EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,001 words- 0:07 – 1:04
Life Hacks 105 kicks off: setting the tone and “too optimized” banter
- CWChris Williamson
(wind blowing) He's shooting through glass now. I mean, he's just fucking ...
- JOJonny
Life hacks 10 ... 5-5.
- CWChris Williamson
Life hacks 105. We are back again. Say hello, Johnny and Youssef from Propyne Fitness are here. So life hacks is the most requested episode that we do, and it feels like the lowest hanging fruit. I reckon we could just make another channel that's just life hacks.
- YUYusef
Definitely.
- CWChris Williamson
Just do this full time. Although, Johnny, you seem to think you don't have any.
- JOJonny
No. No, I don't. I could talk about why.
- CWChris Williamson
You can't see- you can't see the wood for the trees, that's why.
- JOJonny
You- you-
- YUYusef
You are so optimized.
- JOJonny
So I- I don't agree.
- CWChris Williamson
You've greased the groove too hard.
- YUYusef
Your threshold is low, is too low for life hacks, though. So, so Chris had-
- CWChris Williamson
Too high.
- YUYusef
Too high?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
Chris had a, a, a dairy product on his.
- JOJonny
Yeah. Well, do you know what I mean?
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JOJonny
Yeah. Front row even.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you want to open up, Scobbly?
- YUYusef
Sure. So Johnny has my list.
- JOJonny
This is my list, I don't know what you're talking about. Just because you haven't got any life hacks.
- YUYusef
(clears throat) So-
- CWChris Williamson
Be nice and gentle with the, with the glass.
- 1:04 – 5:49
Bathroom hygiene hacks: shattafa (bidet sprayer), wet wipes, and “remove the need” via vegetables
- YUYusef
I will. So, um, I'm going to start having to categorize these into, like, physical, digital, financial, um, and then different rooms. But my most recent one, which I am so excited about, is a shattafa, which is an Arabic word-
- JOJonny
Bless you.
- YUYusef
... for bum spray. Now, I got one of these fitted (laughs) got one of these fitted in my bathroom recently. 50 pounds, high pressure bum spray that just ... So, right, th- this is the justification for a product like this. Everywhere east of here, everyone has a shattafa. But-
- JOJonny
Bless you.
- YUYusef
... if you (laughs) , like, okay, if, if you get a bit of poo on your face, you don't just go, "Oh, I'm just gonna get a bit of dry tissue paper and wipe it off a couple of times. There we go, that'll do." Like, you'd, you'd wash it with something, and then you'd clean it. And so-
- JOJonny
What about if there was gonna be more poo coming from your face all the time?
- YUYusef
Then-
- JOJonny
You'd, you'd accept there's a, there's a, there's a-
- YUYusef
You get some easy access spray that you can just hose it down and then go for-
- CWChris Williamson
So I've seen the hose that you're talking about, and the pressure that comes out of it is a bit terrifying.
- YUYusef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Do, do you ever find, if you're too central with the spray, that you accidentally give yourself an enema?
- YUYusef
It's, it's feasible, yeah. Like, you, you'd have to-
- CWChris Williamson
If you relaxed, if you relaxed the-
- YUYusef
You pushed out.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. What's the, what's that? What's relaxing like that? What's this medical-
- YUYusef
Yeah, like, if, if you dilate your anus, then-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JOJonny
Yeah. So the question is, what is the ... How much ring tension does your sphincter have, and what, what water pressure is required to-
- CWChris Williamson
Pierce it.
- JOJonny
... make the valve break?
- YUYusef
Yeah, so the-
- CWChris Williamson
For it to go. If you've got a loose pelvic floor ...
- YUYusef
Then don't ... Yeah, like, then build up slowly.
- JOJonny
You're just gonna fill up like ... I don't imagine you point it at your anus and press go, do you?
- YUYusef
Yeah, you do. But-
- JOJonny
Directly at your anus?
- YUYusef
But, like, I've got quite good-
- JOJonny
Like a water balloon?
