Podcasts about Wunderlist

Episode 2238 – Kid A.G., Don Tang, and Pooty Tang are your guides to a springtime shitshow of beeriods, barf, and ballsy chaos. Let's dive in, degenerates. It's 2013, and Kid's fumbling mics while Don's live, yelling “Let's do this!” Pooty's “Hi” is pure bait—cute, but she's no saint. They're chugging Giant Slayer and 12% Zombie Killer, because Michigan winters demand booze-fueled fuckery. Kid's stuffed on El Mexicano, Don and Pooty confess to fruit and string cheese—drunk toddler vibes, confirmed. Shit gets wild: Kid's dog sniffs his nuts mid-dry hump, Don's pup eats cat shit (“Protein!”), and St. Paddy's leaves ‘em puking black—blood or booze, per Nurse Pooty. Social media's popping— @DonaldPTang's tweeting porn star buttholes, Kid's shilling Wunderlist, and peanut butter Cinnamon Toast Crunch has him raging for chocolate dust. General Mills, you listening? Kid drops Django's N-bombs to piss off snowflakes, nearly punches a chick while Muppet-dancing, and dreams of church pew blowjobs—Californication style. Don pitches fucking on Mecca's box during prayer. Pooty's panty drawer's fair game, but her Mason-Jizm line's “above the head.” Beeriod—runny shits post-bender—debuts, and Don's Alaskan Fire Dragon (syphilis scare, jizz-out-the-nose BJ) steals the show. Final words? Don: “Swallow.” Pooty: “Bye.” Kid plugs porn.tumblr.com and Shoninzo's hospital bed. Call 206-202-DEEP, hit thegds.com for that millionth download (butt-crack undies prize!), and follow @DonaldPTang for filth. Spring's here—get sloppy. Original Release Date: April 5, 2013

Benedikt is a seasoned design executive with the heart of a maker and 20+ years of deep expertise in creating impactful products people love and leading the world-class teams that make them. His leadership has shaped how hundreds of millions of people interact with technology. Benedikt is the founder of 74West, a hands-on advisory practice where he partners closely 1:1 with CEOs and boards who are at pivotal moments with their business. Combining his proven, practical frameworks for transformational leadership with cutting-edge research, Benedikt helps company leaders forge exceptional teams, strategies, and tactics to deliver products that inspire customer love and thus create lasting business value. Benedikt also serves as an Entrepreneurship & Design Fellow at Princeton University, where he teaches aspiring entrepreneurs both during the academic year (“Creating value in the real world”) and the eLab summer program at the Keller Center. His research explores the convergence of entrepreneurship, humanistic design, and business leadership with a focus on AI and co-creativity, neuroaesthetics, and the socio-economic responsibility of design. As a board member of the Design Executive Council (DXC) Benedikt helps shape the standards of humanistic design and strategic leadership as AI transforms experience design and business strategy. Until January 2025, Benedikt was the Chief Design Officer at Stark tackling Digital Accessibility which he sees as “one of this century's biggest design problems that's affecting 2B+ people on the planet.” As Chief Design Officer of SAP, he led 1000+ designers, researchers, and engineers, reporting directly to SAP's Executive Board to transform the customer experience across the company's portfolio.  As a design executive at Microsoft, he directed key UX teams including Office and M365 Experiences while leading the evolution of the Fluent design system and aligning Microsoft's mobile apps across platforms. Benedikt joined Microsoft through the $150M+ acquisition of Wunderlist, where he was Chief Design Officer. He scaled the product team to 70 people and helped secure funding from Atomico and Sequoia Capital. Benedikt is also the author of Typoguide, an international keynote speaker and angel investor in design-driven startups. His award-winning work has been featured in publications worldwide. Born in Saarland, Germany to a family of craftspeople, Benedikt's appreciation for purposeful, well-crafted work runs deep. He divides his time between Princeton, NJ and Kingston, NY. You can follow Benedikt here: Web: www.benediktlehnert.com Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/benediktlehnert Newsletter: benediktlehnert.substack.com DXC Profile: https://www.designexecutivecouncil.com/articles/introducing-benedikt-lehnert-and-his-ideas-on-radical-self-inquiry-and-creative-leadership Thank you for listening to this episode of Nodes of Design. We hope you enjoy the Nodes of Design Podcast on your favorite podcast platforms- Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many more. If this episode helped you understand and learn something new, please share and join the knowledge-sharing community Spreadknowledge. This podcast aims to make design education accessible to all. Nodes of Design is a non-profit and self-sponsored initiative by Tejj.

Get ready to supercharge your growth mindset with Bonanza Growth, the ultimate podcast for innovators, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders. Hosted by Behrad Mirafshar, the founder and CEO of Bonanza Studios, each episode brings you face-to-face with world-class experts who share their insider knowledge and game-changing strategies.This week, Behrad dives deep with Javier Rincon, a product wizard with over 15 years of experience shaping digital products that millions love and use daily. Javier's impressive portfolio includes roles at Wunderlist (acquired by Microsoft), Plug.dj, Open.me (acquired by Rowl), Pluto (acquired by Viacom), and Moviepilot (acquired by Webedia). He's also been pivotal in venture building for LaSalle, Forbes, and KraftHeinz, and mentors startups at Keiretsu Forum, Founder Institute, and Techstars.In this episode, Javier reveals the secrets behind the "aha moment" and why most startups fail to deliver it. Learn how to craft a minimum viable product that truly resonates, avoid overbuilding, and discover the art of "scaling the unscalable." Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned pro, Javier's insights on customer acquisition, product design, and market fit are invaluable.Tune in to Bonanza Growth and transform the way you think about building and scaling your business. Don't miss this chance to gain a competitive edge from the best in the industry. Subscribe now and join us on this exciting journey to growth and innovation!Learn more about Bonanza Studios.Follow us on LinkedIn.Follow Javier Rincon on LinkedIn. 

Christian Reber hat unter anderem “Wunderlist” gegründet und 2015 für rund 200 Millionen Dollar an Microsoft verkauft. Sein nächsten Start-up Pitch war phasenweise eine halbe Milliarde wert, doch Christian hatte auch immer wieder schwierige Phasen und spricht in dieser Folge sehr offen darüber. Gründerinnen und Gründer können von ihm viel lernen. Jetzt startet der Investor quasi den Wunderlist-Nachfolger “Superlist” und greift Microsoft damit frontal an.Unsere allgemeinen Datenschutzrichtlinien finden Sie unter https://art19.com/privacy. Die Datenschutzrichtlinien für Kalifornien sind unter https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info abrufbar.

Superlist, sucesora espiritual de Wunderlist, finalmente se lanza tras cuatro años de desarrollo, presentando una aplicación de gestión de tareas más versátil y completa. Ofrece un diseño atractivo y una estructura de triple panel que permite una organización flexible de tareas, combinando elementos como texto, archivos, imágenes y listas dentro de un mismo espacio de trabajo. Aunque principalmente gratuita, ofrece una suscripción para funcionalidades avanzadas y trabajo colaborativo más intenso. Loop Infinito es un podcast de Applesfera, presentado por Javier Lacort y editado por Alberto de la Torre. Contacta con el autor en Twitter (@jlacort) o por correo (lacort@xataka.com). Gracias por escuchar este podcast.

Robby has a candid chat with Chad Fowler, the General Partner & CTO at BlueYard Capital. They delve into the nuances of software maintenance, the evolution and challenges of managing software projects, and insights from Chad's tenure as CTO of Wunderlist. They discuss the importance of building software in small, manageable pieces to facilitate easy updates or replacements, the counterintuitive perspective on unit testing's impact on maintainability, and strategies for keeping software up-to-date by redeploying to new platforms.Additionally, Chad shares his thoughts on the current industry layoff trends, emphasizing the value of adaptability and resilience. The conversation also touches on the relevance of mentoring in the tech industry and the potential implications of AI and large language models on software engineering careers. Chad's philosophy on software development, emphasizing pragmatism, adaptability, and the continuous reevaluation of problems to make them smaller and more manageable, permeates the discussion.Book Recommendations:The E-myth Revisited by Michael E. GerberZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. PirsigHelpful Links:WunderlistThe Passionate Programmer by Chad FowlerChad on X/TwitterChad on LinkedInThe Privacy PodcastBlueYard CapitalThanks to Our Sponsor!Turn hours of debugging into just minutes! AppSignal is a performance monitoring and error tracking tool designed for Ruby, Elixir, Python, Node.js, Javascript, and soon, other frameworks. It offers six powerful features with one simple interface, providing developers with real-time insights into the performance and health of web applications. Keep your coding cool and error-free, one line at a time! Check them out! Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Nowa The Grengolada już jest! A tym razem kolejne podsumowanie najciekawszych doniesień ubiegłego tygodnia. A Tym razem mamy dla Was mały bonus, bo każdy odcinek będziemy streamować na żywo na naszym: Fejsbuku, Twitterze i YouTubie. Zapraszamy serdecznie. Każda niedziela o 21:00! Dzisiaj będzie podsumowanie najciekawszych niusów ubiegłego tygodnia: Legendarny Casiotron wraca po 50 latach! Nowy Casio Casiotron TRN-50 ma Bluetooth, ładowanie solarne i niezłą cenę jak na limitowany model Superlist od twórcy Wunderlist do pobierania! Kolejna aplikacja do tworzenia list czy nowe rozdanie? Apple Vision Pro pokazuje świat 4 razy szybciej od konkurencji Apple w iOS 17.4 wyłączy nam możliwość instalowania aplikacji internetowych CEO Google, Sundar Pichai korzysta w ciągu dnia aż z 20 smartfonów Tesla Cybertruck ze stali nierdzewnej jednak rdzewieje Nowy zestaw Lego Chatka Królewny Śnieżki i siedmiu krasnoludków wzbudza małe kontrowersje Zapraszamy do słuchania i subskrybowania The Grengolady! Wszystkie linki do popularnych platform znajdziecie poniżej.

Si parla di Superlist (il nuovo Wunderlist), di come registrare le chiamate su iPhone (non si può), di PDF ed intelligenza artificiale, di Plex e audiolibri, della recensione dell'Apple Vision Pro di Mark Zuckerberg.

Bom dia Tech! Tudo bem com vc? Vamos as principais atualizações do mundo da tecnologia: Superlist é o novo Wunderlist, depois que a Microsoft matou o original A Mozilla reduz o tamanho à medida que se concentra novamente no Firefox e na IA: Leia o memorando Walmart pode comprar Vizio para vencer a briga por TVs baratas ChatGPT está ganhando ‘memória' para lembrar quem você é e do que você gosta A Apple não será forçada a abrir o iMessage pela UE __ Links de produtos em destaque no podcast de hoje: Microfone Fifine utilizado na gravação do podcast Suporte Magsafe para iPhone Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Ps4 Assassin's Creed Mirage - PlayStation 5 Console Xbox Series S Console Xbox Series X Comprando qualquer produto com esses links, o Bom dia Tech recebe uma pequena comissão e assim, você ajuda no crescimento do podcast __ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠@arthur_givigir⁠⁠⁠ Threads: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@arthur_givigir⁠⁠⁠⁠ Mastodon: ⁠⁠⁠https://mastodon.social/@arthur_givigir⁠⁠ __ Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/sensho/coffee-break

Discover the secrets behind successful business operations in episode 07 of our podcast, as we dive deep into the modern operating model with Jenny Herald - VP of Product Evangelism at Quantive. With a history of navigating through the challenging landscapes of mergers and acquisitions, Jenny shares a trove of wisdom drawn from her multifaceted career. Having started out in the U.S military, Jenny's unique insights from her journey are bound to leave you captivated. Jenny's current focus revolves around OKRs, and while she recognizes their mixed reputation in the business world, she stands firm in her belief in their transformative power. Join us as we unravel the influence of OKRs in shaping successful companies, and let Jenny's eloquent advocacy sway your perception of this compelling business tool. Links to the Guest Dreams with Deadlines Podcast Quantive Jenny's LinkedIn Dreams with Deadlines Community Office Hours with Ben Lamorte Timestamps [00:01:15] Introducing Jenny [00:05:22] Lessons from the military: Commander's Intent [00:08:14] Wunderlist acquired by Microsoft [00:25:31] What are companies getting wrong with OKRs [00:31:40] How Jenny gets people engaged with OKRs [00:35:46] Creating a shared language of success [00:38:39] The modern operating model for business today Resources Mentioned Reid Hoffman, Blitzscaling JOHN DOERR, Speed and Scale John Doerr, Measure what matters

Heute erwartet Dich ein faszinierendes Gespräch mit Frank Thelen. Frank Thelen ist ein europäischer Seriengründer, Technologie-Investor und TV Persönlichkeit. Seit 1994 gründet und leitet er technologie- und design-getriebene Unternehmen. In seiner Rolle als Gründer und CEO von Freigeist Capital konzentriert er sich auf Investitionen in der Frühphase. Seine Produkte haben über 100 Millionen Kunden in über 60 Ländern erreicht. Freigeist war der erste Investor in Startups wie Lilium Aviation, Wunderlist, Xentral, Ankerkraut und YFood. 2018 veröffentlichte Frank mit 42 Jahren seine Autobiografie „Startup-DNA“, 2020 folgte “10xDNA”. Frank ist Initiator und Chief Executive Officer der 10xDNA Disruptive Technologies Fonds. In dieser Folge vertiefen wir uns in die Welt der Künstlichen Intelligenz (KI) und diskutieren ihre Auswirkungen auf die Arbeits- und Finanzwelt. Frank Thelen bei LinkedIN Frank Thelens Buch "10xDNA: Das Mindset der Zukunft" Wenn Dir diese Folge gefallen hat, dann freue ich mich über Deine Bewertung mit 5 Sternen bei Apple Podcasts und wenn Du meinen Podcast weiterempfiehlst. Mail mir gerne Deine Gedanken zur Folge unter jw@juergenweimann.com. Liebe Grüße, Jürgen Abonnier hier meinen Newsletter: https://juergenweimann.com/juergen-weimann-newsletter/

In dieser Folge geht es um die spannende Geschichte von Sebastian Scheerer, dem Gründer von Wunderlist und heute Gründer von ottonova. Sebastian erzählt, wie er als Kind schon immer gerne Dinge gebaut hat und schließlich in der Webentwicklung landete. Er berichtet von seinen Erfahrungen bei der Gründung von Wunderlist und wie er Frank Thelen kennenlernte. Außerdem teilt er seine größten Learnings und wie er mit dem Verkauf von Wunderlist an Microsoft umgegangen ist, da er ja nur ein Jahr davor einen Exit gemacht hatte. Schließlich spricht er auch über sein heutiges Unternehmen ottonova und was er von dem “Beef” zwischen dem Doppelgänger-Podcast & Frank Thelen hält. Mehr zu Sebastian Scheerer: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianscheerer/

News you can use from Notion, Apple, Wunderlist's founders, and more productivity topics… Can a “Reduced Distractions” phone improve your Attention? Are iOS16's Focus Filters feature as awesome as we think? Why Personality Tests are underrated for teams Go to EthosLife.com/tps to get your FREE life insurance quote today. You can find links to everything […]

Pitch aims to help teams collaborate on creating beautiful presentations. It was started in 2018 by the co-founders of Wunderlist, including today's guest, Jan Martin. Jan is both a co-founder and a brand designer, which makes him unique in the SaaS space.In this episode, Jan talks about how the design-centric DNA of Pitch came from learnings he had at Wunderlist, the importance of design systems that everyone can use, why he's not a fan of wireframes, and much more. Key Takeaways 00:15 - Jan's responsibilities and day-to-day at Pitch 04:58 - Marketing and brand design at Pitch 10:43 - The creative studio team 12:51 - The Pitch brand 14:55 - How 3D illustration became a big part of the Pitch brand 17:35 - How 3D happens at Pitch 19:20 - The symbiotic relationship between brand design and product design 22:40 - How to ensure consistency between marketing and product 23:58 - Getting your team to follow guidelines 26:52 - How creative studio collaborates with marketing and growth 29:15 - A design system for the marketing tech team 35:50 - How to make a design system “fool-proof” 37:49 - Design iteration at Pitch 41:45 - Individual and team challenges at Pitch 46:08 - Jan's proudest moments at Pitch Links  Pitch Jan Martin on LinkedIn Pitch on Twitter Christian Reber Dribbble Figma Asana Specify Connect with Charli CharliMarie.com Charli on Twitter Charli on Instagram InsideMarketingDesign.com Subscribe and stay in touch Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts YouTube WebflowThis season is brought to you by WebflowTry the no-code website builder used by designers and marketing design teams (and by this show, for the site you're on now!) – Get started for free

Christian Reber hatte es geschafft: Mit Wunderlist eine erfolgreiche Applikation auf die Beine gestellt und diese dann an den IT-Riesen Microsoft verkauft. Doch auf Dauer fühlte er sich im Corporate-Umfeld eingeschränkt und begab sich erneut in die Start-Up-Welt. Mit dem Ergebnis - Pitch - will Christian nun die altehrwürdige Welt der Präsentations-Software radikal aufmischen und vom Image der drögen, digitalen Folien-Sammlung befreien. Wie er das genau anstellt, erzählt uns der umtriebige CEO im Interview. Du erfährst... · …wieso Christian mit der Unternehmenskultur von Microsoft nicht warm wurde · …warum er sich gerade das Feld der Präsentations-Software ausgesucht hat · …welches Potential Branchen-Riesen wie PowerPoint auf dem Tisch liegen lassen · …wie Christian Pitch konzipiert und die Firma aufgebaut hat

