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Life Hacks 204 | Modern Wisdom Podcast 311

Jonny & Yusef from Propane Fitness join me for another Life Hacks episode. Sit back & enjoy as we run through our favourite tools, apps, websites, strategies & resources for a productive and efficient life. Expect to learn Jonny's favourite music to lift heavy to, why I'm a YouTube Premium convert, the best type of MyProtein Whey, how to fix torn hands when lifting, how I redeliver my Kindle highlights every day, how to optimise Apple Photos and much more... Sponsors: Book a Free Consultation Call with ActiveLifeRX at https://www.activelifeprofessional.com/modernwisdom Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 3.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: MyProtein Clear Whey - http://bit.ly/modernwisdom (MODERNWISDOM for 37% discount) Survival of the fittedest - Clothing Evolution YouTube Premium - https://www.youtube.com/premium Live version of music for training Architects Live at Reading - https://youtu.be/CZssq0DXtag Optimise your Alfred & use IIna video player - https://iina.io/ https://typefully.app/ WOD Welder - https://amzn.to/3e3Amqj Block And Bottle - https://blocknbottle.com/ Re-Fry Fatty Steak Cuts Readwise.io Check your calendar & photos when doing a review Learn to leverage Apple Photos Have a shared album with your partner “Don’t practise what you do not want to become.” Low Calorie Hot Chocolate - https://amzn.to/3mMlfFE Listen to Frenchcore Answer emails when waiting Have a mini-win goal instead of a process goal Have generic gift ideas Put someone’s birthday & gift ideas in their contact card Read Kings Of The Wyld - https://amzn.to/3tlptWZ Watch Your Honor Watch The Fall (again) Watch Three Identical Strangers Get Propane's Free Online Business Training - https://propanefitness.com/mwbusiness Get Propane's Free Online Fitness Business Tips - https://propanefitness.com/modernwisdom Get free diet advice from PropaneFitness - https://propanefitness.com Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #lifehacks #health #productivity - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Jonny (Propane Fitness)guestChris WilliamsonhostYusef (Propane Fitness)guest
Apr 22, 20211h 30mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 15:00

    Obviously this doesn't go…

    1. JF

      Obviously this doesn't go for every- anyone using a Windows computer, like, that's several steps away.

    2. CW

      (laughs)

    3. YF

      (laughs) Throw it out the window.

    4. JF

      So what you want to do is, if you take your computer and go out of your back door, open up the recycling bin-

    5. YF

      (laughs)

    6. JF

      ... and just put it in there. Speaking of 170 BPM music, Frenchcore is the one.

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. YF

      Frenchcore. (laughs)

    9. JF

      For anyone that enjoys a bit of kind of EDM music and thinks, "Oh, but I just wish it was just twice as fast and a bit more distorted," and-

    10. YF

      (laughs)

    11. JF

      ... and... (laughs)

    12. CW

      It is another Life Hacks episode. Tools, techniques, and tactics for a productive and efficient life. If you haven't seen this before, we do a roundtable. Each of us proposes some sort of life hack we've come up with over the last few weeks since the previous episode. And then the other two tear it to pieces or immediately proclaim that person as God and say, "Right. I'm going to go buy it, or I'm going to start doing it right now." And, uh, and that's it.

    13. JF

      That is it, or there's the delayed reaction which is proclaim the others as an idiot, and then a couple years later we're all doing that thing in full force.

    14. CW

      We're all moving in the same d- the, the same direction at once. Uh, if you want to check out whatever it is that we talk about, there will be links in the show notes below. If there are discounts or codes or whatever, I'll have trolled the internet and tried to find them. So if there's something that you enjoy that you want to go and use, just look, show notes below, comments below and, uh, they'll be there. So Johnny-

    15. JF

      (laughs)

    16. CW

      ... you're first up. There's a hot potato for you-

    17. YF

      Oh, God.

    18. CW

      ... in the face.

    19. YF

      Right. So I'm, I think what we just spoke about there of, like, the true test of a life hack is when someone said it two years ago, I make fun of it, and then I say it again. And I'm a bit worried about this one. I don't think it's been mentioned before, but it's the sort of thing that Chris would have recommended. So, and I would have probably made fun of it as well.

    20. CW

      Okay.

    21. YF

      So let's see. It's something that, um, Dan, Digital Audio Broadcast, actually recommended to me, um, which is I really struggle... So on the, I don't know whether you remember last time I spoke about struggling with creatine, and I... Creatine tablets solved that problem for me.

    22. CW

      Yeah.

    23. YF

      I also struggle with morning whey. (laughs) Like having a, a whey protein shake in the morning, I just find it a bit... I don't know, like it's never quite what you'd expect it to be. ClearWhey from MyProtein is excellent.

