Life Hacks 202 | Modern Wisdom Podcast 234

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   I went to Stockton…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      I went to Stockton and Grangefield Sixth Form mates, so when half the girls in your class are pregnant, you grow up fast.

   2. JOJonny0:07

      (laughs) Is that gonna make it into the trailer? (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson0:11

      (laughs) Probably.

   4. YUYusef0:11

      I remember hearing you playing it.

   5. CWChris Williamson0:13

      At three times speed.

   6. YUYusef0:14

      It's a similar thing, yeah, three times speed. "It's time to go to sleep now and, uh, uh, rel- relax."

   7. CWChris Williamson0:18

      (laughs)

   8. YUYusef0:18

      And like Yusuf said, it's supposed to be relaxing.

   9. CWChris Williamson0:21

      (laughs)

   10. YUYusef0:21

       You know, trying to get through it as quickly as possible.

   11. CWChris Williamson0:22

       But I could get more relaxation in in less time if I played it (laughs) three times speed. (laughs)

   12. YUYusef0:26

       (laughs) You go to bed and you think, "Oh, I need to remember this in the morning." Like, "I need to remember to take this in the morning." And you think, "That's all right, I'll, I'll, I'll remember." And then you, invariably you leave the house and you've forgotten. Just put it in, like, the middle of the floor.

   13. JOJonny0:38

       "Johnny, I saw this weird thing in the middle of the floor, like, what are you doing?" And you're like-

   14. CWChris Williamson0:41

       "Johnny, you left all of your dildos in the middle of the floor."

   15. YUYusef0:45

       (laughs)

   16. JOJonny0:45

       I needed them to bring to Caffe Nero.

   17. YUYusef0:47

       My big bag of d-

   18. CWChris Williamson0:47

       Taking them to (laughs) Costa. (whoosh)

   19. JOJonny0:52

       (laughs)

   20. CWChris Williamson0:52

       Life hacks, man. What else are you getting excited about?

   21. JOJonny0:55

       His band has come out.

   22. YUYusef0:55

       I'm amped for the life hacks, yeah. Amped, pumped, man.

   23. CWChris Williamson0:58

       Yes, I'm very well, thank you. It's been a while since we spoke.

   24. YUYusef1:02

       Uh-huh.

   25. JOJonny1:02

       I've just realized, in the background of Johnny is, I think, a John Lewis banana stand, or looks very similar to one, like a very fancy thing to hold your bananas with.

   26. YUYusef1:14

       It's a light.

   27. JOJonny1:15

       To keep it... Is it?

   28. YUYusef1:16

       It's a light, yeah.

   29. JOJonny1:17

       To keep it away from the other fruit, 'cause bananas produce a gas that makes other fruit ripen-

   30. YUYusef1:22

       Faster.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   No, like go ahead.…

   1. YUYusef15:00

      Do you know what I mean?

   2. CWChris Williamson15:01

      No, like go ahead.

   3. JOJonny15:02

      So you can have shortcuts on your home screen to say like, pay a specific person or play a specific audiobook or whatever.

   4. YUYusef15:07

      Perform a specific set of actions. Like a-

   5. CWChris Williamson15:09

      Oh. Okay.

   6. YUYusef15:10

      So I now have my home screen as like a couple of shortcuts. So one is turn on low power mode, just a single button, turn on low power mode. Uh, today's forecast in OmniFocus, capture, um, something in OmniFocus, or call Becca. Those are like the... So like I sat and really thought about this. I was like, what are the things that when I pick up my phone I normally am about to do and then end up on Reddit or Instagram for 20 minutes? I was like, well, it's probably those, like those key things. So those are the key things on the, on the homepage, and then beneath that is just screen time. So it's just like, here's what you came to do, don't be a dick.

   7. CWChris Williamson15:50

      Here's how much of an asshole you are.

   8. YUYusef15:52

      (laughs)

   9. JOJonny15:54

      (laughs)

   10. YUYusef15:54

       And then, uh, the second screen is, is apps that have a, a specific like benefit, and then everything else is just in the app library. So you wouldn't see in this, Chris, but all apps are now just put in the, the library. So you have to search for something if you want it to be... if you want to actually find it.

