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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 – 1:32

    Life Hacks format + opening banter (Windows jokes, fast EDM)

    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.

  2. 1:32 – 7:35

    Clear Whey: a better-tasting morning protein routine

    1. 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.

    2. CW

      Okay.

    3. 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.

    4. CW

      Yeah.

    5. 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.

    6. JF

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

    7. YF

      Yep.

    8. JF

      Yeah.

    9. 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-

    10. CW

      Leave it, leave it. (laughs)

    11. 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.

    12. JF

      That's interesting.

    13. CW

      So it's a hydrolyzed whey, so it's not an isolate?

    14. YF

      Yeah. So I thought it was an isolate, but if you read the ingredients it does say hydrolyzed whey. Maybe someone should write for-

    15. JF

      Technology has come so far in the last few years.

    16. YF

      (laughs)

    17. JF

      Like, the hydrolyzed whey... 'Cause back in the day, pre... You know, if you've heard our, the Fitness Menopause podcast where, back where we were, you know, deep in the, the days. I don't know, Chris, you mentioned, like, where you... MyProtein was just like a build-it-yourself powder, and you could literally put in like the most stupid combinations of like, "Oh, I want 95% beta-alanine, 5% oats."

    18. CW

      (laughs) Hor- horny goat's weed, yeah.

    19. JF

      Horny... Yeah.

    20. YF

      Horny goat's weed or waxy maize starch with it.

    21. CW

      (laughs)

    22. JF

      All minging, absolutely disgusting. And all of these, like, you'd get casein, which was just like basically a lump of sand that as soon as water touches it, it just becomes a solid, and you shake it in your thing and it just goes dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk in your... Yeah. And hydrolyzed whey-

    23. CW

      So what's the, what's the advantage of this, Johnny? Less digestive discomfort, better taste, sort of less of a bloated feeling?

    24. YF

      I think... So maybe you two don't get this, but, like, when I make a protein... Like if you make a protein shake, like a scoop or two scoops of, of whey concentrate with, like, water from the tap, it's always this, like, six out of ten experience, isn't it? Like it's... You're never like, "Oh, God, I'm glad. Oh, that was delicious. I'm really glad I had that first thing." And then you feel a little bit gurgly and you're like, "Ugh." Like, don't feel that great about it. But the, the, the ClearWhey just tastes like juice. So if you get like the orange and mango one, for example, it just tastes like having orange juice in the morning. And it's... But it's 20... I think 25 grams of protein or something. So it just... I think it just makes it easier, so I do that and then I have that with my creatine tablets and my supplements. It just makes it easier to, like... It's something I always do because I like the taste of it, and it's effortless, and it tastes like juice.

    25. CW

      What is the-

    26. YF

      So that's why-

    27. CW

      What are the flavors that you've tried, and what is the optimal powder-to-water ratio?

    28. YF

      Great questions, Chris. Great questions. So I have tried watermelon, grape, rainbow candy, which you've already-

    29. CW

      Oh, wow. You've been... You've gone very deep into this. Did you get sample packs or are these all legitimate ones that you've worked your way through?

    30. YF

      I went, I went full, full container.

  3. 7:35 – 12:40

    Declutter clothing as you wear it (and sell/donate the rest)

    1. JF

      So, on take two of the intro of this podcast, you guys asked me, "Is this T-shirt yours?" And they both... y- you clicked that it wasn't because it fits well and it's a good choice of T-shirt, and you know me well enough to know that my fashion sense is terrible. So, my life hack is whenever you wear a piece of clothing, use it as a chance to be like... 'Cause it... very few people have got too little clothes. I think clothes are unreasonably cheap, and usually we hold onto just crap T-shirts or whatever that we have just because status quo. So, it's... Use it as a chance to be like, "Do I really want to wear this in the future, or was this just a decision that past me has made that I no longer agree with?" And so now, whenever I put on a T-shirt or a, a sock or something, I'm like, "Hmm. Could this be the last time that I wear this?" And I know that there's some kind of, um, psychology... so, I mean-

    2. CW

      (rustling sound)

    3. JF

      ... case in point, here's my bin with a T-shirt in it.

    4. CW

      (laughs)

    5. JF

      Um...

    6. YF

      (laughs)

    7. JF

      And it's a rubbish T-shirt. I'm not gonna miss it. I bought it maybe 10 years ago in Primark. So, the... Was it something you said about the level that you value things that you already have is different to if you were to buy it for the first time, or if you were to lose it and you want it back. And our brain plays these funny games to value things differently, and you have to kind of get objective and be like, "No, no. If I didn't own this right now, would I actually go out and buy it? Or would I be like, 'No, it's worthless to me'?" Is the value only because it's already mine? Like-

    8. CW

      That's cool. That's like a evolution of the fittest clothing.

    9. JF

      Yeah.

    10. CW

      Survival, survival of the fitted-est.

    11. YF

      (laughs) Of the fitted-est.

    12. CW

      (laughs)

    13. JF

      I have a, I have a slight variant on that that I've actually done over the last year. I think... So, I think I might have mentioned this on a life hack before, but, um, which is, I moved basically all of my clothes onto like a separate rail in the hanger, and every time I wore something, I put it on a different rail. And after a six-month period, everything that isn't on the main rail, just get rid of. Oh, so you're doing the same thing but in batch?

