Note Apps, Book Summaries & iPhone Tips - Life Hacks 205 | Modern Wisdom Podcast 341

Yusef Smith 0:00 I suppose I've got to start with-

Jonny Watson 0:02 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 0:02 ... the biggest announcement of the year. I'm leaving Evernote. It's official.

Chris Williamson 0:06 Oh, okay.

Jonny Watson 0:07 Having a written down warm up that you do each time makes such a difference in training. It's like year seven PE level advice. This is like-

Chris Williamson 0:16 Arm circles. Do you do arm circles?

Jonny Watson 0:17 Yes. I, so I actually do arm circles.

Chris Williamson 0:20 Hang on, hang on. Can I, can we back up for-

Jonny Watson 0:22 You start small and then go bigger.

Chris Williamson 0:22 Can we back up for a second? Are you, as an international level power lifter, telling us that a game changing life hack for you is doing a warm up? Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome back to the show. It is another life hacks episode. Tools, techniques, and tactics for a productive and efficient life. I tried to get some of the world's most productive people on to join me today, but none of them were available. Then I asked Dominic Cummings, he wasn't available. So I've settled for Johnny and Yusef from propanefitness.com. Welcome to the show gentlemen.

Jonny Watson 0:55 Hello.

Yusef Smith 0:56 Thanks for having us.

Chris Williamson 0:57 It's a pleasure. What have you been doing recently other than the first time that we've been out for food in a venue post pandemic so far? Happened last night.

Jonny Watson 1:08 Not much. Well, it feels like I'm doing a lot, but that's just like occasionally leaving the house and going to places ...

Chris Williamson 1:14 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 1:14 ... which feels like, gosh, like I can't handle this.

Chris Williamson 1:17 Novelty.

Jonny Watson 1:17 My, my calendar is really strained.

Chris Williamson 1:20 Novelty.

Jonny Watson 1:20 But yeah, it's, I'm, I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying like the slow ... I'm pleased that there's like a, there's a road map of, of gradual release 'cause I think if it had just been in your house for a year and then everything's available.

Chris Williamson 1:32 Like features of Apple products, like you don't want the virtual reality headset right now. You want it-

Jonny Watson 1:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:37 ... to be drip fed to us over the-

Jonny Watson 1:38 That's a, that's a great way of looking at it. I don't think anyone will be ready for like augmented reality, so you need to phase it in, don't you?

Chris Williamson 1:44 Fine, fine, yeah. Just push it back. Keep on pushing it back by four weeks. Anyway, uh, on this episode if you're not familiar with life hacks, we go through whatever we've come up with to make life a little bit more efficient and effective over the last few months since our last episode. All the links to everything that we talk about, if there's any discount codes or whatever will be in the show notes below. And, as is tradition up first is a hot potato for Jonathan Watson. There you go Johnny.

Jonny Watson 2:06 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:07 What have you, what have you got for us?

Jonny Watson 2:09 Got it. Got it. Uh, I have a, an automation, a phone, an iPhone automation. Uh, as we were just talking about, I just have, uh, an old, cheap, chatty iPhone XR so I'm sure the new ones can just do this automatically. But one of the automations I have set up is to automatically turn on low power mode at a low battery percentage, which just gives me peace of mind a little bit, a little bit extra.

Yusef Smith 2:37 Gives a nice landing strip, doesn't it?

Chris Williamson 2:39 Hang on. Is that not in-built already at 20%? Is there not an option that pops up and says, "Battery is low. Do you want to turn on low power mode?"

Jonny Watson 2:47 I don't even get that, I don't get that. It just ... It's already on.

Chris Williamson 2:49 From when?

Jonny Watson 2:50 So when battery, battery 20%, when battery hits 20% it just turns on. There's an automation that runs that just turns on low power mode.

Chris Williamson 2:58 So you've saved yourself from this notification that I'm talking about?

Jonny Watson 3:02 'Cause it-

Chris Williamson 3:02 Nice.

Jonny Watson 3:02 The notification happens quite a lot, doesn't it?

Chris Williamson 3:04 Moderately.

Jonny Watson 3:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:05 Frequently, yeah.

Jonny Watson 3:06 So-

Chris Williamson 3:06 So how do you do it? Where do you find the automation?

Jonny Watson 3:08 So it's in, you know the, there's like a shortcuts, uh, app-

Chris Williamson 3:11 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 3:11 ... inside of your iPhone, in there. So if you have it just to play around, it, it's something that I've wanted to like ask you both about whether you have any of these. Maybe there'll be some coming out today. But there's, there's loads of stuff you can do. You can like custom code things. The most advanced I've got is I have a shortcut to my inbox on, in OmniFocus and I, it turns on low power mode. But it's just little things that you do all the time that you could, you can just make your iPhone do for you.

Chris Williamson 3:35 I made one-

Jonny Watson 3:36 ... about to produce one.

Chris Williamson 3:37 I made one that turns that blue light on there behind the vertical bookcase in my bedroom. And it also, hey Siri, uh, enabled, so "Hey Siri, turn on the bedroom light." That comes on. Big pimpin'.

Jonny Watson 3:52 That's cool.

Chris Williamson 3:52 Big pimpin'.

Jonny Watson 3:53 Can you turn it off?

Chris Williamson 3:54 Ali, Ali Abdal's is, "Okay Google, turn on fire and ice," and all fucking hell breaks loose in the room where he (laughs) , where he records his videos. Like things descend from the ceiling. This small woman comes up, Veni- uh, Consuela comes out of the floor and makes sure that she's swept everything and cleaned it away. And then she descends back into the basement. (laughs)

Jonny Watson 4:16 You've got to wonder why he's got a Google Home thing though.

Chris Williamson 4:20 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 4:20 That's ab-

Chris Williamson 4:20 Haven't heard about.

Yusef Smith 4:21 That was my first thought.

Jonny Watson 4:22 That kind of weakens the whole thing. Like it's cool, but obviously ...

Chris Williamson 4:25 I'm pretty sure-

Yusef Smith 4:26 So-

Chris Williamson 4:26 ... it's Okay Google. I'm pretty sure it is.

Jonny Watson 4:28 Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Yusef Smith 4:30 Shortcuts are coming to Mac in November, which is going to be big.

Chris Williamson 4:36 Will it? Because-

Yusef Smith 4:37 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:37 ... are most shortcuts not already enabled by third party applications?

Jonny Watson 4:43 Alfredo.

Yusef Smith 4:45 Yes, but so what, what shortcuts for Mac is going to be is an overlay of Automator, 'cause Automator is a bit big and scary. It's like the, this Terminal for the real Navy Seals.

Chris Williamson 4:57 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 4:57 And then there's Automator for like the, the infantry, and then there's Shortcuts for the preschool-

Chris Williamson 5:03 Kindergartens, yeah. Yeah. (laughs) Precisely.

Yusef Smith 5:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:05 Okay, cool. So automatically turn on low power mode and you go into shortcuts for that. Yusef the Smith master-

Yusef Smith 5:12 So-

Chris Williamson 5:12 ... what have you got for us?

Yusef Smith 5:13 ... I, I suppose I've got to start with the biggest announcement of the year, is that I'm leaving Evernote.

Chris Williamson 5:22 Oh.

Yusef Smith 5:22 It's official.

Chris Williamson 5:23 Okay. To go to?

Yusef Smith 5:26 And so Apple Notes, after all that, it was right under our noses. Now-

Jonny Watson 5:32 Chris's sort of slowly emerging smug face as Yusef's talking. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 5:38 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 5:38 Yeah, so funnily enough Apple Notes over time has just become more and more robust, stable, fast, and Evernote has managed to ... I've never seen a software company manage to actively kamikaze themselves, like-

Chris Williamson 5:52 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 5:54 It, it, they were doing so well and then-

Chris Williamson 5:57 First mover advantage, huge customer base, really bought in, uh, community.

Yusef Smith 6:03 ... and then they just pulled the pin. They were like, "Oh, you know what would be great? If we just-"

Jonny Watson 6:08 Knock it.

Yusef Smith 6:08 "... nuke our building, just knock every..." Yeah.

Jonny Watson 6:11 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 6:11 (laughs) "Just send all of our customers a poo in the post."

Chris Williamson 6:14 Yeah. Okay, so-

Yusef Smith 6:16 That's, that's the equivalent of what they've done.

Chris Williamson 6:17 ... um, what are the three things that have meant, made you leave Evernote and what are the three things that have made you, uh, go to Apple Notes?

Yusef Smith 6:23 Speed. So Evernote used to be fast, external brain, being able to quickly access anything in the command bar. And they got rid of the command bar, and they made it slower. Now, those two things alone, for something that's supposed to function as an external brain, means it's no longer fit for purpose. You, you, your, your brain cannot have a lag.

Jonny Watson 6:45 Mm-hmm.

Yusef Smith 6:45 Even if it's only a five or a 10-second lag. The mobile app can be up to 30 seconds and that's, it's not acceptable for something. So even though there's a few features that you might lose, I think for the sake of Apple Notes, with the Alfred shortcuts so that it's basically, you can access a note from anywhere, definitely worth it. And there's a few exciting things coming to Apple Notes as well, which is tags and Quick Note. So you can just have like in the corner of a screen a kind of workingmemory.txt that Cal Newport calls it, to just bung things in. So if you're in a webpage or whatever, you can keyboard shortcut, just send it straight to that Quick Note and deal with it later. Something that you can do now on iPhone is change one of the settings so that, you know when you swipe in from the top, the control center, there's a note button, and you can ask it to always open up the same one. And that can be your like-

Chris Williamson 7:38 Ooh, brain dump, active-

Yusef Smith 7:39 Yeah, your scratch pad.

Chris Williamson 7:40 ... working memory thing. Yeah, that's cool.

Jonny Watson 7:42 That's cool. Yeah. That is very cool.

Chris Williamson 7:43 Why, why not Notion?

Yusef Smith 7:46 Notion's good, but it's not really a writing, it's not really a writing app. It's more of a workspace. Like we use Notion with Propane. It's great for collaboration and tables and internal databases. And it's good for organizing like bits of information, content feed, that kind of thing. Um, but it's cloud-based. It's not, you don't own your notes, and so if you're offline, you can't access stuff.

Chris Williamson 8:11 Right.

Yusef Smith 8:11 So yeah, if, if they introduce offline mode, which they keep saying they won't, but if someone comes along and did that. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:20 Mm-hmm. I have to say, so for the people that aren't really into note-taking, as I really haven't ever been a, I started on Evernote because you told me to, and I used it for a bit, and it was okay. It was more power usery, I guess, than Apple Notes. But I've just checked here, I have 1,824 notes on Apple Notes. Um, every, uh, set of notes for a guest, for an episode is on there. All of the tracking for my adverts and stuff are on there. For the more power-based stuff, it really is far too unsophisticated because it's just a, a really slimmed down Word document. Um, but for the seamless stuff like you're talking about and the brain dumping stuff, it really is great. That being said-

Yusef Smith 8:56 The synchronization as well between devices.

Chris Williamson 8:58 It's seamless.

Yusef Smith 8:59 Like, absolutely-

Chris Williamson 8:59 Well, I'll, I'll be outside in the garden or I'll go for a walk listening to a guest, noting down some things I might want to talk to them about, and then I can be finishing a note as I walk in the door and see it pop up on the computer as I walk toward it, which is-

Yusef Smith 9:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:11 ... it's shit hot, right? When this is the advantage of going single architecture, single operating system, Apple across everything, but you can seamlessly link your AirPods between different devices and switch between the two and all the rest of it. Um, what do you use, Johnny?

Jonny Watson 9:27 So it's, it's interesting hearing you talk about your, your Apple Notes volume because when Yusef told me this, I looked at my Apple Notes and I have 1,529 notes. And I was saying this to Yusef that like, I try to use-

Chris Williamson 9:43 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 9:43 Um, so I try to use No- I try to use Evernote.

