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Cortex

20: New Year

 

00:00:00   So Myke, did you enjoy your Cortexmas?

00:00:04   A little too much, I think.

00:00:06   That's the problem with Cortexmas, is it's the time when we take a break from work and relax for a while.

00:00:12   And sometimes it's a little bit hard to get back into the swing of things.

00:00:18   I've been trying very hard the past couple of days just to get back into working again post-holiday season.

00:00:24   and I have just failed repeatedly, but this recording of Cortex was on the schedule.

00:00:31   You wouldn't let me move it, and so it's like, "Oh, I can no longer be in denial that the holidays are still going on."

00:00:37   Like, "Oh, it's January 4th. That's still sort of Christmas/New Year time, right?"

00:00:41   Nope, not anymore. Now we're recording. Now work for the rest of the year is starting again.

00:00:47   You've tried to drop this in in a message conversation we had.

00:00:51   "We are probably recording a show tomorrow."

00:00:53   You knew full well that we were.

00:00:55   It was just your last-dish attempt to get out of it.

00:00:58   [LAUGHTER]

00:01:00   It's like, I'll just give it one more go.

00:01:02   Yeah, I thought maybe you'd want to push it back another week or so.

00:01:05   [LAUGHTER]

00:01:06   [DING]

00:01:08   I received a early Christmas gift in the form of an iPad Pro coloring book app.

00:01:15   Oh, finally.

00:01:16   Your wish has come true, Myke.

00:01:17   It's so glorious as well.

00:01:19   It's called Pigment.

00:01:20   Mm-hmm, and it's just superb. Is it everything that you hoped it would be about 90% of what I would like it to be

00:01:27   It's missing a couple of things like it doesn't have like an eraser

00:01:30   Mm-hmm

00:01:31   So if you color something accidentally you have to like go in and select the white color and color it out again real coloring books

00:01:38   Don't have erasers if you're a little kid and you're coloring with crayons, there's no crayon eraser

00:01:42   But it also has an undo function. So I mean, yeah, you've got to embrace the technology

00:01:47   I also have like one pencil and an unlimited amount of colors. I wanted you to see my work

00:01:54   There's one of the links in our in our document. Oh, yeah is a selection of my favorite work

00:02:00   I mean again Myke every time I see this coloring book stuff

00:02:03   I want to be impressed like I was about to say oh wow that looks really great

00:02:07   But then I remember of course you haven't drawn any of this the colors. Yeah, all right

00:02:13   I'd choose the colors, I'd make it look the way I want, and I think I like the lion one. That's my favorite one.

00:02:18   There's two lions here. Oh no, it's a bear.

00:02:20   See, I thought that was a lion until I finished it. I was like, "Oh, it's a bear. That's why it's that color."

00:02:25   I thought it was a lion.

00:02:27   Right.

00:02:29   I feel like the teacher in me wants to write on that bear, "Great effort!"

00:02:35   I bet you're so condescending with your marking.

00:02:41   No, you can't be condescending when it's physics. Physics is either right or it's wrong, and it's mostly wrong.

00:02:45   So you never got to say great effort to someone then?

00:02:48   No, because effort doesn't count at all in math and physics.

00:02:51   It's like your effort is irrelevant. If this was really easy and you got it right,

00:02:55   it's worth just as much as you greatly struggling and getting it right.

00:02:59   Talking about struggling.

00:03:00   Yeah?

00:03:01   Are you back on the internet?

00:03:02   So I'm gonna take a guess and say that you are in some ways because I noted

00:03:09   That you were tweeting from tweet bot which means that you've at least on some devices you have it installed again

00:03:16   I feel like you stalk me Myke because you're looking closely enough to see well

00:03:21   What what device have I tweeted from like it's a little disconcerting when you're like, oh, I know that you tweeted from tweet bot

00:03:27   I'll tell you how I noticed this right. So you tweeted a picture of your

00:03:32   devices

00:03:34   Right the home screens. Yeah, it was the Christmas decorating for iOS devices

00:03:39   Yeah, so I went onto it and I saw that it said Twitter web client.

00:03:44   So I looked at it because I was going to grab the link to talk about it at some point.

00:03:48   And it said Twitter web client.

00:03:50   And then I started looking around then and then saw that there was things coming from

00:03:54   Tweetbot.

00:03:55   Because it didn't come from Buffer, which meant that you were accessing it from somewhere.

00:04:00   This is all show prep, Gray.

00:04:01   Yeah, that's what it is.

00:04:03   It's not stalking, it's show prep.

00:04:05   It's not stalking.

00:04:06   Show prep.

00:04:07   Yeah, so the end of the year has come and I did the dialing down for November and then

00:04:18   I said that I was going to extend it for a while and I am now slowly opening up the gates

00:04:27   again to these parts of the internet that I have left behind.

00:04:32   And in my own attempt at preparing for this show, I was trying to think about what are

00:04:38   the lessons that I have learned from these two months of quasi self-imposed internet

00:04:45   isolation.

00:04:46   Can I take a quick guess and say you've learned nothing?

00:04:48   Yeah, well I was just going to say, what I want to do is to come down from high on the

00:04:55   mount like with...

00:04:56   iPad Pro in each hand.

00:04:57   chiseled on an iPad Pro that tells people here's how you should live your internet lives.

00:05:03   And in the end I just have this very ambivalent feeling about a lot of it and particularly about

00:05:11   Twitter. Like I'm gonna say right at the beginning I am very glad that I did this for two months. I

00:05:16   think this was definitely something worthwhile to do. But it's very hard for me now to know where am

00:05:25   am I going forward from this?

00:05:28   So like Twitter is a good example

00:05:30   because it's at the intersection of a couple of things.

00:05:33   And like I realized the value that I get out of Twitter

00:05:38   is being ambiently aware of what people in my life

00:05:45   who I'm interested in are doing.

00:05:48   And I've been really aware over the past couple months

00:05:51   that a bunch of the people that I follow

00:05:53   who I don't instant message with on a regular basis,

00:05:55   but who I'm friendly with, like I have no idea what they're doing.

00:05:59   Because I'm not on Twitter and I'm not just seeing what they're up to

00:06:02   and so then I have far fewer reasons to just interact with someone.

00:06:07   How do you feel about that?

00:06:08   The way I feel about that is it is a kind of disconnection that...

00:06:13   I wouldn't say that it isn't good, but the presence of it is good.

00:06:21   Like, I like a certain amount of ambient awareness of what people are up to.

00:06:27   Because, in no small part, I am the world's worst person at keeping up with people.

00:06:33   Like, I am terrible about sending emails and iMessages to people.

00:06:37   Like, I'm just very bad at staying in touch.

00:06:39   This is just something I know about myself.

00:06:41   Uh, I've known about myself for a very long time.

00:06:46   Because I remember when I was graduating from high school and going on to college,

00:06:52   everybody was always talking about how like, "Oh, we'll keep in touch, we'll keep in touch!"

00:06:55   And I would say things like, "Oh yeah, we'll keep in touch!"

00:06:58   But inside I was thinking, "I know I won't keep in touch."

00:07:00   Right, like we'll never talk ever again. That's what's gonna happen here.

00:07:03   "Chit chat is not one of your strong suits."

00:07:06   Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:07:07   "Chit chat, a certain kind of social grooming, is not my area of strength."

00:07:13   And so that's where I feel like Twitter is an interesting tool for me in that it provides a certain amount of value.

00:07:20   And I even just, I went through Twitter again as I was kind of preparing to come back online.

00:07:26   And as you have done, I culled down the number of people I was following once again.

00:07:30   So now I'm under a hundred now for how many people I'm following.

00:07:34   So this is the part of Twitter that I want.

00:07:38   But then I'm also really aware of one of the things that's been great over the past couple months is

00:07:43   not having

00:07:46   just like this source of constant distraction

00:07:51   just even available, because going on it's just like, okay this is just simply not an option

00:07:55   like it's not installed on any of my devices, I've set all my computers so it won't open

00:07:59   like this thing just won't be there, and so I like not having the distraction

00:08:04   the other thing is that if I have Twitter open

00:08:07   the source of just @ messages from random people that I don't know

00:08:12   don't know is a source of distraction.

00:08:15   And so I've been feeling like, okay, as I'm trying to figure out how to get back onto

00:08:19   the internet with something like Twitter, I almost wish there was a way on Twitter that

00:08:23   I could only see @ messages from people that I follow.

00:08:28   Do you know how you get that?

00:08:30   Well, the web version does it, right?

00:08:32   Well, if you're verified.

00:08:33   What are you talking about?

00:08:34   On the regular web version, there's a tab that says like "activity from people I follow"

00:08:39   or something like that.

00:08:40   Yeah, there is a if you're verified then like there are specific tools that you get that other people don't get which are like that.

00:08:47   Oh, isn't that interesting?

00:08:50   Yeah.

00:08:51   I wonder if anybody who listens to Cortex happens to work at Twitter.

00:08:55   Get in touch!

00:08:56   I would like that as well just to have the tick. I don't need the tool.

00:08:59   [Laughter]

00:09:01   I, listen, if you work at Twitter, I'll take the reverse of Myke.

00:09:05   You don't have to give me the verified tick. I don't care at all about that.

00:09:08   I just want the tool. I just want to be able to see only @ mentions from people that I actually follow.

00:09:14   So that's one of the things that like spending this time away from Twitter has distilled in my mind

00:09:19   what it is that I actually want from Twitter, which is a subset of what Twitter wants to actually offer me.

00:09:26   So I like I don't really know we may have an actionable point forward from here from that but...

00:09:32   I'm just I need to say this because otherwise all the feedback will get lists will not help.

00:09:37   Lists never help with anything. It's just when I went through my Twitter experiment,

00:09:43   everybody told me that what I wanted was lists and what I don't want is lists.

00:09:48   How do I make the lists work?

00:09:50   Well, I mean, you could, I'm sure there's something you could do with lists.