    14. YF

      Well, it's y- the process of like-

    15. CW

      Formalized.

    16. YF

      ... I can see Chris just-

    17. CW

      Formalized process, isn't it?

    18. YF

      (laughs)

    19. CW

      (laughs) No, I think... Hey, I think this is awesome. I, I have done it a different way. So, I've been taking big blocks of clothes to a buddy, and, um, he does a lot of eBay stuff, and I just said, "Look, if you want to list these on eBay, take 50% of whatever they make."

    20. YF

      Right.

    21. CW

      It was either that or the charity shop. I'll tell you what's mad. I didn't even thought of this but, the amount of money that you will get for worn but good condition training shoes. I go through a lot of pairs of Nanos and Metcons back in the day before the Reebok deal and stuff. And, um, yeah, I... they're still getting... A three-year-old pair of worn but in-all-right-condition shoes will still get 25 or 30 pounds. And then it-

    22. JF

      Fetishists just love worn shoes, don't they?

    23. CW

      I'm not sure that it's all-

    24. JF

      Big market for it.

    25. CW

      ... fetishists.

    26. JF

      (laughs)

    27. CW

      Because you don't know who's worn it. Is... It surely is part of the fetish not knowing the person that wore it and thinking about them wearing it.

    28. JF

      Maybe.

    29. CW

      It's not just a dirty shoe, is it?

    30. JF

      Y- you have heard the story about when I was in that flat, haven't you? Yeah. I don't even know what episode that was in.

  4. 12:40 – 16:36

    YouTube Premium: pay to remove friction and reclaim attention

    1. CW

      Um, I was going to say, I'm one level removed, aren't I? Because someone's arbitraging my shoes. Right, okay. Uh, my first one for today is YouTube Premium. Have either of you two got YouTube Premium?

    2. YF

      So I've done the trial for it and didn't continue with it.

    3. CW

      Okay. I, um, I know that Yousef won't have done.

    4. JF

      I'm very interested to hear. No, I've been recommended it and I, I can't see the appeal, but need to be.

    5. CW

      So, George Mack is a big proponent of YouTube Premium, couldn't believe that I didn't have it, and-

    6. YF

      So I'm, I'm really open to getting it, so sell it to me, Chris.

    7. CW

      Okay. So I decided ... It was Michaela Peterson. When ... W- we always say this, and this is a, this is a life hack for life hacks, right? Everybody that is listening, if multiple different people come to you with the same suggestion independently, just, just do it.

    8. YF

      (laughs)

    9. CW

      Because the, the likelihood of the stars aligning in that way specifically, for people in separate social circles to come to you and say, "You really should try this." So George had done it, but that was just one. Then Michaela couldn't ... I think I sent her a screenshot of something I was watching on YouTube, and she noticed by the, the top bar that it wasn't YouTube Premium. And she said, "I can't believe that you don't have YouTube Premium. You need to as ..." I was, "Right, right! I will buy it." So, uh, upgraded. For the most part, I use, I use YouTube quite a bit. I also watch lots of content that I could just listen to. Also trying to reduce my screen time. And all of that combined means that No Adverts is saving me at least 10 seconds to 15 seconds per video. I think they've, YouTube have pushed the limit for the unskippable section of an ad now to between six and seven seconds, which is very cheeky of them. Um, and then, so I'm, I don't ever have to skip ads. I can swipe up and go onto other apps, or I can just lock my phone and leave it somewhere and listen to what's going on. So a lot of the time when I'm doing podcast prep for a guest, Brian Greene, who's this super famous, uh, physicist, last night, I just left the phone on the side and listened to him and Neil deGrasse Tyson talk. But it's easier to find something on YouTube than it is on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So a lot of the time, actually, YouTube's, uh, is simpler, because the search is more optimized. It's better to listen to stuff on there. It's just a problem 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-

    10. JF

      Yeah.

    11. 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.

    12. YF

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

    13. CW

      Yeah.

    14. YF

      Can you have like ... Yeah.

    15. 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.

    16. YF

      Yeah.

    17. 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.

    18. JF

      What do you think, Johnny? Are you sold?

    19. YF

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

    20. CW

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

    21. JF

      It's just so nice.

    22. YF

      It's as if we'd prepared-

    23. CW

      But we haven't.

    24. JF

      And we haven't, but yeah.

  5. 16:36 – 24:50

    Training motivation: use live sets and crowd energy (especially on YouTube)

    1. 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.

    2. CW

      (laughs)

    3. 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 ...

    4. JF

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

    5. YF

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

    6. CW

      (laughs)

    7. YF

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

    8. CW

      VR headset.

    9. YF

      Barometers and-

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. 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-

    12. JF

      The energy.

    13. 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

    14. NA

      (laughs)

    15. YF

      ... well fucking ...

    16. JF

      (laughs) .

    17. YF

      (laughs) And that has happened so many times to me, like the mid-roll-

    18. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    19. YF

      Like, and it's, they're always the, the most intrusive as well. Like, there's nothing more contrasting than bare tooth live rapping-

    20. JF

      Have you thought about setting up a life insurance policy?

