Don't cram plenty people on Zoom fluorescent lighted office all day long.
You know, you probably are going to work from home.
Hello and welcome to No Office, 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? Hey, man. What's up?
What's up?
Cool.
I see you are not in your main home office.
No, no, no.
Today I am in my parents' place because we came to my hometown for Easter and we are
still here.
We are leaving on Sunday back home.
So I'm technically on vacation, so I actually shouldn't be working right now.
But I told you that I can.
I mean, you know.
You won't.
Recording a podcast with you doesn't feel like work.
So I can do some work while I'm here.
And later in the show, I'll explain how I have my setup
here ready in my parents' place,
just in case I need to record something.
So yeah, so I'm ready and we can record stuff.
And because it's also an important time for us at Nozbe.
So I thought it would be a great way to celebrate it.
- Yes, for the whole month, I think we were highlighting
our Mighty Fly Day policy in our company.
and one of the main things we do on Fridays
is weekly review.
So let's talk about this
because we haven't covered it yet in details.
In previous episode, we talk about writing stuff down.
- Yes. - Remember?
Yeah, and I said that it was the first habit
of getting things done.
And now when you have a habit of writing things down,
it is very good practice to review it regularly.
That's why we have this weekly review.
I think it's the most important habit for maintaining your system because otherwise
everything can explode after time if you don't review stuff. Weekly review is sucks
because weekly review is so difficult to do. I'm telling you it is so difficult for us as people,
as human beings to regularly every week take some time aside and do a proper review. It's like
ask anyone who's doing, you know, getting things done GTD, who's read the book by David Allen,
how often do you, I mean, how regular do you do your weekly review? Do you do it every week really?
And people are like, yeah, maybe once a month or something, you know, like, it's, it's, it's so
hard to do. I mean, and then that was one of the reasons why we instituted a Mighty Fridays,
so that we have this space of Fridays that people have no excuse not to do the weekly review,
because it is really so hard. Like for us to think about it, you know, I have to spend time with
myself for like two hours reviewing my tasks without actually doing any tasks, without doing
any work, without writing anything. It's a waste of time. Hey, Rafał, how about a coffee together?
Ah, this is not a waste of time. Let's have a coffee. So like, we are strange, you know,
creatures that for us it's so hard to do.
Especially when there are so many distractions and easy tasks to jump on, not only coffee,
but in our no-office environment we don't work together in the same physical space.
So oftentimes some new tasks pop up in incoming from someone and it's so easy to just jump on it
and work on this instead. So yeah, we had this policy for like six years now. I was
still struggling doing weekly review regularly. I recently I figured out some tips and tricks
that helped me to do it every Friday, I would say pretty consistently. So I wanted to share
it with you. So we will do that. We will share with you our tips and tricks, how to force
ourselves into doing the weekly review because it's for our own good and how to do it more
consistently, what we do during the weekly review, how we do it. If you want the details also you can
read them in my chapter in the NoOffice book at nooffice.org/review then you can read how the
basic things of the weekly review. But today we're gonna dive deeper into this and explain even in
more and more with more nuance. How we are trying to trick ourselves into really doing it
because we know that when we do a proper a good weekly review on a Friday then we show up at work
on Monday with a plan. That we don't show up saying "ah what should we be doing, maybe let's
check social media". No, we have a plan for Monday and with that and then for the rest of the week
And this makes our week so much better, so much more productive.
Yes, that is true exactly.
And for me, the big change that I discovered on scheduling our mighty fly days or my mighty fly day,
it's much more efficient or the success rate of doing quick review for me is much higher
if I do if I intend to do it after lunch.
So I start my mighty fly day with learning something,
figuring something for like researching new tools
or creating some automation
or working some conference, et cetera.
And only after lunch, I jump on to weekly review
and it's easier because after lunch,
the traffic in tasks in our team in Nozbe is much lower.
So there are less destruction
because like most of the team is already after there,
we clear the view.