Welcome to Le Wagon live. Our guests today are Roger Dudler, Founder & CEO of Frontify and Christian Reber, Founder & CEO of Pitch.Roger was previously a Software Engineer and Product Designer for over 10 years, before leading his organization to the forefront of brand management, with a powerful and holistic cloud-based experience.Christian previously founded the award-winning app, Wunderlist and is now an active investor and advisor in a number of technology businesses. He's also received the Forbes 30 under 30 Award in both 2014 and in 2016.Learn more about their products and how they've come to work together.Podcast and music production: yoann.saunier.me See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on Tech's Message:The UK is inviting Elon Musk to discuss his plans for Twitterhttps://www.engadget.com/uk-inviting-elon-musk-discuss-plans-twitter-121015542.html?src=rss Here's what he wrote: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/22100/documents/163945/default/UK to make fake reviews illegal and tackle ‘subscription traps'https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/20/uk-to-make-fake-reviews-illegal-and-tackle-subscription-traps Amazon is taking action over review firms https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-61348521The extended version available via Patreon subscription also includes: REMINDERS: How do you do yours?I recently realised my approach to using a Reminders app was woefully ineffective. Kate has helped me consolidate and organise. How do YOU keen track of To-Dos? Do you use apps, notepads, tattoos on your foreheads?https://www.notion.so/product https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wunderlist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_(software) Become a supporter to unlock bonus content and listen live — join our Patreon.Full show notes, subscription options and more available at https://www.uktechshow.com. TECH'S MESSAGE IS: Hosts: Nate Lanxon, Ian MorrisProduction and Editing: Nate LanxonVoiceover Artist: Marta SvetekMusic: Audio Network & Pond5Certain Artwork Elements Designed By: macrovector / FreepikPublisher (Free Version): AcastCopyright © Nate LanxonAds (on free version) are not endorsements, nor controlled by Tech's Message. Read Nate's ad policy. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Recorded during a May Bank Holiday under the gazebo of the Ashgrove Cabin. Cover art of my view looking at a door that needs black paint.I'm trying to complement my day with a simple audio blog item. I've made these occasional audio blogs since 2010 and four years ago I tried to import a string of them into Spreaker. They remind me of unfinished tasks. I can hear my own voice telling me what I'm trying to do. Today, I'm still spinning my wheels by not holding myself to ticking off items on my to-do list.I need a To-Do List Imperative--something that encourages me to stay on task. I'm starting to wonder if I need a better electronic system, something more than Google Keep.My blog tells me the to-do list I used the longest was Wunderlist, a service acquired by Microsoft. So I've downloaded it and hope to see its integration to Outlook on my laptop. It doesn't integrate smoothly on my Samsung Note 9 but I'm used to that.I'm putting my hands up with an admission that I need better focus. One of my creative media students tells me it's all down to executive planning. I need better executive planning, starting with a priority system that should be carved into a nightly routine.Saying these things out loud helps me think about what should be on my tick-off list today. Perhaps I should return at the end of the Bank Holiday Weekend and report my success.Before I leave, I want Google to recognise my black Gothic Door and give it standing. The black Gothic Door with its Norseman tells part of the story about where I am seated while typing these thoughts. If you follow some of the links to the black Gothic Door, you might arrive inside the cabin where I'm seated. Canadian Robert Neil has done that already by using Google Earth.If you find the space, you're welcome to visit. I'll beam you in via Zoom if you request.

In today's episode, Robin sits down with Christian Reber from Pitch.Christian walks us through his journey with Wunderlist (acquired by Microsoft), to an investor, to being unable to resist the urge to start another company, this time not reinventing the wheel, but doing presentations better with Pitch.We hope you enjoy(ed) the podcast! Please feel free to email us with any questions, suggestions, and opinions to podcast@tech.eu or tweet at us @tech_eu.

Bei manchen Kreativen ist sie meterlang, bei anderen kurz und prägnant. Einige planen digital mit Apps wie Wunderlist, andere bevorzugen das gute alte Notizbuch. Egal, in welcher Form du sie machst. Ich wette, du hast eine. Das Spannende an To-do-Listen ist, dass sie uns immer das zeigen, was noch zu erledigen ist, aber niemals fragen, ob wir das überhaupt noch wollen. Zur Feier meines 3. Business Geburtstags am 01. Februar wollte ich ein ganz besonderes Experiment wagen. Anstatt eine weitere To-do-Liste für das Folgejahr, für meine Ziele und Träume zu erstellen, drehte ich den Spieß um. Ich schaute mir also die letzten Jahre etwas genauer an. Wie schnell wir doch vergessen, was wir in den ersten Jahren so wichtiges gelernt haben! Deshalb habe ich einige Zeit damit verbracht, über Tools und Ressourcen nachzudenken, über Kunden und Projekte, Weiterbildungen und Misserfolge, die mein Unternehmen in den ersten drei Jahren gezeichnet haben. Mehr zum Thema Not-to-do-Liste: 21 dumme Dinge, die ich in meinem Business nicht mehr mache, erfährst du in der gleichnamigen Podcastfolge Staffel 5 | Folge #01. —––––––––

Chad Fowler -  an engineer, musician, and author  -   transformed Wunderlist

Vanessa is the VP of People and a Co-Founder at Pitch which is changing how presentations are crafted and knowledge is shared. Before joining Pitch, she was the HR Director at health startup Clue and also was part of Wunderlist, where she helped hire and built the core team. Vanessa Stock is one of Berlin's key voices on conversations around leadership, people management and how to build successful distributed teams - and this is just the tip of the Iceberg of today's conversation. If you found lots of food for thought in today's episode, make sure to give us 5 stars!

CRM software was created in order to help sales teams close deals and keep customers happy. Why, then, has CRM become more work for the salespeople and not the software that's supposed to be assisting them? This is the question Jeroen Corthout was asking when he found himself paying for Salesforce, but using Outlook and WunderList to manage his follow-ups. His answer was to create his own CRM software, Salesflare. In this episode, Jeroen and I discuss… Common frustrations with current CRM software How CRM software affects sales and revenue leaders What sales reps should be doing to get a founder's attention This post includes highlights from our podcast interview with Jeroen Corthout from Salesflare. For the entire interview, you can listen to The B2B Revenue Executive Experience. If you don't use Apple Podcasts, we suggest this link.