Chris Williamson 9:45 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 9:46 And I try to use Notion and I try to use Craft, um, all on kind of use, as Yusef's evolved through this journey, kind of people have mentioned things-

Chris Williamson 9:53 We're just lagging behind him holding onto the coattails- (laughs)

Jonny Watson 9:55 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:55 ... of the premium productivity guy.

Jonny Watson 9:57 But, but when, when I like need to write something down, I just, without even thinking about it, I open my phone-

Chris Williamson 10:03 Default.

Jonny Watson 10:03 ... I open Apple Notes and I just make a quick note and then...

Yusef Smith 10:06 But why is that? 'Cause it's, it's quick. It's just like-

Chris Williamson 10:08 Yeah. Yeah.

Yusef Smith 10:09 There's no lag.

Jonny Watson 10:10 Yeah. So like, I suppose with Evernote, like you open it up and then you make a note and then you've got to make sure later on that like you put the note in the right place and it feels, for some reason, like it's not this just freeform thing that you can put information into. Whereas Apple Notes is just, it's literally just a list of notes.

Chris Williamson 10:26 Yeah. Which is kind of what you need.

Jonny Watson 10:27 It, it kind of has, has now folders and stuff now and they've made it, they've made it better, but the original Apple Notes was like ju- literally just a list of blank documents. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 10:35 If they could, if they could have the main feature from Notion, which is pages within pages, so hyperlinking notes within notes and nesting them and organizing the structure of the, um, folder system in that way, that would, that would be game over as, 'cause that's the only thing that I'm really missing. It's such a, uh, uh, actually that and the toggle function, you know, to toggle down-

Jonny Watson 10:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:57 ... um, those are the two main... Uh, like if you think about that, it's not exactly a power user feature, but from a user, uh, interface perspective, it's so useful.

Yusef Smith 11:05 So space efficient, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 11:06 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 11:06 Like have that accordion. Yeah. And, well, I suppose another one for people to check out then if, if you want what Chris just described, but you're kind of in between like not wanting to do like Roam Research or Obsidian, is have a look at something called Nota. It's currently in beta. N-O-T-A.md. Absolutely beautiful. Like it's, it's just amazing. It's a Markdown editor though, so it won't work as an external-

Chris Williamson 11:30 Oh, God. Okay.

Yusef Smith 11:30 ... break 'cause you can't put big files in.

Chris Williamson 11:32 This is serious shit now.

Yusef Smith 11:32 But it, if it's purely for writing-

Chris Williamson 11:34 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 11:34 ... and yeah, linking your ideas, then do that.

Chris Williamson 11:35 Well, if you're just doing writing, what's the... Is it Odyssey? Not Odyssey.

Yusef Smith 11:39 Obsidian.

Chris Williamson 11:40 No, there's another one. Um, there's Scrivener, which a lot of people use. Uh, and what else? Yeah, Scrivener's one of them, but has-

Yusef Smith 11:49 Oh, uh, Ulysses.

Chris Williamson 11:50 Ulysses, that's it.

Yusef Smith 11:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:52 Yes.

Yusef Smith 11:52 So those ones are for like screen, writing screenplays and novels and that kind of thing.

Chris Williamson 11:57 Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Anyway, my first one, so this is from my, uh, speech coach, Myles, and he identified the fact that when you're singing Happy Birthday for someone, everybody begins one octave higher than they should do.... and then when you get three-quarters of the way-

Yusef Smith 12:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:12 ... through the song and you need to do the key change, you get nailed by that high note. So-

Yusef Smith 12:18 (singing)

Chris Williamson 12:19 Yeah, exactly.

Yusef Smith 12:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:20 So, what you really want to do is give it beans at the start, like... << Happy birthday to you >> Like, and then when it gets to the << Happy bir... >> you can just... You've easy-... You've got to give yourself headroom above-

Yusef Smith 12:35 That's right.

Chris Williamson 12:35 ... the happy birthday song, right?

Yusef Smith 12:36 That's really-

Chris Williamson 12:36 Start one octave lower than you think that you need to, and you... And then if the kids aren't impressed, grab their face, smash it into the cake, and go, "Are you not entertained?"

Yusef Smith 12:44 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 12:45 Fantastic, especially the second part. So, if you're... So, you- you start off sounding like a bit of a willy, but you have the last laugh because you hit that high note when no one else does.

Chris Williamson 12:54 Key change. Everyo- everyone else sounds like a 13-year-old trying to speak. You go, "Ooh, oh, oh, oh."

Jonny Watson 13:01 Well, what, what people tend to do is just, just almost kind of mouth that section.

Chris Williamson 13:06 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 13:06 Or just mime it. But then, you're left-

Chris Williamson 13:07 Especially the men.

Jonny Watson 13:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:09 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 13:09 You're left with kind of the, the few sort of strong people who can hit that note. S-... But the, the worry is if you're still leading the pack and bellowing, you might be the only person singing.

Chris Williamson 13:17 Doesn't matter.

Jonny Watson 13:18 Depends on how good you are singing it to start with.

Chris Williamson 13:18 Doesn't matter. Everyone's going to be like, "Did he start one octave lower?"

Jonny Watson 13:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:23 "Fucking hell, he must listen to Modern Wisdom Life Hacks."

Jonny Watson 13:26 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:26 Um, yeah. But there's always, there's always a couple of people. I've always noticed this, when you're singing Happy Birthday, there's always a couple of people that are classically trained in theater-

Jonny Watson 13:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:35 ... and belting out some operatic cello monster from the far side of the room. And you're like, "I'll just leave it to you."

Jonny Watson 13:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:44 "Leave it to you." Anyway.

Jonny Watson 13:45 I really, I really don't like singing Happy Birthday, to be honest.

Chris Williamson 13:47 What would you... Do you... What do you-

Jonny Watson 13:49 It's too long.

Chris Williamson 13:49 Do you prefer For He's A G- A Jolly Good Fellow or Hip Hip Hooray? Hip Hip Hooray is-

Jonny Watson 13:54 I, I'd rather just do away with the whole thing.

Chris Williamson 13:56 Really?

Jonny Watson 13:57 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 13:58 It's, it's just a bit too long, like, just awkwardly. Especially if you're the one being sung to and you start with the cake, like...

Chris Williamson 14:04 Mm-hmm. I think that's part of it. I think part of it is the cringe-fest awkwardness that you need to endure. Because if it was easy, it wouldn't be a sacrifice by anyone.

Yusef Smith 14:15 It's the birthday bumps, but the, the PC new version, isn't it? The social birthday bumps.

Chris Williamson 14:19 With ja- with jazz hands.

Jonny Watson 14:21 Yeah. The, the slight social awkwardness that everyone has to endure that you're kind of, like, seen as a bit miserable and grumpy if you don't, like, smile and play along.

Chris Williamson 14:31 Mm-hmm. But it's his birthday. Yes, it's everyone's birthday once a year.

Jonny Watson 14:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:36 Right. Yonathan Blobson, what you got?

Jonny Watson 14:39 Yonathan, um-

Chris Williamson 14:40 Johan Sebastian.

Jonny Watson 14:42 So, this, this one I think you, you might both be... Well, Yousef won't be surprised about it because I've already told him about it, but I think you might be surprised at it, Chris, which is Blinkist.

Chris Williamson 14:55 Okay. We've technically, technically already featured this three-

Jonny Watson 15:00 Probably.

Chris Williamson 15:00 ... three years ago. But-

Yusef Smith 15:02 (groans)

Chris Williamson 15:02 ... I'm more, more than happy for you to-

Yusef Smith 15:04 You know what this is? The messy middle. Like, you, he's gone from, like, the, the low end...

Chris Williamson 15:09 (laughs) Just, just read book summaries to must-have fully architected-

Yusef Smith 15:13 To, to read the full thing.

Chris Williamson 15:14 Yeah, to, "Just read book summaries." (laughs)

Jonny Watson 15:16 Well, I've got, I've got a reason. I've got a reason. I've got a reason.

Chris Williamson 15:17 Okay.

Jonny Watson 15:19 So, the... And I don't think it works for... So, what Blinkist is, for, for anybody who doesn't know, it is a book summary service where they... and Yousef has a, a better version that he'll, he'll introduce in a second called Shortform, I think. Is that right? Shortform?

Chris Williamson 15:34 Optimized.me. There you go.

Jonny Watson 15:36 Um, but they, they summarize it into blinks, which is like, it's like a 15-minute audio of a book. Um, so the... What I, what was happening was I had, like, 15 minutes in the morning where I would, like, want to listen to something. So, I would try and, like, listen to podcasts, but it, it's, like, not enough to get in the most podcasts. And I would try listening to an audiobook, but then you get the, like, "It was a cold, winter's morning in 1985," and you're like, you, you, you end up, like, not really getting anything in 15 minutes.

Chris Williamson 16:03 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 16:04 So, I thought I'd try it out. I'd do the trial. And it doesn't work for every book, is the problem. So, like, books that are incredibly deep and complicated that can't really be done justice in 15 minutes, I wouldn't advise it. But if there's a book that you, like, have always fancied reading, perhaps, that's a fair... Most, most, like, self-improvement books are a single concept that are, that are padded out, that you maybe want to just get into.

Chris Williamson 16:25 What are some good examples of ones that you have Blinkist-ed?

Jonny Watson 16:30 Essentialism, I re-listened to. So, this was my test. So, as I said, I wanted to see if I could get the, sort of the gist of Essentialism from the, from the blinks. And you, you more or less can. I, I think, anyway. Um-

Chris Williamson 16:43 Have you read the full book to compare it to?

Jonny Watson 16:46 Most of the full book (laughs) . Not cover to cover, but most of the full book. So, I... It's a... If you want to kind of pick up concepts from popular books, but you don't want necessarily to commit to read the whole thing, I think it's a pretty good service. When I originally... Go on.

Chris Williamson 17:05 Why not optimized.me? Because I tried both of these f-... three or four years ago, and I compared, and I came up with this, the synopsis of Bryan Johnson does a better job of this.

Jonny Watson 17:17 You think so?

Chris Williamson 17:18 Yeah, I think so, and-

Yusef Smith 17:19 I feel like Bryan Johnson, a- all of his summaries are the same. It's always like-

Jonny Watson 17:23 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 17:23 ... "And this comes back to our fundies. Brush your brain."

Chris Williamson 17:26 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 17:26 "And move your DNA."

Chris Williamson 17:26 "Don't forget about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi." (laughs)

Jonny Watson 17:29 So, I think that's the reason why not Bryan Johnson.

Chris Williamson 17:32 Okay, yeah.

Jonny Watson 17:33 He just, he's just a bit... He's a bit much, isn't he?

Chris Williamson 17:36 Yeah, maybe.

Jonny Watson 17:37 He's a bit annoying.

Chris Williamson 17:38 I mean, I... Given the fact that not many people, especially in the UK, know about him, what he is doing... I'm aware he's got a business underneath him, but optimized.me is a fucking titan.

Jonny Watson 17:51 Does it still exist?

Chris Williamson 17:52 Yeah, yeah. He's going towards his 1,000 Philosopher's Notes. He's getting, working, working his way slowly toward that, isn't he? Which is just ridiculous. What's your preference then, Sef?

Yusef Smith 18:05 Honestly, I am still using... I'm still just doing full books.

Chris Williamson 18:09 Same.

Yusef Smith 18:10 I've never been able to get... And, and it, it's more because-When you're listening to a book summary by Blinkist and so on, I'm sure Johnny might disagree with this, but what you're getting is not the summary of the book, but you're getting what the guy who works at Blinkist deems to be pertinent points of the book. And that might not overlap with what you think are pertinent points of the book. Now, that might be good enough for you to get the gist of it and then say like, "Oh, okay. That's, that's a good idea. I think it functioned as an advert for me to read the full book." So if you're using it as like a tapas to be like, "Oh, yeah. Actually, I like that one. I'll go deeper into this."

