Welcome to NoOffice, a podcast about work, technology and life from a remote company perspective.
In Nozbe, we believe that work is not a place to go, it is a thing that you do. That is why,
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Don't cram plenty of people on Zoom.
We're a simulated office all day long. You know, you probably are going to work from home.
Hello and welcome to NoOffice, a podcast about work, technology and life from a remote company
perspective. My name is Rafal Sobolewski and as always I'm joined by CEO of our
no-office company Nozbe, Michael Sliwinski. Hello Michael, how are you
today? Hello hello hello. Can you hear me well? Yes, I think we can hear you well.
We had some technical difficulties before starting recording today.
Yes, that's why we're starting late. But we will talk about these technical
difficulties later in the show. Because for today we have some quite a
few like small topics but important topics and we will talk about meetings,
we will talk about the home office quality and backups and all that stuff
and when some things don't work as they should. So we will be talking about all
that very soon today on the podcast. I'm good but you know I'm getting ready for
the 15th wedding anniversary... just kidding... 15th anniversary of
Nozbe. For the Quinceanera! Exactly. So this is my eldest child. My daughter, Milena, she
just turned 13, but my daughter's son Nozbe is turning 15 now.
Daughter la appliçación. Exactly. So it's turning 15 now and we are getting ready for
this celebration. We will talk about a promo that we're launching very soon. So it's all
happening and we have big announcements as well and these big announcements require lots
of work. So this week I've been just swamped with work, like really, really busy. And one
of these days I just went to bed like at 11 o'clock completely, like I just, you know,
destroyed. And then I woke up at 7am. Next day I was like fresh as a daisy. So it's,
yeah, the moment where you see that like you just cannot hold any longer, it means that
you need rest.
Yeah, that is true. I feel the same. So yeah, and just yesterday I managed to finish up
blog post about Nozbe updates in 2022. Yeah, and I was already late with the blog post
because of all the things we planned. And of course, we didn't predict all the circumstances.
It took more time than we predicted. So about this blog post, I just summed it up that in 2021,
we shipped 46 updates of Nozbe teams, which is really great. And I just discovered our
portfolio of options, but for listeners of this podcast, we talked about it in
details in episode 32, Appetite for a Feature. And I updated the change
log. So now our change log not only tells you what new features, new fixes is in
each new version, each new update, but also what we are internally testing. So
the features that are in the implementation but already in some shape
that we are testing it internally on our dogfooding environment.
And these are desktop apps for macOS and Windows.
Yes.
We cannot wait to ship it to you, to our users.
And yeah, we needed to make sure that adding this native builds for Windows
and Mac wouldn't add much complexity to our infrastructure, to our builds pipeline.
so we can still be flexible and fast with shipping updates.
And we are very close to do that.
That's coming very soon.
Share extension on iOS, finally.
- Yes.
- I've just tested the last fix before the recording.
And now if we don't find any other bugs,
we will ship it next week.
So that's fine.
Yeah, and we are working on big project menu,
reorganization, and you will be able
to share project coil very soon.
These are the, so let's talk about the iOS first
because of course I am iPad only and for me
the iPad part of things is very important.
And the thing is that we kind of shot ourselves in the foot
because we almost had the share extension ready,
but then we shipped the multi teams.
So when we shared the multi teams,
we just added complexity to the share extension
because suddenly I am a part of four teams now
in Nozbe teams.
And when you have a share extension
and you want to add something to Nozbe,
suddenly you have to choose to which team
you want to add this stuff.
And before that, when we were testing the share extension,
it was like single task, single task, single task,
single task.
And I'm like, yeah, but which single tasks?
So it was really complicated.
Now it's really easy because you can choose to which team
you're adding stuff.
So it's very easy.
And the default team can be there as well.
And also I use the widget for iOS. I have this big widget of priority tasks
on my home screen of the iPad. And the cool thing is that over there I actually
prefer to see all priority tasks from all my teams.
Normally in Nozbe I prefer to have them separate, but to just remember
about everything that I have to do today, I prefer on the widget to have
everything. So I can choose if I want a specific
priority or everything, like Chuck Norris. So I prefer the Chuck Norris style on the widget.