College Knowledge Podcast - Episode 2: Mentorship: How Not to Reinvent the Wheel Being a college student with a visual impairment can be challenging but connecting to the College Success Program can help you make the most of this experience and succeed in reaching your goals. Join our mentors and cohosts, Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones as they explore the academic, the professional, and the personal aspects of College Knowledge. If you are a college student who is blind or who has low vision, or you are curious about the world of college and visual impairment, this show is for you! Episode 2: Mentorship: How Not to Reinvent the Wheel In this episode, our hosts interview Abigail Shaw, Learning Ally's College Success Program Mentorship Coordinator. Learn about why she considers her role to be that of a platonic matchmaker and hear from College Success Program mentors and students about what mentorship through the program means to them. You can also find it on iTunes by searching College Knowledge or click here. Be sure to leave us a rating or review! Learn more about the College Success Program and sign up at learningally.org/CollegeSuccess.   Episode 2: Mentorship: How Not to Reinvent the Wheel Transcript Bryan Duarte: Welcome to College Knowledge, Learning Ally's podcast for college students who are blind or low vision. This show brings together three core elements of Learning Ally's College Success program – Mentoring, Resources and Community. I am your cohost Bryan Duarte, blind mentor, software engineer and universal designer. When you think about a mentor, what comes to mind? Is it someone who helped you through a tough time? Or maybe it was someone that helped you find the career path you were going to pursue. Maybe this person helped you become a better blind person or maybe just a better human in general. A mentor can be all these things and much more. Our Learning Ally CSP mentors have all undergone several interviews as well as a background check. We work with our students to set goals and we even celebrate with them when they achieve those goals. But, we are also individuals. Just like our students, we all come from different backgrounds, experiences with our vision and areas of interest. The person who coordinates this process is Abigail Shaw, part paper chaser, part interviewer, and to use her words, part platonic matchmaker. To interview her today is my cohost Rachel Grider. Rachel Grider: Thanks, Bryan. Abigail thinks of blindness as one of many parts of her identity. She attributes her positive attitude about her disability to her mother, who worked as a sign language interpreter, but also developed extensive knowledge about visual impairment along the way. Abigail studied music and audio engineering and is now pursuing her masters degree in social work. She moved from her home state of North Carolina to Brooklyn, New York. She is also a runner who has competed in marathons in New York City with Achilles International. She is also, incidentally, the audio engineer for this podcast. Welcome to the podcast as a speaker, Abigail. Abigail Shaw: Thanks, Rachel. It's fun to be the person in front of the microphone. Rachel Grider: All right. So, how did you become interested in College Success? Abigail Shaw: I actually started working for the College Success program in the fall of 2015 as a mentor. Another staff person at the time had reached out to me and let me know that they were looking for mentors and shortly after being a mentor for about a semester, the position of mentor coordinator opened and the rest is history. Rachel Grider: That's great. So, onto something that I'm sure everyone is curious about – matchmaking. Why do you call yourself a platonic matchmaker? And how does the process work for you and for a student? Abigail Shaw: So I kind of just think of it as a match. I've never witnessed or met someone who does matchmaking professionally. But the ways in which it's conveyed through media or the classic Fiddler on the Roof musical, there's usually really involved in getting to know as much as they can about these two parties and connecting them for, well, in the non platonic way of a happy life together as a married couple. But for all intents and purposes for our program, I think of it as a platonic matchmaker because I really try to learn as much as I can about the student and match them up with a mentor who has things in common with them; whether that's through academics, the technology they use, their personality. So I compile all the information that the students and mentors both share with me and then I kind of shift things around and think about who would work best together. Rachel Grider: Right. That's great. Sounds like a hard job but it sounds like a lot of fun too. So as a blind student, I always wanted to know what a job was like from day to day. Could you describe what your job looks like on a daily basis? Abigail Shaw: Yeah, so I also split my time at Learning Ally with our production department in helping to produce our audio books. So part of my day is spent on those tasks and the other part is on the College Success program. I've been working remotely for Learning Ally for the last about three years. So I work from home and occasionally go into our Princeton headquarters in New Jersey once a month or so. But I love getting to work from home. I create my own schedule. I have a little corner of my apartment where I always go to work. I have lots of meetings with our College Success program core team over video conferencing. I collaborate with my colleagues on Google Docs and Sheets a lot. I connect with our mentors and follow up on questions they might have in supporting students. I do a lot of reviewing of our audio for the audio books part and following up with our volunteer narrators and listeners to make sure that they are helping us to produce books in a timely manner so we can get them to students. So yeah so it's kind of a mixed bag of things, a lot of interpersonal kind of work as well as some technical audio pieces too. Rachel Grider: That's great. So you, you do a lot. That's amazing. So what is one piece of advice you'd give college students on their journey? Abigail Shaw: So one thing I think when I think about starting college is that it was a bit of a scary time cause there was a lot of unknowns, certainly a lot of anticipation and excitement of getting to meet new people, learning lots of new things. But I think one thing that I would encourage students to remember is that it's ok to ask for help whenever you're uncomfortable or not sure or you just need assistance doing something. Because asking for help doesn't mean that you're any less independent or capable. We all need to lean on each other at times. And so whether asking a professor to better explain an assignment, asking a roommate to help you if you've lost  a shoe that has seemed to disappear into the abyss, asking somebody in the cafeteria if you're holding a bottle of orange juice versus apple juice, I think it's ok. And we should encourage one another to reach out whenever we need help with the small things and the big things.  Rachel Grider: Excellent. So is there anything else you'd like to share with us? Abigail Shaw: I'm just really excited that we have this program. I wish it had been around when I was a student. And I'm excited that we're expanding to do things like this podcast and I hope that students will continue to stay in touch with us and give us their feedback on how things are working or how they could be better. Rachel Grider: Great. Thank you so much for coming on the program, Abigail. Abigail Shaw: Thanks, Rachel. Rachel Grider: Now we'd like to introduce a mentor and a couple of students who have benefited from this program. So first I'm going to bring Bryan back in. He is completing his PhD in software engineering at Arizona State University. He loves talking technology, writing software and building universally designed assistive technology. He is also the father of an 11 year old daughter and 9 year old twin sons. Bryan, welcome to the podcast as a guest. Bryan Duarte: Thank you, Rachel. Appreciate it. Rachel Grider: All right. So in general what was your college experience like and how did that inspire you to mentor? Bryan Duarte: That is a great question and one that I love to share with those who I interact with. I like to be honest with everybody that I speak with about this because it really is the reason why I do what I do. I always tell people that my first semester was almost my last semester in college, at least in higher education. I first started. I took two classes at a community college and I thought things were going pretty well for what I could expect from a community college. And when I got to a university, I was always kind of under the impression that oh things are going to be so amazing. They're going to have all the resources. They're really going to have this accommodation thing down pat and the only struggle I'm going to have is doing the classes, right. Well I was wrong. I wasn't as accurate. And I think a lot of our students can attest to this. That not all universities do have it down pat. Some might, but others don't. So really what it takes is being able to advocate for yourself. And so my first semester was almost my last semester because I got there and I was taking calculus and physics and some pretty tough courses as a somewhat newly blind student. And there wasn't much support there and it came to the point where I had to drop calculus and I had to focus all my time, so many hours in the tutor center. But I ended up getting through it. So my original stop was to not give up and just to keep going and seek out resources and kind of like we all do, we find workarounds and find ways to solve the problems that we face. Rachel Grider: Yes. Thank you so much, Bryan. So onto mentoring, what do you enjoy most about mentoring? Bryan Duarte: How much time do we got? I especially like mentoring. For me, mentoring is as much for me as it is for the students. And I tell all of them that, because I don't look at them as mentees. I don't rarely ever call them mentees. I like to think of me as developing relationships with them, friendships, if you will. My background is in computer science and software engineering which is a pretty specific area and it's one that not a lot of people are in if they have a vision disability. So what I am unique in is that I have students who I work with who are pursuing educational careers in that area. So we have a lot in common right out the gate. And we get to talk about things that we're doing, things that we want to do. And it's so awesome as someone who has this innovative mind to hear and work with students who their mind is even more innovative. And  it's so inspiring to me all the time when I meet these students. And I'm like, “Wait, how old are you and you've done what?” It's very inspiring to me. So I really love to work with the students and to hear what they're doing and what they want to do and just really come beside them and push them, not let them cut corners, and just keep letting them push it till they achieve what they want. Rachel Grider: Wonderful, Brian. I can absolutely attest to that as well. So what would you say is one of the greatest challenges that you faced as a mentor? Bryan Duarte: I, again just being honest, I think that one of the biggest challenges is, for me as someone who is trying to develop relationships, working relationships, friendships with students, is when they don't want to ask questions. I can only help them or give them advice or coach them or share my experiences if I know what they're going through. I can guess what they're going through. But as we all can attest to, it's not all one size fits all, right. So we can't just guess that their experience is exactly like my experience. So if they don't ask questions, if they don't want to participate, if they don't want to engage, it really is difficult for me to work with them. But for the most part, I think as engineers, they always have questions, they're always used to going out and looking for answers. We always just kind of keep our channels, our networking resource channels open, if you will, that's the people, that's the websites, that's the podcasts or the  forums, whatever it is where we find answers open. So I don't run into that too often but every now and then I get a student who I work with that it either takes them a long time to open up and ask questions or they just never really do. So that's kind of the hardest thing for me. Rachel Grider: So Bryan, what would you tell a student who is considering working with a mentor or a student who is required by a program to work with one? Bryan Duarte: Great question. I would tell them definitely take the opportunity to partner with somebody, develop a relationship with somebody who… I think probably the best thing and I think that, you can attest to this as well, the best thing about the College Success program is the fact that they do a lot of work to match students with the mentor who is in their same walk of life. Either they're pursuing music degrees or they're already professional musicians, such as yourself, or  they're in acting or they're social workers or they're engineers. And they match you with students who are doing that same thing. So it's so beneficial. I would say this to any student with a visual impairment or not, that you really need to open up yourself to seeking out resources. Those resources are people like I said, those resources are tutor centers, those could be groups or clubs or organizations. But when you don't get yourself out there and you don't get involved and network with people, you're really closing yourself off to your full potential, I believe. Because there are people who have gone through what you've gone through, and it's so important that we don't reinvent the wheel, the title of this podcast, right – “Don't Reinvent the Wheel”. Go for it, talk to them, ask them questions, pick their brain, brainstorm together and just really take advantage of the opportunity you have to learn from somebody who's done what you've done, done what you could be doing. Rachel Grider: Yes, I absolutely agree with you. It's very difficult to be successful if you try to do everything alone, right? Bryan Duarte: Absolutely, yes absolutely.  Rachel Grider: We need to network and our matchmaker knows what she's doing.  Bryan Duarte: Yeah, platonic matchmaker professional. Rachel Grider: Platonic matchmaker. Yes, so thank you so much, Bryan for sharing your insights. So now let's go on to our two students. Our first student is Faizan Jamil, one of Brian's mentees. And don't worry, this isn't like a reality show when the two of them will start yelling at each other. Faizan, welcome to the show. Could you tell us a little about yourself? Faizan Jamil: Thank you for having me. Lets see, where do I start. I am a student who's studying computer science, studying in New Paltz. Currently, I'm in my third year of college. I hail from basically western Nassau County of Long Island, New York. It's right near the city and I've been visually impaired since pretty much birth and it's gotten to a point where I'm completely blind in my left eye, but my vision in my right eye is fine. Rachel Grider: Ok great, thank you. So what is one challenge you have faced during college? Faizan Jamil: More than ten. More than I can count on my fingers, I can tell you that much. Lets see, the one that keeps coming up and the one that's always, I mean always at the forefront of my mind is always I got time management, where it's even, where it's ok. Yeah, that we all have this issue in college it seems like. Well it's, you have even with a semester like this current semester that we're going through right now. I'm only taking three classes. I have a class where the professor is - nice lady. She gives a lot of work, she gives a lot of work and compound that with my other two classes, where one of them is Calculus 2, which for anyone who's had the, let's say, pleasure of taking that class, well who had the privilege of taking that class would agree, that's not an experience you'd want to go through again. Rachel Grider: I haven't taken that class but I can imagine. I can definitely imagine what you're talking about.  Faizan Jamil: Yeah, Bryan should know what I'm talking about.  Rachel Grider: Oh yes. Bryan Duarte: Oh, I very much do.  Rachel Grider: Oh man, that's why I'm a music major guys. All right, so how has working with a mentor helped with this challenge that you just described? Faizan Jamil:  Now Bryan, as you know, is my mentor. He has been extremely helpful when it comes to this sort of thing, that's extremely helpful as, helpful as, someone can be in this situation where we will go exchange back and forth text messages. We were texting about this well a couple of weeks ago before my online classes started. He has been extremely helpful in the regard that I have been mentioning that I have struggles with time management, or this issue and that issue. He's suggested ways that I can handle that with mobile apps or computer apps or whatever. So for time management specifically, he gave me a couple recommendations for apps like Google Keep. Microsoft has their own to do list app and there's Any.do, Wunderlist that sort of thing. I eventually went with the Google option of Google Keep because I don't use my Microsoft account that much and Google already has me in their clutches. So give them some more food to feed on if you know what I'm saying.  Bryan Duarte: They have us all, buddy. Faizan Jamil: Yeah, they do. Rachel Grider: Great. Thank you for sharing that. That is a great example of how your mentor has helped you and also how technology has helped you. So now that we've talked about challenges, what is one thing that you enjoy about college?  Faizan Jamil: The people. Without a doubt, it's dorm life and the people you meet there. And that's what's absolutely made college for me. Right now, college to me is all about dorm life where, not that I have parties in my room and stuff like that, not that I'm too distracted from my studies but, I have a group of friends that I hang out with. I have a couple people that I very much enjoy the company of and that they, I hope, enjoy my company. But I consider them friends and I really hope that after college we can stay in touch. But we'll see how that goes. Hopefully it will.  Rachel Grider: So do you feel that the social aspect of college is just as important as the academic aspect? Faizan Jamil: Oh absolutely. I learned that firsthand my first year where I had a tough schedule for a first semester kid and I didn't have a good group of friends to turn to. So I had to find one and luckily within the past couple, like past twoish years, I found one. Rachel Grider: Excellent. That is wonderful.  Bryan Duarte: So Faizan, can you let us know. Have you used any of the school resources such as your gym or your tutoring center or have gotten involved in any clubs or organizations at school? Faizan Jamil: Yeah sure. That's a good question, Brian. Let's just start with the facilities because that's a bit of a shorter bit for me to say. So I have used the on-school gyms. So actually at my school it's a bit interesting where we have a gym on campus which is spacious. It's big. It's all right. It's nothing to sneeze at, but it's a free gym so who's going to complain. We also have a mini gym in some of the dorms, or at least in mine, where down in the basement 8:30 to 12 every night, the mini gym is open. And you can do some exercise there. There‘s no cardio stuff but they do offer yoga mats and stuff. I normally just hang around there because frankly, I confess in cold weather, I can't be bothered to walk all the way to the gym in just gym shorts. So, but in short, I have used the gym, yes. I generally go there for stress relief and stuff. As for clubs, yeah I've been involved with one or two clubs. First semester, I was involved with a bit more but I had to sort of narrow it down to find clubs that I actually enjoyed going to. So right now I'm currently involved with two clubs. One of which is the gaming society on campus its called, I think, “Gaming Society of New Paltz” where they do a variety of gaming not just video gaming or board gaming. It's sort of a mix of both where you have one… Rachel Grider: That's cool. Faizan Jamil: Yeah I know. It's awesome. I love it. Bryan Duarte: Do you guys have LAN parties? Faizan Jamil: I wish. I'd love for there to be LAN parties. But no, they usually just have console games and then board games like various games like Secret Hitler. Occasionally we have UNO nights or card games or D&D (Dungeons & Dragons). And I'm currently serving on the e-board for that club which I also very much enjoy. Rachel Grider: That's great. Bryan Duarte: That's really awesome. That's good to hear because I think a lot of students are apprehensive about getting involved in clubs when they have any kind of disability, not even just a visual disability. So that's really awesome that you shared that. I hope some students will take away that they can be fun and they are inviting whether you have a visual disability or not. Thank you. Faizan Jamil: Because I'm blind in my left eye, I pretty much have to use a cane even though I can see fine. Not that many people have grilled me about it. People have questioned it, but they're polite about it. So I got lucky there that I'm not facing any other obstacles with my visual impairment. Only thing is, I just got to move closer to the TV. That's all.  Rachel Grider: That's great. I think it's important too to realize, I think, what you shared about social life, being in clubs, being with your friends, how important that is. I think it's absolutely key to having a successful college … is being able to network with people just like we were talking about. So, and it's important, just as important as academics. So thank you for sharing your experiences both of you, Faizan and Bryan. Now we'll speak with another student, Kaitlyn Ryan. So Kaitlyn, welcome to the podcast. Could you tell us a little about yourself? Kaitlyn Ryan:  Thank you so much. Oh ok yeah. So my name is Kaitlyn. I'm 20. This is my 3rd semester in community college cause I went first semester Minneapolis and I was in training at a blindness center up there called Blind Incorporated. But now I attend Black Hawk Community College. So I attend Black Hawk Community College and I live in the student apartments up there. And I'm going to become a teacher of the visually impaired and I'm going to minor in spanish.  Rachel Grider: And what year did you say you were in college right now? Kaitlyn Ryan: So I'm technically still a freshman cause I took … With Blind Incorporated, I was able to take community college classes while getting the independent living skills I needed. So actually I had the support of the Blind Incorporated staff. So it's my third semester. I'm still considered a freshman.  Rachel Grider: Ok that's great. All right so what is one of the challenges that you have faced so far during college? Kaitlyn Ryan: So my first semester was pretty smooth sailing cause it was just  two classes and I had the skills. But I'm actually a dog user. So actually the biggest challenge I have faced is access with my guide dog. Rachel Grider: Oh wow can you elaborate on that please? Kaitlyn Ryan: Oh yeah absolutely. So the disability coordinator was not really hip on me having a dog on campus. She was nervous about accidents and other issues. We did have a couple accidents when I was walking on my gym… My college gym has an indoor track. But I cleaned them up and took the appropriate precautions to correct her and do what I needed to do. But they were trying to tell me that the dogs just shouldn't be on campus due to the fact that she could have accidents. And apparently some students were getting distracted by her because they could just look at her and not the teacher. So it was a lot of involving. I went to The Seeing Eye and I want to give a big shoutout to Melissa Allman who is the advocacy specialist at The Seeing Eye, who helped advocate with me and explain the ADA and explain all the laws about guide dogs and how the dog is helpful in making me an independent person. Also at the time there was a president whose name is Jim and he also explained the need of the dog because Jim and Melissa are both dog users themselves.   Rachel Grider: Oh man. Thank you for sharing that. I'm also a Seeing Eye graduate. So I know both Melissa and Jim and I have had them help me with similar issues. So I'm really, really glad they were able to. So now at this point are you still facing that type of access issue or has that pretty much been resolved? Kaitlyn Ryan: It's been resolved. So actually now my challenge is I'm in math class and we're doing graphing and it's online because of the whole situation. So that's my new life challenge.  Rachel Grider: So what have you done? Has your mentor helped you with this issue or what other ways have you found to get around this issue?  Kaitlyn Ryan: It kind of came up within the past couple of weeks because Megan and I do biweekly calls. Megan is my mentor and we've been texting a little bit about the graphing stuff. She's actually calling me tomorrow. So we're going to discuss it more. I've also been utilizing the college tutoring center. We have great tutors and they've been able to do tutoring over the phone with me. So that's been super helpful in explaining the graph. Also the Disability Center was able to order raised graph paper. So that has been super helpful. Bryan Duarte: If you haven't used them already, I would look into Wikki Stix. Wikki Stix are a great way for you to build your graph in a tactile way. For those who don't know, a Wikki stick is a little wax straw or wax string. It's a string coated in wax and you can take those strings and you can bend them and mold them and push them and stick them on your raised graph paper. That's how I used to do graphing as a blind college student doing calculus and such math things. So that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. It does sound like you are using the tutor centers which is also a great thing. Cause that's the question I was going to ask you. So thanks for sharing that. Kaitlyn Ryan: Oh no problem. And also, just for people, because Wikki Stix is a common name, but they also have been called Bendaroos in a lot of craft stores. They actually call them Bendaroos. So just in case students are like, “Ok let's go get these.” And they go to a craft store and ask for customer assistance and they're like, “What's Wikki Stix?” You can say “oh, Bendaroos,” and they're the same thing. Rachel Grider: Tell me one thing, or several things if you'd like, that you have enjoyed so far about your college experience.  Kaitlyn Ryan: I love that, and it was the kind of setup in Blind Incorporated too, but I love meeting people from different backgrounds and diversities. I come from a small town of 800 people, so we all knew each other, and on a family farm. So honestly growing up I'm just like “Everyone has to live the same,” right. So I like that it's taught me that everyone does live differently and has a bunch of different unique experiences. So I really like that and I just like the social part overall. I also love my job that I actually have on campus now and I just think college is overall easier than high school.  Rachel Grider: What job is this that you have on campus? Kaitlyn Ryan: So I am what they call an event coordinator. So I advertise the different events that are happening on college, and get decorations up for them for like black history month, all the different African Americans that have made a difference and we put quotes up. We decorated the campus for Valentine's Day and different stuff and then usually a few days before the event, we have a popcorn stand that we set up. That way if students are walking by they're like, “oh, free popcorn,” and then I get to explain the event that is going on, the location, the time, the day and any other questions that students or staff may have about the event.  Rachel Grider: That's great. So thank you so much for your wonderful insighst, Kaitlyn and for being on this podcast. Kaitlyn Ryan: You're welcome. Bryan Duarte: Thanks, Rachel for those great interviews. Be sure to join us next time for episode 3, where we're going to be talking all about relationships, relationships from a personal, professional and even romantic perspective with one of our venturing mentors, Caitlin Mongillo. Be sure to leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And share with your friends that we have started this new journey of podcasting. Before we go, we'd just like to thank the Learning Ally staff for supporting us in the making of this podcast as well as our funders and stakeholders for supporting us in all that we do. Your co hosts for College Knowledge are Bryan Duarte, Rachel Grider and Rashad Jones. The program director is Mary Alexander. The podcast writer is Kristen Witucki. Abigail Shaw produced the audio and our social media and distribution manager is Katie Ottaggio. My name is Bryan Duarte. And thank you for joining us for College Knowledge. 

Wunderlist is going away, but fans of the productivity app may find some consolation in founder Christian Reber's announcement that he is launching a new startup called Superlist. “Superlist will be more than just a todo app, but never as bloated as the project management software you loathe to use,” he tweeted. “Slick, fast, and […]

Hoy os hablo de un CAMBIO muy importante en mi gestión de tareas: De Wunderlist a Microsoft TO-DO. Os invito a inscribiros al CURSO GRATUITO de Brad Sugars: https://www.actioncoach.com/covid19-business-survival-training/ Podeis contactarme por email: juanrepresa@actioncoach.com o por teléfono: + 34 637 98 25 24. La frase: "Los que emplean mal su tiempo son los que se quejan de su brevedad". Os espero en Telegram para seguir conectando y comentando: https://bit.ly/2rDBlZG Os dejo el enlace al canal de Youtube donde podéis escucharlo: https://bit.ly/2OqUsP1 Música utilizada: Intro: Akashic Records - Heroic_Epic_Action Final:BoogieBelgique - Faithful_Andy

For years I struggled with procrastination and said “I just work better under pressure.” But what I was really saying to everyone who worked with me, “I don't care about your time, so let me put off what you need from me.” This simple principle that Mark Twain either did or did not come up with has helped me over the past few years become much more efficient with my time and energy. **Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes!** Follow the podcast online! -https://podcast.downloadyouthministry.com/15-minutes-with-frank/ -http://Instagram.com/fifteenminuteswithfrank -https://facebook.com/fifteenminuteswithfrank Follow Frank! -http://frankgil.me -http://instagram.com/pastor_tank -http://facebook.com/pastortank -http://twitter.com/pastor_tank SPONSOR - Bright Coal - brightcoal.com SPONSOR - I Still Believe Movie releasing March 13 - https://istillbelievemovie.com SPONSOR - YouthWorks- http://youthworks.com/DYM (use code DYM) SPONSOR - Train Your Leaders with DYM University - http://bit.ly/DYMUniversity SPONSOR - Give Central - http://givecentral.org Resources Frank Uses: Asana - https://asana.com/ Wunderlist - https://www.wunderlist.com/ Podcast Friends DYM Podcast - http://bit.ly/341g9e4 Youth Ministry Hacks - http://bit.ly/2WazOoY What It is, What It Means - http://bit.ly/2p08w8V My Third Decade - http://bit.ly/2UzlpjL YM Lab - http://bit.ly/2pO1GDm The Morning After Ministry Show - http://bit.ly/2ofNLpb Parent Tips - http://bit.ly/32MzM9n YW's Guide to Video Games - http://bit.ly/2Wds7yD Talking Squirrels - http://bit.ly/2QuvNw7 Startup Family Pastor Podcast - http://bit.ly/2PjqZrA

For years I struggled with procrastination and said “I just work better under pressure.” But what I was really saying to everyone who worked with me, “I don't care about your time, so let me put off what you need from me.” This simple principle that Mark Twain either did or did not come up with has helped me over the past few years become much more efficient with my time and energy. **Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes!** Follow the podcast online! -https://podcast.downloadyouthministry.com/15-minutes-with-frank/ -http://Instagram.com/fifteenminuteswithfrank -https://facebook.com/fifteenminuteswithfrank Follow Frank! -http://frankgil.me -http://instagram.com/pastor_tank -http://facebook.com/pastortank -http://twitter.com/pastor_tank SPONSOR - Bright Coal - brightcoal.com SPONSOR - I Still Believe Movie releasing March 13 - https://istillbelievemovie.com SPONSOR - YouthWorks- http://youthworks.com/DYM (use code DYM) SPONSOR - Train Your Leaders with DYM University - http://bit.ly/DYMUniversity SPONSOR - Give Central - http://givecentral.org Resources Frank Uses: Asana - https://asana.com/ Wunderlist - https://www.wunderlist.com/ Podcast Friends DYM Podcast - http://bit.ly/341g9e4 Youth Ministry Hacks - http://bit.ly/2WazOoY What It is, What It Means - http://bit.ly/2p08w8V My Third Decade - http://bit.ly/2UzlpjL YM Lab - http://bit.ly/2pO1GDm The Morning After Ministry Show - http://bit.ly/2ofNLpb Parent Tips - http://bit.ly/32MzM9n YW's Guide to Video Games - http://bit.ly/2Wds7yD Talking Squirrels - http://bit.ly/2QuvNw7 Startup Family Pastor Podcast - http://bit.ly/2PjqZrA