    21. YF

      Yeah. (laughs)

    22. JF

      Yeah. I, another thing I-

    23. YF

      Like, a really aggressive set, and then it's an ad about something completely separate.... so, I like it. I like the idea.

    24. CW

      Autoplay continues outside of when, when the app's closed. So it'll still continue to autoplay even when your phone's locked, which is nice, so you could create a little playlist and-

    25. YF

      (laughs)

    26. CW

      ... it'll run through the playlist. I get what you mean about the live thing. Does your live music have to have crowd noise in?

    27. YF

      Yeah, I think so.

    28. CW

      Yeah, I would agree.

    29. YF

      I mean, I don't know.

    30. CW

      Live music without crowd noise is just a poorly recorded normal album track.

  6. 24:50 – 28:37

    Replace YouTube Premium with Alfred + IINA (Mac power workflow)

    1. JF

      This is on the back of the YouTube Premium, so I've, I, I heard your sales pitch and-

    2. CW

      (clears throat)

    3. JF

      ... I raise you an alternative method (sniffs) just because, for me, none of those features hit my pain points to, to sign up for YouTube Premium. Partly because I don't really use my phone, so the idea of being able to play a video with the screen off compared to the screen on is, like, kind of irrelevant to me. Um, so what I do for YouTube is everything's done entirely through Alfred. You can search and then find a video within Alfred, so that's, like, the app. Y- even your browser doesn't have to be open. And then you can play it through a media player called IINA, I-I-N-A. So you can just play any URL, any playlist. It remembers the spot that you were in last time along the video. You can adjust the speed and skip forward and back and stuff with the keyboard shortcuts. It doesn't buffer. It just loads the whole thing, and then you can just play it as if it's like a, a, a video that you've downloaded, and it's generally just a lot less intrusive. There's no adverts. I haven't seen an advert in years 'cause, 'cause I use Brave, which is the life hack from a few, a couple of years back probably now. So, my recommendation would be just get Alfred properly set up, figure out all of your use cases, even if it's stuff that, like, watching YouTube, you think it, there wouldn't be an Alfred fix for it, there probably is. So, start with my YouTube video and then just browse the Alfred repository and you will have a lovely time.

    4. CW

      Cool.

    5. YF

      The problem with Alfred is it's like a, it's a blank canvas with a really nice set of paints.

    6. CW

      (laughs)

    7. YF

      And, like, you've got, you've got the potential to create something brilliant, but you could also do, like, a smiley face stick man. Like, you've got to know what you're doing. I mean, you've got to know what you're trying to create.

    8. JF

      That is such a good analogy. (laughs)

    9. CW

      Yeah. Yeah. He, so Yusuf tried to give me some sort of workflow, mac- macro workflow thing for Alfred, sent me it the other day, um, so that I can search my notes, 'cause I've got 2,000 notes on Apple Notes, and Yusuf sent me some workflow. I pressed a button and then what, what came up? That I, I didn't have the, the Python CSS, like, existing library module to plug it in. And I, I was watching the genesis of a Scoby problem occur in front of my eyes.

    10. JF

      (laughs)

    11. CW

      I'd been infected with it. I was seeing it. The, the-

    12. JF

      (laughs) .

    13. CW

      Was it Prometheus? That, I was watching the Prometheus vizio of...

    14. JF

      Evolving from the embryonic state into-

    15. CW

      That's it.

    16. JF

      ... the fully-fledged alien.

    17. CW

      Yep.

    18. JF

      Yeah.

    19. YF

      'Cause when- whenever that happens and, like, the Saw music plays, you know, when he's going like, "I'd like to play a game," and it's th- and, like, things, it slowly becomes really serious and you realize how enormous the problem is, and you're like, "Well, I'm s- I'm stuck now. That's it."

    20. CW

      That's exactly what he was trying to do too.

    21. YF

      Trash it.

    22. JF

      Yeah, so...

    23. NA

      (laughs)

    24. JF

      So I should say, like, getting YouTube Premium is the, like, simple sledgehammer solution. It's like, "Look, I'll just, I'll just pay the 15 quid, just leave me alone, I just want to listen to some music with the screen off. Thank you very much. Yes." If you're willing to put in some time and you, you know, you're willing to kind of get out the paints and sketch out the, the picture, the skeleton first and then paint it on top, and you can put in the time for it, then Alfred is worth it, yeah.

    25. CW

      So if you've got more money than time, buy YouTube Premium. If you've got more time than money, use IINA-

    26. JF

      Well...

    27. CW

      ... and Alfred.

    28. JF

      ... the, the point of Alfred is that it saves you money long term, but there is a bit of... And I mean, obviously this doesn't go for ev- for anyone using a Windows computer, like, that's several steps away. Just... (laughs)

    29. CW

      Throw it out the window.

