option I'm just aware that as you get
0:40:03further out from the center of the city, if you want to go
0:40:07anywhere, you really need a car and I used to teach in a
0:40:11school that was pretty outer rim and I was always just aware
0:40:15of how endlessly long those suburban streets are and and
0:40:18they just feel like, oh, there's nothing, there's nothing
0:40:20here except endless, endless rows of houses. There's nowhere
0:40:24to go. So, you you have to have a car or you have to be near a
0:40:29transportation point to be able to get anywhere else and like
0:40:33The advantage of that is you get to live in a huge place.
0:40:36You don't get to live in, as I did for many years,
0:40:38a place with a door, right?
0:40:40Like that's the trade-off, the further out you go.
0:40:43- We have like eight or nine doors in this house.
0:40:45There's doors everywhere.
0:40:46Like I sometimes open doors, there's more doors.
0:40:48You can't move for doors, you know?
0:40:51- Yeah, so we don't have any nested doors.
0:40:53There's no door that you can open in our place now,
0:40:55which leads to other doors.
0:40:57That's just non-existent.
0:40:59But that's the trade-off.
0:41:00I have always really liked being able to walk around in the center of the city,
0:41:04but there are, like everything in life, there are big trade-offs and costs for that.
0:41:08And one of those is that I have to accept that I end up living in a much, much smaller place
0:41:14than I could otherwise.
0:41:16Like, I could have had a home office for years if we were living further out,
0:41:20but we made the decision that, no, we want to live more centrally,
0:41:23and so then you have to live in a smaller place.
0:41:25But it didn't matter to me, like I said,
0:41:27because I like to go around and work at a bunch of different places. I find that a very enjoyable experience.
0:41:33Is your coworking space very business-y or is it hipster like mine?
0:41:39My coworking space, there are no hipsters there. My coworking space is full of business people.
0:41:46And I kind of wonder what they're up to, but it's a strange environment because...
0:41:52What are you doing?
0:41:54Well, yeah, how to describe this.
0:41:58So basically there's this floor which is sort of open plan that I have access to.
0:42:05And above and below us are regular office floors in the sense like some company has bought a floor of the building, right?
0:42:15So they have all their employees on that floor.
0:42:19But the co-working space is also like a shared area for all of the other office people in the building.
0:42:28And so it's very often like I'm just sitting down in the co-working space and like these herds of people with ties and briefcases come in and you know they're talking about all of their business stuff.
0:42:40And it's strange because there's this very clear divide between the people who are the co-working people like me and
0:42:47the business people and the way that these tribes are
0:42:51visually distinguished from each other is whether or not people are wearing ties. So
0:42:56everybody who's wearing a tie, it's like, "Oh, okay
0:43:00you're not one of the free-range monkeys like me, right? You are like a caged creature."
0:43:07You're a battery monkey. Yeah, you are you are you are a cage monkey you have to go back into a particular spot upstairs
0:43:14and the way we mark this is that you have a tie and
0:43:17I don't know. It's just a strange overlap sometimes between these these different groups of people but I
0:43:24Like the co-working space it's very convenient for me
0:43:28But I often feel like I overhear these these businessy conversations and often think like I don't have any idea
0:43:33What the heck these people are talking about they're always talking to like
0:43:36in these very abstract ways about quarterly reports and just like stuff that I don't even
0:43:42know what you're saying. None of this sounds like concrete, you know, "Oh, we're shipping a product
0:43:48to a certain number of people." It's all just like spreadsheets and things. So I don't actually often
0:43:54go to the co-working space when there are other people around. I used to, when it was less busy,
0:44:02go during the day, but for the most part now I actually pretty much exclusively go to my
0:44:08co-working space on the weekends and at night. Because then there's nobody else around and I
0:44:14like that much better. That is much preferred for me to not have other people around.
0:44:17I went to my co-working space on like the day two days before Christmas and it was the best time I
0:44:25ever spent there. Yeah, all of these other people they do nothing but kind of get in the way or they
0:44:30or they just make it harder to work if they're around.
0:44:33It's much nicer when you have an entire floor of a building
0:44:37all to yourself.
0:44:37That's the way I prefer to work.
0:44:39- In your coworking space is where lives
0:44:42the redundant bag system is what I call it.
0:44:47And I'm sure you have a better name for it.