There is a lot to wrap your head around when building a TpT business. Today we are taking a break from business strategy and honoring TpT spouses. But, if you are looking for answers and tips for your business, head over to our MasterMind group: www.growwithusmastermind.com. If you're building a TpT store, you realize how much work really goes into it. It's not a get-rich-quick type of business (not that those really exist anyway). It takes a lot of time and effort whether you are still teaching in the classroom or not. And, then you add all of your regular life to-do's into the mix and it can feel like something's got to give. Enter, the TpT spouse. TpT spouses are amazing! They do a lot and don't usually get a lot of credit. They support us in our business goals, listen to us stress about things they might not understand, help free up our time so we can work on our business, and some even start to work in the business with us. So, April and I decided that it was time to honor these spouses. We brought on 3 of the TpT husbands that we know so they could share their perspective. Scott: The husband behind the Not So Wimpy Teacher First up on our podcast was Scott the husband behind Jamie at the Not So Wimpy Teacher. When Jamie first started the business, Scott thought of it as a hobby. He that she could use it to maybe earn enough money to cover her TpT expenses. Jamie was a teacher and Scott was working full-time at night as a nurse. At that time they also had four young children at home. He first started helping Jamie out by taking over more of the household chores. Since he worked at night he had a chance to get groceries and clean the house before the kids were home from school. This allowed his wife time to work on her TpT store while she was home in the evening. But, after downloading the app on his phone he started to hear all the cha-chings and realized the potential of the business. He started helping her with pinning so she had more time for creation. Then, he started listening to podcasts and watching tutorials to learn more about it. As the business continued to grow he was able to cut back on his nursing shifts to take on more of the tasks for the business, eventually quitting his job altogether. Scott now handles Facebook and Pinterest advertising for the store as well as the finances and technical issues. Favorite things about the TpT business Scott admitted it's the best career he's ever had. He enjoys having more time at home and no longer misses his kids' concerts or games. And, he gets to spend more time with his wife. He also loves that there is always something new to learn. Advice for others When working with your spouse, make sure you know what your roles are so you aren't always second-guessing each other. Scott and Jamie use the Wunderlist app to keep track of their business to-dos. This helps to keep their business life and personal life separate. Instead of talking about business all day long this allows them to add things they think of to the app to address once they are working again. Peter: The husband behind Performing in Education Peter is April's husband and also a high school government teacher. He admitted that he was not

Though you might feel a sense of relief when the last bell of the day rings, a teacher's job is far from over at that point. You already know that success tomorrow depends on what you do in those minutes after school before you get in your car for your commute home, but how many of us critically consider how we truly spend that crucial time? This week Danielle and Nicole discuss the why and how to create your perfect after school routine. Don't leave school until you've accomplished these tasks. We will help you batch and organize your way to a less stressful next day with a no-fail routine that works no matter what class you teach. In this episode you'll find: The Teacher's Toolkit: Before Leaving School Checklist bit.ly/BeforeYouLeaveChecklist The bell rings, but the day isn't over just yet. Set yourself up for success with a system, a fool-proof, customizable routine so you never find yourself at home stressed about tasks you missed again. Click to download now! Wunderlist wunderlist.com Wunderlist is the easiest way to get stuff done. Whether you're planning a holiday, sharing a shopping list with a partner or managing multiple work projects, Wunderlist is here to help you tick off all your personal and professional to-dos.

We dive into the Focus Matrix app - a tool for prioritization and time management. We discuss the underlying philosophy behind the app and how Ian is using it to focus his time and energy on his most important tasks. Show Notes 1:55— Ian introduces us to the Focus Matrix app for iOS and the Ike app for Android and explains the history behind the focus matrix method for prioritization. 3:26— We discuss why prioritization matters — the preciousness of our time, the satisfaction of being in control of one's efforts — and methods we have used to make the best use of our time.  9:20— Ian describes the four quadrants of the Focus Matrix and explains how to use them to categorize your tasks. 11:19— Ian's experience using the Focus Matrix app, how it works, and things to avoid when employing the Eisenhower matrix. 13:59— Ian describes the benefits he's realized from using a dedicated app for prioritization like The Focus Matrix and compares it to typical to-do apps like Wunderlist. 18:10— Ian's list of tips for getting the most out of the Focus Matrix app — swipe gestures, filters, and integrations with other services. 20:40— We agree to do a dedicated episode on apps for employing the Pomodoro technique for focus & time management. Mentions App: Focus Matrix by Xwavesoft App: Ike App: Wunderlist Product: The Productivity Planner by Intelligent Change Follow Us Instagram Facebook Twitter Subscribe iTunes RSS Weekly email newsletter Full Episode Transcript Better Show Blog Feedback Email: hi@bettershow.io Enjoy the show? Leave a review in iTunes! Tell two friends about the show!

I didn't see it early on. I'm only just beginning to see it now. It took me decades. I hope your pattern recognition skills are better than mine. I used to think each day was different. Each day felt like the first time climbing Mount Everest. I'd encounter a different client each day. Each case would be different from the others. One day would start with client work and end with marketing tasks. Another day would start with administrative issues and end with a court appearance. Every day felt different. Employees would make mistakes, I'd make mistakes, a new employee would start, an old employee would leave. One employee would come to me with a personal problem, another with a health issue, another with a money concern. I truly believed each day was different. In fact, I thought the variety was the reason I enjoyed my work. I used to tell people that it was never boring. Life felt like a grand adventure. Then a lightbulb came on over my head. POP!!! I could see it. I was living in Groundhog Day. The same day didn't repeat quite as precisely the next day, but my work did repeat over and over. Sometimes it happened in the same day, sometimes the repetitions were separated by weeks, or months. Sometimes it took a year for the repeat. But eventually it did--everything repeats, with only minor variations on the theme. Seeing the pattern changes everything At some point the patterns start to emerge. You realize that you wake up, roll out of bed, shower, eat breakfast, drive to the office, park, walk to the entrance, scan your card, push the elevator button, unlock the door, grab the coffee, say good morning, and make your way to your desk. Call it what you will: it's a routine, a system, a sequence of recurring tasks. It's do, repeat, do again, repeat again, over, and over, and over. Then you see even more patterns. You realize that you have the same conversations with your clients each day. You repeat the same words, with the same kinds of people, worried about the same things. You draft the same documents, you have the same meetings, you make the same calls, you send the same texts. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The lawyers who see it early are able to document the system, see the opportunities for efficiencies, and scale the business upward. They realize they can expand the marketing, the technology, the management, and the financial systems into something bigger, and that can grow the revenues and the profits. Some lawyers don't see the patterns as quickly. They think of each day as new. Maybe they're happier and having more fun. For them, life is an adventure of discovery. They're not living in Groundhog Day, repeating the same patterns over and over at an ever increasing scale. That's when you build momentum Seeing that it's all recurring tasks after having seen each piece separately and individually for thirty years isn't particularly helpful to me now. I could be much more efficient at running a law firm, except that I no longer have a law firm to run. But this could be a breakthrough moment for you. You can benefit from the tragedy of my recurring days, months, and years. What if you treat everything as a list of recurring tasks right now? What if you start systematically tackling your life and your work? What if you see what you're doing for the first time as something you'll do five more times, fifty more times, or even five hundred more times? Would that knowledge encourage you to make observations, take notes, create forms and systems, treat this as a different kind of opportunity? Even the weirdest, most awful, challenging, upsetting, disturbing, unique situations tend to repeat. It's all going to come back again if you're still doing the work. Sure the crazy old guy might be a crazy old woman next time. Her money buried in the backyard may be a little different than the old man's money hidden in the dead brother's laundry room. And one may tell you they hired you because you're Jewish when you're not, and the other may tell you they hired you because you're white when you're not (who are we to correct their bigoted little brains?). It's all patterns. You can sit there dumbstruck by the coincidence or you can recognize now that it's all a jumble of circumstances, people, and their stories. There are only so many variations and they keep coming around again. There really is nothing new under the sun. In my systems course I teach lawyers how to document the basics. We start with getting the lights turned on in the morning and go from there. We tend to max out at the fairly obvious. We learn to systematize office processes, document production, and even certain litigation events like witness preparation, cross examination, and jury arguments. You can take it further. You can begin seeing everything about your practice as a system of recurring tasks. It's all going to happen again. That perspective changes the way you manage a given event so that you'll be better prepared when it happens again. It's going to happen again, and I'm sure that's disturbing to contemplate. Yep, it's going to happen again. How do you apply your insight? I hear you asking “so what does this mean, what do I do differently now that I'm seeing my day-to-day differently?” Good question. I'm glad you asked. Start small. Play with the idea. Let it seep in. Then get busy seeing your business as a sequence of recurring tasks. Literally take your task list and start seeing how the work recurs over time. Brief aside: you do have a task list, right? There's something built into most calendar systems. Personally, I use a stand-alone task manager and I keep it front and center. Also, you know that you can set tasks to repeat, right? Mine repeats at whatever interval I set--daily, weekly, monthly, annual, or custom. If you don't already have a task management system in place, stop here and download something useful. Daily What about recurring daily tasks? Are they on the list? Check email once each morning and afternoon, call mom, deposit the client payments, praise someone on your team, call a referral source--all good items to add to your list. Weekly Weekly tasks recur as well, stuff like checking on the time entries and coffee stockpile. How about investing a few minutes in your long-term success each week? What about adding tasks like (1) create a new systems document, (2) create/edit an automated document, and (3) have a one-to-one meeting with each staff member. Monthly Team meetings and financial reviews tend to dominate my monthly recurring tasks, along with monthly publications I try to read. It's also a time to review the upcoming month with each team member and look at their tasks and recurring tasks as well. Cranking out monthly bills is a big recurring task for many firms, followed by a sequence of dunning calls and systematic collection activities. Quarterly Team planning meetings, financial review discussions with your accountant, and quarterly tax payments all belong on the recurring list as well. The things on the list are the things that get done. There's something about our nature which requires us to do the things on the list. It's like we've been directed to take action by a higher authority. Maybe we forget that we put it on the list three months earlier? I'm not sure why it works, but it works. Semi-Annual Your teeth need to be cleaned every six months, right? Is that on your list as a recurring task? Think of it as an opportunity. I'm 57 now and not sure how many more dental cleanings I'll need. Enjoy each cleaning like it could be your last. Annual Holiday gifts, corporate minutes, renewals with the state bar, tax returns, employee birthdays, continuing education, firm parties, renewing or canceling all those online services, and conducting personnel reviews (if you still do that in this instant feedback world). Five Years I just checked my list and I've got renewal of Global Entry (the fast track through US immigration) on my list for 2021. I've also got my passport renewal on the list for 2027. What's on your list? Maybe the lease on your copier, or your office space? The opportunity Wouldn't it be nice, in the midst of an incredibly challenging moment, to realize that you've been here before? And, if this is the first time, wouldn't it be grand to know you can use the lesson you're about to learn at some point in the future? The work you're about to do is either a repeat of a recurring task or it's a new task to add to your list. And, if it's one of those horrible things which happens only a few times, like committing malpractice (I did), wouldn't it be awesome to take notes so that next time you'll know exactly what to do? Even in the middle of the horror, it's comforting to know that next time, you'll know exactly whom to call first. Once you see your business as a series of recurring tasks, you'll be able to bring some very practical solutions to the problems presented. First, start a list (I use Wunderlist). It's brain-dead-simple to create a task list of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks. Set them up to recur so you don't have to reinvent the wheel when you complete the list. Your practice is a cycle that repeats, remember? Make it work for you so you can spend your time on other things and level up. Second, document your approach to solving problems even when you don't expect them to recur. Why? Because they'll recur. Find a searchable repository you can use to retrieve this information when you inevitably need it (some lawyers love Evernote). Think about how powerful your database of advice to yourself might become as you grow the business and get others involved in finding even more solutions. I get that in the midst of the chaos, it's hard to see the recurring nature of the work. It seems like we're climbing Mount Everest and we're committed, if we survive, to never doing that again. But practicing law always feels like Mount Everest the first time you do the climb. Then, when it recurs, the mountain looks a little smaller. The second time around we have experience. But when there's a big time-lag between the first and the second climb, that layer of experience is harder to remember. We forget our approach and our technique over time. When, however, you see the first climb as leading to the second climb--knowing you'll do it again at some point--you experience the climb differently. Sure, it's still about survival, but it's also about gathering data, so you can climb more easily next time. You process your mistakes differently. You record the experience in a whole new manner. You're thinking through how you'll do better in the next go-round. Seeing your work as part of a cycle, a system, a sequence of recurring tasks, changes the way you absorb lessons. You'll improve faster. You'll get where you're going more efficiently this time, and next time, and the time after that. You'll become ever more effective because you have a past which bolsters your current effort. Practicing law is still a tough climb. But your law practice will start to look less like your first approach of Mount Everest. Unfortunately, recurring tasks won't make climbing the mountain easy. But seeing your work as a series of recurring tasks will definitely make the climb more manageable.

On this episode of the #iACast, Aleeha, Michael, Anna, Lauren, Scott and Chelsea discuss pre-NFB convention activities as well as your weekly dose of technology topics. The news this week was full of merger talks and Windows 10 Insider news updates. They discussed the AT&T and Time Warner merger, Comcast and 21st Century Fox merger plans and the changes announced in the new build of Windows that came out this week. Aira has also announced the shipment of their Horizon glasses. If you are one of the lucky 200 people to get them then be on the lookout for them to arrive soon! This week's show is brought to you by the iAccessibility App The top picks this week included QuentonC's PalyRoom which was picked by Aleeha, PocketBraille from Anna, Wunderlist which was picked by Chelsea, Credit Karma which was picked by Scott, The weather channel from Lauren, and Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12 beta from Michael.

In this episode Frank talks about his favorite things that he uses daily or weekly in or for his student ministry. New Game!​ Person or Pony - ​https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/person-or-pony Summer Series! ​Don't Waste Your Summer (8 weeks) - https://www.downloadyouthministry.com/dont-waste-your-summer-small-groups Check out the sponsor Give Central! - ​http://givecentral.org Join the mailing list and follow me on social media! Go to ​http://FrankGil.me​ and follow me everywhere at @pastor_tank Submit a question: ​https://podcast.downloadyouthministry.com/submit-questions/ My Musts ● ESV Bible App - ​https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/esv-bible/id361797273?mt=8 ● New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp - https://www.amazon.com/New-Morning-Mercies-Gospel-Devotional/dp/1433541386/ref=sr_1_2?i e=UTF8&qid=1526416786&sr=8-2&keywords=new+morning+mercies+by+paul+david+tripp Design Resources ● ZippList - ​http://zipplist.co ● Creative Market - ​https://creativemarket.com ● Canva - ​https://www.canva.com Desktop Apps ● Photoshop CC/Photography Plan - https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html?single_app=photoshop ● Wunderlist - ​https://www.wunderlist.com ● GroupMe - ​https://groupme.com/ Website ● Squarespace - ​https://www.squarespace.com ● Typeform - ​https://www.typeform.com Sermon Making ● Beautiful Eulogy Instrumentals - https://open.spotify.com/user/121355445/playlist/4l4oUf1YTE6rBWV4TboZoV?si=FNN-z86TTC-V R5vgB3TZJg ● ESV Study Bible & Commentaires - ​https://www.esv.org/about/subscription-plan-comparison/ ● Google Docs - ​https://docs.google.com/ Other Tools ● Mailchimp - ​https://mailchimp.com/ ● Planning Center - ​https://planningcenteronline.com/ ● Grum - ​https://grum.co ● Scannable - ​https://evernote.com/products/scannable ● Slicktext.com - ​http://slicktext.com Service ● 4640 Before & After - https://open.spotify.com/user/4640/playlist/7fuDCIpNfAgkVag0biklWJ?si=LBzog7rrQ_u3iF0R0IGi zQ ● Nexus Pre/Post Sunday Night - https://open.spotify.com/user/1239444834/playlist/0UIGEU9T2TredbvVfaVBfn?si=Qn1NOq-aTu- C_GZOuVFihg ● Nexus Game/Announcements - https://open.spotify.com/user/1239444834/playlist/6nj9d6FfDeo3bazfy9frRD?si=fCR31zFMQweS 5OReCZenwg ● Pre/Post CCV Students Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/user/justin_knowles/playlist/2OTbbNAhl2WXsyZ1n6BP4V?si=0jdatbzWS kuNPvzIlZU81w ● Fav Jesus Music - https://open.spotify.com/user/justin_knowles/playlist/3IBirTQKRqWJGNoF7QIp6r?si=_VSdajQ9T TK89fEFBWca-A Podcasts ● DYM Podcast Network - ​https://podcast.downloadyouthministry.com ● Relevant Podcast - ​https://relevantmagazine.com/series/relevant-podcast/ ● Native Speaks - ​https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/native-speaks/id1321709367?mt=2 ● How I Built This with Guy Raz - ​https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this ● The Red Couch Podcast - https://relevantmagazine.com/series/the-red-couch-podcast-with-propaganda-and-alma/ Email Subscriptions ● The Skimm - ​https://theskimm.com ● The Hustle - ​https://thehustle.co ● Axis - The Culture Translator - ​https://axis.org

In today's episode, Steven, Melissa, and Alan recap Tuesday's episode with Kate Erickson from the Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast. She's on a mission to help entrepreneurs create freedom in their business and life through developing systems and processes to help them scale and grow their businesses. [00:29] What's up Creative Hustlers! [01:17] We're recapping Kate Erickson's episode. [01:40] Kate is so genuine, and Melissa met her last year at Social Media Marketing World. [02:18] Kate is the backend process queen. [02:36] It's hard to keep genuine in the entrepreneurial world. You get success and it can get to your head. [03:14] Kate and her husband John Lee Dumas, moved to Puerto Rico, and got their house slammed in the hurricane. [03:54] Some people in Puerto Rico still don't have power, but Kate mentioned a charity group on Facebook, called Adopt a Family in Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief. [05:05] Kate & her husband took a personality test so John could convince Kate to leave her job and work with him. [06:10] They took Sally Hogshead's How to Fascinate archetype test to see strengths and weaknesses, and who can pick up slack! [06:50] Marketing is all about archetypes. [07:40] Kate is all about ensuring the process is efficient and working smoothly. [07:55] Work on ONE system at a time and perfect it before moving on! [09:25] Once you have a process in place, it's about holding people accountable for their actions. [09:58] How the process plays a role in success of podcasts! [10:57] Shout Out to Wunderlist! Simple and efficient task list tool! [11:50] Keeping people accountable to the process, like recording, production, editing, is critical. [14:30] How Kate got back on the process wagon after the hurricane in Puerto Rico! [15:30] Kate would grab a drink with Jane Austen! Which we weren't really sure who she was. [16:13] If you google Jane Austen, her “movies” come up, Clueless actually pops up! [17:40] Last time The Creative Hustler has read a fiction book! [19:20] Balance your non-fiction reading with a fictional book. [19:50] Clueless is actually based on Jane Austen's book, Emma! [20:00] Check out Entrepreneur on Fire, and also Kate's podcast, Kate's Take! [20:45] For more about The Creative Hustler, we're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and please leave a review! [21:08] Peace Out, Creative Hustlers! [21:16] Melissa's Moment of Hustle Contact: https://www.eofire.com https://www.facebook.com/kate.erickson.39 https://www.instagram.com/katelerickson/  

Jon Honeyball joins the team as we discuss Facebook's data-mining scandal, new concerns over the legality of Bitcoin, Microsoft's fumbled acquisition of Wunderlist and Uber's fatal self-driving car crash. Our Hot Hardware candidate is the JBL Link 20, a battery-powered smart speaker running Google Assistant.