Chris Williamson 18:46 Mm-hmm.

Yusef Smith 18:47 Then brilliant. But I don't think you can get the full time and attention with a summary. Unless you-

Chris Williamson 18:53 Completely in sympatico here, mate.

Yusef Smith 18:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 18:57 Like it's, if you, if you like to read books, you get sent lots of suggestions and you don't know what to read, that as a thin end of the wedge to work out, "Should I dedicate..." Ryan Holiday talks about this. He reckons that the rest of his life, he's got about between 200 and 400 books that he can read cover to cover left. That's how much time he thinks he's got. It's like some particular figure. And he goes, "When you think about it like that," you're like, "Okay, am I going to dedicate one of those to something that 300 pages in I'm going to realize is total bollocks?"

Yusef Smith 19:27 Mm-hmm.

Jonny Watson 19:28 So, yeah. Uh, I think it comes down to like why, why are you reading the book? And, uh, so I think, like, pick up the book and think, "Well, why am I reading the book?" Like if it's a, if it's a book that you want to read because you really like the author or you really like the style of writing or you really want to sort of bury yourself in a concept, Blinkist is not the right, uh, strategy for that. But-

Chris Williamson 19:46 Even if you want to enact behavior change, surely. Because let's say Essentialism, right? If you listen to Essentialism for 15 minutes, it's a very profound lifestyle change to become an essentialist, uh, which, uh, I think both me and Youcef have sort of converted to the church of Greg McKeown on this. Um, so it's a good example to use, 'cause both of us are huge evangelists of Essentialism.

Jonny Watson 20:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:11 Um, to absorb that message, which I agree, it is a book that has a single concept, do less of the trivial many, do more of the vital few, focus on your highest contribution. There it is, that's the book.

Jonny Watson 20:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:24 But in order to be able to take that insight and feel the discomfort and hear the stories and learn the examples and think, "Right, this is something I'm actually existentially bought into," I think you can only achieve that unless you are ... And you're not. But unless you are someone that is very easily swayed, like if you can be convinced of an argument in 15 minutes for an entire book's concept so much that you change your life around it, then maybe it works.

Jonny Watson 20:51 Well, I, so I think that depends on the strength of the concept. So like, I think some of, some of the most convincing things I've ever heard of have not been like a five-hour thing, have been like a sin- even like a quote, for example, like a snippet of Stoicism you can read and you're like, "Oh, for fuck's sake."

Chris Williamson 21:05 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 21:05 "That's, that's right." Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:07 It's obvious. Yeah.

Jonny Watson 21:07 That's it. And then you're, you remember it and you can sort of recite it and, and talk about it.

Yusef Smith 21:11 You have to be in a receptive mind state. You have to have an empty enough mind to hear that and be like, "Ah, right." It has to like have enough space inside you for it to bounce around and echo and be like, "Oh, yeah, I need to do this."

Jonny Watson 21:22 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 21:22 But certainly for Essentialism, it was so far at... I was so f- far down the bad habits of being a nonessentialist that even though it took me maybe four months to read the book, like-

Chris Williamson 21:34 Longer. Longer.

Yusef Smith 21:34 ... in, in bits.

Chris Williamson 21:35 I remember because I was tracking it.

Yusef Smith 21:36 Long, longer than that.

Jonny Watson 21:37 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 21:37 But it's still like, that was just about long enough to be able to fully digest it.

Jonny Watson 21:43 Really?

Yusef Smith 21:44 Not because of the complexity, but just because of the like, you, you need it in bits so you can be like, "Ah, yeah. Okay, I need to do this." And...

Jonny Watson 21:52 I think the, the way I look at it is like, it's a, it's an, it's a, it's a single concept that the reality of it is just very hard to do.

Chris Williamson 21:59 Mm-hmm.

Jonny Watson 21:59 So like whether you spend 10 hours reading the book or not, like you don't... I don't think anyone's less, anyone's more effective at saying no to things they ultimately normally do because they spent the entire time reading the book. But, but anyways, that like, another example might be like digital minimalism, digital minimalism, right? Like, you probably don't need to read. And you know, I- I'm sure I'll get criticized by all of the huge fans of these books, but like, I know a lot of people, and I'm one of them, who read the entire book who still have a problem with that, right? So like, I'm absolutely convinced by it. I was convinced by it 10 minutes into the book. I've got the concepts of it. But like did I need to read the whole thing to get the concept? Probably not. Could I have got the same thing from the summary? Probably. So I think it, it... There's a lot of books that kind of fit into that category that are sort of general self-development that are generally a single concept, and there's hundreds of them, thousands of them. And if you want to read a lot of them and explore these different ideas and like pick and choose from a, a menu of things of like, "I might want to try these five things to improve my day," or whatever, I think it's quite a digestible way of doing it. But-

Chris Williamson 23:03 It certainly seems to fit into your daily routine as well. And this is a really important thing that if you have a particular block of time for an amount of time, like the reason that most podcasts aim to be around about an hour to an hour and 20, of the longer ones, is that you can finish a podcast to and from your commute within a day. The, uh...

Jonny Watson 23:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:25 ... the optimal length and why a lot of BBC World Service and all this stuff, their, their podcasts tend to be about half an hour because they just want to get one commute in. Um, so what you need to do is find media types that match the blocks within your day with which you can consume the media types. And as we've seen, if you can just, you, you don't do the audiobook on the morning because you need, uh, to pay an inertial price to get over that momentum so that you actually feel like you're enjoying it. So yeah, man, um, hey, if it works for you, I'm, I'm all for it. Sef, what have you got?

Yusef Smith 23:55 Speaking of birthdays, this is just something you can do as a target for each birthday as you get older to set some kind of like, just some- something fun for yourself so that the, my example, which is the most bro way to do this, is bench press my body weight for my age each year.... and so, something that will j- I mean, it doesn't have to be, it could be, like, say, a physical target or whatever that's associated with your age, just to keep you on your toes and be like, "Oh, okay, like, as I get older, I have to have some measure of, of progress." Like, obviously, it would be lovely to be benching, like, 75 kilos for 70 reps in-

Chris Williamson 24:37 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 24:37 ... in 40 years, but, um, I don't expect it's gonna be achievable forever. Um, but yeah, just having some kind of target so that you're not just, like, aging and crumbling away.

Chris Williamson 24:48 What are the things-

Jonny Watson 24:49 Can you, can you do that?

Yusef Smith 24:51 ... uh, I've not, I didn't do it this year actually. (laughs)

Jonny Watson 24:54 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 24:55 It's a life hack that I don't adhere to, but you should try.

Yusef Smith 24:58 Well, yeah, 'cause, well, 'cause the gyms were closed, so I sort of-

Jonny Watson 25:01 Ah, okay.

Yusef Smith 25:01 ... didn't have a bench press.

Chris Williamson 25:02 Well, Mike, your housemate weighs similar to you. You could have just bench pressed him.

Yusef Smith 25:06 Could have just... Yeah, true, actually. Floor press.

Jonny Watson 25:08 Floor press, yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:09 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 25:09 Harder as well. Still gets most of me.

Yusef Smith 25:11 Be like, "Oh, Mike, sorry, it's my birthday. Do you mind just, uh-"

Chris Williamson 25:13 Lying on me briefly.

Yusef Smith 25:14 "... crossing your legs?"

Chris Williamson 25:14 What other ideas do you think you've got other than bench press?

Yusef Smith 25:17 So, a, a bench press is a bit bro, but you, I mean, a squat, very achievable. Like, for most people well into their 40s, you could squat your body weight for that many reps.

Chris Williamson 25:28 Mm-hmm.

Yusef Smith 25:29 Um, you could run for that many minutes. You could meditate for that many minutes. Um, you could write that many pages, or set it as, like, a, a monthly habit.

Chris Williamson 25:39 Mm-hmm. I like that. Uh, I've got one that we have all used and all used together, and I'm surprised that no one's brought it up yet, so I'm glad that I've managed to take it. Uh, the Aerobie Pro disc-

Jonny Watson 25:51 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:51 ... which is a type of Frisbee, I suppose. If you're... It's technically a disc, as I was, uh, corrected by my coach a couple of weeks ago. I sent him a video of me and said, "I'm playing Frisbee on a field," and he said, "That's not a fucking Frisbee. It's a disc." Uh, apparently, Americans take Frisbee and disc very seriously. But yeah, the Aerobie Pro, it's the record holder for the world's longest, uh, disc throw, uh, which is insane. This guy launches it out of, I think, a baseball stadium or something similar. Uh, and yeah, it's just having that or other similar sort of, uh, games that you can play with a couple of mates or one mate. Slacklining was another one that I got into a couple of years ago, which is awesome. Uh, Aerobie Pro. I got the same Aerobie, um, boomerang that you can use. Um, Nerf, those sort of whistling Nerf, uh, American football things with the fins behind them. Just having that 'cause it's, uh, I think it's 11 pounds or, uh, 12 pounds, and the amount of sheer joy-

Jonny Watson 27:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:00 ... that even just us have got-

Jonny Watson 27:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:02 ... let alone the times that we've used it separately, is ridiculous. Everyone should have one.

Yusef Smith 27:07 It is brilliant.

Chris Williamson 27:07 Everyone should have one.

Yusef Smith 27:08 It's, th- there's a low learning curve. Like, slackline, you can't just be like, "Oh, let's just go out for a quick slackline" with beginners. They have to... But Aerobie, like, anyone can throw something, and if they can't, it's great fodder-

Chris Williamson 27:18 To laugh at them.

Yusef Smith 27:19 ... to laugh at them with.

Chris Williamson 27:19 Yeah. Yeah, we looked, the last time that I did it with you, Yusuf, was we were on a, a field near your house and it was Saturday evening, 6:00 PM, peak, uh, Davidoff Cool Water and barbecue on the ground with cans of Red Stripe time and-

Jonny Watson 27:37 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:37 ... we just decided to find (laughs) the longest straight line in a two-football-field-long field and started launching this thing, perfectly flat really (laughs) 'cause we've practiced quite a lot, so we're quite nosy when it comes to throwing the disc. And, uh, I'm sure everyone else thought that we looked like pricks. But to me, I felt like a king.

Jonny Watson 27:59 That was good.

Yusef Smith 27:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:59 I felt like a king.

Jonny Watson 28:01 It's just you don't want to get it in kind of bridge of the nose do you, if it's kinda coming at... 'cause it's so flat, you can't really see it.

Chris Williamson 28:06 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 28:06 Sometimes it disappears for a second.

Jonny Watson 28:08 Yeah. (laughs)

Yusef Smith 28:09 Before you know it.

Chris Williamson 28:09 You, you have the most elegant disc form, Johnny, ever.

Jonny Watson 28:15 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:16 It just appears... Yeah, it's so smooth, man. Honestly, it's like when you're watching-

Yusef Smith 28:20 So Johnny is amazing at bowling. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:22 Are you really?

Jonny Watson 28:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:23 He's got no long levers, though.

Yusef Smith 28:24 That's really amazing at it.

Jonny Watson 28:25 I think it helps. There's a few things, like there's a few sort of niche things like that where... So with, with, with Frisbee or disc, there was a field in my first year of uni, there was a huge field next to it, and we had a, we had a Aerobie and we just spent hours and hours throwing it. It's like, I think anything like that, if you put a lot of time in.

Chris Williamson 28:44 You get good.

Jonny Watson 28:44 So another, another example of that is Guitar Hero.

Chris Williamson 28:47 No way.

Jonny Watson 28:47 Really, really good at Guitar Hero.

Chris Williamson 28:47 Do you, are you good at Guitar Hero? That is a-

Jonny Watson 28:50 Really, really good at Guitar Hero, yeah. Like- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:50 ... that is a skill that I did not expect you to have.