   11. CWChris Williamson16:12

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JOJonny16:12

       I love your idea of having screen time on the, on the home page.

   13. YUYusef16:15

       Oh, yeah.

   14. JOJonny16:15

       Just a constant guilting reminder.

   15. YUYusef16:18

       Mm-hmm. But the shortcuts things, like you can really get into it, can't you? There's a lot of stuff you can do with... Like I've, I've gone very, very basic, like the pre-made ones from the, the specific apps. But you can design your own essentially.

   16. CWChris Williamson16:31

       That's good. I haven't even seen... I don't know where I've been. I just feel like this whole iOS 14 has passed me by. When did it get released? How long ago?

   17. YUYusef16:39

       Like a, a week or two ago. Normally, Yusuf asks me within like three to four hours whether I've, uh, upgraded to it or not-

   18. CWChris Williamson16:48

       Upgraded to it. Yeah.

   19. YUYusef16:49

       ... because he's so-

   20. JOJonny16:49

       That's me being patient. I'm like-

   21. YUYusef16:50

       So (laughs) it's-

   22. JOJonny16:51

       ... I'll, I'll give him, I'll give him a couple of hours.

   23. CWChris Williamson16:52

       Johnny. Johnny.

   24. YUYusef16:54

       I think I had to actually go and, and start the update though. Like, you know, normally you get a notification saying your phone will update between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. Mine didn't do it for this.

   25. CWChris Williamson17:04

       Yeah, mine neither. I'm, I'm actually... I've just done it there. I've set it away downloading. How long is this going to take?

   26. YUYusef17:09

       Can't have it. It's, it's brilliant. I think it's one of the best OS upgrades they've done recently, just that-

   27. CWChris Williamson17:16

       Wow.

   28. YUYusef17:16

       ... just the customization.

   29. CWChris Williamson17:17

       Yeah.

   30. YUYusef17:18

       'Cause like suddenly you can turn your phone into something that you would prefer it to be rather than just, I can't move iMessage to here.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Or never go to…

   1. YUYusef30:00

      use your bedroom to sleep. You just-

   2. CWChris Williamson30:01

      Or never go to the toilet. (laughs)

   3. YUYusef30:04

      Yeah. (laughs)

   4. JOJonny30:04

      What's the guy called, Stephen Covey, is it? The one who wrote Freakonomics?

   5. YUYusef30:08

      Yeah.

   6. JOJonny30:09

      He was trying to train his daughter to use the potty, and he was like, "I'll create an incentive, which is you get an M&M, a peanut M&M every time you use the potty properly."... but Johnny would hate that, but, um-

   7. YUYusef30:23

      Kill me.

   8. JOJonny30:24

      ... this would, uh, the, and, and so she, she got really good at it really quickly, but he said she ended up getting so good that she would go over, do like a drop of wee, and then come back and be like ... and he's like-

   9. YUYusef30:33

      Ah.

   10. JOJonny30:34

       ... "Ah, damn."

   11. CWChris Williamson30:35

       Clever.

   12. YUYusef30:35

       Dogs do stuff like this.

   13. CWChris Williamson30:36

       Bastards.

   14. YUYusef30:37

       That's, I, you observe that behavior in dogs constantly, where, like, if you treat them as a reward, they figure out, like, the minimum-

   15. CWChris Williamson30:45

       Game the system.

   16. YUYusef30:45

       ... sensitivity to require the treat.

   17. JOJonny30:48

       Clever.

   18. YUYusef30:48

       Very clever.

   19. CWChris Williamson30:49

       Dicks.

   20. YUYusef30:49

       Conniving, conniving little things.

   21. JOJonny30:51

       Johnny.

   22. YUYusef30:51

       Um, so-

   23. CWChris Williamson30:53

       Blobson.

   24. YUYusef30:55

       B-L-O-B-

   25. CWChris Williamson30:57

       Yonathan.

   26. JOJonny30:59

       (laughs)

   27. YUYusef30:59

       (laughs) This is quite a new one for me, um, but it's the ChiliPAD.

   28. CWChris Williamson31:06

       Did you buy one?

   29. YUYusef31:07

       I did.