    30. YF

      (laughs)

  7. 28:37 – 29:56

    Typefully.app: write and publish tweet threads without the pain

    1. CW

      Uh, right. My next one is TypeFully.app. So I sent this to Yusuf yesterday. Um, if you are someone who uses Twitter and wants to create long tweet threads from single blocks of text or from text that's been worked up into paragraphs, TypeFully allows you to write out the entire tweet thread, including previews for URLs and everything else. It brings up a live preview of exactly how it's going to look on your account, and you don't need to move things around between the different thread windows or the tweets within the thread windows. You can just move the text within a block, a typing block typically like you'd have on your notes, and it'll automatically do it. It won't cut off halfway between different sentences. It's all formatted beautifully, and then it's one button to press Send. It's like, I c- and, and it's free. It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

    2. JF

      It's, I mean, that, that solves a, a problem that for many people they're like, "What? Tweet threads? What's that?"

    3. NA

      (laughs)

    4. JF

      But for people that write tweet threads, it is, it is such a ballache to get it all into the right formatting. So very good.

    5. CW

      Not much more to say about that. Just TypeFully.app. You should go and check it out. If you're a Twitter user that uses tweet threads, then it'll save your life. Johnny, what you got?

    6. YF

      Um, this. What's it gonna be?

    7. CW

      I don't know.

  8. 29:56 – 33:54

    Hand care for lifters: WodWelder balm + pumice to prevent tears

    1. YF

      Wad welder.

    2. CW

      Ah ha ha ha. Yes.

    3. YF

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

    4. CW

      Yeah.

    5. 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.

    6. CW

      For the people that don't know-

    7. YF

      So I've got-

    8. CW

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

    9. YF

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

    10. CW

      Lanolin.

    11. 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.

    12. CW

      Dudes, WodWelder.

    13. YF

      (laughs)

    14. 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-

    15. YF

      Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

    16. 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.

    17. YF

      Yes.

    18. 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.

    19. YF

      You can.

    20. CW

      So, I mean, just-

    21. YF

      That's how I got it. Yep.

    22. CW

      ... go and buy it on Amazon.

    23. YF

      It's brilliant.

    24. 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.

    25. YF

      (laughs)

    26. CW

      (laughs)

    27. YF

      Like a working man.

    28. CW

      Yeah.

    29. JF

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

    30. YF

      Oh, udder?

  9. 33:54 – 38:38

    Steak micro-hacks + why better meat quality is worth it

    1. JF

      So this is free advertising for ... company. But I recently had a steak from Block and Bottle, which is a place in the Northeast that does, as you can imagine, like, craft beers and craft steaks, whatever you call, like, boutique steaks. Everyone in there has got, you know, a beard and a, a plug in their ear and they're all... You go in and they're like, "Hello, sir. How can I help you?" And, "Oh, we have this particular range of cow today and it's, it's from the, the fragrant forests of Azkaban." And, uh, we can-

    2. YF

      (laughs) Is the story about the meat?

    3. JF

      Oh-

    4. YF

      Each piece of meat?

    5. JF

      Incredible. And, and it's all, you know... They've got loads of different cuts and types of meat, and, um, the... It's, it's a bit pricey, but it's no more than you would pay in a restaurant or something. And you, when you make it yourself, you just treat it with such care, and it is beautiful. And so I like a rib eye. That's definitely my top, top choice steak and I, I'm willing to fight anyone who disagrees, but, um, rib eye is supposed to be cooked medium or medium well, um, as opposed to other steaks because it's so fatty and you want the marbling and the, the fat to kind of infuse throughout it. Now the hack is when you have a fatty cut of steak, if you end up with gristly bits, a lot of people throw that away, but you can just fry it harder at the end and you've then just got, like... Because then it just melts and creates, like, new very nice bits. You don't want to waste it. So the hack is don't throw away your gristly bits. Just try frying them hard and see what happens.

    6. YF

      And order expensive steak as well.

    7. JF

      Yeah. Definitely.

    8. CW

      So did you have to... Is, can you order Block and Bottle online? Do they deliver?

    9. JF

      I th- Possibly. It's, um... They, they have a, they have a shop with a, a big queue out the front and, you know, you can-

    10. CW

      Where is it?

    11. JF

      It's also all very customized. It's a great experience. It's in Heaton.

    12. CW

      Okay.

    13. YF

      I, I've seen a few people talking about... So I actually saw Keeno Body mention that Mikhaila Peterson had recommended a meat delivery company to him.

    14. CW

      Yeah. She sponsored.

    15. YF

      Is... Right. So I've just seen a few people m- like, s- talking about how they've had steak delivered over there.

    16. CW

      So I've just got... I've literally just had reached out to me. I think it's The Dry Aged Steak Co. Or something, have just reached out to me, uh, about the show. I, I've told them to send some stuff out and I'll see how it is. Um, but yeah, I, I think high quality organic meat, people are now becoming increasingly concerned about the different antibiotics that are being pumped into their-

    17. YF

      Mm-hmm.

    18. CW

      ... uh, food and stuff like that. So it doesn't surprise me that as carnivore diets become more popular, as people are going keto or low carb-

    19. YF

      (clears throat)

    20. CW

      ... that increasingly high quality meat is a thing.

    21. JF

      It... Yeah. It's not something I, I ever... (sighs) I try and limit the, kind of, bandwidth that I spend on things that I can't control, but this is probably pushing at the...... the precipice of, like, "Maybe this is something we should be looking after." Because it was a, it was a interview with a farmer on Joe Rogan talking about, like, a chicken breast in the States costs like, I don't know, ni- uh, $1.20 or something. And he was like, "There is no way that that should cost $1.20." Like, something is being, something's missing from that.