- YUYusef
So, so I think, like if-
- 5:49 – 7:55
“Poo metrics” and health baselines: greens, regularity, and simple physiological markers
- JOJonny
All right. Well, so, so my, my ... Probably my, one of my biggest tips related to anal hygiene is ... And this sounds so basic, but it's also a bit of a weird thing to say, but a lot of people talk to us about-... they're pooing. Like, I have a lot of conversations with a lot of people about their poo. And-
- YUYusef
I suppose we, we tell people what to put into their bodies.
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- YUYusef
And so, they think like-
- JOJonny
And what comes out is the, is the product of that. The easiest way to just make pooing a brilliant experience, like set your watch by it, just up your green vegetables. Like-
- YUYusef
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
... 500 grammes to a kilo broccoli a day, and I guarantee you won't have any problems with that.
- CWChris Williamson
You have to eat 500 grammes to a gr- a kilo of broccoli a day?
- JOJonny
That's, it's not that much.
- YUYusef
If you blend it down as well, like if you go to proteinfitness.com/poo-
- JOJonny
Broccoli soup.
- YUYusef
... there's an article on there for poo.
- JOJonny
And sort you out.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- JOJonny
Sort you right out.
- YUYusef
Top to toe poo.
- JOJonny
So in fact, that's my tip.
- CWChris Williamson
Fine. Okay.
- JOJonny
Because like, it's overlooked but actually, like, pooing can be a really horrendous thing.
- YUYusef
What was the Kelly Starrett quote?
- JOJonny
If you wake up every morning with an erection, if you're a man, or you have a penis... Wake up every morning with an erection and have a poo every day, then you're probably quite healthy.
- CWChris Williamson
Physiologically-
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... nothing to worry about.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm. And, uh, like, as, as, sort of metrics go, I really like that. But-
- YUYusef
There's a, there's a famous, like, old doctor, you know when doctors were like polymaths?
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
And that says, that has a quote like, "There is nothing, no greater pleasure in this life than a good bowel movement."
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm. Well...
- 7:55 – 13:01
Carb hack & food obsession: Soreen malt loaf as the easiest high-carb fuel
- CWChris Williamson
Everyone who follows me online will know, which is eat Soreen.
- JOJonny
Not related to bum stuff?
- CWChris Williamson
It will be. It will translate into bum stuff eventually.
- JOJonny
So there, there's a bum consequence, isn't there?
- YUYusef
So Soreen is the, is the brand.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
What, what is Soreen?
- CWChris Williamson
So it's a malt loaf, which is a fruit loaf (whimsical music)
- JOJonny
So Soreen make anything else?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JOJonny
They just make malt loaf?
- YUYusef
I think they make, like, a cake thing.
- JOJonny
Do they?
- YUYusef
I think so.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm not sure.
- YUYusef
But-
- CWChris Williamson
We don't need to worry... You do not need to worry yourself-
- JOJonny
Sorry.
- CWChris Williamson
... with anything else-
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that Soreen make. All you need to be concerned about is-
- JOJonny
Just the malt.
- CWChris Williamson
... the apple and sultana and banana malt loaf.
- JOJonny
So good example of how much Chris likes this, we came round here to watch the CrossFit Games couple of weeks ago.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
Or whatever point in the past whenever you listen to this. I bought a few sleeves of mini ones thinking, right, there's plenty to go round. Think we had one each. Uh, watched a bit of the, watched a bit of the Games. Went to get one, and like, "Chris, where have they gone?"
- YUYusef
And he sat there for like-
- JOJonny
He was like, "I thought you were finished," so I just, by default-
- YUYusef
Malt loaf round his mouth.
- JOJonny
... ate, ate the rest of them. (laughs)
- 13:01 – 16:42
Digital capture that doesn’t derail you: workingmemory.txt, Siri, and frictionless note-taking
- YUYusef
So, workingmemory.txt. So, this is Cal Newport's idea of you have a permanent capture available on your computer with easy access at any time. So, I always talk about, like, the, the, most people don't have a capture. They might have some way of sometimes capturing some things in certain circumstances, but they don't have a universal way to just, something comes onto their, into their general inbox.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
Into their awareness and they have to do something with it, or just capture it down and then process it into one of their systems. This allows you, at least while you're at a computer, it's the equivalent of carrying a notebook around with you. So, you'll be doing a task, something comes into your head or something happens and you're like, "Oh, I need to fix that." But you don't want to be derailed from the task that you're currently doing, so you open workingmemory.txt, dump it down in there, get back to what you're doing.
