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I'm going to call I'm going to write a note and say it's going to be called how Andrew can be a better
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person list of ways to improve Andre see I can't improve when I never have an app
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for that list so it doesn't matter there too many characters for my alarm apps I'll
00:00:23
forget what is up people of the internet welcome back to another episode of the wait for podcast but it's a bonus
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episode this time you can tell because we have new people and I'm in a different chair oh I didn't even realize
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Collide that's new okay we're your hosts I'm Marquez I'm Andrew and we're joined by David Pierce hello thank you for uh
00:00:41
thank you for hopping on with us thanks for having me it's fun to like be here and do this with my internet friends in person we've done it before but at Apple
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campus weirdly enough that was our first time this is cooler this is this is Cozier uh if you don't already remember
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David Pierce host of The Verge cast editor at large at The Verge fellow productivity app nerd and that's exactly what we're talking about today I hesitate to call this an
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intervention but it's kind of how it feels you waited till right now to use that word a little bit Yeah so on the
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right side of the table for our audio listeners David and I uh have been not just using but experimenting with
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playing with trying implementing ruining our lives with all of these productivity
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apps for the past couple years probably a little too much but on the other side of the aisle Andrew is either way
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smarter than us or has a bunch of unlocked potential ruining his life on the other end of the spectrum Andrew
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uses uh the alarm app we've talked about this as literally a task manager reminders like that's the maximalist that's as far as it goes right pretty much I mean we have notion for work we
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do even sometimes with that if I really need something to get done I put an alarm for it yeah so I think uh I think
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this is our opportunity to like expose you to the the world that you could live in of of like second brain software yeah
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I think the goal for the end of this episode is one of you should convince me to use an app and if I get convinced I
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will use it for we'll see and if we can't Marquez and I have to both live our lives out of
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the alarm app that and that I cannot do I yeah I respect my job too much I feel like this whole company crumble to the ground if that happens I just will not get anything done this is something
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actually my dad has said before but I say the same thing like if you tell me to do something and in that moment I don't write it down trust me I'm not
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going to remember so I I'll start my my opening my opening convincing argument with the human brain is an amazing computer right it's it's very powerful
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it has incredible AI obviously it has a neural engine it has an optical image process processor it has all these things that are amazing for a computer but it has one critical flaw the memory
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only fallible that's the only flaw the human brain as a computer the memory is fallible and so you could think you
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remember to do something you could tell yourself to remember something but it may not remember you may lose those bits and bites and so the reason that I'm so
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into this software augmenting my brain is because that memory is not infallible that will stay that will work and then I
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can sort of plug it into my brain as like a puzzle piece as uh the way to not as a way to complete myself as a
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computer if that makes any sense am I making any sense no it makes total sense and I think I would just add two things one is that uh do you ever heard people
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talk about decision fatigue like why like a Barack Obama we the same suit every day or why Mark Zuckerberg always
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wears gray t-shirts or whatever well he's a robot but that's where I'm going we're all Rob no I think the the point
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is that uh there is at least I experienced it in a huge way this feeling of like I'm supposed to be doing
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something or I was supposed to have remembered something or something is going on and there's just this like latent constant anxiety of thinking
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about all of the stuff happening uh and you and I Andrew are both new parents so
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there's even more of that because I haven't slept in forever and I have to remember to like keep my child alive so
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for me it's it's not just like having a place to offload all of that stuff it's having a place that I know that it is
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MHM M uh and I think like I always think about my own brand as like do you have a drawer full of like thumb drives and
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memory cards and memory sticks and it's there's just a thousand of them and you're like I know the thing I need is on one of
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these but my options are either I'm not either I'm not even positive what I'm looking for but there's something in
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here that I need which is terrible outcome or I know what I need and it's on one of these but what do I do with it
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and I feel like my entire product productivity Journey has been trying to solve those problems yeah yeah and my
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own brain is both of those things at the same time that's fair I'm I'm going to interject here and say nothing either of
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you have said I disagree with you okay that's good yeah yeah I would say and I would say I have the same feelings as
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both of you do in a lot of these senses okay you're just more comfortable in your chaos than we are I don't even know
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if comfortable is the term maybe thriving in anxiety works sometimes um but and it's funny you mention being a
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new dad because arguably the only productivity app I have out side of my alarms app is the Huckleberry app which
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is like the very newborn like I need to make sure she's eating enough and pooping consistently and sleeping and
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taking naps so that is one thing that Claire and I together are consistently I'm logging things in that all the time
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so maybe that's that is my gateway drug into the life of productivity that needs
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an ocean integration that's what it is that is really interesting okay I think uh what I thought would be really fun was to give you some hypotheticals some hypothetical situations that I
00:06:01
could propose that would maybe convince you that it would be more likely that you would get the thing done if you had
00:06:06
a better tool to do so CU from what I'm hearing you're not against maybe trying some productivity apps or I don't know
00:06:13
you don't necessarily need to dive into the deep end with it because there's all kinds of there's so many first of all yeah but they also all have different
00:06:20
pros and cons and different capabilities and different weaknesses but you're at least down to hear how they can plug in
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I'm down to hear I'm open The more I've thought about this episode The more open I've become because at first I said
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Marquez I'm not doing this it's going to be boring when I do nothing at the end of it because I'm still just going to use the alarm app um but you know what I
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got a new phone so it kind of feels like new phone new me and like maybe it's time to add some things and it deleted
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all of my alarms so I don't have any of those anymore to that point though this is one of the things I was wondering for
00:06:50
you is um it's not like you don't spend all of your time with somebody who talks
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about this stuff incessantly uh no I hear it maybe that's part of the reason why I haven't made I was wondering is
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like is it do you feel like the system you have like works and why screw it up in the name of just some cool app that
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might not solve your problems or like what what has kept you in the alarm app world all this time I'll be honest it's
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stubbornness it's not like no I don't think I'm running smoothly I think if you had the opportunity to call my wife
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right now she would be like no he does not do all the things that he says he will do or I ask him to do so I'm
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consistently forgetting things I mean if it's super super important I I will remember it or it will be in
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the alarm app and that's how I'll remember it but like there's only so much I'm going to put in there and there
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are definitely times where I get to the point of like this needed to be done by Friday and I've had an entire week to do
00:07:44
it and there was plenty of time to do it but you know there may also be an there
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may be an element of overexposure as well cuz I've talked about it being like almost what did I call it like my toxic
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toxic trade I call it yeah where I will will I will have everything I need in one productivity app which I I literally
00:08:03
did this two days ago I have both the apps in my doc which is hilarious I've used a to-do list app a calendar app and an email app and notion for however many
00:08:15
years and I'll see a new one and the problem is the websites are always so pretty oh they're so good they're always
