It's Not About The Money

Tyler abandons GTD
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[00:00:00]

A list of technologies
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[00:00:00] Steve: Well, maybe, uh, yeah. Google Reader.

[00:00:02] Tyler: RIP Google reader.

It's been a while, but

[00:00:05] Steve: What, what a lovely piece of software and it's just dead. So, but, but then I recently subscribed to Readwise to get Reader specifically. And then the Readwise actual original product is also cool,

[00:00:19] Tyler: Oh

[00:00:19] Steve: you've been telling me for years now.

And I finally.

[00:00:25] Tyler: That's good. I shouldn't have enough influence over anyone to just make them,

[00:00:29] Steve: You know, I made a

[00:00:29] Tyler: have them try

[00:00:30] Steve: a list once of like all of the, all of the tools that I have started using because of Tyler. It's quite a long list.

[00:00:39] Tyler: Well, I hope some of them have made your life a little better. For me, they make my life better. Just. By tinkering with them. So whether or not they made me more productive or whatever, at least I get to have fun.

[00:00:52] Steve: Yeah, there you go. I found the list. Do you want to hear it?[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Tyler: This is real.

[00:01:01] Steve: It's real. It's right here

[00:01:03] Tyler: Okay.

[00:01:04] Steve: Uh, it's called Ways Tyler Has Influenced Me.

[00:01:09] Tyler: Oh my

[00:01:09] Steve: okay. It says, uh, Todoist. We've talked about that a lot.

[00:01:14] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:01:14] Steve: Pocket Casts. I used to use Castro and I liked it, but then it like their backend died once for like three days and I couldn't get ahold of support.

So I was like, well, I need something else. Pocket Casts. Uh, Deliveries, which is like a package tracking app on the iPhone. Day one. Notion, YNAB, sort of, I was using it before I met you, but, we both love it and talk about it all the time.

[00:01:44] Tyler: Then it got a little intense after that. Yeah. Oh

[00:01:48] Steve: readwise on here

[00:01:50] Tyler: my

[00:01:50] Steve: and then, at the end of the list, uh, besides all the other tech he's told me about that I haven't tried yet, such as superhuman and ARC,

[00:01:58] Tyler: Wow. I don't know what to say. [00:02:00] I'm blushing and not necessarily in a good way. I don't know.

[00:02:03] Steve: well, some of this might be relevant to our topic today. Shall we jump in?

[00:02:06] Tyler: Yes. Let's

[00:02:14] Steve: Hello there, dear listener. I am Steve.

[00:02:17] Tyler: And I'm Tyler. Welcome to another episode of It's Not About The Money, the podcast where we help you gain the clarity you need to run a successful small business.

[00:02:27] Steve: Tyler has a financial coaching practice. I run a tax business. We are both small business owners like you. And this podcast is our exploration of entrepreneurship. One episode at a time.

Steve still needs to do some weekly reviews
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[00:02:38] Tyler: So today, what are we talking about, Steve? Uh, you were telling me recently about your experience with the getting things done method of keeping track of your life and, and, and productivity. Cause we'd done a couple episodes on that when you read the book.

He tried implementing it and he said something along the lines of like, Hey, this is not, I had not quite there yet. It's not quite working for me. Tell me more [00:03:00] about what you meant by that.

[00:03:02] Steve: Okay. Uh, one piece of it is that, um, weekly or at least periodic reviews are a big part of the methodology and I have just never managed to do that. So, you know, uh, my fault, I guess, I don't know, but that, that part of it, uh, I haven't been able to implement successfully. Uh, but the other, the other thing gets me more day to day is that, uh, I feel like every, I'm good at capturing stuff.

It's all in there, but I. feel less good, less, um, successful at. Actually getting the things done. Getting the things done. So, well, so maybe that's the indictment right there. Uh, like it's, it's all in there, but I don't feel like I have a good system for ensuring that the stuff will actually get done when it needs to get done.

And so some of the open loops are still living in my head instead of being able [00:04:00] to be in the system. So I'm missing that benefit.

[00:04:03] Tyler: That's interesting. So it sounds like you've got the capture part of getting things done going pretty

[00:04:08] Steve: Yeah, that part's great.

