The Podcast: Recent Episodes
Michael Sliwinski, Radek Pietruszewski
Radek and Michael talk about technology, productivity tips, business, publishing, and whatever else comes to mind.
Podcast sponsor:
✅ Nozbe Teams - Work from home with your team
Key things you will learn from this episode:
- How to organize an online team retreat
- What special gifts and activities we had during Nozbe Reunion
- What we've learned from our latest Virtual Reunion
- Why #iPadOnly guys like Michael and Rafal are not so excited with the new iPad Pro
Subscribe to our show and learn more about running a remote software company:
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Meet the Hosts
- Rafał Sobolewski (@sobolowy)
- Michael Sliwiński (@msliwinski)
Show notes
- No Office podcast
- No Office book - chapter 26 - Reunite the team
- How we do meetings - No Office ep. 17
- How Radek manufactured 65k of face shields - The Podcast ep. 206
- Blogpost: How to Plan an Online, COVID-Safe Company Retreat
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Add to Overcast, Get RSS
The Podcast is a semi-regular chat between Radek and yours truly (we both work at Nozbe) about productivity, business, books, and whatever else comes to mind… - if you liked this episode, make sure to check out past episodes.
Show notes for this episode:
- The Podcast 91: Best city
- The Podcast 196: Hands Are Dirty
- The Podcast 206: Radek’s Face Shield Factory
- Warsaw Hackerspace
Copy & share: ThePodcast.fm/211
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Discussing Netflix CEO’s thoughts on leadership: - building a high talent density workplace - leading by context - removing unnecessary policies (vacation, spending, travel)
Applying Lean methodology from Japanese factories (specifically, the kanban pull system) to managing groceries and other house supplies. Never will you ever run out of toilet paper again!
Should we focus Nozbe marketing on Work From Home? Michael has a frank discussion with Radek about this. Maybe it’s a great idea! Or maybe, it’s too niche and will ruin our marketing.
Let’s gossip about what our competitors are doing… Basecamp 4, HEY? What are they all about? Are they a threat?
Radek has started a job in manufacturing… pro bono manufacturing of face shields for hospitals in Poland.
No, really. Over the last few weeks, Radek has been applying what he’d learned about CAD, laser cutting, and lean manufacturing at the Warsaw Hackerspace to set up a face shield production line.
In three weeks, they produced over 30 000 face shields.
This episode is a new, experimental format. It’s just Radek calling Michael to chat about work. Like they normally would. Except that it happens to be recorded and published, so you can get a glimpse into how we do it.
In this chat, we’re trying to figure out how to institute cultural change at the company, and make Kaizen part of our everyday work and thinking. Also, Radek’s frustrations with UI work, and change of direction for 2020.
Make a huge impact with just 2 hours per day. Discussing Michael’s latest productivity hack and how this simple change allowed him to be way more productive this year.
How we apply Lean philosophy to the Nozbe Teams development process: - Weekly release train - Phased releases - One-day pull requests - CI/CD - Asynchronous testing - Feature flags - Bug fixing Mondays - Dev responsibilities - Roadmap Rangers - Time scoping - Kaizen in customer support - Text daily standups - Kaizen math
Feel free to follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/msliwinski and https://twitter.com/radexp
We dive deep into Lean Manufacturing - how Ford’s mass manufacturing changed the world, how Toyota dramatically improved on the process - and why it matters even if you’re not in manufacturing.
In life, there’s a limited number of f’s you can give — very few in fact. And yet we give them out left and right, robbing us of simple tranquility in life.
We discuss the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k — a modern, approachable guide to stoicism.
Celebrating nearly 5 years and 199 episodes of The Podcast, and giving our recommendations for the best stories and recommendations we’ve recorded so far.
When we receive feedback, or an idea, a suggestion, we tend to become defensive. We’re sure they’re wrong and we’re right, and we stop listening. And thus we miss out on good insights.
Or do we? Perhaps the real problem is the culture, people being too delicate, and so we are forced into unnecessary niceties instead of giving and receiving feedback straight?
Like every year, we’re taking this moment to reflect on 2019, review our successes and failures, set some goals (not resolutions!) for 2020, and put in motion a process to ensure it’s going to be a great year.
Exploring the idea of abolishing (or enhancing) the hierarchical structure of companies in favor of dispersing responsibilities broadly into a mesh — not based on rank, but particular skill, specialization, experience.
Getting your hands dirty to create physical objects, tinker, work with plastic, metal, and wood is fun! A more soothing hobby than doing stuff at the computer, and a better way to spend an evening than Netflix.
We discuss home renovations, CNC milling, concrete casting, and industrial robots.
We got, no, we _made_ some cool new gadgets for the Fall 2019 Nozbe Reunion: Laser-cut phone stands, zero waste produce bags and hemp dish cleaner, and smog sensors.
To create Nozbe Teams, we had to grow from being a product company to being a technology company. In this episode, we’re telling the story of what technological infrastructure we’ve chosen and created for this project (and why).
In 2016, we decided to make "Nozbe for Teams". Then, we changed its name to just Nozbe 4. Ultimately, we've decided to call the new product Nozbe Teams and become, at least for a while, a two-product company. In this episode, we're winding the history back to the beginnings of this project and re-telling the story of why and how this came to be.