    22. CW

      Yeah.

    23. JF

      And what's happening is that the environmental cost is being, um, offset so that you can get a chicken breast for super cheap. But, as a result, you're getting loads of, yeah, antibiotics and fecal matter in the food and all that kind of stuff to be able to keep the prices so low. And so, his whole idea is, like, the farming structure needs to be completely redone.

    24. CW

      I had Chris Baber, who is M&S's in-house food chef, I had him on the show, uh, a couple of weeks ago, and he was saying the one thing that he always goes organic and the highest quality at is meat. He actually says that he goes vegan two days a week so that he can afford to go the highest quality meat for five days, and he would rather do that than have lower quality meat across the week. He also said another thing, which is when you're eating a steak, you're supposed to use the steak knife to cut cross through the fibers as opposed to long way down the fibers. The reason being that those fibers are long and stringy and they get stuck in your teeth, and you can break them up immediately by just cutting across them. And I didn't know this rule. Did you guys know this rule? Oh, okay. Well-

    25. JF

      Yeah, but I'm a, I'm a pretty steak-y man, so...

    26. CW

      Okay. Um, I didn't know, I didn't know it-

    27. YF

      I don't think I knew that about...

    28. CW

      Yeah, so just cut across so that you break up the fib- the fibers already, and then... Yeah. (grunts) Like that.

    29. JF

      (laughs)

  10. 38:38 – 41:48

    Readwise: daily resurfacing of Kindle highlights for spaced repetition

    1. CW

      Uh, so yeah, cut, cut across. Um, what am I gonna do next? Okay, so I'm gonna do readwise.io which is, anybody that follows me on Instagram will know that pretty much every day there's a couple of quotes that come from a book, and Readwise is the service that I use that delivers me that. So, it automatically syncs in with your Kindle and highlights, then it redelivers you a set number of highlights at a set time over email each day. If you want to go onto the website, there's a partner app as well. You can use it as a flashcard service, kind of like Anki for spaced repetition so that you start to actually learn the insights you've got. You can favorite them, you can discard them, you can delete them. You can also upload directly from your Kindle on documents which are not in your Kindle library. So let's say that you've sent a PDF to your, uh, Kindle, you can do a, an upload every so often and they give you a periodic reminder to say, "It's been three months since you plugged your Kindle in. Maybe you should go and do that." Or you can turn it off. Once you've got it set up, it is super unintrusive. And every single day, I get four quotes that I've highlighted from my books, from books that I've read. And if you've made notes in Kindle as well, so you can highlight something and then you can make a note if you choose to, so I'm starting to do that as well. So, here's something that I think and, oh, here's what I think about that thing right now. Uh, and it also includes that. It's, uh, i- it's phenomenal. Like, for remembering the things that you care about, about reading, it's outstanding. And, um...

    2. YF

      S- so you take notes while you're, while you're reading and feed it into Readwise?

    3. CW

      No.

    4. YF

      And it then...

    5. CW

      No.

    6. YF

      Okay.

    7. CW

      So, the highlight that you make on Kindle-

    8. YF

      On Kindle.

    9. CW

      Yeah.

    10. YF

      Yep. It saves that.

    11. CW

      It just, as soon as you do that, it just takes that.

    12. YF

      Okay.

    13. CW

      But there's also a, an option when you highlight something, you can press on it and make a note-

    14. YF

      Right.

    15. CW

      ... in the Kindle. But you don't need to... I, I do that very rarely. That's maybe, like, one in 20.

    16. YF

      And, and it then emails them back to you or something like that? Or-

    17. CW

      Yeah. Just randomly-

    18. YF

      Randomly.

    19. CW

      ... randomly picks, randomly picks them up and pulls them through, and then as they come through you can either discard them or favorite them or just leave them. And I think I have thousands, thousands of highlights now.

    20. YF

      That's pretty cool. So like every day, you just get a little reminder of something you've read in the past.

    21. CW

      I get four, four little passages and... Yeah, i- i- one thing that it's done which I need to deprogram is now, sometimes I want to highlight something because I think it's important in the book-

    22. YF

      (laughs)

    23. CW

      ... but I know, I, I, I actually start thinking about how that's going to appear when it comes up on my Readwise.

    24. YF

      (laughs)

    25. CW

      I'm like, "No, no, no, no. Like, you're not highlighting stuff for Readwise, you're highlighting stuff because it needs highlighted." But, um...

    26. YF

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      Yeah. I, it's, it's, it's great. If you read, if you use a Kindle, I think Readwise is, is mandatory really because it'll just continue to redeliver you these, the best bits of books that you've already been through.

    28. YF

      That's cool.

    29. JF

      You're so deep in the Kindle ecosystem. I love it. I, I, I need to do that as well 'cause I, I've, I've just, people keep getting me physical books and now I've just got to get through them before I convert.

    30. YF

      I bet you, that's bitter sweet for you I imagine.