[00:04:10] Tyler: And you know, it's interesting because that, so capturing and the weekly review, I would say are probably like the 80, 20 rule of, of GTD, meaning you could just do those two things and probably get 80 percent of the benefit.

In my opinion.

[00:04:23] Steve: Okay.

[00:04:24] Tyler: So, uh, if you're missing one of those two, you're, whatever, you know, that's a big, that's a big chunk. It would, it would not surprise me if it, uh, you know, we're hard to keep up, but you know what? I don't care. I have two. Involve yourself with GTD is to suffer in this way. Meaning, I think it's a beautiful idea.

You know, it's a beautiful framework, but actually it requires a bit of maintenance. And, and honestly, I would be lying if I said I, mine was always up and running, uh, perfectly all the time. So, yeah.

[00:04:55] Steve: So, but it sounds like, uh, a, a useful first action [00:05:00] right now would be start doing weekly reviews cause I'll get more value out of the system that has already been built,

[00:05:07] Tyler: If you wanted to, if you wanted to keep

[00:05:09] Steve: that might get me part of the way

[00:05:11] Tyler: Cause like at the very least, it doesn't matter if you're doing full GTD or just using GTD type principles in your own custom system or whatever, just doing a weekly review is what's going to help make sure that you get the things done that need to get done on time.

[00:05:24] Steve: Mm hmm. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:05:27] Tyler: yeah. Um, cause it's basically just a weekly planning session, right? Where you're kind of taking stock. Yeah.

[00:05:34] Steve: I, I have had several sessions of like, I just went through the someday maybe list or the actions list, uh, and, and have crossed off like 20 things. Like, oh, yeah, that got done a month ago. Or this doesn't matter anymore because that deadline's passed. Or like, I don't care about this thing anymore.

And so just check them all off. But like, if I was doing that more regularly, it would be more useful.

[00:05:57] Tyler: So, uh, not to be like a terrible [00:06:00] coach or anything, but I would say so to someone in your situation, if I had like 10 seconds to answer that concern, I'd just be like, Oh, do a weekly review and, you know, talk about it. Take an aspirin and call me in the morning kind of thing. Like do try to try to try to get that weekly review going and just see, because the rest of it doesn't even matter.

Like getting things in the right context and the right list. Like those are all just like nice to have is really compared to just kind of doing a weekly audit basically of everything on your plate, but not to, not to minimize your, your, your challenge or

[00:06:32] Steve: agree. And I recognize that the problem, the call is coming from inside the house.

Project management versus task management
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[00:06:36] Tyler: Well, I, to be honest with you, Steve, I have been having my own parting of ways with GTD proper recently and I'd be, well, yeah, it's not the first time, but

[00:06:48] Steve: Well, okay.

No, tell me more.

[00:06:50] Tyler: But, uh,

I think. Well, I, I'm curious if this resonates with you.

So what are the things we talked about this back when we were doing the episode about you reading the book and implementing the [00:07:00] system in the first place? Uh, one of the things I've been thinking a lot about constantly is this concept of contexts, which really became ambiguous to me once I started, uh, being a remote employee for my day job, because contexts as described in GTD, they could be any, any mode of working essentially, but the examples that are often given are like at my computer.

In the office, on my phone, running errands, et cetera. And working from home, it's like, I only have one context anymore. And so what's the point of having, you know, it's like, I'm sitting at my computer, looking at my computer context. The only time I'm leaving is if I go make a sandwich, like I'm, you know what I mean?

And if I need to have a home context, like to do chores around the home or whatever, like, guess what? I'm already there. I don't know. This really kind of messed with me for

a long time.

[00:07:52] Steve: that makes sense. And, but looking at your computer context, if really everything that gets done on a computer is in that list, you're [00:08:00] not, uh, in the mental space to do any of those things necessarily, because you might be. It's, it's, uh, business hours, I'm doing day job stuff right now. So I really don't want to see all of the personal needs to get done on a computer tasks.

[00:08:17] Tyler: And so I used to have kind of a matrix actually. So, uh, I divided things along one axis between my work and personal and business, like those three, I don't know, areas basically. Right. And then the other axis would have been computer, phone, errands, etc. Cause like in theory, I could be in a mode where I'm working at my day job and I need to do things on my computer or email. Basically, there was only two contexts that applied to that, right? Calls, right?