So that's the trick.
And here, you know, you really need to push on your brain
this different attitude
to trigger different decision-making process,
not to do stuff, but to complete, abandon, delegate,
or less schedule a task.
- Stuff.
- Yeah, so I find it much easier to do it
on Friday afternoon because, you know,
It's Friday afternoon, the weekend is starting,
so you want to close everything before the weekend.
So your brain is forced to do it,
to not to finish tasks, but to the schedule,
complete, abandon, or delegate, yeah?
I found that it really helped me with this.
And really, I just, today, I learned from some TED Talk
about, I don't remember who was this, about the flow state,
but it's much easier to start unfinished big tasks
than start a big task from scratch.
- Of course, of course.
- Yeah, so with this in mind, you can,
even if you have, for example,
think that you can finish your big task for a week
in 30 minutes, on Friday, just don't do it.
Like, leave it for Monday,
because then it's a very easy win for Monday to start.
much easier to go into the flow finish this and have this boost in the
productivity. okay so your hack is to leave some unfinished stuff for Monday
because then you will want to close it down on Monday and you will have your
first wins and you will be more like you know your endorphins everything will be
firing up so you will be much more inclined into starting new things
because you're on a roll you're on a streak everything is working out. yes
- Yes, exactly.
And on Friday afternoon, actually Apple,
our favorite company is helping us
because they are sending in notifications
from Apple TV app about the new episodes
of the show on Fridays.
- Oh yes, that's true.
That's true.
- So it motivates you to finish your weekly review,
to make tough decisions and yeah,
to make quicker decisions about tasks.
- Yeah, that's really true.
- So that's my trick.
- The problem with our company,
and that's true, thanks for pointing it out,
is that because we are using actually Mighty Fridays
and we're not only preaching Mighty Fridays,
but we're actually doing it,
is that everyone on the team is doing weekly review
on a Friday.
So as you said, very often you think
like you've done your weekly review
and you've completed everything,
but then there are new tasks popping up
that require your attention
because other people are doing their weekly review
and are asking you follow-up questions
or are mentioning you or whatever.
So it can be kind of incomplete
when you start your Friday with a weekly review.
You think you've done it by 12
and then by four you see that there are new notifications,
new incoming messages or activity in Nozbe.
So that's kind of, you know,
that's the thing that we haven't thought about
when we instituted Mighty Fridays,
that because everyone is doing weekly review,
is not complete, complete, but that's fine. Like it's also good. Like it's, you know, again,
this can be the completionist in us might not want to leave it incomplete until Monday, but listening
to you, it's actually good. You leave it for Monday. So then on Monday you have some easy wins.
So of course, so you review some tasks, you reply to some comments. So again, you're starting to work
on things that people have reviewed on Friday. Because, you know, for me, I have tried many
many ways to doing the weekly review. But for me the easiest one on Friday is to go
before 9. I'm leaving my kids at school and I'm driving them to school and then coming back from
school I'm not actually coming back home. I have my iPad with me so I go to a very nice cafe and
and I have my breakfast, my special breakfast, special treat.
And while eating this breakfast,
I have to finish my weekly review.
So this way I do it in the very morning.
I cannot, you know, I mustn't leave the cafe
until I have done the weekly review.
So I'm trapped, you know?
And this has always helped me, this kind of system.
And on the weeks where I haven't done that,
I was struggling to do the weekly review.
Of course, sometimes I don't do it like this.
Sometimes I do them also in the afternoon on Friday,
which is also good.
But I think my biggest success rate was
when I had this trigger.
And I think, just like in your case,
you have a trigger of I eat lunch,
after lunch, I do my weekly review.
So the trigger is, after lunch,
this is the moment for weekly review.
For me, the trigger is I've delivered my kids to school,
now it's time for my weekly review.
- Yeah, but it's not only that, not only lunch,
but I have the similar trigger, like changing of context.