- CWChris Williamson
So is it just like a Notepad?
- YUYusef
It, yeah, so some people use a Notepad file, you know the app Notepad-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
Like, the proper old school Windows one.
- CWChris Williamson
Notes.
- YUYusef
Yeah, or Notes. I use, because, because I use Evernote for everything else, you can have a little elephant in the top, in the task bar, which you click on and it opens up like a unformatted bit of text. You can just dump ideas into there.
- JOJonny
Does it actually add it to Evernote, though?
- YUYusef
You can, but I, I just leave it as-
- JOJonny
Just by default?
- YUYusef
Yeah.
- JOJonny
Why don't you Alfred, and then add it to Trello or...
- YUYusef
Yes, you can do that as well with Alfred. Um-
- JOJonny
But, but having something that, like, thought-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
... I need to get rid of that and then carry on doing.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, but your first, the first ever one that we did on 101 was-
- JOJonny
Capture process.
- CWChris Williamson
... capture. Have a capture, and it also came back up on 103.
- YUYusef
There's so... Well, be- 'cause, 'cause capture, I've got a list of stuff for capture because you need-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
... um, like, that's why Toby is a capture for, like, You Make Sense of Your Life-
- CWChris Williamson
Web links. Yeah.
- YUYusef
... you, you're busy, you're driving or whatever, you just, you try and put it into something and then...
- JOJonny
Yeah. Best capture... So, the, my, one of my biggest problems with capture is when I'm driving. So I'll be, I'm driving and I'm like, I've thought of something.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
Oh, yeah.
- JOJonny
What do I do? So now it's just, "Hey, Siri."
- 16:42 – 22:07
Discipline inspiration via story: Living With a SEAL (Jesse Itzler & David Goggins)
- JOJonny
Um, so this is a book recommendation. Is that allowed?
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JOJonny
Um, so I listened to, on reco- uh, by recommendation of Ben, if he's listening, um, a book called Living With A Seal, by a guy called Jesse Itzler, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
(barks)
- JOJonny
Not, not one of those seals. So, th- this guy's, like, mega successful. Uh, done multiple businesses. His wife created Spanx.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- JOJonny
So, like, very, very successful couple.
- CWChris Williamson
Some fucking good genetics in that family, eh?
- JOJonny
Yeah. And he was like, right... All right, so he, he was at a, he was at a marathon, or an ultra-marathon, but it w- it was a team ultra-marathon. And there was this... Everyone's there in a team, and there's, uh, he describes it as this massive, Black, shredded guy who just did the whole thing himself.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
And he's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck you.
- JOJonny
... gets to the end and he's, like, limping and there's bleeding everywhere. And he finds his contact details, looks him up, realizes he's this, like, extremely decorated Navy SEAL.
- YUYusef
Is he the one that wrote the post about he broke, like, four bones in his foot and-
- CWChris Williamson
It's not David Goggins, is it?
- JOJonny
I don't know. No. No. Um, so gets his details, rings him up and says, "I want to pay you to just live with me for a month." And he's like, "I'll do it, but-"
- CWChris Williamson
It is David Goggins.
- JOJonny
David Goggins? Who's David Goggins?
- CWChris Williamson
The SEAL.
- JOJonny
Oh, mate, he doesn't reveal his name.
- CWChris Williamson
It's David Goggins.
- JOJonny
He just calls him SEAL.
- CWChris Williamson
It's David Goggins.
- JOJonny
David Goggins?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- JOJonny
How do you know that? 'Cause the whole time in the book he's like, "I'm not... I can't say his name."
- CWChris Williamson
I'm... If it's not David Goggins-
- JOJonny
Uh-huh.
- CWChris Williamson
... then there's another guy that's done the exact same thing-
- JOJonny
Right.
