Life Hacks 107

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   You go into a…

   1. JWJonny Watson0:01

      You go into a toilet, go to the toilet, wash your hands, and then open the door.

   2. CWChris Williamson0:04

      I mean, there's an argument that you should be protecting your penis from your hands.

   3. JWJonny Watson0:08

      Y- though, that, that's what I mean. That's what I mean.

   4. YSYusef Smith0:10

      (laughs)

   5. JWJonny Watson0:13

      So ...

   6. CWChris Williamson0:14

      (laughs)

   7. JWJonny Watson0:15

      So I think the way that offices should be managed is in the Pomodoro, the rhythm. So the, the, the five breaks and then a 15, five breaks, then lunch. So ev- everyone should just, at the start of the day, set out, like, these are the tasks I'm gonna do. Once I've done them, I can go home.

   8. CWChris Williamson0:26

      Tasks.

   9. JWJonny Watson0:27

      You should be punished if you, if you are either under-providing tasks or not completing the tasks you've set, and rewarded if you're more productive than other people. 'Cause otherwise, like, what is anybody doing?

   10. CWChris Williamson0:35

       Philips Sunrise Lamp, it's got a very, very low light way of displaying the time at night. And I know this sounds so pernickety, but you don't realize just how much light, like, a normal LCD clock will actually give off.

   11. JWJonny Watson0:48

       Oh, so much.

   12. CWChris Williamson0:49

       Like, if it's a fucking red one, and you're like, it's, this is brighter than it is during the day. Like, if it's all red, you feel like you're in a Tom Clancy movie. (laughs) You know, someone's gonna, like, Rainbow Six your door in.

   13. JWJonny Watson0:58

       (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson0:58

       Like, come in with a fucking laser gun. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. It is Life Hacks 107 with Jonathan Watson and Yusuf from propeamfitness.com.

   15. JWJonny Watson1:12

       You never say, "Boys and girls." You always just say, "Ladies and gentlemen."

   16. CWChris Williamson1:16

       Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

   17. JWJonny Watson1:16

       It's 18 plus only. Must be 18 plus to follow.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:19

       Fair enough, fair. Fine.

   19. JWJonny Watson1:20

       This is an adult program for adult people.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:24

       (laughs)

   21. JWJonny Watson1:24

       Uh, so Life Hacks. It's been ages since we've done a Life Hack.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:26

       It has. Nice.

   23. JWJonny Watson1:27

       Welcome back.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:28

       It's been, like, this is the first one of 2019 as well.

   25. JWJonny Watson1:32

       I spoke to someone today on the phone who was, who said they loved Life Hacks, and I s- told them we're recording the next one today.

   26. CWChris Williamson1:38

       Exciting.

   27. JWJonny Watson1:38

       And he was like, "I cannot wait." It's g-

   28. CWChris Williamson1:40

       It's consistently the best performing in terms of ... I, I think it's just so actionable. Anyway, um, first things first, today's episode is brought to you by TheProteinWorks. If you have a life hack that you want us to try, pop it in the comments below on YouTube. If you are just listening, head to the YouTube channel, search "Modern Wisdom Podcast Life Hacks 107" and put your favorite life hack in the comments below. The best life hack we will trial before the next Life Hacks and do a review on it, and we're going to pick £150 worth of ProteinWorks products that we'll send to you for free. Thank you very much to TheProteinWorks for sponsoring this episode, and I really hope that the best one that gets chosen isn't something weird that we have to do. (laughs)

   29. JWJonny Watson2:24

       But it might be.

   30. CWChris Williamson2:24

       I think you, y- y- you, they should be allowed to say specifically something they want Yusuf to do.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   (laughs) …

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      phone out and film them.

   2. YSYusef Smith15:01

      (laughs)

   3. JWJonny Watson15:01

      Instantly diffuses the situation of, because what, what that does is shows a mirror to them. They're knocking at your window trying to, like, aggravate you and they're like, "Hang on."

   4. CWChris Williamson15:10

      Someone's saying, "I'm gonna be in a meme here."

   5. JWJonny Watson15:12

      Yeah. They just see themself and they're like, "Oh, man." What was that, um, the guy who was he... "You're..." The, the, like, BBC man who, he was a presenter.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:23

      Oh, yeah, and he got out the car and goes really angry.

   7. YSYusef Smith15:25

      Was it not the cyclist?

   8. JWJonny Watson15:25

      "You're, you're going to jail. And y- and I'll tell you what. You are too." Uh, oh, what was he saying? I can't even-

   9. CWChris Williamson15:32

      I don't know who you mean. He's like a David Attenborough type guy.

   10. JWJonny Watson15:35

       Oh.

   11. YSYusef Smith15:35

       Oh, it's-

   12. CWChris Williamson15:35

       He got... He, like, lost his shit on a motorway.

   13. JWJonny Watson15:37

       Uh, I've seen the one where, um, the, there's a cyclist coming along and the guy's in the car and he's being super, super angry and very, very threatening. Then gets out of the car and the cyclist starts cycling away.