So it is kind of like this, this matrix. Anyway, the point is it got complicated and. Uh, something happened. So, uh, I had a killer quarter, quarter and a half, two quarters at work this year. And it's because I had [00:09:00] got all like my main initiatives and projects with all their milestones kind of planned out with my team, dah, dah, dah, dah.

And we executed on them successfully. It was great. But then like, things got messy and I never planned the second half of the year or like the third quarter. And so I kind of devolved into this, uh, only task based thing. I wasn't managing my projects, if you will, very well. It was all just kind of like input tasks, complete the task.

Uh, I might receive an action item on a certain project and complete that action item, but I kind of got lost on what the end goal was for the project as a whole.

[00:09:33] Steve: And I imagine as a manager, that's, that's a death spiral. There being task focused, because you're really the one that needs to keep the context of the whole project and the whole mission in, in mind for, for the team. Right? And,

[00:09:50] Tyler: what happened is I kind of got into the weeds a little bit more with the keeping track of things. And especially, yeah, as a manager, I'm delegating a lot of projects and tasks that are part of projects that I'm [00:10:00] managing, et cetera. So anyway, point is it fell apart and that's on me or whatever, but, uh, so that was, that's a little bit of my story of how I got to where I am today.

And I'm, I don't know if that sounds different. So you're kind of struggling with the weekly review and maybe trusting the system at all, because you've still got open loops in your head.

[00:10:21] Steve: but I think part of it is a similar issue here where like there's, there's projects, but they're not, they're not expressed or captured adequately in Todoist. And I also don't have like a project management. System for my life either. And so I, I wonder if this is actually part of it as well.

[00:10:44] Tyler: Well, it could be. I think it's interesting. The definition of a project in GTD is any outcome that requires more than one action.

[00:10:50] Steve: Mm-Hmm.

[00:10:51] Tyler: Right. That's kind of a different idea of what a project is a little bit different than like maybe classical project management, where you have like a project plan and a scope [00:11:00] and a, if you want to get intense, like a work breakdown structure, like, you know, all the elements of project management that could go into that.

Yeah. And you're kind of tracking the, the high level project as its own entity with a bunch of tasks underneath it, a GTD project could be way simpler than that. It could just be like a two step thing that you just broken down into two steps because each step was in, it can happen in a different context or whatever.

Right. Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm getting really, uh, into the weeds here, but the point is, uh, I had to. To modify my system a little bit. And I actually don't think this is a problem with GTD as much as it is as the intersection of GTD and like software, because I think conceptually this all works with GTD, a hundred percent.

It covers all of these scenarios because GTD allows for projects in your weekly review, you're keeping track of all your projects so they don't get lost involved. And you're defining next actions for every project. Like it's all there. So this is not. A criticism of GTD necessarily as a framework. It's kind of, [00:12:00] wasn't working for me in my personal application of it.

And I found a simpler way that is working sort of, and you kind of inspired it.

[00:12:07] Steve: Oh, it's, it's, it's paper and folders, right? You went back

to the pure, just, just the label printer and a, a ream of white printer paper

[00:12:17] Tyler: That is probably what would make me happiest, but I would then absolutely never get anything done.

So,

[00:12:22] Steve: Well, so tell me what you did discover then.

[00:12:24] Tyler: well, you told me about this, uh, we were talking, we were just chatting back and forth about. Kind of context versus modes of working or whatever. And I realized that I, at least with my current role, my time is often best used thinking deeply or working deeply at the project level, you know, fleshing out the scope of a project, trying to understand what the outcome should be, et cetera.

Um, and I wasn't finding time to do that. Uh, this all happened as I was reading a book, which you also recommended to me called Slow Productivity. By Cal Newport. [00:13:00] So I can't even remember which ideas came from you or the book or like my own observations at this point. But basically what I landed on is I'm going to get away from the traditional GTD concept of context being like a place or a technology or whatever, a mode of working, and I'm just going to say, I'm going to chunk my time into time that I'm working at my job, time that I'm working on my business and time that I'm working on personal stuff.