- 22:07 – 23:35
Spotify micro-hack: swipe right to add songs to the queue (instant mini-playlists)
- CWChris Williamson
Right. So I am going to do, uh, swipe right on Spotify. So if you use Spotify on your phone, this is unbelievable and I only found out about it by accidentally doing it. So if you, um, go on to, open up Spotify, browsing through tracks that you want to play. If you press and hold on a track and then swipe to the right, you'll add it to the play queue.
- YUYusef
Johnny's doing it on the album art. (laughs)
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You fucking ... Dear me. Deary me. Yeah, swipe right, swipe right to add to a queue. And what's really cool is you can start a playlist, so you can be playing through a bunch of songs-
- JOJonny
That's swiping left.
- CWChris Williamson
It can be-
- JOJonny
Queueed.
- CWChris Williamson
There you go. So that'll play next.
- JOJonny
Ah.
- CWChris Williamson
And then it will jump back to the playlist you're in. So let's say-
- YUYusef
That's lovely. I hate having to interrupt a playlist.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So let's say that you're listening to an album and you're like, "Oh, I'm listening to Bring Me The Horizon's new album, but I really fancy just having three songs from Misery Signals and one from You Me at Six in there." Quickly jump out, search, swipe, swipe, search again, swipe again, and it'll play those in order, then jump back to the playlist that you're in. And you're just like, "That is ..." Especially for training, it's like making a miniature playlist immediately.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And then if you've got your saved songs, you can create a little order of them by doing it that way as well. It's really cool. So yeah, you should absolutely do that.
- JOJonny
Swipe right on Spotify.
- CWChris Williamson
Swipe right on Spotify, man.
- YUYusef
Okay.
- JOJonny
It's good.
- 23:35 – 25:36
Fast cooking with microbags: BPA-free steam bags for microwave meal prep
- YUYusef
So back to a physical one for me. Microbags. I can't remember if we did this in 103.
- JOJonny
No.
- YUYusef
But these are BPA free. So bisphenol A, which is a, one of these plastics that secretes, that releases, uh, estrogen. Um, so you don't want that. These, these don't have-
- CWChris Williamson
So it's, it's really, it's really angry and it sometimes gets passive aggressive.
- YUYusef
(laughs) In a sort of cyclical nature, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, 28 days.
- YUYusef
So, so, so don't, um, you wanna avoid that. These bags don't have it. You put vegetables or chicken or whatever in. Could be frozen, could be room temperature, whatever. You pull off the little sticky bit, fold it over, put it in the microwave and it microwaves things to tender perfection within two minutes, three minutes. So you could take chicken-... and because it- it's a semi-permeable bag, so you can put it on a plate and it fills up with steam that's inherent in the chicken, and then like pumps in and out so it keeps it circulating. Cooks it through evenly, makes it really tender, and it's just the best way to cook-
- CWChris Williamson
How much are they?
- YUYusef
... chicken, or... They are like three pounds for 200, something like that. So like I bought, I bought a block of them last year and have barely used half of them so far.
- CWChris Williamson
That's really good.
- YUYusef
Bloody excellent.
- CWChris Williamson
That's awesome. That's a-
- YUYusef
So you can... So something I do is just like, I'll put in some like, a block of frozen ginger, some chicken thighs, some veg, maybe a bit of spice or something, fold it over, put it in the thing-
- CWChris Williamson
So it's like a-
- YUYusef
... and pop it in the microwave.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's a s- it's a fast slow cooker.
- YUYusef
Yep. Lovely tender chicken.
- CWChris Williamson
Nice. That's good. Blob, you got one?
- JOJonny
You're the first person that told me that you can microwave chicken.
- YUYusef
It's- it's a scary thing.
- JOJonny
I never realized you could.
- YUYusef
Oh, so yeah, you can't microwave chicken on the bone.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- YUYusef
Because something to do with the way the bone reacts-
- CWChris Williamson
Effects the heating.
- YUYusef
... with the thing. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't cook the meat around the bone.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh.
- JOJonny
Oh.
- YUYusef
You can only use boneless chicken when you microwave.
- CWChris Williamson
There you go. That's... You've got two for one.