It really helps you to switch the brain
into the different mode, not completing a task,
but just making decisions what to do about this task
and when to do it.
Yeah, ideally I would go to the coffee place
to complete my weekly review.
We can finally do it after the pandemic.
- Yes, exactly. - Let's deal with
some conscious decisions and masks, et cetera,
but it's much easier now.
If I stay at home, I would take my MacBook onto my labs
and sit in the comfy armchair and do it there,
not in front of my big screen,
because I don't need it for review.
I just need to go through some tasks in Nozbe, yeah,
and make decisions about them.
So that's very different context,
and taking my MacBook into my labs,
it really helps me with this.
- And pro tip, really, the new Nozbe,
if you're using the new Nozbe works very well
also on smartphones.
So several times I've realized
that I can do something even different.
Like if I forget the iPad, for example,
take my kids to school,
I can still do the very same thing.
Switch the context, go to the cafe, pull up my iPhone
and just do my weekly review on the iPhone.
And it's fine.
Like it's, I just type a little bit slower
but I can dictate, I can type.
So it's a little bit slower, but not much slower.
And still the application is fast.
So it works very well, very well.
We have this, you know, in the task details,
we have the arrows up and down,
so I can quickly, you know, go through activity.
And so it's, you know, I realized that, you know,
there is no excuse actually not to do the weekly review.
Even if I forgot my iPad, oh, I cannot do it now.
No, no, I have access to all of my Nozbe.
So all of my projects and tasks,
I can still do the weekly review with my iPhone only.
So I wanted to point it out that, you know,
we are very intelligent creatures,
So we always find very good excuses not to do something.
But in that vein, just having the iPhone with you
is good enough to do your weekly review
because you can do, or you should be able to do
a proper review by just going through things on the iPhone.
And if there are additional steps,
like going through your physical inbox
in your home office or things like that,
well, you can do it when you come home.
So it's not a big deal.
So really there is no excuse.
as you spoke about doing it in Nozbe,
we will show during our product block next week
how we actually perform weekly review inside our app,
how our checklist looks like,
what tips and tricks, what features we use to facilitate,
to make this process faster and more effective.
So make sure to check it out on nozbe.com/blog.
It will be on Monday, Monday, Monday,
5 p.m. Central Europe time.
So it's 11 a.m. Eastern and 8 a.m. Pacific time.
And 4 p.m. London time for the UK people.
So yeah, that will be very fun.
And we will also show some new features
we shipped recently that actually helps with week review.
So yeah, join us there.
- My favorite, so speaking of,
my favorite feature for reminders is that there is,
there are, a feature I actually suggested is that
we have Mighty Fridays, we can remind on Friday. So, for example, there is a task which is not really a task for
day-to-day work, but the task to review, to think about, to contemplate, I just put a remind on Friday.
And then it doesn't matter which day it is, it just goes to Friday. And if it's on Thursday or Friday, the option changes
to remind next Friday. So it's really smart, it's really good. So this way I can put tasks
consciously for Friday so that I can, once I complete all my other things in the weekly review,
I can get to these tasks. I can write a comment here, review this, see this, watch this, read this.
- Yeah, that's also very useful.
I use it because I like to plan the things
I want to do on Friday,
because we designed this feature that during the normal days
you would have this shortcut to remind me on Friday.
But on Friday, the shortcut is next Friday.
- Exactly.
- Yeah, so on Friday,
I'm also going through my Mighty Friday project
where I have things I want to explore,
some automation, some alticostal, et cetera.
So I plan what I'm going to do on next Friday.
- Ah, yeah, that's very good.
- Yeah.
- I mean, and that's very smart, which is just said,
to have a dedicated project for your Mighty Friday ideas.
Because as we said,
Mighty Friday is about personal development.
It's about weekly review and then personal development,
or as in your case, personal development,
and then weekly review, whichever the order.
But the idea is about personal development.
So again, it's good to be conscious about it.