  11. 41:48 – 47:54

    Quarterly reviews made easier: use calendar + camera roll as prompts

    1. YF

      Um, a hack for improving a review process. So if anyone listened to Chris's interview with Chris Sparks in December, end of December, talks about like week- uh, talks about monthly reviews, um, or quarterly reviews. So as we're recording this, it's like the end of quarter one of 2021. So I always find reviewing, you know the, like the standard review questions of like what went well, what didn't go well? Where the hell do you begin with that? Especially if you're like looking back over a long period of time. Again, this is something we may have already covered but it's something that's been more relevant for me recently. So I think an easy way to prompt your memory of what went well and what didn't go well is look at your, firstly your calendar. So if you have events, things that you've done, stuff that you've went like, I mean, it's maybe not that good at this point but generally like people you saw, stuff you did, um, highlights and it's really easy to pick out 'cause you look up days and you're like, "Oh yeah, that was awesome." Maybe you've completely forgotten about it until you see it on the calendar. Or like actually that week was rubbish and here's why. So it's a really easy way...... you just treat your calendar like a past record of what happened, and then you've got it ready to go and saved. Or your, if you take a lot of photos, your, your photo reel, like your camera reel on your phone as a way of just remembering things that happened or places that you've been to, et cetera. So, uh, just an easier way to prompt the memories, 'cause I think it's quite easy to forget things that went well or didn't go well.

    2. JF

      So, can I just add something to that? Day One have now, um, they, they look like they're moving more in that direction. So they've, they're launching deeper calendar integration, more kind of photos, integration and stuff, so that you can basically like, yeah, whip through almost a, a museum of your life.

    3. YF

      That's cool.

    4. JF

      Pretty, pretty cool.

    5. CW

      What was that thing? Was it Timehop? Do you remember Timehop?

    6. YF

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

    7. JF

      Oh, yeah.

    8. CW

      Which was-

    9. YF

      Like, nearly five years ago.

    10. CW

      ... you logged in on all of your different social media accounts, and it would show you what-

    11. JF

      And they steal all your data, and they sell it to China, and, yeah.

    12. CW

      (laughs)

    13. YF

      Day One, Day One does that already. So whenever you make a new entry in Day One, it's like, "In 2015, on this day, you were doing..." Then you're like, "Bloody hell, I had totally forgotten about that." But it's kind of a different... You don't think like, "Oh, yeah, that's helpful to review 2015." You know? (laughs) It's not-

    14. CW

      So, you're saying that when you're doing a review, check your calendar and your photos, because it's a good prompt.

    15. YF

      It's just stuff that pr- most people... So I know, I think Yusuf deletes calendar entries. So some, maybe some people do that. I don't know. Like I personally-

    16. CW

      No one does that.

    17. YF

      ... once a day, past-

    18. CW

      No one does that.

    19. YF

      (laughs) Well, you, you never know. So like-

    20. JF

      It's because I'm, I'm one of those perverts that uses a calendar and calendar events as to-do items, so-

    21. YF

      Perverts. (laughs)

    22. JF

      ... keeping them on.

    23. CW

      Disgusting. Disgusting. (laughs)

    24. YF

      Um, but yeah. So like, if, like I can look at January and remember like key things that happened, um, like stuff that I did or stuff that... Um, but it, it is more events-based. And then photos are things that you... Usually if something's memorable or like interesting, most people's reaction at this point is to take a photo of it. So if you've got that as well, it's a way of like... Mo- most people's photo reel on their phone is like highlights of, of stuff that's happened, right? So it's a really easy way to, to look back.

    25. CW

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

    26. 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.

    27. CW

      Have you split that into-

    28. YF

      Yeah.

    29. CW

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

    30. 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.

  12. 47:54 – 53:46

    Apple Photos as a searchable life database + shared albums for events

    1. JF

      So I was gonna do a physical one, but actually, um, I think this one's taken the, the, the limelight because of what Jonny's just said, which is the Apple Photos app, particularly the Mac version, but they, they integrate so well. Um, I've upgraded to the, the full bells and whistles iCloud storage just because it's like, it's just so smooth now. And I went through a process of, you know, a, a few years ago when, when my dad died and we cleared out the house, there was loads of like family photos and all that kind of stuff, and there's ju- like, so much stuff that you get archived. And we've like been arranging to get it scanned, and then you're like, "Oh, now I've just got like folders of old memories that aren't really doing anything." So I went through and basically just put them all into Apple Photos. Still got the rest to be digitized by a, a company. But what it, what it allows you to do is, it just makes everything fully searchable. 'Cause by the time you've got over 1000 photos, you're never gonna be like looking through them individually. And quite often you want to pick one for a specific purpose or to make a card for someone or whatever.... and so what Apple Photos does is you tag people's faces in it, and it links with your contacts, and then it'll start to recognize more photos of that person. And also, location tags, if you took the photo with your phone. So suddenly, rather than having folders or whatever, you've just got a fully searchable database where you can type in someone's name, or you can type in, like, Belgium or 2017 or whatever, and it's- it's just, like, the smoothest experience. So I think if you can learn to leverage it fully and also be quite selective about what you put into Apple Photos, don't just, like ... You know when you're out and you take, like, 10 photos of someone at- on a bridge, and you're like, some of them are like that, and then you, and you just say, "Oh, I'll- I'll sort them out later," or, "I'll delete the dodgy ones in a bit," and you never get round to it. You need to make a habit of, like, either at the end of the day or just at the time, like, picking the best photo rather than, like, leaving all seven in there.