   30. CWChris Williamson31:08

       Shit the bed. Have you forced Becky to use it?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   No. Yeah. …

   1. JOJonny45:00

      I- I have no problem shaking hands and I've been shaking... I went to the hospital the other day and I shook hands with every single patient." And you're like, "Oh, well."

   2. YUYusef45:07

      No. Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson45:07

      (laughs)

   4. YUYusef45:08

      Don't do that, mate.

   5. CWChris Williamson45:09

      Yeah, come on.

   6. YUYusef45:10

      Like, come on.

   7. CWChris Williamson45:11

      You're fucking in charge of the country. Right, okay. My, my, my, my next one. I haven't put this on here yet, but it has appeared on the Three-Minute Monday newsletter. If you're not signed up, go to chriswillex.com/lifehacks. Nestle Lindal's Quark. So it is k-... It's technically, technically flavored quark cheese.

   8. JOJonny45:31

      This comes up every Life Hacks, I'm sure.

   9. YUYusef45:35

      Well, yeah, it's, it saves me from-

   10. JOJonny45:36

       One of these dejavus.

   11. CWChris Williamson45:37

       Who knows, who knows the entire backlog and who claims that this always happens? You do. And then off camera we always go, "No, we didn't actually cover that one before."

   12. JOJonny45:47

       It's fine. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson45:48

       Um, so we've done Skyr. Nestle Lindal's Quark is upgraded Skyr. So you've seen the macros on the back of this thing. It's essentially no carbs, no fat and 18 grams of protein, tastes like a thick, nice yogurt and costs about 80 pence per pot. It's fucking phenomenal. It comes in a whole bunch of flavors. My favorite one's the white chocolate. They also do ones with tiny little chocolate sprinkles in.

   14. JOJonny46:16

       Sprinkles of... Yeah, Mike gets that one.

   15. CWChris Williamson46:18

       Yeah, it's legit, man. Like, it's such an easy hack. Everyone on the planet just needs a little bit more protein. Like, even Phil Heath needs just a little bit more protein. And this, just have one after each meal.

   16. YUYusef46:31

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson46:31

       And there you go. Across the day, across the day that's cost you £2.50, but you've gained 60 grams of protein.

   18. YUYusef46:40

       Was it you who, who said... Is it, is he, is he Skyr?

   19. CWChris Williamson46:43

       Yes.

   20. YUYusef46:44

       Was that you?

   21. CWChris Williamson46:44

       Yeah.

   22. YUYusef46:45

       So I bought some of those. Because Yusuf, the roof's leaking, window leaking.

   23. JOJonny46:50

       Yeah, but...

   24. YUYusef46:52

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson46:52

       Your window's leaking?

   26. JOJonny46:54

       It's just slightly open. I'll, I'll close it, but I don't want to ruin the flow.

   27. YUYusef46:58

       They'll knock the, the yogurt chad, um, or the quark chad. But yeah, so I, I bought some of those this week for the first time and they are... I just can't believe how nice they are.

   28. CWChris Williamson47:08

       It's just quality?

   29. YUYusef47:10

       Yeah. Like, the fact that it's like... Well, the... I think it's, it's, it's tasting it and then you... The first thing I did was, like, check that I bought the right ones and then check the macros and then ...

   30. CWChris Williamson47:21

       This must have more sugar in than it, than it says.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   That is very cool.…

   1. YUYusef1:00:00

      you're, like, dealing with three possible paths, vectors to that thing, and then three problems you'll encounter with each one, and then you can just pick one and do it for two and try it for two weeks and see what happens. And you can take confusion to like, "I'll just do that really, really quickly." Or, so I've done this with like all of my morning routine and habits and stuff like that, is I- I now do like a third or a quarter of what I used to do 'cause you just apply the question of like, "What is the goal with this thing, like with this behavior?" And then, "Can I achieve that with just something simpler?" Or like, "Could I not do that and still achieve the same thing?" Like, always trying to sort of simplify and cut waste, 'cause I think, I think morning routines, especially me, don't know whether you two fall into this or like any habits or anything like that, there's a tendency to, like, do as many of the things that everyone says you should do as possible-... and then when you just reframe as, "Well, what am I, why am I actually doing these things?" It's to, like, feel more mindful. It's like, well, okay, does, does like half an hour of meditation achieve that? Yeah, it probably does. How about I just do that for a month and see if that achieves the outcome, rather than meditation, journaling, blow up like 10 other things? So that's, that's something that's really helped me recently, in like work, training, everything.