[00:13:26] Steve: Mm-Hmm.

[00:13:28] Tyler: And then instead of letting my lists drive what I do during that time, I'm going to let my project list drive how I prioritize what I work on during that time. I don't know if that actually made sense.

[00:13:42] Steve: Um, it does, but, uh, maybe because you had sent me a video of somebody explaining this and he uses like Evernote and Todoist to do it, but like, uh, Todoist I think just has the, like, if you're in this time blocker, this mode work on this project, [00:14:00] and then the actual,

the actual details of the project are in Evernote or a notebook or, or whatever.

[00:14:07] Tyler: Anywhere else

[00:14:08] Steve: Uh, yeah. Yeah. But like Todoist

[00:14:10] Tyler: Yes.

[00:14:11] Steve: it's not real great at the, like long lived, keeping the details of a project around. It's, it's really good for like, these are the things that need to get done.

Uh, and you, and you, it's a task manager. You check them off and then they're gone.

[00:14:24] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:14:24] Steve: But, uh, for, to manage a project, you need to, uh, some, some sense of the history and, and like the, uh,

[00:14:33] Tyler: Status

[00:14:34] Steve: yeah, the status and the, uh, design, the goal, the, all that kind of, uh, stuff that lives for the entire length of the project.

[00:14:43] Tyler: Yep. And this is exactly why I don't think that the problem that I'm experiencing is a GTD problem. It's a, it's a GTD meets Todoist problem because I'm trying to do, I'm trying to do the, all of GTD in, in a task manager. GTD allows for project resources, right? That's where the filing cabinet [00:15:00] comes in with either the paper or

[00:15:01] Steve: Oh yeah.

[00:15:02] Tyler: files, right?

You're supposed to associate those with, with your projects. It's kind of like a permanent home for everything related to the project. Todoist, you know, you can hack it. There's comments, you can attach files to tasks, but to your point, you, you complete the task and it's gone, right? Into.

[00:15:17] Steve: Right.

[00:15:18] Tyler: The history or whatever, it leaves the interface.

Projects in a Todoist Kanban board
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[00:15:20] Tyler: Uh, anyway, so I, I'm sorry, I, I am being a little bit of a, uh, apologist for GTD because I love it and it is the best and I will never, uh, cheat on it completely, but, but, but it's, yeah, it's kind of a tool meets method kind of mismatch for

me currently. So what I've ended up doing is kind of a, uh, uh, long story short, I have, I basically have my projects listed out separately from my tasks.

That's it. That's all I did.

[00:15:47] Steve: In Todoist.

[00:15:49] Tyler: Actually, yes. So in Todoist, I do my personal projects. Like, it's just a Kanban board, right? Of like, not started, in progress, in progress,

[00:15:57] Steve: yeah. Yeah,

[00:15:57] Tyler: paused, blocked, whatever. Like, it's [00:16:00] just high level, it's a Kanban board.

There's a tile for each, cause in Todoist you can have a Kanban

view. So I just have like a, uh, a tile for each high level project. And so I can always go back to that and I can know the current status of all my projects and remind myself who I delegate, delegated stuff to, et cetera. And then because I separate, um, you know, I work for a corporate job, you know, I, I do that Same thing in Microsoft Planner, just at the high level.

You know, I just have a Kanban board and Microsoft Planner for my work projects. Which is blasphemous, I know, because now I have two systems. But I felt good about separating work and personal that way for like IT security reasons and a few other

[00:16:42] Steve: Yeah, exactly. That's a good, that's a good reason. I've, I've never heard of Microsoft Planner before.

[00:16:47] Tyler: If you have, if you poke around in teams enough, you can find the button in the depths.

It's not great. I'll tell you that right now, but like it can do a basic combo on board. It's like Trello or, you know,

[00:16:58] Steve: I see.

[00:16:59] Tyler: whatever. [00:17:00] So, right. That's it. I, that's it. That's, that was a long winded way of saying I basically separated out my project list from my task list. And then when I, so when I go into. Day job work mode, which is most of my day and like the working hours, right?

I start instead of with my task list, I'll start with my project list and make sure that I, all my projects are moving forward.