It's to be, to plan and have ideas for this,
Like what you want to learn, what you want to read, what you want to explore next Friday
or in Fridays to come.
And it's always easier to have a set of options.
Instead of like, okay now I have to come up with an idea for next Friday or today is Friday,
now I have to figure out what I'm going to actually learn today.
Instead you have a Mighty Friday project.
So whenever you have an idea how this would be good to explore, this would be good to
watch, this would be good to catch up with.
So you put it in your mighty Friday project
and in that sense, you always have options.
And I think it's brilliant.
And I actually don't have a project like that.
So I'm gonna do it right after we record this episode
because it's a really great idea.
- I will show my mighty Friday project
on Monday, product vlog.
So make sure to check it out.
Week review is the only time when I have my counters
on incoming and activity at zero.
Because like normally I try to finish the day
with incoming zero, but I don't touch much activity view.
I try to focus on my priorities,
which are my goals for the week and incoming,
which are the tasks that team needs feedback from me,
or I just put a reminder for myself there.
So there is that, and I go through all activities,
so all the new events in tasks, in projects I follow,
I just review them once a week on Friday.
And that's really fine because what I like about our app is the separation between stuff you really need to make decisions today and the stuff that might need your feedback but it's not important to do it right away.
So I can go through it and plan like giving feedback to it for the next week or work on something during next week.
- I'm right now for my personal blog,
I'm writing an article which I might later repost
on our NOSB blog about how I appreciate
the activity view as the CEO.
So like why it's as the CEO, this is so important to me
and why I don't have to ask for status of things.
I hate asking people for like updates.
I wanna see the updates without asking them about it.
I'm gonna write about this.
if I write it today then we will be able to link it in the show notes but I'm going to comment on
it on the vlog anyway. So tune in for the vlog if you want to hear more about that because for
somebody who's a manager, who's you know who's the CEO, who's a leader, it's really like this is a
killer activity view as a killer feature. This is just glorious. So I just wanted to point out that
about the weekly review that the thing is that you know surprise surprise if you do it regularly
it gets better and it gets done in less time. So the first weekly review might take you like
three or four hours and you will be like, "ah, three, four hours every week, come on, man."
But no, because once you have things cleaned up in this first three, four hours, then next week's
weekly review is going to be like two and a half hours, three hours maybe. And the next week's
weekly review it's gonna be two hours and then you'll get to an hour long weekly review you know
like it's like the more you do I mean the more often you do it the more regularly you do it
the better it gets and you get better at it so and there is like more less you know backlog to
go through because you know you've already done the work that's why I really recommend not trying
to do it once a month, but really try to stick to the weekly repetition, weekly cadence of doing
the review. Yeah, consistency is the king. Yes, every time consistency beats everything. And just
like we do with podcasting, every two weeks we do a podcast for you guys. But it's the same thing
with this. If you do it more often, you do it better. You get better at it. And also with every
weekly review you can refine your checklist like what you have to really go through, what is not
that important to go through or what you can go through later. You can be tweaking the
process as you do the process but it's good to start somewhere, have like a basic
framework for your weekly review and then go from there and keep tweaking it to your liking.
It's also good to have this kind of minimal version of the checklist and some optional items
because like if I have time, I just go through more products in Nozbe.
And if I don't have much time, I just go through my top top 10 products I have in my sidebar in favor.
Exactly. Exactly. And it's that, but also like other things like, you know,
you might want to skip cleaning up downloads folder, for example, this week, but then next
week clean it up really well so that, you know, you don't have a backlog of downloads there,
for example. So let's take a break, maybe, let's have a sponsored break about Nozbe, and then we'll
go through the basic version of the weekly review and then the more thorough so we can give you like
tips for our checklist for weekly review. Now this podcast is sponsored by Nozbe, the fastest way to
learn task-based Async communication app for personal, family and business use. Let's hear what
customers say about Nozbe. When we've been around for about 10 years, our business has, and we've
been using Nozbe for about eight of those years. And as we grew, we kind of got to the point where
I just couldn't remember everything anymore. I'm pretty organized, I would just kind of keep
everything in my head and with post-it notes and things like that. And it just got to be too much.