   14. CWChris Williamson15:48

       Oh, that's-

   15. JWJonny Watson15:48

       And the guy runs along, tries to kick him. That's poetry, that video, right?

   16. CWChris Williamson15:53

       (inhales) You sh-

   17. JWJonny Watson15:53

       Video guy Dean will put the slow mo over this.

   18. CWChris Williamson15:55

       Didn't... You showed me, uh, was it Vice? Or someone, like-

   19. JWJonny Watson15:57

       He did. He did a full, like-

   20. CWChris Williamson15:58

       ... di- dissected the video-

   21. JWJonny Watson15:59

       It's incredible.

   22. CWChris Williamson15:59

       ... like frame by frame.

   23. JWJonny Watson16:01

       (laughs) He, so th- there's a bit in it-

   24. CWChris Williamson16:02

       Brilliant.

   25. JWJonny Watson16:02

       ... where he's like, he's talking to him and he's like, "Are you a tank? No. Are you a car? No. You're a cyclist, so get off the f- what side of the road... Do you pay road tax? No." And then he's like-

   26. CWChris Williamson16:11

       (laughs)

   27. YSYusef Smith16:11

       (laughs)

   28. JWJonny Watson16:11

       And then I saw the most beautiful phrase in the English language that I've ever witnessed. It blasts well past Cellar Door-

   29. CWChris Williamson16:18

       (laughs)

   30. JWJonny Watson16:18

       ... and any of these kind of T.S. Eliot things. It is the, the phrase, "Put your fucking mouth shut."
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Your teeth- …

   1. JWJonny Watson30:00

      if I just floss my teeth, I'm less-"

   2. Your teeth-

   3. CWChris Williamson30:02

      My depression's gone away.

   4. JWJonny Watson30:03

      ... your teeth (laughs) -

   5. (laughs)

   6. ... I'm less likely to get depression, you're saying? Hey?

   7. YSYusef Smith30:08

      Hope he's not watching. (laughs) I'm terrible with this stuff. Um, but yeah, so floss your teeth.

   8. CWChris Williamson30:15

      Okay.

   9. YSYusef Smith30:15

      Using the Scone method.

   10. CWChris Williamson30:16

       So, do you use, um, do you use mouthwash?

   11. JWJonny Watson30:18

       Occasionally. Um-

   12. CWChris Williamson30:21

       So for me, I've managed to get myself into the rhythm that the degree of cleanness that I'm, uh, I'm happy with for my teeth now is mouthwash clean. So that's ... You know how ... I, I don't get how, um, some people are able to leave the house without cleaning their teeth.

   13. YSYusef Smith30:38

       Yeah.

   14. JWJonny Watson30:39

       For me there's ... It's the same as walking out the house w- without your shoes on. I'd just be like, "I'm, I'm not ready to go." Like, and there is part of me that isn't done.

   15. YSYusef Smith30:47

       Mm.

   16. CWChris Williamson30:47

       Mm.

   17. JWJonny Watson30:47

       I'd be like walking out with no pants on or something.

   18. YSYusef Smith30:49

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JWJonny Watson30:49

       Like that. And for me now, the bar for cleanliness for mouth has been raised up to, like, Green Blue Listerine, which is like the hat one. Like, the fucking (inhales sharply)

   20. YSYusef Smith31:00

       They'll be like ...

   21. JWJonny Watson31:00

       Yeah. Do you remember the original flavor Listerine?

   22. CWChris Williamson31:02

       That's it. Yeah. That's it.

   23. JWJonny Watson31:02

       Is that it?

   24. YSYusef Smith31:03

       The hard corn. Yeah.

   25. JWJonny Watson31:04

       They changed the color.

   26. YSYusef Smith31:05

       Exactly.

   27. JWJonny Watson31:05

       It used to be yellow, just like original flavor.

   28. YSYusef Smith31:08

       Oh, yeah. Oh. Oh, no.

   29. JWJonny Watson31:08

       It had no flavor. It was just like bleach flavor. It was properly-

   30. CWChris Williamson31:11

       Oh, right. Okay. No. No. This might be a bit more old school for me.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CWChris Williamson45:00

      Like, Udemy's got some good stuff on. GreatCour- GreatCourses Plus just seems to be like for people from YouTube to share ref- referral links to.

   2. JWJonny Watson45:07

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:07

      Doesn't really look like there's that much good stuff on there. But, um, Cours-

   4. JWJonny Watson45:11

      Is there MasterClass as well?

   5. CWChris Williamson45:13

      Oh, fuck, I'm gonna guess there's loads.

   6. JWJonny Watson45:15

      I think there's ... 'cause I nearly bought a, when I was going through the cookery on learning how to cook-

   7. CWChris Williamson45:19

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JWJonny Watson45:19

      ... Gordon Ramsay has a MasterClass thing that's like-

   9. CWChris Williamson45:20

      Oh, yeah, really?

   10. JWJonny Watson45:21

       ... 400 quid or something, or ...