[00:17:23] Steve: Mm hmm.

[00:17:24] Tyler: And then by staring at that project list and thinking deeply about those projects, it typically generates tasks that I can then add to my task manager. And as long as those are getting done, I can be like, feel confident that the projects are moving forward.

[00:17:40] Steve: Okay.

[00:17:42] Tyler: So that's it. That was kind of one of the changes that I made.

[00:17:45] Steve: That makes sense. So let me say this back to you and see if I've got all the pieces. You've got some form of time blocking, whether that's real detailed or just nine to five is the [00:18:00] day job and then, you know, whatever,

[00:18:02] Tyler: I don't have time blocking, but I, but I de facto, I guess I, I, there are periods of the day that I only work on work, business and personal.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't put it in my calendar, I guess is what I'm saying. It's

[00:18:13] Steve: sure. Fair enough. Yeah.

[00:18:14] Tyler: but for all intents and purposes, yeah, time blocking. Yes.

[00:18:17] Steve: Okay. Uh, and then when you're in a particular

when you're in a particular time block, this is the. Business time block. We go to, you have a list of projects that are happening. They can, on the Kanban board, they can have various statuses. You might have even, I think you've mentioned to me, uh, offline that you have, uh, limits of, there can only be so many projects in each status or

[00:18:47] Tyler: That's an idea I got from the book. Slow productivity. Yeah.

[00:18:50] Steve: yeah, oh, that's right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and that's actually a feature of Kanban as well. Like pure Kanban, you can only have, you have work in progress [00:19:00] limits, uh, on things too. So that makes sense to me. Uh, and then based on the, the, the focus of your work in any given block of time is, oriented first towards the projects that need to be done and secondarily towards the tasks that will move those projects along.

[00:19:21] Tyler: Yeah. And the reason for that is so that I don't lose sight of my projects.

Right. Sometimes what that looks like is like a couple of minutes. I'll just review my projects and be like, Hmm, are any of these kind of felt, you know, have I, has it been too long since I thought about project X as a manager at my day job?

Uh, this can especially happen because I delegate so many projects. So like, whereas my work in progress, I might try to limit to three projects at a time, for example, so that I can just get them done and not have them linger forever, if possible. I have a separate column actually called projects in progress delegated.

And that can be much longer lists because I have a team that I work with that [00:20:00] can handle a lot more. Right. So there's no way I can keep track of that all in my head

[00:20:05] Steve: Right.

[00:20:05] Tyler: even, or even a task list. So anyway, so yeah, that's it. And then as I, cause that helps me, I guess I realized that because I became so task oriented, I felt successful when I was completing tasks more than when I was actually moving projects forward.

forward in meaningful ways. And that's not product productivity. That's like being busy and like checking things off. Right. It's not being effective, I guess I should

[00:20:31] Steve: Yeah. Okay. I have noticed that in myself as well. When like the, the today list and to do list. There's a whole bunch of stuff on there, and most of it doesn't need to happen right now. Like, it needs to happen today, but it would be better if I didn't, uh, didn't orient towards the today list, and just oriented towards the, well, I'm in work mode, so let's do work projects right now.

I don't need to go change out the glue traps in the garage. That's one on, [00:21:00] on, uh, yesterday,

[00:21:01] Tyler: Ooh, but that sounds fun though. Is that for mice?

[00:21:04] Steve: Uh, uh, yeah, we don't usually get mice, but mice and bugs

[00:21:09] Tyler: Oh, bugs. Okay.

[00:21:11] Steve: just right on the corners of the garage door.

[00:21:15] Tyler: Yeah. So I guess, uh, just to summarize, I've condensed. So in GTD, during your weekly review, you would review all your projects, right? And make sure that they've all got next actions, make sure that nothing's falling through the cracks. So I could just do that like a regular GTD person, but instead I want to, I've shortened that down to like a daily, basically my home center, like where I start is the project list instead of the task list.

So it's a little bit of a swap there.

[00:21:40] Steve: Okay.

[00:21:40] Tyler: And then, and then, yeah, staring at those projects, thinking deeply about those projects helps me understand what I actually need to do next. And then I can add that to my task list and get it done in like the usual way.