    24. JF

      This is a more kind of juice consistency compared to the milkshake type.

    25. YF

      Yep.

    26. JF

      Yeah.

    27. YF

      So you have one scoop in water, give it a shake, leave it. It's very important to leave it, because if you go for it straight away-

    28. CW

      Leave it, leave it. (laughs)

    29. YF

      ... if you go for it straight away... So like my first, like, week of experience with it was like semi-congealed. It's, it's hydrolyzed whey, so semi-congealed bits of hydrolyzed whey. It was like, "This is awful." But then you leave it for two, three minutes and it's just like a juice. So as a morning, as a morning supplement, brilliant. So that's my life hack.

    30. JF

      That's interesting.

  2. 15:00 – 30:00

    Yeah. …

    1. CW

      of having to watch it at the same time, having to stay on your phone to skip the ads. So skipping ads is a huge one. Being able to play, uh, while it's off. You get free access to YouTube Music. I haven't even downloaded it. I don't need it. Um, it is not that cheap. When you consider that a Netflix subscription is, what, for the four-person ultra HD, it's maybe 14 pounds a month now. And I think YouTube Premium-

    2. JF

      Yeah.

    3. CW

      ... is 12 to 13 pounds a month. So it's not, it's not cheap, but I mean, scale up how many videos do you watch per day, how much time do the adverts take from those videos, it's easily, I'm easily ROI positive on it. Uh, plus I don't have to use my phone, so I am now a YouTube Premium convert.

    4. YF

      So it's ad-free. It is, you can close the app and listen to stuff. Can you save stuff offline?

    5. CW

      Yeah.

    6. YF

      Can you have like ... Yeah.

    7. CW

      Use case for that would be super minimal. It would only be when I was maybe on a plane or, or traveling somewhere abroad, but that would be nice. There's some extra features that you get. Um, another thing is that you, you buy it and it attaches to a particular account. So let's say that you guys bought it for the Propane Fitness channel, you would actually both be able to benefit so long as you were both using the Propane Fitness channel, as opposed to what I presume you both have, which is a personal one outside of that.

    8. YF

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      So I bought it, but me and Video Guy Dean now have access to YouTube Premium on the Chris Williamson main channel. So yeah.

    10. JF

      What do you think, Johnny? Are you sold?

    11. YF

      Well, so it links quite nicely with my next life hack.

    12. CW

      Ah, it's just, it's seamless. We're in the flow.

    13. JF

      It's just so nice.

    14. YF

      It's as if we'd prepared-

    15. CW

      But we haven't.

    16. JF

      And we haven't, but yeah.

    17. YF

      Yeah. Um, should I just go on to that then? So I have been training in my garage, which means I, when I log my training, so that I don't have to, like, be relying on my phone all the time, I use my laptop. So I've been tracking, tracking things, which is even worse.

    18. CW

      (laughs)

    19. YF

      It's even worse, 'cause that's where all my work is. But so like, I have to track a lot of stuff, which, I don't know, benefit all ...

    20. JF

      This is why Johnny can no longer train in a public gym-

    21. YF

      'Cause I've got too much stuff with me, yeah.

    22. CW

      (laughs)

    23. YF

      I've got basically a portable lab. With like atmosph-

    24. CW

      VR headset.

    25. YF

      Barometers and-

    26. CW

      Yeah.

    27. YF

      Yeah, like ... (laughs) Um, but so something that I've found, and I can't explain why, but I, if I'm listening to music when I'm training, or if I, if I'm just like training on my own and I'm listening to normal music, it's like 75% benefit. But if I listen to a live version of the music, like if I listen to a live band performance or a live DJ set, there's something, even though the audio quality is worse, there's something about that, like, live experience that-

    28. JF

      The energy.

    29. YF

      Yeah, it's brilliant. But obviously all of that's on YouTube. So having an, uh, a, a, like a, an ad, 'cause there's nothing more annoying (laughs) than like, unrack the bar, and then Grammarly has

    30. NA

      (laughs)

  3. 30:00 – 45:00

    So I think this…

    1. CW

      Yes.

    2. YF

      So I think this is something that you may have recommended to me, Chris.

    3. CW

      Yeah.

    4. YF

      But... Some, some time ago. So they have a kit which includes this tub, which smells great, and that's part of the benefit of it. And there's a little stick and a little pumice stone that comes in a, in a pack. I used to have a problem. (laughs) I think you've both seen it actually. Like, it would happen to me all the time where I'd be, like, deadlifting and training for months and then a huge callus would go on my hand. And it would be... Like, I wouldn't be able to train on it. And it would feel like when you touched your hand, you were touching raw nerve ending. It was so, it was so painful. So this stuff, I put it on my desk and, like, just before I start work, use it. And it's easy to do because it smells brilliant. And-... I mean, touch wood, I've not had any callus problems since I've been using it.