   2. JOJonny1:01:12

      That is very cool. So what, what's the, what's the process if you were to say, like, problem... how would you put it through that?

   3. YUYusef1:01:21

      So define, just define the goal for the thing, like for that area. So like whatever it is you're thinking about, like what, what's the end point I'm trying to get to? And then what are the things I could do to reach that? And then what are the problems I might encounter? Try and troubleshoot the problems.

   4. JOJonny1:01:39

      So problem, proposed solution, obstacle...

   5. CWChris Williamson1:01:43

      And then ... m- go on.

   6. JOJonny1:01:44

      ... test.

   7. YUYusef1:01:44

      Then off you go.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:01:45

      I think a lot of the time, the things that we have in life, we're just overwhelmed with this sense, we have like just notions.

   9. YUYusef1:01:53

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:01:53

       It's just em- em- emotionally driven actions that aren't really very well examined, and I, I think this kind of links back to what we were just talking about there, that a lot of the time people just have a sense of something and then decide to blurt out a post hoc rationalized justification that they think sounds okay, driven from the particular emotional reaction they've had. So let's say that someone's, "I want to lose weight. That's the outcome that I want to have." Okay, what are the different ways that I could lose weight? I could intermittent fast, I could just start calorie tracking, I could do, do, do, do, do, do, whatever it might be. What are the problems that I might encounter? And that takes it from the overwhelm of, "I want to lose weight. Oh my God, I could do keto or I could decide to go carnivore, or I could decide to go vegan, or I could do..." Okay, no. Break those down. Let's look at them individually. Let's assess them. What are the obstacles? Pick a path and stick to it.

   11. JOJonny1:02:52

       I interviewed a guy who did carnivore and then did vegan, or the other way around, um, for like a significant period of time, and he was just totally unattached to the ideologies or anything. He was just like, "I'll try this, see how it feels." And he said the main benefit of veganism, this is going to really upset people, but he said it was the sense of moral superiority that he got.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:03:12

       Mm.

   13. YUYusef1:03:14

       That doesn't surprise me.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:03:17

       I think a lot of people, a l- a lot, a lot of people who are vegan, especially the ones that have been, they got front-ended into it by the emotive, um, imagery that you see of mistreatment of animals. It's seductive to be able to be that person that can say, "Yeah, mate, but you don't fucking care about 'em. You know, I fucking c- I'm, I'm willing to put my life on the line for 'em." "Well, no, you're not. You're willing to change your diet for them."

   15. JOJonny1:03:42

       That, that is true.

   16. YUYusef1:03:43

       (laughs)

   17. JOJonny1:03:43

       And I, I don't know anyone... I, I know like the, the argument will always be, oh, well, I've got to pick my, like, pick my battles. But I don't know anyone who is fully, fully consistent. Like if someone is saying, "Oh, I'm vegan because of the environment," but they're using an iPhone, like the number of, you know, carb, kilograms of carbon that it, that, that it produces, or, um, carbon dioxide rather, or like, if they're wearing leather shoes, or if they, they still drive a car. You know, there's... I don't think there's anyone who is like completely aligned with that mission, because if they were, they wouldn't have kids. They would probably live out in a subsistence farm somewhere. You know, there's a lot of costs to have to go to. Um, on the other hand, you could be like, well, oh, shouldn't throw a b- You know, just because you can't do all of it doesn't mean you can't do some of it, so...

   18. CWChris Williamson1:04:31

       Yes. Yeah, I agree. Scotty, what have you got?

   19. YUYusef1:04:33

       Just, sorry, which one thing about... The way to make all of that faster. So like the way I just described is like the self-managed process of like, what are the things I can try and then testing them. So like doing carnivore then doing veganism or like trying different ways to, like, do your bit in climate change. The other one is like what is the goal, and then who is the person I know or have heard of who is the best at that thing? Just ask them what to do, and then just do that.