[00:21:50] Steve: Okay. So did the projects in that board have tasks, subtasks underneath them? Or it's just the card is just the name of [00:22:00] the project? Mm hmm. Or, or whatever details or links or something, but then the actual tasks go somewhere else.

[00:22:06] Tyler: Right. So, uh, I can put notes on there if I want. Um, but typically, I don't know, I mentioned that staring at this list or thinking about this list, uh, uh, spawns. It's, it's, You know, part of your project review being part of your weekly review is it's like, it becomes a

[00:22:25] Steve: Yeah.

[00:22:25] Tyler: I'm looking at a list of projects that I've delegated, I might realize like, Oh, it's been a while since I've heard from that person with an update about that project and they're supposed to update me every Wednesday, for example. So action item for me, follow up with this person to get a status update.

Cause it seems like maybe they've gotten too busy and kind of it's, maybe they're not as focused on this project as they need to be or whatever. Right. So I just like get, it's very, uh, I don't know, I just rely on my brain, I guess, more to kind of guide me

from there.

Lists of descending temporal importance
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[00:22:55] Steve: The, the tasks that you generate, are they typically just, these are the ones that need to get done today. And [00:23:00] so you'll add them and get them done today and that's it. And then you come back the next day

[00:23:04] Tyler: often, yeah, I'm learning often. Yeah. I mean, uh, or, uh, the other option is I'll put them in my tickler file. Cause it's something I need to be reminded of like in a future date that I don't want to forget about.

[00:23:14] Steve: Okay. Yeah. For date specific ones. But are there like the, I know this needs to happen on the project. Um, so throw it in the inbox, uh, but it doesn't end up getting done today.

[00:23:27] Tyler: That does happen. Yeah.

[00:23:28] Steve: So what happens with those tasks?

[00:23:30] Tyler: Uh, they either go, well, because the way Todoist works, I use the quick entry feature. So I just start typing the task and like pretty much as I'm typing it, I can, like, if it's a today thing, I just hit, I type in today and it goes, you know, it shows up in that list. Or if it doesn't, then I put it in, um, I've got lists in Todoist for this week, next week, this month, next month, and long term.

So I kind of like throw it on the, into those and then review those. So, you know, you can't escape the weekly review. I still [00:24:00] need to review all these lists, but, uh, and then, but I use those this week, next week, this month, next month, long term, that's my backlog. And so during my review, instead of going through like a thousand, uh, GTD projects once a week, I actually now just go through those lists and promote tasks as necessary.

And kind of the goal is to leave as many of them as possible in next week or next month, you know, unless they need to be done. Right.

[00:24:28] Steve: Okay.

[00:24:29] Tyler: And then it's surprising how many of the things kind of like fall, like get, um, some, you know, I don't know, some magically disappear. I don't know. Or they get done in the course of things or someone else does them or, you know, it works.

So I don't know. We often

[00:24:44] Steve: All right.

[00:24:46] Tyler: give disclaimers about, uh, this is not legal advice or tax advice. Well, this is not productivity advice. This is just the ramblings of a crazy person at this point, but

[00:24:56] Steve: Okay. I'm writing this down though. So you have a [00:25:00] list for, what did you say? This week,

[00:25:02] Tyler: this week, next week, this month, next month, and long term, and I don't mean those things literally. I kind of see them as like descending temporal importance. If that makes any sense. Like if it vaguely needs to get done sooner, it would be like in this week. Right. Uh, cause if it has to be done by a specific date, this isn't even a question.

I just put a date on it and it's done or, you know, it's, it's assigned to that date. So, yeah. So like, I've got things in my next week list that have just stayed in next week for a long, long time. So that to me is an indicator that they're maybe not important.

[00:25:40] Steve: Right.

[00:25:43] Tyler: Um, or maybe they don't need to be done at all as the case may be. So that's just kind of interesting information, I guess.

[00:25:49] Steve: Okay. And those are those are

projects.

[00:25:53] Tyler: In the Todoist terminology, these are projects.

[00:25:57] Steve: Okay.

[00:25:58] Tyler: The, the, this week, next week,

[00:25:59] Steve: [00:26:00] Cause that's the part I'm interested in. I want to go like try implementing this. I

[00:26:04] Tyler: send you a screenshot after.