0:44:49This is where you have a bunch of stuff
0:44:52that is there constantly.
0:44:54Like one of your fleet of iPads, I think lives there.
0:44:57A computer lives there.
0:44:59Do you have a name for this stuff?
0:45:00I think you have like everything there, don't you?
0:45:02Like a recording equipment, the whole shebang.
0:45:05- The redundant bags live in my home office
0:45:07because I always grab them in the morning.
0:45:08But I do have a like a little redundant office
0:45:12that is in the coworking space.
0:45:13So luckily the coworking space has these little cubes
0:45:16that you can rent and I just have a cube that is mined
0:45:20and I have a key to.
0:45:21- So it's like a little cubby.
0:45:22- Yeah, it's like a little cubby.
0:45:23And yeah, a cube makes it sound luxurious.
0:45:26Like I have a cubicle, but that's not the case.
0:45:29No, it's just a little cubby.
0:45:30And in there, yes, I have everything
0:45:33that I would need to theoretically get
0:45:35just about everything done.
0:45:37So that's where I keep my MacBook Pro.
0:45:41I keep one of my older iPads.
0:45:43I do have some older recording equipment in there
0:45:46so that if I need to record something,
0:45:47I can do it from the coworking space.
0:45:49I like to have that mirrored setup,
0:45:53because this, again, goes back to the idea
0:45:56of eliminating friction.
0:45:58And sometimes I will go out into the city just to like run some errands, or maybe I'm just taking a walk or something.
0:46:05Because kind of everything that I need in my daily life is in a very small radius from where I live.
0:46:13Like, the supermarket's nearby, I have a bunch of nice parks to walk to that are nearby,
0:46:19and I have a few regular places I like to go that are nearby, the gym is nearby,
0:46:24and also the co-working space is nearby.
0:46:27So it is not unusual where if I'm out just taking a walk, I can suddenly feel like, "You know what? I'm in the mood to get a particular kind of thing done."
0:46:36And then if the coworking space is nearby, I can just walk right to there and have everything ready to go.
0:46:44I don't have to think, "Oh, let me go back home to get my bag to then go out to then work."
0:46:50No, I don't want to do that. I want to be able to just walk into the co-working space and be able to sit down and just get started on something if I feel like I'm in the mood to do that.
0:47:00That happens pretty regularly, and so that's why I like to keep all of the redundant equipment there.
0:47:05It's just to have that as an additional space that I'm not having to bring equipment to.
0:47:11Like, if I had to physically bring equipment there, it would reduce the number of times that I would ever really want to go.
0:47:18So I'm just trying to make things easier for myself.
0:47:20It's smart because it allows you to just walk in.
0:47:23That's exactly right. I want to be able to walk in
0:47:26just off the street and and get to work.
0:47:29I'd be like, "Oh, I forgot to bring my laptop charger," right? That kind of thing
0:47:33I hate. I hate missing some small piece of vital equipment that then just throws off the rest of your day.
0:47:38It's like, "Oh, I gotta go back home to get the laptop charger, and then I have to come back to this place."
0:47:42And by that time you feel like, "Eh, the thing that I wanted to do the moment has passed."
0:47:46It's not gonna happen.
0:47:48I feel like this highlights something that I think is going to be a central theme that we're gonna see running through a lot of these
0:47:54Is that you value your time and convenience way more than money
0:47:58And I don't mean that to be a joke because I do too
0:48:03I will spend more money than people think should be spent on something if I feel like it's going to
0:48:09Give me more time or reduce aggravation in my life
0:48:13Yeah, broadly, I guess I'm trying to how to phrase this.
0:48:17Well, like to have the two bags, like all the things that you've mentioned, you have to have another two sets of headphones, right?
0:48:23Right. Where you could just have the one that you just pick up and put in the bag, but if you forget it
0:48:27that's annoying. So let's buy another two.
0:48:29You're having the two £50 notes, right?
0:48:32You could just keep £50 in your wallet, but instead you put it in the bag.
0:48:36So it's like it's not that you're like you have a ticker tape parade where you're throwing money out of
0:48:40of like a convertible car down the streets of London.
0:48:43- Yes.
0:48:44- But it's that you make purchases that are purely
0:48:48for reduction of aggravation.