So that's fantastic. And of course, yes, the Mac app is something we've been...
We thought we could get away with the web app, and we did for quite a while, but
now we need the Mac and the Windows apps, and they are really good.
and I think they're at the last stage of development, so very soon, very soon
they should be there. And I think from our side,
you always blamed me for promising people features and stuff, and
you were right. But now when we know that we are
working on something and it's already in the works, we can promise that,
because there's always still a slight chance that we might
just think that this thing that we are building
is not ready for shipping and we will just step back, for example, re-evaluate.
But usually when we have something at advanced stage of dogfooding, so of testing internally in the team,
we are pretty confident that we're going to ship it. So it's just a question of ironing out the kinks.
So I think it's a good idea to already share it with people, and especially people who are
really good fans of Nozbe, which we really appreciate. - What we learned from this year's trick is that
it's okay to share what we are working on. The bad thing is to promise dates, release dates.
Exactly, exactly. So that's why, for example, I was brave. Just, you know, if you rewind this
episode, I was brave. I didn't say we are shipping the Mac version in a week or in February or
whatever. I didn't say anything like that. I said we are shipping it soon. We're at the last stages
of testing it. And this might be next week. This might be in four weeks. This might be in six weeks.
It depends on if we see serious bugs or something.
Because things pop up in software development, which is unfortunate, but it's the thing.
And we don't want to ship a very buggy app just because everybody wants it, but then
Nozbe is supposed to be a trusted system.
This adds additional kind of responsibility for us that we are shipping a trusted system.
make sure that this trusted system works for you, that this is something that you can depend on,
and not something which is, you know, half-assed. So that's why it's a responsibility that we take
seriously. - Yep, that's true. And as you said, we will be celebrating Quinceañera, 15th birthday of
Nozbe, and the celebration will start on Tuesday, first day of February, and a week later we will
will stream product vlog live and we will show together, I and you, we will
show together hopefully these new features. We will tease this Mac app,
shell extension, iOS in action and some other stuff and answer all your
questions. So make sure to check out nozbe.com/blog. The English
product vlog is already scheduled there on YouTube so you can set a reminder
There will be some big announcements for Nozbe personal users.
Yes, exactly.
So we will celebrate with a bang.
There will be a special promo.
There will be big announcements.
The big announcements, we are excited about them,
but we believe that some users will be uncomfortable with the changes and stuff, which is okay.
And I think there will be lots of questions.
And that's why we are doing the product vlog to answer these questions, to just make sure that we are flat out transparent.
We tell you exactly how things are and then we can answer your questions sincerely.
So that's why we do the product vlog right after the announcements.
So you can digest the announcements and then ask us questions.
We will be really happy to answer all of the questions that are coming up and explain in more detail and nuance our path forward for the next 15 years or more.
So we are preparing Nozbe for another 15 years or more.
We want to be there for the long haul.
We have been fortunate to have been a trusted system
for so many users, tens of thousands of users
all over the world for all these years.
And we have people using Nozbe for the last 10 or more years,
like really, really long time.
So we're happy about it and we want to make sure
that we have the foundation for the years to come.
Can't wait to celebrate because that's a big milestone for our small company.
And we maintain two beings that are still small company for those 15 years and still profitable.
That's the idea.
I still have a special filter for all the VC inquiries when they try to invest in Nozbe.
And I send them to one of my blog posts that I don't take no investments.
It's almost an automatic response.
All right, let's move on to next topics. Some follow-up. I see you have some follow-up on meetings.
Yes. So again, as we discussed, I talk to customers.
I talk to customers and if you would like to talk to me and you're a Nozbe customer, contact Nozbe support
and tell them, "I want to talk to Michael." And they will schedule a call with me.
So really, it's very complicated. It's a very long process to get a call with me.
call with me. contact info@nozbe.com and tell people i want to talk to michael.
This is the whole thing that you have to do. You don't have to
send any stamps, you don't have to prepare your CV or anything else.