Jonny Watson 28:53 Expert-level Guitar Hero, no problem.

Chris Williamson 28:55 (laughs) Can you do, what is it, Through Fire and Flame?

Jonny Watson 28:58 Mm-hmm.

Yusef Smith 28:58 Just about to ask. Oh, really?

Jonny Watson 29:00 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:00 Fucking hell.

Yusef Smith 29:00 That's like the ultimate level, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 29:02 I need to see this.

Jonny Watson 29:03 So it's, well, so the, the difficulty with it is, like I, I went into a game about two years ago and said, "Do you still sell Guitar Hero?" And the guy laughed at me.

Chris Williamson 29:11 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 29:13 Just stood, stood and laughed at me. And apparently, it's like this m- the most sought after thing. You just can't get ahold of them. They've just stopped producing it.

Chris Williamson 29:21 That's crazy.

Jonny Watson 29:22 So...

Chris Williamson 29:22 Wow.

Jonny Watson 29:22 But that's not... That... 'Cause H- Guitar Hero is another example of, like, friends round and it's just in the corner and anyone can just have a go-

Chris Williamson 29:29 Just do it, yeah.

Jonny Watson 29:29 ... and some people are naturally really good and some people are terrible.

Chris Williamson 29:31 I guess a Nintendo Wii is probably kind of similar to that, right? It's...

Jonny Watson 29:34 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 29:36 Have you played table tennis on your Oculus Rift?

Chris Williamson 29:39 No, I sold it. I told you I sold it.

Yusef Smith 29:41 You sold it. Apparently... So you, you can play table tennis, and because it's, it's already quite a light game anyway, there's not much, like, resistance. It feels the most real out of all the things you can do in VR.

Chris Williamson 29:51 So does it port across into reality? Do you improve your real-world table tennis tabling?

Yusef Smith 29:56 The... I reckon there's, there'll be a few skills that you can port quite well, like probably surgery to some extent as well.

Chris Williamson 30:02 What I saw-

Yusef Smith 30:02 Um, d-

Chris Williamson 30:03 I saw during the buildup to the Logan Paul-Floyd Mayweather fight that Logan Paul was preparing with a virtual reality headset on and a pair of VR gloves. I don't know whether that was for the workouts and stuff.

Jonny Watson 30:15 Do you know, do you know I have the Quest, the cheap one?

Chris Williamson 30:19 ... quest bars, quest bars.

Jonny Watson 30:21 Do you know this? An Oculus Quest? They, like, th- they brought out a really, like, low-priced one.

Chris Williamson 30:25 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 30:25 Not the one that's a couple grand. It's like 200 quid, Facebook make it.

Chris Williamson 30:29 Mm-hmm.

Jonny Watson 30:30 I own one of those.

Chris Williamson 30:31 Okay.

Jonny Watson 30:31 So I've played- I've played table tennis on it.

Chris Williamson 30:34 We need to test your table tennis.

Yusef Smith 30:35 Someone said, I- I didn't know you had one, yeah. Some- someone said that, um, the next step is that they take, like, a front and side profile photo of you and they can map it as your face. And because it has eye tracking inside it, you could have a chat with someone and be making eye contact with them fully digitally. Just a bit frightening.

Jonny Watson 30:55 Well, they- they've just- they've just added this feature to it, which is hand tracking. So not, you know how there's normally the controllers?

Chris Williamson 31:00 Mm-hmm.

Jonny Watson 31:01 Now you- you can just use your hands. So you can make-

Chris Williamson 31:04 So it does have front-facing cameras?

Jonny Watson 31:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:06 Right.

Jonny Watson 31:07 So you can pinch and throw and grab, and it completely tracks. And the weirdest thing about it is, like, w- why it sometimes feels real is you do that, and the hand responds how you would think your hand responds. And so I suppose there's a- there's a moment where your brain thinks, like-

Chris Williamson 31:23 Well-

Jonny Watson 31:23 ... "This is just r- reality."

Chris Williamson 31:24 ... you've all seen that video of the guy doing the climbing up the side of the mountain-

Yusef Smith 31:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:28 ... in the middle of a GameStop or something, and he falls off that and crashes straight through, in the real world, crashes straight through the screen.

Jonny Watson 31:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:35 Because his body tips him over, thinking that that's what's happened. Anyway, buy an Aerobie Pro Disk. Everybody needs one.

Jonny Watson 31:42 When we do a life hacks on a sofa next, I'll bring the Oculus and we'll film-

Chris Williamson 31:47 Do it.

Jonny Watson 31:47 ... some examples of-

Chris Williamson 31:47 Remember when, before our life hacks, where I made you guys watch, uh, VR porn?

Jonny Watson 31:52 I do remember that. Yeah.

Yusef Smith 31:53 I thought it was a VR horror thing that you showed us.

Chris Williamson 31:55 I showed Johnny the porn.

Yusef Smith 31:57 Oh. (laughs)

Jonny Watson 31:57 All right. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:59 I think, I think.

Jonny Watson 31:59 I'm not sure. I was thinking, like, if Yusuf and I watched the same thing-

Chris Williamson 32:01 (sighs)

Jonny Watson 32:01 ... Yusuf's version of horror-

Chris Williamson 32:02 Horror porn. (laughs)

Jonny Watson 32:04 ... would probably be strange. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:04 Right.

Yusef Smith 32:05 It was like a zombie thing, yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:06 Johan, what have you got?

Jonny Watson 32:08 What, have I g- is it me? Is it not Yusuf?

Chris Williamson 32:11 No, it's just been.

Jonny Watson 32:13 Wh- what, what did he say?

Chris Williamson 32:13 Birthdays is a benchmark target.

Yusef Smith 32:17 Benchmark target.

Jonny Watson 32:18 Jeez. What am I gonna say? No, I've got one. Um, it's also a birthday thing, and it was remind- I was reminded of it because it was my birthday, like, a week ago, and I got an email from myself on my birthday that I wrote a year ago. And the reason that I wrote the email to myself a year ago was because of, um... The hell is it called?

Yusef Smith 32:44 FollowUpThen.

Jonny Watson 32:45 No. Six-minute diary.

Chris Williamson 32:51 << Happy birthday... >>

Yusef Smith 32:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:53 << Happy birthday to you >>

Jonny Watson 32:53 Six-minute diary.

Chris Williamson 32:54 Oh, yes, of course.

Jonny Watson 32:55 It's one of the, like, weekly challenges. So I had it on my to-do list for literally months to, like, write this email to myself, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, I'll do that. All right." Th- like, you know, it's the- the Kabuki movement systems of moving it to the next day. And I eventually did it, and I got this email from myself and it was just, it was bizarre reading it. And I think the-

Chris Williamson 33:11 What did it say? Can you get, can you give us an excerpt?

Jonny Watson 33:13 It was like, it was just sort of, the- the way that I wrote it was like, what I was doing at the moment. So I was, I was speaking about... So we'd just gone into lockdown in the UK, or like we'd been in lockdown for a couple of months, and like I was talking about how like, "Oh, I think it's going to be back open again for, you know, August and all that sort of stuff." And then things that were going well, talking about things that were just happening in Propain, like we were just about to hire Alex. Stuff I was doing in training, stuff that was ha- like st- plans we had for the rest of the year. Um, and then like stuff I wanted to achieve that I've done all of, which is really cool. And then like, "See you in a year." And I got this email and it was so wei- you like read it and you think, "This is a scam or something. This is weird." And you're like, "Oh, no shit, I wrote this." And it-

Yusef Smith 33:52 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 33:52 So-

Yusef Smith 33:52 It's-

Jonny Watson 33:52 ... would really recommend-

Yusef Smith 33:54 ... it's a nice effect. I- I did that for myself a while ago. It was a website that sends you an email in- in 10 years time. So, uh, so I did it at 18 and received it at 28. And-

Jonny Watson 34:04 Oh my god.

Yusef Smith 34:05 ... yeah. I mean, there's people that do it with videos as well, isn't there? Have you seen like, there's a viral video of like a conversation with my 12-year-old self and they've set it up like a back and forth conversation.

Chris Williamson 34:15 Wow. That's cool. Yeah. I, um, I've said for ages it would be so fascinating to be able to take snapshots of your consciousness and then be able to revisit them. Because the things that consume your mind now and the things that-

Yusef Smith 34:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:27 ... consume your mind two years from now are so d- well, they should be different if you're making progress, right? You should be casting off the worries and the concerns and the anxieties that no longer matter, and you should be focusing on the things that do. We all should be moving toward an essentialist life, I guess, in one form, both in terms of our thoughts and our actions. But yeah, even just thinking about, okay, so what am I doing at the moment? What are my predictions-

Yusef Smith 34:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 34:48 ... for the rest of this year? And then stress testing those or comparing them against what actually happened. That's pretty cool.

Jonny Watson 34:53 I think, I think I did like, "Wh- what am I doing?" What, what am I, like what's going well? What's not going well? What am I worried about and what am I, what am I like working on?"

Chris Williamson 35:01 Mm-hmm.

Jonny Watson 35:02 And the interesting thing was all the worries, like none of them happened, not a single one. All of the things that I was working on, I got done and then like some of the things that I was like clearly consumed with just don't even, aren't even a feature anymore. So it is just this reminder of like at the time that was just my abso- my reality.

Chris Williamson 35:19 Yes.

Jonny Watson 35:20 Like consumed 100% of my day.

Chris Williamson 35:21 Just your world, yeah.

Jonny Watson 35:22 And, and now like so little of it matters. So the, I use, as you said, just mentioned, I use something called FollowUpThen. So you just send it, it's a service where you send an email to like oneyear@followupthen.com and it just sends it back to you in a year. Or you can set it at a specific date or whatever. Um, but really easy thing to try. Um, highly recommend giving it a go. Send an email to yourself in like one...

Chris Williamson 35:44 Is it the number one year or is it O-N-E?

Jonny Watson 35:48 One, numberoneyear@-

Chris Williamson 35:49 At-

Jonny Watson 35:49 ... @followupthen.com.

Chris Williamson 35:52 Awesome. Yusuf?

Jonny Watson 35:53 Or like the, the date as well.

Chris Williamson 35:55 What you got?

Yusef Smith 35:58 This is from Alice, who is a, a new member of Team Propain. And I feel like she's gonna beat me up if we don't suggest this one. Tesco Own Brand Stuffing.

Chris Williamson 36:11 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 36:11 So the reasoning behind this is that when you're dieting, stuffing is a great kind of filler. It's pretty low calorie, it's very flavorsome, very rich with flavor. So it hits the spot with all of the like, when you have like a savory kind of-... but it's, um, it's very low calorie density. She said if you're out of the Tesco one, then Lidl is also a pretty good substitute.

Chris Williamson 36:38 You have to be in Lidl to get that though, don't you?

Yusef Smith 36:41 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 36:41 Which is a disadvantage.

Yusef Smith 36:41 You do have to be in... Yeah.

Jonny Watson 36:43 That's how it works, yeah. That's definitely how it works.

Chris Williamson 36:45 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 36:45 So we were, uh, she was like, "Oh, I'm a bit reticent to say this because if I, if I do, then everyone goes out and buys it."

Jonny Watson 36:52 Then-

Chris Williamson 36:52 She'll be struggling up against lower demand. I'm pretty convinced that a good portion of the net worth of Lindahl's Kvarg-

Jonny Watson 37:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:02 ... has been directed from this podcast. So Tesco, what are the macros on it?

Yusef Smith 37:09 Pretty good. Um-

Jonny Watson 37:11 (laughs) So nee- neither of us have tried it. She only recommended this to us, like, a couple of days ago, but she's a big listener of the Lifehack series especially.

Chris Williamson 37:19 Got you.

Jonny Watson 37:20 But, um, I was saying that stuffing is one of those things that I feel like I am never given enough of- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:28 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 37:28 ... in a meal. You know?