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and they're all animated now they just make you feel feelings gorgeous and I feel like if I could just have this in
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my life everything would be even better than it already is not that I'm missing anything but there will be one or two cool features where I'm like that I want
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that and then I'll dump my entire life out of one into the other one and then several days later I'll be like why did I do this this is missing the things that I like about the other thing even
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though I like that I have to move back and now I'm like constantly doing this dance between apps Adam actually has a
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little bit of the same bug I'm not even going to lie I'm outing you over there but thanks we do a little bit of the same dance so I I'm gonna interject
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right there and I'm gonna say by the end of this episode I need convincing on something that will be my app and just
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be my app because that sounds terrible and I will never do that I am you have to enjoy it literally for its own sake uh and also the the one thing I I had an
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old boss who watched me do this a hundred times and he was like oh every time you do it you're actually like
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going through all of your old notes and reevaluating all the stuff you're working on I was like I don't know that that's actually true but it made me feel
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better that this is my way of sort of taking stock of my system and all that um it's
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not no one should do what Marquez it is not it's delightful and unhealthy and unproductive I appreciate you guys have all the viewpoints of all these different apps but if I pick an app and I use it by the end of this episode if
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there becomes a time where I'm like I don't want to use this that looks better I will never make that switch it is too
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annoying for me to do that the partially one of the reasons I've never switched to an iPhone with ample OPP opportunity
00:09:59
here is I've tried to set one up before and in the setup process I just go I don't feel like doing this and then I
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never use it so because this makes me think we need to put Andrew in an app that is very stable and straightforward
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and not likely to do you know what this one is sort of explode and of course I know what that I think that's one of the high top cand right now I think I have I
00:10:19
have three in mind that and that's one of them what are your can I see your three real quick well so I'll just I'll just intimidating on this side Yep this
00:10:27
is the podcast version of we can fix him Claire put them up to this yeah yeah yeah it's that's the I have it's the top two that I feel pretty
00:10:40
good about and then the third one is kind of my wild card yes just because of who makes it okay but it's also
00:10:47
potentially the one that is the most things I I know why and I think we should try to explain it yeah but now I know how audio listeners feel how confusing this is no no do you want me
00:10:58
to kind of go over maybe like a day a week a month of what I do and maybe like that might help your guys thought process on this I think this might work the same way which is I have increasingly complex hypotheticals okay
00:11:10
and you can tell me how you would tackle them okay okay hypothetical number one sure Claire says Andrew don't forget to
00:11:17
take out the trash on Friday morning what do you do wait you just unlocked something that's the only reoccurring
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task in my calendar app is take out the trash on Thursday okay that's a good answer and it comes up on my watch every
00:11:29
time I'm sitting on the couch Thursday night task in your calendar app or is it a calendar event in your calendar app that's a great question this is very
00:11:36
important huge okay let's see I I'm guessing it's a calendar event you probably have it the either the night before when you need to put things out or that morning if if memory serves your
00:11:49
your you have both right I have both I have one as a task the night before and then I have the calendar event the next
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day okay of when it actually gets collected which do you follow more often I follow the task because the calendar
00:12:01
event is sying to a gcal provided by my Town's website that is not always accurate uh cuz the holiday weeks all the weirdness it's supposed to be up to date but I've just found it's I live on a corner I think it might be the other
00:12:13
blog this podcast is going to be 16 hours this prepare everyone I'm here trying to figure out if it's a task or
00:12:18
an event and Marquez is connecting to his local government with this Marquez hacked into the mayor's office to get
00:12:26
the schedule it is an event okay and it is sorry can I see that one more time you can it is the night before it is the
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night before before perfect I'm I ain't getting up in the morning to do that totally fine so but that works for you
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it works for me it works every yeah I have not missed a trash T perfect okay so so the Calendar app so part two
00:12:46
hypothetical Claire says now when you're taking the trash out make sure that you break down the cardboard and put it to
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the left of the plastic or they won't take it we only have one recycling bin this is the hypothetical okay
00:12:59
I'm not good at hypotheticals apparent so you need to remember both to do this task at this time and something specific
00:13:06
to do in this task I'll give you the perfect example which is something we found as an old alarm app on my phone
00:13:12
the other day when we were talking about this where I had an alarm that said money on trash because for the holidays
00:13:18
I was tipping the trash people and I needed to bring out the trash cans and also put the like card for them so you
00:13:24
set an alarm to do that and I did it actually a third party alarm app which is deranged hey hey interesting um I
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actually say Andrew it said monkey on trash so I so it took a so if there's auto correct yeah that would be a huge benefit of whatever we're doing um but yeah so and that was something I did the
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next morning because I didn't I didn't want to leave money on the trash can over so you set that alarm for the
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morning that yeah so I would at my the end of my driveway I would know to pull it out of my car and put so in this
00:14:00
hypothetical if there was a specific thing you had to do with the cardboard to the left of the plastic you would set
00:14:08
maybe an alarm correct at the same time that you're taking out the trash uh that
00:14:13
tells you what to do that says cardboard left plastic yeah like it would essentially be yeah at the same time
00:14:18
okay okay okay I already have so much anxiety right so far it's checking out coordinating the alarms it's I can't wait for in a month you're like how's it going and I'm like there's so much trash
00:14:30
in my house piles right part three again pure hypothetical but how would you tackle this you now need to do this every
00:14:42
Monday and Thursday night during the summer but every Sunday and Wednesday night during the
00:14:49
winter if I'm being honest I would probably just have two Calendar recurring apps and just ignore one of
00:14:56
them during the summer and ignore one of them during the winter I've not had to do that maybe I just have sweet trash
00:15:02
people and they always come on Fridays no matter what but in that scenario if it were changing in
00:15:08
those yeah I don't know can you do that just on Google count summer in parenthesis that's a good point yeah man
00:15:15
maybe I should just have you on speed dial and call you instead no this is not a what should you do but like I'm
00:15:20
curious like you have two things that say take out the trash and you just remember which one was the I prob what I
00:15:25
would probably do is I would you said it's like Friday summer Monday winter I would probably just do reoccurring every
00:15:32
Friday and then once it hit winter and I either missed one of those or realized I would just delete that event and then
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probably start the winter event I'm trying to be honest here Adam stop making fun of me Mak realize that Andrew
00:15:43
is a much more like capable functional person than I am because my life would collapse in what you're desing I think
00:15:51
kind of but that's also kind of the like why it's a little pathetic that I'm not using one of these cuz I'm capable of
00:15:57
doing all of these things I'm I more than Texas saav to be very into a productivity think you'd be like
00:16:03
president of the United States by now if you you know maybe I'm just trying to give everyone a head start here I just
00:16:08
don't want to don't want to win too hard okay here's one more you get an email with all the instructions by the way this is 2013 we play on the Hammerhead still you get an email did we have to
00:16:22
play on we get an email with all the instructions and your itinerary for a Hammerheads trip that we have this
00:16:28
upcoming weekend and in the email is a Google Docs link that says fill out this form until
00:16:34
Saturday morning when we're get the bus so again it's an email with a weekend itinerary and a link in the email of a form to fill out that
00:16:46
morning I mean without trying to be funny one I would forget but if I like thought to myself 100% like I need to do this that would be so I need to like
00:16:57
know what my itinerary is is MHM and I need to fill the alarm app goes on the fill out the form 1,00% that's the thing I need alarm app Saturday morning do you put the Google
00:17:09
Doc Link in the alarm no it would just say fill out form do form okay Hammerhead remember that there's an email somewhere that you're supposed to remember yeah that I'll be able to remember um and then the itinerary part
00:17:24
it would I mean I probably would never put it I would never actually put if I needed to know I would put parts in my
00:17:30
calendar but like other than that man I'm realizing my entire life's calendar is just texting my wife to see what we're doing this weekend whoa that's a different productivity at there she this
00:17:41
is going to be her favorite podast this might be the first episode she listens to this is good this is all very good
00:17:46
okay I I that's a you you're bringing that up I want my personal calendar to be anything I I need that I
00:17:55
need that for myself I think um that would be super important I feel like like especially now with all of the
00:18:00
hobbies that I have and now also having a child I need to be way more organized so I can find those time slots to when I
00:18:06
could do the things that I love to do that are just me or like meeting up with people so is your wife a calendar keeper
00:18:14
uh yeah not like super intense but like way better than I am and like she actually knows when we're doing
00:18:20