- 25:36 – 27:34
Cheap drip coffee + timer: waking up to ready coffee without extra steps
- JOJonny
Um, have I mentioned my coffee machine?
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JOJonny
Don't know if you remember.
- CWChris Williamson
No.
- JOJonny
So this was a, um... I'm stealing as well, but this was mentioned, this was recommended to me by someone else, um, that it's a really cheap... It was like 40 quid, which in the context (laughs) of like a coffee machine is not very much money.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
And it's just a drip filter coffee machine.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the brand?
- JOJonny
Uh...
- YUYusef
I think the, like, pod coffee machines are like 70 to-
- JOJonny
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... 100 pound under.
- JOJonny
I can't remember the brand. I can get a link for the-
- CWChris Williamson
Fine.
- JOJonny
... show notes.
- CWChris Williamson
Show notes below.
- JOJonny
Um, but basically, uh, it's a cupcake filter which is metal mesh, so there's no like... You don't have to get the paper filters, there's-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, okay.
- JOJonny
And it's got a sim- I guess, a special name for the thing that... It's very similar to the thing you've got in the office.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JOJonny
Um, but just having that on a timer for 6:00 AM is... There's been a massive shift for me.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's 40 quid.
- JOJonny
'Cause I... Yeah, and like it means-
- CWChris Williamson
And what does it take? Ground?
- JOJonny
Uh, yeah, ground. Yeah. So I, I've also bought... I also bought a coffee grinder, but I'm a bit of a coffee snob. Like I wouldn't just have Aficionado, yeah. Like don't, don't... Not a fan of-
- CWChris Williamson
You don't mind. That's the thing. That's the difference between aficionado and snob.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
'Cause you don't mind having shit coffee-
- JOJonny
Yeah, I-
- CWChris Williamson
... as long as you have some coffee.
- 27:34 – 36:34
Language optimization: stop using “gay” to mean “lame” + the offense/resilience debate
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so next up for me, I've been wanting to do this one for ages and I didn't really know how to put it across. So if you are, in this day and age, and you're still using the word gay as a ca- colloquial, casual word that essentially means rubbish, you're just asking for trouble.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like you will get... S- someone somewhere is going to find real problem with it, and rightly so, because it should...
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You shouldn't be using that word. So I think a lot of the time what people mean when they say gay is lame or rubbish, but what comes out is a word which is quite, um, fiery, y- you know, it elicits reactions-
- JOJonny
Upset, upsets people, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you don't want some people. They don't mean that gay is rubbish. That's just the word that they go to for it.
- JOJonny
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So what I realized was... This is a long time ago. This is like five... Longer than five years ago. I needed to cycle that word completely out of my language. I didn't want to resort to it at all. But, uh, like when you stub your toe and you go, "Fuck."
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It was just...
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It was reactionary for me. So what I needed to do was come up with a solution for how I was no longer gonna be a- no longer going to use that word. And for me it was cycling out the word gay and using the word lame. And the advantage of using the word lame is it sounds so much like the word that you, you were using that you... It, it's a seamless transition between the two. And after forcing yourself to say the word lame about, for three weeks, four weeks, the word gay is out of your vocabulary and you're now... You've insulated yourself from being in the center of a big scandal.
- YUYusef
So I'm gonna be the, the knob end, the, uh, the devil's advocate for this. But lame, some... I, I... Like this is people who are looking to be offended by stuff, but some people would conflate lame with someone who is paralytic or disabled.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
And so then it's like, "Oh, it's, it's referring to it as that." But I think the defense is something can be lame with no reference to that. Whereas if you're calling something gay, that you can't fall back on like, "Oh, I just meant like the happy version of gay."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
It's not quite the same. But like the word cretin, idiot, imbecile, moron, all of those were clinical terms for someone with subnormal IQ until they became standard-
- CWChris Williamson
Indoctrinated.
- YUYusef
Yeah. They just became the standard vocabulary and then they became a derogatory term.
- CWChris Williamson
So the etymology of all of those words are medical.
- YUYusef
They're all medical words. Uh, spastic.