This wasn't supposed to be this week's show. We meant to talk about Nozbe Teams… but instead, we go on a 40 minute long crusade against… jeans and MacBooks.
Catching up after a 3-month summer break from The Podcast. Vacations, conferences, open source, webmastering, Nozbe Teams, Portland, and driving licenses.
The Podcast is on a summer break. Meanwhile, Michael started playing with code again and have just launched three new website projects. And we briefly discuss and update on Digital Minimalism and Michael's break from social media.
Live from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, we discuss our fresh reactions from Apple's conference. New iPadOS, the cheese grater, Shortcuts and automation, Catalyst, and SwiftUI.
Having reached his 40th birthday (and we, The Podcast, our fourth), Michael shares his best bits of wisdom: Finding what you're good at, striving for longevity, knowing when to reinvent yourself, having fun, and nurturing friendships.
Michael talks about what it's like to walk a 260km pilgrimage over a week and a half, why he and his wife did it, how it can be a great experience even for non-religious people, how to pack for it, and why northern Spain is kinda nice.
Discussing The Courage To Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. Giving autonomy to live their own lives, neither prasing nor rebuking, and finding happiness in being beneficial to people around us.
The world is bad, but better. The vast majority of westerners believe the world is poorer, more violent, deadly, primitive, and awful than it actually is. This book beautifully illustrates our ignorance, updates your knowledge, and gives you tools for a fact-based worldview.
Digital Minimalism - A philosophy where you focus your technology use on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that support your values, and happily miss out on everything else. We discuss Cal Newport's new book on this very topic. Why clutter is costly, optimization is imporatant, and intentionality is satisfying. We explore reclaiming our leisure time. BREAKING NEWS: Michael pledges to go on a 30 day digital declutter from Twitter and Instagram!
Nozbe 4, our brand new app has a brand new icon (and logo). This week, we talk about what's wrong with ticks and circles, what makes a good logo, why we decided to go for it, and how it almost didn't happen.
What we've learned about productivity and collaboration over the years. How technology improvement allows us to get to the next level. And why starting from scratch is scary, but sometimes necessary.
Pulling back the curtain on the development process of Nozbe 4. When we started, how we progressed over time, and why we had to impose on ourselves the deadline of April 4.
Stories about competition, punishment, and rewards in the classroom and our childhoods. We continue discussing what we've learned from Punished by Rewards.
When we reward someone (an employee, a student, a child) for doing what we want them to do, we think we're doing the right thing, motivating them to keep doing it.
In reality, incentives only have a shallow, immediate effect — and in the long term, we're killing the other person's intrinsic motivation, and making them resent us for being controlling.
The good, the bad, and the necessary of complaining and complainers.
To keep improving, and to communicate efficiently in an organization (and to be grown up) is to understand that complaints are not usually toxic, negative, or a personal attack against you — but are simply feedback. To say to someone not to bring you problems, but only solutions is to guarantee you'll be oblivious to everything that's broken in a company.
(But yes, some complaints are nothing more than unhelpful snark — learn to distinguish between the two)
How to review and plan a year together. Because Annual Review is not just for you, and for your work, but for your family and relationships too.
We started paying our employees salaries based on a formula that applies to everyone, not based on individual negotiations. Here’s why, and how.
Follow-up on our journey towards a (slightly) calmer life — with fewer distractions, push notifications, and social media. Pushing forward to find the right balance between utility and mindfulness.
How to hide (but not delete) distracting apps on iOS and Android, time and open limits on Facebook and other apps, blocking websites, old school newsletters, and more.
Celebrating 12 years of profitably running Nozbe (without any outside investors), Michael recounts some of the most important milestones, and most amusing anecdotes of the company’s history.
That, and a sneak peak into the future of Nozbe
Here’s a sneak peak for Michael’s and Radek’s plans for 2019 (a.k.a. the year of Purple / the year of intentionality).
Always busy? Endless meetings? Can’t sleep? No time to think?
Screw that. It doesn’t have to be crazy at work. It makes no sense. Exhausted, overworked, sleep-deprived people with no long stretches of uninterrupted time can’t really be productive. Busyness and effectiveness are not the same.
We discuss a book from Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
The biggest themes, projects, successes, and failures of 2018 in Michael’s and Radek’s lives.
And COOKIES! (And rockets!)
Here’s your choice to live a more intentional life. To learn from the events, plans, successes, and failures of the last year. To contemplate what makes you, you. To make plans, set goals, learn new things, and develop habits for next year. To let go.
Here’s the end of the year, and our definitive guide to Annual Review.
Here’s a crazy idea: what if half of all work performed in our society was useless or unnecessary, and if it stopped, no one would notice — or care.
We dive into David Graeber’s food for thought.
We own technology so that it makes our life better. Right? Or is it the other way around?
What if filling every single second of our life with social media and compulsively checking all our inboxes and feeds 50 times per day makes us unable to focus and to be intentional?
What if visiting social media once per day for 20 minutes is good and healthy, but 20 times per day for one minute isn't?
A discussion + some coping hacks
The state of computing is in an awkward state, but full of promise. On one side, unnecessary complicated PCs; on the other, fun but somewhat clunky iPads.