0:48:52- Yeah, I think that's fair to say
0:48:54because I generally don't like things.
0:48:59I don't spend a lot of money on things.
0:49:02Like in my apartment, I just don't have very much stuff.
0:49:09But the things that I find useful, I am very willing to spend more money on a smaller number of things.
0:49:18It's like, I want a smaller number of things, but those smaller number of things to be of higher quality.
0:49:25And in some sense, the redundancy is a kind of quality.
0:49:31That from my perspective, it's almost like iPad is a service.
0:49:36And wherever I need iPad, iPad just is.
0:49:39and that kind of mental release of not having to think,
0:49:44where is my iPad?
0:49:45Oh, did I leave it on my desk?
0:49:47Let me go find it and put it in my bag.
0:49:49Or did I leave my iPad at the office?
0:49:51No, I never want to think that.
0:49:53I just, when I'm ready to work,
0:49:55I want something at hand immediately to be available.
0:49:59- This week's episode of Cortex
0:50:01is brought to you exclusively by OmniFocus.
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0:52:23So you work in coffee shops, right, which we've mentioned in like little places, little
0:52:28public spaces and stuff that you work in.
0:52:30I think I heard you mention once that you work in the British Library sometimes?
0:52:35I used to work in the British Library when it was a bit more convenient.
0:52:39But there are a bunch of locations that are like that around London that I frequently
0:52:44work.
0:52:45So why do you choose to work in those places rather than your co-working space?
0:52:49I mean, they have a lot of the same problems as people around being distracting, that kind
0:52:53of stuff.
0:52:54And you're also paying for the co-working space.
0:52:57So why do you go to places in that sort of scenario?
0:53:00Because that feels like you're kind of wasting money.
0:53:03Mm-hmm.
0:53:04Well, okay, so the two scenarios are during the day, if I am not staying at home to do work,
0:53:12I will go out to a bunch of different locations to write scripts, basically.
0:53:18And the reason why the people at, say, a cafe don't bother me as much as, say,
0:53:25the people at the co-working space, is I find the people at a cafe are kind of easier to
0:53:31ignore. There's no unity of purpose at a cafe, and also you're not going to run into the same
0:53:41people over and over by going to the same cafes to work at, or the same other locations around the
0:53:48city to work at. There's like a random crowd of essentially faceless anonymous people who are
0:53:55around you, whereas the problem that I have with the co-working space is like, "Oh, if I'm here
0:54:00or two frequently during the day, I start to recognize some of you, and this is just,
0:54:05this is not something that I really want to deal with. So that's part of the reason why
0:54:08I like working out and around in the city, is the anonymity of it is almost a kind of
0:54:15privacy. It's just like, "Oh, nobody here cares about what I'm doing, and I don't really
0:54:20care about what any of these people are doing." So we can all happily ignore each other while
0:54:24we're sitting at our various tables.
0:54:27So that's one thing that is very beneficial.
0:54:31And then the second thing is what I mentioned before
0:54:33is I don't know why, but I'm very aware
0:54:36that there's like a little clock that counts down
0:54:39in my head from about an hour and a half
0:54:41to two hours of a burst of work.
0:54:45So if I'm sitting down and I get like a good hour
0:54:48and a half worth of work done,
0:54:50even if I'm using like music to try to distract
0:54:53part of my brain, at that point in time, I start to get a little bit fidgety and it starts
0:55:00to become harder to kind of focus on whatever I'm doing.
0:55:04And I've learned that the best way to get over that is usually to take like a 20 minute
0:55:09walk.
0:55:10And so that's why I tend to kind of hop from place to place in the city is I've gone somewhere,
0:55:17I work for an hour and a half, I can feel my brain getting fidgety, I'm having a little
0:55:21bit of a hard time focusing on whatever I'm doing. So I'm going to get up, I'm
0:55:25going to go to a different location, and then after that 20-minute walk I find it
0:55:30much more easy to sit down and once again kind of concentrate on what it is
0:55:36that I want to do. So that's another reason why I like going out to different
0:55:40places to work is the motion and the change of environment I find facilitates
0:55:46certain kinds of getting things done.
0:55:49What's your favorite place to work? Do you have one?
0:55:52You don't have to give me a location so like you know you don't have people camping there.
0:55:55That's exactly, well yeah I'm not gonna...