Episode Sponsored by FreshBooks: GoFreshBooks.com/Sweat  Law Smith and Eric Readinger talk about Wunderlist, Florida Snowballs, FreshBooks, Rally, Livescribe bluetooth pens, Evernote hacks, Dragon Dictate, Slack, Wrike, Squarespace and more! Who now are going I can see that face was live feeling good how are you feeling Eric Readinger real good yeah really it you get the show going on mean we gotta squeeze one last one in before 2017 goes out I know hopefully get the bonus content common when we pretend that where a dog is initiate next year and then get caught up in the life of your days later I hate New Year's resolutions I don't I don't like hey I don't like people telling me their words without me asking Jeff I mean II know I'm annoying I give out a lot of free device known as for but you do it all your law right Lisa consistent with the exact path but like the thing with plus I always heard here's a little here's a little advice sweat equity advice goals New Year's resolutions essentially goal right losing weight is a New Year's resolution but it's not a good goal July your lifestyle good goal do you know why though nonspecific will is you just write I'm girl and there's no light quantifiable thing is a need it so instead of going on the lose weight and 2018 have to go like by June I'll lose 25 pounds whatever is everybody's resolution should be understood actually be real with myself instead of I'm going to lose weight and then when people ask you about it like we some pictures at New Year's is get real talk when you get real lack landlady real talk in the pocket you just need to be real with yourself a 12 team you know that's what it is people tell themselves stories make it all good so everybody around them here's what their convincing themselves of how I like I been guilty of this as well where you go on the to do this to keep myself accountable right yeah have to sign works have timed doesn't sound like my dad take it all back as I've done that before to know me at what we all have its it's annoying if you 0400 for whatever 100 with your friends or family about it like I go on the run a marathon that I said that at one point last year think and then I didn't predict an injury and then once you got injured I just couldn't get back in it and so one of my I feel do she does like everybody listen to me on the road where the line but what was the entry I just bad hamstring pull which you as you know from some replace fantasy football if you draft any wide receiver yet having the same as a lingering IRA though never be hundred percent so I wait that out like you know it's not my favorite but let's get this ship going you ready for your Howdy toddy did you read it 321 God Almighty this is a sweat equity podcast come to you from cigar city Ybor city Florida beautiful enclave of the of the hood enclave enclave yeah I think I use that right in Tampa Florida we may be in Tampa but we were we keep it worldwide like pitbull but this advice as a business hustle advice I think a lot of people asked me what is the podcast they see my face popping up in their feed because were doing good with our targeted video ads that's something I love it if you hear little muffling the background that's a production meeting going on behind us of high level production film meeting made I might want to yell just a just have their meeting but what's on there I know I keep like going to the bathroom lexically go to get anything actors need a grant from you might grab any parts I again works like yeah but let's… Give a little love to her sponsor fresh books tax season is coming up my goal here you go here's my New Year's Gold pay your taxes pay taxes yes no I want to get taxes done by 15 January my business taxes that's the goal good luck I got a hustle but you know what it will you know I can cram yeah are you doing every three months yeah yeah quarterly is sure yeah they said we have to as an S Corp. you you know you have to with meeting minutes and all that stuff that we do all that go go fresh books.com/sweat and you get three a free 30 day trial but QuickBooks are not happy with zero there 00 at the next get out here go to that's that that's another song or no no no that's like a that's the vid me out of all these fresh books is the is the competitor to QuickBooks zeros, that the video drove off to the side there like third place probably for meals for me is good for what it is I mean I'm sure was writing books but look freshman and you need a bookkeeper we've got actual client that I can hook you up with if you want to email me at law@tocaworkslawtocoworks.com will show her love she's got a virtual bookkeeping business and it just ties it Sophie you go to go fresh books.com/what and then email us the double hook up you could really email us for anything business I think we got something in place right yeah and pleasure yeah sure you know you want to send some pleasure pics will do this 90 style yeah I'm sending over there sending them to us I mean that matters depends depends I'm not doing them independence depends on the map and you know see we want to go 2018 New Year's resolutions I mean these are do you have anything no but look you shouldest do these once a month really shouldn't be a year yeah it's weird it's it takes easier for people to grandma look at myself with it are things going good for Maren okay and by October your different person I will eat like a fat pig from Christy Easley from Christmas to New Year's like no big like Burger King all day son yeah everybody that is that's a pretty standard thing or is it yeah to go worse than normal now I do it to the holidays you you do ketogenic will I do but I don't Christmas hello I mean I Brian you get at Iquitos yeah but I can get my bag and okay it's a gimmick around our house these next day you're right Rita is mental but Seattle get the hang agrees like some people do I know I don't usually but I feel like anything I have so little to hold onto his advice that I feel like I would if I do right now you would have been angry as if you win and I dress Onassis yeah I have to do a blood test tomorrow for health insurance incentives which means you can't eat associate today and I isolate this morning because you got to get like a pure sample or whatever and and cholesterol so they give you incentives if you like a reward if you're decent I can't going all stressed out a is one time I failed and I to go back and do it I was like one of many to walk out what your blood pressure is yeah and I was like no Isaac as I rushed over here to get to this thing and went right into it and I'm thinking about work let me go outside only to walk in the hallway for like 10 minutes I came back fine and that weird that's weird I did that recently the doctors to had to get in there real quick and on-site and don't let yeah the Dilip having high blood pressure worry give you high blood pressure that's another contract so I try not to let it psyche out I assume you got into the cholesterol one which is you know I don't know what's good cholesterol bad cholesterol but are you going to do that task so you do bunch of those things which is actually interesting because they make you do this app called rally we go to we rally.com it's actually I wanted to shed all over it because I might man I want I don't want to have to have this thing you tracking stuff the health insurance companies making use that now make you it's it's what I'd like a strong incentive but that's how they measure stuff they think you have to do like certain certain things of the blight but I got to go to Qwest labs and that will knock out like four of the rewards you can get okay as you get likes I can get 600 bucks back basically one was like you get 50 bucks for filling out a survey that's just like how many drinks you have it's like the basic general practitioner you know little questions I would ask you do you sleep well do you eat well all that stuff this is also the app yeah you answering this question is cool but then I tied it you can tie it into your so I have the Apple watch yeah that's about that yeah while I don't know how to use it yet I got it and I haven't had time to like yeah get to know this baby you gonna love it will I just wanted just to be able to jog with and not I have the old iPod that I have to load manually nice real nice real nice right I write if I am ever like I am assuming those like 10 years and my yeah but it's so cumbersome that I forget like I don't when I get a chance to run it's like oh you got yeah I I'll get the kids for 30 minutes you go for running like okay what I need everything to stick 10 minutes that I just can change and get out the door yeah and then getting music ready to go to site and it's not happen so the reason I like this is just I'd have streaming stuff because it has its own phone number I guess oh you got the a data plan yeah oh nice yeah so you can do the air pod headphone yes I'm a good goalie asked well basically I have flown on my watch and I have my air pods that you can't see my ears which I wanted to hook up to this but I think it would ruin the Bluetooth with the video yeah that's that's that's what's future ship well it's only acyl because light to my wife because she won't know they're in now I used to keep it that the ones under my shirt the the corded headset right so at least you can see that a lot of the time but now you just you can't see it all you could use these giant headphones is like holders for your air pods cut the cords because they fall out of my ears hey what these are your pod covers I had to buy these so they don't break not I but I've been falling asleep of those things in which is not good probably for my ears because I feel like I mean Felix's summer jam to pencil in there if I sleep on my side but it doesn't wake you up when I when I go to sleep all hit it hard but I wake up really easily anyway the thing with that is like all this stuff is to be more efficient anyway because I can arty feel that your pods like you can get about 30 feet away from your phone and it still plays whatever podcasting listen to music whatever 80s background with new wrapper genre music I like to listen to like that Eminem song but it's that thing of you know saving trips from going back your phone for something what I can charge the phone or not tethered to or I'm not I'm not going without listening to something for 30 minutes which is trust that but I can make calls and still it's weird it's it's it shouldn't be that big of a difference but it's talking also in the the watch I when I had a Fitbit which were super ugly come like they're ugly they're ugly looking this I got a get a new band on it but I got that ship and you got the big boy version I got the lady lady says I actually pilot pulled my hair out on accident because the rubber because when it gets to that I was going like that I head back head head hair and ended if I took a few with it so not feeling good but what I'm saying is I like the tracking of the stats because I like how much do I stand up during the day how many I do like that stuff I don't care big brothers watch me yeah I've also noticed that the Stan Golson it is not that I can I reach my standing goal laying on my ass okay so does it mean stick to stand really mean are you up I don't know I I think it met like I think discounts if you're awake sell real okay is it going around yeah because right now price as I'm standing right in my heart rate a little bit because were trying to multitask on air oh that's the other job I loved going on stage doing standup and seeing what my heart rate would be while on stage yeah you could try check the time and stop it'd be lower way lower they just normal onstage you weird yeah but both euros off before would spike about 10 to not be three-minute more which isn't really a spike but it would it would get up because you can't anxious your light will bit smug and run over and then when I'm on stage at site cruise control cleared it weird and did did for stand up last Friday which felt good had a really good set which is I forgot how good of a feeling that is when you're so nervous about getting up because I'd been that nervous price seven years yeah dude I mean you and how many months for five months. This podcast helps the mean I tried it I I pitch a lot of podcasts to our clients go look it's a good way you gotta do it like we wish we've been shoehorning in episodes last couple weeks just because it's just been nuts around here holidays baba but we didn't plan ahead like we can plan ahead by the quarter kind of thing like we should but like it's a good cathartic it it's a little bit of therapy it's a little bit of like I try to write some jokes for it right ideas yeah like what is our creative outlet for sure it is him is sometimes the only time we talk during the day but also it's like it's it does have to be polished obviously and it it's another way to get her voice out there for people to digest when they can handle it now one thing I I did come up with while running the other day and this will tie into how to be more efficient is I got a term I want to coin officially calling on the go so we've got some lingering projects that just that become like big picture ideas I feel like a lot of people have this unit maybe you want to do in addition on your house were you know you try to figure out how to save enough money to buy a ring for your lady were you would don't do that though but stupid if she's in the wedding rings and she got the girl for you what if you have a family ring by all means do that whole you can do that yeah don't don't be full by tapirs okay it's at this so many diamonds out there manually many the world look at the history of all that she is talking crazy you know it's all made that's why like advertising yet will I mean it's going to its settings going away you think the holy I don't I think it's to both I think with a lot of things it's going down but the other sides can imagine will I think the wedding industry of like having bad ass wedding that's going up the ring with the precious stones is not as big a deal anymore speaker wedge event coordinators for weddings or secretly like the worst coordinator like of anything you know what a millionaire not about to let yeah I've dealt with a lot of event court wedding coordinators of the site you do this for a living right like wool I brought all I brought all the reclaimed wood like furniture and Mike Horton Mike hey yeah they always focus yet have one thing that's her focus and talk about the farm theme and then it's like okay that's one part you have a schedule of when the wedding starts will know you have to fires right back yeah we are our buddy Damien is what employer just left yeah why would she stay for the wedding that's crazy I mean it was just like what it was a point where it's like I shouldn't be the most organized person at this wedding for what's about to happen it was like it's so crazy how people do not take their job seriously like that's Ivan Mike seriously that's just like basic level stuff that's that I don't care how anxious you get or how you're worried you are like showing up is half the battle if additional forethought either live like maybe this will happen and I'll have to do this anyways I cut you off about being efficient while you're running or something oh so we think of like big ideas right now have the everybody goes I want to do this when you learn another language this year or some like that and then becomes is over you never get to start a lot a lot of that is to start just just go okay and turning everything off 20 minutes after to start and it doesn't matter when whenever that 20 minutes is over or I I find it a break then that'll be it but a lot of people don't do that part and so you get to this overwhelming idea you've had in your hand we've got to do a pitch deck that this is why this is where I came up with that window pitched Atkins become this this huge snowball] but what I don't want to be is a Florida snowball will eventually just melts you never do it that that's the terms the term is Laura snowball however bad okay for look for businesspeople it's like murders but but I have come join us for economy sake it's not that funny that that witty but I'm saying like find me a better term for that I got your diet is as we've had a lot of that we want we want to do a lot of improvements for the show and it's like yeah when we want to get a wife or behind us we would have a digital we want to have a screen over here we can see our live reads or any of that stuff and then have a playback monitor so we can see ourselves but like you don't have to redo the 1000 other Arabia comes this thing that you never get to and so it's it's tough yeah and the longer you go the bigger it seems in sunny bigger than exacerbated in the beginning exactly that's what the snowball and then support a snowball because it just it just don't do it ever yeah you know we we we get a lot of stuff done to all of say objectively we get a lot of stuff done that we do say working to try to do it takes a while but at the same time I listen to so many people because we have so many startups and immature businesses and people asking for advice on time wheat we did have a lot of people that just never ever never ever get around to it some more efficient so how do we do that just starting that are this that but that's my advice for a lot of stuff that you even if you're just curious about some just try to start doing it yet all be afraid of the unknown I think I think you don't know what's coming with their big project you may dislike off while I don't I don't need to know any of that because it's too scary but once you go get into it and you can lay it all out front yourself and you always know what you're up against yeah and and suck at something and try that light all the time right like I want it I do want to go shoot bows for some reason I think I'm going the opposite direction to some keyboards off now I know I've I have a hankering for I want to I want to race cars only not dry stick in a and I want I like to occur I want to go bow hunting like legit bow hunting one day like the shipper you have to be awesome shape to do it yeah like you have to run mountains carrier pack into the woods right right sleep there I don't know why though I've never done I've race like go carts when I was little but neither really I don't have any experience with I just really hit your primal instinct kicking in yeah because them the software I'm getting this note and paler as you can see on video sitting in the office you know of the more I want to go to the other thing yeah go play football now I hear you it's weird that you like I do feel like I do weightlifting for that sort of adrenaline's worship but even that's like wearing on me now righteously I get it done it does have the same endorphin rush that used to go it is used to it that would be the number one thing I'd say if you want to be more efficient you should try to get in shape just like whatever that is for you you want to get like talking II think people do the four snowball word you get this thing were like I've got to get to this kind of yeah body build and when you don't get there after March I think I think Jim's make most of their money in January February oh it's my favorite time of the year seeing all the new faces that come in next week and then by spring break their own, yet each way before that if you had a month yeah because I mean you know I I'm going to the same gym at the same time almost every day I see the same people would you go funk at 5 AM so it's like that that's us different commitment to like yeah but I just don't like being around it's only been in the crowded gym like having to wait on things really you know having a lot of people around yeah what's not really I mean if she if you want at 5 PM and be to be a zoo the worst yes you know and that's what a lot of people do the word about how they're looking at the gym but if you like as cheesy as it is it is good to throw down some goals and like really be specific about it like no for me I need to be able to get I need to stretch and I need to get more flexible and I need to do like yoga once a month at least yeah if not once a week yeah stretching is the number one thing for you making yourself feel good right and I that I know it and I don't do it and it's really it's a comedian self-destructive kind of mind to not go yeah I know but only to just sit in the chair all day yeah it's that they need the stretching desk used applicable to believe they got I think you got some bites I mean no just I just need to not be an acyl and then take 20 minutes and go do it I mean you've got the 20 minutes I know you are it's there the panic sets in I got to get stuff done I can get it while I would get everything done over the long haul if I feel better yeah Chris's days were your body hurts so bad that you're not it is not efficient yeah and the 20 minutes you're using to stretch is not necessarily productive 20 minutes maybe it's something that you're to mess around if you know you have 20 minutes I want to take this a bit picked that right right out due to many an afternoon of design if you get down that rabbit hole like just moving it up and down like to position something yeah with a layer on Photoshop or something you can do that for an hour I know I've been trapped in the matrix for a week on the same ship what I do now is I just go I Fokker what am I trying to do here and then will I been using my watch I literally got yes my doing put your timer on your watch then when it goes off will vibrate at the hands on that another thing I but I think one of the things to be efficient other sleep hygiene's huge I don't like calling it that what we do sleep hygiene I've never heard that oh yeah I've only heard it in my brushing teeth before bed is that of podcast commercials for Casper Leah has for what's up yes going on what you you and Squarespace need to get you should together special Squarespace, Squarespace clearly woo hoo leaving Unilever sites I can reel off right now maybe that's why the wood was pitch about them not being a spy know we never went out we got it to say what's up hey hey hey keep saying Squarespace over and over in the Dragon dictate will pick up on it yeah if you do like these episodes are try to find some keywords were we do try to drop the audio files in Dragon dictate and put in the blog post will get better at it one Suite 120 once we calibrate yes or floors leases it'll be a lot better but for now it is what it is anyway sleep hygiene that's a made-up term by right that's the old yeah that's marketing copy but it's now I've heard it I heard their first in the nets, sleep down well like that is it is it just get enough sleep is that what they're talking so with that rally app it has like little baby goals you can do and I will send you notifications like remember to have like a regular bedtime I will have that remember to shut off all devices like you can and you can check got away with it you can well it will keep you up and it's and I know like I'm trying to think about outside I wonder how many good hours I have in a day like what's my peak right six on like on my laptop you know firstly beer for work and like what's diminishing returns .0 yeah working so it's like if I'm on more than six maybe eight I'm probably it's probably not can work yeah get it in your brain will that's why I try to get on the spin bike or due or work out I'll try to answer emails because at least it feels like I'm doing some claim emails or can be asked anyway you know a lot of it's like yeah Guido hey were here whenever yes you want to meet up it's a lot of that kind of stuff that I try to follow up on but that I need to be more efficient that's one of my things like cluster all these nonurgent if you heard of I is I think Scott Eisenhower it may have to look this up Eisenhower matrix okay if I get this right out on the field very very very business smart basically you put things in the four buckets indigo is a real thing yeah sweet alright so I did learn some business school so you have important and urgent if you have non-urgent and important you have urgent not important which I don't one of those two I don't get in that urgent not important doesn't make sense like what would be urgent that you don't like the sun born that's I think that's when I get conversions of bathroom so my dad I thank you again for like listening to the price of examples and then not important not urgent and you I always forget like to state the power of note, stuff like you got put some stuff in that bucket right a lot of that stuff doesn't matter like trying to like trying to go on fiber and getting something we are done to embarrass my fantasy football friend yeah that I used to do this but is that not important for your mental health but it doesn't it's a waste of time a lot of the time it takes like an hour like a better hour I can spend in some else but doesn't make you happy marginally knows what's the risk reward right so this is all business, logic basic business logic basic pitch business logic real talk but but like it is doing some of the fight OMG I'm constantly, think about like am I wasting this is my best our right we always talk about with clients ago trite working try to get your whole group at the best dollar per hour the rat right right this does make sense for the boss to be doing some of these little things unless that's the only person you know that can really do you so like you have a small business the boss may be the person that actually comes in and cleans up stuff because they're managing everybody else doing the actual work you know I just think about that a lot I don't I don't I don't know the answer what I know that's up to can always come to think about what's my best dollar per hour in this discounts at home to like what's the but you know is it worth watching Netflix do I need to watch it right you know yet to fall asleep when I just turn off and try it out trying to sleep earlier yeah but then you won't know how picky blinders ends than what PT finds it's been on there forever unlike you all get to that year and I'll get to that now I'm still stuck on the punisher and I lie liked it the punisher of all my God I had a plan in the background for like a day and I was traumatized yeah the little violent exactly yeah yeah that's the punisher dialogue kinda sucks to it's and yeah it's a lot of cheesy ship yeah I mean it's going to be that the guy the guy who plays Frank Castle is pretty good yeah he's a good I didn't want to like him but he was on the walking dead so never so yeah don't that's this is my wife's litmus test for if you're a good judge of TV like the walking dead PCS really yeah dude it's not good anyways I out I want to see Dunkirk that's more me I want to see that stuff you haven't seen it real life stuff so be more efficient 2018 how about some productivity apps release can do that right some so you get the Apple Lodge maybe you got some, smartwatch I think Samsung has a good one now I don't know all the ins and outs of it if anybody does have any hacks send it our way or comment on this post I mean just the stuff that comes with the Apple watch timers and things for stretching I use the time countdown timer all the time yeah all that stuff masturbation right where you get caught kind of things conventional yeah oh you will get it to the point hold it building to something called hope it's like what's the is it I don't Braveheart hello Canada hello been doing a lot of war movies may be maybe Troy thinking of but either way like wheat we been doing you got a live scribe pen and notebook the other Bluetooth pen you like and it yeah is in the during the call we are on a day so my phone's dead so have you linked it up though so it can discover your text learn change your handwriting into text yeah it's all that's I mean mine is standard with that I guess here's a little bit older mines an older model but it the software doesn't now my handwriting's like a ransom note so it's kind of tough I got a calibrate that between Dragon dictate and that in in this because I do like right I like writing it will help me memorize stuff I don't I also don't want to write too much in a meeting because of not avoid paying attention so try to write like you know bullet points Rob Eli: let me write this down right now go yeah the writing of the net with your hands to even if I want to call Illinois like I have things I can write down Evernote you like I can write it that you type it in but is not the same as writing it with my hand for some reason and will not just for me either one thing I got back to is and this is a little bit duplicative and I need to figure this out is hey I want to find an app to do list app that my wife and I can see it just reminds us of certain stuff yet get wonder list W you and is not good you're so I don't so I don't know if that's good for home right will like we have our grocery list on there it's linked up if you have sent me an even bigger store but put it on there you have a referral code that's another thing for if were given out stuff you might as well you know if you go in your app the Avenue for a friend white check that out about our syllabus for you but you got all kinds of goods I want to get down to the point were nonessential grocery items I want those to come in automatically through we have shipped here I want my dog food baby formula I liked him diapers all these things that we know we need we could probably your mark every enough three weeks we need this and then I don't worry about it Lucian do you want to go the grocery store yeah you can do Amazon subscription services we do for diapers or yeah we we might we might do that just because it is like those things that set like milk those things that that site where symbols or kinases on me when I get or meat that you will look at if I go to the grocery store but yet all the other ship but it's yeah it's that when you don't have drivers it's T-shirt time yeah and the guessers T-shirts are using dads but I mean like it's that thing of okay what are these little hats I can do it at half at home in the office to help out I don't like the Alexa she oh shoot you she she will gotta pay Alexa baby she doesn't like ISR she's up to sleep with one eye open always you know I don't want one of those at my house honestly yeah how was freaking out my family over Christmas tone of my in like dirt there is already news articles that these things are orb taken the data of what you're saying to put into advertise hell yeah they are I mean if you think that if you think it doesn't listen until you say hey Lexa how did you hear you say hey Alexa it's listening before like what what yeah I'm here real talk pretend I'm truly been the we have back pain we even paid $50 for that it it's either that technology is either worth like a thousand to five straight up or it's like I did know Samsung phones the whole business model is so that Google can get all that data to try to target you yes that's what the phones are so cheap yeah all that technology so cheap yeah I heard I heard that on want to say Rogan's podcasts talking some someone with tech guys like this month but it was like oh yeah that makes perfect sense why would Samsung dominate the market for cell phones that's like the 660 6065% now between women Apple and like 00 they lowered the price in there to make it up in the backend and no one realizes yeah apples do the same thing but they they don't have the straight line date to Google you know apples they love the same infrastructure yet to capitalize on rule yeah right the immediate civilian way right today sent streamlined right into their own entity but anyways I don't have a wonder list referral sales then we give you I don't know all these hello anyway here's here's another little thing pretty much any app you use if you're given and now they usually have a refer a friend discount so if it's one of these monthly subscription you pay for apps I I had to train myself to do this but like all we oh for sales the business development if you want to like a good dashboard you should check out this Pipe Dr., Apple use it gives you visual kind of a marketing funnel that you know who's interested who you talk to you're trying to close on and I just like that visual and I got a hold on let me go get that referral code not send it out as it is being like yours that you know yeah and then you get a month off or whatever Lumley Weber will if we find one I'll put it in the notes a wonder list that's good for home I'd say because I rumor checking for business insight on the distal do what I needed to do yeah I mean it's it's a straightforward passage projects right yeah with before I forget with live scribe you can ping it to Evernote the idea was to take a bloop Bluetooth painter talk about correct thinking live scribe and then you and there's moleskin notebooks if you like those by the way the Bluetooth notebooks never thought about that the hardbound ones but I may have ever thought about if I like moleskin you don't pull some people like him I used to write all my jokes and those because they that they had the how many moles had to die a lot when cares man don't make don't make it what is it two don't make a molehill and no mountain mountain and moleskin sober song or draw an arrow to Evernote an elephant never forgets that's their logo so what you can do is it'll transfer your handwriting into text and you can make a punch list that can automatically go to is Indu which is our business test manager that we haven't been using this once I got offkilter at that it is hard to we can afford so they they do turn it it's you get ADD with apps is always one better well yeah if you never learn how to use more than 25% of then it's not really smart but then you can take that punchlist and you can also hit it over to our project management system which is right WRI K which also can communicate to all these can communicate slack because Slack isn't just for chatting that should be our communication hub notifications all that stuff you so now we have now rebuilding this kind of like coverage in case something messes up right see what I if I heard this I would think men adding four apps would be more efficient and it sounds like it's it's overwhelming itself is not efficient but if you spend a little bit of time and get it right then it's automated from there on out and your love what I write philosophically a look at this way right like we got to figure this out to get and I was talk that always tell us what clients were doing like operations permittivity stuff it's going to be a little bit harder before it gets easier right right so it's gonna suck right now what we should what you and I should be doing is creating a map over our whiteboard in figuring out this like efficiency I want to do it, right after we get off in a couple minutes so at least we just started the Sally called back later no doesn't the right it was amazing call back just start will just started her money word-of-mouth is that we can't be dispensing advice and disco funk it's theater of the mind law is a joke it do it anything else to be more productive in 2018 anything that's been on your mind yeah okay so the other app that I use a lot I used to wonder list for dislike my daily I got to do this today I have a today list do this this is right then I have an app called habit list and that one allows you to just put in something like stretching you put in stretching I want to do I want to stretch be very times a week yeah and then when you do it that they the little button and it's in there and it keeps track of whether or not you're you're keeping up with your habits so I use it for all kinds lifting weights running in all the stuff that it's like you can cut and get away from you to Billy was last time I did do that and then you might pray five times a day right things pop an awful time you know it's easy to get away from your habits and remembering what you what makes you feel good you know way if you can't quantify it really none I members I need to quantify I was thinking of anytime I sit here make me feel good that I think of a monstrous ball don't know you Halle Berry I remember telling Bob Thorton yeah maybe feel right yeah nailed it I hope that I hope that production meeting Ernest Billings brush notes in the tally very low what would what would you know that I don't know do it with a male voice like you don't know it's a like gritty draining yeah what habit list is good I I've tried that at one point again I need vocalize almost outside like externally and go okay I'll get it download this app only use it yet is almost like 19 knee was a 90% of apps or something that or downloaded open once never used again see the good thing about habilis I think it pay for things like two or three bucks even then should shoot in the sky man I was looking at all the subscriptions I had for here in home this week and was like on to here's a user one trim if you're that yeah it's not sample site but it is no it basically you know if you're comfortable with putting in if people like mint were you can kind aggregate all your transactions and it'll note, more or less over time as you check things off it's good for your taxes to it'll be like you're spending way too much in meals I and so that's a good kind – four for that trim will look up your cable bill in all your stuff so you got put in the your banking account I did from this place are checking in our credit card for here and it was little go oh you're paying too much for frontier yeah a little one we negotiate some better for you oh yeah and so dates for you so they make a little vague if they get that negotiation okay that's out that's how they make money and it does it all on its own how does it I don't know I haven't gotten to the point were were actually negotiating but that that's the big cell and apparently like you guys know the deal with all the cable or Internet providers you basically especially with cable TV you can basically talk a minute like given it to you for a dollar yeah if if use if you're tenacious enough and I guess this cuts, cuts that yes yours with I'm done with you and then the negotiations begin hey want one thing you should get from your Internet provider and that's on my punch list is better router because these things suck after like a year of use and they become outdated so you can call Bob Ingo hey I need to upgrade the router and the going anyone in the you be like well Wi-Fi is now a lot better yeah and they probably want that because they've got a deal with the router company Macon Chittenden Nate takers back recycle it yeah making money will the region have to ask is because you don't they don't want you to use more bandwidth than you have to probably so I would say the reverse I would say like because if you look at your upload download speed that states you pay for hundred and hundred whatever that deal is your upload speeds always a lot slower on Wi-Fi and most people on Wi-Fi free hardline that's the only way we get 100 hundred yeah so like so I don't think it behooves them to be able to move more data from here like net neutrality is, that the whole thing yeah but the new router might be more efficient on the island and they can listen to your calls bitter over where the hell yeah yeah that to thanks the dirty side of them probably want to stop greater routers yeah the mean there's there's this as it will never get the answer to that herself utilize 100 other stuff in coaxial cables that can listen you now you know that I didn't know the rest will have those yeah will you have to have the cable to get I guess at coaxial cable to get the Internet in your house a lot of time and then people either have like old ones left there from last person or but I don't know where that is in that I don't think it's around like very prevalent I just think it's a plague in South Korea where everything is technically and I terms and conditions man those things are to get something to happen with that because there's just too much sneaky ship that people are signing up for an advantage of everybody it's great that there needs to be a law enacted that says it can only be this long or whatever which I think they try to do a couple times and they work around it was too long with thrilling and that's about all politicians do they just go what is this you can you write you guys read this for me yeah you're right actually need law to make that will to make laws shorter and then once that's in than they do for some time as a country okay well look we had glory years here in the US this is a sad day for good we had a good run what's what's get some music going out Remer at tax time is coming up hit up hello freshman school fresh books.com/let like you sweat to get hooked up but you feel good and you want to say anything to the peeps have a happy new year people don't make a New Year's resolution just try to be good take a lifestyle every day wonder list habit list all that list we'll see Israeli