00:09:53   Because people always find things to do with lists.

00:09:56   I've never used a single Twitter list. I don't even really know what it does.

00:10:00   Just don't. It's not going to help you.

00:10:03   So what about having another account? Have you considered that? Like a private account?

00:10:10   No, I don't. That's just too much trouble. That's just way too much trouble. That's just...

00:10:13   The last thing I want is to double the Twitter when I'm trying to think about how do I want less

00:10:18   Twitter. So what you want is an account of a small amount of people that you follow,

00:10:23   so you don't see too much and you get the kind of the ambient what's going on in people's lives,

00:10:28   so you feel connected to them and also for you to just see

00:10:33   the mentions from those people as well.

00:10:38   Yeah, like I'm like I just opened up I just opened up Tweetbot

00:10:42   right now on my computer and

00:10:44   you know, it says like there's a little message there that's like, oh,

00:10:48   there are 200 plus tweets since the last time you looked.

00:10:51   Right. But I like the thing is, what I really just want to know is,

00:10:55   are there any @mentions from people who I follow?

00:11:00   Like that is the valuable subset of this to me.

00:11:04   And like there are definitely times when I would want to see all the @mentions,

00:11:09   but I would like the default to be just @mentions from people that I actually follow.

00:11:14   But yeah I guess on the Twitter webpage, right, you can just go to the people you follow,

00:11:17   as you said, and you can get it sort of broken down that way.

00:11:21   Is that what you want then?

00:11:22   Yeah the one that you have on the Twitter website now,

00:11:25   I want to be able to have that in a Twitter client. That's precisely what I want.

00:11:29   Hey Gray, I have some instant follow-up for you.

00:11:31   In the settings of the official Twitter app, under the notifications tab,

00:11:36   you can filter it to only people you follow.

00:11:39   Okay, but that's notifications. That's not a timeline though.

00:11:44   Well, it says notifications tab.

00:11:45   Really?

00:11:47   Yeah, look at this. We're doing some real stuff here.

00:11:50   Yeah, look at us. I'm gonna install it right now and we're going to see if this works.

00:11:54   But just a couple other just quick things.

00:11:56   While Twitter is the one that I've been thinking about the most because it's the one that I've had that kind of

00:12:01   ambiently in my life,

00:12:02   I've also now just been like slowly going back on Reddit and Hacker News and slowly going back to podcasts and things.

00:12:09   I'm just trying to figure out precisely what I was saying months ago, which is what is the place for these things in

00:12:15   my life? And

00:12:18   it's

00:12:21   It's interesting because I think like in some ways one of the clearest lessons is that

00:12:26   Podcasts were definitely this thing that I was listening to way way too much and

00:12:33   When like when January first rolled over I was like, okay

00:12:37   Let me put podcast back on my phone and let me let me try doing this and I realized immediately like no way man

00:12:43   I think podcasts have to stay off your phone forever

00:12:45   Like there can be other circumstances in which you listen to podcasts. Like I've been trying

00:12:50   just playing podcasts like over the speaker at my house while I'm like cleaning up or doing the dishes or like putting stuff away kind

00:12:57   of thing. But like I'm not sure that I can actually just

00:13:00   that I really want to have

00:13:03   podcasts available all the time wherever I am. Like I think it's just too much of a distraction and too much of a like

00:13:10   "Oh, I really like listening to podcasts. So I always want to listen to podcasts."

00:13:13   So it's just it just makes me think again of that

00:13:16   that little image that somebody mocked up from a previous show or it's like

00:13:20   Where they quoted me as saying like I don't watch YouTube videos and I don't listen to podcasts CGP Grey professional

00:13:27   youtuber and podcaster, I think that it's like that's definitely the case because

00:13:31   Again, two months in I'm really aware that

00:13:34   Not also following all the educational videos and all the educational podcasts like that is definitely also a big improvement

00:13:43   So I think those are changes that are going to stay.

00:13:46   Like, I don't think I'm going to get back into following, like,

00:13:49   what are all the other videos that everybody's putting out?

00:13:51   Like, I think I'm just leaving that behind.

00:13:53   And all of the various educational podcast shows that I listen to,

00:13:57   like, all of those I'm not going to resubscribe to.

00:14:00   And even the podcasts that I do listen to,

00:14:02   like, I still need to limit those.

00:14:04   So it's just been an interesting experience overall

00:14:08   that I'm very glad that I have done.

00:14:10   I would highly recommend anybody else if they feel the same way that I was about being kind of distracted or overwhelmed.

00:14:17   This is a thing to try. Maybe not for as long as I've done it, but you know, definitely try it.

00:14:21   Because I feel like I have some

00:14:25   inarticulate sense of a way that things should be different. But like it is really hard to talk about because

00:14:32   like for example, I was on

00:14:36   Hacker news the other day, which is a reddit like site which hacker news people do not want you to say

00:14:41   What are you laughing at? I know you only say it because it annoys people

00:14:45   No, I don't know any other faster way to describe hacker news for people who don't know what hacker news is

00:14:51   but it's it's a reddit like site in some ways but

00:14:54   There happened to be this the guy one of the guys who kind of runs Y Combinator

00:14:59   Which runs hacker news is a guy called Paul Graham who I've been following for years who's had this very very interesting career

00:15:05   And he writes these essays every once in a while, which are very interesting to read.

00:15:10   And there was just a huge big brouhaha

00:15:14   on Hacker News over two essays that he wrote recently which were about income inequality.

00:15:20   And there were just huge discussions about these articles of people arguing like, "Is he right? Is he wrong?

00:15:26   Did he totally miss the point? Has he gotten to the core of something really interesting?"

00:15:32   this is exactly the kind of thing that I just didn't have any exposure to over the past couple months not going on these kind of sites

00:15:39   And this to me was just a perfect example of like, "man, I just love this kind of stuff." There's something about

00:15:45   certain kinds of people arguing on the internet in long comment threads that I just love, like I just love that and

00:15:58   That's a thing that I don't want to eliminate from my life.

00:16:03   Like I just I really get into that kind of thing. Like I love seeing people

00:16:06   arguing over a topic and

00:16:09   I

00:16:11   just don't know now

00:16:13   how much of that I'm going to necessarily let back in because even just opening opening up the doors again to going back on Reddit

00:16:21   and Hacker News, it's like boy

00:16:22   It's very easy to just kind of spend an afternoon clicking around and looking at everything way past the point

00:16:29   When you're really feeling like oh, this is a great comment thread and you're still just like looking for more stuff. So

00:16:34   So I just don't know. I just don't know Myke but for the time being I am back on the internet to some extent

00:16:42   Today's episode of cortex is brought to you kindly by audible.com audible includes more than

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00:17:01   Such cortex to take a look at their fantastic

00:17:03   Catalog of audio programs and you can also grab their app if you want to listen on the go

00:17:08   I have been listening to audiobooks for many many years

00:17:11   I was looking today at my library of audible books so I could find one to pick my very first

00:17:17   Audible book was Flight of the Conchords, they did a radio production before the TV

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00:17:34   is written by Jason Fried and David Hanamaya-Hansen of 37signals and this is all about the things

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00:18:02   people that want to get out of their day jobs, people that find themselves stuck and they're

00:18:06   looking for inspiration and guidance. This is exactly what this book is about and this

00:18:10   This is exactly what I think people listening to this show would like to see.

00:18:14   It's a really great book, I think that you'd really like it, and you can get it over at

00:18:17   audible.com/cortex where you can sign up for your 30 day free trial, but you'll be able

00:18:22   to choose from any of the 180,000 audio programs that Audible offer, but I would recommend

00:18:28   rework as a great starting place.

00:18:29   Thank you so much to audible.com for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:18:35   So it's January.

00:18:36   January.

00:18:38   January is the time for New Year's resolutions.

00:18:41   Oh boy!

00:18:43   So this was something like when I initially thought about talking to you about this. Like

00:18:48   I've had the idea of New Year's resolutions in my big topic list for a while because I

00:18:53   thought it would be something interesting to talk about with you. And the whole time

00:18:57   that I've been thinking about it, I cannot work out in my brain what I think you're gonna

00:19:02   say as to whether you set new year's resolutions because the idea of a tradition like this

00:19:09   seems like something you would not get involved with because you tend not to get involved

00:19:14   in traditions like this right like everyone does this thing which kind of mean is completely

00:19:20   arbitrary but then the more i think about it it's like goals and objectives which is

00:19:24   something that you love. So I can't work out if you set new year's resolutions or if you

00:19:33   use January as a time for goal and objective setting.

00:19:39   Well you got to put some money on the table Myke, make a bet. What do you think?

00:19:43   Alright in the traditional sense of a new year's resolution I would say that you do

00:19:48   not do that.

00:19:50   You are correct.

00:19:54   In the way that I think most people mean it when they say "New Year's resolutions",

00:19:59   I do not do New Year's resolutions.

00:20:02   Do you?

00:20:03   No.

00:20:04   Now, why don't you do it?

00:20:05   Because I think you might be quite right in your assessment about why I don't do New

00:20:09   Year's resolutions, but are those your reasons as well?

00:20:12   It's just pointless to be like, "Oh, it's January, I set those goals."

00:20:16   I do set goals for myself.

00:20:19   I have used January as a time to set goals for myself,

00:20:23   but not as like, hey, this is my New Year's resolution.

00:20:27   I mean, like many people, when the New Year begins,

00:20:30   I'm like, it's like a time for reflection.

00:20:32   It's like, okay, let me think, okay,

00:20:34   this is something I wanna try and do, that kind of thing.

00:20:37   And I've used it as a way to discuss goals

00:20:39   and objectives on other shows before, like we're doing now.

00:20:42   And then as part of that, set goals.

00:20:44   But I never treat them as like New Year's resolutions.

00:20:48   It's like the same thing. It's like I'm now, I am now on a low carb diet, Gray.