One year into the #iPadOnly lifestyle, Radek unpacks pros and cons of both, and their future converging paths.
(Last time we talk about iPads until next WWDC, promise!)
Michael’s new iPad is faster than Radek’s 15’’ MacBook Pro. Ouch! Why “you can’t work on an iPad” is (mostly) BS. Which iPad to buy?
Instead of only complaining, you can act to change things for the better in your local community, neighborhood, city, school. Most people tend to think that getting involved must be very difficult, impossible, or political. But the truth is, a lot of the time, it takes very little to make a positive impact.
Over time, we start taking things for granted, get used to the status quo, get into the rut, and forget the basics — the motivating factors behind why we do what we do. Here are our reasons.
Follow-up on the joy of minimalist backpack-only packing: wallets, cycling, charing, shaving… and a follow-up on home renovations and tidying up.
The Podcast special, live from a Nozbe company reunion in Kraków! This one, if you can, you should really watch on video.
We unpack our backpacks on camera, and show precisely every single item we have inside. Turns out, you really don’t need that much space to fit everything you need for a trip.
Lessons learned from Michael’s visit to Mobiconf. The liberty of backpack-only lifestyle. Choosing conferences wisely. And talking to people.
Home office renovations, laying out cable, procrastination, tinkering with Raspberry Pi, and home automation on the cheap
Can a CEO of a small company stop working completely for 6 weeks? Michael just did, and this are his lessons learned.
The story behind the first artifact of the secret Project Purple, and Nozbe’s first big piece of open-source code: WatermelonDB. What it is, why we spent more than a year developing it, and what was the process of releasing it at React Native EU.
Social accountability, structure, running with guests, cycling to school, and other brain hacks to find more time and opportunities for sports in our lives.
To blog or not to blog? Searching for our personal soapboxes, and pondering if blogging still matters when you can just record a podcast (and if it does, when and why).
The new MacBook Pro. Why iOS and macOS are destined to converge. The future of Apple computers.
GDPR - the good, the bad, the ugly. Dark design of privacy popups. The legal, cultural, and technical fronts of the battle against privacy erosion.
“It’s loud, dangerous, costly, produces poor results, and I love it”. In other words, welcome to the world of 3D printing.
Radek tells about his journey with this: how it works, why it’s way more difficult than it seems, and why it’s amazing.
Advancements in iOS automation. Simplifying morning/afternoon routine and travel with Nozbe automation. Resisting social media compulsive behavior (also on Android). And what’s next.
Learning from three years of The Podcast. Keeping it short, sticking to audio, some stats, and feedback from our listeners!
Discussing — a simple system for managing finances designed around human flaws. We talk about the ideas from the book (written mostly for entrepreneurs), and then turn to how we adapted and applied the lessons to our personal lives.
Thoughts on saving money. We discuss two different approaches to money when you’re young. And then we talk about ETFs — the simplest, least risky way to invest money in stock markets.
Why living in a simple, minimalistic space is efficient, frugal, and good for psychological well-being.
And more importantly: how to get there. (Hint: it’s an emotionally daunting journey, but well worth it!)
A real snapshot of how we work together. Michael is working on a presentation about remote work for infoShare, and we iterate on the draft, together, live.
A strategy for dealing with the hardest kind of tasks. Hint: it’s not by trying to make it 100% right in one go.
Exploring the domain of personal finance: analyzing your spending, how to save money efficiently, why (saving on things you don't care about so you can spend on things you do), and Michael's rant on young people.
Questioning the format, purpose, length, and need for the semi-annual Nozbe Reunion — the only time when our remote company is in one physical location. More learning from our mistakes, old and new. And how to let go.
This week, we explain, in detail, do we use Nozbe (the app) at Nozbe (the company). Why not all projects have a specific goal and end, a company message board, how to organize work and communication in a software development team, and how to semi-automate complex procedures with templates.
Our hopes and wishes for Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference next month. Discussing bezel-less iPads, a convergence of iOS and macOS, and products Apple should not be selling anymore.
Radek explains his best system yet for planning the day and week to squeeze as much deep work as possible.
First tasks first, then the frog, radio silence until 10am, plan the next day early, manage energy levels, and keep a stash of backup tasks. Easy!
A meandering discussion on advantages of semi-nomadic lifestyle, the brokenness of companies, changing paradigms, always taking the blame, and being immunized by experience.
Radek explains what it takes to be a digital nomad — how to travel often, with little preparation, overhead, or stress, all while still doing your job.
We discuss: how to pack for a week in a backpack, how to pack extremely fast, how to keep your good habits during the trip, and how to be productive while traveling.
Using technology to make traveling easier.
How to keep track of who owes whom how much, saving money on currency exchanges, running through the airport more quickly, keeping track of expenses, managing preparation for a trip, and sharing all the files, calendars, maps… and more.
Discussing iOS apps, and how to use them powerfully. A follow-up on note-taking, document scanning, and maintaining a Magic Spreadhseet on iPhone and iPad.
Also, why it’s totally normal, even for a minimalist, to have multiple note-taking apps (or to-do apps for that matter).