[00:26:06] Steve: you probably did. This sounds really similar to the, the video you sent, which I'll put the link in the show notes, but.

[00:26:14] Tyler: Carl, Carl, he's great. Yeah. Carl Pulleen, I think is how you say his last name, but, um, he's made videos about Todoist and Evernote since forever. And he's like, uh, you know, a well known character in that space.

[00:26:31] Steve: Okay.

[00:26:32] Tyler: Actually, it's quite possible. I've stolen a lot of, stolen a lot of ideas from him over the years and not even like realized it. So. Shout out to Carl, he's great.

Tyler tried Apple Mail and fell in love with Focus Modes
---

[00:26:43] Tyler: So, uh, anyway, this leads to something that I have to tell you about, because I did a challenge this week directly related to this, although it may seem not, which is I tried using the Apple Mail client on my phone and my computer instead of Outlook. And I was [00:27:00] very reticent to do this, but you told me you, you use it.

And I'm like, well, if it's good enough for Steve, it must be amazing, basically. So now here, add this to the list of things that I've tried because of you. I just remember trying in the past, I had some very picky things that made me, made it not work for me, like, uh,

For example, like depending on the account that you've, that you're using within the client, like swiping different directions on a message would either archive or delete it. I, I, I would love to understand the logic behind that. I never will though. I, I choose not to understand. I, I, whereas like an Outlook, you just set it for all accounts, right?

Swipe right is archive or delete and vice versa. And it works for anyway.

[00:27:40] Steve: Yeah.

[00:27:41] Tyler: Point being, it doesn't matter if that, that's a, that's a personal issue of mine. Anyway, so I'm trying it out and I'm like, okay, it's clean. It's fast. There's a lot to like here. It's kind of simple. It's straightforward. It has some nice features, but then, then Steve, I figured out that it connects to the feature in iOS and MacOS [00:28:00] now called, uh, focus modes.

And you can filter your inboxes depending on what focus mode you're in. And my mind just melted. I was so happy because this is actually one of the problems. that I have is when I'm in work mode, I don't want to be distracted by personal email. Uh, when I'm in personal, I don't want to be distracted by work, et cetera.

Right. But it's hard for me because I'm also such a lover of the concept of inbox zero that I find myself constantly like going through all my inboxes and like getting them to zero and it's distracting. And we talked about last time a little bit. I might have a slight addiction to this, like a dopamine addiction or whatever to new email.

So this has been life changing for me. So I set it up so that when I'm in the, you know, work mode, I'm only seeing my work inbox. I know this sounds so obvious. Okay. So I'm sorry that it wasn't obvious to me, but I didn't know. And it's wonderful because now I'm not, uh, I feel like I still have access to my other emails if I want to, but like, I don't have to see them.

They're not popping

[00:28:59] Steve: [00:29:00] Right. The little, the little, uh, link to turn off the filter.

[00:29:04] Tyler: Yes. Yes. I love that. The like, anytime you can just turn off the filter, turn it back on. So you can kind of like satisfy your anxiety for a second

[00:29:12] Steve: I know my, my problem is though I have this filter turned on. So when I'm in the, the work focus mode, it just hides all of my emails because my work emails are in the Gmail app, not the, yeah. And, uh, and I just, I, I still go in and check them. I just turn it off and, and see what the emails are and then, and leave the app.

[00:29:31] Tyler: Okay. So we still need

therapy. It's, fine. It's it's it's fine. But, but, but for me, it's helped actually. So it's helped with work. It's actually helped me way, way more after hours.

[00:29:44] Steve: Okay.

[00:29:45] Tyler: And that surprised me and I love it. So it's been, it's been hard. It's been hard because, you know, I work for an international company.

Uh, emails can happen all the time. People overseas are sending emails in the middle of the night, all the things.

Right. Um, so it's been a little, it's taken a little bit of discipline [00:30:00] for me, but for my personal, uh, focus mode, which I had to create on my phone before I didn't have all these focus modes, but now I've got three, I've got personal.