00:20:53   Oh really?

00:20:54   Yeah.

00:20:56   Really?

00:20:57   Yeah.

00:20:58   You sound about as happy about it as I do when I go all in on it at first.

00:21:04   I'm f***ing hungry. All the time. That's the problem.

00:21:10   But I, you know...

00:21:15   Adina is setting meals for me because otherwise I just won't do it. Like, and as I said to

00:21:20   her, a great motivation for me is to not, is to just make sure I'm just trying to not

00:21:24   p*** her off, right? I just feel that this is a good motivation in my life and if she

00:21:28   sets the meals, I don't want to get, I don't want to not do it because then I'm going to

00:21:32   annoy her because she put all the work in. It's a great motivational tool for me. So

00:21:37   I'm doing that and most of the time, like the meals are fine, I just live in a state

00:21:41   of constant hunger now.

00:21:43   I'm saying this, it's been like four days,

00:21:46   but I've been hungry for four days.

00:21:48   So I'm a little bit cranky.

00:21:50   I think that was what I didn't want to do the show today.

00:21:52   'Cause now we're like an hour in

00:21:54   and I feel like I'm gonna pass out,

00:21:55   but I haven't got anything to eat for the next few hours

00:21:57   because I've already eaten all the things on my meal plan.

00:22:00   Anyway.

00:22:01   - So you do have a new year's resolution.

00:22:05   - I wouldn't even really call it that.

00:22:07   It was just like, we decided we wanted to do this

00:22:11   in like late November or whatever and there is no point trying to set something like that up in December.

00:22:16   Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. I have, I mean we knew we were going to talk about goals today,

00:22:21   but I have on here just a note about my own weight goals. Like this is something I've been setting

00:22:28   and talking about on Hello Internet, but I was, as I was in like the middle of December,

00:22:36   I was creeping close to my goal weight of to be under 200 pounds and it was something like December 15th or something

00:22:42   I was thinking boy if I really if I really push it for the rest of the month

00:22:46   Like I could be under 200 pounds before the start of the new year and realize like yeah

00:22:51   but what fantasy land do you live in where between December 15th and

00:22:55   January 1st is going to be the time that you are the most disciplined ever. It's never gonna happen

00:23:02   And also there was this is probably the wrong way to do it but then because I knew this is coming

00:23:08   I I will blew out of the war in December man. Yeah, you really stocked up. Oh, yeah the week before Christmas I had three

00:23:15   lunches that included burgers in three days

00:23:19   Nothing wrong with burgers on the on low carb, you know, as long as you're not eating the bread. Well, that's the thing

00:23:25   Well, that's the thing is extra bread

00:23:28   Bucky, but I'll have all of the bread

00:23:31   Oh boy, do I miss bread. I did have a bagel today, which was great, but that's the only

00:23:37   brother I didn't eat.

00:23:38   Okay, yeah, let's see. So yeah, you've already fallen down here. You haven't actually done

00:23:40   it for four days.

00:23:41   That was part of the meal plan, man. It was part of the meal plan.

00:23:43   No, there's no way a bagel is keeping you under your carbohydrate limit.

00:23:48   Mm-hmm. I know.

00:23:49   No.

00:23:50   I don't write the meal plan.

00:23:51   Okay.

00:23:52   Meal plan said I could have one, so I had one.

00:23:55   All right, I'm going to have to talk to Adina then. I'm going to get her sorted on you here.

00:24:00   I feel like she was trying to ease me into it.

00:24:03   Like I get a bagel this week, you know, next week.

00:24:06   - You need to give me her iMessage.

00:24:08   Nina and I need to chat about this.

00:24:10   - That is never gonna happen.

00:24:11   I am eating with some meals, rivitas, right?

00:24:15   The other thing is, this just makes me smile,

00:24:18   low carb tortillas, which their description is,

00:24:23   tastes like wholemeal.

00:24:25   What are you, low carb tortilla?

00:24:28   What are you?

00:24:29   Because you're not whole meal, right?

00:24:31   What tastes like whole meal?

00:24:32   I don't want to know.

00:24:33   They were kind of OK.

00:24:35   Kind of OK.

00:24:36   Ringing endorsement.

00:24:38   Most of the food I'm eating now is kind of OK.

00:24:42   But anyway--

00:24:45   Oh, Myke.

00:24:46   So have you ever set a New Year's resolution?

00:24:50   Yeah, I think the answer to that is no.

00:24:53   I haven't ever really set a formal New Year's resolution.

00:24:57   I almost feel like, I don't know,

00:25:00   maybe this is going to sound horrifically uncharitable,

00:25:03   but when people tell me, like this,

00:25:04   when I used to be at school and people would talk

00:25:06   about their New Year's resolutions,

00:25:08   I swear, I always felt like anyone who framed their goal

00:25:13   in terms of a New Year's resolution,

00:25:16   all I could hear in my mind is like,

00:25:17   you are planning to fail.

00:25:19   Like this seems to me the way you're doing it.

00:25:21   Like you might as, when people said like,

00:25:23   my new year's resolution is to lose weight or whatever.

00:25:27   I like in my head, I might as well have translated into,

00:25:32   I wish to lose weight like that.

00:25:35   That's what the new year's resolution sound like to me.

00:25:37   Like people making birthday wishes. I think that's,

00:25:39   that's the way it seems to be culturally done. I just, I almost,

00:25:43   I just had a really hard time taking anybody seriously who was telling me about

00:25:48   their new year's resolutions.

00:25:50   I feel like there is a small but important difference between new year's

00:25:54   resolution and using January as a time to set a goal.

00:25:57   Yeah, I think there is, there is a real difference there.

00:26:00   There's something about the new year's resolution phrased in that way that,

00:26:04   that is just like a wish. I think that's the best way to put it.

00:26:08   The reason that the new year's resolution probably began is because January is a

00:26:12   great time to make a change,

00:26:14   but it then over time became this like

00:26:19   society thing of like, "Oh, what's your New Year's resolution? Well, if everyone

00:26:24   has one, I guess I'll stop smoking." And then nobody ever does.

00:26:29   Right, right, because we're all collectively holding each other's hands on this exact

00:26:33   same thing of, "Let's all close our eyes and wish to stop smoking at the same time.

00:26:39   Maybe Santa will bring it." Maybe he will. You are a person who strongly

00:26:43   believes in goals and objectives, though, right? And not in the corporate goals and

00:26:48   objectives thing. You work in a big corporation, goals and objectives become kind of a farce,

00:26:55   at least they did for me.

00:26:56   Yeah, how so?

00:26:58   Well, it's like your objectives are set at the start of the year, so at the end of the

00:27:02   year they have a reason not to give you a pay rise.

00:27:04   Ooh, ouch!

00:27:06   That is effectively, in big corporations, why goals and objectives are set for many

00:27:11   people.

00:27:12   So the goals come down from on high, and they say, "Oh, you need to reach X goals, but we

00:27:16   we know these goals are never reachable,

00:27:18   so then we can say, well, we haven't given you a raise.

00:27:20   Is that the reason for it?

00:27:22   - Yeah.

00:27:22   (laughing)

00:27:23   Or at least in management positions,

00:27:26   they are used very frequently

00:27:27   as a reason to not give somebody a raise.

00:27:29   Oh, you didn't meet this performance goal.

00:27:31   - Mm-hmm.

00:27:32   - So all about performance management, Gray,

00:27:35   that's what goals are all about.

00:27:37   But there are, yeah, I'm sure that you don't do this,

00:27:41   so you don't give yourself a raise.

00:27:42   - I'm not in the position to just magic money from nowhere

00:27:45   to give myself a raise.

00:27:46   - Isn't that what happens when you put out a video?

00:27:48   Isn't that what that is?

00:27:49   Like magicking money?

00:27:51   - It's not magic from nowhere though.

00:27:53   - Well, it depends I guess.

00:27:54   - But that's the feeling in a corporation, right?

00:27:56   Like, oh, there's just this gigantic entity

00:27:57   which can dole out money that from your perspective

00:28:00   seems to come from absolutely nowhere.

00:28:02   - Well, the fact that like the terms bonus pot are used

00:28:05   is funny 'cause it makes you imagine

00:28:08   like at the end of the rainbow.

00:28:09   - Right, there's a leprechaun distributing

00:28:11   everybody's bonuses.

00:28:12   - Yep.

00:28:13   (laughing)

00:28:14   That's funny. I mean, I had just a tiny taste of that being a teacher where we had,

00:28:19   they always had some awful at the various schools,

00:28:22   they were called different things,

00:28:23   but they were always awful and they were like self improvement targets that you

00:28:27   had to set for yourself at the beginning of the year and hit at the end of the

00:28:31   year. And one of, one of my bosses,

00:28:36   I always loved her because she was really explicit about it. She was like, okay,

00:28:38   listen,

00:28:39   we're just we're just going to set these so that you can't not hit them because

00:28:44   you want to be able to say you met all your self-improvement goals,

00:28:47   and I want to be able to tick all the boxes that said you met them.

00:28:50   Because if I don't tick these boxes, the people above me are ticking boxes that say,

00:28:55   "I have ticked all the boxes."

00:28:57   So all we want to do is tick a bunch of boxes all up the chain.

00:29:00   That's the inverse of what I was suggesting,

00:29:03   like what I'm saying about corporations.

00:29:05   But that person is doing it because it's beneficial to them.

00:29:09   Where in some scenarios it might be beneficial to not have people meet all of their goals.

00:29:13   goals that you do at your own.

00:29:15   Well, this, that's what I mean. Like this is,

00:29:17   this is funny because it is the reverse. And then of course I,

00:29:21   when I was in charge of a form of kids,

00:29:24   I had this exact same thing then trickled down onto me where I had to have the

00:29:29   kids do their little self-improvement sheets over the course of the year.

00:29:32   And just as my boss was explicit with me, I always explicitly told those kids,

00:29:36   okay, listen, here's the deal.