How Michael and Radek organize their lives (side projects, hobbies, chores, errands) outside of work using Nozbe. http://thepodcast.fm/134
Cultivating good habits and overcoming bad ones — discussing the most interesting strategies and brain hacks from Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin.
On the day of Falcon Heavy's maiden launch (currently the most powerful rocket in the world), we discuss what makes SpaceX great.
SpaceX makes the cheapest and most powerful rockets in the world, and they're reusable. How come they succeeded, and NASA's Space Shuttle (also supposed to be cheap and reusable) failed? There are lessons you can take from SpaceX's success and apply them to companies in other industries.
Annual Review series, part 5 (and last!).
Learning from previous years and quarterly reviews, and applying lessons of Burst Projects, Values, and Letting go to design the best year ever. Making fewer goals, and putting them sequentially, not in parallel, to bring margin into our busy lives.
Annual Review series, part 4.
We're taking a look back at last year, to consider all that was good, bad, ugly, or just unexpected, and learn from it.
Annual Review series, part 3.
Each year, start anew. Your past projects, goals, habits don’t matter… unless you decide that they really do.
Don’t automatically move last year’s failed goals to this year.
And don’t hold yourself to the highest standard you’ve ever achieved.
Annual Review series, part 2.
Last week we discussed how to structure goals. Today, we discuss how to select your goals in the first place.
It starts with deep self-knowledge. Truly understanding the things about you, what motivates you, what excites you, what makes you tick, and also what you dislike and despise. Not the things that everyone will nod their head at, but the things particular to you.
When you write down what you really are like, it suddenly becomes clear which things are important, and which ones merely seemed like a good idea.
Annual Review series, part 1.
Sometimes you stumble upon a project that excites and engages you so much, it gives you what feels like superhuman power. We discuss how to foster the right environment for such projects to appear in your life.
We also explore the subject of focus. We're much better at doing hard things sequentially than all at once. Well… most things. Some — keystone habits — only work if you do them with high consistency.
And so we present a new template for planning goals for the year. Either as burst projects (high intensity, short duration), or keystone habits (low intensity, high consistency). But not long, stretched out projects layered on top of each other.
How to become less addicted to notifications and badges.
The thing is: they're designed to make us react. Every time we see there's a new message, we check it out. And thus it becomes a compulsive behavior we cannot stop (we're just humans after all). We can reduce our exposure to the trigger (have less notifications), but how do we fix the root cause?
Learn a new language in the New Year!
Following up on the previous two episodes on learning languages, we share more tips on how to learn efficiently, as well as our own progress (Radek learning Spanish, and Michael learning French)
Cool gadgets you can get for Christmas.
Also: Review of 2017 in hardware, and why Radek doesn't wear an Apple Watch anymore.
Just follow your passion, right? … No.
Unless you’re already highly skilled at something you’re passionate about, following your passion will only drive you to be miserable. To get a great job you can feel passionate about, you must first have something rare and valuable to give. You must be so good they can’t ignore you.
A much better idea: Follow your curiosity.
Optimizing your day for Deep Work.
Or, what to do to make highly productive, deeply focused work possible (and likely).
More mobile life & iOS automation talk:
- Using Scanbot (and not Evernote) for document safekeeping
- Optimizing Magic Spreadsheet for iPhone, tracking time spent, micro-journaling
Part 2 of our discussion on: - How to develop a better accent in a foreign language - Michael’s story of learning Spanish - Duolingo and computer-aided language learning
The story of how Michael and Radek learned English, German, and other languages. Michael's way was to watch lots of movies and sing lots of songs. Meanwhile, Radek plugs in historical spaced repetition learning data from his very first magic spreadsheet (again!).
After a few months of heavy iPad use, Radek admits: despite its (obvious) flaws and limitations, iPad Pro is a surprisingly good computer.
There's still ways to go, but with some determination and a shift in mindset, there are very few things you can't do on an iPad.
Discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly of the iPhone X. Also: Wireless charging everywhere, ARM on the Mac, iPhone multitasking.
Like every half a year, we reunite in one physical location, this time: Wrocław. We talk about learning languages, beers, Taiwan, and the low-carb diet.
Michael celebrates his tenth triathlon, explains how he got into it and tries to persuade Radek to compete as well.
About Radek's trip to Panama, along with a bunch of traveling pro tips. The art of packing – how to pack for 13 days in a regular backpack. Modern materials and packing for a wide range of temperatures. Avoiding jetlag.
If you're a doctor or a lawyer, you have an ethical obligation to do the right thing for your patient or client. Why aren't software developers held to the same standard?
Today, we discuss the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown.
The goal: designing a simpler, more focused life. Doing less, but better. Cutting down on what's "good", but not good enough.
Michael explains how he uses Evernote. This was going to be a boring episode about note taking. Turns out, this is a powerful system that completely removes the need for storing paper. All of the 13,000 notes, documents, receipts, health records, are accessible and searchable anywhere. Whoa.
Today, we discuss Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg: Resolving conflicts with other people, taking responsibility for your own life, finding empathy for yourself.
PS. Apologies for being not one, but two weeks late!
Taking iOS automation up to eleven.