And so I started looking around for some sort of project management software that could help me
have a set up really trusted system. But really, I just wanted a system where I could know that I
I had everything in there.
I wasn't gonna forget anything.
I wasn't gonna drop any balls for clients or miss deadlines.
- And we are back after the break.
And actually speaking about Nozbe,
we have now promo going on, yeah?
- Yeah, you can get four months extra free
if you get a yearly subscription.
So only for limited time for the next week.
So just do it now at nosby.com/promo.
You can learn all the details,
but basically if you're a Nozbe subscriber
and within this timeframe right now,
you buy a yearly subscription,
we'll add four months to your yearly subscription.
So you pay for 12 months already with a discount
and then four months extra.
So really this is a special moment.
We don't do these promos anymore that often,
like very rarely.
So the time is now.
If you are thinking of extending Nozbe for 16 months,
so you are ready for this year and next year,
just do it now.
And do your spring cleaning,
do your prep for summer and for the year to come.
I think it's the best moment to do it.
So get Nozbe for a year,
but it applies to both Nozbe Personal,
if you're still using Nozbe Personal,
and the new Nozbe, formerly known as Nozbe Teams,
the same way, nozbe.com/promo.
So just get there and you will have all the details.
Just get for a year and four months extra.
This is really special.
- Okay, so let's go back to our topic.
So you wanted to share some tips
on weekly review checklist.
- Yes, so I'm gonna give you the basic framework
and from there we'll go and you will add your tips Rafa
and we'll get from there.
So in the chapter of my book, "Of No Office" book,
I'm giving you five easy steps.
So first clean up inboxes, incoming documents,
incoming emails, like incoming stuff,
physical inbox, maybe next to your computer,
your email inbox, like all the inboxes.
And this is actually the longest part of the review
to clean up the incoming stuff.
Second, reconnect with your goals.
So just check out like again, your goals for next week
and for next quarter,
like the goals you've written down before,
and also your yearly resolution,
like get back to the yearly resolution.
So what was your real resolution?
And reconnect with your goals to make sure
that you know what you have to plan and you have to.
Because if you don't reconnect with your goals,
you might plan things that are actually not aligned
with your goals.
And, or you will see that some goals are not aligned
with you anymore.
So you wanna skip on those.
- That might be fine because your goals may change
and you may feel different about your goals
you set at the beginning of the quarter
or the beginning of the year.
So don't be afraid to change that.
But yeah, it should be your conscious decision.
- Exactly.
- But not just something that happens to you.
- Exactly, because if you are, I mean,
you have cleaned up all your inboxes.
That was the first step.
Now, second step is to reconnect with your goals
because you wanna make sure what kind of decisions
you wanna make for next week.
And then, you know, three,
read your past week's calendar and journal
so that just check, you know, what you were up to again
to see how the week went.
And then four, check your upcoming weeks calendar
and tasks for next week.
And then five, again, a big one,
review your projects and tasks.
So then go through like all this stuff that you have
in your Nozbe or other app that you use your tasks for.
So this was my basic five step process.
- Okay, so actually I think I'm gonna steal one,
one tip from you because I have this on my checklist
to review my tasks with my weekly goal stack,
which are actually tasks, the same tasks,
like tasks that are result of my goals,
I said, for the quarter.
So, and I have it at almost at the end of my checklist,
but maybe that's a good idea to have it at the beginning
so you can set your mind into the proper state
to thinking about those goals while reviewing tasks.
- Exactly, this is key.
I mean, and it's not like, you know,
spiritual mumbo jumbo, this is true.
I mean, the moment you review your goals
and you reconnect with your goals and with your ideas,
make a conscious choice what you want to do
with next quarter, next year,
then your decision making is impacted by it.