Just tell them, "I am a Nozbe user, I want to talk to Michael," and then you will
talk to me. So I'm looking forward to talking to you actually. So I talk to
customers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays right now. Anyway, so I'm also talking to
some friends and everything, and especially now with this transition to
no office work, to people working remotely or hybrid, people have questions
like how to do it right, how to get this done, how do we do it. And one of the
things was about meetings. And I had a pushback from some people saying
that, you know, these all remote meetings don't work very well, it's like better to
have people in a conference room, in the same place, and all that stuff.
And even with hybrid, we had the whole discussion. And the funny
thing was that here there's the nooffice.org/meetings, is my chapter
on meetings of my NoOffice book, where I share that meetings have to be regular,
optional, and well-prepared. These two things. And what I see is the
well-prepared part is not being adhered to. Meetings are not well-prepared
because people have too many meetings, they are not prepared for the meetings.
They are still following the old rule of presenting a new idea on a meeting.
And this is something that we've been avoiding, like a plague.
Okay, we have some weekly meetings where we just hang out for a few minutes.
We have coffee, like Rafał, on Mondays.
And we have also... but still we have agenda for that prepared before.
But still, sometimes we just talk about random ideas as well.
But it's a short meeting.
but if we have a longer meeting, like a design meeting, or something like that,
we have everything prepared well and advanced.
And in my chapter, I mentioned Jeff Bezos and his idea that
when the meeting starts, everybody reads quietly the documentation
before they start a meeting, so that everybody reads quietly.
Once they have read the documentation, then the meeting starts, so that
everybody is prepared. And this is a hack, I think.
It seems like a school when we were the kids.
Exactly. But it's a hack, you know? Because Jeff Bezos knows that his executives are so
busy that they haven't read the documentation, so at least then he can scold them and tell
them to read the documentation before. And it's a good hack. And I think with this hack,
you should start. That's a good hack. But it shouldn't be a habit because what I see
the value for ourselves is that the documentation is prepared well in advance of the meeting.
Well in advance meaning the next day. So for example, as we mentioned, we have our design
meeting every other Tuesday when we decide it's gonna go down, and then we have all the
documentation ready by the end of Monday. So that on Tuesday, until Tuesday afternoon,
everybody has the time to read it. And not only read it, they have time to comment on
it. And this is for me, I think, the key thing, that we comment on it before the meeting.
So we do the asynchronous communication, we comment on the part of the documentation,
we comment on the whole concept that has been presented, we comment on all this way before
the meeting. This way, when we have the meeting, we really don't talk about the big concepts
anymore, we talk about nuance, or we fight about the whole thing, but everybody has had
the time to digest the idea that's going to happen on the meeting. So for me, really,
I think, and I don't know if you agree, Rafal, but I think the key is that the well-prepared
part must be really policed. People have to be well-prepared. It's like the situation
where I didn't read one of the pieces of documentation before the design meeting, and one of the
design fighters told me, "So Michael, we're not talking about this because you haven't
read it." And I was ashamed of myself that I wasn't prepared. But he was right. Why
should we discuss something when I'm not prepared? Everybody has to be prepared. And
I think this added value of comments before, like offline comments, comments before the
meeting is just underappreciated.
- Yeah, it's just the way prepared is not only to read,
to acknowledge what is the topic of the meeting,
but also to comment because many times, as we learned,
we can figure out all the things asynchronously
in those comments.
So meeting is no longer needed.
And that's why we are now doing design fight meeting
once a month, not once a week.
Because yeah, we try to do the things asynchronously first
And only if we couldn't find a proper solution asynchronously, then we transfer this topic to the meeting.
Yes. So that's the thing that in my chapter, I'm going to update my chapter for that, because this is what we did.
We decided that if we don't need the meeting, let's just not do it. Let's just not waste our time.
But we decided we have to have a meeting at least once a month just to make sure that we as a team, as a design team, are together.
can still talk normally, we still are glued as a team.
So we will have a meeting once we need it or once a month,
whichever comes first.
And that's the key.
And really, we figured out that most of the things
we can agree on asynchronously in the comments.
But yes, there are situations where we're not sure.
And we see that there is a pushback from both sides
and we haven't had the place to discuss it, so we need to discuss it.