Featuring: making Magic Spreadsheet work on iPhone using Workflow, smart checklists in Nozbe, journaling Workflows, Automator on the Mac, URL schemes, and finally… how Radek made an iPhone day planning app by stringing together two different apps with Workflow.
Michael teaches Radek how to be more productive on an iPad.
Featuring: using Evernote (or Notes) as a temporary files storage, solving drag&drop issues with web apps, limitations of Dropbox, and putting it all together to make complex workflows easy.
Habits, systems, and reminders are crucial, but it is possible to go too far and end up hoarding them. Every now and then, it's worth questioning which are really essential, and which no longer serve a purpose; what can be removed, simplified, automated, or delegated.
Part 2 of our discussion on reducing the cognitive load of notifications, and loosening the grip of social media addiction.
We've made some changes and simplifications since the last episode and we have some pro tips to share!
Discussion on distractions and addiction, and how that relates to software we use. We forgot how to be bored for even 30 seconds, and we fill even the smallest slices of our time by responding to notifications and with social media. Just so we can have our hit of dopamine.
Part 2 of our discussion of Stoicism and the book "A Guide to the Good Life". Be sure to check out Part 1 first.
We discuss "A Guide to the Good Life", a modern, approachable introduction to Stoicism. A philosophy of life easy to dismiss as a boring piece of history not applicable to modern life, but in reality, a tremendously useful bag of psychological tricks that help you live a happier, calmer life.
Michael tries to sell Radek on the idea of using an iPad as your main (or only) computer. Radek remains skeptical, but buys the new iPad Pro anyway.
Radek and Michael comment on Apple's announcements on Worldwide Developers Conference this year.
(This is our take on what's significant, and what's missing — we assume you already know the news)
This week, we're celebrating our one hundredth episode of The Podcast. Sharing the story of how this show came to be, how it evolved with us over time, and where its future lies.
Continuing from last week, this is part two of our rant on the education system. We argue that it was fundamentally designed for a different era, designed to produce obedient workers, efficient at performing arbitrary tasks. Not necessarily to teach you the most about the world. And certainly not to teach people curiosity, independence, entrepreneurship — traits that are becoming increasingly more crucial in the new era.
Part one of our rant on the education system. Our experiences are quite different: Michael had a great time in his 5 years of university; Radek never went to college at all. We both agree, though, that the way schooling is done is deeply flawed, outdated, and ineffective at teaching.
At Nozbe, everyone works remotely. Usually that means, from home. But sometimes, we work even more remotely — while traveling.
We share tips on how we pull this off, how to be productive while in such an imperfect work environment.
Future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed. It's fun, if sometimes frustrating, to live in the future — use the hardware, work, learn, and live like people will in the future.
Discussing simplicity, Steve Jobs, communication styles, empathy, and other thoughts from the book "Insanely Simple".
Why is studying productivity a worthwhile pursuit? Many people assume it's all useless — and much of it is! Like with dieting, it's a field filled with charlatans promising amazing results with barely any effort at all. Yet, underneath all the nonsense is wisdom to be discovered. Michael and Radek share their journey with productivity and explain why they got interested in it in the first place.
Feel free to skip this one, because this week we're breaking all the rules about not getting in trouble on the internet… to talk about politics. Yes, really.
Idleness is good for the brain. After a day of hard, deep work, you ought to disconnect from work completely, shut it down, and recharge for the next day. Commit to this, work can wait. Radek shares a little habit he's developed to help maintain this work/life balance.
Technology grab bag: Bose QC35 review, some thoughts on new iPad and iPhone rumors, and an update to Radek's MacBook Pro review
Everyone knows that sleep is important (or so we hope), but it isn't just the quantity of sleep that matters, it's the quality of sleep as well. There's a ton of little factors that influence both how long and how well you sleep. On this episode, we'll be unpacking the most important ones we've learned from the book Sleep Smarter.
Michael Sliwinski shares a pro tip he learned from Michael Hyatt: how to design a template for your ideal week. A good routine is helpful for productivity.
Rapid improvement (at anything!) requires a tight feedback loop. And for a feedback loop, you need… well, feedback — data. Radek had been tracking lots of such data (weight, habits, hours spent on different projects) in a big spreadsheet for almost 7 years. Michael just started recently. This week, we're discussing how we're doing it, and why.
How do you turn reading into action? It's good to read lots of books, but if you're neglecting to actually apply the things you've learned to your life, then it's barely more than a form of intellectual entertainment.
A year of your life is precious. Instead of just going with the flow (and often, ending up nowhere), it's worth taking a deliberate approach to planning your year. Every year. Not "New Year's Resolutions", no. Those never work. An actual plan, with goals you can hold yourself accountable to. A plan you review every week.
Real world examples of how we applied ideas from "Peak" in our lives to learn faster and better.
We're back from our winter break, and this week we're discussing the book Peak. We want to understand, on a deeper level, how people become good at what they do, and what's the best approach to learning. Peak offers important clues towards the answer. In fact, this book inspired both of us enough that we're incorporating its ideas into our plans for 2017.
Continuing our conversation from last week, we share some more thoughts about the future of Mac. (Hint: it's switching to the ARM architecture). This is our last episode of the year! We'll be back in two weeks.