00:29:40   Like, this is a bunch of nonsense,

00:29:43   but we just need to make sure these boxes are ticked at the end of the year.

00:29:46   And I forget what it was, but I,

00:29:48   I used to have a list of 10 that I just told them to pick from of like,

00:29:53   look, here's goals you like.

00:29:54   There's no way for me to prove that you haven't done it.

00:29:57   You can just tell me that you've done it.

00:29:58   And then I can tick the box at the end of the year. And they were, you know,

00:30:01   they were horrible goals. Like,

00:30:03   I will attempt to be more organized over the course of the year.

00:30:08   And it's like, great. Yeah. A little Susie at the end of the year,

00:30:10   you can just tell me you did it and I can tick the box and we can we can both go on with our lives

00:30:15   because if we don't do this

00:30:17   Then you have to go to like the guidance counselor and I have to be

00:30:20   Giving an explanation about why all of my students didn't reach all of their goals

00:30:24   inspiring the hearts and minds gray

00:30:27   I think that is inspiring in its own way right to not lie and just be like listen

00:30:32   This is a valuable skill that I'm imparting to you right now

00:30:36   Sometimes work is meaningless and you just need to get it done and nobody cares how well it's actually done

00:30:43   I think that's an invaluable lesson

00:30:45   Don't you?

00:30:48   I feel like there's a line that I don't know about

00:30:53   I can't say how I feel about that one. But anyway, we today are not talking about those kind of

00:31:00   corporate

00:31:01   academic

00:31:02   totally nonsensical, existing for entirely other reasons goals.

00:31:06   We're talking about actual goals that are useful to people.

00:31:11   I think that's, that's what we want to talk a little bit about today.

00:31:14   Now I'm going to assume that you do have lots of these types of goals and a lot

00:31:19   of these goals for you are measured in metrics.

00:31:22   There's a broader context here,

00:31:24   which is sort of like the opening of the show is having a hard time talking

00:31:28   about, uh,

00:31:29   how I felt about the return of social media in its various forms.

00:31:32   I sometimes have a little bit of a hard time talking about goals because my view on this

00:31:42   is that the point of having a goal is not the goal itself, but it is to encourage you

00:31:54   to be thinking about systems that help you reach that goal.

00:31:59   I mean, maybe that sounds obvious,

00:32:00   but I have just run across enough people who sort of set the goal and then they'll

00:32:08   maybe attempt one or two things to try to reach it.

00:32:10   They fail at those things and then like the new year's resolutions,

00:32:15   the goal just gets kind of swept to the side and not directly looked at again.

00:32:20   Or treated as like this is impossible.

00:32:22   Yeah. Or treated like it's impossible. And yeah, so I,

00:32:26   I really feel that the important thing is to think about it in a systems way.

00:32:36   Like the goal is just there to stimulate your mind,

00:32:40   to think about how you can change things over the course of time,

00:32:44   to approach that goal.

00:32:46   And yes, I agree that having numerical goals is extremely useful.

00:32:50   I mean, I think maybe all of my goals can be expressed in numerical format.

00:32:58   I'm just trying to mentally run through some of the main things that I have on my list.

00:33:05   And yeah, actually they can all be expressed in some numerical form.

00:33:08   I don't think I have any goals that are not expressed in that way.

00:33:13   What type of goals do you have set then?

00:33:15   And how do you record them?

00:33:16   Like, do you have a list of goals somewhere?

00:33:18   Yeah, actually I do keep a list.

00:33:23   So one of the things...

00:33:24   Okay, so let's back up a step for a second.

00:33:26   So I don't do these New Year's resolutions.

00:33:28   You know, again, I don't wish upon a star that things are better than they were.

00:33:31   Because that goes nowhere.

00:33:33   And I also think that a year is just a ridiculously long time to try to plan for anything.

00:33:39   No one can really plan for anything a year in advance.

00:33:42   So I do reviews basically every quarter,

00:33:51   and that is my biggest time frame over which I really think about stuff.

00:33:58   And so I do actually have-- I use OmniOutliner for this,

00:34:02   but I have just a list of the things that I might want to attempt this quarter.

00:34:11   Like, what are the goals for this quarter?

00:34:13   And I like to think in three-month time frames,

00:34:17   because it's relatively easy to kind of look back

00:34:20   over the past three months and think,

00:34:22   okay, how did things go?

00:34:24   Where did things work?

00:34:24   Where did things not work?

00:34:26   And look forward three months and think about,

00:34:28   okay, how can I possibly change things?

00:34:31   You know, what could be better?

00:34:32   I think that's just a much, much better human time frame

00:34:37   to think over as opposed to a year.

00:34:40   Because really, we don't have that many years.

00:34:43   But you know, you get four times as many quarters.

00:34:45   Reviewing that more frequently allows you to make more course corrections

00:34:50   than just trying once a year to change something.

00:34:53   So what types of things are there then, in that list?

00:34:56   Well, some of the things are private things,

00:34:58   but the public thing that I can say is like what we mentioned before, like weight.

00:35:01   So like, I have been trying really over the past year to get my weight under 200 pounds.

00:35:08   Which is I have no idea how many kilograms that is you wanted in kilograms, don't you? I don't know kilograms

00:35:14   What you don't know kilograms? I'm not a European. Well, I do things in stone and pounds my friend

00:35:20   Oh like a good person from the United Kingdom

00:35:23   Stone has got to be the worst the worst measurement of weight in the world. Yeah, it's horrific

00:35:30   I don't even know how many pounds are in a stone. It's like 12. It's 14. There you go

00:35:35   You just told me that you measure things in pounds and stones, but you only have any idea about pounds and stones

00:35:40   Yeah, because I just do what the what the scale tells me. It tells me like

00:35:43   X amount of stone X amount of pounds like that's all I need to know but there's nothing I can't find anything that does pound to

00:35:50   Stone conversions because it's just dumb any

00:35:52   Conversion tool will do pounds to stone. Yeah, but I'm just typing it

00:35:56   I'm just typing it into the browser and I just again do it for me. If you used Google, you'd have no problem

00:36:02   Yeah, it does.

00:36:03   No, it won't.

00:36:04   Yes, it will.

00:36:05   I did it like two days ago.

00:36:06   Okay, I'm gonna type 200 pounds in stones.

00:36:09   Yeah, but I don't want the stones and the pounds, not whatever.

00:36:15   It's 14.2 stones.

00:36:16   Yeah, so that's 14 stone, 2 pounds.

00:36:19   No, that's not how the 0.2 works, Myke.

00:36:21   Oh, well, just ask it for that then.

00:36:23   All right, hang on.

00:36:24   That's not how the 0.2 works.

00:36:27   We need to take you back to school and do fractions.

00:36:29   But no, you need to do point two stone in pounds. That's what you need to do.

00:36:33   I feel like I'm trying your patience here.

00:36:36   You are.

00:36:37   Yeah, see point two stone is essentially three pounds.

00:36:41   Okay.

00:36:42   That's where we're going here.

00:36:44   So did you get an answer?

00:36:47   Yeah, I already told you the answer.

00:36:49   What is it?

00:36:49   It's 14 stone, three pounds.

00:36:52   Okay.

00:36:53   But so anyway, that is one of the goals that I've had, and I've been working towards this

00:36:57   really over the past year. And the thing that I view about that goal is it's

00:37:02   not the specifics of it, it's just that what this has allowed me to do is that

00:37:08   over the last year I keep regularly thinking about what has gone well

00:37:13   with my weight loss, what has not gone well with my weight loss, what things

00:37:16   have I changed, what things seem to be working. And slowly over the course of

00:37:22   the year, by paying attention to what works and what doesn't work, I have

00:37:27   started to cobble together for myself a system of things that work for me and

00:37:33   that if I do them my weight on average slowly goes down. And like to me

00:37:39   that is the important part of this is the system of things that you do not

00:37:45   just the actual goal itself. But I suppose in most instances the system

00:37:51   doesn't reveal itself until you've already set the goal and start working

00:37:54   towards it, right? That's where the system would fall out in most instances.

00:37:57   Yeah, that's exactly it. Like, it's like you're saying your goal is to travel west.

00:38:02   It's like, okay, well, you need to start moving west and you will figure out good

00:38:07   ways to go and good ways to travel. Yeah, like eventually you'll work out what to

00:38:11   do when you're a face of a mountain. Right, right. But the goal is just the

00:38:15   direction that you're setting. But again, I only say this because I just come

00:38:18   across many people who seem to think that the goal is the thing, and I think

00:38:23   you really have to think about it in terms of systems.

00:38:28   Like, what is it on a daily or weekly basis

00:38:32   that you are actually doing?

00:38:34   And be very open to the idea that many things

00:38:37   that you will try may be totally ineffective.

00:38:41   And the important part here is that you're just

00:38:44   reviewing that and thinking, was this thing effective?

00:38:48   Hmm, it seems to not be, so let me change that,

00:38:51   and let me try something different,

00:38:52   And let me just keep trying a bunch of different things and eventually seeing what works and and what doesn't work

00:38:58   Yeah, maybe one of the things is you eat wholemeal like tortillas.

00:39:03   I predict that wholemeal like tortillas will not be a thing that you will keep in your diet.

00:39:10   Oh, I predict that as well. They're fine

00:39:13   But I would like something else. Well, actually what I want Gray is regular tortillas. That's what I want

00:39:20   Yeah, that's what you want right now.

00:39:22   But it's not what I get.

00:39:23   [BEEP]

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00:41:35   Well, okay, so here's an example actually, just to your own particular circumstance about

00:41:41   going on a low-carb diet.

00:41:43   So there's various different ways that someone can try to do this to reduce the number of

00:41:46   carbohydrates that they take in.

00:41:48   And when I first tried this, I found that it was obviously very effective, but it was

00:41:55   very hard to stick with over any period of time.