everything okay so yes so I guess the the idea behind my hypotheticals is there are certain productivity apps that
00:18:26
try to uh merge certain things and to have certain features embedded that help these levels of comple complexities feel simple okay um I think my favorite is a
00:18:39
to-do list app where all I do is when I need to do something or remember something all I do is open the to to-do
00:18:46
list app and set the time and date and the more complex the task is the more I can dive into the features of the to-do list app to have either recurring tasks subtasks descriptions uh offsetting days
00:19:00
and weeks and things like that like all sorts of flexibility inside of remembering to give me the notification
00:19:07
to tell me to do the thing okay to-do list 101 for me there's 10 bazillion options for this there are 10 bazillion options the good news is most apps do that thing you just described pretty
00:19:19
well the idea of just like I need to open this thing I need to write a thing down it needs to answer the question the
00:19:24
key there is you need natural language processing because being able to type take out trash 7 am every Friday is so
00:19:32
much easier than opening a picker and tapping a date and tapping a thing and and and in that range of natural
00:19:38
language processing gigantic spectrum of quality and then so cuz that's the first thing Marquez just said there and I like
00:19:44
when Marquez was saying that he puts the stuff in his app and then it's like this on this day at this time I was just like
00:19:50
I'm already thinking of scrolling through all those stupid things and I was I'm like I'm bored of this already I don't I don't see myself doing it so
00:19:57
that is huge where you're saying does that also work for like voice input so like voice to text and then yeah it's a little iier in that case there are there are kind of more places it can go
00:20:09
sideways sometimes voice recognition is not amazing sometimes the you know speech to text is not amazing like it
00:20:15
can get a little wonky but the idea of being able to do that in literally one step from I need to say a sentence out loud and it does a thing on a date in my
00:20:25
to-do list app is very possible that I will say to to be totally honest the thing that I find most bizarre about the
00:20:31
alarms thing is exactly what you just described it is an awful user interface for what you're trying to do it's it's
00:20:37
tons of scrolling everything looks the same it's sorted by time of day which is bananas okay uh oh so by the way there's two types of alarm Maps people I realized recently there is people who
00:20:50
have a new task for every alarm and then they scroll and there is 800 alarms on their phone and then I draw a line
00:20:57
Marquez deleting the alarm app and renaming it every single time you have a new task well not the alarm app the alarm the alarm deleting I think I'm in between the alarm okay I'm not renaming
00:21:09
alarms yeah yeah just rename and change the time of the alarm so I mean this phone doesn't show up but my last one
00:21:14
had maybe five all the time it's like my actual wakeup alarm Actually I don't even use my wakeup alarm I use it on my
00:21:19
watch now so like there's five alarms and it's just like this one is uh you know I have to remember to put something in my bag in the morning because I want to take it to work and then it's like oh
00:21:31
if I had one other thing I have to the next one I'm just gonna erase whatever that was which is you know kind of fun
00:21:38
sometimes when you're like oh what was I doing and how long ago did I need to remember to like take this box out of
00:21:43
the trunk of my car and then look at it and be like wow that box is still in the trunk of my car um but okay so yeah
00:21:50
that's where we're at I really like what you're talking about with a very simple type this out it it feels to me like the
00:21:57
do you know they say you can just type whatever the hell you want Google and it'll figure out just like what's that song that goes la la la la la and it's
00:22:03
like oh it's Creed high and then you're like yeah that's awesome it is that's so
00:22:09
yeah I like this already I like I like the direction we're going okay this is good we're yeah we're so that's so
00:22:14
that's one genre so the to-do list act can I can I interject and maybe you going to ask this question so you can tell me and we can just go further can
00:22:21
any of those see what somebody is texting me and be like actually I think this happens already in Google messages
00:22:27
if Claire says like like we're going to ABI and Grover's house Saturday at 7 can
00:22:34
I just like no but that's a really good feature that if I saw that in one I would think
00:22:40
about ending all the other I would pour my life into that second I'm already the CEO of aask actually wow okay okay so
00:22:48
but one thing to that point uh things like Gmail are actually pretty good at that and they're starting to get pretty sophisticated at understanding like oh this is about thing at a time do you
00:22:59
want to add that to your calendar okay uh and I think the the one other piece of this I was going to add is I think I do think we're talking about a to-do
00:23:05
list app I'm increasingly convinced we're talking about it to- do this app but I think one way you can think about a lot of this stuff also is to do it in
00:23:13
your calendar and there are a bunch of interesting ideas about calendars which I know you guys have talked about a bunch on this show but the idea of
00:23:20
basically just letting your calendar run your life and it it ends up being fewer things cuz you need a calendar anyway
00:23:27
and like events in a to-do list don't actually work very well uh so like there is a world in which you can consolidate
00:23:33
a lot of this into your calendar but the sort of ease of adding stuff and making sense is not quite there with and I'll
00:23:39
have to say for work I am like chronically in our Google Calendar almost to the like I sometimes I wonder
00:23:44
if that's why my personal calendar is so bad because our work calendar has so much in it and I'm just like I'm so much
00:23:50
more focused on that right now and like this is everything um so so like yeah I know how to work Google Calendar pretty well except for maybe that I put an event instead of a task I'm still not sure if that was the right or the wrong
00:24:01
answer when you guys asked me that before um so like yeah chronically in the work app in the work calendar if
00:24:08
there was some way where it could be like you're at home maybe these are our priorities Now versus these at work our
00:24:14
priorities yes hey we're going to take a quick break but we'll be right back with more from David
00:24:26
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coda.io wve that's coda.io swave to get started for free so Cod . iWave okay so I will say the to-do list
00:25:33
app seems very like a high candidate the the one downside that I find to list apps is events don't really work as well
00:25:40
as tasks so then there's the Calendar app stuff there are lots of calendar apps lots of them have various plugins and uis and things they can do they all more or less look the same because a
00:25:51
calendar is a calendar but the way you're organizing I need to take out the trash at a certain time I will set an
00:25:56
event so that I remember to this thing at this time you can also do it that way and there's a bunch of calendar apps and
00:26:05
my issue with that is not every task that I do has a specific time that I'm going to be doing it it's almost more like a hierarchy of things that I'll be doing during the day and not necessarily
00:26:16
times this is you and I have the same problem which is I'm constantly flitting between a to-do list app which is very
00:26:22
good for tasks and not very good for things that have to happen at a very specific time and often have other
00:26:27
information associated with them or a calendar which is great for that but for like a that I just need to remember to
00:26:34
do sometime in the next couple of daysend are awful yeah yeah that's a really good point and like I feel like there's even the like this needs to be
00:26:41
done by the end of the day this needs to be done by the end of the week this just needs to be done whenever you're ready
00:26:47
and then like this needs this is this exact date on this calendar so yeah then there are the hybrids yes there are some apps I hate how you understand everything he's
00:26:59
saying at one point I want you to be like what are you talking about you're like H caused me so much pain H it's
00:27:05
that Meme of like he's thinking about other women it's like the the hybrid task apps it's just so there are apps
00:27:13
that understand this dichotomy with tasks and events and we'll try to help you bring them both to one place so Adam was trying Amy earlier there are other
00:27:24
apps like this where and one of them that I'll suggest later kind of lets you drag tasks onto the calendar as you're
00:27:30
going about your day to sort of move through things I feel like just by the way you're talking about this this is
00:27:36
I'm going to compare this to a two in one where it's just not as good as either of themas is basically right yeah I think
00:27:42
there are there are this is either the perfect puzzle piece to fit or it's just going to cause you pain and you don't even have to worry about it but there
00:27:48
are it depends on kind of like how many tasks you do and what style you have but there are some apps where it's literally
00:27:54
like all right on the side over here is your to-do list on the side over here is your calendar and if you live through like blocks of
00:28:00
time in your calendar and you have a to-do list You' be like all right drag this to 3:00 drag this to 4:00 and you get a new email and it shows up in your
00:28:06
task app and you drag it over and you just sort of lay out the day in blocks of tasks okay it may not be something
00:28:13
you're interested in do you know the concept of of time blocking or time boxing people call it I mean I've heard
00:28:18
other people do it that sounds the whole thing yeah yeah it's very I I I'm kind of with you like my thing about that is all of these apps that try to do both are very opinionated about kind of the
00:28:30
best way to manage your life and they're probably right in a lot of cases right like the idea of saying I need to do 10
00:28:36
things today I have eight hours one of these things is going to take me six hours I'm probably not going to get them all done let me go schedule other things
00:28:43
somewhere else yeah is probably like a healthy s correct way to live but I just can't do it like life is too messy and all over place and priorities change and the idea of like constantly rewriting my
00:28:55
calendar all day to match what I'm actually doing just drives me nuts and so I think that's the problem I've
00:29:01
always run into is it's like if I want to sort of live by this thing's system M it works like Amy is a perfect example
00:29:07
of that like beautiful app really interesting ideas but if you don't sort of use it the way it is meant to be used
00:29:13
it will cause friction pain I mean yeah it sounds like it's kind of the reason for a task app is because of the anxiety
00:29:20
of multiple things hanging over your head but if you go too far and then the task app is now causing you more anxiety
00:29:25
than the actual tasks and stuff like that is like also I think we are landing pretty quickly at a place where you are
00:29:31
not interested in like spending a lot of time managing your tasks no like like there's a there are things we could set you up with that are like incredibly powerful project management tools with
00:29:41
lots of subtasks and projects and I can tell we can tell you all about the second kind ofy done in the five stages
00:29:49