And that's it.
But I think this is the good tip.
If you want to reduce the amount of meetings or the duration of meetings,
first thing you need to do is to, for example,
if your team is not convinced to that idea, maybe you have some topics
some topics that you want to discuss on the meeting.
So publish them before in some system
when your team can comment on them asynchronously.
Publish those topics so they can read it.
And once your team get the habit of it,
to read it before and comment asynchronously,
then your meetings first will be shorter.
And then maybe it will open the brain
for the rest of your team
really embrace the asynchronous communication more and have less meetings and shorter meetings.
So that will be the first step. Be the example of asynch communication.
Yeah, exactly. Be the change you want to make, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. So that's the thing, that you should start with that. And you can publish everything.
The good thing is to publish in a way that other people can comment before the meeting.
don't send a PDF to people, because if you send PDF to people, nobody will comment on it.
But you can just have a project in Nozbe Teams and then have a task for that.
We always recommend that you have a task for each agenda point, and in this task
you can explain what you want to talk about, or you can just have a long comment of exactly what
you want to do, and then invite other comments inside. So this way you have at least comments in
in Nozbe teams directly next to the agenda point.
So the agenda points are being commented on right there.
But if you need more subtlety, then you can, for example,
attach a link to a Dropbox paper document,
Microsoft Word document, or whatever you're using,
like our Google Docs document,
where other people can comment on,
like in detail on the whole thing.
But the basic stuff, like just having each task being
an agenda point and letting people comment on it,
it's just brilliant already.
- Yeah, and during the meeting, you can write down the notes,
the conclusions from the meeting in each agenda point.
Not one big conclusion from the whole meeting,
like it's called meeting notes in the corporate world.
But if you have separate tasks for each agenda point,
the discussion is contextual, yeah?
So it's not mixed up with all other topics.
All right, so I think it's high time
move on to the next topic on our list, to the next point in our agenda of this recording.
Yep, that's true. NoOffice podcast is sponsored by Nozbe, the fastest way to done, it's said.
Task-based async communication app for personal, family, and business use. Let's hear what Nozbe
customers say about the product.
We tried different project management tools for the first couple of years when I was with
the organization I currently am, CCMA.
And then we realized that we just need really one place where we can communicate, where
we can share projects, where we can think in written form, where we can give each other
feedback.
So we tested a couple of different things and eventually we settled with Nozbe teams.
And it's been really fun to see this software mature and just get better and better.
The data security, I know the company is totally committed to improving the product.
For us, it's simple.
We have some members of our team who are very tech savvy and some who aren't as tech savvy.
So to find one tool that actually is usable for all those is not easy.
We did dabble in a couple of competitors and they were just too much.
You know, too complicated, too many features.
What our team needed was something simple, reliable, trustworthy, something that was
fun and attractive and enjoyable to use.
And so Nozbe teams has really fit for us.
It's fit.
It's met that sweet spot.
It's reasonable.
We're a nonprofit.
And so the price is right.
It's easy to add members.
I just added somebody yesterday.
It was no big deal.
You know, I think I went to the five person plan to six.
It was not a big deal, you know?
And so that's nice because it's flexible for us.
It just gives us a place to park everything
and it works for us.
So we don't want to be emailing within our team.
We're not perfect at that, but we wanna cut down on that.
We wanna cut down on interruptions during the day.
And so I'll try anything
that will help accomplish those two things.
So for us, Nozbe teams really fits that need
that we have as a small team.
(upbeat music)
And we're back.
So another point of our agenda is follow up
to my home office setup.
I have some thoughts after using this setup
who we talked about two weeks ago, now two weeks.
So first of all, yeah, I miss 27 inch display.
Like you using the SmartBook Pro as my main display
and the full HD 24 inch display as a secondary.
- Yeah, it's fine, but... (laughs)
- Not ideal.
- Yeah, but not ideal.
I will be buying.
I think I have figured out which monitor to buy now,
so I hope more updates on that in future episodes.
Yeah, and one problem I didn't predict it,
about choosing the color of MacBook Pro.
- Okay.