00:41:58   I was like, man, if I'm having a bunch of low-carb days in a row, I can see on the scale

00:42:04   that my weight goes down, but I was just being honest with myself and saying like, "Okay,

00:42:08   yeah, but I have a hard time doing more than four or five days in a row before I just like,

00:42:13   I need a pizza." Right, and you just eat the pizza. And so I tinkered around with it and

00:42:18   eventually discovered that for me anyway, like one of the little tweaks that really

00:42:23   worked was it's not strictly slow carb, but like allowing myself to have cheese as part

00:42:31   of this diet. So like little snacks of cheese throughout the day. And like that made all

00:42:36   of the difference in the world, just this little change. It's like, okay, this is technically

00:42:41   a worse slow carb diet than I should be doing. But this tweak makes enough of a difference

00:42:50   to me that it works better over the long run. Like my weight loss might be slower than it

00:42:55   would be if things were perfect, but I'm not a perfect human being and I need something

00:43:00   that's like easy to snack on that I actually like to snack on and so like this change makes

00:43:05   a difference so that that to me is like part of the system like I'm changing the diet and

00:43:10   the way that I eat things to make the changes over the long term.

00:43:16   I like cheese.

00:43:17   Yeah, do you like cheese?

00:43:18   I do like cheese.

00:43:19   Yeah, are you eating cheese?

00:43:22   Not as much.

00:43:23   Yeah.

00:43:24   See, you might you might be where I am in a little while.

00:43:28   I hope so. I might, I might just keel over. So far the jury is out. I'm assuming that

00:43:40   not all of your goals are personal goals though. You have business related goals, right?

00:43:44   Well yeah, so this is, this is the other thing is like I find it very, very helpful to be

00:43:49   able to track numerically what it is that I've actually set as goals. So with the weight

00:43:57   weight loss thing, for example, like my scale automatically logs the weight and I have spreadsheets

00:44:03   about that and I like to be able to look at the trends over the long term.

00:44:09   Like I think that's also a very helpful thing is the longer time frame that you can possibly

00:44:13   look at something, that to me is just very helpful because it changes the focus from

00:44:19   like just today to what is the overall trend.

00:44:24   And while I do embarrassingly make my weight public on Twitter because my scale tweets

00:44:29   automatically when I step on it, I do have a bunch of private spreadsheets that I just

00:44:34   keep that are related to business stuff.

00:44:38   And so in there is where just about every month I go through and I take a look at some

00:44:44   of the numbers for the business that I'm working on and I have a bunch of numerical goals that

00:44:51   I like to keep an eye on.

00:44:53   I find it extremely helpful to be able to say look at a graph

00:44:56   That's like the business over the last 24 months and see what are the trend lines like are these lines going up?

00:45:03   Are they going down which way do I want them to go?

00:45:05   What things have I changed that have affected these lines like I almost don't know of any other way to

00:45:10   Think about and to make progress than this like if if you're not

00:45:16   Tracking it on a line graph like I have a very hard time

00:45:21   Feeling like are you making any progress really? Like how do you know if you're making any progress?

00:45:25   I think everybody should definitely learn at least the basics of how to use Excel or how to use numbers to be able to

00:45:31   Track this kind of stuff. Yeah, that was a task that I went through a month or two ago

00:45:37   We should just like plotting out a few different metrics that my business

00:45:42   Generates and just looking at how they operate in conjunction with each other

00:45:45   And it just helped me think about what what do I need to do next?

00:45:50   Yeah, yeah, if you don't have an actual thing to look at you don't realize how fuzzy your thinking is about stuff

00:45:57   until you see it in front of you and

00:46:00   Okay, this is exactly what's happening. It is, I mean the human brain as we've discussed before it's like it is a nemesis of yours

00:46:08   it's just it remembers things incorrectly it tries to distract you and

00:46:12   It is so easy to have a wildly wrong

00:46:17   estimate of where you actually are or like how much you've actually made progress on a thing and

00:46:22   With the weight again going back to that like I have found having it on a graph and being able to look at it

00:46:29   Incredibly helpful because it cuts away any of this

00:46:33   Imagination stuff that the brain does about like oh, how's my weight been changing?

00:46:37   I think it's been going down like has it though? Like is that what the graph says?

00:46:41   No, that's not what the graph says at all. Like your brain just lying to you to make you feel better and

00:46:46   with business stuff like it's just

00:46:49   Shockingly helpful to be able to see that I mean I think I mentioned before

00:46:55   that when I was trying to make it full-time on

00:46:59   YouTube I

00:47:02   had a goal which was to get to

00:47:05   200,000 subscribers by a particular day and

00:47:08   I figured that that like that was the number that I needed

00:47:11   to be able to quit and like the way I knew that is because I had a bunch of spreadsheets that were giving me

00:47:16   information about okay, how much revenue is the YouTube business generating? Like what is the rate of growth here? And

00:47:22   if I can get to this number by this day

00:47:25   I can be reasonably confident that this thing has reached the point where it's going to take off and

00:47:30   like having that spreadsheet was

00:47:34   extraordinarily helpful. Like the goal of 200,000

00:47:40   wasn't the important thing, but that spreadsheet and keeping track of it was extremely important because it kept bringing my mind back to this

00:47:48   idea of

00:47:49   Okay, how can we get more subscribers?

00:47:51   Or and I had little calculations on there like how many days are left how many subscribers short am I so like on average how?

00:47:58   Many subscribers per day do I need to pick up and like focusing on that is the really helpful thing like that is extraordinarily

00:48:06   helpful. One of my big goals, and it was a goal that I set, which is a pretty simple goal for me,

00:48:11   is just knowing how much money the business needs to generate on a monthly basis to keep everyone in

00:48:17   a good kind of setting. That's an important goal that I try and meet, which is a good one for me,

00:48:23   which is informed by a lot of that kind of planning stuff. And it's funny, but it is a

00:48:29   goal, right? That's an amount of money I have to get every month, and I now know the system in

00:48:33   place which helps me try and get that. And there are things that are outside of my control,

00:48:38   but then when things are outside of my control, I then learn how to control them differently

00:48:41   the next time.

00:48:42   Yeah, that's exactly it. You have to plan for stuff not always going right. That's part

00:48:49   of it, and I think that's where people often fail on the goals. It's like, "Oh, the first

00:48:53   time they fail, they're just like, 'Oh, okay, well, you know, put it to the side.'" But

00:48:56   no, no, no, you don't understand. You can build a system to be prepared for certain

00:49:01   kinds of failures. Like that's a super important part of this. This is all part of the system,

00:49:07   it's just trying to figure out how to put in buffers for example, so that if something

00:49:13   goes wrong then you have a little bit of a backup to fall back on. But yeah, if you have,

00:49:20   I'm going to guess that for you, just simply knowing that you have a certain number in

00:49:25   terms of advertising revenue that you need to hit every month, like that probably focuses

00:49:31   your mind more when you are in selling advertising mode. Like you know what the minimum bar is

00:49:37   that you need to hit.

00:49:38   Yeah, it also adds pressure in its own way. But the pressure is there for a reason.

00:49:44   Yeah, the pressure is there to make you actually do something.

00:49:49   Which is useful. Especially when you're on a low-carb diet.

00:49:54   Right, when you just want to lay on the couch and do nothing at all. That's what you want

00:50:00   to do right now. Yeah, it really is. It really is. This chair that I'm sitting in is not

00:50:06   optimal for my current state. Yeah, it's too optimally comfortable? Is that your problem?

00:50:10   No, it's in the inverse. I want to be in a relaxing chair and I'm in an uncomfortable

00:50:15   chair. Oh poor Myke. It doesn't sound like your system's working very well right now.

00:50:22   No, not right now. I gotta talk to Adina. Please don't. I'm going to. I'm gonna find

00:50:28   out our contact information. So to me, I think if any if anybody is in the mind

00:50:34   frame right now of setting goals, which they may very well be because it's

00:50:39   January, New Year's resolution time, yeah yeah wishing time, to me that like the

00:50:45   most the most fundamental thing is just continually revisiting whatever it is

00:50:57   you're trying to do. And like this is how a person changes their life is by

00:51:06   setting up a continuous self-evaluation loop. And it's not strictly speaking

00:51:15   goals but when I think back to like a real changing point in my life was when

00:51:22   I started doing like getting things done and I came across a system which talked

00:51:26   about how to organize things.

00:51:27   It wasn't even so much the getting things done system.

00:51:30   I always think the thing that mattered the most, like the absolute life-changing thing,

00:51:35   was that after reading the Getting Things Done book, I had a notebook in my pocket always

00:51:42   that I wrote things down in and I routinely went back and looked through the things that

00:51:49   I wrote down.

00:51:51   And like that little tiny loop of, I don't even want to call it self-accountability,

00:51:58   but just like a self-reflection loop of like looking at the things you wrote down last

00:52:02   week and kind of forcing in your mind much more clearly the notion of like, "Oh, there's

00:52:06   a past me and there's a current me who's reading this thing that past me wrote, and there's

00:52:11   a future me who will read the things that current me is now writing."

00:52:15   I think setting up this, this like temporal responsibility is how you can bootstrap your

00:52:23   life into a better situation.

00:52:26   And so like if you, if you're trying to set some goals, the important thing is whatever

00:52:30   you're going to do, make sure that you are re visiting them on a regular basis.

00:52:37   Like this is the absolute key because if you force yourself to keep revisiting them, if

00:52:45   If you're not getting closer to your goals, it forces you to think about why.

00:52:51   What is it that has happened over the past week or two weeks that has not caused motion

00:52:57   in the direction that you want?

00:52:59   That is really the key thing, is this self-evaluation loop.

00:53:04   Keep revisiting it.

00:53:07   Keep thinking about it consciously.

00:53:08   Because if you don't, it just goes away.

00:53:10   And I think that's why the New Year's resolutions go away.

00:53:13   because people think about them on January 1st, and then they just don't really think about them ever again.