I I feel like you just want a list of things that tells you what needs to happen when it needs to happen yeah think of me as like the dead head task
00:29:56
man like we're just very free flow in we're just like oh if my day I'm getting off of the couch and walking around it's
00:30:03
like oh that this feels like a perfect time for a task let's get something open and there it is what do you do for
00:30:08
things that need to happen at some point in the next couple of days you're like oh I need to take that box to FedEx it
00:30:14
doesn't really matter when I do it but I have to do it soon it's almost always like I get home from work on Friday and
00:30:19
I just think to myself like these are the things I need to be done by the end of the weekend then Sunday at 5:00
00:30:26
happens and then I'm like I think it's myself and then I just go about my life I just remember and then I do it all
00:30:32
Sunday at 5:00 pretty much okay or you never actually I'll say this what I'm realizing is Andrew forgets lots of
00:30:38
stuff but doesn't realize he forgot it because he didn't write any of it that's fair that's one of the things you're talking about and all of this is like if
00:30:45
I if I have that app where it's like I have to do eight things today and I only do six it's like then I have to admit
00:30:51
that I didn't do that thing at the end of the day which is a little anxiety inducing but maybe it's the maybe it's
00:30:57
the responsibility need I'll say rather than leave it till the end of the weekend it's more of I sit down and I
00:31:02
figure everything I need to do and then I wait till that moment that hits where I'm like I'm productive right now I feel
00:31:09
productive a lot of the times in the summer that's like I'm going to go mow the lawn and then once I finish mowing
00:31:14
the lawn I'm like I'm just in that mood where I'm going to get stuff done and I usually find myself like getting
00:31:21
everything done very quickly as far as you know except for all the things you forgot you write it down you know in a
00:31:27
pessimistic world an optimistic World Andrew is killing it and he's ready for some
00:31:32
valerant um no but I I will say that like and it's something that also does kind of Drive CLA crazy because like if
00:31:39
we are if it's Monday and we're having people around Saturday she is like throughout the week doing all of the
00:31:45
things that need to be done for there and my things that have to get done are waiting till that time where I'm like
00:31:51
yeah I could get a bunch of stuff done right now and I'd rather just knock all of it out in one to two hours and then
00:31:56
it almost always just declares like I'm upset at how you did every single thing you needed to do and it was there
00:32:02
but like it was causing her anxiety through the week and like I do feel bad about that but like yeah I I do wind up
00:32:08
getting my stuff done it just seems I'm in times where I just want to sit and do
00:32:14
absolutely nothing in times where I'm productive when I'm productive I'm productive and when I'm not I'm going look at that app and I'm going be like
00:32:20
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow so this is good so we also what you we need a a thing that doesn't yell at you if
00:32:26
you don't get something done that and I will say like this is not the app we're going to tell you to use but the app things which Marquez and I both fall
00:32:33
occasionally in love with uh one thing it does that I really like is if you have you have a list of stuff do today
00:32:39
and if you don't get it done it doesn't Mark it red or punt it to overdue it just keeps it in today and so it's just
00:32:45
like this is a thing I mean to accomplish and it's not it doesn't get mad that you didn't do it lots of other
00:32:50
things are like your tasks are overdue you know and this is not postone it's like you want to click this yeah you're
00:32:55
want you want to postone like are you sure a bad day today huh like it's funny you bring that up cuz like that in a sense I was thinking about if I continue to just not doing it like let's say it
00:33:08
goes from like this is your app and it's in a green color and it's like I didn't do that today and tomorrow it's yellow and then it's like the next day it's
00:33:14
orange it's like I don't know if I would want that but if it just kept adding to the next one and then I saw that list get longer that's like a less intense
00:33:22
version of like oh I do have a lot of stuff to do I don't know if you heard Ellis's idea for a Vision Pro t
00:33:28
where it is when you're in the Vision Pro and you have things to do depending on how intense they are they start
00:33:34
chasing you faster but in the Vision Pro so like taking out the trash has to be Thursday night and it's Thursday at 5:
00:33:40
it's like it is a giant monster following fast they chase you is dependent on their urgency love so like
00:33:46
something sort of slowly walk take out the trash just like hauling behind you that would be really cool so let's take it a few steps down from that but I like this idea of just adding to the next day
00:33:58
like cuz then that would get to that point where I'm like oh I just did something I'm in one of those moods
00:34:03
right now let's get stuff done and I'll just be like all right let's check this list right and in that moment it's helpful to have here's all the list of
00:34:09
stuff that just sort of needs to happen and you can it's not mad at you for not having done it yet but when you want to do it it's all right there for you that
00:34:16
great idea I have one more variable to throw at you see um what was the app you mentioned with like keep the kid stuff
00:34:23
Huckleberry huckle a third party alarm still mad about that do you care about your thing because you mentioned you deleted you switch your alarm app your alarm app all your stuff disappeared and
00:34:36
you have a new phone do you care about your tasks syncing between devices so you can check them anywhere yeah that would be awesome especially for work at like my my desktop or on my phone
00:34:48
because even in here there are days where I realize it's 4:00 and I'm like I haven't sat on my computer the entire day everything I've done is based off my
00:34:55
phone all the meetings I've looked at and stuff like that or like notifications sent to my watch like I only this is only really important
00:35:02
notifications yeah you have a unique setup and I get told this is weird all the time but you have an Android phone and a Mac so like a Mac at work a
00:35:09
Windows computer so a Windows machine and a Mac and an Android phone that narrows things down substantially okay
00:35:16
it does cool there are so many that have a beautiful website and an awesome GTD method and getting things done method and like a whole bunch of cool things about it
00:35:26
and then I go to try it and it's like this app is in beta it's iPhone only or this app is iPhone and Mac only and
00:35:33
sorry about your Android phone and it's just enough for me to go I can't try it yet I will say you don't have to worry
00:35:38
about my Windows computer much because that is very specifically like I play games on it I stream on it I do very
00:35:45
little on that especially now that my work computer is a laptop that I can bring home do you know and it needs to every morning remind me that if I
00:35:52
brought this home I need to bring back to work or else I don't have anything to work on which I only had this for like 2
00:35:58
months I've done that already okay um so yes definitely a problem at least Mac OS
00:36:04
and Android be nice because a lot of them will have a web app and it's like you have to remember to open it but just like having an app for I'm scared to
00:36:11
tell you that I use the Google Calendar on my computer in a tab okay yeah that's
00:36:17
fine and I'm I'm willing to go outside of that but I need the help to to get there so why don't we go through our top
00:36:26
candidates that we think match can I throw one more wrench in this potentially and maybe this won't change
00:36:32
anything I'm realizing when I say that I like get in these productivity like hours or moods or whatever I also am very good at not just being like I have
00:36:44
to take everything out of my office and then I have to replace the sockets in the nursery and then I have to clean the
00:36:51
downstairs it is like I am halfway through getting the stuff out of my office and then when I'm bringing some of that stuff to my room I passed the
00:36:58
nursy and I'm like oh I can replace one of those sockets and then um so there are lots of there so many listeners who
00:37:04
are diagnosing you with various things as you explain this that's Dr Mike's coming in next week to just finish that
00:37:09
off but uh but yes there's so there is definitely a level of me being pretty scatterbrained which I think this will
00:37:15
help this will um and I don't know if that changes that much if I think about it if I just think of those tasks I'm
00:37:21
never none of those are finished so I know they still have to happen but just throwing it out there but you never R out a ram
00:37:28
not that I know like you're doing task one and then you pass by task two and then you go oh I do task two and then
00:37:34
you start doing task two and then you see task Three Needs being done and you start Task three do you ever get so far down the rabbit hole that you forgot
00:37:40
about task one and you just need to just put it all down somewhere so you make sure you do all the things if you ask
00:37:45
the the open socket in the nursery yes okay so I guess so I think that's does get to that point that's that's good to know all right wait I have one more question sure are you a note taker uh
00:37:58
um like you're saying like in a meeting or something or not even in a meeting but like if you have if you have stuff
00:38:04
to do this weekend you're like the the sockets do you also want with that thing you have to do like here are here's a
00:38:11
link to the Home Depot website for the thing I'm going to buy and here's the size like are you a do you want to consolidate all that stuff I use keep
00:38:17
okay um keep sorry this this is it's this worried to show you thought buted okay alarm app and keep okay my keep keep is very good my keep is a does
00:38:30
not for everyone who my keep is a mess at the top of it right now oh I have a TOD do thing in not in here God when was
00:38:37
this from it says oil change return Amazon mic cable cookbook curtains disc golf tracker that's one note in keep so those are none of them are checked off I
00:38:51
did all of you the fact that that exists you didn't know you did it and you've done all those things anyway and it's pinned you done those things I did all of those oh and then there's housework underneath front light door light should
00:39:03
we check the oil on your car before you leave today oven light shells and office I did all of these as well that is also
00:39:09
a pinned oh no wait I checked two of these off basement stair light bathroom light checked off now I'm imagining
00:39:14
you're like a sleep productivity expert like you just like Sleepwalk into your bathroom and just start writing down to do that you're never going to see I do so I do use keep a lot yeah other than that is like a big
00:39:26
list of things that I definitely don't need and then my Aeropress coffee recipe okay very important to be keep around yeah yeah keep is interesting so you you
00:39:39
would say you remembered to do those things despite not using keep to remember them um maybe you just no no I
00:39:45
go back to them I just for some reason don't check them off my my oldest note is a grocery
00:39:51
list which is yeah did you check it when you were in the grocery store there's a lot of links in it for some reason
00:39:58
