Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► You wanted your vlog, you got your vlog.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Yeah, but I still feel like you owe me a vlog. You skipped a week.

00:00:05 ◼   ► You will never be satiated. Never.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Well, I think you owe me like an extra vlog. That's all I'm saying.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Well, you're gonna be sad because I'm not doing one this week.

00:00:14 ◼   ► I can't believe you're disrespecting the schedule like this, Myke. I don't understand

00:00:17 ◼   ► what's happened to you. I think I've rubbed off on you.

00:00:21 ◼   ► There is no schedule though, Gray. There was no schedule.

00:00:24 ◼   ► You were the one who decided there was a schedule, not me.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Why is this the one project that doesn't have a schedule, Myke?

00:00:31 ◼   ► Because it's not my job.

00:00:32 ◼   ► It's not.

00:00:34 ◼   ► It's because it's your side project?

00:00:36 ◼   ► Because it's my side project.

00:00:37 ◼   ► And quite frankly, I mean, like the real reason is

00:00:41 ◼   ► I just don't have enough interesting things going on.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Or all times to make like, I could make a video this week, but it would be really boring.

00:00:48 ◼   ► So I'm gonna make a video next week because I'm moving house.

00:00:54 ◼   ► I mean, that's the reason that I'm not making a video this week is because next week we're moving.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Oh, it's finally happening for real?

00:01:00 ◼   ► It's finally happening for real.

00:01:01 ◼   ► We had the movers booked.

00:01:02 ◼   ► By the time many people were hearing this, I will have moved.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Ooh, very exciting.

00:01:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Into Cottage, I'll be ensconced in the mega office.

00:01:10 ◼   ► So this is the last recording in your old office then, which is your bedroom?

00:01:16 ◼   ► Actually, yes it is.

00:01:17 ◼   ► It is the last recording of anything.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Oh really?

00:01:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:21 ◼   ► Wow.

00:01:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:23 ◼   ► I didn't realize that until just now.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It's momentous.

00:01:25 ◼   ► week shows, even though we're moving middle of the week, but all of next week's shows

00:01:29 ◼   ► are going to be recorded from Mega Office.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I think because I'm the last one, I should also be the first one in the new office.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Great, so you want to record next week?

00:01:38 ◼   ► So, delay all of your shows until after the next recording of Cortex.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I think that's the way to handle this.

00:01:48 ◼   ► I mean, I could do that, but I would then also lose the house that I'm buying, so...

00:01:52 ◼   ► Right, fair enough.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Okay, I can see why you don't want to.

00:01:55 ◼   ► I can see why you don't want to.

00:01:56 ◼   ► - As nice as it would be to take

00:01:57 ◼   ► Cortex once across everything.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - You gotta pay for those houses somehow.

00:02:01 ◼   ► And houses aren't cheap I hear.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - That is very true.

00:02:04 ◼   ► So you wanted to know my YouTube ranking.

00:02:08 ◼   ► It turns out that there is a website that will tell you it.

00:02:11 ◼   ► VidstatsX is like the second tier website now

00:02:15 ◼   ► to something called Social Blade,

00:02:17 ◼   ► which many people wrote in to tell us about.

00:02:19 ◼   ► My current ranking as of today, Gray, is 232,533.

00:02:25 ◼   ► subscribers. I'm actually pretty pleased with that to be honest.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's, that's interesting. I was aware of social blade.

00:02:33 ◼   ► And I think what happened was when I first started being aware that there were

00:02:38 ◼   ► websites that could track your subscribers,

00:02:41 ◼   ► social blade was actually the one that I used years and years ago.

00:02:44 ◼   ► And then at some point vid stat X took the mantle for having better numbers,

00:02:49 ◼   ► but it looks like social blade is coming back on their game now to be the better

00:02:54 ◼   ► website with the live subscriber count things that they do and also being better on mobile.

00:02:59 ◼   ► So it looks like I'm going to be sort of moving back to Social Blade from VidstatX for looking

00:03:05 ◼   ► up various things on YouTube.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Although I do absolutely hate that the website has these estimated earnings which are off

00:03:13 ◼   ► by like an order of magnitude with their estimates for like the low and the high numbers.

00:03:19 ◼   ► It's amazing.

00:03:20 ◼   ► estimated yearly earnings are somewhere between 63 pounds and a thousand pounds. That is a

00:03:25 ◼   ► huge difference.

00:03:28 ◼   ► I know, I know. It's like, I don't know why they even have those numbers there. I don't

00:03:32 ◼   ► understand what those estimated earnings things are. But it just bothers me that they have

00:03:37 ◼   ► a data point that is just so meaningless and that like their high end numbers for some

00:03:44 ◼   ► channels are just comical, like they're just like just insane insane numbers.

00:03:51 ◼   ► That's my least favorite thing about Social Blade but overall it does seem

00:03:54 ◼   ► like it's it's winning the war for which website is actually better. But yeah I

00:03:57 ◼   ► agree with you that it's interesting to see that you are just rounded off like

00:04:05 ◼   ► in the top quarter million of YouTube channels and what is your current

00:04:10 ◼   ► Subscriber numbers ten thousand six hundred and fifty nine ten thousand six hundred and fifty nine

00:04:15 ◼   ► I think this this again goes to reiterate the conversation that we were having before of

00:04:20 ◼   ► the the total number of YouTube channels is just

00:04:24 ◼   ► incomprehensibly large

00:04:27 ◼   ► and it's like you're you're moving up this power law distribution of

00:04:31 ◼   ► What subscriber numbers look like and where you are in the rankings against all other channels with that. So

00:04:39 ◼   ► So keep climbing that power log graph Myke.

00:04:42 ◼   ► I will say the live subscriber count for me is just a sad page.

00:04:48 ◼   ► It doesn't move very much.

00:04:50 ◼   ► You can sit and look at that thing for a while and nothing really happens.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Do you leave it open in the background somewhere so you can check in on it every once in a

00:04:58 ◼   ► while?

00:04:59 ◼   ► I have it on a dedicated TV hanging on the wall now.

00:05:01 ◼   ► Just got to keep my eye on that thing.

00:05:03 ◼   ► I think you have space for that in MegaOffice.

00:05:05 ◼   ► That should be one of the things that's in the background of your videos.

00:05:08 ◼   ► You should always have that in the background.

00:05:09 ◼   ► It's just a flat line.

00:05:10 ◼   ► Yeah, but not forever, Myke. It won't be a flat line forever.

00:05:15 ◼   ► So I think you should do that.

00:05:16 ◼   ► You should have a dedicated TV in the background that shows your live subscriber

00:05:20 ◼   ► numbers as you're recording the vlog.

00:05:22 ◼   ► There's no way people will mess around with that. Uh,

00:05:25 ◼   ► that's definitely something that you should do.

00:05:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll look into that.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Do you remember we asked Ryan to slowly fix your problem with your email mail

00:05:33 ◼   ► boxes?

00:05:34 ◼   ► Oh, is this tech support? Okay. We're back to my tech support.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Excellent. Ryan is back again for our bi-weekly check-in here for the situation of your email

00:05:46 ◼   ► problem. And he has provided some handy screenshots. Oh wow. So basically there is a rule that

00:05:56 ◼   ► you can set up. This is the problem. We were looking in smart mailboxes for the situation,

00:06:00 ◼   ► for this VIP problem. It is a rule that you can set up on your Mac for if sender is in

00:06:07 ◼   ► my contacts you can create a mailbox for that to be in, call it the VIP mailbox or whatever.

00:06:13 ◼   ► If you use iCloud email there has to be a Mac on always to filter this. But if you use

00:06:19 ◼   ► Gmail or something I assume maybe other services that are not iCloud email you can set up these

00:06:25 ◼   ► rules and it will work in the cloud. And then he has also provided instructions on how you

00:06:30 ◼   ► can set up those mailboxes to be pushed on iOS which is not intuitive but Ryan has provided

00:06:36 ◼   ► steps.

00:06:37 ◼   ► >> Boy, these are some nice screenshots, I have to say.

00:06:40 ◼   ► This is done very nicely here.

00:06:41 ◼   ► >> This was a multiple days of communication between me and Ryan to get to this situation.

00:06:48 ◼   ► >> Oh, wow, I appreciate that the two of you are working on my tech support problems.

00:06:52 ◼   ► This is great.

00:06:53 ◼   ► >> It was more he was just doing it and I was just saying thanks and then he would come

00:06:58 ◼   ► back with another saying, oh, it didn't work.

00:07:00 ◼   ► So Ryan, I think Ryan may have solved your problem here.

00:07:04 ◼   ► >> I mean, this is interesting.

00:07:05 ◼   ► I'll have to look at this in more detail when the show is over.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Because I'm assuming you use Gmail or something similar.

00:07:12 ◼   ► I don't use Gmail.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I actually use fast mail as the back end.

00:07:15 ◼   ► I'm not using Gmail.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Maybe fast mail will do the same thing as Gmail, though, because who knows?

00:07:19 ◼   ► This is what this is.

00:07:20 ◼   ► What's occurring to me is they have a bunch of server side rule stuff that you can do.

00:07:23 ◼   ► So there may be something similar to this.

00:07:25 ◼   ► It's just a question about synchronizing contact books.

00:07:27 ◼   ► But it is helpful, but I still do have the one limitation with the Apple

00:07:34 ◼   ► mail thing that I find frustrating which is that I can't sort by sender on iOS.

00:07:38 ◼   ► So it's like limiting everybody to the people who are in my contacts book, this is fantastic.

00:07:44 ◼   ► I would love the ability to sort by sender on iOS like you can on Mac OS.

00:07:50 ◼   ► But this is like 60% of the way towards being very helpful.

00:07:55 ◼   ► So I will definitely take a look at this in more detail after the show.

00:07:59 ◼   ► Maybe Ryan can somehow create some elaborate system of rules to reorganize your mail for

00:08:04 ◼   ► you in alphabetical order.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:08:06 ◼   ► Just route it through some server somewhere.

00:08:10 ◼   ► Or maybe Ryan can work with the guys at Unibox to get their update out to fix all of their

00:08:16 ◼   ► various problems on iOS.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Whatever it is, I look forward to solutions that I've received on the podcast.

00:08:23 ◼   ► This is fantastic.

00:08:25 ◼   ► Thank you, Ryan.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Poor Ryan.

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00:09:53 ◼   ► Many people in the Reddit have tried to fix your notification problems for you.

00:09:59 ◼   ► Oh have they? I bet they have amazing solutions.

00:10:02 ◼   ► There is one person, Funkju on the Reddit, who suggested something that was in my mind and I don't know why I didn't bring it up at the time.

00:10:11 ◼   ► So considering you have your device set for these basically two different modes, you have a contact me mode and a do not contact me mode.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Why don't you just have two phones?

00:10:24 ◼   ► I saw this comment and I saw a lot of Twitter replies about having two phones.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Because this is within your character, right?

00:10:33 ◼   ► You have two watches for this purpose, you have like two iPads, maybe seven iPads.

00:10:38 ◼   ► I was going to say two iPads.

00:10:40 ◼   ► Two?

00:10:41 ◼   ► I feel like you've forgotten our conversation from long ago.

00:10:45 ◼   ► I have at least twelve!

00:10:46 ◼   ► Yeah, you and Myke have been brought along to the multi-pad lifestyle here, right?

00:10:52 ◼   ► You were so skeptical a long time ago.

00:10:55 ◼   ► I am like a mere apprentice.

00:10:57 ◼   ► I have but two iPads.

00:10:59 ◼   ► So why do you not have multiple phones for this?

00:11:02 ◼   ► One that is just disconnected from everything and one that's connected.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Yeah, so I saw people mention this, and I think it's just kind of funny.

00:11:09 ◼   ► Mention it in a way as though it had never crossed my mind to use multiple devices for

00:11:13 ◼   ► this purpose.

00:11:15 ◼   ► The problem is the way Apple handles two different things, one of which is the notification stuff.

00:11:23 ◼   ► So while you can have what I do, multiple Apple Watches that are connected to an individual

00:11:30 ◼   ► phone, you cannot reasonably have one Apple Watch that connects to two different phones.

00:11:38 ◼   ► This is just not a possibility.

00:11:40 ◼   ► If you want to do this, it means you have to wipe and restore the Apple Watch every

00:11:44 ◼   ► single time, which takes forever and is an enormous hassle.

00:11:49 ◼   ► So you can't tell an Apple Watch to look for whichever phone is the one that's being actively

00:11:55 ◼   ► used right now.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Is it the morning phone or is it the evening phone?

00:11:59 ◼   ► And so what this means is it automatically makes it impossible for me to have the notifications

00:12:04 ◼   ► go the way I want them to go, which is through the Apple Watch.

00:12:08 ◼   ► So the morning phone would not be able to use the Apple Watch.

00:12:10 ◼   ► It's like, okay, that alone is a big problem.

00:12:14 ◼   ► But there's a second really big problem,

00:12:17 ◼   ► which is that Apple, to my great frustration,

00:12:20 ◼   ► which I mentioned before,

00:12:22 ◼   ► doesn't synchronize your health data across anything.

00:12:25 ◼   ► And so when I was playing around with this a while back,

00:12:28 ◼   ► like I quickly realized you end up with two fragmented,

00:12:32 ◼   ► unrelated health databases that like can't be merged

00:12:36 ◼   ► and can't be handled in an easy way.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And so because I exercise in the morning,

00:12:42 ◼   ► I run into this problem with the apps

00:12:45 ◼   ► that I want to use for exercise,

00:12:47 ◼   ► trying to write data to a separate Apple Health database.