00:53:19   Like that's why they just disappear over time.

00:53:23   Like that to me is the real core and that is like the fundamental system of all systems

00:53:30   is the very notion of just revisiting what it is that you do and thinking about it.

00:53:37   Like that is the thing that changed my life.

00:53:40   having a little notebook and going back to it on a regular basis.

00:53:43   It hardly even mattered what I wrote down in the beginning.

00:53:46   A bunch of nonsense, probably.

00:53:48   But like that's where it starts.

00:53:51   Gray, the time has come

00:53:53   to return to Ask Cortex.

00:53:55   It has been a long time.

00:53:57   Yeah, we had maybe what was it, three shows where we were so busy

00:54:01   talking about iPad pros that we didn't have any time to talk about.

00:54:05   We had so much stuff to talk about.

00:54:07   There was so many iPad stories to tell.

00:54:09   I have many more, but I'm holding away.

00:54:11   I have to say, I am filled with more iPad Pro stories, but a feeling like I am consciously refraining.

00:54:18   Because I could talk about it for forever, and I will.

00:54:23   But we're trying to pull back. Today we thought we would revisit Ask Cortex.

00:54:27   So worry not, ye Android user.

00:54:30   Right.

00:54:32   This was on our subreddit from firsttimecaller, which I love as the name for the question.

00:54:39   "I have a boring monkey office job and I want to leave. I started doing some freelance work

00:54:44   on the side in the morning with some success. Do you think I can leave my job? I earn about

00:54:48   £47,000 in my work and I'm freelancing at about £1800 a month. Should I make the jump?"

00:54:55   So my feeling on this would be that they should. Because £1800 a month freelancing,

00:55:02   when you're also working a full time job, that's pretty good going. Like you're pulling

00:55:07   in some serious money at that point, like this isn't just like a hobby. And I think

00:55:12   that if you can pull in 1800 a month, when you're still working a full time job, if you

00:55:17   were able to devote yourself to that freelancing work, if that's what you want to do, that

00:55:23   freelance work, then I think that you should do it because that was the mindset that I

00:55:27   I was pulling in, you know, from Relay,

00:55:31   a good amount of money, like it was probably

00:55:33   like two thirds of my wage or something

00:55:35   before I made the jump, because I felt like

00:55:38   if I can just in my evening hours and in my spare time

00:55:42   pull this amount of money and imagine how much I could do

00:55:45   if I was able to put all of my money into it.

00:55:48   And also, some of your expenditure will probably go down

00:55:52   if you stop traveling to an office every day.

00:55:55   You know, all those sort of things

00:55:56   when you start adding them up, it can really help.

00:55:59   And so for me, I would say that if you are in this situation

00:56:02   if you're earning like good money,

00:56:04   like your freelance thing at the thing that you wanna do,

00:56:07   I think that you should probably give it a go.

00:56:10   - So of course, there's not a huge amount of detail here.

00:56:14   So we have to do some speculation.

00:56:16   - Yep.

00:56:17   - And so just running the numbers,

00:56:19   so they're pulling in about 21, 22,000 pounds a year.

00:56:24   So we can say they're earning, I mean, just rounding it off,

00:56:27   we can say they're earning about half as much

00:56:29   from their freelancing as they're earning

00:56:31   from their actual work, right, which is pretty good.

00:56:34   I guess, like, I might be slightly more risk-averse

00:56:39   than you are, because there's two things

00:56:43   that I would want to know to feel really confident

00:56:45   about answering this question.

00:56:47   The first is I would want to know

00:56:49   if the person has any kind of buffer fund.

00:56:53   So, I think when I left my teaching job, I had...

00:57:01   I think it was maybe like three months worth of expenses in the bank,

00:57:06   like, just as like total emergency, kind of everything turns to crap immediately in a way that I didn't expect money.

00:57:12   Maybe it was closer to four months. I don't remember exactly, but so...

00:57:16   I think just for sheer sanity, I would once before making a leap like this to have some emergency backup money.

00:57:25   Do you know I had none?

00:57:27   Yeah, see that's terrifying to me.

00:57:29   Because I'd spent all my life savings basically starting the business.

00:57:33   And because I quit on a whim, right?

00:57:37   The actual decision to quit was on a whim.

00:57:39   It was the plan, but it wasn't going to be when it was.

00:57:41   Right.

00:57:42   kind of just made the decision in like a flash and did it.

00:57:46   And it worked out fine, but I would agree that you should.

00:57:52   Yeah, but so keep that in mind, first time caller, listening to Myke's advice.

00:57:56   Yeah, in an ideal world, I maybe wouldn't have done it the way that I did.

00:57:59   It was just the way that I ended up doing it.

00:58:01   Yeah. So that's one thing I would want to know.

00:58:05   The second thing is, for

00:58:11   people I know who have gone full-time like self-employedness, one of the really

00:58:18   key features is like okay so this person says they're doing freelance work on the

00:58:21   side in the morning so I presume that before work they're doing I don't know

00:58:26   whatever it is they do they don't specify. They're like you in the spider

00:58:28   dungeon. In the spider dungeon? Yeah that was basically the way you described it

00:58:34   to me the first time on the show you saying you're in places with all the spiders.

00:58:39   I think the word dungeon threw me off there.

00:58:41   It's the basement I would have remembered.

00:58:43   That was a harsh word, but you can imagine my mental image of you doing your work.

00:58:48   I really do imagine you, genuinely, just on a stool in like a dungeon-looking room with

00:58:54   your laptop on your legs.

00:58:56   That's how I imagine you used to do your work in the mornings.

00:58:58   I'll have to send you a picture of it sometime.

00:59:03   I did the writing work in the evening, but I did my – a different attempt at becoming

00:59:07   full-time self-employed that didn't pan out was I did do a different kind of

00:59:09   freelance work before work started. But that's another story.

00:59:14   But so I guess what I'm trying to work with is I think a key piece of

00:59:18   information that I've heard from other people as well is the question of demand

00:59:23   for whatever it is you're doing freelancing on the side. So I think like,

00:59:29   okay, maybe if we put aside emergency fund money for a moment,

00:59:33   a really interesting question is,

00:59:35   are you running out of spare time to do your side project because there is

00:59:41   enough demand for it? Again,

00:59:44   I think that is a really interesting point to reach when you realize like you

00:59:49   are not able to fill the demand with the number of hours that you actually have.

00:59:54   And so if, if for this person and for anybody else who works themselves into

01:00:00   that same situation. I think that like that is a good indication that maybe you

01:00:04   can leave your job is when people are demanding more of your time than you

01:00:10   actually have available. So because this person is currently earning about half

01:00:17   of what their full-time job is, if they're in a situation where they have

01:00:22   hours available to fill with client work but no clients to actually fill it, like

01:00:28   then that wouldn't be a good indication that this is a great time to jump ship.

01:00:32   So I am much more cautious here, I don't know, but if this person has an emergency fund and

01:00:39   also has clients or whatever they're doing wanting more of their time than is available,

01:00:45   then I would say yes, those are both really good indications that you should make the

01:00:50   jump and leave your boring monkey office job, which it sounds like you love.

01:00:57   And again, look, of all the caveats, because I don't know any of the information, it's

01:01:02   the worst that could happen.

01:01:03   You just have to go and get another job if it doesn't work out.

01:01:06   You are clearly an employable person.

01:01:08   You're earning good salary, you have the skills to do a freelancing job, you could

01:01:13   get another job.

01:01:14   Yeah.

01:01:15   Yeah, I mean, £47,000, that's already pretty well above the median income in the UK.

01:01:20   So they are an employable person.

01:01:23   (beep)

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01:03:16   beautiful. This is a question that I have seen go by many times. People were like

01:03:21   obsessed with this after we did the bag episode, like what goes in your bag episode.

01:03:25   Like what bags do you actually use and what do you consider when choosing one?

01:03:29   This comes from Chris. I just got a new bag, where is it? Oh a new bag, wow. Yeah well my old one was

01:03:37   falling apart let me grab it. Whilst Gray talks about his new bag I'll tell you

01:03:41   about my current bag. My bag is by a company called Topo Designs and it's

01:03:46   called the Topo Mountain Briefcase and I love my Mountain Briefcase because it

01:03:51   can be carried in three different ways. It has backpack straps, it has a shoulder

01:03:55   strap and handles. I like that a lot and it's just about the right size for me to

01:04:00   put even my MacBook and my iPad in the sleeve and then I can fit a bunch of

01:04:03   other stuff in it and I like it a lot more than I liked any backpack I had so

01:04:08   So, a big thumbs up for me on that one, the Topo Mountain Briefcase.

01:04:12   Topo.

01:04:13   Topo.

01:04:14   Topo Mountain Briefcase.

01:04:16   The thing you said there was a total deal breaker for me, is I refuse to use anything

01:04:21   that is a shoulder strap.

01:04:23   I think that's like a messenger bag kind of thing.

01:04:25   Yeah, I think you didn't hear it.

01:04:26   It has backpack straps, it has a shoulder strap and handles.

01:04:30   No, no, I heard that.

01:04:31   I heard that.

01:04:32   I heard all those things.

01:04:33   So what's the problem?

01:04:34   You just don't use the shoulder strap.

01:04:35   Okay, yeah.

01:04:36   But I'm just saying.

01:04:37   It's not a deal breaker, just don't use it.

01:04:39   I don't use it, I have it unclipped.

01:04:41   - No, even if it's an option, I don't want it.

01:04:43   No, it's no good. - That's weird.

01:04:45   All right, so if I took your current bag

01:04:48   and attached a shoulder strap to it

01:04:49   while you weren't looking.

01:04:50   - Yeah, worthless, worthless now.

01:04:52   - Okay, good to know.

01:04:53   One of the things I really like about this bag

01:04:55   is it's like a canvas, but it has a leather bottom.