    5. CW

      For the people that don't know-

    6. YF

      So I've got-

    7. CW

      ... what, what is the WodWelder product? What does the balm do? What's it got in it?

    8. YF

      Uh, it's the same thing as, um-

    9. CW

      Lanolin.

    10. YF

      It's lan- lanolin, isn't it? That's the, the thing that, like, softens your skin. So this is the, like, the daily cream, and then there's a stick that you put just on your, um, just on your callused areas of your hands, and then there's a pumice stone to, like, sand down the, the uneven edges. Go on, Seth.

    11. CW

      Dudes, WodWelder.

    12. YF

      (laughs)

    13. CW

      So I've o- I've never used the cream and I've never used the pumice stone, but it's like a Pritt Stick. The-

    14. YF

      Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

    15. CW

      So that's the... It literally looks like a Pritt Stick. You push it up from the bottom and then you just do little circular motions. It does smell awesome.

    16. YF

      Yes.

    17. CW

      It's fixed, it's fixed my hands so quickly. You know when you're doing the Open, when the Open used to be six weeks long, and you'd tear them one week, and by the next week they were getting back to usable again, which is pretty insane. Um, yeah, um, WodWeld is... And you, I think you can buy it on Amazon as well.

    18. YF

      You can.

    19. CW

      So, I mean, just-

    20. YF

      That's how I got it. Yep.

    21. CW

      ... go and buy it on Amazon.

    22. YF

      It's brilliant.

    23. CW

      If you're, if you're someone that lifts and needs to protect your hands and you find that you're getting calloused hand tears, especially... Anyone that's in CrossFit should already know about this. They use, um, what's that... It's like Smithy's Working Hands Cream or something like that, and it's £1 for a huge tub of it from Aldi. Uh, but it just smells like, well, it smells exactly as you would think Smithy's Working Men's Hand Cream would smell.

    24. YF

      (laughs)

    25. CW

      (laughs)

    26. YF

      Like a working man.

    27. CW

      Yeah.

    28. JF

      You can use veterinary udder cream as well, but that's, obviously smells like a veterinary product.

    29. YF

      Oh, udder?

    30. JF

      Udder. It's funny 'cause it... So Johnny and I were talking about this recently, where if you're a powerlifter and you think your calluses are bad, like, look at the callouses of a weightlifter. If you're a weightlifter-

  4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

    What's the process that…

    1. YF

      easy way to, to look back.

    2. CW

      What's the process that you go through for your quarterly review? Have you got, have you taken it from somewhere?

    3. YF

      It's just as simple as that. Like what went well, what didn't go well, what am I gonna do more of, what am I gonna do less of.

    4. CW

      Have you split that into-

    5. YF

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      ... like career, health, relationships and other?

    7. YF

      Um, yeah. I think sometimes, like the categories thing, 'cause that's the st- struggle I had with the Chris Sparks framework, is like there's probably things that are, at any one period o- of your life, are like forefront of the focus. So you'll have like a period of your time where there's a lot of focus on health or a lot of focus on relationships or work. So there's not always tons of stuff in each category. So I tend to just freeform it and just do generally, like, what do I think is going well, what do I think isn't going well, and just whatever comes to mind, really.

    8. CW

      Yeah.

    9. YF

      To be honest, I don't, I don't feel very good at the process. Like it's something I struggle with, but I think, I think, I think most people do.

    10. CW

      At least you're doing it though, man. Like, I, um, I, even my weekly review on OmniFocus, I've said to you before, I'm still struggling-

    11. YF

      Beautiful.

    12. CW

      ... to discipline myself with that, because it's just an arduous task and the desire is always to do work, not to review and plan work. It's like, "Well, I could spend this time planning and reviewing doing." You're like, well, no, like the reason that you can do better is because you've reviewed and planned. So-

    13. YF

      Mm-hmm.

    14. CW

      ... I've got, um, I've got Greg McKeown coming on the show soon, and his new book's Effortless, which is-

    15. JF

      Ooh.

    16. CW

      ... all about how you make the things that you have to do easier. Um, so I'm looking, I've got, um, a couple of chapters into it and, uh, I'm looking forward to maybe getting some-

    17. JF

      That is going straight on the list. If someone could buy me the physical book version of that, please.