You are kind of, you know, it's like, you know,
you want, it's like when you drive a car,
if you know where you're going,
it's easier to steer in the right direction
because you know where you're going, you know?
And if you don't know where you're going,
or whatever, we'll take you there.
So, because we, the problem, I mean,
and the good thing about weekly review
is because otherwise we go with the flow.
So very often, Rafa, you will just make a decision
to do something next week because for example,
I told you so, or because somebody else told you so.
And when you review it, you're like, yeah, Michael told me,
but this is actually not important to me right now
that this, we can do it later,
or maybe somebody else can do it, or maybe, whatever,
or maybe I can renegotiate it with Michael,
but it's not aligned with what I wanna do this quarter
and with the direction of our application and our company.
So, when I ask you for something,
it might not be just the right thing to do for you
next week, but you might want to do it
just out of sense of obligation or camaraderie,
just you wanna help me out.
But then you, for example, don't do something
which was important to you and to the company,
just because you went with the flow.
And when you're reconnect with your goals,
it's easier to make a decision.
Maybe this one not for next week.
- I think in our company,
we have this unwritten rule actually
that if we don't specify that we need something
for concrete due date or it's urgent right now,
then every person that gets a task delegated to them
can plan it whenever they want.
- Exactly.
And that's the thing, you know,
Like for example, this promo was different.
Now we have the Nozbe promo
and we had to plan things for specific dates.
Like we had to make sure that we get,
the payment system right,
all the discount codes,
all that stuff ready for specific date.
But normally very often,
we trust each other that you will do the work.
So I'm just doing, I mean, creating a task for you, Rafa.
And then you will either give me some feedback on that
in the comment or you will do it.
But if I don't specify date,
when you decide to do it or when you're in the mood to do it.
So that's fine.
And also, like in the comments, we have a space to actually specify expectations.
Like say, you know, Michael, this is not really important.
I mean, this is important and I see that it's important to you,
but I have other things to do.
Can I do it like in two weeks?
And then I say, yeah, no problem.
Or no, please do it now.
We can communicate and that's important in the comments.
And it's also part of the weekly review that you, in the comments of tasks, you specify expectations
and you kind of negotiate expectations with other people so that other people on your team can be
aligned with you and then they know, okay, this will not be done next week, that's fine, or this
will be done next week, great. That's really helpful to be on top of the things end of the week, aligned
with your team and then you can have a great weekend
and really start Monday with the boost productivity,
the priority list ready for you.
- One other tip that I have for you all is that,
so I have this journaling shortcut that I use for journaling.
So as you know, I am a proficient journaler.
I journal every day at twice in the morning
and in the evening.
Well, sometimes I fail, but usually I don't.
So like I have my journal is pretty, pretty consistent.
We'll link in the show notes to my journaling routine.
So you can actually steal it from me and take it from me.
Take the whole shortcut if you use Siri shortcuts.
If you don't use Siri shortcuts,
you can just review it online
and maybe do something else for Android or Windows.
Anyway, this Siri shortcut,
one of the things there is that whenever I start journaling,
I have my goals for this quarter and this year written up.
So they show as a pop-up.
- So you are connecting with your goals every day actually.
- Every day, yes, every day.
So every day I'm, you know, sometimes I'm just, you know,
okay, I'm just skipping it, but very often I'm just like,
especially in the morning, I'm just going through them again,
like in my mind, you know, okay, I have to do this,
I have to do this, I have to do this.
So I reconnect with my goals actually every day,
while, I mean, before I'm journaling.
So that's one tip that I'm doing.
Second tip also in that shortcut is that on Friday,
I have extra checklist added to my daily entry.
So this way I can follow a checklist
when I do the weekly review.
So this way I can do things one by one
and really complete my weekly review.
And I can tell you that, for example, in my case,
it's just, I fill out a magic spreadsheet.