- Because I've chosen silver one, and I love how it looks,
But when I have it directly in front of me,
close to me on this tray,
and it sits there with like at 45, 35, 30 degree angle.
And I have the lights above the desk.
- Okay.
- And when I turn on the lights,
it reflects the silver area,
reflects the lights into my face.
And I don't like it.
It's not, it blinds me,
but still I had to adjust this angle a little bit.
No, you just have to listen to MKBHD, matte black, all the things, and just buy a matte black paint and just paint your new MacBook Pro.
Just paint it in matte black and it's going to be fine.
That's the idea. Anyway, speaking of black, I'm now back to using Microsoft ergonomic keyboard instead of magic keyboard because I sold my iMac already.
So now it's the only keyboard I have here in my home office.
I like it, but I think it's fine again.
It's fine, but it requires another USB dongle to be connected to my MacBook.
So it's not cool, but it's good enough.
It forces me to write properly with each letter on the keyboard with proper fingers.
because it's split.
- That's true because the economic keyboard
that forces you to touch type correctly.
So there's no way to cheat.
But these are two of my favorite words
in the English language, interesting and fine.
Like if you don't wanna say that it's just bad,
it's like, yeah, that's interesting.
And then if you don't wanna say that something is bad
for you to use something, it's fine.
So two words that are just trying to be positive because you just don't want to trash it completely.
So you want to be politically correct.
So like, it's fine.
That's interesting.
Yeah, that's interesting point, Michael.
All right.
I see you have also have some follow up to Home Office setup.
Yeah.
writing for... I'm writing a monthly column for i-magazine, our
Polish lifestyle, Lili Polish Lifestyle magazine, and I have a
proactivity column there. I write every month. I've been writing
there for like 10 years or more over there. And the thing is
that I was writing this month, I mean it's going to be on the
1st of February, I was writing about ergonomics and automation of
things. And what I appreciate about my home office is the fact
that everything is set up correctly. So for example, when we record the podcast,
everything is set up. I have my camera set up, I have my teleprompter set up,
I have my light set up, everything is set up. So this is fantastic. So I don't have to
like, every time we record, I have to fiddle with things. And by talking to other people,
I know how many people are doing just that. Every time they have to do something that they are
doing regularly, they have to just mount this, move that, they have just to
to do lots of things before they do the thing.
And it's bad for productivity. You mustn't do that.
You should optimize your setup that it's really effortless.
If you need to record, pom-pom, you're ready.
This is how it should be done. You don't have to do anything else.
And the more you can automate this, the easier it will be for you to do it.
So that's my main takeaway. Just think about your setup,
think about how you have things laid out and what can you do today to just improve the layout so that
next time you have to do your thing it's all ready. It's all really ready for you.
That's the gist of it. That's the most important thing I wanted to share today. However, sometimes
technology fails on you. No way. Yeah, no way. Technology would never fail on us, right?
everything works all the time. So one of the things I have here the teleprompter and I have the lights,
everything is ready. And yesterday I was getting ready to record two videos for our Nozbe's 15th
anniversary because of course as the CEO I have a few announcements and I decided to record these
announcements in video. So what I did was I set up everything and I had everything ready and I had
had the lights ready, everything was ready, and then the lights failed on me.
The super Elgato lights just
disconnected randomly from the Wi-Fi. And for example, there is the
thing that I cannot turn them on by myself. There is no way
I can just turn them on like, you know, there is no physical switch. No physical switch. No.
You have to unpair them, pair them again, and maybe they will work.
Elgato, the brilliant company Elgato, didn't think about it. They didn't think about the
fact that you should have lights, you know? So that you should have lights that are just
there and that should have a physical button in case the Wi-Fi doesn't work, in case things
don't work. And I cannot tell you how much it has thrown me off. Like, I was ready to
record. I had everything ready, teleprompter, all the text, everything. And then suddenly
the lights didn't work. And I was like, I wasted like, I think an hour.
Whoa. I think an hour of setting it up. It was just, you know, because I was trying the connecting,
you know, the wi-fi. Oh man. So like in this moment, I appreciate when things just work,
because in that moment it just didn't work. Like it was completely off. And it threw me off for an
hour and I recorded it very late. And I was just, I was, and of course I was, you know, pissed off.