    2. YF

      It makes, like, little video montages as well, doesn't it, and plays them?

    3. CW

      That's so funny. (laughs)

    4. JF

      Oh, yeah.

    5. YF

      Plays music over them.

    6. CW

      Yeah. Tw- your- your 2020. (laughs)

    7. JF

      Here we go.

    8. YF

      (laughs)

    9. JF

      Just a bunch of, like, selfies.

    10. YF

      (laughs)

    11. JF

      On your own in the room.

    12. CW

      You're looking lonely, yeah, existential crises. Yeah, so what do you use Apple Photos for mostly? 'Cause I don't know about you, Johnny, but I very rarely go back through my photos. It's just a, it's a media storage device...

    13. JF

      Oh.

    14. CW

      ... as far as I'm concerned for-

    15. JF

      Like, I'm- I'm bit ... Okay, so let- let me talk you through, 'cause I've got a bunch.

    16. CW

      'Cause you don't strike me ... we don't take a lot of photos when we're together, so I don't know whether-

    17. JF

      Yeah, we- we don't. I- I feel like we should take more 'cause we're, like, we're usually having too much fun to take photos. We're not, "Oh, actually, like-"

    18. CW

      Yeah.

    19. JF

      "... it would be quite a good..." So I've got-

    20. YF

      Or our body- just buy body cams.

    21. CW

      (laughs)

    22. JF

      Body ... Yeah, that's what we need.

    23. YF

      (laughs)

    24. JF

      Um, so I've got a shared album with my girlfriend, so any time we're, like, out somewhere or whatever and we take some photos, we just both put them into the shared album, and then we've got, like-

    25. YF

      Great idea.

    26. JF

      Yeah.

    27. YF

      Like, that's- that's better than the original hack.

    28. CW

      (laughs)

    29. JF

      Yeah. Well- well, the original hack was just use Apple Photos, isn't it?

    30. YF

      Right.

  13. 53:46 – 1:10:04

    Habits mantra: ‘Don’t practice what you do not want to become’

    1. CW

      Uh, right. My next one is a quote from, I think it's originally from, uh, James Clear. "Don't practice what you do not want to become." And basically, it reminds us that there is no such thing as not instantiating a habit. You're always embedding some form of habit. It's either, is it the one that you want to do, or is it one that you don't want to do? There is no, "Oh, well, th- this isn't me doing a thing." No, no, no, no. Even not doing a thing is doing a thing. And do not pra- or don't practice what you do not want to become is such a lovely little mantra to remind yourself that when you're stuck between two choices, between the thing that you know that you probably should do and the thing that maybe the lazy present self is tempting you to do, okay, is this version what I want to become? It almost invariably it's going to be no. So it reminds you t- to take a third-party perspective. It takes you out of your, th- the present self, which is inevitably lazy and takes the path of least resistance. It's just, how do I want to look back on today tomorrow? What would I have wanted me to do right now? And almost always, you make the right choice. So should I hit the snooze button? Okay, well, do you want to become the sort of person that regularly hits the snooze button? Because if you hit snooze today, not hitting snooze tomorrow will be harder.... not easier. (smacks lips) The way the pro-

    2. JF

      Yeah. Y- y- you're right, you can't be like, "Oh, well this, this doesn't count." And you know, Kate Loughlin says something similar of, "You're always practicing something." And so the... Oh, I think I heard another one that's like, there's no... This isn't the dress rehearsal, like this is just your life. Like you can't be like, "Oh no, but this is the rehearsal so it's fine, I'll just snooze today." It's a scary one.

    3. YF

      It's the, it's caving to the, like, mental narrative of like, "Oh, like, this time it's a one-off but tomorrow, like, tomorrow, next week, Monday I'll... It'll be different." Like, that... As soon as you fall for that trick, you're more likely to fall for it every subsequent time, which means you're less and less likely forever to do the thing that you're trying to do.

    4. JF

      And then you're just drilling the habit of, "Oh-"

    5. YF

      Delaying.

    6. JF

      ... "this time X, Y, and Zed."

    7. CW

      Of listening, yeah, precisely. There's layers and-

    8. YF

      Awful.

    9. CW

      ... layers of, of how you're talking to yourself and what the habits are. But the e- the way that myelin works, you don't get to not lay myelin sheaths down in your brain. The e- action that you make will lay down some sort of pathway, so you might as well decide to reinforce the ones of the things that you want to do, not the ones of the things that you don't want to do.

    10. JF

      Here's a question. If you could voluntarily, like, have a timeout button for your brain that you could turn on or off, would you have one installed?

    11. CW

      What would happen?

    12. JF

      So, no myelin is laid down when the timeout is enabled.

    13. CW

      Oh God, yeah.

    14. JF

      Yeah?

    15. CW

      I'd just go crazy.

    16. JF

      There's a little light.