So when I just, when I track all my hours of work,
I clean up incoming.
The second thing is clean up incoming zero
on priority review in Nozbe.
Then I have a different topic.
So I decide on core hours.
So on something I'm gonna do next week
on a big project for next week.
So what I'm gonna be doing next week as one big thing.
We'll cover the core hours.
Someone, I think we have covered core hours.
- Yes, we have covered your core hours concept
and we will link in the show notes to the episode.
I don't remember the number right now.
- Okay.
So I have, so just like you have the project for, you know,
Mighty Friday ideas, I have a project for core hour ideas.
So big projects for the whole week.
So I go to this project and choose core hours
for next week.
And then I clean up activity in Nozbe
and then I review my followed projects.
So the most important ones,
I mean the favorite projects, sorry,
the most important ones, then followed projects.
And then based on activity, sometimes I review projects which I don't follow, but I'm just curious what's up there.
So then I can just review these projects.
And only then I go to clean up my email inbox.
So my email inbox comes last.
First, I cater to my tasks in Nozbe.
And then only then I do my email inbox zero.
And then I check other social messages.
So I go to LinkedIn, I go to other places.
So if you have sent me a message recently in LinkedIn,
I'm sorry, I haven't replied,
but I'm going to reply next Friday at the latest.
So yeah, I replied to messages at the end
because first I cater to my tasks.
- Yeah, your team come first and then external world.
Okay, anything else on weekly review?
Because I think that's all.
- I don't think so.
I mean, I think that we've covered it all.
Just to wrap up, it's good to have it as a habit,
to have a trigger for it.
It's good to change a place where you do it,
not by your regular desk where you do your regular work,
but somewhere else, like you said, your armchair,
maybe cafeteria, you know, just change environment for this,
make it special, make it different.
And it's good to have a checklist, you know?
And then if you go again through my chapter
at nooffice.org/review,
Also there, you will find links to my,
there is a checklist for that.
There is a knowsb.how template.
So I linked to all that stuff in this chapter as well.
So if you go there, make sure to read the chapter
and then follow the links there.
And please, for your sake, do it.
Do it quickly.
Do it regularly.
Do it consistently.
You will thank me later.
(laughing)
- We are made to customers.
(laughing)
- Okay. - Exactly.
- All right, so let's geek out a little bit.
So you are now in your second home office.
- Yes, so I'm in my hometown and right now in my,
I'm actually in my father's office.
So this is my father's office.
My father works here.
My father is the VP of Finance in our company.
And yeah, this is my place where I work if I'm here,
if I'm here.
And for that, I'm still using my iPad as my main device.
But if I need a Mac, I'm using my mom's MacBook Air.
It's an M1 MacBook Air, which is fantastic.
You see the camera is not maybe the best, but it works.
- Yeah, camera is...
(laughing)
Vocal.
- Yes.
But the computer is fantastic, so I'm using that.
And I have this microphone always here,
so I don't carry the microphone with me.
I'm just using the microphone here
when I need to record the podcast.
This way, I can do some recording.
If I need recording for NOSB purposes,
people want me to record something,
I have a pretty good microphone here so I can use it.
I have it all set up here and this way I can be productive
if I want to without carrying too much stuff.
So I can just only travel here with my iPad,
but still have additional gear here ready for me to work.
- Yeah, is there anything else you have from the hardware?
you have doubled between your main home office
and this office on the microphone.
I had MacBook Air actually.
- Yeah, exactly.
The MacBook Air, yeah, this is my mom's MacBook Air,
but I have an account in my account here.
And yeah, I log into Nozbe via the web,
actually here on Chrome.
And I use StreamYard on the web.
So yeah, basically I just have this special account for me.
This way I don't log into stuff on my mom's account
when she uses the MacBook Air.
- Yeah, that wouldn't be secure.
- That wouldn't be secure and also it's not good.
This is the cool thing about the Mac
that having separate accounts is no big deal.