01:04:59   - Oh, gross. - So if you set it down,

01:05:03   it doesn't soak in liquid.

01:05:05   Why is that gross?

01:05:06   Leather's just gross in a bag.

01:05:08   It smells after a while.

01:05:10   It's on the outside, it's not on the inside.

01:05:12   It's not leather on the inside.

01:05:14   Okay, but it still smells after a while.

01:05:16   Everything smells after a while.

01:05:18   Not plastic.

01:05:20   Does if you burn it. Anyway...

01:05:22   Yeah, if you set your bag on fire and it's plastic, then it smells really bad.

01:05:25   Of course you'd have something leather. That seems appropriate.

01:05:28   Surpr- Is it handcrafted?

01:05:31   Yeah.

01:05:32   Oh god, is it really?

01:05:34   Probably.

01:05:34   [laughs]

01:05:35   It's made in Colorado, so...

01:05:37   Uh-huh.

01:05:39   Yeah, this looks like your kind of bag.

01:05:41   Looks like exactly what I would expect you to have.

01:05:44   Mine is maroon and blue.

01:05:47   Of course it is.

01:05:48   I can hear your bag over there.

01:05:50   I'm trying to find...

01:05:53   I'm trying to be helpful here, Myke.

01:05:55   I was trying to find a model number or something on it, but I can't actually find it.

01:06:00   From the rustling, it sounds like it's brand new.

01:06:03   No, it's like a month old.

01:06:06   Sounds like you're taking paper out of it or something, like the crunched up paper.

01:06:10   No, it's just made out of space age materials.

01:06:13   It's not made out of the hide of a dead animal like your bag.

01:06:16   Canvas, mainly.

01:06:18   The canvas animals that roam the fields.

01:06:23   Yeah, everybody knows about those.

01:06:25   So what I'm currently using as my most often bag is

01:06:31   it is from Asics and it's just it's a bag that is designed for runners which

01:06:39   is not even remotely how I'm using it of course but what I was like what I'm

01:06:44   looking for in a bag whenever I get something is I'm trying to find the bag

01:06:51   that is the smallest lightest thing that can just hold whatever device I am

01:06:58   currently using. So over the years whenever I got a bag I would say in years gone by I'd be taking

01:07:05   around my Apple laptop and I'd like I'd want to find a laptop bag that it could like a backpack

01:07:11   that it could just fit into and so now I was looking for something that my iPad Pro can just

01:07:16   fit into and this backpack that's designed for runners is exactly what I'm looking for. Like the

01:07:22   iPad it just fits in width wise and there's a little outer pocket that I can

01:07:28   just have the the bare minimum of things in there but I really I really want out

01:07:33   of a backpack something that is as light and as small as possible like that is

01:07:38   always what I'm looking for.

01:07:39   For as much as my bag was me this bag is you.

01:07:43   [laughter]

01:07:45   What makes you say that Myke?

01:07:47   It's just...

01:07:49   very utilitarian.

01:07:51   Yeah, it's glorious!

01:07:52   And even in this photo it looks way bigger than it actually is.

01:07:54   Like it is quite small in real life.

01:07:56   It's the nice way of me saying that it's ugly.

01:07:59   You're not ugly, that's not what I'm saying.

01:08:02   But--

01:08:03   I know that's what you think you're saying.

01:08:05   You think you're, oh, it's so ugly.

01:08:07   It doesn't have leather stitching on the bottom.

01:08:10   But we just have great disagreement here.

01:08:13   I think there is much beauty to be found in utility.

01:08:16   Do you have the blue one with the pink highlight?

01:08:18   No, they don't have my color on here.

01:08:20   a black one with neon green highlights.

01:08:23   Wow, I wouldn't have expected that.

01:08:25   Yeah, I felt like going crazy.

01:08:28   Wow, that is kind of crazy for you.

01:08:30   All right, neon green.

01:08:32   Yeah, it's good. It's great. I like it.

01:08:34   Runner's Backpacks.

01:08:35   I find for a lot of gear, it's helpful sometimes to look at

01:08:41   sporting stores or places that are making stuff that is intended to be used

01:08:46   much more intensely than you're ever going to use it.

01:08:49   That's like runners want the lightest of all possible backpacks. And so that's why I thought like oh

01:08:54   Let me go into stores and see let me find one of those tiny backpacks that runners use

01:08:57   That's what you that's what you want to do

01:08:59   Next up we have from toaster 312

01:09:03   What is your policy on workflow buffers like having one or two items that you keep unreleased in case you have an emergency pop-up?

01:09:10   I reckon that we both would love the idea of this

01:09:14   But neither of us have anything because I certainly don't and enough that I know about you would suggest that you don't either

01:09:21   Wouldn't it be great?

01:09:24   My new year's resolution is to have

01:09:26   Yeah, I mean yeah, this sounds like a great idea I just don't have anything this is a thing that I constantly think about I

01:09:35   Would just love to be able to do this

01:09:41   But I have learned over time that this is just not possible.

01:09:44   We were talking before about, you know, trying to plan for things and like knowing that there's going to be problems and having

01:09:51   buffers in place. Like yes,

01:09:53   but this is one case where I just know that the work required to make this happen is never going to happen.

01:09:59   It would just be just an amazing fantasy land if I was ever able to create a video ahead of time. And more importantly,

01:10:07   If I ever did through some kind of magic

01:10:11   have a video

01:10:13   ready in advance I

01:10:15   would just end up being

01:10:17   Ridiculously paranoid that someone else was going to release a video on the same topic while I was just sitting on one

01:10:23   Well, you didn't worry about that anymore. Yeah, like in theory

01:10:26   I don't worry about that, but it's very different if if I'd like oh I was just sitting on a thing

01:10:32   We yeah, and so it would feel kind of wasted. Yeah, that would be just the worst

01:10:36   This is why my vastly more modest goal, which I still fail at all the time, is

01:10:44   to not be finishing animations on the day I release the video.

01:10:51   Like if I could just get to that stage, that would be amazing. But it's just almost every single time

01:10:57   it's like as soon as I finish that last bit of animations, like great, gotta put it up right now, this moment.

01:11:04   So I do not think that I will ever have a workflow buffer for the YouTube channel. That's just

01:11:09   This is not gonna happen not ever, you know

01:11:13   It's it's not gonna happen you even wanted like a workflow buffer for cortex for cortex miss

01:11:19   Which comes twice a year by the way Myke and I wouldn't even allow that one workflow buffer episode

01:11:26   It's like no, it's not gonna happen. Well, Texas comes once a year Texas comes twice a year

01:11:30   I just haven't told you yet. You're gonna have to tell me at some point

01:11:34   Twice a year Myke. Do we have any other questions?

01:11:37   We do very would like to know if you use a VPN when connecting through public Wi-Fi hotspots

01:11:42   I do I do. I know I didn't used to

01:11:47   A VPN for listeners who might be unaware. It's it's a was a virtual private network. Is that is that what it stands for? Yeah

01:11:54   but it is a way if you are in a public location to

01:11:58   filter your internet traffic

01:12:01   through like a secure tunnel so that someone else on like the cafe's Wi-Fi can't get access to your data or anything.

01:12:08   I always used to think like, "Oh, I should use a VPN,"

01:12:12   but I never did because it was kind of a pain in the butt to set it up.

01:12:16   But I recently discovered

01:12:18   Cloak for iOS, which I highly recommend because of one feature that totally sold me, which is its ability to

01:12:26   automatically turn on and turn off the VPN. So you can tell it, Oh,

01:12:31   I trust my home network and I trust the connection built into my cell phone and

01:12:36   every other internet connection is totally untrustworthy and it just

01:12:41   automatically turns on. And that to me, that as dumb as it sounds like, Oh,

01:12:45   I can't be bothered to turn on my VPN to potentially save all of my private data

01:12:49   because it's three taps, but I just, I hate doing stuff manually.

01:12:53   And so cloak does it automatically and I love it for that.

01:12:56   So that's what I use on, I installed it on everything that I have as soon as I found

01:13:01   out about that feature.

01:13:02   Same.

01:13:03   Yeah, you use cloak?

01:13:04   Yeah, I use cloak.

01:13:05   I love cloak.

01:13:06   Benza would like to know what we keep in our pockets.

01:13:09   I have a regimented pocket system.

01:13:12   What goes in which pocket?

01:13:13   Yeah, that's the only way to live.

01:13:15   I assume so.

01:13:16   In my right pocket goes my iPhone.

01:13:19   In my left pocket are my keys and my ear pods.

01:13:24   And then in my back right pocket is my wallet.

01:13:27   Okay, so this has been a long struggle for me, but I've finally come to a steady state

01:13:35   over the past six months, which is that I use wallet in front right pocket.

01:13:43   I used to be a back pocket wallet person, but it is clearly the superior solution to

01:13:49   have your wallet in your front pocket.

01:13:51   Why?

01:13:52   What do you make the switch? You don't go back.

01:13:55   I switch when I am in places I don't know.

01:13:59   I mean first of all, when you're sitting down you have the George Costanza problem that

01:14:02   you're sitting on your wallet so you're never really sitting down.

01:14:04   No, I just change to a slim card wallet.

01:14:07   It's never slim enough. It's still always uneven.

01:14:09   I have four cards. That's it.

01:14:11   Not slim enough.

01:14:12   There's nothing. You don't even know it's there.

01:14:14   Nope. It's uneven. You're ruining your spine, Myke. Ruining it.

01:14:17   What are you keeping your back pockets in?

01:14:19   Nothing. Nothing goes in the back pockets.

01:14:21   Keys! The book!

01:14:23   The back pockets are for nothing. I see some people put phones in their back pocket, which makes me nervous to even just see.

01:14:32   I don't know why you'd do that.