00:12:52 ◼   ► - Which is stored on the phone, not the watch.

00:12:54 ◼   ► So you can have two watches,

00:12:55 ◼   ► but you can only have one phone

00:12:56 ◼   ► 'cause you have one central store for the health data.

00:12:59 ◼   ► - Right, right.

00:12:59 ◼   ► Your Apple Watch is always going to be tied

00:13:02 ◼   ► to one particular phone.

00:13:04 ◼   ► And it makes sense, okay,

00:13:05 ◼   ► whatever phone I'm going to receive iMessages on,

00:13:07 ◼   ► that has to be the phone that the Apple Watch is going to be tied to.

00:13:10 ◼   ► But then that means like, oh, the morning phone that I would use

00:13:13 ◼   ► that has this kind of subset of notifications that I want to receive

00:13:18 ◼   ► which are reminders to myself from myself

00:13:20 ◼   ► that phone can't run notifications through a watch

00:13:23 ◼   ► and any health stuff that's done on that phone is going to be limited to that phone.

00:13:29 ◼   ► It can't synchronize out elsewhere.

00:13:30 ◼   ► It's like this is just, it's too much of a hassle, like it's too much of a pain in the butt

00:13:34 ◼   ► that it causes more problems than it solves,

00:13:38 ◼   ► let alone some of the other synchronization issues

00:13:42 ◼   ► that I'm always a little bit frustrated with with Apple.

00:13:44 ◼   ► So it's like I would totally do it

00:13:47 ◼   ► if it was something that the software supported,

00:13:50 ◼   ► but it's not something that the software supports

00:13:53 ◼   ► at this time.

00:13:54 ◼   ► And so this is one of the reasons why

00:13:56 ◼   ► I have this frustration with a lack of granularity

00:13:59 ◼   ► over notifications, because I feel like,

00:14:01 ◼   ► Hey Apple, even if I am willing to buy two phones to solve my notification problem, I

00:14:08 ◼   ► still can't solve my notification problem because of the way the software operates.

00:14:12 ◼   ► So that's why I don't do this.

00:14:15 ◼   ► But it was to the many people who were giving feedback about this issue, yes, I had, I have

00:14:19 ◼   ► definitely, this had definitely crossed my mind.

00:14:22 ◼   ► I had definitely done some trials with older phones to see if I could make this work.

00:14:27 ◼   ► And it was just like, no, this is way impractical.

00:14:30 ◼   ► This is much more of a hassle than the problem I'm trying to solve.

00:14:33 ◼   ► It's a shame, the health data thing, because I could have seen a world where you ended

00:14:37 ◼   ► up with two phones and four watches.

00:14:42 ◼   ► Which would have been just delightful for me.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I think you would have enjoyed that quite a lot.

00:14:47 ◼   ► But I think that's crazy.

00:14:49 ◼   ► I don't really need that.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Really though?

00:14:52 ◼   ► Is it more crazy?

00:14:53 ◼   ► Is it more crazy than just having two watches?

00:14:56 ◼   ► Like I feel like it's a diminishing return of crazy.

00:15:00 ◼   ► You always say that the two watches thing is crazy, but it's not crazy.

00:15:02 ◼   ► I've given you all the reasons why it's fantastic and I love it.

00:15:05 ◼   ► Mm hmm. Yeah.

00:15:06 ◼   ► I don't think that it being fantastic and you loving it doesn't mean it's not

00:15:09 ◼   ► crazy.

00:15:10 ◼   ► It's but it isn't crazy.

00:15:12 ◼   ► It isn't crazy because I have very good reasons for the,

00:15:14 ◼   ► for the way that I do it.

00:15:15 ◼   ► I don't have good reasons to be running two phones and four watches,

00:15:18 ◼   ► so it's not going to happen even though I know that you would love it for

00:15:22 ◼   ► podcasting purposes.

00:15:24 ◼   ► And the inevitable argument, the inevitable argument was

00:15:29 ◼   ► [Sigh]

00:15:31 ◼   ► The obvious one.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I know. Android can give you what you want.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Right. I know.

00:15:37 ◼   ► It is the inevitable argument anytime we ever complain about anything Apple-related.

00:15:42 ◼   ► But, the level at which Android can give you what you want here is far greater than I would have assumed.

00:15:50 ◼   ► Because in my experience of playing around with Android, it felt to me that the notification problems were the same,

00:15:57 ◼   ► But I had not gone deep enough, Gray.

00:15:59 ◼   ► - Right, because you have one of the Google Pixel phones,

00:16:01 ◼   ► right? - I do, yes.

00:16:03 ◼   ► And maybe I wasn't looking because I didn't think

00:16:07 ◼   ► such a thing could exist, but it does.

00:16:10 ◼   ► So I asked for some assistance and some guidance

00:16:12 ◼   ► from the people in the Reddit thread

00:16:15 ◼   ► to try and give me some information

00:16:18 ◼   ► for how notifications work on Android.

00:16:21 ◼   ► So you can definitely have settings on an app by app basis

00:16:25 ◼   ► about what notifies you. So that's one thing you can do. But then they also have a whole

00:16:31 ◼   ► system called priority apps. And this is where it gets kind of incredible. Priority apps

00:16:36 ◼   ► can break through your Do Not Disturb barrier. You can set that, you can set that, the priority

00:16:42 ◼   ► app notifications to activate and deactivate at certain times. This is all built into the

00:16:48 ◼   ► system, let alone the things that you can do to hack on it, right? And also, in the

00:16:52 ◼   ► In the latest version of Android, there is a six-tier importance level system, including

00:16:59 ◼   ► showing what can and can't be shown on the lock screen.

00:17:03 ◼   ► Six tiers.

00:17:04 ◼   ► Six tiers.

00:17:05 ◼   ► Even I feel like that's quite a lot.

00:17:07 ◼   ► That's quite a lot of tiers.

00:17:09 ◼   ► But this is the thing, I think of all of the arguments, because we get this argument a

00:17:13 ◼   ► lot, right?

00:17:14 ◼   ► You like pencil support, you should use a surface.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Right.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Okay.

00:17:19 ◼   ► It really does feel to me that like this is such a fundamental frustration for you.

00:17:26 ◼   ► It's solved there.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And I just I wonder and I know the problem, the problem of this is the exact same problem

00:17:34 ◼   ► of the day phone, night phone is the Apple Watch.

00:17:36 ◼   ► The Apple Watch is the problem.

00:17:39 ◼   ► But it is just interesting to me to see just the level at which Android has solved this

00:17:44 ◼   ► problem and then the level at which Apple is ignoring it.

00:17:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's interesting like that, that is a way more in depth

00:17:52 ◼   ► granularity than I would have expected as well. Like this is,

00:17:56 ◼   ► this is definitely a case where you and I are like iOS peasants where we're

00:18:01 ◼   ► asking for a single level of the ability to break, do not disturb.

00:18:05 ◼   ► And Android is over there. It's like, look at me with my six levels, right?

00:18:10 ◼   ► I have levels to spare. And so I guess this is definitely a case of,

00:18:14 ◼   ► of where like Android wins this one. But I've always,

00:18:16 ◼   ► I've always acknowledged like if you want a bunch of settings, like if that is your primary concern is the ability to fiddle with and make everything exactly the way you want it.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Android is is the choice for you.

00:18:31 ◼   ► And I think this is partly why like people go a little bit crazy why I'm not an Android person because they think I'm that person with everything.

00:18:38 ◼   ► But like in this is a case where I am not that person.

00:18:42 ◼   ► I have other priorities aside from just like the sheer number of settings that are available.

00:18:47 ◼   ► But this large this, this goes mostly straight to this core of this frustration of there are definitely many places in iOS where it feels like it's a little neglected.

00:19:00 ◼   ► like it's a little creaky, it's a little old,

00:19:03 ◼   ► and the notifications area is definitely one of those places

00:19:06 ◼   ► and this is like a comical disparity then

00:19:09 ◼   ► in the amount of granularity that you have on Android

00:19:12 ◼   ► versus the amount of granularity that you have on iOS.

00:19:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I expected that this problem was solvable

00:19:19 ◼   ► on Android, right?

00:19:20 ◼   ► Because they all seem to be, right?

00:19:22 ◼   ► Every problem you have can be solved on Android,

00:19:25 ◼   ► but it's usually with like, you gotta root your phone

00:19:27 ◼   ► and use the Android development tools,

00:19:29 ◼   ► But no, this one's just built straight into the system.

00:19:32 ◼   ► Yeah, that's, that's the big differences.

00:19:34 ◼   ► This is not, this is not, Oh, you're hacking around with your own phone.

00:19:38 ◼   ► This, this is just built in and that does make a huge difference.

00:19:41 ◼   ► And so I hope Apple is listening.

00:19:45 ◼   ► I hope that they think about adding some more features to iOS and the ability

00:19:51 ◼   ► to break through, do not disturb or have more granularity in the settings.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I am not hopeful, but I hope that it is something that will change

00:19:59 ◼   ► eventually but I'm hoping that because I'm not switching to Android anytime soon

00:20:03 ◼   ► even though it apparently would solve every single one of my problems.

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00:21:06 ◼   ► Alright so last time on the show we promised an Ask Cortex special for Cortexmas so I wanted

00:21:13 ◼   ► to get all of our follow up out of the way so we've cleared the stage for the Cortexmas

00:21:19 ◼   ► break. So that's all dealt with now. And I do not feel like it would be hyperbole to

00:21:26 ◼   ► say that I have been inundated with questions. Far more than I expected to receive. So we're

00:21:33 ◼   ► good on Ask Cortex for a while, but keep sending them in anyway.

00:21:38 ◼   ► My favorite question was, "Why are we sending all the questions to Myke and not to the both

00:21:43 ◼   ► of you. And I feel like, because Myke is much better at organising all of this stuff than

00:21:49 ◼   ► I am. Question number one, this is the answer. Myke has a big document full of tons of questions,

00:21:57 ◼   ► nicely indented, nicely bullet pointed. I would never create this, so thank you Myke

00:22:03 ◼   ► for arranging all of this. Sorted, rewritten, highlighted. I was also

00:22:08 ◼   ► very surprised, Gray, that I only received one question by email.

00:22:12 ◼   ► That's fantastic. Isn't that what you want?

00:22:13 ◼   ► Yeah, but that question was tweet length, so I have no idea why it came to me by email.

00:22:19 ◼   ► But it did. It was exactly what I wanted. Many, many, many people used the hashtag,

00:22:26 ◼   ► and many, many, many people used the Reddit. I appreciated the people who were trying to

00:22:31 ◼   ► group the questions up for me. That was very nice of you. But I have a vast array of questions

00:22:38 ◼   ► here for the two of us to go through.

00:22:40 ◼   ► So starting off with Justin, Justin asked, can you give us a full rundown of the applications

00:22:46 ◼   ► that you're currently using for tracking your time and or making you more efficient at work?

00:22:52 ◼   ► I am also interested in this because I want to get into time tracking a little bit more

00:22:58 ◼   ► sometime after Cortexmas and to trying to understand where my time's going and maybe

00:23:04 ◼   ► what it's best used in and trying to maybe work out that scary figure that you have of

00:23:10 ◼   ► what my time is actually worth in money.

00:23:15 ◼   ► One year later you might actually do this.

00:23:18 ◼   ► Okay, fantastic.

00:23:20 ◼   ► I think you have to go through a whole process before you want to start doing stuff like

00:23:23 ◼   ► this.

00:23:25 ◼   ► And I'm also a little bit scared of what I'll find out, but it's something I definitely

00:23:29 ◼   ► want to do.

00:23:30 ◼   ► So what are you currently using for time tracking?

00:23:34 ◼   ► Before we get to that, I do just want to reiterate that for anybody who does the "what is your

00:23:40 ◼   ► time actually worth" calculation, I'm teasing Myke about putting it off, but I've done this

00:23:45 ◼   ► with a number of people.

00:23:50 ◼   ► People are, in some sense, right to feel hesitant about doing this and hesitant about really

00:23:55 ◼   ► facing it straight on because it can be

00:23:59 ◼   ► terrifying and

00:24:02 ◼   ► life-changing in all kinds of positive and negative ways and

00:24:07 ◼   ► and like to really put a number on your time, so I

00:24:11 ◼   ► kid you, but I do understand why there's a lot of mental

00:24:15 ◼   ► resistance about doing this kind of thing because it's like your life will never quite be the same

00:24:21 ◼   ► After as before when you really sit down and and value your time per hour

00:24:25 ◼   ► I get it can't help but become a thing that lodges in your brain and

00:24:31 ◼   ► Changes the way you think about a lot of stuff because like here's the thing right do I work in a creative field?

00:24:36 ◼   ► Mm-hmm. So there is a lot of stuff that I do

00:24:39 ◼   ► Which doesn't make money or doesn't make as much money as other things like for example my youtube channel

00:24:47 ◼   ► Like my youtube channel

00:24:50 ◼   ► Would right now just be a black hole

00:24:53 ◼   ► Yeah from a financial perspective and it's like if I find that figure out I

00:24:59 ◼   ► Don't want it to rule my life, but just to inform it

00:25:04 ◼   ► Right. Yeah, and so that's why I've been hesitant of it

00:25:07 ◼   ► Yeah

00:25:08 ◼   ► That's the real key is that you have to understand this as you know

00:25:12 ◼   ► Like I say with a lot of the things that I have set up for myself. They are

00:25:15 ◼   ► guidelines they are not rules because you'll lose your mind if stuff is like a rule that you have to follow all the time

00:25:23 ◼   ► But so after all of that preamble I have nothing to help you Myke I have nothing to help you that's good

00:25:32 ◼   ► Because I would actually love to

00:25:36 ◼   ► Hear from people what they use for time tracking because I have gone through various phases of tracking my time in

00:25:43 ◼   ► in different ways over the years.