- JOJonny
I suppose the difference there is that what someone's... Someone's using that to almost try and get that across, aren't they?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- JOJonny
Like, whereas saying something's gay, like you aren't saying-
- CWChris Williamson
... that person's ho- that's homosexual. Y- you're just using it as a way of-
- YUYusef
Reacting, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
People have conflated that word with m- meaning lame or rubbish, essentially.
- JOJonny
Yeah.
- YUYusef
So like you were saying, you stub your toe and you, "Oh, shit." It, you don't, you don't mean like, "Oh, feces." You-
- 36:34 – 54:36
“Digital isn’t always better”: smart locks, smart bulbs, and solving real problems only
- YUYusef
Okay. So, mine is digital is not always better. And I think this is because, like, since we're all so far down the life hack rabbit hole, it's easy to think that, like, if we get the smart light bulb and the smart lock and all this stuff, like, maybe just me, like, I always think, "Oh, great, it's a new development." Now, I saw a smart lock that was $100 to buy, clearly millions of pounds of research went into it.
- CWChris Williamson
Why, why dollars?
- YUYusef
Uh, it's like an American company, like on one of those f- starter, kickstarter fund things.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, right. Mm-hmm.
- YUYusef
Millions of pounds of research into it, and this guy, he was just like a handyman, did a video about it. And he was like, "Right, so I'm gonna look at this lock. It's got a fingerprint sensor here. It's got a really, like special encrypted lock mechanism and whatever." And he was like, "Right, let's just turn it over." And the back, he w- he just with a, with like a, a sleeve and a little sticky, little bit of Sellotape or something, he just twisted the back and it came off. And then there was a sin- single screw, unscrewed it, the battery was there. Pulled out the battery and the thing just unlocked.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
And he's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck. (laughs)
- YUYusef
And he's like, "Right, so, um, this is very secure from the front, but uh-"
- CWChris Williamson
If anyone gets it off, you're fucked.
- YUYusef
... "you can literally just twist it off." He's like, "This wouldn't require any equipment apart from a screwdriver." And so-
- CWChris Williamson
Surely for it to come off though, it's no longer on the door. In which case, how is unlocking it gonna-
- YUYusef
So it's like a padlock that you can-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, right.
- YUYusef
... can flip up. So it's really non-secure. I think, I think the, the, the core, the, uh, core value of what you're talking about here is that we always presume that newest is best. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
And the, uh, reading guide that's available on fs.blog, which is the Farnam Street blog I'm currently addicted to, thank you very much George McGill, um, on that, they talk about people never want to read books that are more than 10 years old. It's like, well, the classics are classics for a reason.
- YUYusef
Mm-hmm. They've lasted hundreds of years. Marcus, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like if, if Marcus Aurelius' Meditations have existed for thousands of years, why do you think people still read them?
- YUYusef
I'm reading that now actually.
- CWChris Williamson
Unbelievable.
- YUYusef
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, you know, the, and the same with fiction. People think that th- the, what's shinier and has the most clickbait-y title is always what's best.
- YUYusef
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, n- there's tried and tested solutions. That's not to say like, "Oh, well, horses have been around for ages, therefore we don't need cars."
- YUYusef
Mm-hmm. I wonder whether part of that's the effort thing that like, you see, if now that people know how to tap into our like, "Oh, top five tips to whatever, to be productive." And you're like, "Oh, well I'll read that rather than like sit and read some hard book because it's older and it's, it's more difficult to, to penetrate." Uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, definitely for me, I didn't enjoy or I found it more difficult to relate David Allen's Getting Things Done to nowadays because he's talking about PAGES and Filofaxes and stuff.
- YUYusef
So he-
- CWChris Williamson
And I'm like, "No, no, I need this optimized for Evernote and iCloud and he's done it-"
- YUYusef
I suppose there, y- oh, really? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Where is it on Getting Things d- they have a membership website. In fact, you know what? I'm gonna wait. I'll talk about that in a moment.
- 54:36 – 1:04:14
Cloud workflows & collaboration: Dropbox, ecosystem thinking, and “paying for convenience”
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, I'm gonna do a couple. We haven't done Dropbox. We haven't done Dropbox. So you-If you don't know what Dropbox is, it is a cloud-based file storage system.