I was really not happy about it. So these are the moments where you should think about the backup.
So in that case I'm thinking about the backup right now. If I can have another light just in case
this Elgato beautiful thing that presumably always works fails on me, then what should I do then?
To make sure that I have still the lights and I can still record, like plan B. And this is the same
what happened today with our podcast. So my internet failed. I don't know what's happened, but I
but I couldn't reset the router before our meeting.
So what we did, we decided to use the iPad,
as you can see right now on 5G.
And I'm using right now 5G on my iPad
so you can see me very well.
- Oh, you're using 5G.
- Yes, I'm using 5G on the iPad.
That's why the connection is so good.
And then I'm recording locally on this microphone on the Mac
because this doesn't require ethernet connection.
But the thing I wasn't prepared for
was the fact that I didn't know how to put the tablet
I wasn't prepared for that situation. So for me the piece of advice is this.
First of all, set up everything perfectly so that it just works perfectly for you and you can really
just turn on the things and just do your job. And then have plan B. If things fail, like if this
fails, what you do? If this fails, what you do? And then when these things fail, then you still have
have a plan B that it still can work.
Like today we could still record.
Like it was like inconvenient,
but it's the quality of the video as you can see.
- Very inconvenient.
- Yeah, exactly.
Super easy, very inconvenient.
So that's the thing.
So it did work and we could still record a podcast.
So that's my piece of advice.
Have everything set up and have a plan B.
- Yep, that's the great advice.
- Yeah, and great example how iPad is really a great device
for being, you can call it plan B for many other devices.
- Yeah.
- Because I remember many times when just,
there was a blackout or internet failure,
I always switch to working on iPad, on 5G or 4G actually,
back then, yeah?
And it was just like one minute to set it up
or even less and I was able to continue my work.
So that's cool.
All right, speaking of iPad,
I wanted to finally do a iPad mini review.
- Okay, let's do this.
- Yeah, because like lesson three,
there is finally the four day work week
is getting to the mainstream.
- Yes. - Yeah.
And that's cool because we have Mighty Fly days
for years now.
And what I noticed in the recent months,
because I have this iPad for like more than two months now,
I use it like mainly in the afternoons and on mighty Friday.
It's my mighty Friday machine.
Yeah, so now as I sold my iPad Pro with my magic keyboard,
so my iPad mini is my only mobile computer and I love it.
It just sparks so much joy when I grab it.
And I can tell you, I use it like two or three times more
than I used iPad Pro.
Yeah, the main thing is that it's form factor.
It's so comfortable for use, to hold and use.
I can take it everywhere.
I can put it into my Nozbe hoodie.
I can put it into my jacket, into the pocket,
into the pocket of my sweatpants even,
to walk in the house and just don't with the iPad.
And that's so comfortable.
Writing on software keyboard is so much better
than on the bigger iPad, because in portrait mode,
you can really thumb type.
- Oh, okay.
- Which is, yeah, which is very convenient and quite fast.
And you can even type with Apple Pencil
on those small software keyboard with swiping.
And that's also very convenient.
Yeah, one thing that annoys me and I think it's a bug,
I hope iPadOS 15.3 will fix that.
I have to check that because I think yesterday
they released finally a production version of 15.3.
This when you are in portrait mode
and you launch a quick note window
and you have this small floating keyboard turned on.
The quick note window is on the upper half of the screen
and the small keyboard also.
So it covers the part of the quick note window
and you cannot move the keyboard to the down bottom half
of the screen in the portrait mode.
Yeah, I managed to do it by,
I had to switch to the landscape mode,
switch to the big keyboard,
And then switch back to the small keyboard and switch back to portrait mode.
And then I was able to move it.
There is some bug there.
There is inconvenience there when I want to quickly jot down something.
But of course there is Apple Pencil so I can quickly jot down things with handwritten note
with Apple Pencil.
And I have applied Paperlike for the iPad mini.
And yeah, now it's a perfect notebook.