00:25:45 ◼   ► And what I find occurs is that as the nature

00:25:50 ◼   ► of my work changes, I eventually find

00:25:52 ◼   ► that there's some limitation

00:25:55 ◼   ► about the way I'm doing time tracking,

00:25:56 ◼   ► which isn't working for my current work,

00:25:58 ◼   ► that did work for my old work.

00:26:00 ◼   ► And I've gone through like three phases of this.

00:26:02 ◼   ► - 'Cause you were using like a Rube Goldberg machine

00:26:07 ◼   ► triggered by Launch Center Pro, weren't you?

00:26:08 ◼   ► Like a long time ago.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. Well, this is, this is in modified versions.

00:26:14 ◼   ► Launch Center Pro has been at the heart of what I've used for a while,

00:26:19 ◼   ► but it's been connecting to different systems behind the scenes.

00:26:21 ◼   ► And I basically,

00:26:25 ◼   ► I have come up against a kind of limitation about this recently because for

00:26:30 ◼   ► various ways that my business has changed,

00:26:32 ◼   ► I want to be able to do more granular tracking on a project basis.

00:26:37 ◼   ► I need to know more specifically than just,

00:26:41 ◼   ► here is the time that I spend on YouTube.

00:26:43 ◼   ► Like I want to be able to narrow that down

00:26:46 ◼   ► to time spent on a particular video as a subset of YouTube.

00:26:51 ◼   ► And the system I had built for myself in the past

00:26:53 ◼   ► couldn't handle this very well.

00:26:56 ◼   ► And so I was aware that I needed to change

00:26:59 ◼   ► time tracking systems as the year was going on.

00:27:02 ◼   ► And then as I was working on that rules for rulers video,

00:27:07 ◼   ► And I was aware like all of my time is being spent thinking about and working on this project.

00:27:13 ◼   ► I was aware that even thinking about time tracking was just nonsensical during that time because it's like,

00:27:18 ◼   ► well, I guess I'll just write down six weeks all of the time because I can't release this.

00:27:24 ◼   ► And so I actually made a conscious decision to stop time tracking sort of halfway through that project and put time tracking aside until I have figured out a new system that has the features that I'm looking for.

00:27:36 ◼   ► So I don't have any particular tools to recommend for you and I I

00:27:40 ◼   ► too am exactly in the world of looking into

00:27:45 ◼   ► What are the options out there?

00:27:48 ◼   ► I think I do have a bunch of like particularly picky things that I want like I kind of want to be able to set

00:27:54 ◼   ► Timers like that's very much how I work and that seems to be how no time tracking software works

00:28:00 ◼   ► But I'll be very curious to see like what do people recommend?

00:28:02 ◼   ► in the comments for

00:28:05 ◼   ► software that is easy to use and detailed with time tracking.

00:28:09 ◼   ► So I'll tell you the tool that our mutual friend Federico is using and the one

00:28:15 ◼   ► that I want to try is called toggle,

00:28:17 ◼   ► T O G G L and it is a time tracking

00:28:22 ◼   ► application that has apps for all the major platforms,

00:28:27 ◼   ► but also a bunch of integrations with other systems and an API.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Okay. See, that's, that's very interesting. That's very interesting.

00:28:35 ◼   ► So, I mean,

00:28:36 ◼   ► I know that he has been leveraging the API and its integrations with automation

00:28:41 ◼   ► services like Zapier. It doesn't have an IFTT integration, unfortunately.

00:28:46 ◼   ► He's been using that to track his time and it was when he started doing it and

00:28:50 ◼   ► showing me what he was doing that kind of pushed me over the edge because it

00:28:54 ◼   ► wasn't just my crazy friend, gray, who was doing it.

00:28:57 ◼   ► Federico started doing it too.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Right. Yeah.

00:29:01 ◼   ► because there are so many things that you do that are like not for normal people.

00:29:06 ◼   ► Yeah, but see like here's my perspective on this. You think that there are all these things that I

00:29:11 ◼   ► do that are not for normal people, but slowly but surely in our time together, you pick up more and

00:29:18 ◼   ► more of them, right? Yeah, I'm becoming just like you. It's horrific. They all start out crazy.

00:29:22 ◼   ► But then eventually you talk to me long enough and you see the reasonableness of what I do.

00:29:27 ◼   ► So I know, but there isn't there is an element of my life where I realize I can't blindly follow you.

00:29:35 ◼   ► But I'm not asking for blind faith, right? That's why I'm so convincing is I'm just trying to show

00:29:41 ◼   ► you the reasons for why I do things. I'm not asking for your blind faith. I don't want your

00:29:45 ◼   ► blind faith. So now I've decided that this is the thing that I want to do. And this is a service

00:29:50 ◼   ► that I'm thinking about trying. So this is going to be the one that I maybe dip my toe into the

00:29:54 ◼   ► the water with, especially considering you have no options.

00:29:58 ◼   ► So maybe you can try this and tell me what you think of it as well.

00:30:01 ◼   ► But I've seen some of the charts and graphs and such that this app produces.

00:30:05 ◼   ► And it seems very interesting.

00:30:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I like the right at the bottom of the very first page, one of their features

00:30:12 ◼   ► is like timer integrations, like sounds interesting, sounds, sounds,

00:30:16 ◼   ► sounds very interesting indeed.

00:30:18 ◼   ► And if it is able to be tied into other services,

00:30:22 ◼   ► it sounds like it's the kind of thing that maybe I can build on top of it precisely what

00:30:27 ◼   ► I need so I can kick something off from a button on iOS.

00:30:31 ◼   ► So I will definitely be looking into this as well.

00:30:34 ◼   ► >> Jay Kroll on Reddit.

00:30:39 ◼   ► This is one of the problems with Reddit, by the way.

00:30:42 ◼   ► When people tweet me their questions, they usually have their names attached to them,

00:30:45 ◼   ► so I can just look at their user profile and grab their name.

00:30:49 ◼   ► Doesn't happen on Reddit.

00:30:50 ◼   ► So lots of interesting usernames.

00:30:52 ◼   ► Yeah, but the Reddit, I don't think that's a problem of Reddit, that's a feature of Reddit,

00:30:56 ◼   ► is that people have hilarious usernames.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Oh, I know it's a feature for Reddit, but it's less of a feature when you're trying

00:31:01 ◼   ► to read them in your Q&A section of your podcast.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Makes it more difficult.

00:31:05 ◼   ► Yeah, well, you're just lucky you didn't get any of those PME, your whatever usernames,

00:31:09 ◼   ► right?

00:31:10 ◼   ► That's too many of those on Reddit.

00:31:11 ◼   ► I don't even know what that's about, but maybe I should stay away from that, eh?

00:31:15 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not for you.

00:31:17 ◼   ► J. Curl asked, "I would love to hear about some of the checklist based workflows that

00:31:21 ◼   ► you both have. This can include templates, repeating items. I have a checklist, the phrase

00:31:27 ◼   ► I have a checklist is a famous grey quote that has been skirted around for some time

00:31:30 ◼   ► now. So I will kick things off. The main checklist that I have, like standard checklist, is the

00:31:39 ◼   ► checklist that I created for this show. So I have an OmniFocus template which is triggered

00:31:46 ◼   ► by a workflow action, which I will obviously not share with you, which goes through detail

00:31:53 ◼   ► by detail what it takes to publish a show. And it includes things like checking if the

00:31:57 ◼   ► music is correct and in the right places, processing the file, uploading the file to

00:32:01 ◼   ► our website and uploading the file to our audio provider and then making sure all the

00:32:07 ◼   ► show notes are right and then create the YouTube video, post the YouTube video, here are the

00:32:12 ◼   ► 75,000 things you need to do when you post a YouTube video. It's all in there and I trigger

00:32:16 ◼   ► that every time I, on a Monday morning when I publish the show and I have all of the lists

00:32:22 ◼   ► there and I just tick them off as I go. That's one of my checklists that's triggered in OmniFocus.

00:32:27 ◼   ► My other big checklist is my packing checklist when I pack for something and that lives in Clear

00:32:33 ◼   ► and over time that list just gets added to and added to and Clear I find to be a really nice

00:32:40 ◼   ► application for this sort of stuff. It lives off in a folder on my second screen and I only use it

00:32:44 ◼   ► it for this packing checklist. But I like it a lot more than something like OmniFocus

00:32:48 ◼   ► because it is like this purpose built, this is my packing checklist application and I

00:32:53 ◼   ► can add to it really easily and I get satisfying sounds that play every time I pack my shoes.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Yeah I still recommend Clear all the time when people are asking for just a simple checklist

00:33:03 ◼   ► on their phone. I think it's a really great little app and I use it for a few things.

00:33:07 ◼   ► I do wish they would update for the iPad Pro, that would be great.

00:33:11 ◼   ► I think it's dead, Gray.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I know it's dead, but I'm just, I'm just hoping, right. It's just like,

00:33:15 ◼   ► it hasn't been updated in like two years. I assume it's dead, but I'm just,

00:33:19 ◼   ► I'm vaguely hoping.

00:33:20 ◼   ► I don't think they make it anymore.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I think it's over. I agree with you there.

00:33:25 ◼   ► So I don't use it for repeating lists. I use it for a couple other things,

00:33:27 ◼   ► but yeah, I have a travel checklist too. Like I think if anybody,

00:33:31 ◼   ► if anybody needs like a starter drug to why you should have a checklist,

00:33:36 ◼   ► it's your travel checklist.

00:33:37 ◼   ► The webpage for clear on the developer's website,

00:33:42 ◼   ► It doesn't even load anymore. Oh God. I'm sorry. Great. It's, it is actually dead.

00:33:47 ◼   ► Wow. Okay. Wow. That is, that is actually, yeah. What a shame.

00:33:52 ◼   ► Oh well. What are you going to do?

00:33:55 ◼   ► A travel checklist is by far and away the best like return on investment

00:34:01 ◼   ► introduction you're ever going to get to a checklist. And it's just the,

00:34:04 ◼   ► it's just such a sweet spot because it's a thing that you do often enough that

00:34:09 ◼   ► you think you're going to remember everything,

00:34:11 ◼   ► but not often enough that you actually will.

00:34:13 ◼   ► And the travel checklist is such a living document of every time you pack,

00:34:18 ◼   ► you can just add a bunch of other stuff to it.

00:34:20 ◼   ► And so my travel checklist is ridiculously long,

00:34:23 ◼   ► but it's because it includes a ton of items that are not intended for every

00:34:29 ◼   ► trip. Yeah. But are there to just be like, just run through this, right?

00:34:33 ◼   ► Every single time it's like the travel insurance is on there.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Like do you need this thing every time? No,

00:34:38 ◼   ► but just like check and take a quick look.

00:34:40 ◼   ► There's a bunch of stuff that's on there that's specific to if I'm traveling to the US that doesn't need to be there every time, but I just want to run through this massive one.

00:34:47 ◼   ► So I think that's that is really what everybody should start with if you want to build some kind of checklist to use all the time.

00:34:54 ◼   ► But I guess if this person's asking like what my general checklists are like the the big three checklists for me are unsurprisingly like the three related to the projects in my life right there.

00:35:06 ◼   ► The Cortex checklist, the Hello Internet checklist and the YouTube video checklist.

00:35:10 ◼   ► And the YouTube video one is the biggest one by far and the most in-depth.

00:35:14 ◼   ► But those ones I'm constantly tweaking every time I go through one of those processes

00:35:23 ◼   ► to figure out what is the best order or to just make it work a little bit better in OmniFocus for the way that I want it to work.

00:35:30 ◼   ► Those are the big ones.

00:35:31 ◼   ► There's a few other minor ones that I have.

00:35:35 ◼   ► One of which is actually I just invoked today, which is that I have a monthly financial checklist,

00:35:42 ◼   ► which is going through a bunch of the bank accounts and the numbers for both the personal accounts

00:35:50 ◼   ► and the business bank accounts and making sure there's enough money in my personal account to pay the rent

00:35:55 ◼   ► and checking up on a bunch of other stuff.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Like that's another perfect case for me of a thing that I do often enough but not often

00:36:03 ◼   ► enough to remember all the fiddly little details.

00:36:05 ◼   ► What has to happen in your life to make you create a checklist like that?

00:36:09 ◼   ► Do you do them proactively or reactively?

00:36:12 ◼   ► I don't know what you mean by your business speak there, Myke.

00:36:16 ◼   ► Gosh, it's not difficult.

00:36:19 ◼   ► So for example, the financial checklist, did you create that because you thought something

00:36:23 ◼   ► bad might happen or did you once not have enough money in your bank account so you were

00:36:28 ◼   ► like oh I need to create this checklist well okay so I guess what what you're asking for

00:36:32 ◼   ► there is what I'm what I'm looking for in my life is a feeling of am I trying to remember

00:36:40 ◼   ► something now and and so when I would go through the finances I don't know exactly when I started

00:36:47 ◼   ► this checklist. I feel like this one is recent-ish, as in maybe in the last two years. Like this is

00:36:55 ◼   ► not a checklist that has existed for forever. And I know that I would have started doing it because

00:37:01 ◼   ► of this feeling like when I'm doing this I'm trying to remember what the next step is. And

00:37:07 ◼   ► that is just like a red flag in my system. Like you shouldn't ever be trying to remember what a thing

00:37:12 ◼   ► is because that's an indication that this isn't routine enough that you don't need a checklist.