At every stage of our lives, when we aspire, succeed, or fail, our ego is the enemy. It's too easy to fall into the trap of ego and start believing your own delusions and hubris, that you're smarter and better than you really are, that it's others that are at fault, that you've already learned all you have to learn. "Sure, other people do that, but not me", you might think to yourself — and yet that's exactly the thinking that leads towards this fate. We discuss how we felt reading Ryan Holiday's Ego is the Enemy, and some thoughts on avoiding the trap of ego.
Discussing more unorthodox ideas about running a business from Under New Management. Trying to figure out why so many companies believe that open-space offices are a good thing. Discussing salary transparency — we're not doing it, but maybe we should?
The way today's companies are ran closely mimics the management methods of the industrial revolution era firms. But the realities of modern organizations — that rely mostly on knowledge and creative work — is very different. Just like the world has moved on from the industrial era, so should our management practices. This week, we discuss Under New Management by David Burkus.
Briefly reviewing Disrupted by Dan Lyons, and more generally discussing and criticizing the startup culture. A cautionary tale.
Personal Quarterly Offsite (or just "quarterly review") is your feedback loop for life. Every three months, you give a day to yourself to review your whole life, reflect deeply, learn from your mistakes, and make plans and decisions for the next quarter. Michael and Radek share why and how they do it, and some concrete conclusions from their Q3 reviews.
Continuing our discussion about morning routines, we talk about how we design our week to make productivity easy. Pro-Tip: Productivity becomes much simpler once you accept your weaknesses as a human being.
Radek shares some pro-tips and brain hacks he used to regain control over his morning routine. The first step is to wake up early and consistently, and that's hard. The second step is to get rid of the compulsive Twitter reading habit in the morning. And the third part is to actually remember to go to sleep early enough. All require the right system, not motivation or discipline.
Live from this week's Nozbe Reunion, we review how the TGIF policy has been working for us in the past 10 weeks. Turns out, it's not so easy to make people work less. But we've learned a lot, we'll be tweaking the process a bit, and we'll keep doing it! Also, a teaser for the new Nozbe.HOW project we've been working on.
Continuing our conversation last week, we're discussing how sharing, cooperation, and remixing are slowly changing our lifes and businesses.
Discussing ideas from "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future".
We're continuing last week's discussion, and sharing ideas about how to thrive when your competition is bigger and stronger. As a small company, a tiny team, or an indie, you're a David, and to win with your Goliath, you ought to do things they don't, won't, or can't do. Instead of emulating a giant, play the game by your own rules. This, and a 86-second review of iPhone 7.
One does not win a war against a vastly stronger enemy by going head to head against it. No, to have a chance of winning, you need to play a different game altogether, and turn your opponent's strengths into weaknesses. Warfare metaphors aside, it's also true for any company or project. To thrive in spite of strong competition, you need to play asymmetrically and instead of emulating them, do things they cannot do. This week, we share some thoughts and examples of how we try to do this at Nozbe.
At every company, communication overhead becomes a real sink for time and energy. And the larger you get, the greater the overhead. It's prudent to optimize how you communicate and collaborate, so you can get the biggest bang for your buck. Communicate only as much as you need to, not more, and get back to doing the work. That takes nuance, different tools for different jobs, and an appreciation of asynchronous work.
There's no speed limit to how fast you can learn. But you can't just upload information into your brain either. To learn faster, it's important to understand the nature of how we remember things. This week we discuss the spaced repetition learning technique, how to take good book notes, and a vision for a book of the future.
Discussing insights from How to Fly a Horse. Everybody can be creative, but creative thinking doesn't exist. Creation is not inspiration, but iteration. It takes time, and lots of work. And you have to become comfortable with this. Brainstorming doesn't work, but feedback loops do. Confidence gives you power, but certainty makes you stuck. Question everything, but not too early. Instead, "Show me". Ahh, all the nuances! Lots of good stuff in this one, so please forgive us for Michael's poor audio quality.
Continuing our conversation about ideas and insights from Smarter Faster Better: discussing how team norms shape the way we work together, empathy, changing your mind quickly and often, copying, and remixing ideas.
Book corner! This week, we discuss ideas we learned from Charles Duhigg's newest book, Smarter Faster Better. Among others, we discuss why employers should get out the way of your employees, give them trust and responsibility; how you should make plans so you can achieve ambitious goals without getting stuck; a reminder about cognitive biases; and why you should always take the blame.
Michael wants his employees to work less and still pay them the same. He might be crazy. We're implementing a new, experimental policy at Nozbe, where everyone works at full thrust from Monday through Thursday, and then on Friday, after a few meetings, and a mandatory Weekly Review, you can do whatever you want. We discuMichael wants his employees to work less and still pay them the same. He might be crazy. We're implementing a new, experimental policy at Nozbe, where everyone works at full thrust from Monday through Thursday, and then on Friday, after a few meetings, and a mandatory Weekly Review, you can do whatever you want. We discuss the motivation and implications of this.ss the motivation and implications of this.
Thoughts on software design. What we do with user feedback, how we prioritize new features, teach users good habits through interface design, and try to strike a balance between "simple" and "powerful". Also a brief discussion about iOS 10.