   11. So I'm guessing Coursera's like vetted and it's been

   12. CWChris Williamson45:25

       Well, it's, it's issued, it's issued by actual unis, but they have the most popular, uh, MOOC, massive open online course-

   13. JWJonny Watson45:34

       Right.

   14. CWChris Williamson45:34

       ... um, in the world. The best.

   15. JWJonny Watson45:37

       Wow.

   16. CWChris Williamson45:37

       And it's free.

   17. JWJonny Watson45:38

       Wow.

   18. So, it's interesting, the accountability is very important there. I think, like something that George said to me the other day was that he wanted to set up some drop shipping project, and he was like, "I'm not g- I, I don't wanna speak to you about the specifics yet because I've not taken action, and I know that I am the kind of person that gets the same hit from talking about doing something as I do from actually doing it."

   19. Mm-hmm.

   20. And so, that's, that's like just kind of talking about doing a thing, but if you have a, a course where it's like you need to check in with a, with a coach or you need to tick something off then it gets rid of that and it's like you have to actually do the thing.

   21. CWChris Williamson46:13

       So what's not important and not urgent?

   22. JWJonny Watson46:15

       That's just stuff that, um, m- that y- maybe it, it may masquerade as, uh, important/not urgent, so the development stuff, but you look at it and you think, "Actually this isn't gonna add much value to my life, but it's just hanging over my head." The Warren Buffett thing where he said to his pilot, "What are the 25 things that you want to achieve in, in your career?" And he was like, "Oh, it's all this stuff." And he's like, "Right, take number five to 25 and put all that stuff on your 'do not ever do under any circumstance' list."

   23. (laughs)

   24. Because he was like, "All that's gonna do is crowd your, your thinking." And, you know, the essentialism, I'm, I'm sure you've used that-

   25. CWChris Williamson46:50

       Yeah, yeah.

   26. JWJonny Watson46:50

       Yeah, yeah.

   27. ... example of essentialism where it's like you just need to have a single focus. So, I'm terrible with that. I've got too many things on, and I'm always trying to do too much stuff. And so the Eisenhower Matrix has been a huge improvement for me. And so the life hack is an app called Focus Matrix, which is, it's free. There's lots of paid ones as well, but I think all you need is a free one. It's literally just like a to-do list in four quadrants, color-coded, and you can add little sub-notes into the to-do list, and it's just completely helps me to organize my-

   28. CWChris Williamson47:18

       Is that the same, same guys as Be Focused Pro?

   29. JWJonny Watson47:20

       It is, yeah. It's-

   30. CWChris Williamson47:21

       So it ties, syncs with that. Ties in, yeah, it's pretty good.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:04:37

   And, like, there- there…

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      when you start work and when you finish work, there's a- there's a certain amount of- of focused time that you can spend. Mm-hmm.

   2. JWJonny Watson1:00:05

      And, like, there- there are hours where you need to take breaks to maintain that focus.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:09

      Yeah.

   4. JWJonny Watson1:00:10

      So you look at that to-do list and you say, "Right, today I'm gonna do ... I have time to do 10 Pomodoros. So this task, how many Pomodoros is that gonna take me? Three. All right, that one's gonna take me two. That one's gonna ta- ... Right, that's my day filled." And then you have a way to actually-... assess at the end, like, "I thought that was gonna take me three, it took me four," right? Or that, that, "I thought that was gonna take me two, it took me one."

   5. (coughs)

   6. So actually, you get better at looking at, that's a, that's a task, and that's how long it's gonna take me.

   7. That's a three Pom task.

   8. Yeah.

   9. Or that's two Pom.

   10. And you just see things as, "Oh, that's four Pomodoros, two Pomodoros."

   11. So, uh, so I've started doing that in my focus matrix.

   12. Right, so you look at them and say...

   13. So now... So in, in my focus matrix tasks, I have square brackets with three or two or whatever after the task-

   14. Mm-hmm.

   15. ... so that I know that it's-

   16. CWChris Williamson1:00:53

       I love this shit, yeah.

   17. JWJonny Watson1:00:54

       'Cause then you can build your day, and then you can, you can build a day plan just out of Pomodoros.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:00:58

       Yeah.

   19. JWJonny Watson1:00:58

       And then you've got a, a map for the day.

   20. But you might have some tasks that are like f- fifteen Pomodoros or whatever.

   21. So, and there's no better feeling than doing a three Pomodoro task in two Pomodoros.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:01:05

       Oh.

   23. JWJonny Watson1:01:05

       Just 'cause you just, you're ahead.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:01:06

       (groans) What's that? What's that noise?

   25. JWJonny Watson1:01:11

       (laughs) It's actually this little tile.

   26. So, yeah, if I pre- I have a tile in my wallet, you know, the thing, like, the GPS tracking thing?

   27. CWChris Williamson1:01:16

       Yeah.

   28. JWJonny Watson1:01:16

       Right?

   29. And it only goes off during podcasts.

   30. If I press on my wallet, which is here-

Episode duration: 1:52:29