00:37:17 ◼   ► It's infrequent enough and complicated enough that you just can't pull this out of your head

00:37:23 ◼   ► every single time. And so if I have that kind of feeling, that's an indication that maybe I should

00:37:29 ◼   ► think about a checklist for this thing. And so that's how I'll end up getting started with it.

00:37:34 ◼   ► And they're really easy for me to make. I mean, the checklist exists just as a series of

00:37:39 ◼   ► text documents in Dropbox that I use like a little workflow action to pull into OmniFocus.

00:37:45 ◼   ► So like they're very, very easy to just make one really quickly and to just try it out.

00:37:50 ◼   ► But that's the key thing. Like, is there a repeated thing that isn't repeated often enough

00:37:56 ◼   ► to be routine and is complicated enough to more into checklist or are like, is the spacing in

00:38:02 ◼   ► time very far. Like I actually have on the flip side of it like a very short checklist is I have

00:38:10 ◼   ► a little checklist for reading books which I think people will find very strange.

00:38:15 ◼   ► Geoff - Turn the page, check. Turn the page, check.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Paul - Yeah but it's yeah but this is because reading books is part of my professional life,

00:38:25 ◼   ► like this is important for my actual job and this connects into like I have a little process for

00:38:32 ◼   ► or taking notes, what I want to do with those notes,

00:38:35 ◼   ► making notes to myself for actionable items in the future,

00:38:39 ◼   ► and then getting that book into my whole complicated

00:38:42 ◼   ► and somewhat sad Evernote system.

00:38:45 ◼   ► Like, that checklist is not really long.

00:38:49 ◼   ► I think it's maybe only four or five items,

00:38:51 ◼   ► but it can be spaced out over a very long time

00:38:54 ◼   ► between when I start reading a book

00:38:56 ◼   ► and when I finish reading the book.

00:38:57 ◼   ► So it just acts as like a little placeholder in my system

00:39:00 ◼   ► for this is a book that is like quote active in some sense and I can know where I am.

00:39:06 ◼   ► Like am I still just reading this book?

00:39:07 ◼   ► Have I finished the book?

00:39:08 ◼   ► If I have finished the book, there are two or three little steps that I just want to

00:39:12 ◼   ► do and make sure that they're done.

00:39:14 ◼   ► So that's another case of a checklist is good.

00:39:17 ◼   ► But I don't actually have a tremendous amount of them.

00:39:21 ◼   ► It's just where they pay off in these various situations.

00:39:24 ◼   ► @abysmaljam asked, "What pen does Grey use?"

00:39:27 ◼   ► I use the Apple Pencil is what I use.

00:39:29 ◼   ► You'd use a pen though, surely. Like, if you have to sign something, is there a specific

00:39:37 ◼   ► pen?

00:39:38 ◼   ► Well, when we first met each other back before the Apple Pencil existed, I was asking you

00:39:46 ◼   ► for pen recommendations because I heard you're a guy with some knowledge in this world. And

00:39:53 ◼   ► we started a process by which I was trying different pens that you were lending to me.

00:39:59 ◼   ► And as time went on, eventually the Apple Pencil became a rumor and then an actual thing.

00:40:05 ◼   ► And I felt like I just don't really have enough of a need to have a pen that I use all the

00:40:11 ◼   ► time.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Because you were looking for a pen to write on your paper scripts.

00:40:15 ◼   ► I was looking for something to physically work with actual paper for the times that

00:40:21 ◼   ► I print out and work on the scripts by hand.

00:40:24 ◼   ► And now the Apple Pencil has solved that for me, like I can do that entirely on the iPad.

00:40:28 ◼   ► And so that has eliminated 99% of the time that I would ever use a pen.

00:40:35 ◼   ► And so now it is entirely down to signing cards and filling out that little form for

00:40:41 ◼   ► going into the United States.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Like I think these are the only times that I use an actual pen now.

00:40:46 ◼   ► So you know just in our house, like in every house in the world, there's a jar which has

00:40:51 ◼   ► a couple of random pens in it which I have no idea where they even came from.

00:40:55 ◼   ► And on the rare occasion I need to sign something I just grab one of those and just sign something.

00:41:00 ◼   ► So I don't have a pen that I use.

00:41:02 ◼   ► So I'm sorry I have no answer for you.

00:41:05 ◼   ► But I'm sure Myke has a very thorough answer for you.

00:41:08 ◼   ► I will recommend a pen that I recommended to you that I think you did actually like,

00:41:14 ◼   ► which is a pen that I will recommend to everyone.

00:41:16 ◼   ► There is a line of pens called the Retro 51 Tornado.

00:41:21 ◼   ► They have a very cool look to them.

00:41:22 ◼   ► There are a million different styles and if you get the Retro 51 Tornado, the regular

00:41:27 ◼   ► version, it has one of the best refills that I've ever used.

00:41:31 ◼   ► And these things range from like $15 to $40 depending on the type of style that you want

00:41:36 ◼   ► to go for.

00:41:37 ◼   ► I recommend that pen.

00:41:38 ◼   ► It is an awesome pen.

00:41:39 ◼   ► It looks good, feels good, works good every single time.

00:41:41 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a little short.

00:41:42 ◼   ► I remember that one.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I felt it was a little short in my hand, but it's a solid pen.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Yeah, but they also then make a bigger one, which I just didn't have.

00:41:50 ◼   ► Right?

00:41:51 ◼   ► They have a whole range of these things. They make big ones, small ones, thin ones, fat ones.

00:41:56 ◼   ► But the standard tornado is the one I recommend to most people.

00:42:01 ◼   ► But you might like the tornado big shot, which is bigger in every dimension.

00:42:05 ◼   ► Oh wow. Tornado big shot. How could you not like it with a name like that?

00:42:10 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:42:11 ◼   ► Precocious Apprentice asked, "A long time ago, on a podcast far, far away,

00:42:17 ◼   ► Gray mentioned that he was thinking of trying Scrum instead of his usual GTD type method,

00:42:24 ◼   ► but he never mentioned it again. I've also seen him looking into Kanban before.

00:42:28 ◼   ► I'd be interested to hear his take on the two systems, if he's stuck with either of them,

00:42:32 ◼   ► or cannibalized elements to turn into his own system.

00:42:35 ◼   ► >> I feel like this is wrapped up into a much bigger discussion. We've sort of talked about

00:42:39 ◼   ► that getting things done was perfect for me in the phase of my life where I first came across it.

00:42:47 ◼   ► it and served perfectly for the first five years of my adult professional life, but has

00:42:54 ◼   ► become less helpful over time.

00:42:58 ◼   ► And yes, I did look into Scrum and I did look into Kanban and was just trying to, I spent

00:43:04 ◼   ► a while trying to read up on different kinds of productivity systems.

00:43:10 ◼   ► And the thing that I can say that what I have done is I've taken a little bit from this

00:43:20 ◼   ► Kanban system, which is this idea of pulling work in when there are empty slots.

00:43:29 ◼   ► And so Kanban is this idea, I think it's best illustrated by this idea in like a hospital

00:43:34 ◼   ► where you can imagine you have a tray of medications, like little packets of medication that come

00:43:38 ◼   ► out of a drawer and at a certain point there's a little

00:43:41 ◼   ► Card that goes in the drawer and when you get to the card

00:43:45 ◼   ► That card is an indication that it is time to order more medication, right?

00:43:49 ◼   ► So it's like you have when you get to a certain level of emptiness like you bring on new projects

00:43:55 ◼   ► And so I do have a little bit of a pull system set up

00:43:59 ◼   ► just in that I am

00:44:02 ◼   ► thinking in terms of like I have three videos that I'm working on which are like slots and

00:44:07 ◼   ► And so when one slot becomes free, I try to then evaluate the next video that's going to go into that slot

00:44:14 ◼   ► for something that I'm going to work on. But I can't say that I really have anything

00:44:18 ◼   ► formal that I can describe right now. Like I'm

00:44:23 ◼   ► I'm in the realm of I have a system that is working relatively well for me

00:44:29 ◼   ► but I can't like lay out a bunch of rules for people about like, oh here is my system. I've written down and formalized

00:44:37 ◼   ► and here's how you can follow it. It's more like I've taken some things that work from getting things done,

00:44:43 ◼   ► some ideas from Kanban, and just simply the most un-getting things done thing like that I'm doing now,

00:44:49 ◼   ► which is a much, much more heavy reliance on the calendar as a planning tool, as opposed to an appointment-only tool.

00:45:00 ◼   ► All I can say is I looked into a bunch of this stuff and I've taken some useful pieces from it,

00:45:05 ◼   ► from it but I don't have like a really

00:45:06 ◼   ► formalized system right now.

00:45:08 ◼   ► It's the gray system.

00:45:10 ◼   ► It is the gray system but I am still aware that I

00:45:14 ◼   ► I don't like this state of my current productivity system

00:45:19 ◼   ► and every once in a while I do try to write it down

00:45:23 ◼   ► and try to formalize it mainly because

00:45:27 ◼   ► like I think that was a really useful lesson from getting things done that

00:45:31 ◼   ► but sharp edges and really clearly defined boundaries are extraordinarily helpful in

00:45:39 ◼   ► these kinds of systems.

00:45:41 ◼   ► And I'm just, I'm aware that I've been operating for a while with a little bit of fuzzy edges

00:45:47 ◼   ► for things.

00:45:48 ◼   ► And I would, I would like to sort that out.

00:45:50 ◼   ► I feel like it would be beneficial to sort it out, but I really think that part of the

00:45:54 ◼   ► problem is just like so much of my job now is actually the job itself is extraordinarily

00:46:01 ◼   ► fuzzy it's it's not as clearly defined as the work that I used to do in the past or even the work that

00:46:07 ◼   ► I did a few years ago like I do find myself in lots of situations increasingly as time goes on

00:46:13 ◼   ► where it's a bit hard to even know like is the thing that I'm doing now entirely work or not

00:46:19 ◼   ► work at all, it's not always clear when you're working for yourself where some of

00:46:24 ◼   ► those boundaries are.

00:46:25 ◼   ► But one of these days I'll try to sort this out, but it is probably not anytime soon.

00:46:29 ◼   ► We've mentioned that this season of Cortexmas is upon us, so Alexit Sayers has asked, "What

00:46:36 ◼   ► are your systems of holiday decorations at home?

00:46:38 ◼   ► Are there any policies of light arrangements or any traditions that you follow?"

00:46:44 ◼   ► So it's interesting for me right now because I guess I need to create one?

00:46:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, you do, you do.

00:46:50 ◼   ► - Or be involved in said creation of holiday lights.

00:46:55 ◼   ► I don't think we're gonna do it this year

00:46:58 ◼   ► because we will be in our house

00:47:00 ◼   ► for about a week and a half before Christmas,

00:47:05 ◼   ► and then we're going on a trip directly after

00:47:08 ◼   ► until the new year.

00:47:09 ◼   ► So it doesn't really feel like there is enough time

00:47:12 ◼   ► to actually have Christmas decorations.

00:47:14 ◼   ► We did buy a very tiny Christmas tree,

00:47:17 ◼   ► which is just for a little bit of festive cheer.

00:47:20 ◼   ► But do you have, are there holiday decorations

00:47:24 ◼   ► in the gray household?

00:47:26 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, of course.

00:47:27 ◼   ► It's nice to do holiday decorations.

00:47:29 ◼   ► It gives a sense of the passage of time

00:47:32 ◼   ► to change things in that way.

00:47:35 ◼   ► I think like seasons and the holidays

00:47:37 ◼   ► are psychologically helpful.

00:47:40 ◼   ► It's one of the reasons why when I was living in Hawaii

00:47:43 ◼   ► for a little while, it drove me crazy

00:47:45 ◼   ► because every day is the same as every other day forever until you die.

00:47:49 ◼   ► There's just like, there's no, there's no sense of passing time.

00:47:52 ◼   ► It was just terrible. It was awful.

00:47:55 ◼   ► And also doing Christmas in what feels like summer is,

00:47:59 ◼   ► is crazy making. For me,

00:48:02 ◼   ► the holiday decorations for Christmas sort of starts officially on December

00:48:07 ◼   ► 5th, which is St. Nicholas day,

00:48:08 ◼   ► which was a big deal for my family because of some Dutch background.

00:48:12 ◼   ► And I feel like Christmas decorations should be up from the fifth until the

00:48:17 ◼   ► first of January. That's kind of my mental timeframe for when should Christmas

00:48:22 ◼   ► decorations exist. Uh, but sometimes there's a little bit of bleeding outside of

00:48:25 ◼   ► those, those areas,

00:48:27 ◼   ► but we don't necessarily have a ton of Christmas decorations,

00:48:30 ◼   ► but I think a little bit goes a long way. Like we have a, you know,

00:48:35 ◼   ► we usually get a tree,

00:48:36 ◼   ► we put up a couple of stockings and like we have some Christmas pillows and

00:48:39 ◼   ► things. And just having a little bit makes a big difference.

00:48:43 ◼   ► Real tree? It is a real tree.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Real tree in London is a not easy thing to achieve, I find.

00:48:49 ◼   ► Yeah, it is not an easy thing to achieve, but it is a non-negotiable item from my wife,

00:48:56 ◼   ► that the tree will be real. And so we do this.