okay and then yeah my grocery list for my Christmas ham okay sorry I don't want to go too deep into that but I just want
00:40:05
people to understand how messed up my keeps there's some notes stuff in here too okay I I'm going to start with one
00:40:10
that I think ISE this is the one that I've told you about that I come back to all the time it's tick tick okay this is
00:40:17
a to-do list app at its core and On The Fringe on the outsides which you never have to get into are things like a calendar things like notes things like shared lists habit tracker you never
00:40:28
habit tracker I use a lot of them you don't have to touch them you can just use it as a list of tasks but it is
00:40:34
available inside of tic tac yes okay exactly you don't have to use it okay it's multiplatform so I have it on my
00:40:40
Mac I have it on my Android phone I have it on my iPhone and my Windows computer and there's a web app and it's all great
00:40:45
um but the thing that it will just basically do is take over what you do with keep and the alarm app which is
00:40:53
every time you have a task you need to remember to do instead of opening the alarm app and setting a Time you open keep and either write down remind me to
00:41:00
take the trash out tomorrow afternoon and it will know based on what you're typing when to remind you or you can
00:41:06
just go through the Picker like David said and and pick the exact time you want the notification and get it then but it's at its core it's a solidly
00:41:13
goodlook very functional multiplatform task app okay I think that's my number one candidate that I keep coming back to haven't found any major flaws with yet I'll leave that can I when you guys are
00:41:26
pitching this can I ask you what widgets are available for it and how I can see things because it is also something I'm realizing I am a very like I like my home screen to be super clean
00:41:39
and and some part of me thinks about this is like I kind of wanted as a widget here maybe as a separate page on
00:41:46
the side that would just be the full page in there rather than going into an app every time because I see I become a big believer in that exact strategy so
00:41:53
like have it one swipe away and have it huge I think has for me at least has been really helpful having it yell at
00:41:58
you about your tasks all day is actually no no and I do not like like I like this to be clean and just like peaceful and
00:42:05
then thank you very much um and then I yeah maybe one swipe away I'm also very I do not like any swipes on it at all so this is a big step for me agreeing that I might be able to add a second screen
00:42:16
with a too app your intervention is working so it we only want to add one screen one screen that's it don't you
00:42:23
dare ask for two there's a couple ways to jump into tick tick that I obviously like just having the icon on your home
00:42:29
screen is one way and then just has a big plus button for you to start adding a task there's also the widget which is
00:42:34
a list of your tasks that just lives on your home screen and then a little plus button in the corner so if you just hit
00:42:40
the plus okay you jump right into adding a task so that's like convenient yeah um
00:42:45
on the iPhone even you can set the action button to be just start letting me type a new task which I had for a
00:42:52
while uh so there are there are various levels of uh friction I think the point of this is to be as frictionless as
00:42:58
possible correct so then my question is does it have the natural language that D was talking about before and it's it's
00:43:04
I'm going to put that out that might be a non-negotiable already I think I honestly think it should be I think every to-do list app needs it and
00:43:11
whenever I switch to one I don't know if this is your experience to but uh whenever I switch to one that doesn't
00:43:16
have it the reason I bail is because I spend way too much time tapping on calendar dates yeah yeah so I recently
00:43:22
tried super list which I'm not going to recommend and it just has a little bit too much friction for it's the Picker
00:43:28
it's the adding a new task it's the couple extra clicks yep super list is like beautiful and full of good ideas
00:43:34
and just not quite ready yeah it's one one here's the question all of these seem to be beautiful and and like okay
00:43:41
cool that's no that's what I was going to ask seems cuz like we always talk about and you guys mentioned in the beginning when a new one of these
00:43:47
calendar to-do apps launches it feels like they're putting 50% of the effort into the like marketing and launching
00:43:53
and the Beautiful website and everything so like I'm just assuming most of these look good I would love to see some bad
00:43:59
examples at some point in this episode it's got a lot better I will say there has been uh a definite move toward what
00:44:07
if the app looked nice like for a long time because if you think about it right A lot of these apps are for people who like want to do productivity and those
00:44:15
people want to see tons of metadata and they have priorities and they have tags and they have filters and they have all that stuff and for those people having
00:44:23
lots of information shoved at your face is useful but if you're just like I want to write a thing down and I want you to
00:44:28
tell me about it when I have to do it it ends up just being super overwrought but a lot of these apps have gotten better
00:44:33
at pulling some of that stuff out of the interface over time cool yeah I don't need to 10x anything let's just go 2x
00:44:39
right now I don't need no Sigma grind set anything so let's I think that will be my the par Methodist for another
00:44:46
podcast yeah we leave the Eisenhower Matrix out of this yes okay the next episode um we're doing my original
00:44:52
Theory where I'm locking you to in this room and you have to both agree on which app you're using that take forever yeah
00:44:58
yeah or maybe it wouldn't I don't know hey we're going to take a quick break but after this we'll be right back with David Pierce giving his recommendation
00:45:05
to Andrew uh so my recommendation which I actually think I switch between tick tick which I like for a lot of reasons uh and this app which is todoist
00:45:23
constantly I think generally speaking these are the two sort of most mainstream yeah crossplatform to-do list
00:45:29
apps uh to-do list has awesome language processing uh it's a super straightforward Simple app it again has a lot of the like extra powerful stuff if you want to use it and filters and projects and subtasks and all that stuff
00:45:41
but uh you fundamentally can just make it a list of tasks and the reason I like to do it is that it integrates out much
00:45:49
better than tick tick tick tick really wants you to use the tick tick app but to do it you can you can two-way sync
00:45:55
with your Google calendars your tasks the calar if you're who lives in your calendar grid you can still see your
00:46:02
task there you can syn it to a bunch of other apps so it'll pull stuff in it'll send stuff out like it's it thinks of itself as kind of a tasks platform and it's somebody who my problem has always
00:46:12
been I'm just not necessarily as reliable as I need to about like looking at my app uh and so a I rely on
00:46:19
reminders a lot if I have a thing that needs to get done I just make my phone tell me to do it um but also I do look
00:46:26
at my calendar all day so having something I can see in my calendar is very important and the reason I end up leaving tic every time I leave tictic is
00:46:32
that tic Tick's calendar which is in tic which is a good idea like I like the idea of having the calendar next to the
00:46:41
tasks in the same app tick Tick's calendar is just not very good it's not very good you can't add calendar events
00:46:47
from tick tick it only brings in calendar events doesn't let you make new ones it's it's a it's a readon calendar
00:46:53
essentially so you can sort of map it next to your tasks and you can put tasks on but only ti so you have to kind in
00:47:00
Universe there's a weird hack you can export your tasks back out to Google Calendar And subscribe to that Google Calendar so that when you make a task press that button I need that
00:47:14
button and if you if you just have a day it makes it an all day event which is not great but if you put slide it to the
00:47:19
calendar it makes it a event on a Google Calendar so yeah it's a couple steps to
00:47:25
make it work but if you're fix that just make that better here's a question when you're doing either of
00:47:30
these in the Google Calendar there's a way to differentiate if it's going into my work calendar versus personal
00:47:37
calendar yep okay it can sometimes be a little hacky um most of them will let you set a default and by default it'll
00:47:44
go to that and then you can move it but you kind of have to explicitly move it most of the time okay I think I also
00:47:49
would probably be if I'm being honest this to-do app would be most of my personal things because I'm pretty good
00:47:54
at with notion and Google calendar and what Mark and just markk has I talking every morning and knowing what we need
00:48:00
like my job is to know what the hell we're doing every week so like I kind of have to so if it was defaulting to all
00:48:06
my personal stuff and then I still have my Google Calendar and stuff that's how I have set up and that that works pretty well all of my tasks just dump onto my
00:48:13
personal Gmail calendar I think that's good and I have my personal reminders coming to my watch in my calendar so
00:48:18
that would be really helpful I think okay yeah cool both of these are free and with some level of Premium features
00:48:26
if you really find you need a specific thing or a ton of extra features or if they're watching this episode or that
00:48:32
you know but they're pretty cheap three four five bucks a month so but I think actually for what you're describing which is basically a list of tasks with
00:48:38
reminders and dates it's it's Pro both will probably be free cool yeah here you know this might be something to think
00:48:45
about in the premium section do you ever like you tell yourself you want to start doing something I feel like this always happens with like going to the gym the
00:48:52
thing that motivates you is like I need to spend money on something that's going to make me do this so it's like buying a
00:48:58
new thing of protein or like a new pair of running shoes it's like that is the thing that's motivating me to start
00:49:03
running so maybe I just need to buy some premium and be like yeah I already threw some money at it for me I like I spend
00:49:10
two hours in an afternoon getting all of my stuff into it and I'm like all right I have to use it now Fair that's that's
00:49:16
your preferred that's still investment into it I think for you it's literally like we're going to put it on your home screen and that's going to feel big in a
00:49:22
way that's going to make you use second screen set right CH chill David screen I would never big widget yeah yeah okay
00:49:31
and then the so the last one that we were sort of talking about earlier is I I put this at the bottom of the
00:49:37
list but could possibly be a good idea just based on the fact that you use Google Calendar and you have an Android phone and you use the browser for Google
00:49:45
Calendar and you use Gmail so Google has this thing and we never know how long Google things are going to last so this
00:49:51
is the asress on top of all this but Google has this thing where it's fairly good at giving you
00:49:57
tasks um separately but integrated with the rest of your things so let's say so I think it can show up next to Gmail right yeah so it can you can have basically your full list of tasks in like the right sidebar of your Google
00:50:09