Chris Williamson 37:29 Well, it's such a rarity to even have it, right?

Jonny Watson 37:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:31 How many times a year do you have stuffing? Maybe, for me, it's easily sub-five.

Jonny Watson 37:36 Like a handful.

Chris Williamson 37:36 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 37:36 Yeah. So and then, and then whenever you do, you never look at a plate and go-

Chris Williamson 37:40 Bit much stuffing on there.

Jonny Watson 37:41 (laughs) Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 37:42 Fucking hell, mate. This is... What is this? Stuffing day?

Jonny Watson 37:45 It's really nice, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 37:46 Yeah, it's great.

Jonny Watson 37:47 Like I really like, it's one of my favorite bits, but there's never enough of it and it's never something anyone talks about.

Chris Williamson 37:51 What if you, what if by using it as a dietary aid, you spoil stuffing for you?

Jonny Watson 37:56 Well, I think that's-

Chris Williamson 37:57 Is that a price that you're willing to pay?

Jonny Watson 37:58 I think, like, uh-

Chris Williamson 37:59 Is that really a price you're willing to pay?

Jonny Watson 38:01 ... I'm, I'm quite keen for, for just get it out of my system once and for all and just have a big bowl of stuffing.

Chris Williamson 38:05 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 38:06 That'll be enough.

Chris Williamson 38:06 Of the remaining, the remainder of your life's quota allowance-

Jonny Watson 38:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:10 ... of stuffing in one sitting.

Jonny Watson 38:11 Just to see what it's like, 'cause it's one of those things that, like, when you're a child, you think, "Well, when I'm, when I'm older, I'm gonna be able to make my own dietary decisions and if I want enough stuffing, I'm gonna bloody have enough stuffing."

Chris Williamson 38:20 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 38:20 Just can't wait for the conversation, "Johnny, what are you eating?"

Chris Williamson 38:24 "It's a bowl of stuffing."

Yusef Smith 38:26 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 38:26 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 38:26 Leave me alone.

Jonny Watson 38:28 I've been waiting for this for 15 years. Just leave me alone.

Chris Williamson 38:30 Yeah, I'm my own man now. Uh, okay, right, this is a lifehack that I got that was submitted from Craig Davison. Um, he heard me talking about YouTube Premium on the last episode, which everybody should get. Everyone needs YouTube Premium. I am now four, five, six months deep. Mikhaila Peterson told me to get it and I do not regret it f- at all, um, it is fantastic. Now, the lifehack is that if you set your billing location to Argentina, you can get a-

Yusef Smith 39:01 You said this on the last one, I think.

Chris Williamson 39:02 ... you can get a YouTube Premium subscription for 94 pence. I didn't say it. Um, I might've told you about it separately. I might've messaged you about it.

Jonny Watson 39:11 Maybe.

Chris Williamson 39:11 Um, anyway, so-

Yusef Smith 39:12 It's a very Chris solution.

Chris Williamson 39:13 Well, it's not a Chris solution.

Yusef Smith 39:14 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:14 This is a, this is a, the y- the most you solution that I've ever seen.

Jonny Watson 39:18 It's from Craig Davison.

Yusef Smith 39:19 Well, no, mine, mine's to bypass all that and just use Enerd like a-

Chris Williamson 39:22 Yeah, true.

Yusef Smith 39:23 ... consensible person.

Chris Williamson 39:23 Okay, so Craig says, "If you've got a VPN, you need to get a VPN, you can go to surfshark.deals/modernwisdom. Uh, and you need to set it to Argentina. Then when you get to the payment, you add a random Argentinian address, but include your UK postcode somewhere in address line one. Worked for me with Starling Bank. No difference at all and you only need to use the VPN as a one-off." 94 pence a month YouTube Premium. I can't think of a better way to spend 94 pence. There we are.

Jonny Watson 39:53 Okay.

Chris Williamson 39:54 Silence as the crowd is stunned.

Jonny Watson 39:57 (laughs) I just don't wanna stir the pot. I feel like I'm fairly... Like I- I'm fine with it, like I'm, yeah, I think it's great.

Chris Williamson 40:02 I'm not changing. I'm also not changing.

Jonny Watson 40:04 It's, yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:04 But if the price, if price was the limiter, if you said, "Ah, £12, £13 a month for YouTube Premium."

Yusef Smith 40:10 Lynn!

Chris Williamson 40:10 Yeah, Lynn, it's a, it's a travel tavern.

Jonny Watson 40:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:13 If you said that it's too much, then here is your, here is your thin end of the wedge. Right. Johnny, what you got?

Jonny Watson 40:20 Uh, so I'll, I'll open with a question for both of you, which is when you last trained in the gym, did you do a warmup?

Chris Williamson 40:36 Very briefly.

Yusef Smith 40:39 Yes.

Jonny Watson 40:39 Excuse me?

Yusef Smith 40:40 But that's a recent thing.

Jonny Watson 40:43 Interesting.

Yusef Smith 40:43 As I've started to face my mortality.

Jonny Watson 40:45 Interesting.

Chris Williamson 40:46 Menopause.

Jonny Watson 40:47 So that, so that basically the lifehack, it's not, I suppose it's not really a, there'll be some people who listen and be like, "Obviously, mate." But having like a prop-, like a written down thing that you do each time warmup makes such a difference in training and it's the, it's the first thing I skip. And it's like, it's pr- it's like year seven PE level advice this for like-

Chris Williamson 41:09 Arm circles. Do you do arm circles?

Jonny Watson 41:10 Yes. I, so I actually do arm circles, yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:13 Hang on, hang on. Can I, can we back up for, can we back up for a second?

Jonny Watson 41:16 Before he starts moaning and getting bigger.

Chris Williamson 41:16 Hold on.

Jonny Watson 41:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:17 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you, as an international level powerlifter telling us that a game changing lifehack for you is doing a warmup?

Yusef Smith 41:27 Yeah. Th- this, this is because the powerlifters' warmup is empty bar for three reps, 60 kilos for three reps, 80 kilos for like, no, well, 100. You just go up in-

Chris Williamson 41:38 20s you go.

Yusef Smith 41:38 ... in 20 kilo plates. The, maybe a double and then you work sets.

Chris Williamson 41:42 Straight in.

Jonny Watson 41:43 Well, it's, it's either that or spending like 45 minutes doing all kinds of like weird hip activation and then two hours later you hit a first, your work set. So I think the, the only thing that really matters is just elevating body temperature. Like for most people. Like-

Chris Williamson 41:58 Did you listen to the episode I did with Dr. Sam Spinelli about how to create the perfect warmup?

Jonny Watson 42:05 So I actually think I did.

Chris Williamson 42:06 Yeah. Yeah.

Jonny Watson 42:07 It was quite a while ago.

Chris Williamson 42:08 Yeah. Awesome.

Jonny Watson 42:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:10 Anyone that needs to-

Jonny Watson 42:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:11 ... design their own, just go back and listen to that. You can be, within 10 minutes up to speed with, not 10 minutes of the podcast, yeah, it's 50 minutes. The podcast is longer than the warmup, uh, but designing it makes sense.

Jonny Watson 42:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 42:22 What's yours? Walk us through yours briefly.

Jonny Watson 42:24 Uh, so I do a, like, empty bar. So I, I train in my garage, so I don't have any like cardio equipment or anything like that. So I do an empty bar, like bar bell complex. That's just like some basic movements for sets of ten. Um-... I do some f- uh, light foam rolling just to sort of feel a bit more- bit less- bit less tender, bit more supple. And then things like- it depends what I'm doing, so I'll do, like, leg swings or, like, some dynamic stretching for lower body or upper body. It only takes, like, five, ten minutes. But prior to touching a barbell, I'm- I've- I'm sweating.

Chris Williamson 42:57 Apart from the complex?

Jonny Watson 42:58 Apart from the complex.

Chris Williamson 42:59 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 42:59 But it's not- it is technically, in my defense, a different barbell. So prior to touching the main- the, the barbell of the day, um, it's, uh, I'm sweating. And I think that's the key thing, and it's like, I know it sounds so... It's always speaking about last night, right? About how you start off doing simple things, and you make everything immensely complicated, and then you come back to just, like... It might be a good idea to just sort of get nice and warm-

Chris Williamson 43:21 Get them warm.

Jonny Watson 43:21 ... prior to doing some, some strenuous exercise. But, like, especially if you train for any kind of performance or you're doing, you know, compound heavy lifts, the performance of the session is better. The injury risk of the session is lower. You generally just feel better. But it's the first thing you skip. And I ve- I very rarely see people doing one consistently, so. Unless you do, like, a CrossFit class or something where it's part of it.

Chris Williamson 43:44 Built in, yeah.

Jonny Watson 43:45 But it's 'cause it's boring.

Chris Williamson 43:46 So if you, you said, um... Was it write it out or prescribe it somewhere? Is it on a board somewhere in the...

Jonny Watson 43:51 So, uh, I actually have it in an Apple Notes file that's been turned into a checklist. And, uh, I don't know whether you've ever used this, but when you use a checklist function on Apple Notes, the thing at the bottom gets grayed out and gets transferred to the top. So then the next... So it basically just, like, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop.

Chris Williamson 44:08 Yeah, yeah.

Jonny Watson 44:09 And then at the end, I just uncheck them all. So I just have it on the, on the ground, on- on my phone, press through it as I'm doing it, and then that's... I just make sure I'm always-

Chris Williamson 44:15 You never thought about putting a, a whiteboard up in your garage?

Jonny Watson 44:19 I, I have, yeah. I have, yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:20 It's figure... I, I quite like going off phone whenever I'm doing programming that's been written for me. Constantly checking my phone, doing stuff just... I appreciate for a powerlifter that's got all manner of gizmos attached to the bar speed-

Jonny Watson 44:34 So, that's it. That's-

Chris Williamson 44:34 ... and RPE and all that stuff, it's more difficult.

Jonny Watson 44:37 Like if I, if I could show you the spreadsheet that I have to navigate to just do a training session-

Chris Williamson 44:42 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 44:42 ... it's frankly ridiculous.

Yusef Smith 44:45 It's pushing the limits of Google Sheets.

Jonny Watson 44:49 Yeah, it, it does.

Yusef Smith 44:49 Resource limitations.

Jonny Watson 44:50 So, so it, so it... To give you some perspective, it's so big and vast, this sheet, that I will, like, enter what I've done, and it takes five or six seconds. Bear in mind, this, this is cloud-based and Google. Takes five or six seconds to calculate what that means.

Chris Williamson 45:03 Wow.

Jonny Watson 45:04 So the idea of, like, just using a whiteboard instead of that might be a bit of a challenge.

Chris Williamson 45:08 Too low-tech.

Jonny Watson 45:10 But I... For, for the warmup, I could definitely do it, for sure.

Chris Williamson 45:12 Nice. Seth, what you got?

Yusef Smith 45:14 I've stolen this one from Johnny, and I don't know if we discussed it on the last one. But the hack is, if you're ever faced with a office box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, don't piss about. Don't go for the, the plain disc with the ring in the middle. Just go for the, the nice one, like the Nutella or the Biscoff or whatever, because we looked at the calories, and they're not that different between the plain boring one and the all, all-singing-dancing, flashing-lights one.

Jonny Watson 45:55 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:56 I'm going to throw a spanner in the works. (laughs)

Yusef Smith 45:58 Oh, no. Okay.

Jonny Watson 45:59 That was, that was such a great place to explain this. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:02 I, I prefer the original glazed.

Yusef Smith 46:05 Well, that's fine. If you prefer it, then, then, you know, you... 'Cause it's still slightly lower calories. It's just not that much lower than...

Chris Williamson 46:12 But I resent your implication that it is of a lower caliber.