0:55:57221 Baker Street.
0:55:58Yeah.
0:56:00I've been a bit vague because there are definitely places that I would not want to say out loud
0:56:04because I feel like no I've found these little places over years and years in the city.
0:56:08I'm not giving up various good locations that I like to work.
0:56:13Will you tell me them if like I pretend to ignore you when I'm there?
0:56:17No I won't tell you them no.
0:56:19I guess what I could more say is that I have little routes that I quite like where there are enough places
0:56:25that I'm going to stop along the way.
0:56:29And one of the routes, which is easy enough to talk about, is the South Bank of London is
0:56:34I found enough places along that stretch on the river
0:56:39where I can stop that aren't too crowded normally and I can kind of have a nice little walk down the river and
0:56:47Know that there are locations that are evenly spaced that I can stop when I want to so that that's like a that's like a little
0:56:53route that I use
0:56:55fairly frequently what a great part of London like
0:56:58Just one of the very best it has the best views it has the best bridges like
0:57:03Some of the most fantastic buildings and culture and places to eat and drink. It's south the South Bank is
0:57:09Fantastic. Oh of course
0:57:11That's one of the reasons why I was originally just walking around there because I liked it
0:57:15And I eventually kind of figured out a few places to stop that were convenient. And so now it's you know
0:57:22It's hard to say how often I do it, but that's that is a fairly
0:57:27regular go-to place for oh, I want to get some work done and
0:57:31Let me let me just go walking along here for the afternoon for example
0:57:36And I feel like this has kind of been implied today, but like I wanted to ask it
0:57:40Do you think that for you personally being in different places affects your productivity in different ways?
0:57:46Yeah, it does. It does. I think one of the...
0:57:50To turn it around for a moment, one of the reasons that I
0:57:54would say that I don't like working at home is I'm aware that this is probably one of the places where I am least
0:58:01effective at actually working. Because the home is an environment where you do all kinds of stuff and
0:58:08And it's very easy to get a bit derailed if you're just staying in the same location all
0:58:14day.
0:58:15And that location is also where you live.
0:58:18And so it's the same place where you relax at night.
0:58:21Like, oh, the main room of the house that I walk through to get lunch or whatever, this
0:58:25is where in the evening I will sit on the couch and watch television.
0:58:28It's like it's the wrong kind of mental environment sometimes for getting work done.
0:58:35feels less serious to my brain somehow as opposed to like, oh, I'm out and about, or I've gone to the
0:58:41co-working space and now brain, we need to get serious about this. Whereas when I'm home all day,
0:58:47it's like, well, I'll be home all day on a weekend, not necessarily working. So it doesn't,
0:58:53I feel like it's very beneficial to have sharp dividing lines between things, particularly when
0:59:01when you're self-employed, particularly when you don't
0:59:04naturally have those self-dividing lines.
0:59:06And that's why working at home, while it is extremely useful
0:59:10to me to have a home office, I'm aware
0:59:13that in terms of productive output per hour,
0:59:19it's probably one of the less effective places for me
0:59:22to work.
0:59:23But it is always available.
0:59:24So there's trade-offs.
0:59:26There's trade-offs all the time with these things.
0:59:28I'll tell you, if I can go on a slight diversion.
0:59:32- Yes.
0:59:33- I'll tell you something about how
0:59:35when I first started making the YouTube videos,
0:59:37I was extremely lucky with Place.
0:59:41So in that first apartment, which had a door,
0:59:46it was not really practical for me to be working a lot
0:59:51in the main area of our house, because it was everything.
0:59:56It was the kitchen, it was the bedroom,
0:59:58it was the main area, and I did have a little desk that was set up that I could work at,
1:00:03but this is back when I was still working as a teacher, and then, you know, if my wife
1:00:06would be home in the evenings, like, it just, it was not a great space to be trying to work.
1:00:13And this is where a lot of my first habit of wandering around the city probably really,
1:00:19really took hold, was like, I have to go out somewhere if I'm trying to work.
1:00:24But I eventually discovered that I had access in that building to this kind of terrifying
1:00:32basement space that was below the building but yet still kind of exposed to the elements
1:00:40through broken windows and had a boiler in there that was loud and the room was filled
1:00:46with dust and spiders and all kinds of disgusting stuff, but it was an additional space that
1:00:53I could get access to that absolutely nobody else would want to go to.