    18. CW

      (laughs)

    19. YF

      You being serious? (laughs) Something just linked, linked to that, just before we move on. So with the weekly review thing, I've found, and I suppose this isn't someone, you maybe can't always do this, but we have a, in Propane, we have a meeting on a Monday, like a, a weekly meeting. I know that if I've done my weekly review prior to that meeting, I'm more, I'm... like the meeting's more useful. It's like if I've been through everything, then I'm able to like delegate things or bring things up that I need to talk about, or, "Oh, actually this is relevant now," or whatever. So having s- and, and again, it's hard if you don't have that, but having some kind of- Accountability. ... like, if I do it by this point, then this thing is better.

    20. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    21. YF

      It just... Because it's never fun really, is it? Like looking over all of the projects you have and trying to decide what's relevant, what isn't relevant. Like it's not immediately enjoyable.

    22. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    23. YF

      So if you can add some kind of necessity to it, I've found that really helps.

    24. CW

      That is, that is good to, uh, an obvious explicit outcome, benefit that you're going to get.

    25. YF

      And a- and a, like a line in the sand of like, "On Monday at 1:45 PM, I need to have done my weekly review."

    26. CW

      Yeah.

    27. YF

      Otherwise, it's like I'm sat there going, "Has anyone got anything to say?" "Well, I would have done if I'd done my weekly review, but..." (laughs)

    28. CW

      Yeah, good. Oh, well, you've just told Yusuf there, if you turn up and you're, you s- stay quiet for most of the meeting, he knows that-

    29. YF

      He'll know.

    30. CW

      ... you've had a shitty weekend.

  5. 1:00:00 – 1:13:36

    Ah, clever. …

    1. CW

      adopted, and then... If you haven't watched it, Three Identical Strangers on Netflix is amazing. Very heartwarming, um, documentary. It's, it's a great watch. Uh, and I won't spoil it for you but, um, these three guys get separated and then they, they come back and find each other at like 19 years old, and they're triplets. And one of the guys (laughs) , one of the guys... They start living together after a few years and one of the dudes needs his appendix taken out, he's got appendicitis, uh, but he doesn't have any medical insurance so he goes into the hospital under his brother's name, who does have medical insurance-

    2. JF

      Ah, clever.

    3. CW

      ... and gets his appendix taken out under the name of his identical brother.

    4. JF

      Although, it... Surely you could do that with anyone. Like, d- or in the States do they have like photo ID to check for you?

    5. CW

      I think they almost definitely have photo ID, yeah, for medical stuff.

    6. YF

      'Cause it's all done on, it's all d- everyone's got to have an insurance policy, don't they? I feel like if it was just saying like, "Oh, this is my name, honest promise," like, it, there'd be a lot of fraud going on.

    7. JF

      'Cause I feel like you could do that in the UK, couldn't you? I mean, I've not tested the limits of the fraud...

    8. YF

      I think it's quite hard. (laughs)

    9. CW

      What you got, Bob?

    10. YF

      Okay. Um...... question of which, which direction to take things in. How many more are we doing?

    11. CW

      We got a bit of time. We'll be doing at least a, at least a couple each.

    12. YF

      Okay. So, in that case, this is a diet-related hack, which is low calorie hot chocolate.

    13. JF

      What is the... 'Cause I'm like, is it just less of the spoons in or i- is it the same number of spoons-

    14. YF

      Don't know.

    15. JF

      ... but it's lower calorie?

    16. YF

      I don't really have, like, normal hot chocolate, so I don't know. But it, it's a, it's an easy one, it's just like 60 calories. So they get to the end of the day, you've hit your calories for the day and you think like, "I'd, I really would just quite like something sweet." It's negligible. Like-

    17. CW

      What brand?

    18. YF

      ... wouldn't even mind tracking it. There's a, I think it's Galaxy chocolate, do like a 60 calorie one. So if you're dieting, it's just a really easy thing to hap- to add in at the end of the day.

    19. CW

      I wonder what a normal scoop of hot chocolate is.

    20. YF

      I think they're pretty high calorie.

    21. CW

      Is that right?

    22. YF

      Yeah.

    23. JF

      It's the number of spoons, that's the thi- that's why I'm so surprised that... 'cause it's like, what is the bulk of the stuff if it's not-

    24. YF

      It'll be awfully artificial, and like-

    25. CW

      (laughs)

    26. YF

      ... I wouldn't, it's not like a healthy drink, I would imagine.

    27. CW

      It's just filled with carcinogens, isn't it?

    28. YF

      Yeah. (laughs)

    29. JF

      (laughs) So the ... I can't really have carcinogens, so it's fine.

    30. CW

      But have you tried other ones or is the Galaxy, is the Galaxy the only one that you've tried?

Episode duration: 1:30:41

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