Yusef Smith 46:15 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:15 I resent your implication that-

Yusef Smith 46:17 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 46:17 ... pejoratively, for most people, they don't want you... the basic, bitch, ring thing. That is-

Yusef Smith 46:24 Not everyone matches your-

Chris Williamson 46:25 That is my people.

Yusef Smith 46:25 ... your preferences, though. Not everyone is like, "Oh, I, I like the, the vanilla, mission-derie doughnut."

Chris Williamson 46:30 This could become very problematic for me.

Yusef Smith 46:31 However, the, the real thing to avoid is the mocha, because that is... The mocha from Krispy Kreme doughnuts is similar calorie amount to any of the doughnuts. So just eat a doughnut. Don't think like, "Oh..."

Chris Williamson 46:47 Why? Why does it taste... It tastes bad?

Yusef Smith 46:50 Well, I, I think it... I'm sure it'll be all right, 'cause it's very high-calorie.

Chris Williamson 46:53 Are you bad-mouthing a doughnut that you've never eaten?

Jonny Watson 46:57 What- what, what, what's the reason to avoid the mocha? Because of the calories? Oh, the calories, yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:01 Oh, the mocha drink, not a mocha flavor doughnut.

Jonny Watson 47:04 Ah, right. Yeah. R- right, right. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:04 Right. Thank you. We are all on the same page now. Yes.

Jonny Watson 47:07 Right.

Chris Williamson 47:07 Okay, so your, your argument is, when faced with a selection of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, the calories across the board are, are fairly similar, so just pick the one flavor-wise that you're going to enjoy the most and don't really concern yourself with the calories?

Jonny Watson 47:21 Yeah. Because from a, from a percentage, like, from the, from the, um, the amount extra, it's, it's still a couple hundred calories a doughnut. So just enjoy yourself. Don't try and pick a low-calorie doughnut, 'cause it's not gonna happen. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:34 I like it. Uh, what am I going to do for this one? So this would have been really perfect if the government hadn't decided to wreck everyone's travel plans.

Jonny Watson 47:45 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:45 Um, but I'm gonna put this one in as people may be getting ready to... A lot of people from America listening, um, and people getting ready to start traveling around. It's a double-up life hack. Uh, the first one is (laughs) gate D2 in Amsterdam airport. So Amsterdam Schiphol is a-

Jonny Watson 48:05 Schiphol.

Chris Williamson 48:05 ... commonly used connecting airport for many flights going through Europe and, and to further, further on.

Jonny Watson 48:10 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:11 Um, they have designed the entire airport very well, um, but it's done in a manner that makes it incredibly hard to sleep if you can only sleep lying down, because everything has those, uh, jutting up bars in between that are... They're masquerading as armrests, but actually, they're just to stop people from sleeping.

Jonny Watson 48:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:30 However, gate D2 in Amsterdam airport is almost never used. It's all in alcoves, and they don't have any armrests on there-... so you can go if you've got a three-hour layover, often coming back from somewhere, you've arrived at 7:00 AM and you're waiting to get to your next place at 10:00 AM. You can go there, set an alarm for a couple of hours. If you've got a face mask and a pair of AirPod Pros, you're silent, dark, able to lie down. You're in a place that's so low traffic that your, uh, possessions are probably fairly safe. Uh, and you can stretch out. (air hissing) There you go. Gate D2.

Jonny Watson 49:06 The other cool thing about that is, at Gate D2 will just be a load of Modern Wisdom listeners.

Chris Williamson 49:11 So you can just be... It's like a real-

Yusef Smith 49:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:12 ... life Discord server. Yeah, precise. "Oh, mate, do you listen to that air?"

Jonny Watson 49:16 Like, you'll go there, there'd be loads of people lying down with an eye mask and AirPod Pros and you'd be like, "This is weird."

Chris Williamson 49:21 This is us.

Jonny Watson 49:22 But... And, like-

Chris Williamson 49:22 These are my people.

Jonny Watson 49:24 ... th- none of them will want to talk to you, but, uh, you'll just know you'll be in good company.

Chris Williamson 49:28 I love that. Uh, and-

Jonny Watson 49:29 Mm.

Chris Williamson 49:29 ... the second part of this was something that I did in, uh, Dubai last year, which I can't believe that I never did before. As soon as you arrive anywhere on holiday, just go to the nearest supplement store and buy a small pot of protein.

Jonny Watson 49:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:49 No one ever hits their protein target when they're away. You're always just in between meals and struggling to get stuff by, you know, whatever, Nitraflex or-

Yusef Smith 50:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:00 ... Maxi Muscle.

Yusef Smith 50:01 So I, I made that mistake in, uh, New York. I bought Muscle Milk and then I looked at-

Chris Williamson 50:05 Isn't that nice?

Yusef Smith 50:06 ... the ingredients.

Chris Williamson 50:06 It sounds great.

Yusef Smith 50:07 It's nice, but it's-

Chris Williamson 50:08 Estrogen?

Yusef Smith 50:09 Predominantly sugar.

Chris Williamson 50:10 Oh.

Yusef Smith 50:10 It's basically a weight gainer with, like, a tickle of protein, but it's just big pot of sugar.

Chris Williamson 50:16 Well, what you really want is ideally, like, a, a whey concentrate or an isolate or something, don't you? But it's easier than taking it out with you because that's got all manner of potential havoc to wreak inside of your luggage or getting stopped, "Hello, sir, what's this, uh, this big bag of powder that you've got here?" Um, but yeah, just go on holiday, get yourself a shaker, buy a... What is it? What's... Is, is it like a two pound or a one kilo? Yeah.

Yusef Smith 50:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:38 Half, half kilo is not going to be enough. One, one kilo will get you through. That'd be like two shakes a day for a week, not that you need that necessarily, but you'll hit your protein much more easily. It'll keep you satiated and you'll just feel less guilty, so...

Jonny Watson 50:51 Something that I was feeling grateful for the other day, so I, I went on like a travel around the UK and was in a similar situation where, like, you've, sort of short on protein, you haven't had much fiber and you think like, "Oh, it'd be great to have a couple of protein bars that'll sort me out." Does, like, ticks both boxes. If I, if you go back, like, to when we were navigating supplements for the first time, the thought of being able to get a protein bar from, like, any WHSmith you, you go past would just be unheard of. You'd have to get them from, like, Predator Nutrition or...

Chris Williamson 51:22 Mm-hmm.

Jonny Watson 51:23 You know, it'd, and it would only be, like, Predator was the only place that had some licensed Quest bars.

Chris Williamson 51:26 Specialist store owned by a man with a face tattoo, yes.

Jonny Watson 51:29 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:30 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 51:32 Exactly. And they've got like shelves in the back that are all just Pro Hormones and-

Chris Williamson 51:36 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 51:37 ... then some Quest bars. Now, you go to Boots and get like every grenade bar flavor and it's brilliant that that exists. So I used to pack tubs of protein w- and take them with me. The fact that you can just get them wherever you are now, brilliant. Brilliant.

Chris Williamson 51:54 Jonny-

Jonny Watson 51:55 Is me.

Chris Williamson 51:55 ... what you got?

Jonny Watson 51:56 Is me. Um, so i- this is another... This is similar to Blinkist, um, but it is Curio. Have you heard of it before?

Chris Williamson 52:08 Nope.

Jonny Watson 52:08 No? Yousef has 'cause Yousef was... Yousef saw the Curio product map two years ago when-

Chris Williamson 52:14 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 52:14 ... it was about to be released. And he knew-

Yusef Smith 52:16 Signed up for the beta.

Jonny Watson 52:17 ... what it would be. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:17 I actually think that you enjoy pre-release product more than the full release.

Jonny Watson 52:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:24 You're such an anticipatory being, aren't you?

Yusef Smith 52:26 Yeah, it's just like, like, like the, the greyhounds pulling at the-

Chris Williamson 52:30 Yeah. That's you.

Yusef Smith 52:31 ... leash, I just want to try the new thing.

Jonny Watson 52:33 You, you're one of the only people I know who gets actually excited about, like, apps being released and updated.

Yusef Smith 52:38 It's so sad, though.

Chris Williamson 52:39 But having, having you as a friend in our friend group-

Jonny Watson 52:41 It's great.

Chris Williamson 52:42 ... is perfect because we're never going to miss anything because we were alerted about it eight months before. When it got, when it got leaked on AppleNews.io. Like you (laughs) were sweet. Okay, so what's this-

Yusef Smith 52:51 We've got Canary.

Chris Williamson 52:52 ... what's this Curio thing?

Jonny Watson 52:53 The Curio is, um... So the, so, so the first thing that actually drew me to them was their, their Instagram ads are really impressive, I think. So they're, they're like, their angle's really impressive, which is, there's... And you may have seen them. There's people going down an escalator in like the London Underground and everything's in black and white apart from one person who's listening to something. Everyone's reading and this one person's listening to something and they're in bright, vivid colors and the angle is like, be the most interesting person in the room. I was like, "Oh, that's, that's so cool." It got, caught my attention, clicked on it. So it's the same problem as Blinkist, which is like I have a, these windows of time where I just want to listen to something interesting. So Curio takes, like, articles from... You can ask it where, where to pick them from. So it's basically what you guys do with Pocket, where you're sort of self-sourcing the information, but it does that for you and it's taking it from, like, wherever you want to listen to stuff, like The Economist, Financial Times, like st- stuff that honestly I would just never read, but I end up listening to... I, I listen to stuff about like AI or like the labor market or like stuff that is actually really interesting. It's not all just current affairs and news. It's, it's like really detailed concepts and topics that are just narrated by people. And it's a service that just does that.

Chris Williamson 54:03 Subscription?

Jonny Watson 54:03 It is a subscription.

Chris Williamson 54:03 How much?

Jonny Watson 54:04 I think it's like 40 pounds a year.

Chris Williamson 54:06 That's not much, is it?

Jonny Watson 54:07 No. Well, not when you consider that like what you get for that. I think it's pretty good.

Chris Williamson 54:11 So Curio sounds like an audio equivalent of the browser, which I think I've mentioned to you guys before.

Jonny Watson 54:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:17 Now the browser is five articles per day, uh, hosted on Substack, but also delivered to your inbox, but also you can get an RSS reader and stuff like that. And they have the listener, which is five, uh, audio podcasts of some kind or another. But the main thing I think that both me and you are getting out of Curio and the browser is just stepping out of our echo chambers.

Jonny Watson 54:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:38 That what you realize as soon as you start to listen or read stuff like this that's curated by someone else is how narrow your own vision-

Jonny Watson 54:46 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:46 ... of what you are interested in is.

Jonny Watson 54:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:49 You think, "I am so much more interested in tons of stuff, I'm really going to enjoy all of this," and I listen to the same six podcasters and read the same whatever. But the problem is, if you decide to venture into the, this new podcast worlds or new article worlds or whatever, and you get the wrong article-

Jonny Watson 55:07 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 55:07 ... from that, or the wrong podcast, you're like, "Oh, that's not really for me." So what you need is someone to take the top filtering of the best stuff from the best channels and feed it to you. So yeah, I think-

Jonny Watson 55:17 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 55:17 ... I think you've... I'm, I'm interested in Curio. And if people prefer to read, the browser is fucking... It's so, it's the only reason that I have things to talk about that aren't already from my kind of worldview.

Yusef Smith 55:32 But, it's a very good point, like you have to have the curation, 'cause it, it's like, you know, if you've got a friend who's like, "Oh, I don't like prawns," and you're like, "When was the last time you had a prawn?" "Uh, 10 years ago." And you're like, "Right, well, try one of these."

Chris Williamson 55:43 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 55:43 And then they try it and you're like, "Oh, actually no, that wasn't a very good one." But then they've already thought like-

Chris Williamson 55:47 Yeah. Right.