1:00:58Not by that description anyway. Oh, the spider room! Yes, please let me work in there.
1:01:05Yeah. So during the winter it would be freezing cold and during the summer it would be terribly,
1:01:10terribly hot. But in the year and a half when I was really trying, when I was putting all
1:01:17in on trying to make YouTube work as a business, having access to that little space made a
1:01:25huge difference to me because I would take at that point my very first iPad, the Retina
1:01:34iPad down there with a little keyboard and I could do this thing which I do all
1:01:41the time which is talk the scripts out loud and work on them. That's one of the
1:01:46most effective things that I can do when I'm when I'm actually working is to talk
1:01:49out loud what I'm going to say in the video and make changes and like keep
1:01:53going back and back and forth and keep saying the script out loud over and over
1:01:57again and making little changes.
1:01:58Yeah. So it's obviously not something that I could do in a cafe. It's not something I
1:02:02can do when people are around. But having that little basement space was a spot
1:02:07that I could go to and very very regularly in the evenings after dinner,
1:02:12which happens to be a very useful time for me work-wise, I would go down to the
1:02:18spider basement and work. And that space ended up, I would say probably is one of
1:02:26the most productive spaces that I've ever worked in. Even though it was
1:02:31horrible, like it was not set up to be a place to work, that actually kind of worked in its
1:02:37favor because I never wanted to be there any longer than was absolutely necessary.
1:02:43And so I think that this also really contributed to the association in my brain of, you know,
1:02:52we're downstairs in the basement and now it is time to work because we're not going back upstairs
1:02:57to our comfy house until you get enough of, you know, until you get through enough drafts
1:03:01of this video that you feel satisfied with it.
1:03:05And so I think there are ways in which working environments can actually be too comfortable.
1:03:13Like having an office that is too nice can actually be a disincentive to work.
1:03:21You don't want to have stuff that is extremely 100% comfortable all the time.
1:03:27And I think that the cafes in a way replicate this a little bit, because you can never quite
1:03:33get a cafe to be set up just the way you want, right?
1:03:36Oh, the chair is always a little bit off, you know, or the table isn't quite right,
1:03:40or you're sitting in a spot that you don't necessarily like perfectly.
1:03:43And when you go there, like, you don't even know if you're going to be able to have a
1:03:47place to sit.
1:03:48Yeah, yeah.
1:03:50There are all of these little things that make the environment slightly uncomfortable,
1:03:55but I feel like that can actually be conducive in a way to working.
1:04:00Whereas I'm aware that my house, while I do love it, it's almost too comfortable.
1:04:05Everything is just the way I like, and that's one of the reasons why I often work somewhere
1:04:11else.
1:04:12Now for things like the podcasting, like doing the podcasting from home, this is a kind of
1:04:15convenience that I wouldn't have been able to do without having a home office.
1:04:20So there's some kinds of things that obviously it's way better to have a
1:04:23home office, but I still do a large part of my writing elsewhere, not at home.
1:04:30One of the reasons why I go to the co-working space on weekends and during
1:04:35the evenings is precisely because there's nobody around and so this is a
1:04:39perfect time to be able to do that thing where I talk the scripts out loud, where
1:04:44where I can walk around in this kind of big open area
1:04:48and talk out loud like a crazy person,
1:04:50and there's nobody there to bother me.
1:04:52And again, that is a very, very productive time for me.
1:04:58Even though, to answer your question,
1:04:59it seems a bit redundant to both work around the city
1:05:03and to also have the co-working space,
1:05:06I use the co-working space in a very different way
1:05:09than I do cafes or my home office, even.
1:05:12So having access to that space, to be able to kind of like,
1:05:17it's much nicer than the basement,
1:05:20but be able to replicate this, okay, it is in the evening
1:05:23and I want to go somewhere and just be able
1:05:24to talk out loud for a while effect.
1:05:27That's one of the reasons why I keep
1:05:29the coworking space around.
1:05:30And that's one of the reasons why I use it.
1:05:32- Did you ever work in an office?
1:05:34- Oh, you mean like a grownup office?
1:05:37- Like an office with like desks of people and.
1:05:41- I see these offices.
1:05:42I see these big open planned offices on some of my walks
1:05:48and some of the places that I go.