00:48:58 ◼   ► I'm a plastic tree person. Yeah, I would be a plastic tree person too.

00:49:04 ◼   ► I think it's totally fine, but I have been brought over to the side of the real tree.

00:49:09 ◼   ► Like it is, I have to say, it is a tremendous hassle, it is a real kind of pain in the butt,

00:49:15 ◼   ► but I've gotten used to it and I feel like, oh it is kind of nice to have a real tree

00:49:19 ◼   ► in your house.

00:49:20 ◼   ► And then also, you know, it's worth noting that considering me and Greyboave live in London,

00:49:24 ◼   ► there is no decoration of our homes because what are you gonna do?

00:49:29 ◼   ► Are you gonna just hang some lights out the window?

00:49:31 ◼   ► I don't know what you're going to do.

00:49:34 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the closest you could do is put some lights out the window.

00:49:37 ◼   ► Hang a bag of lights outside the kitchen window or something.

00:49:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:49:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

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00:51:23 ◼   ► Rule of Lemmings asked, I am a first year engineering student with finals coming up

00:51:28 ◼   ► and just wanted to ask both yourself, me and Grey because all these questions were directed to me,

00:51:33 ◼   ► what are your best tips for studying and what did you do to study for finals?

00:51:38 ◼   ► I am the wrong person to ask this question to, mostly I think because I didn't go to university

00:51:46 ◼   ► So I have not taken an exam in a very long time, but also I was just not very good at revising.

00:51:55 ◼   ► I only ever really thoroughly revised for… Revising is what British people call studying.

00:52:05 ◼   ► I only ever truly revised for subjects that had intrinsic facts and figures related to them that

00:52:15 ◼   ► that you had to know to pass.

00:52:18 ◼   ► So maths and some science-related stuff and history.

00:52:23 ◼   ► Like they were the ones that I really revised for

00:52:27 ◼   ► because if I got the date wrong of such and such battle,

00:52:30 ◼   ► that's a mark down, right?

00:52:33 ◼   ► So I didn't really revise for English.

00:52:36 ◼   ► I actually took one paper in my, I think my GCSE year,

00:52:43 ◼   ► having never read the book.

00:52:45 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:52:48 ◼   ► I went to the classes where we spoke about the book.

00:52:52 ◼   ► I read some Cliff Notes about the book.

00:52:56 ◼   ► I just never read the book.

00:52:58 ◼   ► And it was a book called,

00:53:00 ◼   ► I think it was Return of the Native,

00:53:02 ◼   ► was the name of the book.

00:53:05 ◼   ► And I really didn't like the book

00:53:08 ◼   ► and then just never read it.

00:53:12 ◼   ► And I did okay.

00:53:13 ◼   ► I got a B, so it was fine.

00:53:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, that's exactly the thing though.

00:53:20 ◼   ► - I do not recommend this system, by the way.

00:53:24 ◼   ► I think you have to have a thing about you,

00:53:26 ◼   ► which means you can probably get away with this.

00:53:28 ◼   ► And my thing is that I can just waffle enough

00:53:32 ◼   ► in the right direction that I get there eventually.

00:53:36 ◼   ► I don't think this necessarily works for everybody.

00:53:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, it depends.

00:53:43 ◼   ► I mean, okay, so like I have two comments about this.

00:53:46 ◼   ► The first is like everybody knows this,

00:53:52 ◼   ► but I think there's a thing to really internalize here,

00:53:54 ◼   ► which is when you're studying,

00:53:57 ◼   ► you are really studying for the test, right?

00:54:02 ◼   ► You are not studying the subject in general and people know this,

00:54:06 ◼   ► but I don't think they always follow what the,

00:54:09 ◼   ► Like the logical conclusion to this is

00:54:12 ◼   ► you have to

00:54:14 ◼   ► revise for that test.

00:54:19 ◼   ► So this means if you have any possible way,

00:54:23 ◼   ► you need to get your hands on old versions of the test.

00:54:28 ◼   ► So if you can get it from previous years,

00:54:32 ◼   ► if it's a standardized test,

00:54:34 ◼   ► get your hands on that and go over that again

00:54:39 ◼   ► and again and again. And this is what I used to do with,

00:54:42 ◼   ► with my students towards the end of the year when we were preparing for their

00:54:47 ◼   ► end of year exams was a very consciously had

00:54:52 ◼   ► the kids do even the exact same test multiple,

00:54:57 ◼   ► multiple times. And this is what the studying is like.

00:55:01 ◼   ► Get the answers right on previous versions of it.

00:55:05 ◼   ► Do the test over and over.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And my marker for, if you're studying on your own for a test that really matters,

00:55:11 ◼   ► is you keep giving yourself the exact same test again and again until you get a perfect mark.

00:55:17 ◼   ► And the point of this is not so that you know all of the things.

00:55:23 ◼   ► It's...

00:55:24 ◼   ► The point of it is to drill the routine stuff into your mind so that it's easy to do,

00:55:30 ◼   ► so that you've kind of freed up your brain for the actual difficult things on the real test that you're going to face.

00:55:36 ◼   ► Now, of course, this does work way better for a subject like math or physics, right?

00:55:41 ◼   ► Something that's real, right? Not a subject that's like English literature interpretation.

00:55:47 ◼   ► Because there, when you're studying for the test,

00:55:51 ◼   ► what you really need to be doing is just a kind of mind reading of the teacher.

00:55:56 ◼   ► And those subjects are obviously much harder and much more frustrating to study for.

00:56:04 ◼   ► But I think if you get it into your mind that you're really just playing a game called

00:56:10 ◼   ► "What does the teacher want to hear?"

00:56:12 ◼   ► And you're not actually discussing a book or a piece of literature,

00:56:18 ◼   ► I think it's much more psychologically easy to deal with.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Like, okay, all I have to do is really just try to repeat this person's words

00:56:25 ◼   ► back to them in a way that doesn't make it too obvious that I'm just repeating their

00:56:29 ◼   ► words back to them.

00:56:31 ◼   ► That's what tests are in the more subjective areas.

00:56:34 ◼   ► And my final little piece of advice here is if there's any kind of project that is like

00:56:41 ◼   ► the equivalent of a final exam, get all of the feedback you can from the actual teacher

00:56:47 ◼   ► on that project.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Because what will happen is almost certainly they will just tell you to make changes and

00:56:53 ◼   ► just make those changes.

00:56:55 ◼   ► Just do whatever it is and you will get a better mark.

00:57:00 ◼   ► My favorite example of this was I took an art class in college at which I was embarrassingly

00:57:06 ◼   ► terribly bad at art but it was a requirement that we had to do.

00:57:10 ◼   ► And I'm like okay there's no way I'm going to pass this by being good.

00:57:15 ◼   ► That's certainly not going to happen.

00:57:16 ◼   ► But what I just did all the time was I asked the professor like what did she think of this

00:57:22 ◼   ► And she would just come over and start drawing like on top of my own projects.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And instead of being annoyed about that, I was always thinking like, "Great, this is

00:57:31 ◼   ► fantastic.

00:57:32 ◼   ► I'm just accepting what she's doing."

00:57:35 ◼   ► And then when she's marking this, what has occurred is like she's psychologically on

00:57:40 ◼   ► board with this project being good now.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Because she made it.

00:57:44 ◼   ► Exactly, right?

00:57:45 ◼   ► Like she has added stuff into this and I have just followed her.

00:57:49 ◼   ► And so I'm just doing what you told me to do. And it's like,

00:57:53 ◼   ► I got an eight plus in that class, right? Not everybody did,

00:57:55 ◼   ► but I got a perfect score because I was always just having her come along and

00:57:59 ◼   ► just like,

00:58:00 ◼   ► just tell me what to do and I will do it to the best of my ability or like you

00:58:04 ◼   ► can modify this thing directly, like go right ahead.

00:58:07 ◼   ► I will not be annoyed in the least. So, so that's my thoughts.

00:58:12 ◼   ► If it's a subjective subject,

00:58:13 ◼   ► understand that it's a mind reading game and just do your best.

00:58:17 ◼   ► If it's a real subject with real answers,

00:58:20 ◼   ► just do the old tests over and over and over again.

00:58:23 ◼   ► There's nothing better that you can do

00:58:25 ◼   ► to prepare yourself than that.

00:58:27 ◼   ► - Here's my other key,

00:58:28 ◼   ► like the reason why I think I got on okay

00:58:31 ◼   ► was I paid attention in class

00:58:33 ◼   ► and tests didn't make me nervous.

00:58:35 ◼   ► That's why I think I was able to do what I did.

00:58:39 ◼   ► And also, I can talk for England.

00:58:43 ◼   ► I can just keep going, keep going,

00:58:46 ◼   ► just keep talking.

00:58:46 ◼   ► You know, especially I did a lot of,

00:58:49 ◼   ► especially for my A levels,

00:58:50 ◼   ► I did a lot of like just essay-based courses,

00:58:53 ◼   ► like I did media, politics, and English.

00:58:56 ◼   ► So it's just, just keep writing until the end.

00:58:58 ◼   ► - Right.

00:58:59 ◼   ► - You'll get 'em in there, you know?

00:59:01 ◼   ► Just keep writing, keep on writing.

00:59:03 ◼   ► - Just keep going.

00:59:03 ◼   ► - Just keep going.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Sherlock asked, "Would either of you

00:59:07 ◼   ► "consider writing a book?

00:59:09 ◼   ► "If so, what would it be about?"

00:59:11 ◼   ► - I know what your answer would be, Myke.

00:59:14 ◼   ► - Do you?

00:59:15 ◼   ► You don't read books, there's no way you're going to write a book or even consider writing a book.

00:59:19 ◼   ► Have I never told you that I once started writing a book?

00:59:23 ◼   ► Have I never told you this?

00:59:25 ◼   ► I don't think so.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Maybe this is ringing an ever so slight bell, but maybe you did. Tell me.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Many years ago, I apologize if listeners have heard this story before.

00:59:35 ◼   ► Many years ago, I got multiple tens of thousands of words into a podcasting guide book.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Hmm. Okay.

00:59:47 ◼   ► I had a I had a publisher attached to it like an indie publisher,

00:59:51 ◼   ► not like a HarperCollins, but like an like a, you know,

00:59:54 ◼   ► an actual company that published books.

00:59:56 ◼   ► This was before like iBooks or anything.

00:59:58 ◼   ► You know, and I was going to get an ISBN number and everything,

01:00:02 ◼   ► and they were going to they were going to make it in physical paper.

01:00:06 ◼   ► It wasn't going to be just an e-book.

01:00:07 ◼   ► It was going to be an e-book,

01:00:08 ◼   ► but they were also going to make a print on demand version.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And I got tens of thousands of words into it

01:00:14 ◼   ► and realized I don't want to write that book.

01:00:17 ◼   ► But it wasn't until I got a long way into it

01:00:21 ◼   ► before I realized that was the thing.

01:00:23 ◼   ► And the reason is, I don't want to be responsible

01:00:28 ◼   ► for dealing with that book for the rest of my life.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Because as I was writing the book,

01:00:36 ◼   ► like over the couple of months that I was writing the book,

01:00:38 ◼   ► I was changing the equipment that I use.

01:00:41 ◼   ► And I look at the me then those many years ago

01:00:44 ◼   ► and realize I knew nothing about podcast production

01:00:48 ◼   ► like the actual production compared to what I know now.

01:00:53 ◼   ► So the actual answer is would I write a book?

01:00:56 ◼   ► Yes, I would actually.

01:00:59 ◼   ► But I don't know what it would be about.

01:01:02 ◼   ► I don't like writing regularly because I find it difficult.

01:01:09 ◼   ► Because you have to spend a lot of time going back over what you've written

01:01:13 ◼   ► but when I get a real bee in my bonnet about something I

01:01:18 ◼   ► Can and do write about it and feel like I do it and I'm proud of it

01:01:22 ◼   ► Anyway, I feel like I do a job that makes me proud when I write something

01:01:26 ◼   ► One of my favorite things I've ever written was a review for the Apple pencil

01:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah, that was good, which I'll put it in the show notes. So people want to read it

01:01:35 ◼   ► I've had it for like a few days

01:01:36 ◼   ► but I really wanted to write something about it and felt like I had an opinion that other people

01:01:41 ◼   ► don't have because I care deeply about actual pens. So I had some stuff to say. So I would

01:01:48 ◼   ► write a book, maybe one day I would really like to write a book about my feelings on creativity.

01:01:54 ◼   ► And a lot of the stuff that we talk about here, to really kind of just write that down. This is

01:02:01 ◼   ► is how I feel about creative projects.

01:02:03 ◼   ► And I have this whole like center

01:02:05 ◼   ► around it of the idea of sacrifice

01:02:07 ◼   ► and what it takes to have a side

01:02:10 ◼   ► business and turn it into a real thing,

01:02:11 ◼   ► especially if it's in the creative field.

01:02:13 ◼   ► It's all about sacrifice

01:02:14 ◼   ► and the things that you have

01:02:15 ◼   ► to be willing to let go of.

01:02:16 ◼   ► That's the kind of nugget idea that I have.

01:02:19 ◼   ► But I don't want to do it

01:02:20 ◼   ► because I don't want the work

01:02:24 ◼   ► involved, like of actually

01:02:26 ◼   ► sitting down and writing it.

01:02:27 ◼   ► But because the short answer is like,

01:02:29 ◼   ► yeah, I would.