I use pencil and handwritten notes more than I used to do that on iPad Pro because now
I can do it very comfortable when I'm sitting in my comfy armchair and holding iPad with
one hand and drawing, writing with the second hand.
Yeah, and pro tip for applying paper-like screen protector.
I did it in the bathroom after the shower, so the humidity level of the air was really
So it reduces the risk of having dust get under the screen protector.
Okay. Yeah. And it was the first time I did applying this kind of screen protector without any air bubbles.
Nice. Yeah. So I was very happy. I thought I did a good job. And then I noticed a small piece of dust very close to the center.
Oh man!
But I didn't panic.
I didn't panic.
I just embrace it and, okay, let's use it for a couple of days and see if it really
bothers me.
And it doesn't.
I just don't notice it.
But when I focus on... because I know it's there and I focus on looking at it, I notice
it.
But most of the times I don't remember about it and just use it.
So that's really cool.
Yeah.
on recent two mighty fly days, I did my yearly review
just on the iPad, mainly on handwritten notes
in the GoodNotes app.
Yeah, and I did it very quickly and I love the process.
So there's that.
And I have other piece of accessories for iPad as well.
So I have small folio-like third party case
and it's better than Apple's one because it's like this.
I will put also it as podcast chapter art.
So it has this holder for the Apple Pencil.
And when you put it inside the back,
you don't have to worry that Apple Pencil
will fall off of the iPad.
So that's really nice.
Yeah, and as we talked in the recent episode,
I have this mauve case on the back of the iPad.
Yeah, and it allows me to snap the iPad
to the wall mount or other magnet,
which is very handy in the desk setup.
But also it's a stand with multiple angles
for portrait and landscape mode.
So that's really cool.
And yeah, I can still put this smart folio like case
even with this glued to my back of the iPad.
- Oh, okay.
- Yeah, it looks not perfect,
But for the use case of putting iPad into the back,
it's good enough.
Yes, so one thing, the disadvantage
of this Moft invisible tablet stand is it adds
like about 23% of the white to the iPad.
So it's not so super comfortable to hold it in one hand,
but still very good.
Yeah, but it's not noticeable white difference.
However, on the other hand, this small folio-like case,
it's two times heavier.
So actually in the grand scheme of things,
it's not big difference.
All right, what else I have this noted here?
Yes, this is my main machine, of course, for reading.
That's kind of obvious scenario,
but it really makes a difference
because I finally caught up, well, at least on December,
I caught up on my retrader list.
- Wow.
Yeah, I use the service Mailbrew to collect all the sources like RSS channels, newsletters,
and tweets, and so on.
Yeah, and on December, I managed to code it up on Mighty Fly Days in January, not because
I was doing here the review, but only because of that.
And it really helps me to reduce the Twitter usage.
not reduce in the time spent on it but now I only read Twitter once a day
because okay yeah I only have Twitter and actually Twitter and Instagram I
only consume it once a day on the iPad on my armchair back there I have this
nice setup by the window I have this stratum IKEA armchair very comfy and
there are many flowers there so it's really nice nice climate and after
3 p.m. I consume social media there on iPad mini. Yeah, and Instagram app,
Instagram doesn't have iPad app, but the iPhone version, it really, like the iPad mini is the
best iPad for Instagram iPhone version app, actually. It almost feeds the whole screen.
>> Yeah, but this is like really outrageous that they're still not offering an iPad app.
>> Yeah. >> This is so bad.
- Well, I have a clever shortcut on my iPad.
So now when we have automations in shortcuts,
I have the shortcut that when I launch Tweetbot
or Instagram, it checks if it's after 3 p.m. or not.
And if it's before 3 p.m., it just shows me the message,
get back to work, lazy bastard,
and opens Priority View in Nozbeam.
- Nice. - Yeah.
So, yeah, and after 3 p.m. it lets me to open Instagram
or Tweetbot.
- Can you share this shortcut in the show notes?
- Yeah, yeah, I will add it to the show notes.
It's very simple.
- Yeah, I know, I know, but still,
but there's also this trick how you open the priority
in Nozbe as well, so it would be good.
It would be very useful.
- Yeah, and also for media consumption.