1:05:50And they don't look very nice.
1:05:53I have never worked in one of these offices.
1:05:55And when we talked last time about why
1:05:59I wanted to be a teacher, I always
1:06:02knew that an office environment was not the environment for me.
1:06:09I've never had any kind of job.
1:06:11even my student jobs or anything that were stereotypical office jobs.
1:06:15I have tried very hard to avoid that and I have,
1:06:19I have done so successfully so far in my life.
1:06:22You would hate it.
1:06:24Oh, I, I'm, I'm pretty sure I would. And it's funny, I was thinking about, um,
1:06:29you know, the movie Office Space.
1:06:31So I first saw Office Space in college at some point and the movie is ostensibly
1:06:41comedy. And I remember thinking, "Oh, this is a very funny movie." But it also had
1:06:45this little bit of a tinge of, like, a warning from the adult world of, you know,
1:06:51"You don't really want to probably work in an environment like this." And every--I
1:06:56don't know, every few years I watch Office Space again, and every time I watch it, as
1:07:00I have gotten older, that movie has become less of a comedy and more of a
1:07:07horror film of just, I don't laugh, I kind of, I kind of watch it just, just filled with horror.
1:07:14And one of the things I'm really aware of is that if you look at the working environment and office
1:07:22space, it's presented as this, this terrible, terrible working environment, because they're
1:07:27all stuck in these, these horrible cubes. But in all of the offices that I can see into in London,
1:07:35those cubes would seem like a massive luxury.
1:07:38Most of the offices I see arrange people in these endless open rooms
1:07:44with just computers on their desk sitting directly opposite someone else on a computer,
1:07:50with someone on a computer on either side of them,
1:07:53with half-size little walls if they're lucky, but very often they're just long tables
1:07:59that, you know, 16 people are sitting at.
1:08:02that they would beg, beg for cubes.
1:08:06And that's why the office space thing,
1:08:09that's the one thing I'm really aware of,
1:08:10watching that movie.
1:08:11It's like, okay, this movie is horrifying
1:08:13as an adult to watch, but even since then,
1:08:16it looks to me like things have really changed
1:08:19in the office world.
1:08:20I mean, did you have a cube?
1:08:21I bet you didn't.
1:08:22- No.
1:08:23I wish I did.
1:08:24One of the things that happened to us,
1:08:26which this is one of the worst things,
1:08:28we're like the marketing department, right?
1:08:29So we were kind of a bit more relaxed
1:08:31about the way that we worked, you know?
1:08:34And, you know, we had music, we'd have a laugh, we'd joke around and stuff.
1:08:37And at that time, there were banks of desks
1:08:40that kind of set 12 people, six on each side.
1:08:42We had a decent amount of room and they were OK.
1:08:45Yeah, they were OK.
1:08:47There wasn't great.
1:08:48There was barely any meeting rooms.
1:08:50And then one day we were told, oh,
1:08:53there are people moving down from another floor,
1:08:55so we have to move everybody around and, you know,
1:08:58have to pack up all your stuff this weekend,
1:09:00'cause when you come in on Monday,
1:09:01there's gonna be a completely new seating set up,
1:09:03that kind of thing.
1:09:04So we came in on Monday,
1:09:06and they'd moved us around to another part of the floor.
1:09:10And they had increased our tables to banks of 16.
1:09:15So eight people each side.
1:09:16- But the table wasn't any bigger.
1:09:18- It was a little bit bigger.
1:09:20Only a little bit bigger.
1:09:22- Okay, so they added like 10% more table
1:09:24and 50% more people.
1:09:25- The people that sat behind us,
1:09:27that came down from the floor above,
1:09:29They were the same size tables and they sat 10 aside.
1:09:32And no computers anymore, everyone was hot desking
1:09:36so you wouldn't even be guaranteed.
1:09:38You didn't have enough, each team didn't have enough desks
1:09:41to fit the team.
1:09:42So sometimes if you were five minutes late,
1:09:44you'd come in and there'd be no desk for you.
1:09:46And you'd just be walking around the floor,
1:09:48trying to find somewhere to sit.
1:09:50But you'd have all your stuff in a locker
1:09:52that was on the desk that you usually sat at, right?
1:09:55So you'd have to be walking back and forwards
1:09:57all day picking it up.