01:02:30 ◼   ► But I have no intention of doing it right now.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:02:34 ◼   ► I'm surprised.

01:02:35 ◼   ► I'm surprised.

01:02:36 ◼   ► I'm a man full of surprises.

01:02:37 ◼   ► Yeah, you are, Myke.

01:02:38 ◼   ► I really am.

01:02:39 ◼   ► Yeah, multifaceted, Myke.

01:02:40 ◼   ► That's what you are.

01:02:42 ◼   ► Yeah, so I mean, would you consider writing a book?

01:02:46 ◼   ► The answer is yes.

01:02:49 ◼   ► I've attempted to do some stuff in the past.

01:02:54 ◼   ► The thing is, like, I agree with you.

01:02:57 ◼   ► And everyone I know who's a professional writer agrees that writing is no fun.

01:03:02 ◼   ► I don't know anybody who writes for a living who's like, "Boy, do I enjoy the writing

01:03:06 ◼   ► part."

01:03:07 ◼   ► It's like, no.

01:03:08 ◼   ► It's always grueling and unpleasant.

01:03:12 ◼   ► And the few people who are like, "Oh, this is fantastic," are totally lucky freaks

01:03:18 ◼   ► of nature.

01:03:19 ◼   ► And I do not fall into that category.

01:03:21 ◼   ► So I'm aware that I do have a bunch of ideas for books that I would theoretically want

01:03:27 ◼   ► to do, but very few of them ever make it past the like, oh, that would be nice to have done

01:03:36 ◼   ► thoughts, right?

01:03:37 ◼   ► Like I don't actually start any real progress on them because it just doesn't, it doesn't

01:03:43 ◼   ► make any real sense as a project to take on because it's, it's going to be an incredibly

01:03:50 ◼   ► long amount of time to do for probably not a whole lot of reward.

01:03:55 ◼   ► That being said, there are two projects that I sort of have on ice,

01:04:02 ◼   ► where I am like collecting notes and writing out thoughts for projects that would be like book-like,

01:04:08 ◼   ► but I am very aware that these things will probably never actually come to the light of day in any kind of meaningful book form.

01:04:17 ◼   ► But I do have one thing that I'm collecting notes for that I have told a few people what the idea is

01:04:24 ◼   ► and I always mention that if I were to ever write this book it would be literally the most boring book in the world.

01:04:32 ◼   ► Like the topic is just incredibly boring but I just find myself attracted to writing about this one particular non-fiction topic.

01:04:40 ◼   ► But I don't think it'll ever actually happen.

01:04:42 ◼   ► happen. If it does it'll be just cannibalized as I'll make a couple of

01:04:46 ◼   ► videos out of the parts that I want to talk about instead but I have mentioned

01:04:50 ◼   ► this idea to a few people they're like wow that really is the most boring book

01:04:54 ◼   ► I've ever heard of so I don't think it'll actually occur. You know and it's

01:04:58 ◼   ► it's not like it's not like a joke right where plenty of people write interesting

01:05:03 ◼   ► books on seemingly boring topics it's like no this is this is really a

01:05:08 ◼   ► a terribly boring topic, but it's just something that I am

01:05:12 ◼   ► randomly interested in for no good reason that I think like, "Hmm, maybe I'll write a book about

01:05:18 ◼   ► this thing." I even have the perfect title, but it'll probably never happen.

01:05:21 ◼   ► What is it?

01:05:24 ◼   ► I'm not gonna tell you, Myke.

01:05:26 ◼   ► You're just not gonna tell me in general?

01:05:27 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I'm not gonna tell you. It's a secret.

01:05:30 ◼   ► All right.

01:05:30 ◼   ► I've only told a very few people, but it's not really gonna happen.

01:05:33 ◼   ► Is it a book about me? Is that the reason?

01:05:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:37 ◼   ► No, it's not a book about you, Myke. I'm sure you're surprised to hear that, but no.

01:05:41 ◼   ► Has this whole thing just been a really detailed anthropological experiment?

01:05:44 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what's going to happen. I'm going to publish a book called A Study of Myke,

01:05:49 ◼   ► How to Slowly Change One Man's Life Over Time.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Oh, dear.

01:05:55 ◼   ► Simon asked a question that fascinated me, and a few others, actually. I think it's the only

01:06:02 ◼   ► question that there were multiple replies to that were like, oh, that's a really good

01:06:07 ◼   ► question. Simon asked, when Grey reads his scripts aloud and hears something in it that

01:06:13 ◼   ► he dislikes, does he make a note for later or stop immediately to figure it out?

01:06:19 ◼   ► Oh, I don't even understand this, how this question could be interesting. Make a note

01:06:24 ◼   ► later. What would that even mean? That would be crazy.

01:06:25 ◼   ► Right. So you're reading a script, right? And then you hear like, oh, that doesn't work.

01:06:29 ◼   ► a note, carry on. So you're not breaking the flow of the narration.

01:06:33 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that there's, there's nothing but there's no flow

01:06:39 ◼   ► with that of the narration. There's, I guess I guess this is like a really obvious thing

01:06:44 ◼   ► to me. But there on my on my writing checklist for producing a video, I have a first the

01:06:53 ◼   ► first bullet point on there is is a is a real moment that takes a long time to get to. But

01:06:59 ◼   ► It is when can I get the script to a place where I even can read through the whole thing

01:07:07 ◼   ► once without stopping.

01:07:09 ◼   ► And that takes a really, really long time to get there.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Because that pre-phase is the research phase.

01:07:19 ◼   ► It's also the just writing down random sentences and putting little paragraphs together and

01:07:24 ◼   ► trying to find parts that I like and parts that I don't like and rearrange the whole

01:07:27 ◼   ► thing.

01:07:28 ◼   ► a really long time before I even can read the whole thing through once. So no, there's no

01:07:34 ◼   ► making notes for later. My process is very much like I'm just going through and changing stuff

01:07:42 ◼   ► as I'm going through. And one thing that I try to do as well is starting at different spots in the

01:07:50 ◼   ► script. So I don't always start from the top and go right to the end. Sometimes I try to start in

01:07:56 ◼   ► in the middle or just start at the end and then go back to the beginning.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Because in the way my process works, if I'm, when I'm making changes immediately, what

01:08:06 ◼   ► that can often mean is I'm making a ton of changes to like the opening paragraph again

01:08:11 ◼   ► and again and again.

01:08:13 ◼   ► And very often as a, as a, as a little approach later on in a process, I'll realize like,

01:08:17 ◼   ► Oh wait, this whole opening paragraph is pointless and I can just get rid of the whole thing

01:08:21 ◼   ► and start later in the script than I was thinking.

01:08:24 ◼   ► So I do actually try to jump around a little bit in where I'm starting.

01:08:28 ◼   ► But no, there is no making a note for later to have the flow of the script keep going.

01:08:34 ◼   ► And it takes a really long time before I can even go through the script all at once anyway.

01:08:38 ◼   ► So it is an intensely iterative on the spot process.

01:08:44 ◼   ► It really does sound kind of horrible.

01:08:49 ◼   ► It really does.

01:08:51 ◼   ► But this is why, it's like, oh boy, writing, it's all fun and magic and rainbows.

01:08:58 ◼   ► It's not like that.

01:08:59 ◼   ► It feels very much like just constantly working on a thing over and over again to make it

01:09:03 ◼   ► less awful in each pass.

01:09:07 ◼   ► And I said before, I think that is what my skill really is, is in the iteration.

01:09:12 ◼   ► It's not in the initial writing at all.

01:09:15 ◼   ► And this is also something that's just changed over time is being much more aware of, I am

01:09:23 ◼   ► writing a thing to be spoken aloud in my own voice.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Like it's a thing that I've always been aware of, but I think as time has gone on, I have

01:09:32 ◼   ► much more optimized the process for that idea as the outcome.

01:09:36 ◼   ► Right that, like I'm really thinking about, I am the one who is going to be saying this,

01:09:41 ◼   ► how is it going to be said?

01:09:44 ◼   ► And that's all part of this process.

01:09:48 ◼   ► But yeah, that's why I don't make notes for later.

01:09:50 ◼   ► It's change it now and try to get it better.

01:09:53 ◼   ► The main thing that I write is advertising copy.

01:09:58 ◼   ► A vast percentage of the ads that are read across all of Relay FM are written by me in

01:10:04 ◼   ► some way.

01:10:05 ◼   ► Whether they're rewritten or just completely written.

01:10:09 ◼   ► And when I am going through them, I read them aloud because it's in the same vein.

01:10:15 ◼   ► It is stuff that is written down to only be read aloud.

01:10:20 ◼   ► Nobody reads our ad copy just like as prose.

01:10:24 ◼   ► It's much more like speech writing.

01:10:26 ◼   ► So I have a whole method of writing these things in strange outlines and bullets to

01:10:30 ◼   ► make them easier to be read aloud.

01:10:32 ◼   ► And when I do this, I do read through, stop, fix, go back, read through, stop, fix.

01:10:39 ◼   ► Because it is completely for me about the flow.

01:10:43 ◼   ► So I will always stop and then go back to the start again and read through.

01:10:47 ◼   ► That's how I do it.

01:10:48 ◼   ► Martin Yeah, I mean, I think for anybody writing

01:10:50 ◼   ► anything, giving it an out loud read through makes a huge difference.

01:10:55 ◼   ► It is very helpful for finding awkward sentences that you don't realize.

01:10:59 ◼   ► James Martin asked, "Can you give an update on

01:11:02 ◼   ► your bag situation?

01:11:04 ◼   ► What bags are we using?

01:11:05 ◼   ► What's going in them?

01:11:08 ◼   ► And is there still a redundant system?

01:11:12 ◼   ► This is funny to me because it's one of these things where this question reveals to me a

01:11:18 ◼   ► thing that has changed a lot about the way that I work that I haven't even realised has

01:11:22 ◼   ► changed which is since I got this office that I use for writing exclusively the amount of

01:11:31 ◼   ► wandering around London and working in different locations that I do has

01:11:36 ◼   ► dropped to essentially zero. Uh, like I,

01:11:39 ◼   ► this is not an activity that I do anymore. Uh,

01:11:43 ◼   ► and I do almost all of the writing in this one location.

01:11:45 ◼   ► And so I was like an update on my bag situation. Like what does he even tell you?

01:11:50 ◼   ► Like, Oh right, of course. I used to have to have a different bag for,

01:11:54 ◼   ► am I going to be wandering around the city or am I going to be working in a,

01:11:58 ◼   ► in a confined radius?

01:11:59 ◼   ► and I needed all these different things for those two different scenarios.

01:12:02 ◼   ► Like, you know,

01:12:03 ◼   ► one day was going to be the gym day and the other day was not going to be the

01:12:06 ◼   ► gym day.

01:12:07 ◼   ► So this is a thing that has totally changed because my life has changed and I

01:12:12 ◼   ► just sort of forgot like what did old me used to do, right?

01:12:15 ◼   ► Because he's dead now and like, Oh, that's right.

01:12:17 ◼   ► I used to do this other thing.

01:12:18 ◼   ► So the answer to the question is I just have now a very simple backpack that I

01:12:23 ◼   ► use almost exclusively for just gym stuff that I take into my writing office.

01:12:28 ◼   ► to my writing office on days when I'm going to the gym.

01:12:32 ◼   ► And otherwise I just leave it at home

01:12:34 ◼   ► because I have my equipment set up at the writing office

01:12:38 ◼   ► and I just go there, right?

01:12:40 ◼   ► I just have the iPad there,

01:12:41 ◼   ► I have the external keyboard there, like it's all set up.

01:12:44 ◼   ► And one of the things that I was trying to do

01:12:47 ◼   ► is minimize resistance.

01:12:49 ◼   ► So I wanna be able to just wake up and walk out the door

01:12:54 ◼   ► and go right into the office

01:12:56 ◼   ► and just have everything that I need there.

01:12:59 ◼   ► - So the bag situation is there is no bag.

01:13:02 ◼   ► - Essentially, yeah.

01:13:04 ◼   ► Like essentially there isn't any bag at all anymore.

01:13:07 ◼   ► Like I used to have this whole routine

01:13:10 ◼   ► of emptying out the bags

01:13:11 ◼   ► and checking that I had all the right chargers

01:13:13 ◼   ► and various things that I needed in the different bags

01:13:15 ◼   ► for different days.

01:13:16 ◼   ► And it's like all of this has been replaced

01:13:19 ◼   ► by a dedicated work location

01:13:21 ◼   ► that has the equipment that I need.

01:13:23 ◼   ► And also it's been replaced by having the iPad Pro,

01:13:28 ◼   ► which I can, if I do on occasion wanna go out and work,

01:13:33 ◼   ► I can and do just take the iPad Pro,

01:13:36 ◼   ► like without even any bag.

01:13:38 ◼   ► Like I'll just bring it and carry it with me

01:13:40 ◼   ► and walk around and go do something.

01:13:42 ◼   ► Like when you and I meet up on occasion in London,

01:13:45 ◼   ► very often I just have my iPad Pro

01:13:48 ◼   ► and I don't even necessarily bring a bag.

01:13:50 ◼   ► or if I am bringing a bag, it's solely to just hold that item to make it more convenient.

01:13:57 ◼   ► So yeah, the bag system has essentially been relegated to the dustbin of history.

01:14:03 ◼   ► So do you have an iPad Pro that just lives in the office?

01:14:07 ◼   ► Well, Myke, do we really need to discuss the number of iPads that I have?

01:14:11 ◼   ► Is that a thing that needs to happen?