Michael explains what it means to him to mentor and be mentored. It's not what you might expect — not a master-student relationship, rather, it's about peers exchanging ideas and points of view. Teaching and being taught at the same time.
Radek started waking up so early, no one can believe this is even possible. (Isn't this weird that when we hit the snooze button, procrastination is literally the first thing we do in a day? How could that be a good thing?) Also a discussion about discomfort, stretching your limits, and sharing some brain hacks.
Michael rethinks his strategy for blogging and spreading the word about #NoOffice. The plan: one solid blog post a week to blog his way to writing the NoOffice book.
Answering common questions and criticisms about high book consumption. Why it doesn't matter how many books you read will you remember 10 years from now. Why having a lot of (often contradictory) mental models is crucial. Why it's important to have time to process and some tips on achieving it. Also a discussion about privacy and security, including the math behind differential privacy.
There is no such thing as reading too many books. (Or if there is, it's certainly way above the 30 books per year rate both Michael and Radek find easy to achieve.) Each new book compliments the previous one, adding to your trove of knowledge, ideas, and insights. Each adds nuance, or shows contradictions, or a different point of view. And so we must reject this romantic but ultimately destructive notion that reading a book is a sacred ritual, that it must be done with a physical book, and studied thoroughly by the fireplace. If we want to grow wiser and learn, we must read a lot. It's a practical concern. And so we listen to audiobooks. A lot.
What does it take for individuals and organizations to be original and creative? Michael and Radek share their favorite bits from Originals — Adam Grant's newest book that tries to answer these very questions. We talk about why quantity vs quality is a false dichotomy, why procrastination is sometimes good, why we should share our ideas more often than we think is appropriate, how to avoid groupthink, and why being a defensive pessimist helps avoid mistakes.
Radek shares more of his experiences from the WWDC/San Francisco trip. More tips for attending conferences. About almost knowing Elon Musk, and why it's not worth being a jerk. And on connecting the dots.
Live from (surprisingly cold) California, Radek joins Michael to talk about the news from Apple on the Worldwide Developers Conference and how they affect us and Nozbe, our product.
Today, we discuss ideas from The 4 Disciplines of Execution — a book describing a system for achieving goals among the whirlwind of everyday life. Also: celebrating our 50th episode, Radek is going to WWDC, and basketball and rocket corners!
This is such an important idea. We all know this, but few of us actually internalize this truth: The competition for our time and attention is a zero sum game. No matter how hard you try, a day is 24 hours long. We have to be brutal in refusing to do useful things so we can do the most important things. No matter how hard this is, there's no other way to be successful.
Michael reviews The Third Wave (two homonymous books by Alvin Toffler and Steve Case). And Radek is going to San Francisco for Apple's WWDC conference. Nozbe: Works on Mars™ (or money back guaranteed). Your move, Elon Musk.
Your day is 24 hours long, and there's nothing you can do to change that. Which means, competition for your time and attention is a zero sum game. Doing one thing means you're not doing another. And some things are more valuable than others. It's not enough to be merely valuable. To achieve the most, you must cut down on things that are merely nice, and reinvest time in things that are essential. And so, quite honestly… why don't we just quit social media?
We live very distracted lives and most of our working days are filled with shallow tasks and interruptions. In this age when more and more jobs are being automated, we can get a competitive edge if we get good at performing deep work — important work at high levels of attention.
More discussion about books! Remember: books are not a source of raw information, they are education and persuasion devices. The most compact forms of books are rarely those that make the most impact.
Michael and Radek have been to Warsaw on two awesome conferences last week. This episode, we're sharing some stories from that and celebrating the human touch in everyday interactions.
A story about our relationship with books. Truly, reading a lot has been a great investment and made us smarter, but it wasn't always easy for us. We had to change our approach to be able to read 20-30 books a year.
The value of focus is hard to measure. But why spend your time doing something on your own just because you can, when you can get it off the shelf and focus on what makes your company unique? Perhaps this is obvious, but we continue to catch ourselves thinking the overly frugal way.
You don't need an office, or presence in Silicon Valley, or big VC money to start and sustain a company. To create something interesting, to make a dent in your customers' lives. And when did "lifestyle business" become an insult, anyway? This week, we gossip a bit about our competition ;)
Being a small company is great. Everyone knows everyone, there's just one team, no secrets, and it all makes for a pleasant environment to work in. But to be a small company and still achieve great things, you have to be efficient and brutally selective about what you say "yes" to.
This one is special. We're recording live from a hotel room on the semi-annual Nozbe Reunion. With live audience, the marketing team Periscoping us, and Michael finally got a proper mic! This week, we're talking about improving ourselves and our company, about feedback loops, about honest feedback, and about re-learning constraints so we can focus our work on things that actually matter.
Third month into the year, it's time to look back on the progress we've made on our yearly goals. Hint: only a fool keeps doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. It's not just about pushing yourself harder — when you don't succeed with your goals, change the approach.
Most communication in companies should happen asynchronously. How can anyone get anything done when everyone is constantly distracted? That, and: 1) Batching related or small tasks 2) Mark your most important tasks as Frogs and filter based on that 3) Finding focus when working on a larger project 4) And more pro tips ;)
Wearing more than one hat makes planning work across the week (and from week to week) hard. Here's how we try to do it, and keep often conflicting priorities balanced and in check.