calendar and your Gmail and I think your drive as just it sort of follows you around all the Google products yeah but
00:50:16
then you can drag stuff onto the calendar if you set up like if you use Google Assistant to set a reminder it'll show up in tasks and on your calendar uh
00:50:24
there I mean again this is all in yeah Google's reminder product is the worst organizational nightmare of all
00:50:31
time uh but it is like very slowly coming back towards the thing it's supposed to be uh and there's still a
00:50:37
standalone app for it right wait did you tell me the name of this and I missed or Google Google you have the Google tasks
00:50:43
app okay but again if you like have Gmail or the calendar open on your desktop then it's just always sitting
00:50:49
over there ready to add a task from an email or a calendar event or vice versa that sounds like something that would be good as like an in between of if I picked tick tick or todoist if Google
00:51:00
task could just take everything from that and then also throw it at the side of my Gmail that's I mean that's the
00:51:05
dream that is truly the dream and I will tell you the the dream for me with Google Tasks would be if it also
00:51:11
integrated with keep and so like part of what I want to recommend you is just to dump all of your stuff into keep right
00:51:18
and you have you have a list of tasks and it it should you say you know remind me to do whatever at 9:00 p.m. and it'll
00:51:24
just put a keep note with a reminder it's also in Google Tasks and also in Google Calendar incredibly obvious
00:51:29
doesn't work I can't believe they don't completely nonexistent they must not even talk to each other those teams yeah
00:51:35
I'm convinced that Google is not aware of all of the products that it no too many buildings man yeah um but yeah I do
00:51:41
think there is a there is a version of what you're describing that you can do pretty successfully mostly inside of
00:51:49
your calendar uh again I think it it time stamps things in a way that I don't think you're going to love all the time uh and it's not good at natural language processing in the same way okay Google
00:52:01
Calendar has a little bit of it especially on mobile uh you can use apps like Fantastical which is a Mac and iOS
00:52:07
only app is very good at natural language processing okay but useless to you on some of these other platforms uh
00:52:14
and so like I think it's not crazy to say your calendar can just be the place for all of this stuff and I know a lot of people who use like all day events as their task list to me just the visual
00:52:26
clutter of that gives me itchy feel this is a question I was going to ask I'm I'm
00:52:31
like my calendar feels pretty intense sometimes but is it be I'd like to see how both of you look at your calendar
00:52:38
because I use you use weekly yeah now I don't know I think even on mobile do you
00:52:43
use weekly well I can't fit enough I think it's five days okay I just do I have a list like I I just do the pure
00:52:50
like schedule because the list goes too long like my widget is the list but a lot of times the list goes off of like
00:52:55
this is one day so I can't can I see it doesn't work mobile cuz I'm realizing how I look at mine and I do not think
00:53:02
it's the right way of doing it like that this is this is seven days oh do you have yours as the the day the single day
00:53:08
of month those are all all day events right uh no these are all these are all work events so these are all the ones we
00:53:14
put in but it's just the month so like it's very little and I use that occasionally because it's nice to sort of pull out and be like okay what free days do I have this month or whatever but as a general way to of manage my
00:53:27
days that just feels it's hard and then like getting into it then it gets a little more conf I guess that's not too
00:53:32
bad I live in so cron the app that is now notion calendar which I think is what you're using it um on mobile defaults to I think a 3-day view which
00:53:43
is really nice I actually like it a lot it's funny I downloaded ocean calendar on my my Mac and then I've realized I
00:53:50
never click it the only thing I feel like it's good for is the like top task here like whatever the next one is and
00:53:56
I'm like I always I'm like oh I don't have that open it minimize it immediately and then just keep it for
00:54:02
that part it does always show what your next task is how long it is till your next event which is nice yeah um I'm
00:54:09
learning some tips and tricks here as well for the use are infinite Tech tips and tricks any one of these apps you can
00:54:14
find dozens of YouTube videos on like how to optimize your workflow and how to take the most advantage of all these
00:54:20
features that it has why watch those when I have YouTube right here this is I think you can just drive into the core
00:54:25
functions of it be totally leveled upol yeah um yeah I actually think in general
00:54:30
the mistake I make too often is I watch all those videos and I read all the things and I end up spending all of this
00:54:36
time creating this beautiful elaborate system where everything is in its right place and everything is perfect and then
00:54:41
I've made it way too much work for myself to actually do anything so then I go find something else that doesn't have any of that going for me and it's just a
00:54:47
list of stuff and it turns out that's what I actually need yeah that's so just start with the list of stuff do either
00:54:53
of you find yourself not getting to your to-do things because YouTube is you putting them on your that's why it's
00:54:58
your apps and Chang like so you're literally setting up what you need to do for the day like I want to do it in this
00:55:04
new app and then the day is over and you're like I didn't do any of the things unfortunately that has happened we are but I moved all the tasks around
00:55:11
but it looks real pretty yeah yeah I guess that's that's the idea is the As frictionless and uh straightforward as it can possibly be is a win mhm I have
00:55:22
one last question for you you've seen these these new like AI Hardware pieces right like the rabbit or the AI pin do you think that this has any Merit as
00:55:34
maybe a possible Next Level future version of like task management like if in theory you could just tell your AI thing remind me to do the thing at this time and it takes all your natural
00:55:44
language and just goes all right I'll remember it and reminds you whenever could that be real or is that am I just
00:55:50
in fantasy I think that could totally be real and actually the first version of that which is basically just like a much
00:55:56
simpler way to dump stuff into my task system yeah is not hard right like all we're missing right now is the fact that most of the time to do it you have to get out your phone and unlock it and
00:56:06
open an app and press a button and if you can shortcut all of that like it's one of the things I use the watch for a lot uh is just being able to just
00:56:14
quickly plug in a reminder uh interesting and like when I'm walking the dog constantly it's just like it's
00:56:19
literally the only thing I use Siri 4 at this point is just dumping stuff into reminders uh and I wouldn't use Apple
00:56:26
reminders except that nothing else plugs into Ser success exctly why I use the shopping list in keep oh that's smart
00:56:34
that's I should start doing the only thing that I can say hey G add this to my shopping list it just dumps it in keep every time and I wish I could put it in super list or tick tick but like I
00:56:44
need the frictionless like yell across the room thing because I'm always doing something totally that's the same thing but I think the idea of dedicated
00:56:49
Hardware that can do that is super enticing and then if you add on the idea of it being much smarter like one of the
00:56:56
things the the rabbit folks promis that they can do is you can point the camera at something and be like you know remind me
00:57:04
to buy this on Amazon in a week and it'll it it like in theory these things will be able to like dump the right Amazon link into your to-do list to buy
00:57:11
a week from now uh all of that is like sitting there and I think we'll get there eventually hope so but right now I found uh every time I try I then do it
00:57:22
and I have to go open the app to make sure that it did right and I've now just done all the same work I would have done
00:57:28
I feel like even when you like when it starts doing correctly the anxiety of did that do that correctly 100 like just
00:57:36
like I know and the thing is I need to look and the thing is is with any system like this if you don't trust it completely it's a waste of your time yeah that's that's a really good point
00:57:46
yeah yeah there's some amount of uh I W like the ideal would be I can just have a Google Assistant plugin where I can just ask the ass to just add a task and
00:57:57
it adds it to whatever app I've decided I'm using right but instead you have to be like hey G talk to todoist no I don't
00:58:03
want that and so you say when you're doing because I do not add reminders through Google assistant at all but I
00:58:11
should because in Android auto when half of my ideas come out on the drive home yeah that's the way that's the golden
00:58:18
good ideas by the way you only get them when it's impossible that was my other thing how many what is the easiest way
00:58:23
to set a reminder for something when I am half to sleep in bed in the shower or like away from all of your Tech and you need to write something down yeah yeah that's I if I had Google Assistant
00:58:35
sounds like the best I think assistant the right answer and it throws it into keep you're saying or it thr into Google Tasks Google yeah if you ask to remind
00:58:42
you to do something it's going to make a task um which will actually give it a date and everything which is cool but I
00:58:48
don't that's the thing is I don't use Google Tasks so I don't get to take advantage of that frictionless
00:58:53
experience I just opened Google's support page explaining the difference between tasks and keep and where your reminders go and it's like 12,000 worth
00:59:00
like which just tells you everything you need to know yeah but I think I mean and truthfully you're getting most of the
00:59:05
reminders that you're talking about through your alarm app on your phone so to the extent that you're just using
00:59:12
assistant to do them anyway the worst case scenario is your phone will remind you anyway so you've you're kind of netting out the same way with just like
00:59:19
slightly easier input but I think the the challenge with that is if you have a thing you need to do regularly yeah that that's a really good system for like simple oneoff things that you're like I
00:59:30
just need to remember to switch the laundry in 45 minutes this is not like an interesting task that you either need to remember or do again mhm Voice
00:59:37
Assistant reminders perfect best possible system for that uh but like ironically for a thing you have to do every week your alarm system is actually better than that unfortunately because
00:59:48
the other way to do it is then you'd have to tell assistant to do it and then go find the thing in Google Tasks and
00:59:54
add the recurring to it the recing that's just a mess wow that's so you can't just say hey G add a Monday
01:00:01
recurring you can add it to your calendar oh to your every Monday but at least in my experience so far you cannot add a task with any of that sub information yeah to
01:00:13
tasks it's unfortunate it would be so great again if Google reminded themselves a few times of the fact that
01:00:19
they own this stuff they could probably do it if Google just set an alarm reminder
01:00:25
to tell them that they owned all of these different companies yeah recurring they have like 50 alarms of like
01:00:30