01:14:12 ◼   ► I mean, I want to now, because when you said that I realised, oh, he has an iPad that only

01:14:18 ◼   ► goes there now as well and doesn't leave.

01:14:22 ◼   ► This is a thing that I've been sneaking past you for months now, which I was thinking like

01:14:26 ◼   ► "Oh, Michael never noticed that I actually do have two iPad Pros, like two big iPad Pros."

01:14:33 ◼   ► But yes, one of them is just physically locked into my iPad Pro stand at the office, and

01:14:39 ◼   ► the other one is like a mobile one that I can take around when I'm working.

01:14:44 ◼   ► So two 12.9s.

01:14:45 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:14:46 ◼   ► How many 9.7 inch iPad Pros do you have?

01:14:48 ◼   ► I have one.

01:14:50 ◼   ► One.

01:14:51 ◼   ► How many iPad Airs do you have in use?

01:14:53 ◼   ► Well it depends on what you count by in use.

01:14:56 ◼   ► Well are they ever used?

01:15:00 ◼   ► Actually I have no iPad Airs in use now.

01:15:05 ◼   ► I have one that's in a drawer which is unused and I only dragged it out for that UR2 video

01:15:12 ◼   ► where you can see my iPad Pro and my iPad Air.

01:15:15 ◼   ► So I had that in a desk drawer.

01:15:18 ◼   ► One of my old iPads went to my family in America

01:15:21 ◼   ► for their use.

01:15:23 ◼   ► And I do have an iPad Mini, which I think you can say

01:15:27 ◼   ► is technically in use because it is running audio

01:15:31 ◼   ► for a white noise machine that I use for sleeping at night.

01:15:34 ◼   ► So it's just in a drawer connected to a speaker,

01:15:38 ◼   ► and I can turn the speaker on and off.

01:15:40 ◼   ► I think that barely counts as in use,

01:15:42 ◼   ► but is technically in use.

01:15:44 ◼   ► So the total number of iPads is four.

01:15:47 ◼   ► I think on aggregate you've actually gone down.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I've gone down one iPad, but three of them are pros, which is kind of crazy.

01:15:56 ◼   ► And to be fair, for a bunch of reasons, I'm not actually even using the 9.7 one because

01:16:02 ◼   ► for the past few weeks that has become my wife's iPad Pro.

01:16:07 ◼   ► So I've swapped that over into her using it because she wanted to use the pencil because

01:16:13 ◼   ► she was going to be on the iPad an enormous amount. And so she also has RSI problems in

01:16:18 ◼   ► her hand and now she is becoming a very enthusiastic Apple Pencil user and is hoping for the outside

01:16:26 ◼   ► chance of an iPad mini that has a pencil in the future because she has been using my iPad

01:16:31 ◼   ► Pro as her iPad. So I'm really down to just two. It's hard to even get by.

01:16:37 ◼   ► No that doesn't count. I will not accept that. I will not accept I'm down to just two. No.

01:16:42 ◼   ► I think I am down to just two.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't think that's how it works.

01:16:46 ◼   ► But this is also a side effect of like the redundant bag system, right?

01:16:50 ◼   ► It is not having to have different devices like charging and ready to go at any moment

01:16:57 ◼   ► and using one older device for a different thing.

01:16:59 ◼   ► Like this is actually a kind of consolidation that has happened because of the physical location consolidation.

01:17:04 ◼   ► So I am at two iPads, 9.7 and 12.9 Pro, but I will be moving to three in use.

01:17:12 ◼   ► when we institute the kitchen iPad.

01:17:17 ◼   ► Ah, okay.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Which will be my old iPad Air 2.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Right, but that'll be also a shared iPad,

01:17:22 ◼   ► which I think counts a little bit differently.

01:17:24 ◼   ► You have one of these, don't you?

01:17:26 ◼   ► You're holding back.

01:17:26 ◼   ► Do you have a shared kitchen iPad, Gray?

01:17:29 ◼   ► No, I don't even have space on my kitchen counter

01:17:34 ◼   ► for a space kitchen iPad. I don't even have a kitchen.

01:17:36 ◼   ► I live in London.

01:17:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:17:41 ◼   ► I'm thinking of my kitchen.

01:17:42 ◼   ► The width of my kitchen is the same width

01:17:45 ◼   ► as the desk I am sitting in front of right now.

01:17:47 ◼   ► - Great, great.

01:17:48 ◼   ► - It's like a sink and space for a coffee machine

01:17:51 ◼   ► and a toaster.

01:17:52 ◼   ► So we don't have any shared iPad space in the kitchen.

01:17:57 ◼   ► - Okay, it sounded like you were really dancing around.

01:18:00 ◼   ► That's like, "Oh, shared ones?

01:18:01 ◼   ► "Shared ones don't count.

01:18:03 ◼   ► "I have 20 shared iPads with people all over the globe."

01:18:07 ◼   ► My current bag situation is complicated, I think,

01:18:11 ◼   ► because it's going through some change.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Probably like the main bag that I use right now

01:18:17 ◼   ► is probably still the main bag that I used

01:18:20 ◼   ► when we first spoke about this a long time ago,

01:18:23 ◼   ► which is a bag called the Topo Mountain Briefcase.

01:18:25 ◼   ► And that has been my like airline travel bag,

01:18:29 ◼   ► that it is like part backpack, part briefcase,

01:18:32 ◼   ► and I can put a ton of stuff in there.

01:18:34 ◼   ► That is the bag that has like all of the charges that I'm going to need.

01:18:38 ◼   ► You know, it has headphones in it always like Bluetooth headphones now,

01:18:43 ◼   ► because that's what you have to do in 2016.

01:18:47 ◼   ► You can't use wired headphones anymore because that's not allowed.

01:18:50 ◼   ► So I now have some Beats Bluetooth headphones in there,

01:18:53 ◼   ► the ones that have the really long battery life,

01:18:55 ◼   ► which I kind of like a little about comfortable because they're on in over here.

01:19:01 ◼   ► Hmm. But they're the only ones that I want to use

01:19:04 ◼   ► right now because they have 40 hour battery life and quick charging and stuff.

01:19:07 ◼   ► That's pretty sweet.

01:19:09 ◼   ► And I have also added in a bag by a company called Tom Binn called the Ristretto,

01:19:17 ◼   ► which I got this bag for when I'm traveling, I go to conferences a lot.

01:19:23 ◼   ► And when I'm at conferences, I usually want to have a bag with me

01:19:26 ◼   ► to put like my iPad in in case I want to take notes or something

01:19:30 ◼   ► or I want to break it out and do a little bit of work.

01:19:32 ◼   ► And my traveling bag, my topo briefcase, has got too much stuff in it to carry around all the time.

01:19:39 ◼   ► So I got the topo bag as a way to have my like, when I'm at a place bag.

01:19:46 ◼   ► And that bag has also actually become really good when I'm out and about vlogging because it's like

01:19:53 ◼   ► an over the shoulder thing. It has more than enough space to put like the gimbal in and like

01:19:57 ◼   ► the little Gorillapod tripod that I sometimes use. It's got all enough space for that and

01:20:02 ◼   ► an iPad. So that's great. But then I have two more bags that have entered my life recently.

01:20:10 ◼   ► So my-

01:20:12 ◼   ► This is crazy. You have so many bags, Myke.

01:20:17 ◼   ► I know, imagine. Imagine such a thing. I have a bag by a friend of mine, Brad, he's my co-host

01:20:22 ◼   ► and a pen addict. He's making a bag called Delenia, which is just like a really thin

01:20:27 ◼   ► briefcase type thing which I was using all and I really liked that for

01:20:32 ◼   ► conferences because it's like super low profile like you just put like a

01:20:36 ◼   ► notebook and an iPad and you're good and that's like great for that and then I

01:20:40 ◼   ► had a we have a sponsor on some other shows who make carry-on bags and they're

01:20:48 ◼   ► not sponsoring this show but it's a company called away and they have sent

01:20:51 ◼   ► me this bag this carry-on bag to try out and now I'm like maybe I want to move to

01:20:57 ◼   ► carry-on bag when I travel. So I'm all over the place right now. I have so many bags.

01:21:04 ◼   ► I'm sorry Myke.

01:21:06 ◼   ► But it's... they're all good bags with their own purposes. But if I decide to use all of these bags,

01:21:13 ◼   ► which I could, then I'm going to be like you.

01:21:15 ◼   ► This is the problem, yeah. It's like there are bags designed for specific circumstances,

01:21:20 ◼   ► and you want to use those bags under those circumstances,

01:21:23 ◼   ► but then suddenly you need redundant equipment in all of them.

01:21:26 ◼   ► I'm gonna need to buy like 25 lightning cables.

01:21:30 ◼   ► Yep.

01:21:31 ◼   ► It's too much.

01:21:32 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:21:33 ◼   ► My I'm in bag limbo right now.

01:21:34 ◼   ► It's gonna be more than your house, right?

01:21:35 ◼   ► The cost of 25 lightning cables.

01:21:37 ◼   ► Ugh.

01:21:38 ◼   ► And then, oh, do I go USB-A or USB-C?

01:21:42 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:21:43 ◼   ► The world is changing!

01:21:44 ◼   ► Right, you'll need both!

01:21:46 ◼   ► Ugh.

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01:23:24 ◼   ► Paranigm wanted to know, Gray, why do you use double spaces between words when typing?

01:23:31 ◼   ► Because it's obviously superior.

01:23:32 ◼   ► It's the superior thing to do.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Do you hit the space bar twice?

01:23:36 ◼   ► Yeah, of course.

01:23:37 ◼   ► Of course I hit the space bar twice.

01:23:39 ◼   ► I don't understand how else would I put two spaces in there?

01:23:42 ◼   ► You could use TextExpander and you could just have it trigger every time you hit a space

01:23:46 ◼   ► to hit two spaces.

01:23:47 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

01:23:48 ◼   ► No, do you know what's ridiculous?

01:23:50 ◼   ► Double spacing your words.

01:23:51 ◼   ► Why do you do this?

01:23:52 ◼   ► Because it looks better.

01:23:53 ◼   ► It looks better to double space.

01:23:57 ◼   ► It clearly does.

01:23:58 ◼   ► It's clearly the better solution.

01:23:59 ◼   ► No, the way it looks is wrong.

01:24:01 ◼   ► That's how it looks.

01:24:03 ◼   ► It looks like you made a bunch of mistakes is what it looks like.

01:24:06 ◼   ► No, it doesn't.

01:24:07 ◼   ► It looks clear.

01:24:08 ◼   ► It separates the sentences.

01:24:10 ◼   ► It's easier to read.

01:24:11 ◼   ► It's perfectly great and what I don't understand is, okay so I think this came up because I

01:24:19 ◼   ► was on Twitter and somebody noticed this and there ended up being like a little bit of

01:24:25 ◼   ► a Twitter evening of people arguing over single or double space which turns out to be a surprisingly

01:24:30 ◼   ► heated argument which I don't understand because the single spacers are just wrong.

01:24:35 ◼   ► But what I don't understand here is the reason people noticed is because I was tweeting from

01:24:41 ◼   ► my computer. So when I'm typing, you hit spacebar twice and you get two spaces on the computer.

01:24:47 ◼   ► But on iOS, when you do the double space thing, it automatically does the full stop and a

01:24:53 ◼   ► single space, and then you move on to the next sentence.

01:24:55 ◼   ► You can turn that off.

01:24:57 ◼   ► But that's the default, right? That's on by default.

01:24:59 ◼   ► Yeah, because that's great. I wish that my computer did that.

01:25:02 ◼   ► This is where people could see, like, you know where I'm tweeting from based on if the

01:25:06 ◼   ► the two spaces are there or if the two spaces are not there.

01:25:09 ◼   ► If I'm on iOS, it ends up, I just use that default where tapping on the spacebar twice

01:25:15 ◼   ► does the full stop and a single space.

01:25:17 ◼   ► And if I'm on my regular computer, I'm doing two spaces that is the better looking way

01:25:24 ◼   ► so that there's two spaces in between the words.

01:25:26 ◼   ► All of the scripts that I read for my videos, there's two spaces after the full stops.

01:25:30 ◼   ► Nobody even sees them, but I like to have them there because it looks better.

01:25:34 ◼   ► We mentioned earlier that there are many things that you've convinced me are the right way

01:25:39 ◼   ► to do things over a history of working together.

01:25:43 ◼   ► I can categorically say this will not be one of them.

01:25:46 ◼   ► It makes no sense to me.

01:25:47 ◼   ► Can you sneak on one of your iOS devices and do an automatic replacement so that you get

01:25:52 ◼   ► two spaces after everything you type?

01:25:53 ◼   ► You won't even notice.

01:25:54 ◼   ► If you're ever able to sneak onto one of my iOS devices, you can do whatever you want,

01:25:59 ◼   ► my friend, because I would just be impressed that you managed to do it.

01:26:04 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

01:26:05 ◼   ► S: Georgia asked, "If you could recommend one video for somebody who's starting to first

01:26:10 ◼   ► watch CGP Grey videos, what one would it be?"

01:26:12 ◼   ► A - I don't think I have any ability to answer this question.

01:26:19 ◼   ► That's going to be so particular for the person and I am almost certainly the least objective

01:26:24 ◼   ► person when it comes to my own videos and I don't often watch my own videos after I

01:26:30 ◼   ► make them.

01:26:31 ◼   ► So I actually ran into a situation where somebody messaged me earlier,

01:26:36 ◼   ► one of my very old videos and said that they had enjoyed it. And I was like,

01:26:40 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I forgot I made that one. That was a long time ago.