1:09:59But the worst thing about it was the people that came down,
1:10:02they were from a very stuffy department,
1:10:05and they wore really smart suits,
1:10:07and they were much older and more official,
1:10:10and three levels of management above us.
1:10:13So they kept making changes about the way
1:10:16that we had to work,
1:10:16and we weren't allowed to have our music on anymore,
1:10:19and we had to be more quiet.
1:10:21We weren't allowed to swear as much as we did,
1:10:24and they took all of our meeting rooms away.
1:10:26And it's like I don't ever again want to be in an environment where
1:10:30the my working environment can be changed by external factors like that.
1:10:37Like someone can make a decision and all of a sudden we're all crammed up and they don't have a desk anymore.
1:10:42This is always like the thing with working for a company versus working for yourself and there are trade-offs in both of these.
1:10:49But that is one of the biggest trade-offs is that other people
1:10:54can make decisions that radically change your daily experience when you're working for another company.
1:11:01And that kind of thing of "Oh, we're going to change your physical environment in a way to make it much less pleasant"
1:11:11is extremely, extremely frustrating to deal with.
1:11:15And I just can't imagine how that has been for lots of workers,
1:11:21seeing as I do inside these offices, the shape of them change and more people getting crammed into a space is just...
1:11:31I don't know. It's...
1:11:33I tried very hard to avoid that and I have been lucky enough to avoid that in my life so far.
1:11:42Surely you would think you're less productive under the new circumstances.
1:11:46Oh definitely, but you know then they try and back that up with you've got to meet your objectives, you know.
1:11:52Oh right, you have to meet your objectives.
1:11:54You have to meet your objectives, so you might be less productive but you have your objectives to meet.
1:11:58Who sets your objectives out of interest?
1:12:00What do you mean for uh for grey industries who sets my objectives?
1:12:05Yeah we should have a quarterly review, me and you. I could give you a good quarterly review,
1:12:10we could we could establish your performance rating. What do you think about that?
1:12:14I would resist that. I would resist that. We can talk about deadlines and objectives at another point maybe, but there is nobody else setting my deadlines or objectives.
1:12:27I do not have any more meetings where we can talk about how good of an employee I have been like I did when I was teaching. Those were always fun, having someone come in and evaluate you. It's like, oh god.
1:12:39So Mr. Grey, I've come to the end of my questions for today.
1:12:46Okay.
1:12:47Shall we tell people how they can send us in their feedback and questions?
1:12:51You know, if people want to find out why you have caffeine pills, or if they want to try
1:12:57and find out your favourite haunts in the South Bank Centre, there's a couple of places
1:13:02that they can get in touch with us.
1:13:04The best ones, Twitter and Reddit.
1:13:07So you can go to the Reddit page. Can you tell people where that is again?
1:13:11The Reddit page for me is the number one source for feedback.
1:13:14Because not only can you leave long comments, which are sometimes very nice,
1:13:19but other people can decide how useful your comments actually are by voting them up and down.
1:13:24So the Reddit is by far and away for me the number one place for people to leave feedback.
1:13:28And so you can go to reddit.com/r/CGPgray and there will be a discussion link for this
1:13:39episode of Cortex.
1:13:42And you can also, on Twitter you can find us both.
1:13:45Gray is @CGPgray and I am @imike, I M Y K E.
1:13:50And don't forget our hashtag that we have, #askgray, where you can ask us questions and
1:13:55and send in feedback and follow up and stuff.
1:13:57For a future episode, I expect there to be
1:14:00lots of follow up on next week's episode
1:14:03for these current two that we have recorded so far.
1:14:05I'm looking forward to digging into some of that.
1:14:08- Yes, because we are recording this one actually,
1:14:10what, like 35 minutes before you're about to put
1:14:14the first one up live?
1:14:16- Yeah, I don't wanna talk about that.
1:14:17(both laughing)
1:14:20I'm in a state of nausea right now.
1:14:22- Yeah.
1:14:23I'm worried if we talk about it too much I'll ruin my microphone.
1:14:26Yeah, but so yes, this episode will actually not be going up for a week or so.
1:14:31So these two have been done in advance and then the third one is when we'll finally be able to go over some feedback and things.
1:14:39But yes, we need to end the conversation now because you need to put the first show live!
1:14:44[BEEP]