remember you have this product we own then they have too many alarms cooked up for like delete Google Hangouts in one
01:00:38
month or kill this ass because somebody reminded them it exists and they're like wait what we're paying for that too yeah
01:00:45
well that's I think I think we've left on a good place I want to throw it to one person yeah Adam do you have any
01:00:51
suggestions or things said as someone else who is in the the realm of having your life together or whatever you want to call it well as someone that's in like seven different apps right now I would argue I do not have my
01:01:02
life together you know what I'm figing out you guys have your life together except for in the do apps it seems like
01:01:08
that's where it is totally tearing you apart I have nine different reminders coming from the same from the same I had
01:01:15
a I had a this on my calendar that we were doing this and no fewer than five apps reminded me that this was happening
01:01:20
this morning exactly yeah my suggestion would be try to keep it as simple as possible so I would say just lean into
01:01:27
the Google system for now you Google task Google task Google Calendar cuz you don't leave Android like ever you've
01:01:33
never had an iPhone so like no my problem with a lot of the Google stuff is or at least the apple stuff in
01:01:39
particular like notes and reminders is it doesn't leave Apple so that's it but Google works everywhere so you could
01:01:45
just do things in Google and have it pop up places and even like emails you can snooze for later or things like that
01:01:51
like you don't have to get into the super crazy features long you have the browser tab open basically and keep is
01:01:57
great for dumping stuff in but then it also has a lot of power features where If eventually you get down you can start
01:02:03
tagging things and filtering and all that stuff but you don't have to even do that
01:02:08
yeah I come back to that like every couple months because I remember you wrote an article once a while ago about
01:02:14
how to make Google just like the system and it it's a dream I've been trying to have come true for so long it's so close
01:02:21
I mean this is this is the thing that I experience with every one of these apps and systems is in so many cases all the
01:02:28
pieces are there it's like it has all the features that I need around they're just put together in slightly wrong ways
01:02:37
or it's missing one thing that turns out to be really important to me uh and and
01:02:42
this is why again I come back to you like don't try to use any of these systems just make a list of stuff uh and
01:02:49
like for me I I had a long run of using todoist like to its fullest extent like oh man the system that I had and and
01:02:55
that was awful and I just deleted all of that and I went back to all of my tasks live in the Inbox and they have dates on
01:03:02
them the end wow you don't have uh you don't separate your tasks into I don't anymore list I have stopped because for
01:03:08
me it was like if I if I have to click into I do have a separate list for my shopping list that's the only one that's separate sure but when I had more things
01:03:15
to open and check I just wouldn't and so I was like oh I have a list of personal finance tasks that I haven't checked in
01:03:21
eight months like it's just this is just not useful that's my notion Fair yeah uh
01:03:27
and so I think getting into a position where you just have the fewest possible number of things to check is the right
01:03:34
place to start and then eventually if you're like oh I have all this stuff I need to put somewhere else so I can manage it that's actually a good problem
01:03:39
to have yeah I think my number one tip for myself is I give everything a date everything gets a date so I don't have to check anything I just will always get and whenever I open the new app I just
01:03:51
look at what's today and I'll just go through today and if I finish today I'll look at tomorrow but I always just have
01:03:56
everything always gets a date so if there's recurring tasks like I have maintenance tasks for appliances and
01:04:02
stuff it always gets a date that's the it's yours always the date it has to be done or the date it has to be done by or
01:04:10
like the date you feel like doing it or the date it has to be done by everything always has a date that I have to do it
01:04:15
okay so so you're not a get this done by Friday you're like on Monday you're like I am calling the dishwasher repair man
01:04:22
on Wednesday yes I always set I never set deadlines I always set dates to do things based on if there is something
01:04:28
where like you're saying I have to do something by Friday yeah before I even write it down I think how long is that going to take me to do I'm going to
01:04:34
write the date down of when I need to do it to get it done by that time okay and so it'll show so if I if I
01:04:39
need to make a call that's a one day thing but if it's a project then I'll write down a Monday task I feel like
01:04:45
this is a level of Life planning Andrew is not comfortable no I was just thinking I am and like how I said I worked before I need a I need this done
01:04:52
by Friday right so like when I hit the area and it needs to just like be like hey this is coming up and then when I
01:04:59
get to that point of less hecticness of like being productive it's like okay I do that and I tap it off and yeah Friday
01:05:07
now it's done yeah wow I can have things done before the day they need to be done by yeah it's a magic I will say at some
01:05:15
point the the onus does remain on you to do those things and as someone who continues to
01:05:22
do things just five minutes before their due uh even though I have a to-do list it probably feels sick to check it off after the thing for me is that that feeling of uh for me it's often like
01:05:33
with with a baby it's like right after the kid goes to bed and it's like okay I have I have a couple of hours I'm going to like put on a show or a movie like
01:05:39
what do I need to do and I could either sit there and sort of rack my brain and try to think about it or I could just open an app and be like oh here's all
01:05:45
the stuff sitting here waiting for me because what I find is when I don't make that kind of list I end up doing all of the sort of low stakes not very
01:05:53
important kind of irrelevant stuff like oh I'm going to go like organize one of the folders of my email like the promotion section of my Gmail is like not an important subcribe right but
01:06:05
that's what I'll do because it like feels useful but instead if I can go to somewhere and be like oh what do I actually care about getting done right
01:06:11
now like having that list in front of me yeah feels really good yeah that's and the whole like cuz there definitely is
01:06:17
that sense right now of oh Lane just went down for a nap and I know she's going to have another nap later what can
01:06:22
I get done during this one and what can I get done during that one or can I just hang out for this one because that was
01:06:28
exhausting and then that nap later I know I can get these things done I will say the people who love time blocking uh
01:06:34
and time boxing and the idea of like give everything a time love it for that exact reason because then you can say
01:06:40
I'm going to do all this and then for this one hour block I am just going to screw off and play video games and I don't have to feel bad about it because
01:06:45
everything else I need to do has a has a job already it's a blank slot on the calendar I'm I'm not a Time blocker if I ever write down in my calendar have fun
01:06:52
I'm going to be like I've lost this moner I did actually notice that the other day you have like drive home and I was like because I know I can't do other things during that block so like I have
01:07:04
super Fair okay from for like a 45 minute block because if I have like something to do I better not schedule it
01:07:10
for that time or I will no longer have time to drive home it's bad that in my eyes you were like that day doesn't have
01:07:16
drive home and you're sitting in the studio and you're like what's how do I get home I didn't know how to it didn't tell me where to go the internet was it does feel like that sometimes yeah no I
01:07:29
that's that's the purpose of my blocking is to give like purpose to that's super Fair um yeah th this kind of reminds me
01:07:36
of the way you guys are describing all these different ones and how like so many of them have so much but there's
01:07:41
just this one thing I feel like this is the same with mirrorless cameras and we talk about this all the time just every
01:07:47
time a mirrorless camera comes out you're like this is going to be perfect it they had one problem last Model and
01:07:52
they're going to fix it like AK overheating they got it they're like we fixed AK overheating you're like can you
01:07:58
flip that screen out why is the microphone Jack right in front of it like how do you mess one thing up every
01:08:04
single time and that's reminding me of this right now yeah my last little bonus every single one of these apps makes a
01:08:10
different sound when you check off a task oh can you play all of them that might that might make my decision
01:08:17
sometimes it's really good sound tic tick has good sounds TI got a nice sound super list has a nice sound and super
01:08:24
list has a little like scribbly animation when you cross out used to shove a unicorn across the
01:08:29
screen wait let me make let me I'm going to which is like fun the first three times and you're like can we get the Unicorn out of here I have other stuff
01:08:35
to it takes too much time it takes too much time all right this is super list it's a long sound here's a tick
01:08:42
tick that one's customizable there's several sounds of tick tick I use that same one though it's like feels like
01:08:48
it's kind of a done I have accomplished something I did the thing all right anyway all right I think the the three
01:08:56
options I've written down because they're the ones you gave me and I kind of ignore most of the other ones is tick tick todoist and Google task I do think
01:09:02
those are the ones that are right yeah I think I'm going to start with Google Tasks okay even though the hovering over
01:09:09
of Google might just kill this at any moment is a little worrisome it just seems the most simple and I think
01:09:16
starting there is a good I feel pretty good about the immediate future of Google Tasks like would I bet on it
01:09:22
being here in a decade no would I bet on anything Google does being here in a decade no but Google has if anything really
01:09:29
reinvested in making this a thing that makes sense okay and there are a lot of interesting business reasons for Google
01:09:34
to care about this but uh also it has very slowly started to do the work on Google Tasks uh it launched it like 5 years ago and then literally basically forgot about it for four years they they
01:09:45
killed it and then they it came back inside of Gmail or something yeah mean it's all deranged it was like it had it
01:09:52
had a dedicated app and then it didn't and then it was really ugly web app that you could only find with a sneaky URL
01:09:58
but but now it is it is beginning to make sense and I I'm pretty confident that Google at least is going to keep it
01:10:04
around as a thing for a while okay yeah so I think I'm going to start with Google Tasks it seems the simplest it
01:10:09
also seems like something that very quickly when I'm at work I can start getting myself used to and all that and
01:10:16
then maybe expanding into my personal life more often which is where I ultimately want it and I think use that
01:10:22
but tick tick and Todo is both look pretty awesome and I think I want to graduate to those
01:10:29