    17. CW

      I'd go... Well, the... 'Cause that's what people think is happening when they give themselves a day off, when they give themselves a, "Right, okay, well I'm not going to follow my diet, I'm not going to do my morning routine, I'm not going to train, I'm not going to get up on time." That's what they think is happening. They think, "Oh well, yeah, but, like, this is just... I, I'm... This doesn't really count. It doesn't matter." When what it is is just another day that's chipping into the days of good habits. Johnny.

    18. YF

      Guys, I'm gonna have to go to the toilet.

    19. CW

      Okay, that's fine. We can talk-

    20. YF

      Can I go?

    21. CW

      We can talk about you while you go. Come on.

    22. YF

      All right, cool. Two secs.

    23. JF

      It's normally me as well.

    24. CW

      It is?

    25. JF

      Like, at the end of a, a Life Hacks. Uh, my bladder is bursting, but luckily I went for the pre-wee.

    26. CW

      What have you done this week?

    27. JF

      I have been finishing up my geriatrics rotation, so-

    28. CW

      What are you onto next?

    29. JF

      Moving onto a GP practice, which is the, the make or break. So w- interestingly, speaking of kind of productivity, I know people that have performed so well in... So, i- Julian, for example, performed so well in his GP kind of entrance application that he didn't have to do an interview and he just got a job secured on the GP training program. When he did his rotation in GP, he sacked it off because he was like, "This is not the kind of neat, day has clear boundaries kind of situation that you'd have in a hospital where you turn up, you're handed over some stuff, you do the jobs, and then at the end of the day you hand it over to someone else and it's continuous." In GP practice it's like, there's a bunch of stuff that happens on Monday and then you've got to follow it up on the Wednesday, and you've got to make... write the 50 letters here, and, and it just opens up a bunch of loops, and it doesn't get to the poin... You know, you, you don't have a clear end to each day so you've just got like this ongoing mass of stuff to do. So, it'll be interesting to see how-

    30. CW

      So will you be a GP for a short while?

  14. 1:10:04 – 1:14:15

    Micro-productivity: answer emails while you’re forced to wait

    1. CW

      Shit. Right. Uh, this is one that all of us will do, I'm almost certain, but we haven't put it on the life hacks before, which is answer emails when you're waiting for something. So, if you are sat waiting for food to be delivered outside of a restaurant, or you've gone to the mechanic's and your car's getting done, there's a number of different things that you could do. You could browse the internet. You could look on social media. But inevitably, there's always a bunch of emails that you need to, you need to get through. Maybe you've got a bunch of different inboxes. Maybe you've got, like, a public-facing inbox that you need to ... you batch it once every couple of weeks or something like that. And, um, the beauty of using time where life thinks it's got you to actually get it. You're like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no."

    2. JF

      (laughs)

    3. CW

      You don't make me wait. You don't make me wait. I'm, I'm going to stop me waiting in real life when you're making me wait in this mechanic's place, at QuickFit.

    4. JF

      The old switcheroo. I like it.

    5. CW

      Yeah, exactly.

    6. YF

      (laughs)

    7. CW

      And, um, no, I just think ... (laughs)

    8. JF

      It's a special counterattack.

    9. YF

      I've always got this image of Chris sat in QuickFit just going ...

    10. CW

      Really smug. Really smugly sat in QuickFit. "Mate, are you, uh-"

    11. JF

      I hope that you say it after.

    12. CW

      "Excuse me, mate, your, uh, your car's finished, and are you smirking?" (laughs)

    13. YF

      (laughs)

    14. JF

      I'm hoping that the thought process is spoken out. Like, "Ah, life, you thought you'd got me today."

    15. CW

      (laughs) Oh-ho, you think you've got me, don't you?

    16. YF

      Not today, life.

    17. JF

      Not today, my friend.

    18. YF

      "I'm afraid it's going to be a 20-minute wait, mate." "No problem, sir."

    19. CW

      Don't you worry, good friend. Yeah, I, um ... answer your emails when you're waiting for stuff. Just, you can just tick through them. Slowly move through whatever it is. You, you can't do the complex ones that need opening up a Google Doc and referring to stuff, and, "Oh, can you send over the attachments for whatever." But the vast majority of emails aren't that. The vast majority of emails are just you confirming that you've received an email from someone, or, "What's your address? What's your email?" Whatever stuff it might be. And, um, yeah, just chew through that. Uh, I've found ... 'Cause when you're waiting, there's an upper bound, I think, on how cognitively complex the things are that you can do. I don't think that you would be able to, "Oh, I'll, I'll write this sales copy for my new thing," or, "I'll update my CV."

    20. JF

      It's really cognitively something-

    21. CW

      Like, you're not gonna be able to sync yourself into a deep state. Yeah, precisely. But the vast majority of email work isn't deep. It's just shallow and frequent. So, answer your emails when you're waiting for shit.

    22. JF

      Have you ever said, "I hope this email finds you well"?

    23. CW

      I've said, "Hope you-"

    24. YF

      Maybe.

    25. CW

      I've said, "Hope you're well."

    26. YF

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      I've never said, "I hope this email finds you well." That seems a bit pompous.

    28. JF

      I think that's one of the weirdest things to say, but people do it all the time.

    29. YF

      Like, when it finds you?

    30. JF

      Well, that's it. Is it like-

Episode duration: 1:30:41

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