Yusef Smith 55:47 ... prawns, all prawns are terrible-

Chris Williamson 55:49 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 55:49 ... and they've-

Chris Williamson 55:49 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 55:49 ... tarred them all with the same brush.

Jonny Watson 55:52 Well, it's like, y- you nailed it, which, with like, all of these, all, all of these publications have some really interesting stuff in them. But none of us have like, the time or the patience or the inclination to, to sift and... 'cause there's so much stuff that we won't find interesting.

Chris Williamson 56:05 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 56:05 So if, if there's a service that just does that for you and it's constantly varied and it's from different places... So like, there was an article I listened to this morning about Steve Jobs and some stuff he did at Apple. And then there was one about AI and then there was one about (clears throat) how like, bars and restaurants in the UK are struggling to hire people because of the way the labor market's changing. And it's like, it's like 15 minutes of time, and you're like, "That was like, really interesting." And I would never have-

Chris Williamson 56:27 It's opened your worldview in a way that you would've never been able to do yourself as well.

Jonny Watson 56:30 Exactly. Yeah. I would never have found this -

Chris Williamson 56:32 That's grand. That's a, that's a, a really good one. I'm, I hope that the platform and stuff's good. Um... Right.

Jonny Watson 56:38 It is.

Chris Williamson 56:38 Seth, what you got?

Yusef Smith 56:40 This is from Andrew Robson, who is a-

Chris Williamson 56:44 Wait, are you arbitraging other people's life hacks because you don't have any?

Yusef Smith 56:48 I've got loads but we've got, uh, I, my previous one... So I, I just, I don't know if you guys know this, but I have, I split mine into physical and digital. (laughs)

Jonny Watson 56:57 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 56:58 And so mine was digital, very similar to Johnny's previous one, I thought, "Ah."

Chris Williamson 57:03 Physical.

Yusef Smith 57:03 "We could do with a physical one now."

Chris Williamson 57:04 Go for it.

Yusef Smith 57:05 So, and Andrew Robson, lovely man who we've worked with, has suggested, he said, "I have a life hack for people with dogs," thanks for that Johnny, um, "that I keep meaning to send you. You can get lint rollers which you can wash under the tap and reuse. They take 15 seconds to wash."

Jonny Watson 57:22 So there's a, there's a macro level hack at a, at a system level that removes the need for that, which is that when you're picking the dog, get one that doesn't molt.

Chris Williamson 57:31 When you get a dog that doesn't molt-

Yusef Smith 57:33 Just have a better dog.

Chris Williamson 57:33 ... don't they need to be groomed more frequently though?

Jonny Watson 57:36 Correct.

Chris Williamson 57:38 So you've jumped out of the frying pan and...

Jonny Watson 57:40 Well, it just depends what, w- which do you consider is like-

Chris Williamson 57:43 Where do you want your battle to be, on the dog's back or on your floor?

Jonny Watson 57:45 Would, would you rather be... Well, would you rather be like, having to hoover up hairs constantly for the, for the entirety of the dog's life or just have this one batched thing that happens once every six weeks?

Chris Williamson 57:57 Um, do you know the brand of this, Yousef?

Yusef Smith 58:01 It'll be like, Pound Shop lint rollers.

Chris Williamson 58:02 But what's it called? It's called washable lint roller or something?

Yusef Smith 58:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:09 For dog hair. Cool. Okay, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm all for that. Have you seen, um, I think it's Shark, the vacuum manufacturing co... Have you got a Shark hoover, Johnny, that's got the hair removal?

Jonny Watson 58:20 No, but I've seen, I've seen what you're referring to.

Chris Williamson 58:22 Yeah, yeah, because if, if you've ever had a Dyson standup vacuum cleaner and hair or something's got caught in it, the sound that occurs, it, it emanates a noise that is like what I imagine judgment day will sound like. It is-

Jonny Watson 58:38 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:39 ... so painful. (imitates hoover sound) And it just-

Yusef Smith 58:43 Well, so that was happening upstairs. I had to keep muting my mic about 10 minutes ago, 'cause the upstairs neighbors seem to be just like, I think they're deaf or something, they're just, they're hoovering-

Chris Williamson 58:51 Is it the ones that used to have sex?

Yusef Smith 58:54 Uh, it's the same flat but they've rotated.

Chris Williamson 58:56 New people. Okay.

Yusef Smith 58:56 So they've gone from sex to loud hoovering with lots of hair present .

Jonny Watson 59:00 Wasn't there a person who kept deferring their alarm by a couple of minutes every morning as well?

Chris Williamson 59:06 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 59:06 Yeah. She would set the alarm for 5:00 AM and then snooze it every 10 minutes for two hours.

Jonny Watson 59:13 (snores)

Chris Williamson 59:13 Oh my god.

Yusef Smith 59:14 And just 'cause she must enjoy snoozing or something. So I, um, she knocked on the door 'cause I had a parcel for her and I was like, "Oh, by the way, you know your Alexa, do you mind just..." So what, what happened was, um, every night you'd just hear like a mumble (imitates mumble) and then, "An alarm is set for 5:00 AM. An alarm is set for 5:10 AM. An alarm is set for 5:20 AM." All the way up to 7:00 AM.

Chris Williamson 59:39 What did she say when you asked her to stop being such a prick?

Jonny Watson 59:43 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 59:43 Looked a bit surprised.

Jonny Watson 59:45 Well, 'cause you've like, she'll, she'll feel, feel seen and exposed, 'cause it's like probably her little habit that -

Chris Williamson 59:51 You know what solution to this would be, Seth, it would probably maybe cost... Someone will be able to tell us in the comments, but I reckon it would cost less than £1,500. And I think that you would be able to, um, extend the cord of your lamp, put a layer of sound insulation in, put another board in, and then put a slightly lower ceiling in with more, with the same plastering over and then put your light back in. And I reckon for 1,500 quid you could, depending on how much sound from above you contributes to your life's, uh, misery, I reckon you could get rid of it for probably about a grand.

Yusef Smith 1:00:24 What, as, as in soundproof my ceiling?

Chris Williamson 1:00:26 Yes.

Yusef Smith 1:00:26 Not, not ask her to soundproof her floor.

Chris Williamson 1:00:28 Alternatively, but.

Jonny Watson 1:00:29 Well it's the, it's the same thing.

Chris Williamson 1:00:30 Yeah. It's one and the same.

Jonny Watson 1:00:32 You could also just get some great ear plugs.

Chris Williamson 1:00:35 Or AirPod Pros.

Jonny Watson 1:00:36 Like get like, sh- you know, shotgun shooting ear defenders and then you'll be out like a light.

Yusef Smith 1:00:42 The, the more annoying thing is when you're podcasting, to be honest.

Jonny Watson 1:00:45 Yeah.

Yusef Smith 1:00:45 'Cause that just immortalizes it.

Chris Williamson 1:00:46 We haven't picked, we haven't, I haven't heard anything. But...

Yusef Smith 1:00:49 That's 'cause I've been tact, tactfully -

Chris Williamson 1:00:51 Uh-huh.

Yusef Smith 1:00:51 ... practically -

Jonny Watson 1:00:52 Practically.

Chris Williamson 1:00:52 Right.

Yusef Smith 1:00:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:00:53 As, as is tradition toward the end of a life hacks episode, stuff that we have been either reading or watching on Netflix and such. And I am going to open up with Marcella...

Jonny Watson 1:01:07 ... seen it.

Chris Williamson 1:01:08 What do you think?

Jonny Watson 1:01:10 It's all right.

Chris Williamson 1:01:11 Oh, come on.

Yusef Smith 1:01:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:13 Come on.

Yusef Smith 1:01:14 Wah-wah-wah.

Jonny Watson 1:01:15 Have you seen all of it? Have you seen all of the seasons?

Chris Williamson 1:01:17 Yeah, right up to the Irish season.

Jonny Watson 1:01:19 Really, really peters out towards the end, doesn't it?

Chris Williamson 1:01:21 Yeah. Okay, so it lags a little bit, but I just thought-

Jonny Watson 1:01:23 Yeah, it's a strong opening.

Chris Williamson 1:01:24 Yeah. It was, it was different. Uh, it's a sort of a, like an edgy Line of Duty, less about the actual storylines and more about the, um, main character who is going through some dissociative psychotic breaks. And you kind of see this get worse. And then the end of season two is probably one of the biggest twists in a story that I've seen in quite a while. I just thought it was quite compelling. It's on ITV, uh, which annoyingly, unless you upgrade for 3.99 pounds a month on ITV Hub, has inbuilt hardcoded adverts on TV-

Yusef Smith 1:02:03 Uh.

Chris Williamson 1:02:03 ... that you can't get past. However, they have a seven-day ITV Hub Pro free trial, no obligation. So if you really-

Yusef Smith 1:02:11 And if you register in the Czech Republic-

Chris Williamson 1:02:13 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 1:02:14 ... and send your postcode to somewhere in Russia, then you can get it for 12p.

Chris Williamson 1:02:17 They can never, they can never catch you. (laughs) Uh, but you can just, if you want to pound through three seasons of Marcella, you can do it, uh, within the window of time of that. But yes, that's my first one. Johnny, what have you been watching, or reading, or YouTube videoing recently?

Jonny Watson 1:02:33 Um, Time on BBC with Sean Bean and Stephen Graham. Who-

Chris Williamson 1:02:40 Bastard. Bastard.

Yusef Smith 1:02:42 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:02:43 You bastard. I love it. Have you seen that megamix, that super cut of all the time-

Yusef Smith 1:02:48 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:02:48 ... that Sean Bean said, "Bastard," in-

Jonny Watson 1:02:51 No.

Chris Williamson 1:02:52 What's that show that he was in for millions of seasons? Not Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It was like, the Napoleon Bonaparte shit where it's from-

Jonny Watson 1:02:59 Oh. Um ... Oh, God.

Chris Williamson 1:03:04 Anyway, that thing. Um, and-

Jonny Watson 1:03:06 Like a single word.

Chris Williamson 1:03:08 Highlander or something like that.

Jonny Watson 1:03:10 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 1:03:11 Frontier.

Jonny Watson 1:03:13 Nope. Sharp.

Chris Williamson 1:03:15 Yes. Thank you. Yes, looks like it should've been called High- should've called it Highlander. Uh, but anyway, there's a super cut of him saying, "Bastard," all the t- all the different times he does it. Anyway, Time.

Jonny Watson 1:03:26 So he, he has, he has his, like, I think it's what his natural accent is. He's like, "Excuse me, mate."

Chris Williamson 1:03:30 (laughs)

Jonny Watson 1:03:30 He's like ... It's brilliant.

Yusef Smith 1:03:32 Nailed it.

Jonny Watson 1:03:32 It's, uh, so it's a very, um ... Well, I mean, I don't know. I've not been to prison, so I can't ... But I imagine it's a very, uh, quite r- So, I'll normally watch things in the evening and, like, sort of wind down before I go to bed. This actually kept me up, 'cause it's so, like-

Chris Williamson 1:03:51 Intense.

Jonny Watson 1:03:52 Yeah. I mean-

Yusef Smith 1:03:52 It's a huge anti-advert, isn't it?

Jonny Watson 1:03:54 Yeah. (laughs)

Yusef Smith 1:03:54 Prison. Well, I mean, we did a podcast with a doctor who had just come out of prison after two years, and his description was also-

Jonny Watson 1:04:03 He sounded re- So I've listened to that. He sounded fairly relaxed about the whole thing, I thought.

Yusef Smith 1:04:08 Yeah. I mean, he got day leave to go and do a master's.

Jonny Watson 1:04:12 Yeah, if that helps, you know.

Chris Williamson 1:04:13 Do you think Sean Bean should've just asked to be transferred to the-

Jonny Watson 1:04:16 "Can I do a ma- Can I do a master's?"

Chris Williamson 1:04:18 (laughs) Master's?

Jonny Watson 1:04:19 Master's.