potentially and then stop go baby Hey listen I finish my school schooling and I never look back at grad work or anything like that I graduate and I never look back so we are going to graduate to this new one and then that
01:10:41
is going to be it so here here's how I would tell you to make that decision sure download Google tasks to your phone
01:10:47
okay and then see which app you use more Google Calendar or Google Tasks because
01:10:53
you can add a Google task in Google calendar okay uh the mobile Google Calendar app is actually a pretty full
01:10:58
featured Google tasks app also uh so you can have both in place and if you find yourself being like Oh what I really like to do is look at the list of tasks you will lean more towards tick
01:11:10
tick I think okay but if you find yourself saying oh I like looking at my calendar with my tasks kind of around
01:11:16
you'll want to be in more of a todoist place where it can pull stuff back out into your calendar and that kind of
01:11:21
thing cool I like that but I think it's like for me the interface of being able to open it up and be like here is a list of all the stuff that I need to do is
01:11:28
great and I think that's where you'll lean to tick tick okay cool like just looking at the uis of both of these I think I like the look of tick tick more
01:11:36
but to doist feels more familiar it feels very notion slacky on like the left side of it and that seems familiar which I think seems like a good thing so I'm kind of in between those so I think
01:11:47
start Google Tasks I wouldn't doubt if by next week I've already picked one of them but it's
01:11:54
way too much pressure to pick by the end of the show which I thought I was going to have to do but you were just going to go out into it so maybe I should have just let that happen but I want I want a
01:12:01
good payoff at the end check in though we're going to need at some point in the coming weeks I how about at some point
01:12:09
in the next four months no no no no alarm okay you guys have to call David and have him
01:12:15
surprised on the waveform podcast to check in on me I love that live but I don't know it's coming anytime let me
01:12:21
make a task real quick hold on set an alarm I like that cool yeah I think that's the best way to check up because then I won't then I can't be like oh David's calling tomorrow let me make a Punch Yeah I love I'm in okay surprise
01:12:34
check in Okay now what's your notes app wait about email app no that I was I I almost went there like this is unnecessary we don't need
01:12:45
to do this I do you've used superhuman I do use super I every time I even consider talking about on the podcast
01:12:51
I'm like it's a $30 a month email appb how can I even begin to recommend it to anyone like no one would I wouldn't
01:12:58
recommend it to most people to be honest it is sort of preposterous but it runs my life so it's just so fast and yeah I
01:13:05
like it very much but also uh I have used every single email app that exists and it's uh if anything even more
01:13:12
chaotic than to-do list apps but the problem with most of them is their search sucks so I stop using them for the mar and I ended up I end up back on
01:13:18
Gmail or M stream which is a Mac app for Gmail that's very good uh or superhuman which also has good search good search
01:13:24
yeah I I want to spend as little time in Gmail as possible so my main Gmail my main email goal tends to be just like
01:13:30
get to zero and leave as fast as possible select all God that's another that's another
01:13:36
episode it's the dream um okay David how fast God can you type the alphabet A through Z in Order Perfect we'll find out we have a
01:13:51
challeng we have a challenge for it you don't even have to guess we can just find out right now could it be is it 8 seconds that would be a pretty
01:13:58
decent time that might that might even be on our leaderboard of people we've timed T the alphabet we'll give you a
01:14:06
I'll give you a URL right now okay what would you feel more comfortable typing on your laptop keyboard we have a
01:14:12
mechanical keyboard we have like a magic keyboard I can't do mechanical keyboards it's just feel I just no that's fine we
01:14:18
so we do this for all our guests and we have a leaderboard and the number one on the leaderboard right now is Tom Scott
01:14:23
who requested to go get his Dell laptop that he writes all his scripts on and then he crushed it proceeded to dominate
01:14:30
he's extremely competitive apparently so I will say just to immediately explain why I'm going to do poorly at this uh it
01:14:37
is very hard it see it actually seems hard I'm like have I ever typed the alphabet before uh I I use too many
01:14:45
keyboards at this point which I think has made me bad at it you use too many keyboards but you don't like mechanical
01:14:51
keyboards what keyboards are youing I have I have a Logitech craft keyboard that is the one I use at like my home
01:14:57
base uh I have a Surface Book and I have a MacBook Air which obviously their own
01:15:03
keyboards uh and occasionally I would say like four times a year I try to become a mechanical keyboard person I'm
01:15:10
there for you the world of it is very cool I think there's lots of interesting stuff going on I think the companies are up to stuff I like the technology I want
01:15:16
to be able to like talk about Cherry switches and know what that is no one giv about those anymore but I just
01:15:23
there's something about the way that it feels I also have found that I type constantly while I'm in meetings with
01:15:28
people and it's super helpful that people can't hear me doing that that's fine not to dive too deep into that but
01:15:34
there are low profiles getting super popular and Silent switches are becoming super popular so you can still get all the benefits and cool feel and all that
01:15:40
while not being a annoying okay silent switches I could very much get behind because the everybody's like oh I love
01:15:47
the noise I'm like I don't like the noise the like number one negative comment on the mechanical keyboard switch video I did is like if you were
01:15:52
in my office I would hate you and it's like it was just a fun video man chill but yes that is a serious concern how many attempts do I get at this so you will get three attempts I three attempts
01:16:03
okay when you type it'll show it the letters highlighting above it um if you miss a letter it won't continue you have to hit the letter before you can go to the next one and just don't hit enter at
01:16:14
the end because that resets it if you're trying to like the website if you just want to like keep practicing over and
01:16:19
over nervous every it's it's nervous this is really stressing me out more than I expected this might make you more
01:16:26
or less nervous do you want to see the leaderboard now or after after okay all right do you want to count him down
01:16:31
Marquez oh he's going oh he started already I didn't type in though what that's fine just start over doesn't count just practice okay that was like
01:16:39
two seconds just in case you I timed myself so fast also just discovered I don't know where the q key is it's no one types the alphabet no like nobody this is a very this is making you
01:16:51
realize that like I I think one of the things that I have also learned in my aspirations of being a mechanical keyboard person is how many different ideas about keyboard layouts there are
01:17:01
and that everyone agrees that the Cy keyboard is a ridiculous invention but we're sort of stuck with it because relearning it it would be like it's just
01:17:08
not worth it anymore Fringe keyboards that try some wild things yeah I was talking to a guy who was like he built a
01:17:14
thing that he basically never has to move his fingers but the keys are like three things deep so he has modifier keys on modifier Keys modif 45,000 words
01:17:23
a minute but no one on earth can figure out how to use it yeah all right man congrats okay here we go I just start
01:17:31
typing and it'll go right exactly yeah you don't have to back space 5.71 that's a great first that's a really good first try would you like to
01:17:45
keep going I think I can do better than that yeah go for it we we're taking your best score and 0. seconds so that's
01:17:50
pretty good that's unfathomable wait now I want to know okay so it took the I had a big gap between p and Q that check out took a while Q
01:18:02
where work yeah yeah this is fascinating I'm learning so much about myself right now okay now that's going to mentally
01:18:10
stress you out when you H I'm just going to hit all you need to know five is a great time it's like a pretty good time
01:18:17
already and we're going to take your best so if you go later no okay now I want to see the leader board you got that you want to see it now I do I do
01:18:23
want to see it now okay that might be stressful but I like that I want to know what I'm up against I have a baseline now here's your right around 10 three
01:18:29
and seconds but your 5.7 would fall in the top 10 right around you'd be if you stopped now you'd be right above my soul goal is to beat Jad I Rod right right
01:18:42
after Andrew actually so you're you're in the top 10 all right I feel good about that yeah this is a good start
01:18:53
okay sure I should look while I'm doing this 8.2 seconds and it took me 3 seconds to find the U yeah I need to look in the
01:19:06
time it took you to find the U Tom Scott the entire alphabet that's crazy crazy out of the day that is wild okay all right I get one more last last [Music]
01:19:23
one 6.2 seconds my first one I thought that one felt good I mean five is still a great that one was cleaner but a
01:19:29
little slower that's I thought that sounded good but that is top 10 my friend I'll take it that's pretty good
01:19:35
who so right above me right above Ry right behind Andrew 5.7 let's go honestly in the spectrum of like we've had all the way up to eights and nines all the way down to threes that's that's an above average score 3.5 seconds
01:19:48
that's an absurd score no one else is even in the threes okay next time I'm going to bring my own custombuilt
01:19:54
mechanic and I'm going to blow myograph is going to be in here yeah no this is super fun
01:20:00
thank you for taking the time yeah thank you so much thank you for fixing my life yeah I'm so excited to see how this goes
01:20:06
obviously this is just the first uh of many check-ins with Andrew to make sure he's uh on the right path also marz I think we've proved that you and I are both completely out of our minds with
01:20:16
these apps but we can be reasonable about them in the real world it's good to know you're out of your mind right so that you don't recommend other people
01:20:23
lose their minds right should we both be more like Andrew probably but is that going to happen Hey listen if there's
01:20:29
just that just came out yesterday that I'm so excited to what is it called I don't even remember oh no it's called
01:20:36
like to do T wo d o or something like that it probably has a gorgeous website oh I'm sure it's oh is this the one that you just slide it to be later or earlier the Tas yeah Marquez is the one you
01:20:47
showed me it's called to do oh I did see I linked it in the slack yesterday oh there you go yeah okay you all have a
01:20:53
problem Marquez is my people all I'm saying is don't be embarrassed to throw something in the alarm app every once in
01:20:59
a while you know wake up my wake up task drive home drive home task well either way we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Friday as you guys already know but
01:21:12
thanks for hanging out with us and subscribing and liking and commenting and let us know U what else we missed
01:21:17
catch you guys the next one peace waveform is produced by Adam Alina and Ellis Ren we're partner with VOX media
01:21:23
podcast Network and our intro music was created by vain Sil