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
There's a number of ways that you can do that. Apple have got one built in. Uh, Amazon even have one. So I opened up a f- a Kindle Fire, and I-
- JOJonny
AWS. Is that what you mean?
- CWChris Williamson
Is it-
- JOJonny
Amazon Web Services.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that what it is?
- JOJonny
Well, so AWS is, like, the hub, the beast of, like ... I, I, I, I didn't realize it. It... Let's not talk about it, it's too complicated.
- YUYusef
(laughs) Okay.
- JOJonny
Honestly.
- YUYusef
It's like the, the veins of the world-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- YUYusef
... running underneath us.
- JOJonny
So most, most things that you interact with that's a file is probably on AWS.
- CWChris Williamson
Bloody hell. Okay, so-
- JOJonny
Mm-hmm. Just Jeff Bezos in the center of it all.
- CWChris Williamson
Anyway, Dropbox is, um, a cloud-
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... a cloud-based, uh, file hosting service. But the difference is that if you've got it on ... Uh, uh, uh, do they have a m- ... What's funny? (laughs)
- YUYusef
I'm just convinced that Dropbox and the other two were on one of the previous podcasts.
- JOJonny
(laughs) Oh, right. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe it's not.
- YUYusef
If there's anyone who listens ardently to the Livebox-
- CWChris Williamson
I've got them written down, in show notes.
- YUYusef
You, well, you've got all the ones that we cover from each one?
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, fine.
- JOJonny
What I was laughing at-
- CWChris Williamson
Dropbox hasn't been in there.
- JOJonny
... was that any ... As soon as we move onto this screen, Yusef will have, like, onto a laptop, there'll be a very good reason why Yusef does or doesn't do anything.
- 1:04:14 – 1:12:43
Focus systems: Pomodoro + Eisenhower (Focus Matrix) for ruthless prioritization
- JOJonny
Can I piggyback off your focus matrix?
- YUYusef
Oh yeah. Oh 'cause you ... See you got the top one.
- JOJonny
So I'm just-
- YUYusef
The top end.
- JOJonny
I already had the top one. (laughs) Already have the Pro one.
- YUYusef
You, you didn't even know that you, you-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- YUYusef
So Johnny called me up. I, I was, I was gonna suggest this app that, um ... And Johnny called me up yesterday and was like, "Oh, I didn't realize, but I actually have the premium version already with the bundle for the other one, which syncs with it."
- JOJonny
So the, the bundle just comes with the Pro.
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- JOJonny
So that'd be why I got it. So I really like the Pomodoro app, which is call- ... I always get it wrong for this.
- CWChris Williamson
Be Focused Pro.
- JOJonny
Be Focused Pro. Um, which is brilliant. And this, it's the same company, so they made a sync version.
- YUYusef
Can you explain Pomodoros as well?
- JOJonny
Have we talked a bit on that?
- CWChris Williamson
I went through Pomodoros at length with Dr. Ewan Lawson.
- YUYusef
Oh.
- JOJonny
Did you?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, man. He wrote the entire, he wrote his entire contribution to the book The Healthy Writer on Pomodoros. Went back and looked at 120 Pomo- maybe 20?
- JOJonny
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
120 Pomodoros and was able to track exactly what he'd done on each of them.
- JOJonny
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
And he does the 20-20-20 rule, which is every 20 minutes, although it's 25 on a Pomodoro, every 25 minutes he'd stand up, look at something that's 20 feet away for 20 seconds to reset your, um, ocular nerve and your, uh, ocular muscles because it helps you refocus on things, which reduces tension headaches and a whole bunch of others.
- JOJonny
So the-
- CWChris Williamson
If you haven't listened to it, it, uh, it's an absolute ballad. Dr. Ewan Lawson.
- JOJonny
You ... I recommend the Pomodoro book to you, didn't I?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I'm part of the-
- JOJonny
Francisco Ce- cerello or whatever he's called.
- CWChris Williamson
... the illustrated guide. It's on my, it's on my Kindle.
Episode duration: 1:46:11
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