Work and business. And for each of those focus modes, I have different combinations of email inboxes that are visible. And, uh, so basically it's really improved just in this one week, since I've started doing this, it's improved my ability to disconnect from work when work is over.

[00:30:25] Steve: Nice.

[00:30:26] Tyler: Uh, and again, I hate that this sounds so obvious and like people might be listening to me like, wow, is that even a problem?

That needs a solution. Yes, for me it is. Okay. I'm sorry. Um, and same thing with business. So like now when I set aside time, usually in the evenings to work on my business, I just go to business focus mode and actually have it set to show me my personal and my various business inboxes. So like, I know I'm not missing anything, but I'm not distracted by my day job.

[00:30:56] Steve: Mm hmm.

[00:30:57] Tyler: And I don't know, it's just been so, [00:31:00] so nice,

[00:31:01] Steve: Okay.

[00:31:02] Tyler: but the plot thickens because it turns out that guess what else supports focus modes. Outlook.

[00:31:09] Steve: Oh, really?

[00:31:10] Tyler: So I'm like, Oh, maybe I can go back to my favorite client and still have this. But

[00:31:14] Steve: Based on the iOS mode that you're in?

[00:31:17] Tyler: yes, yes. However, and again, explain this to me, Microsoft, explain, because on iOS, you cannot create custom focus profiles.

They only have a personal and a work. On macOS, you can create custom as many as you want. Personal, work, business, whatever,

[00:31:38] Steve: Within Outlook you're talking?

[00:31:40] Tyler: an outlook, with an outlook. So there's a focus modes in the operating system, which you can create as many as you want and customize them. Right. But in Outlook, you only on iOS specifically on mobile.

And I've been to the bottom of Reddit and back on this. I can't find a way to where you just have personal and work. So it's like, that's too bad because I [00:32:00] actually need three. I need personal, work and business, right? So that's disappointing, but it's made even more confusing by the fact that on macOS in Outlook, you can create as many custom focus profiles as you want and tie them to as many focus modes as you want.

So it.

[00:32:17] Steve: yeah.

[00:32:18] Tyler: I don't know.

The world is inside out. The law is upside down or whatever Javert says in my mail. It's like, nothing makes sense. So I'm back to, I'm sticking with Apple Mail until Outlook figures itself out there.

[00:32:32] Steve: Wow. Okay. I didn't expect you to, uh, have decided that so quickly. After

[00:32:37] Tyler: Well, I, I, the focus modes, it was that big of a game changer for me. I don't know why. It just like clicked something in my brain and I thought that I could do it with Outlook as well. But

[00:32:47] Steve: while we're talking about focus modes, uh, have you played around with different home screen arrangements per focus mode?

[00:32:58] Tyler: Yes.

[00:32:59] Steve: Cause [00:33:00] I did this recently and it, uh, was very nice. So

my, my, my, yeah, my work focus mode, I just took off like a bunch of the apps that I tend to just like, Poke into and see, is there anything new in here or, Oh, here, what about this one?

And like, I don't, I don't need to be looking at these all the time. I already have a routine for checking these things. It doesn't need to happen all during the day as well. So I just, they're not on the home screen. Obviously I can still get to them with the search if I need them. But the, the, the fact that they're not, the icons are not in my face.

Every time I open the phone, it's very helpful.

[00:33:39] Tyler: That's lovely.

I did, I gotta be honest with you, uh, focus modes, it's a lot of configuring.

[00:33:46] Steve: It is

[00:33:46] Tyler: lot of configuring, perhaps way more. And like, if I feel that as someone who basically gets a high from configuring software,

[00:33:55] Steve: Uh huh.

[00:33:56] Tyler: that I don't know how many like people who don't care, like actually are using these things, [00:34:00] but it took me a while to find a configuration that, that, that I liked, but I did just, so I have, you know, uh, focus those three, right?

Uh, day job. Business and personal focus modes. The business and personal have a lot of overlap because it's kind of just non day job basically. But I do filter the business stuff out of the personal. And yeah, the home screen only for work only has the work apps and that that's helped a lot and to do list and the calendar.

[00:34:27] Steve: Well, lovely. That's probably a good place to. Call it for today. Thanks Tyler. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you again. On another episode of, it's not about the money.