01:26:43 ◼   ► So I don't think I'm a very good person to answer this question at all.

01:26:46 ◼   ► I think maybe my,

01:26:48 ◼   ► my go-to answer would just be the Holland versus the Netherlands one.

01:26:52 ◼   ► But that's,

01:26:53 ◼   ► that's entirely based on the fact that that was my video that felt the

01:26:57 ◼   ► straightest in terms of production. Like I had an idea,

01:27:01 ◼   ► It was relatively easy and straightforward to make and it came out just the way I

01:27:05 ◼   ► wanted it to.

01:27:06 ◼   ► So I feel like I like that one a lot because of the production behind the

01:27:10 ◼   ► scenes. Uh,

01:27:11 ◼   ► but I don't know if that's necessarily a good one for someone to start with.

01:27:14 ◼   ► I think right now, right now,

01:27:17 ◼   ► I would probably recommend to somebody to start with something like

01:27:22 ◼   ► You Are Too,

01:27:23 ◼   ► because if you can watch that video and enjoy it,

01:27:30 ◼   ► you will enjoy everything else.

01:27:31 ◼   ► Maybe the same for the trouble with transporters.

01:27:35 ◼   ► Because they're super like,

01:27:38 ◼   ► it is that is like they those two videos

01:27:41 ◼   ► are the furthest you take any idea.

01:27:43 ◼   ► Like you take the idea to scare you.

01:27:46 ◼   ► And if you can accept those ideas,

01:27:49 ◼   ► enjoy the production of them and learn something,

01:27:51 ◼   ► you're gonna like anything else that's there.

01:27:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe, maybe you have a point there.

01:27:55 ◼   ► I think it's a hard question to answer

01:27:56 ◼   ► because I've been doing this long enough

01:27:57 ◼   ► that I now have a pretty wide range of topics and styles on the channel,

01:28:05 ◼   ► both in terms of just the videos that are older clearly feel like older videos.

01:28:09 ◼   ► And yeah, there's just like a whole bunch of random different stuff.

01:28:14 ◼   ► And so I have never felt even from the beginning like I have a particular theme on the channel,

01:28:21 ◼   ► aside from I make videos on topics that are interesting to me is like the only theme that exists.

01:28:27 ◼   ► And yeah, so I think that ends up with quite an eclectic group of videos and all kinds

01:28:34 ◼   ► of different styles on all kinds of different things.

01:28:37 ◼   ► So...

01:28:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's an age thing.

01:28:39 ◼   ► I think it used to be less like that.

01:28:40 ◼   ► You know, like I think maybe earlier videos really fit a more kind of central theme than

01:28:46 ◼   ► it has ended up becoming.

01:28:49 ◼   ► Yeah, people say that, but if you go back and look at some of the older things that

01:28:53 ◼   ► that I was making, they're more varied than people think they are.

01:28:57 ◼   ► And there's also a side effect of I am aware of what I was trying to achieve,

01:29:03 ◼   ► which is with a lot of the earlier stuff,

01:29:05 ◼   ► there was like a very particular purpose of like,

01:29:07 ◼   ► I'm trying to hit a very viral note every time because I'm trying to grow this

01:29:12 ◼   ► channel to make it into my full time living. So it's like,

01:29:15 ◼   ► I think the first year when I was really focusing on it has like a much more

01:29:19 ◼   ► consistent thing because I was aiming for something, but it just,

01:29:23 ◼   ► I guess in my own mind it never quite felt like, oh, I'm trying to produce a particular

01:29:28 ◼   ► thing.

01:29:29 ◼   ► Well, like I would say, like, you know, looking at these videos, like the first maybe 15,

01:29:35 ◼   ► 20 videos was like political geography.

01:29:37 ◼   ► It was like, that's what it was.

01:29:39 ◼   ► And I think it's diverged quite a lot from that point.

01:29:42 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe.

01:29:44 ◼   ► And tying cables.

01:29:45 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, of course.

01:29:48 ◼   ► Of course.

01:29:49 ◼   ► I've never watched that one.

01:29:51 ◼   ► It's the only video on your channel that I've never watched.

01:29:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, don't watch it.

01:29:56 ◼   ► - Oh, and time management for teachers

01:29:57 ◼   ► 'cause I'm not a teacher.

01:29:59 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:29:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:30:00 ◼   ► Yeah, that cable one was actually filmed in Hawaii.

01:30:03 ◼   ► - Now I'm gonna watch it.

01:30:06 ◼   ► Gorebags asks, "I have a question mostly in Myke's direction.

01:30:10 ◼   ► After listening to the episode where you both talk about

01:30:12 ◼   ► the best time to start something is right now,

01:30:15 ◼   ► I decided that I wanted to start the podcast idea

01:30:18 ◼   ► that I had.

01:30:19 ◼   ► It's about motor sports.

01:30:20 ◼   ► It's something that a friend and myself are really passionate about.

01:30:23 ◼   ► We're just finishing up the first season of our show and we're happy with the

01:30:27 ◼   ► numbers,

01:30:27 ◼   ► but over the last few months it's plateaued to the point where we haven't gained

01:30:31 ◼   ► or lost a single listener.

01:30:32 ◼   ► How did you or do you go about growing podcasts and videos?

01:30:37 ◼   ► So here's the issue I have with this. I ask this question a lot.

01:30:43 ◼   ► I can't give you an answer about what I am doing right now

01:30:50 ◼   ► to grow any work that I'm doing, what I can tell you is looking back, I can see things

01:30:56 ◼   ► that I did that worked then. That's the problem with this, is that I get this question a lot

01:31:03 ◼   ► and the issue is, I don't know that I ever really done anything specifically to grow

01:31:11 ◼   ► anything that I've done, but I can look back and see the things that did actually work.

01:31:17 ◼   ► So when I was starting out podcasting, there just weren't very many technology podcasts.

01:31:26 ◼   ► So when I started having guests on to my shows, sometimes it was like the only time you will

01:31:32 ◼   ► have ever heard that person on a podcast speaking.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Or like they maybe were a guest on a show every now and then to the point where like

01:31:39 ◼   ► in the Apple observer world where I am, all of those people now have their own shows where

01:31:45 ◼   ► you can hear them every week.

01:31:46 ◼   ► So having these people as guests on your shows doesn't really do anything for you anymore.

01:31:51 ◼   ► But at the time, that was what really helped me build up my presence because people would

01:31:58 ◼   ► subscribe to my shows because they would get to hear from the people that they're interested

01:32:03 ◼   ► in because it didn't happen that often.

01:32:06 ◼   ► So that was a thing at the time that I did.

01:32:08 ◼   ► Then it was the network effect.

01:32:11 ◼   ► idea of starting a podcast network or being a part of a podcast network as a way to like

01:32:18 ◼   ► help me get rungs up the ladder as I was associated with other people who had bigger audiences

01:32:22 ◼   ► and bigger audiences. That has been the thing that has got me to where I am now and I think

01:32:28 ◼   ► that has been like the overall thing is that I started my own podcast network and I started

01:32:33 ◼   ► shows with more and more people and it kind of was like got me rungs up the ladder to

01:32:37 ◼   ► where I am now. The problem is I don't know how well that works today as a thing because

01:32:43 ◼   ► there are lots of networks. There are YouTube networks and podcast networks and writing

01:32:47 ◼   ► networks and networks and networks. So I don't know how well that works anymore. That's

01:32:53 ◼   ► the problem. So the only advice that I can give you which is advice that everybody hates

01:32:59 ◼   ► but there is a reason for it and the advice is just keep doing it. Keep doing it but find

01:33:07 ◼   ► new weird interesting exciting innovative things to do. Try and do things that you aren't

01:33:14 ◼   ► seeing other people do. Present your show in a way that you think might be interesting.

01:33:18 ◼   ► It might not work but it might work and then you might hit upon the thing that nobody else

01:33:23 ◼   ► is doing which makes people pay attention to you. And the reason people don't like the

01:33:28 ◼   ► "just keep doing it" is because there's no advice in that. It's like just keep wandering

01:33:35 ◼   ► into the darkness. But the thing was is that's all I ever did. And I happened upon things

01:33:42 ◼   ► whilst undergoing this process that got me ever so slightly up the ladder. There was

01:33:47 ◼   ► never like a secret plan that I had. It was just I just kept doing it. And by keeping

01:33:54 ◼   ► doing it, it got me further and further up. And that's where I am with YouTube right now.

01:34:00 ◼   ► I have a base that I've started from, but look, I am like 234,000 subscribers down the

01:34:08 ◼   ► line right?

01:34:09 ◼   ► We spoke about that.

01:34:10 ◼   ► Like I am essentially, whilst I'm in a bracket, I'm essentially nobody on YouTube.

01:34:15 ◼   ► Now my feeling right now is like I don't have an overriding idea of the thing that I want

01:34:19 ◼   ► to do, but what I'm going to do is keep creating stuff to build up my knowledge, to build up

01:34:26 ◼   ► my skills until I can then start having ideas that I can execute on only because I kept

01:34:32 ◼   ► making.

01:34:33 ◼   ► So that's my advice.

01:34:34 ◼   ► It's not great advice because it isn't the five quick ways to make your podcast successful.

01:34:41 ◼   ► But it is for everybody that I know that has ever had anything successful that they've

01:34:46 ◼   ► built from the ground up.

01:34:47 ◼   ► That's how they do it.

01:34:48 ◼   ► By just keep doing it.

01:34:50 ◼   ► Because most people give up.

01:34:54 ◼   ► It's good advice and it is also the difficulty of like you said looking back on the particulars

01:35:00 ◼   ► at the time when you were doing a thing versus now.

01:35:04 ◼   ► How does that actually work?

01:35:07 ◼   ► And you're right, you have to give people some reason to want to talk about the thing

01:35:12 ◼   ► that you're doing.

01:35:14 ◼   ► That's what growth essentially means, right?

01:35:17 ◼   ► Somebody is seeing your thing and recommending it to somebody else or passing it on.

01:35:22 ◼   ► However, the other side that people don't always necessarily want to talk about is

01:35:25 ◼   ► some projects will come up against the limit of their audience. This is a thing that I

01:35:33 ◼   ► think about a bunch, which is there is some natural limit to the audience of every project

01:35:41 ◼   ► because there is an actual limit to the population of the world. And so even if you just want to start

01:35:46 ◼   ► drawing the broadest circles, it's like how many people on earth are there? Seven billion. How many

01:35:51 ◼   ► people speak English? Many millions. How many people who speak English might be interested

01:35:56 ◼   ► in your thing? And I sometimes see people pick projects that are, they're at like the

01:36:05 ◼   ► wrong end of two Venn diagrams. Whereas like you're picking a very narrow topic. And then

01:36:13 ◼   ► like let's say you're also doing a podcast about that narrow topic. Like sometimes it

01:36:17 ◼   ► can be a question of this audience is very small and then you also have to be

01:36:23 ◼   ► talking about the people who are into podcasts who are also into this thing

01:36:27 ◼   ► there's always going to be a limit to the size of everybody's projects like it

01:36:33 ◼   ► ultimately can't grow forever and all projects will eventually reach whatever

01:36:40 ◼   ► that maximum plateau is at some point and that's just a thing that you need to

01:36:44 ◼   ► to be aware of.

01:36:46 ◼   ► - Brandon asked, "Now that my YouTube channel

01:36:48 ◼   ► has been around for a while, how's the troll factor?"

01:36:51 ◼   ► Gray, I have some exciting news.

01:36:53 ◼   ► - Oh yeah?

01:36:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have my first person on YouTube

01:36:56 ◼   ► that seems to dislike me just for me.

01:36:58 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:36:59 ◼   ► And I feel like I have hit a rite of passage.

01:37:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, totally a rite of passage.

01:37:03 ◼   ► This is actually your second YouTube rite of passage

01:37:05 ◼   ► because you've already made the video

01:37:06 ◼   ► about how you haven't made a video in a while, right?

01:37:08 ◼   ► Every vlog needs the episode which says,

01:37:10 ◼   ► "Oh, sorry, I haven't been vlogging for a while."

01:37:12 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:37:13 ◼   ► And then yes, collecting around yourself some people who dislike you because of your personality,

01:37:20 ◼   ► you have to be at a certain level of popularity before you get those people.

01:37:23 ◼   ► So congratulations.

01:37:24 ◼   ► I'm honestly, honestly ever so slightly proud of it.

01:37:30 ◼   ► Because this person just seems to just not, you know, they found me and they don't like

01:37:34 ◼   ► me.

01:37:35 ◼   ► And it's like, great, you found me even though you don't like me.

01:37:37 ◼   ► And I'm happy that you're here.

01:37:39 ◼   ► Because you keep coming back for more, which is really interesting.

01:37:43 ◼   ► So I feel like I've finally landed.

01:37:45 ◼   ► I'm a YouTube celebrity now, Gray.

01:37:49 ◼   ► It's a great feeling.

01:37:50 ◼   ► Heat viewers count just as much as regular viewers as far as AdSense is concerned.

01:37:55 ◼   ► Yep.

01:37:56 ◼   ► Now we've reached the end of the episode.

01:37:59 ◼   ► We've also... means that Cortexmas is about to begin.

01:38:03 ◼   ► Yay!

01:38:04 ◼   ► And we'll be back at the end of January.

01:38:08 ◼   ► Happy Cortexmas everybody!

01:38:09 ◼   ► Happy Cortexmas!