- I just don't wanna build it.
I just wanna copy your shortcut and that's it.
- Yeah, that's very convenient, yeah.
And speaking of media consumption, it's also great for video consumption because its aspect ratio is
14 by 9. It's the closest iPad can get to 16 by 9, actually. So for video, it's great. And I don't
use a YouTube app, just like you, but there is this vinegar add-on to Safari that allows you to
increase your UX level of using YouTube website on iPad, because you can predefine which is the
quality resolution of video that you prefer on iPad. Because many times on iPad when you launch
YouTube, you had to change quality because it somehow on auto settings it chooses
360p and so on. It allows you to choose it and to play it in picture-in-picture mode.
Okay, and speaking of video, there is FaceTime of course and Center Stage,
but I already talked that I use it with my personal trainer and it works great.
Yeah, and editing the podcast on iPad mini in Ferrite recording studio. I did it already for
for three episodes, I think, and it's awesome.
However, I think that if we had guest on an episode
or more tracks to be edited,
that wouldn't be so convenient on iPad mini
as on the bigger iPad Pro.
Okay, one last thing I didn't mention
is this Jerry scrolling effect on the screen.
I did notice it right away, but I don't notice it anymore.
- Interesting. - When in daily use,
when I really focus on noticing it and,
okay, is there a journey scrolling there?
Let me see.
Yeah, then I can see it, but on daily use,
it's barely inconvenience.
- All right. - Yeah, and also
the 60-hertz screen because I switched from iPad Pro,
which was promotion.
- Yes. - So yeah,
for the first couple of days,
I was noticing that it's not so smooth.
And now I get used to it and it's not a problem for me.
Yeah, that's the advantage of being over 30 years old.
So you can get used to stuff like that.
I'm sure you can.
So for me, just a small update that today I'm going to publish,
hopefully this episode on my blog, micro.steem, I'm going to publish the review of my MOFT wallet.
- No. - And also just the whole history of me
with the minimalist wallets.
As I told you in the previous episode
that when I was importing my old blog posts from 2012,
I realized 2012 was like a very important year for me
because I started working standing
and I started being iPad only.
And it looks like in 2013,
it was the moment I dropped a normal wallet
and started being minimalist wallet, iPhone wallet
kind of guy and it stuck until today.
So I'm going to be writing about that.
- Yeah, I remember we were both the fans of the MuJo case
with a wallet for iPhone.
- Yeah, I have the whole story there
'cause I was using several different types of wallets.
It started with the rubber bands of,
it was Quirky crossover thing.
And then later I was cutting out a wallet
from the silicon cases.
Then I had the MuJo.
There was a whole journey there.
I'm not gonna describe it on my blog.
So @michael.steem, so stay tuned.
Yeah, but yeah, it's a thing.
- Yeah, it is a thing.
Okay, so let's wrap it up.
So thanks for listening.
And what day is tomorrow, Michael?
- It's Mighty Friday.
It's a Friday and we will be publishing,
and we will be launching a new page for that
to explain what Mighty Friday is
and what a weekly review is
and why you should do it on a Friday.
- Yeah, so do your weekly review,
plan priorities for next week,
and spend the rest of the Friday on learning something new.
Do have a great weekend.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please feel free to help support our podcast
either by sharing it with a friend
or leaving a nice review on Apple Podcast.
Or the best thing you can do, check out our nozbee.app.
That's it for today.
Say goodbye, Michael.
- Take care everyone.
And let's celebrate the 15 years of Nozbe together next week
So stay tuned for our updates, stay tuned for our, you know,
twitter @Nozbe or our twitter handles,
and we will be celebrating 15 years
and I hope you will be there with us.
it's more than one third of my life dedicated to Nozbe,
so it's a big deal.
- This episode has not been created in the office
because in Nozbe, there is no office.
Your hosts were Michael Sliwinski and Raffa Sobo-Leste.
All the links and show notes you can find
on nooffice.fm/34.
The whole production process of this episode has been coordinated in a project in Nozbe.
Up.
Control is good, but trust and transparency are so much better.
Thank you and see you in two weeks.
Remember to have a mighty Friday.
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