https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/12StepsEmailpreview.png ()12 Steps to Take Control of Your Email As small firm architects, we’re working so hard to get everything done. Between the many hours we dedicate to building our firms and the time spent fostering strong relationships, there isn’t time for much else. Each week offers us 168 hours, no more and no less. Half of those hours are reserved for sleeping, eating and hygiene. What we choose to do with the remaining 84 hours will determine whether we succeed or fail. How do you use your 84 hours a week? Mark recently looked at his own habits, and was shocked to realize he was spending more than two hours per day sorting, managing and responding to email messages. That’s time away from building his business and being with his family. This week on EntreArchitect Podcast, 12 Steps to Take Control of Your Email. 12 Steps to Take Control of Your Email 1. Turn off ALL notifications All the bells anId whistles that pop up? Turn them off. You don’t need them. Instead, schedule times in the day to check your email or social media. 2. Install spam filters More than 90% of Mark’s email is unwanted junk and solicitations. If you get 100 emails and 90 of them are garbage, help yourself get to the 10 emails that actually matter. 3. Unsubscribe from unread subscriptions If you don’t read it anymore, delete it. Is there a possibility to miss out on something? Sure, but if you’re not reading it anyway, you’re not missing out on anything. 4. Schedule time for dedicated email review Schedule specific times every day to review your email. Instead of using minute-by-minute notifications, you’ll be better disciplined. It’s hard to not pick up your phone and hit the email button, so reestablish new habits to find time to look at your email. 5. Do it, delegate it, defer it, delete it These are the four rules to processing any task list. If the email will take you less than 2 minutes, do it right then. If it can be forwarded and handled by someone else on your team, then delegate it. If it requires your attention and will take more than 2 minutes, move it to your task manager to be addressed during your scheduled email time. If it’s useless junk, delete it. 6. Keep email responses short Don’t waste your precious 84 hours composing long email messages. 7. Use the phone for dialogue Instead of going  back and forth over email, pick up the phone and have a conversation. This way, the issue will be resolved much faster, and you can get back to what’s most important. 8. Prepare formal letters for important documentation Formal reports and letters should be formal. Write and formalize letters for important information. 9. Don’t use email to coordinate your teams There are apps that are so much more efficient than email like http://asana.com (Asana), http://trello.com (Trello), or http://slack.com (Slack). They allow simple search function to find communication. 10. Use a reminder app Instead of using email to send yourself a task, find a reminder app. Mark uses http://wunderlist.com (Wunderlist) to manage his tasks. 11. Delegate your email management Let someone else manage your email. Imagine opening your email and finding five messages that really require your attention. By letting someone else go through steps 1-10, you’ll have so much time to do other things. 12. Don’t respond after hours or on weekends You’re not obligated to respond to your clients after business hours and on the weekends unless you choose that. Set expectation with your teams and clients, and you’ll live happier within those boundaries. What are your tips for taking control of your email?  Visit our Platform Sponsors Freshbooks is the easy way to send invoices, manage expenses, and track your time. Access your free 30 day trial at...