Chris Williamson 1:04:20 Uh, right. Time. What's it on?

Jonny Watson 1:04:23 iPlayer, BBC.

Chris Williamson 1:04:24 Cool. I like it. Seth, what have you got?

Yusef Smith 1:04:27 The Mortal Kombat movie, 2021.

Chris Williamson 1:04:32 You described this last night over dinner as the sort of movie that six-year-old you would've designed the time, the, the-

Yusef Smith 1:04:41 10-year-old.

Chris Williamson 1:04:41 ... 10-year-old. Okay.

Yusef Smith 1:04:43 Ten-year-old me, like, it ... The, uh, yeah, the plot was written by a year nine, so 13-year-old. But it's, it's u- For anyone born around 1990, it was a cultural phenomenon. And so to see it realized in, but with very good production value and ... It's brilliant. It's, it's very much, like, satisfying. In a child, it's not the kind of thing to take your girlfriend to, I think. (laughs)

Jonny Watson 1:05:09 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 1:05:10 Definitely would not be very popular. But it's, what it is, is the contrast. So they, 'cause they did a, they did a film back in 1993 or something. And at the time, I remember watching it and being like, "Whoa, this is really scary, really graphic." And you've got, like, Scorpion takes off his mask and he's like a flaming skull. And looking back, it's actually a bit naff. Like, the, it's all, like, you know, clearly a polystyrene that's been dipped in petrol and set on fire and things. But when you see the contrast against the current film, it's like, "Oh, this is good." There's lots of, like, silly little quips and the occasional gratuitous. Like someone reaches into someone's, into this, like, big reptile's heart and pulls it out and then says, like, "Fatality," and all that stuff. But-

Chris Williamson 1:05:57 Oh, so, so there's some cheese kind of fourth wall-breaking. I mean, you're watching a Mortal Kombat movie. It's a movie based on a video game that was cheesy. It was always gonna be that. That's ... Hey, if you, if you reckon it's good. I've just gone back and looked at what we suggested on the last Life Hacks. Did both of you watch Three Identical Strangers?

Jonny Watson 1:06:16 No.

Chris Williamson 1:06:17 Oh, did you not? But you did, Youcef?

Yusef Smith 1:06:19 I did.

Chris Williamson 1:06:20 Yeah. What did you think? Do you enjoy it?

Yusef Smith 1:06:21 Fantastic. Like, r- really, it ... You come away with a real sadness about-

Chris Williamson 1:06:27 Yeah, it's quite melancholy, eh?

Yusef Smith 1:06:29 ... hu- Yeah, humanity's, like, level of cruelty.

Chris Williamson 1:06:31 Mm-hmm. I think you're ... Johnny, it's the ... I'm really surprised.

Jonny Watson 1:06:33 Don't wanna spoil it. So, so I've just realized why I've not watched it. And it's quite an em- Well, it's not embarrassing, but stupid. It's in my to-read list.

Chris Williamson 1:06:43 Yeah. Well, you see-

Jonny Watson 1:06:45 Struggle with that, I imagine.

Chris Williamson 1:06:46 ... Apple Notes. Yeah, it's gonna be difficult at the very least.

Jonny Watson 1:06:49 Yeah. It's now on the, it's now on the correct list.

Chris Williamson 1:06:50 Cool. And-

Jonny Watson 1:06:51 So no, no one needs to worry.

Chris Williamson 1:06:52 My next one is Gangs of London. I think, uh, both me and Johnny have watched this.

Yusef Smith 1:06:58 Film or a series?

Jonny Watson 1:07:00 Series.

Chris Williamson 1:07:01 Series. It's-

Jonny Watson 1:07:02 Brilliant.

Chris Williamson 1:07:02 Very shit hot. It's probably the best series I've watched this year. It's probably better than the most recent season of Line of Duty, which ended like a damp squib. Um-

Jonny Watson 1:07:11 I, I think it might be the best series ever.

Chris Williamson 1:07:13 It's really good. It's an hour long each episode for six or seven episodes. Um, it's huge budget. Each individual episode looks like a movie. It's got full star-studded cast, including some new people that you won't be familiar with. A couple of guys out of Peaky Blinders. It actually, the first episode watches like a Guy Ritchie film. You know, with the fighting in the bar, and it's all, "All right, mate, you fucking, you want some, do you?" Like it's all-

Jonny Watson 1:07:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:07:43 ... kind of real Cockney gangster shit. Um, and it just, everything gets wrecked. And it's so good. It's so fucking good. HBO, I think? HBO?

Jonny Watson 1:07:58 Yeah, so it's on-

Chris Williamson 1:07:59 No, Sky Atlantic.

Jonny Watson 1:07:59 Like Sky Atlantic, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:00 Yeah.

Jonny Watson 1:08:01 So anywhere you can watch Sky Atlantic.

Chris Williamson 1:08:03 Yeah, Now TV or whatever.

Jonny Watson 1:08:05 Um, has it.

Chris Williamson 1:08:06 I, I was superbly impressed.

Yusef Smith 1:08:10 How do you guys manage to span multiple networks? I feel like it's hard enough just trying to navigate, like one-

Chris Williamson 1:08:16 Suggestions, same as this.

Yusef Smith 1:08:18 So what, so p- word of mouth and then you go, "Oh, I'm gonna get a subscription to these different things"?

Chris Williamson 1:08:23 Oh, no, no. So I have (laughs) , um, I have a completely legal, um...

Yusef Smith 1:08:30 (laughs) Of course.

Chris Williamson 1:08:31 ... amendment to my Fire, my Amazon Fire Stick, um, which through using a VPN is again completely legal via Argentina. Um-

Jonny Watson 1:08:42 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 1:08:42 But gives me access to a, a few more, a few more channels and movies and stuff than, than might usually be typical. Uh, but the way that it works, you can favorite different movies on that stick to a central home screen. And both my housemates are quite big into films and movies, so we all, whenever someone suggests something to us, we just favorite it and put it in there. And then it means that we all have a pool of stuff to watch.

Yusef Smith 1:09:09 That's brilliant.

Chris Williamson 1:09:11 Yeah, so we're just crowdsourcing. We're, we're crowd, we're three degrees of separation away from whatever, a thousand degrees of separation each of different things.

Jonny Watson 1:09:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:09:21 And, um, one of, one of my housemates is super into movies and, and series and stuff, and there's always something good in there. Always. And, uh, Gangs of London was, was one of them. Oh, what's that, what's the guy that's just been canceled for, um, not, not Kano, who's the guy that w-

Jonny Watson 1:09:39 Noel Clarke.

Chris Williamson 1:09:39 Yes, Noel Clarke. Um, the, what was it called? Viewpoint?

Jonny Watson 1:09:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:09:45 Yeah. That was-

Jonny Watson 1:09:46 That's, that's really good.

Chris Williamson 1:09:46 That was really good. But didn't they not publish the final episode because...

Jonny Watson 1:09:50 So it's, it's available on ITV Player, but it never got aired on TV.

Chris Williamson 1:09:55 Right. Okay, so I can go onto ITV Player and watch the final episode.

Jonny Watson 1:09:58 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:09:59 Yeah. That was good until he started touching all the cast, wasn't it?

Jonny Watson 1:10:02 Yeah. The, it's interesting that you said not Kano, because if you google him there's loads of articles about how they constantly get mistaken for one another.

Chris Williamson 1:10:13 I think they were in a film together. I think they look fairly similar. Similar ages, similar builds.

Jonny Watson 1:10:19 I, I think-

Chris Williamson 1:10:19 They're always playing the same characters.

Jonny Watson 1:10:21 That's it, like they're in, they're in similar films, similar series, playing a similar kind of role.

Chris Williamson 1:10:26 Except one raps and the other one touches people.

Jonny Watson 1:10:30 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 1:10:32 Yeah, I mean, I don't know who either of them are, but it's not-

Chris Williamson 1:10:35 (laughs)

Yusef Smith 1:10:35 ... it's not ideal to be mistaken for a professional toucher if you're a professional rapper.

Chris Williamson 1:10:42 Johnny, anything else? Any other ones that you've watched or read?

Jonny Watson 1:10:44 I don't know whether we've, I don't know whether we've mentioned this one before, it's a film, um, called Knives Out. You seen it before? Um, so it's a bit, it, like it's a, it's almost like a, it's a, it's a bit lighthearted, it's like a game of Cluedo, but a, a real, like a, it, it's really hard to describe how, h- what, what sort of film it is 'cause it isn't like a true story, and it isn't completely serious. It's based, it's like a Cluedo, whodunit situation. Daniel Craig's in it and he does a Texas accent in it, which initially it's like, "What the hell are you doing, mate?" But then you st- then you, it, the, the, Daniel Craig is fantastic in it. Lots of very famous actors. Um, it did really well, it got lots of, uh, recognition. But it's called Knives Out. Would highly recommend.

Chris Williamson 1:11:29 Where's that on?

Jonny Watson 1:11:30 It's a film, so like, I'm sure it, I mean, I watched it like a year ago, so I think it'll be on Prime or Netflix or something like that.

Chris Williamson 1:11:38 Okay. Seth?

Yusef Smith 1:11:41 I have been watching a seminar by a guy called Michael Raduga about, so he calls it the phase, and it's, if any of you've heard of lucid dreaming or astral projection or out of body experiences, it, it's basically all of these like hypnagogic semi-sleep states that he just calls the phase, and it's fascinating.

Jonny Watson 1:12:05 The phase, did you say?

Yusef Smith 1:12:06 The pha- yeah, it's a three hour-

Chris Williamson 1:12:08 How do you spell r-a-d-u-g-e-r?

Yusef Smith 1:12:10 Raduga, yeah.

Jonny Watson 1:12:12 Sounds like a pasta.

Yusef Smith 1:12:14 Yeah. Linguine, I think.

Chris Williamson 1:12:16 You, is this, is this (laughs) .

Yusef Smith 1:12:19 Um.

Chris Williamson 1:12:20 Is, um, is this on YouTube?

Yusef Smith 1:12:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:12:24 Cool.

Yusef Smith 1:12:24 I actually used to work in a pasta factory when I was younger, but I got fired 'cause I made a few silly mistakes.

Jonny Watson 1:12:32 This is a joke.

Chris Williamson 1:12:35 What did you do?

Yusef Smith 1:12:36 I'm not, uh...

Jonny Watson 1:12:37 Oh, a few silly.

Chris Williamson 1:12:39 Oh. Oh.

Yusef Smith 1:12:43 One of the pharmacists came and said that to me when I was like mid, I think I was like mid-cannulating someone or something, and I was like, "Uh, yeah, okay." And then like 10 minutes later you're like, "Ah, right."

Chris Williamson 1:12:53 Yeah, still shit-

Yusef Smith 1:12:54 Anyway.

Chris Williamson 1:12:54 ... but yeah.

Yusef Smith 1:12:55 (laughs) So, so it's, well, it's basically a walkthrough of how to achieve these, um, states where your body goes to sleep, your mind stays awake, and you're able to navigate the inside of your mind in a very like spatial way, which is pretty cool.

Chris Williamson 1:13:14 Have you been able to replicate this?

Yusef Smith 1:13:16 No, I've been... I, I've only been doing it for, like, two days. It takes, like, months of practice. But, um, it's a very systematic method to doing it, so if anyone's interested in exploring that, that world. It's very practical.

Jonny Watson 1:13:30 I've had one, one lucid dream before. That I... Well, I suppose you have to remember them, don't you? Otherwise they're... it's not a lucid dream.

Yusef Smith 1:13:35 Mm-hmm.

Jonny Watson 1:13:36 But, yeah, and I had one lucid dream before which... It... and then as soon as you, like, realize what's happening, it jolts you out of it.

Yusef Smith 1:13:41 Yeah, there's lots of practices to not get, like, excited, being like, "Oh, yes, I'm in the..." And then you're