Radek made people angry on the internet and Michael tried to be funny. The insights you gain by reading lots of books. More stuff about nutrition. (Why isn't there consensus about this?) Michael's successes with his morning routine. Weekly weigh-in. Milk. iTunes reviews. 10 seconds of space corner. Follow-up and a grab bag of small topics.
Some things are bad, but provide instant gratification. Some things are good, but don't. If you want to create better habits, you have to create an environment where doing the right thing is as effortless as possible. You have to optimize and work around your monkey brain's weaknesses. (Why Radek signed up for a gym, strategies for making this stick, social running, weekly review as a habit, and morning routines.)
Radek read "Why We Get Fat" and now his 20kg weight loss makes a whole lot more sense to him. Michael just nods along.
9th birthday of Nozbe = version 3.0 + new logo + new design + tears of joy. That topic that was going to be today? Well, it will have to wait another week.
SpaceX corner, and a bunch of follow-up on making, reviewing, and achieving goals. (And journaling, and weight loss...) Plus a sneak peak into Nozbe 3.0.
Radek signed up for a gym. And he doesn't like gifts. And USB causes radio interference. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!
Why you should be doing Weekly Review, a scheduled meeting with yourself. (It's like flossing!) Also: ergonomics follow-up, RF corner, and the first edition of Hosts' Picks.
Micheal bought a Tesla! Well, one unit of TSLA stock. Still! Continuing our conversation on workspace ergonomics (chairs, desks, and working while standing). Some philosophizing on buying only the best. And what we've learned after half a year of podcasting!
A random bag of topics: landing rockets, Black Friday, tech Thanksgiving, WiFi corner, Tokyo, ergonomic keyboards, pricing models.
Radek's trip to London, going #iPadOnly, navigating with an Apple Watch, internal Android—iOS competition at Nozbe, iPad Pro, Nozbe public templates, and why we can't ship an iOS update.
More Apple Watch use cases, noise-cancelling headphones, Michael's new level of internet fame, Nozbe templates… Earthquakes, armed robberies, and the iPad Pro. Crazy times indeed.
Answering listener questions (what would happen if our team was spread across many time zones far apart?). Design thinking behind the new Nozbe Complication. Questioning (again!) whether or not Apple Watch is a useful and compelling device to have. Fun fact: the chances of getting struck by an asteroid are 1 in 200 000
WiFi issues (episode 666), Michael's trip to the UK, Tesla, Elon Musk, Hello Internet podcast and Starbucks hotstoppers (or lack thereof), virtual-turn-real friendships, automation in Nozbe dev team, the pain of fresh iOS and El Capitan installations, Nozbe's upcoming redesign in version 2.5, and Apple Watch complications. Full of smooth segues and unsophisticated cliffhangers.
Following up from the last episode, we discuss why it's important to complain, have strong opinions weakly held, and why we sometimes design things to be harder to use (for a greater good).
More tools and meetings we use at Nozbe to collaborate and organize ourselves. In this episode: company wiki, Dropbox, version planning meeting, and the Design Fight. Warning: high content of Michael's enthusiasm ("we love each other, we love this meeting, we love being prepared for it")
Let's face it: most meetings suck. Meetings can be a useful tool for collaboration, but they have to be done right. This week we explore how we used to suck at meetings, and how we changed them over time to be more useful.
Part two of our "how we work" series. This week, we talk tools: software we use to communicate, collaborate, and organize ourselves. We also go into detail of how we use those tools (including our own). Spoiler alert: email isn't one of them.
Recording live from a company reunion, Michael and Radek discuss what they've learned over the past week and how that will influence their product in the upcoming months.
We get back to discussing productivity and how we do our work. Michael explains why he got into working from home and argues that more companies should adopt it. Turns out, you don't have to be introverted to enjoy remote work.
Michael has 5 iPads (seriously!) and treats them as work devices. Radek thinks that's crazy. Will iPad Pro change how people work?
Tesla Model X and Model 3. How Tesla is (not) disrupting car sales. Some speculation on Apple's September 9 event (which has already happened by now). More grumbling about iOS bugs (and our own).
More thoughts on transportation, EV-s, autonomous cars. The work-life imbalance of Elon Musk. Brief digression on rockets and space exploration.
Follow-up on productivity, Michael's blog post templates, organizing your thoughts with journaling, hate mail, and how business models influence work environment.
Michael starts his day with a 50+ km bike ride and has an Amazon Prime problem. Radek beats his distance the same day and comes out of the closet as an adult fan of LEGO.
More grumbling about iDevice memory sizes, iOS adoption rates, discussion ideas for improvements of The Podcast and how to do reunions of remote companies. Oh and Radek removed Twitter from his phone (really).
A brief digression turned into half an hour of ranting about why open space offices suck and why remote work is awesome
Reflecting on our previous episodes, then discussing how we're trying to get better at writing, running, photography by finding consistency.
A few thoughts on Apple Watch, how iOS adoption rate impacts us, and what we didn't get on WWDC.
Michael and Radek say hi, then discuss WWDC news, how it affects our products and other 3rd party developers