01:14:34   Yeah, every time I see someone do that, I think, "How can you live like that?" But so, wallet in front right pocket,

01:14:40   iPhone in front left pocket, and

01:14:44   then the thing that I've recently switched to, which I really like, is this little

01:14:50   It's not a key chain. It basically is called KeySmart. It's this little thing that turns your keys into

01:14:58   into like a Swiss Army knife is what it looks like. They fold together into this little package and

01:15:06   I then can use that useless little coin pocket in your jeans on the right-hand side.

01:15:13   I can put my keys in that previously useless pocket

01:15:18   And so now everything is nice and isolated from everything else. There's not two items in any pocket

01:15:25   Everything is in its own little pocket. That's the way I roll

01:15:27   Do you use your iPhone left-handed? Yeah, yeah, I use my iPhone left-handed. Are you left-handed? No.

01:15:34   Hmm you answered that very defensively by the way, it's okay to be left-handed

01:15:39   well, just because I know where this is going because

01:15:41   Everybody seems to freak out when they discover this. I know other people who do this

01:15:46   Well, I'm left handed and use my iPhone with my right hand.

01:15:49   Okay, yeah, so you do the same thing then?

01:15:51   Yeah, I don't think it's weird that you do it. I just wanted to know if you were left

01:15:55   handed.

01:15:56   No, I'm right handed.

01:15:57   All right.

01:15:58   As humans are supposed to be, apparently.

01:16:01   And why am I left handed?

01:16:03   Because you are some kind of freak, that's why.

01:16:07   Good to know!

01:16:10   Shahar would like to know, what headphones do we use? And wonder how much of an audio

01:16:15   file you are as well. Do you care about really great sounding audio? Like more than you maybe

01:16:20   should?

01:16:21   No, no I'm not an audiophile.

01:16:23   Alright, what headphones do you use then?

01:16:25   I don't obsess over things that aren't real. The Super Audio Files, they're just playing

01:16:32   in an imagination land. That's what they're doing. I use two headphones depending on the

01:16:38   circumstances. I use the Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling headphones most of the time.

01:16:45   That's what I'm wearing right now.

01:16:47   If I go out to work anywhere in public, I often like to take those because they're just great at canceling sounds.

01:16:52   And they are vital for any kind of travel where there are going to be other people, particularly children,

01:17:01   like on airplanes, crying babies or something.

01:17:03   You just can't live without them.

01:17:06   So those are my heavy lifting headphones.

01:17:12   And then when I go to the gym or if I'm moving around a lot and I do want to be listening to something,

01:17:18   I have the Jaybird Bluetooth headphones, which are pricey, but they are totally worth it.

01:17:26   Mainly because most Bluetooth headphones are garbage with terrible battery life and terrible connection problems and terrible sound.

01:17:33   And the Jaybirds are the only ones that I have tried that are actually worth the amount of money that you pay for them.

01:17:41   I have a whole selection of different headphones.

01:17:43   I have some Bose headphones that I don't know the name of.

01:17:47   They are not noise cancelling.

01:17:49   And I use these on planes and stuff.

01:17:52   I can't use noise cancelling because it makes me feel nauseous.

01:17:57   Yeah, if you turn on the noise cancelling,

01:18:02   I think there are just some people who are built this way.

01:18:04   If you put headphones on and turn on the noise cancelling,

01:18:06   it freaks some people out.

01:18:08   And I feel a little weird if I have them on my head and there's nothing playing.

01:18:14   But I'm fine once there's music or something coming through the headphones.

01:18:18   Or like I do sometimes on an airplane,

01:18:20   I will play airplane engine noise through the headphones that I'm listening to.

01:18:25   [laughter]

01:18:25   No! Why?

01:18:27   You could play any type of white noise. Any white noise.

01:18:34   Yeah, but it's like a double "drown out the screaming child" effect.

01:18:38   But why not like rain?

01:18:40   No, it's not as good. There's something about the airplane noise, which is really good at

01:18:44   masking other sounds.

01:18:47   Only you would do that.

01:18:49   Airplane noise on an airplane with noise cancelling headphones.

01:18:53   Yeah, it's great.

01:18:54   It's really great.

01:18:56   You need some music. Any kind of music.

01:18:59   Well, yeah, sometimes I'll listen to music, but I'm just saying if I'm trying to sleep or something

01:19:02   I'll put on an airplane noise while I'm on the airplane with my noise cancelling headphones.

01:19:06   It's great. Everyone should try it

01:19:08   But anyways

01:19:11   I was bringing that up only because I was saying like I can sympathize with people who just can't use the noise cancelling I can

01:19:16   Feel like ooh if I was more sensitive to this these headphones simply wouldn't be an option

01:19:22   So if anyone out there is thinking about noise cancelling headphones

01:19:25   You might want to try them in a store first to see if you have a bad reaction to them

01:19:29   So yeah

01:19:30   Yeah these Bosons, they're like fine. Just any like Bose headphones that don't have noise

01:19:35   cancelling will be effectively the same scenario. They're over the year, they're fine. I have

01:19:41   just got some Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones. Sennheiser MM400X. They're not great sounding.

01:19:51   The only reason I have these is they have buttons on the side that aren't touch buttons.

01:19:57   They have physical buttons and they have like little ridges on them so you can control playback

01:20:02   whilst walking around without looking at anything.

01:20:05   That's why I got those.

01:20:07   And my recording headphones.

01:20:09   Recently I bought the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones.

01:20:16   This was because I went to Marco's house and I put these on my head and I listened to some

01:20:22   music that I know and heard things in the music I hadn't heard before so went

01:20:27   with these headphones they sound great do you hear things in my voice that you

01:20:33   haven't heard before with those headphones on of course mmm I hear the

01:20:37   little man inside your brain that controls everything right it's pulling

01:20:41   all the levers I'm on killis Gavin would like to know are we Twitter completionists

01:20:45   a Twitter completionist is somebody who reads every tweet I used to be more than

01:20:50   I am now. Now I'm, if I'm many many hundreds of tweets behind, I'm okay with skipping them.

01:20:56   This was one of the things that came out of my time away from Twitter. But now I'm okay

01:21:02   with it. I do like to read the majority of stuff because I follow these people for a

01:21:06   reason, because I want to read what they have to say, but I don't go crazy about it now,

01:21:11   like I used to. I'm gonna assume that you're not.

01:21:14   No, I've not and I've never been.

01:21:16   And it's in no small part because I've always felt that,

01:21:19   you know, we're talking about Twitter again, but

01:21:22   one of the benefits of Twitter is its currentness.

01:21:27   Twitter feels like, "What is happening right now?"

01:21:31   So even from the very, very beginning times when I first signed up for Twitter,

01:21:36   I don't know, a couple years ago,

01:21:38   I never felt any compulsion to read things that were in the past.

01:21:43   It's it just Twitter to me feels like a very current

01:21:47   present thing and so I've always found the notion of people who are Twitter completionists to be just

01:21:54   Just a little weird like it, but that's not what the tool is, right?

01:21:57   I mean, of course the tool is whatever people want it to be but that just seems so

01:22:01   Anti my conception of what Twitter is for so I have I am NOT and have never been a Twitter completionist

01:22:10   Autumn would like to know do we ever make the mistake of staying up far too late or sleeping in on a regular day? I

01:22:16   Stay up far too late every day. I was gonna say you sleep in every day, don't you?

01:22:22   I don't sleep in every day. I go to bed at 2 a.m. I woke up at half 9 today

01:22:26   So that seems pretty early

01:22:28   We were having an instant message conversation the other day and I realized it was like 830 in the morning or something

01:22:33   I asked oh god, what are you doing? So early mine because I know that's early for you

01:22:37   Sometimes I am awake at that time, but it is it's early if you go to bed at 2 in the morning

01:22:42   Mm-hmm, but don't you go to bed at 2 in the morning because you're recording shows then what's the latest you're recording a show?

01:22:47   I only now I've made some changes. I record one show every two weeks and midnight

01:22:53   Starting at midnight? Starting at midnight. Oh god. What show is that? That's analog. Oh

01:22:59   And then the rest of them now, I'm usually done by like 8 p.m.

01:23:03   That's a rough. That's a rough time slot

01:23:06   The midnight time slot. Yeah. Yeah, work in the late shift. Yeah, it is tricky. Hence why now it's every two weeks.

01:23:13   So yeah, you just stay up late all the time then.

01:23:18   Just you stay up to two in the morning because that's just your the way you are.

01:23:21   Yeah, that's just the way I am. You can't change that. Can't change it. Can't fight it.

01:23:27   So you have to be self-employed so that you can stay up until two in the morning. Yep.

01:23:31   It's an absolute requirement.

01:23:34   So I mean the question of course, do you ever make the mistake? The answer is of course, right? Humans make the mistake of doing this.

01:23:42   Just recently as my own holiday was coming to a close, I made the mistake of like, "Oh,

01:23:47   I'll just keep playing Factorio for a little while longer.

01:23:51   Just a little while longer, just a little while longer." And then you realize like, "Oh, it's actually 3 in the morning.

01:23:55   Like what have I done?"

01:23:57   This is just...

01:23:59   This is a terrible decision that I didn't even know I was making. I was just like, "Oh, I'm having a good time!"

01:24:04   And then suddenly like, "Oh, I'm so sleepy. Why?" It's like, "Oh, I'm way up. I'm up way, way too late. That's why."

01:24:11   So yes, of course occasionally make that mistake and

01:24:15   when it's been holiday time, I am way more likely to make that mistake because I feel like, "Oh, there's no

01:24:23   there's no constraints or anything." And then it is

01:24:27   It is that very mistake that I find compounds for me in a bad way. Like I definitely know that I am a person who

01:24:35   benefits from routine and

01:24:38   no matter how much I might think, "Oh, breaking the routine is fun sometimes!"

01:24:42   There is always a price to pay for it later. And so I have been

01:24:48   struggling to get back into the working routine precisely because of staying up late or waking up too late in the morning.

01:24:56   But now that we have recorded this episode of Cortex, the working routine is back in place.

01:25:02   Thanks.