So I can have my own account here
and have my own setup, everything set up the way I want.
So that's very easy.
The rest of the stuff, I don't need
because I carry my backpack with me.
at all times and in my backpack, I have all the chargers.
I have like all the main cables that I need
for my iPad and for my iPhone.
So with, you know, and I have my AirPods Pro
as well with me, I don't need anything else.
I have the--
- Have you used for this trip, our company backpack or?
- Yes, yes.
I have used the company backpack for this trip
and it's glorious.
We got a company backpack on our recent NOSB reunion.
We can link to a photo of some in the show notes.
We talked about it on the last episode.
- Exactly, exactly.
So anyway, I have the company backpack, yes.
And we had a spare one.
So the spare one goes to my daughter
and she's really happy about it.
She will use it as her main backpack for school.
So she's really proud of having that is.
I mean, she's using that is merch all the time.
She uses the Nozbe hoodie
and she's proud of that is merch.
So that's good.
- You mean she stole it from you?
- Yes.
Yeah, she basically takes things from me.
I mean, you know, I assume that having a daughter
means that she will steal things from mom and not from me,
but having a geeky dad inclines you to steal geeky stuff
from your dad.
So hoodies, backpacks, cables, chargers, all that stuff,
she steals from me. - iPads.
- iPads, yes.
Yeah, she has my 11-inch iPad Pro,
the one that I used before, and she loves it,
she has the and what she does in Procreate application like how she draws
draws things it's amazing I mean what she does it's the Apple pencil and
and she has the the paper like you know cover and she loves it because then she
can really draw things properly so yeah paper like big thumbs up yes so so yeah
so so my basically tip is that if you go to a place like I do like I have my
hometown where I go to like three times a year like when there's no pandemic.
There was a moment in the pandemic that I wasn't here for more than a year, like
year and a half. Okay, so let me share one tip I learned recently. Actually it was
a tip that showed Federico Viticci on connected. Yeah, and I really liked it
because on iPhone there is this feature you can tap to wake your iPhone and
actually the tip is to turn it off because with tap to wake it's very easy
to unconsciously just tap with, you know, with compulsive habit to tap and
see notifications and pick up the phone and start playing with it when the
screen is highlighted when you tap it. And if you turn it off,
then you have to raise to wake, which is not so easy to do as a compulsive habit.
Maybe it's easy, but not that easy as tap to wake when the phone is on the
table in front of you. Plus it really helps with accidental touches of the screen.
Because sometimes it happened to me that, for example, I'm having a phone in
the pocket and I want to put my hands in the pocket and then I touches the
phone and it gets unlocked with Apple Watch unlocked or it tries to unlock but
fails because my face is not there and then next time I want to unlock it I
I need to put the alpha numeric long password
because face ID is locked.
Yeah, so I recommend to turn it off
just for your productivity and also for your convenience.
- So I think we can wrap it up.
- Okay, so let's wrap it up.
Remember guys that what day is tomorrow Michael?
- Friday.
- Friday, exactly, and what do we do on Friday?
- Weekly review.
- Weekly review and mighty Friday.
So learning something new, applying priorities for next week too.
Have a great weekend.
If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to help support this podcast,
either by sharing it with your friends or leaving us a nice review in Apple Podcasts
or by checking our Nozbe app, especially now when we have a big promo
for months for free when you buy a yearly subscription.
So that's it for today. Say goodbye, Michael.
Goodbye and check out our promo because it's really special and time limited.
And, you know, see you in two weeks and please, please, for your sake, do your weekly review
regularly.
This episode has not been created in the office.
Because in Nozbe there is no office.
Your hosts were Michael Stivinsky and Rafał Sobolewski.
All the links and show notes you will find on nov.fm/40.
The whole production process of this episode has been coordinated in a project in Nozbe
app.
Control is good, but trust and mighty fly days are so much better.
Thank you and see you in two weeks. Remember to have a mighty fly day!