   20. JOJonny1:04:57

       (laughs)

   21. YUYusef1:04:57

       Way quicker. (laughs) So like-

   22. JOJonny1:05:00

       Yeah.

   23. YUYusef1:05:00

       ... I want to, I want to try and improve my personal impact on the environment. Okay, I'm going to get in touch with David Attenborough and ask him what I can do. You know what I mean? Like...

   24. JOJonny1:05:10

       Yeah, well, so I think Chris is-

   25. YUYusef1:05:12

       Who's the person most well-read with that and just ask them for help.

   26. JOJonny1:05:15

       Chris, I think you're very good at doing that.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:05:17

       Yeah. So I've got, um, I've got a letter-

   28. JOJonny1:05:20

       At like picking...

   29. CWChris Williamson1:05:21

       ... uh, uh, an email actually that I sent the other day. A lot of the listeners might be familiar with Toby Ord who I've been bringing up a fair bit recently. He wrote a book called The Precipice, which is on existential threats. Um, and I sent him this email. I haven't read it out yet, so, "Hi Toby. Hope you're well. I'm a huge fan of your work. The Precipice is one of the best things I've read since Superintelligence. Congratulations on a wonderful book. I run a podcast called Modern Wisdom. On it, I've had tons of authors and thinkers you have to be familiar with," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. "A concern I have after 200 plus podcast episodes is just how skewed the attentions of smart minds are becoming. I must have had the same conversation 20 times this year, which boils down to woke bashing, ridiculous examples of identity politics, or highlighting that we just can't have conversations anymore. If the great filter exists, I'm worried that it is alive and kicking in the form, form of a seductively easy collection of woke low-hanging fruits for intellectuals to have their attention consumed by. James Lindsay has a PhD in pure mathematics but is caught up arguing with people on Twitter. He should be getting us to Mars not writing fake intersectional studies. Think of it how TikTok must be to a 15-year-old. Some of the greatest minds of our generation are spending their time proving why men and women are different. Given how grave the implications from your book are, which is that he thinks there's a one-in-three chance that human civilization will make it through the next century and a one-in-two chance that we'll reach our full potential, I'm worried. The same thing goes for the amount of press and passion and energy going into fixing climate change. Surely working on the control problem for AGI or looking at more effective method to keep biotechnology labs safe would be wildly more useful at keeping us all alive. I want to use my platform," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, "to try and bring this to people's attention and give them some perspective on the big picture. If you have time to join me and discuss your work on the show, I'll be honored and I'm adamant that you have a big impact on the audience positively. However, if your availability is too tight at the moment, I would still be gain to pro- uh, keen to promulgate this message."... in whatever way you think I can do best and would appreciate any advice on how you think I could do it effectively. So, I found a guy that I knew is an expert in the field, sent him a little bit of stuff before and said, "What would you do? I have this platform that I can utilize. What's your advice?"

   30. JOJonny1:07:22

       Nice.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:16:12

   Section 6

   1. CWChris Williamson1:15:00

      series, like Red Rising is amazing. I'm really, really enjoying that, and everyone that I've sent it to has become fully, fully addicted. Also, Pierce Brown, the author of Red Rising is coming on here once he finishes the next book in the series, which will be really, really fun. And I'm gonna, this could two for one, I'm gonna jump in again and do another one, which is one of yours, actually, Skobe. So no TV on a night for me I think would benefit a lot of people. You could potentially look to partition this and say no TV on weeknights, um, and then on a weekend you might allow yourself a little bit of a break. But again, just set hard and fast rules about when, find a trigger, use the trigger, and then also set yourself some, uh, bright lines around, uh, if there's breaks in that and when they're acceptable. Uh, and another one, which you have, is don't have a TV in your living room if you want to have better conversations. So I don't know anyone else's house that I go to where we talk more when we go round than yours because we don't have the distraction of watching TV. Every time that we go to your house, we always sit in a circle. It's not like we're all in a, like, weird sort of line, like at a football match or like at the cinema, all facing the same way. Everyone kind of sits in a circle and we just have a chat. Uh, I, I-

Episode duration: 1:40:27