An interview with Taylor Otwell, creator of Laravel, about what he did before Laravel and what got him started. Views by Drake The Life of Pablo by Kanye West Free 6LACK by 6LACK 808s and heartbreak by Kanye West Blue Neighbourhood by Troye Sivan Laravel & Lawns Transcript (sponsored by Laravel News): Matt Stauffer : Welcome to the Laravel Podcast, episode 55, in which I talk to Laravel creator Taylor Otwell. We learn about his back story, where he came from, and what helped him—and made him—start Laravel in the first place. Stay tuned. Taylor, it's great to have you on season three of the Laravel podcast. Obviously you've been around since the very beginning, but we're doing a little switch up here, where I'm going to start doing interviews. So, I'm super excited to have you as the first person whose brain I get to pick here. So, I guess we can start with ... Say hi to the people. Taylor Otwell : Hey people. Hey party people. Matt Stauffer : Ha. Party people. What we're going to do here for today, and I told you this beforehand, but I feel like a lot of people have talked to you about Laravel, about development, about the latest version. Every time a new version comes out, 5.5 just came out, people want to talk about that. And maybe we'll cover that a little bit, but what I feel like we haven't talked about quite as much is, the man behind the scenes, kind of thing. I think there's a lot about you that people don't know, so I first started with the questions ... I've known you for years now. I feel like I know you really well and there's still certain things I don't know about your past, but then I also asked a few folks, "What are some things you really want to know about Taylor and how he works?" So, we're just going to off-the-cuff, just throw some of those questions at you and see where it goes. Sound good? Taylor Otwell : Sounds good. Matt Stauffer : Awesome. So, first of all, back to the early days, when did you first have a computer in your home? Taylor Otwell : I think I was about ten or eleven, I had a computer. 66-megahertz computer that our neighbor actually, I think had, had it built of us, because our neighbor was a computer programmer, across the street. And this was back in the early days of Windows. Matt Stauffer : Mm-hmm (affirmative). Taylor Otwell : I guess it was like Windows 3.1 or something like that. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. Taylor Otwell : He was an early Windows programmer. And my parents had, I think asked him to help them get a computer for us. And it had a little megahertz readout on the front of the screen ... or on the front of the tower I guess. And was like Windows 95. Matt Stauffer : I'm always interested to hear from people what role, kind of early access and interest in computers has for them. So you having that neighbor, was it your neighbor that sparked your interest or was it having that computer? What was it that really sparked your interest in computers when you first got into them? Taylor Otwell : You know, it's hard to say, I don't think it was necessarily the neighbor that sparked the interest. I'm not sure I even realized that my neighbor was a programmer until later. I think I was just always interested in sci-fi type stuff and geeky stuff. Of course, I always liked Star Wars. I liked The Jetsons cartoon when I was a kid and all the cool tech stuff they had, so I guess I was just always drawn to futuristic tech stuff, so it was natural to be into computers. My first dabbling in programming was just playing HTML, where I would make little websites about the games I liked, like Pokemon or whatever other games I was playing at the time. Just little tips and strategy site. I remember one of the first ones I ever made actually, which was on CompuServe. And our neighbor, that same neighbor helped me and his son put it on CompuServe, was a website about Civilization 2, and sort of our strategies for that game. Matt Stauffer : Yes. What's the oldest website that you still have access to? Do you know? Taylor Otwell : I don't have anything from my childhood unfortunately. I wish I did. I wish I had thought to take screenshots of them and stuff. But a lot of them ... Several of them were on GeoCities and other free sites like that. Matt Stauffer : I remember my GeoCities sites. The only thing that I remember is the first one that I ever built, I hosted on GeoCities and it had a single image in it because image tags were pretty new at that point. So it was basically like text about me and a giant picture with a page scroll on the corner of the picture because the page scroll was the hottest Photoshop effect or whatever. Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I always thought the counters were really cool too. That you could put on your stuff. Matt Stauffer : Oh, my God, yeah. I was listening to somebody's podcast recently, I don't know who it was and the guy who had originally created link exchange was on there. Did you ever do those? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I remember those. Those were big especially in the Pokemon website world. Matt Stauffer : Right? Yeah. We were all just waiting for one of those big sites to get a link over to us because of how the link exchange rule played. So it sounds like HTML is where you go started, do you ever do any, I don't know what the right term is like coding, coding, like a basic or anything like that early on, or was it not till later. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I wrote few basic things. I also got really into TI-83 calculator programs where I would write little strategy games. Back then, at least in like middle school and high school the popular thing was like that drug wars game. Matt Stauffer : I was just going to say drug wars, that was it. Taylor Otwell : I would write games like that, either with drugs or with other lemonade stand type games. And I learned how to do that basically like sitting in ninth grade English, I just kind of taught myself how to program the calculator. Those were really the first real programs I wrote, I feel like. Matt Stauffer : When was your first exposure to the Internet that you remember? Taylor Otwell : We had internet pretty early after I got my first computer. We had dial up Internet. Just like at 14 4 modem. That was my first exposure to the internet. I don't even remember what sites were really a thing back then. I remember mainly looking at video game sites and just like Yahoo, and stuff like that. Matt Stauffer : When you were thinking, then, about coding ... I think a lot of us we were just kind of figuring it out as we went. Did you think, "Man, this is what I want to do forever," or was it just a fun thing and you were still ... did you have a different plan for your life at that point? Taylor Otwell : I actually did not plan to do coding, even when I entered college, I was doing my degree in computer networking and stuff because I thought programming would be too mathematical and sort of boring. Matt Stauffer : Mm-hmm (affirmative). Taylor Otwell : But I didn't really have a good understanding of what real programming was like, on a professional level. I'm not sure if schools back then, even in college ... I'm not sure I really got a good picture of what actual, on-the-job programming is like. I always imagined it to be so theoretical and really hard, like calculus all the time and stuff like that. But it really, at least for the kind of programming we do on the web, it doesn't tend to be that way. I went through all of college not planning to even be a programmer. Matt Stauffer : Did you do well ... I hope you don't mind me asking ... did you do well in math in high school, did you take calculus and everything? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I was always like a B student in math. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Taylor Otwell : I was just okay. Matt Stauffer : Right. Taylor Otwell : I wasn't exceptional. Matt Stauffer : Not enough that the idea of programming being very "mathy" made you excited about it. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, exactly. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Did you ... like a different tact ... did you always consider yourself someone who's gonna do entrepreneurial stuff? At what point did you start thinking of yourself as, "I'm someone who's going to start a business"? Taylor Otwell : Only a few years after I'd gotten out of college and had a taste of the fact that anyone could take PHP and build an entire web application, which I didn't really realize, I guess, at the time that that was pretty possible for someone to do. Once I realized that, my brain just started churning with different ideas, and even if it wasn't something I could do full-time, but just something small to supplement my income or whatever. I was probably two or three years out of college before I really started thinking that way, though. Matt Stauffer : What was your first exposure to PHP that led you to having that experience? Taylor Otwell : My very first exposure was in college itself. We had a class project, it was a group project with two other people, and we had to build an inventory tracking system for a local charity. This was our final senior thing. We were all assigned real-world projects in the community, and so we happened to get this inventory tracking thing. One of the guys in the group was familiar with PHP, apparently, and said, "We can use PHP for this, because it's pretty easy," and I didn't really know any better, so I was like, "Sure, sounds good." That's when I really got my first exposure to PHP, even though I, on that project, mainly did talking with the customer, and finding out how they needed it to work, and stuff like that. Later, a couple of years down the road, when I started having ideas for side projects and stuff, I had remembered that he had chosen PHP back a couple of years ago in that class project. It was supposed to be easy or whatever, and I knew that we were able to lush the projects, so it wasn't too hard, apparently. Matt Stauffer : Were you ... Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so that's when I revisited PHP, because I hadn't actually used it very much in college. My partner had chosen it as our programming language for that project. Matt Stauffer : In college, when he chose that, were you doing .NET at that point, or did you get into it out of college? Taylor Otwell : No, I only did .NET once I got hired at my first actual programming job. The only programming courses I took in college were two semesters of C++, and that was it, actually I had those two semesters of programming, again, because I was in a networking degree, so I didn't have a lot of programming classes, like a pure computer science major might have. Matt Stauffer : Right. I think I remember you told me that the .NET thing was an intentional, learning-the-job-type situation? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. Matt Stauffer : What was that experience like? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so, the place that hired me right out of college, they came to my university, which was Arkansas Tech. They were just interviewing students, and since they were there, I just decided to do an interview, even though I hadn't planned on being a programmer. I did the interview, and got the job, and the immediately put you in this six-month training program, where basically, for the first six months of the job, you spend most of your time in class, especially for the first three months, and then for the remaining three months, it's like 50-50 in class, and doing little projects and stuff. They actually taught me basically all of classic ASP, COBOL, JCL, which are two old things, and some beginnings of .NET, but not a ton of it. I did a lot of COBOL and classic ASP, and then eventually got put on a .NET project at work. I just picked that up from the existing code that was already written on the project, because I wasn't writing it from scratch at first. I just taught myself .NET as I got in there, because I already had been programming for a couple of years, so picking up another language was not too difficult, since they actually wrote in VB.NET, and all of their classic ASP was in VB, so ... Matt Stauffer : Right. The syntax was really similar. Taylor Otwell : Wasn't too bad. Matt Stauffer : That actually ... I wanted to ask about .NET and VC, but stepping back for a second, when you guys were writing PHP in school, was this classic PHP, was this ... I'm assuming it was 5-3, based on what I've talked to you about before, right? Was there any framework or anything? Taylor Otwell : No, there was no framework on that project that I remember. It was just classic ... from what I remember, because I actually had to put it all in a thumb drive and install it at this charity, it was just a bunch of random PHP files. There was no real structure to it. Matt Stauffer : Index.php, about.php ... Taylor Otwell : All the ... I remember looking at the HTML and all the PHP being mixed in. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. You got your SQL queries up top, and then the end bracket, and then, all of a sudden, your HTML. Taylor Otwell : Yeah. But then, when I came back to PHP later, it was on PHP 5.3. But again, I started with plain PHP for a few weeks, and then quickly realized that I needed some structure, and that's when I used CodeIgniter for a little bit. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Now, when you were doing .NET, was it .MVC at that point, or was it some predecessor? Taylor Otwell : I've done both. I've done .NET webforms, which were a predecessor to .MVC, and later, I did .MVC, the early versions. Matt Stauffer : I have experience with webforms, and I've never got my brain around the way it works, because if I remember right, it's basically ... rather than a route or a controller, or anything, it's really basically a form that handles its own validation, that handles its own everything. Everything is centered around this form, and then that form, and then that form. It's just a very different mental model, in my ... I know that's not a great description, but am I right in remembering that that's the difference between that versus .MVC? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I think what they did, is they took WinForms, which is what we used to write desktop apps. On WinForms, how it works, if you want to do some action on a button-click, when they click on a button on your desktop app, you're literally in, the designer can click the button, and it takes you to the spot in the code that's like a click-event handler, and you write all of your code. I think on webforms, they tried to have ... basically, their thought process was, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could make the same model for the web, so that all these WinForms programmers can write these dynamic web applications, so you have the same thing, where you have button-click handlers in your .NET code that correspond to things on your front end." Somehow, they routed that using ... I don't know if it was query strings, or what they were actually passing in the form, but somehow, they were able to route that to the right piece of code when you clicked a button on your web front end. It felt like building a WinForms app, and was really different than any other web technology I've ever used since. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. The reason I was asking is, my brother has done .MVC for ages, and he helped me understand .MVC when I first got into CodeIgniter, but I remember having written webforms before that, and it's such a complete ... it felt a little bit like writing a classic ASP, especially if you're using VB, but then it felt a little bit like some kind of super-powered jQuery, basically. It's not like a mentality that I'm used to seeing anywhere else. Before you got back into CodeIgniter, you had had some experience with .MVC, then. Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I had .MVC, and that's why I even knew the frameworks as a concept to look for, basically. Matt Stauffer : So, you got a job out of school. It almost seems like it was a sponsored boot camp, basically, for the first six months. Is that a good way to think about it? There are getting used to real-world stuff, but you're actually sitting in classes sponsored by the company? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, a little bit. It was all on site, and all the instructors were full-time employees that actually were in other departments, actually. They would just pull them into these training classes when they needed them. But it was a really unique place. They only hired new graduates, and everyone goes through the same training program. It's like they just want people fresh, and wanted to sort of train them in their way of doing things, rather than bring in existing programmers that are already, I guess, ingrained with other ways. Matt Stauffer : Right. That you have to un-train, basically. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, it was one of the of the ... I guess, the only places I've worked that only hired new graduates. Matt Stauffer : Interesting. So, you're doing that, you're working at .MVC, and you have this idea that you want to do some side projects, and you mention that seeing your partner in that class project using PHP gave you a little of the idea that you could do something on your own. Can you tell me a little bit more about what the mentality was, and what the thought process was, that led for you to have a good, paying job doing .MVC, that you could do that for quite a while, and saying, "You know what? I want to do something on the side." What was the itch there? Taylor Otwell : I think part of it was having freedom to move wherever I wanted to if it did take off. Then, I could work from home, and we could move back closer to family, because at the time, I was living three or four hours away from the main bulk of my family, which lives in one town. It was just gonna be more freedom is what I remember to live wherever we wanted to. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. You wanted that freedom, you wanted to be able to be self-employed. If it's anything like it was for me, and then you can tell me if I'm wrong, that there wasn't quite as significant of a culture around being an entrepreneur. It feels like there is, today ... there wasn't all these conferences about being a sole entrepreneur. I guess hearing Ian and Andre talk about it, they're definitely ... what's that form they're always talking about? Business and Software? Taylor Otwell : Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Stauffer : But I don't know about you ... have you ever heard of any of those folks who are really big about doing your little business, or is it just something where you said, "Well, I want to do this, and I'll figure it out as I go." Taylor Otwell : No, I didn't know anyone else doing anything like that. I didn't even go to any websites that talked about that or anything. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, same here. I'm interested ... let's see if anything will come up during this chat ... whether the lack of those resources help to hurt us in various ways. You knew PHP was an option. You knew that you could ship with PHP. You at least had the ability to compare it against some other web-based programming things, and it seemed like PHP was more viable for getting something launched, working solo, and so you dug into PHP, you did a little bit of old-school procedural PHP, quickly realized you wanted to do CodeIgniter. What was the first project, do you remember, that you built with CodeIgniter? Taylor Otwell : One of the first projects I built was this really niche thing. I had known someone that owned a book bindery, they rebind old books, and I was going to build a little system for them to take orders and keep track of orders of books they were rebinding. It was a very specific product for this company. I think they were based in Tulsa or something at the time, pretty close to where I was living, really. Matt Stauffer : You built an app custom for them, you built it in CodeIgniter ... what was hosting like? What was the front end like? Do you remember any of the other technical details of what that was like? Taylor Otwell : I think I used DreamHost at the time, so it was just a shared host, because I didn't really know how to configure my own VPS until years later, basically. Yeah, I know I was on DreamHost, and would FTP the files using FileZilla, because I was on Windows at the time, and actually, I didn't even have a Mac until I started working for UserScape after Laravel had been built. All of Laravel, the first version, was built on a cheap Windows laptop. I would just FTP all the files up. When I first started, I was using Notepad++. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, man, I love Notepad++. A lot of good work done with Notepad++ and FileZilla. You were doing that, and at some point, you felt like ... well, actually, I was gonna say, at some point, you felt like CodeIgniter wasn't giving you what you wanted, but actually, the reason you and I first interacted was because I was a CodeIgniter developer who had started learning about IOC and DI, and stuff like that, and I said, "What I wanted was an IOC container for CodeIgniter," and this guy Taylor, this young guy, had written an IOC container for CodeIgniter, and I couldn't find the code anywhere." I ended up DMing you or something, and you ended up saying, "You know what I just pulled ... I got rid of it, I pulled it in Laravel, you should check out Laravel." That was basically how I first my Laravel. I followed Jeffrey at Nettuts for a while, and he'd been talking about Laravel for a bit, so that was what finally switched me over. It sounds like before you went off on your own to do your own thing, you were trying to work in the CodeIgniter ecosystem to improve it. What was that like? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so at first, I had no intentions of splitting off and writing a framework. But you're right, one of the first projects I wrote was CI injector, CInject or something like that. I was actually pretty proud of that. It was actually the first reflection-based IOC container in PHP at all that I'm aware of. There was one other IOC container that was also written in 2010, a few months later. That was one of the main pieces of .NET/.MVC that I really like was the auto-resolving container. Laravel's container still works, basically, like that first CodeIgniter container did. The other thing I was really interested in was the better ORM for CodeIgniter, and I wanted to get those two things in ... oh, there was a third thing. I wanted better templating, like Blade, where you have an @extends at the top, and then you define these sections that override the parent template section, stuff like that. Template inheritance. I remember the final straw, that I couldn't really continue with CodeIgniter anymore, is I wanted auto-resolving dependency injection in my CodeIgniter controllers. To make that work, you really had to start editing the core files in a way that was not in a nice, packageable, shippable way, where other people could do it. Then I hit this crossroads, where I considered just forking CodeIgniter, and making this "special edition" of just sort of souped-up CodeIgniter on steroids, and giving it another name. Or just starting fresh. I think I just started fresh to just experiment at first, and then got so far along, I just kept going. I know I rewrote the first version of Laravel, probably a solid five or six times until I was happy with it. Matt Stauffer : What was the first thing you wrote in Laravel? Taylor Otwell : I remember writing the routing engine first. Probably the routing and the views. I think ... I don't remember exactly what I was doing for the database at the time. There was an active record of implementation called PHP ActiveRecord, that even at that time had become abandonware. That was back in 2010. Then, there was another couple of libraries. One was called Idiorm ... it was I-D-I-O-R-M, and then it had a corresponding ORM called "Paris". I think the Idiorm thing was the query builder, Paris was the ORM. Actually, Eloquent was very inspired by Paris, because it had the sort of model where a relationship is just a function of the model that returns a query builder. Eloquent, of course, still works like that to this day, so Paris deserves quite a bit of credit for coming up with that model. I don't think the person who wrote Paris even programs PHP anymore, last time I looked, but I'm not sure they're aware that Eloquent was so inspired by that. Matt Stauffer : That's really cool. I remember the moment where I realized I had to leave CodeIgniter was when I recognized that some of its inherent restrictions were forcing me into writing worse code. For example, some of the ugliest stuff in my old CodeIgniter apps were because I had ... database models, they called it, which was really like it was a model and repository and three other things, but you cram it all into one, and so you have methods that are everything you could just possibly imagine that would touch the database in any way, would all get crammed into a single class. If you're lucky, you've figured out enough to at least differentiate those classes by table. But that wasn't even always the case. Like you said, without view inheritance, you end up loading views and data in every controller and passing them around to each other, and you've got a single variable that you're passing through your controller method that tracks the data that's eventually going to get past the view. There's just a lot of things, because of the constraints of CodeIgniter, you just wrote worse code. When you started doing Laravel, you wanted to be able to do dependency injection and all these things. How much of your mindset was, "I'm gonna write things that are gonna make people write better code," and how much of it was, "I want to do these things, and I can't do these things." Was it a purity concept? Was it an ease-of-use concept, or were those things all tied together? Taylor Otwell : At first, I feel like it was a lot of ease-of-use, but also, there was some purity mixed in as well, because of the whole dependency injection thing, which I considered a more pure approach to doing some things back then, and of course still is a more pure approach a lot of times now. I feel like ... but also, ease of use was huge, too, because I wanted it to be very Apple-esque, where it was just really nice to use out of the box, and you didn't have to do all these hacks and customizations to get it really nice that I had to do with CodeIgniter. I wanted it to be like when you unwrap Laravel, it was this nice package that you could use, it was all cohesive and coherent. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. I want to talk a little bit further on that for a little bit. One of the things that you've talked about since the early days is that you recognize that the documentation in the community just make a really big impact on people's experience, working with the framework of a library. You've reference the fact that CodeIgniter was so successful, in large part because it had great documentation. For starters, what do you think it is that prepared you to be in a place where you could recognize that? Is it because you hadn't trained to be a programmer, or are there other experiences in your life that made you more sensitive to those types of, or do you even have a sense for what that is? Taylor Otwell : I don't know. I feel like it was just a low tolerance for pain in terms of programming, because programming wasn't a hobby for me, even really back then. I didn't come home and program, I did other stuff. To have a painful experience programming wasn't that great for me, because it wasn't something I was particularly obsessed about, and so if I was gonna do it at all, I wanted it to be really enjoyable, and easy to do, and fun. I just had a really low threshold for any pain points in the tools I was using, I think. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. It's like we always joke about the fact that a lazy programmer is a good programmer because they're gonna do the one that doesn't waste time or whatever else it ends up being, so I hear that. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, and even when I was at my .NET job, I had already discovered that I really enjoyed writing tools that helped programmers be more productive, because I remember one of the things I did there in my free time, when I had a few extra minutes, was I wrote this little program called WeDev in .NET that was like ... the closest thing I can think of, it would be a lot worse version of Slack, but it had a file dropbox where we could drop files to each other, and it had a little status indicator of what you were doing then, so it was like our own little instant messenger with a file share thing. But I really loved that project, so that was my first taste of, "Hey, I really enjoyed making developers' lives easier." I think that was part of what drew me into Laravel, was it became this fun project to see how productive I could make a programming environment. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, I like that. One of the things that really struck me when I first started going to Laravel conferences was how many people told stories about the ways that Laravel had changed their lives. That was something I wasn't used to. I think people ... there's some jokes around that the terms of "artisan" and some of the other terms we use in the Laravel world, but it's reflective of a really different approach for what the priorities and values are coming from Laravel. What's the goal? That's the question I was asking about purity versus ease of use, it seems like developer happiness is really a very significant ... like productivity and happiness are really significant goals that you have there. When you were building Laravel, you started out, you wanted to scratch your own itch. You wanted to make something that was good for you and it made you be able to do things a certain way, but you were relatively public about it. You started showing people. At what point did you start to realize this is something people are responding to? This is something that might really be a big player in the post-CodeIgniter framework world. Taylor Otwell : I think when I was pretty far along and had, basically, a finished product, only then did I really decide that I would go all the way and document it. I knew that the documentation would be huge, because I felt like that was why CodeIgniter was even popular to begin with, because there was Kohana, which was another, CodeIgniteresque-type framework that had some advantages, and had some better features, but the documentation was so much worse that it just never really had the same steam that CodeIgniter had. I had picked up on that pretty early that if I wanted Laravel to be popular, I would have to write really good documentation. I tried to write, basically, CodeIgniter-level documentation from the very first 1.0 release, because I've seen a lot of people put stuff out there, and then looks like, "Documentation coming soon," or "Documentation in progress," and it's never gonna get the same reception as if it's a finished product. I thought I had a pretty productive little thing, and decided, "Hey, I'll go ahead and document it and put it out there, and see what the response is." My mentality at the time was, "Even if nobody else ever uses this, then that's fine with me, because I at least have something enjoyable to use when I write PHP." Matt Stauffer : Are there any people or moments or inflection points or whatever where you point to a thing and said, "If that thing hadn't happened, or that moment hadn't happened, it would have been a completely different story"? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so there's a couple of moments. A big moment was, there was a point where a few PHP programmers were teaming up to make this PHP framework called "Fuel", and it was a few CodeIgniter people like Phil Sturgeon, and Dan Horrigan, and one other guy, I think, one or two other guys. I think they were trying to build the successor to CodeIgniter that was moving faster and had features that people wanted, and stuff like that. They had some pretty decent marketing pages for it, and stuff like that. I remember I had some ideas ... I was actually excited about Fuel, and had some ideas that I wanted to put into Fuel. I can't remember what they exactly were at the time. I think one of them might have been some type of route filter-type thing that ended up being in Laravel, or something like that. I had messaged one of them and said, "Hey, I'd really like to help out on Fuel. This is the feature I want to add, or whatever." They weren't super-interested in the feature, which is fine. It's not a knock on them, they just weren't interested in it. I was like, "Okay, I guess I'll keep working on Laravel," but if they would have bit on that, and been interested in me helping with Fuel a little bit and some of these things, then of course, I think things could have been really different, because I would have jumped into Fuel and started adding stuff there, and probably would have just started using it, and become invested in it. That's one moment. Probably the biggest moment I can think of where things could have taken a really different direction because that feature wasn't really a fit for them, that I just kept working on Laravel. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. Well, I, for one, am grateful to whoever it was that rejected that feature. I think ... it's not to say that something else wouldn't have come along, but I think your life would have looked a little bit different after that point, so I think it's a good time to ask a couple questions about what's your life like today. When you were working full-time ... I assume it's at least a 40-hour work week .NET job, and you were writing Laravel on the side ... do you have a sense for what your hours a week were looking like between day job and Laravel work? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I seemed to have a lot of energy back then. I worked eight to five, and then I came home. James, our first child, was pretty young at the time, just basically a baby, when I'd first started working on it. I would hang out with the family from five to nine. We were just in a little two-bedroom apartment, it was 900 square feet. We were all in there together, pretty close. Abigail would go to bed around nine or 9:30, and I would actually stay up until one or 1:30, a lot of the time. Going to bed at midnight, for me, was like, "I'm going to feel great tomorrow, I went to bed at midnight." I would stay up until midnight, one, sometimes two, the majority of nights, really, and work on Laravel. I was putting in, let's see, probably three to four hours of Laravel work every night, and somehow felt pretty good, actually. I can't really seem to do that anymore. I don't know what changed, but ... Matt Stauffer : Yeah. When my wife was pregnant, she would go to bed at 9:00 every night. I was not happy with my day job situation, and that's when I wrote my first softwares and service. I was working 90, 100-hour work weeks between my normal job and that. It's the same thing. There's no way I could do that right now. But I'm glad I did it then, back when I had that energy. Taylor Otwell : Even when I wrote Forge, I was still working at UserScape, and would stay up until midnight or one routinely, because that took six months for me to build just in my free time. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. At some point, you had Laravel to a point ... I don't want to go too deep in this story, because it's been told before, so I want to cover things I haven't, but you got to a point where Laravel was good enough that it attracted Ian's attention. He was looking to do a reboot of UserScape, which was handled PHP from scratch, and he pick Laravel, and he hired you, and said, "Hey, you build this thing out, and you can make Laravel better, so it can support our needs." You would add a lot of features that UserScape needed, and that helped Laravel grow up in a lot of ways. You told that story. I think the interesting aspect that hasn't been covered before, is what the shift from being UserScape plus Laravel to solo Laravel look like. What were some of the things that you were thinking about when you were starting to make that decision ... when you were starting to consider going out on your own, what was scary, what was exciting, what considerations did you have before you decided to go solo? Taylor Otwell : Some of the scary parts were just not knowing how much longevity Laravel, as the ecosystem, would have, because ... Forge was out, and was doing well, and I was actually making more on Forge than I was making at UserScape pretty quickly. But Laravel was still relatively new. It was only three years old when Forge came out, so there was questions. What if everyone stops using Laravel? What if a better framework comes out in six months and everyone's like, "Screw Laravel, screw Forge, I'm using whatever." That was one of the main fears. The exciting part was that I would just have so much time to work on Laravel. At the time, it was just unfathomable if you know how much time that would be, because 40 hours a week on Laravel. If I'm working just two or three hours of my free time at night, it's two weeks worth of free time. I could try stuff faster, I could experiment faster. That was the most exciting part for me. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, that's cool. I remember talking to you during that time where, to me, it seemed obvious because I have a similar story where I did DreamHost, but I was running a softwares and service from 2010, 2011. I needed a VPS, and I tried managing my own Linode VPSes, and it was just awful. I wasn't trained in that stuff. I ended up paying for these super-constrained hosts that didn't let you do what CodeIgniter and Laravel needed, because nothing like Forge was out there, and I just couldn't afford from my SaaS to pay a DevOps person to handle it. When Forge came along ... I don't want to be bombastic, but it really revolutionized individual developers' and small teams' ability to run fully-robust VPSes without having full-time DevOps people. For me, as someone from the outside, first of all, I said, "Please let us pay you more money," but second of all, I knew that was really gonna sustain. But I know that there were times where it was a little bit scary. Within your realm of comfort ... I don't want you to have to say your deepest, darkest secrets, but what does make you nervous today? Are you worried about some other framework? Are you worried about PHP no longer being viable? Are you just feeling pretty good? What does ... in the life that you have, where Laravel is very popular, very stable, what's on your horizon? Taylor Otwell : Nothing makes me too nervous anymore, because even if Laravel started dying today, and died a slow death over the next few years, I would have secured my future at this point, in terms of "I'm gonna be able to retire with my family, the kids' college is paid for, and I don't have to worry about those things anymore." I would just be like, "Okay, great, thanks for the memories," and I would apply to work at Tighten, I guess. Matt Stauffer : I know, I love it, yes, I'm sold. Taylor Otwell : I would have to just go back to being a regular guy programmer, working on projects and stuff, but I don't know. It doesn't make me too nervous, because I always try to have this mentality that Laravel, obviously, will not be a thing anymore, that either because PHP's not a thing anymore or there's some other framework that's better or whatever. I don't know how long that will be, but I don't really get too nervous about it, because I feel happy with what I created, the memories I made, what I did for my family for decades to come, basically. If it all ended tomorrow, I would be fine. It would be a fun ride. Matt Stauffer : I love it, and that's really good. I think that makes me so happy I want to touch two other things, and then we might just cut it short. The two other things are in that same direction, about what makes you happy and what gives you peace outside of programming. I think the first question is, do you have any daily practices or any mantras, or any things that you do to center yourself, and just help you handle life when it's stressful or not? Just things to keep you steady, I guess. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I try to meditate some. I can't say I do it every day, but every other day at least, let's say, I try to meditate. For me, that's a spiritual thing, but for other people, it might not be. It might be more just a "focus your thoughts" kind of thing. Also, just try to keep life and perspective during that meditation, I guess. Try to think some of those things ... same thoughts where I don't want to hold too tightly on the success of Laravel, or being a popular programmer is core to my identity, because I think that's setting yourself up for a lot of pain in the future, because all things pass away eventually. It's just a time to focus my thoughts. Also, I just think about my family, stuff like that. More important stuff than programming. But I find it just de-stresses me a bit, helps me focus on what's important, and it's refreshing. But now I try to make time to do it. I feel like as soon as we get up in the morning, now with two kids, it's sort of rushing around everywhere getting ready for school and stuff like that. But yeah, that's what I do. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. You got to be intentional about those things. You've talked about productivity systems and how much you love Wunderlist and stuff. How structured do you keep your life? Do you have, "This is the hour when I do that"? I remember you've talked about starting with pull requests and issues. Do you still have some of those same structures, or is it different with Mohamed around? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I still have some structures. It's not structured to the point that every hour of the day is structured. I'm more focused in day increments moreso than hour increments in Todoist, which is what I moved to after Wunderlist, which I'm really enjoying, actually. I have this bullet journal approach, where I only really sit in the "Today" column of Todoist, and I have, usually, five or six things that I want to do that day, and I have them in Todoist, and then I have projects that I treat just as grab-bags, the things I want to do at some point. Some of my projects in Todoist are actual projects that I'm working on, like Laravel Horizon was, where I have all the things I want to do. But some of them are just movies I want to watch, or music I want to listen to, or something like that. I do keep my day fairly structured, where I start my day with port request and emails, but then after that, it's not so structured. I just work through my to-do list for that day as I ... just whatever I feel like doing next. But it's still structured at a daily level. Matt Stauffer : Right. In regards to the music that you're gonna listen to ... I'm not gonna ask you to tell me the best rap album of all time, because we could do a whole podcast on that, but do you have one that, even if it's not your favorite today, has been the longest-running favorite, or the most significant impact, just the one that you played out like no other album or something. Taylor Otwell : I feel like I go in phases, and it's funny because each Laravel release, I feel like, has had an album that I feel like I really played a lot for that release. I know on one of the releases, I played the Views album that Drake put out quite a bit. One of the releases was "The Life of Pablo" from Kanye West. But I think one of the albums recently that I really played a lot was ... I think you pronounce his name "Black" even though it's spelled with a six on the front, so "6lack" is what it looks like. He's a rapper/singer hybrid, I guess you could say, almost more singer than rapper, but I played that album a lot when it first came out, and still play it quite a bit. Matt Stauffer : All right. Did you like 808s and Heartbreak? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I really like that album. Matt Stauffer : I played that out like no album for quite a while. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, looking through my music ... okay, another album I played a lot was "Blue Neighbourhood", by Troye Sivan, who's not a rapper at all, he's a singer. But that's another album I just really wore out over the past couple of years Matt Stauffer : I've literally never heard of it. Taylor Otwell : Okay, you should check that out. Matt Stauffer : I definitely will. That's awesome. I'll put all of this in the show notes. Okay, let's see, so I'm sure rap is one of these, but what outside program inspires you? Whether it's inspiring you to do good things with programming, because you hear something that gives you a thing, or just inspires you in terms of your life and your family and your entrepreneurial-ness or whatever else. What inspires you? Taylor Otwell : Any time I travel, I feel like I get inspired. Any time I see some cool part of the world, or some really beautiful piece of scenery while I'm traveling or something, somehow that just inspires me to create cool stuff in general. For me, that usually translates into trying to think of cool Laravel ideas, so travel is a big inspiration for me. Let's see, what else ... you know music is a big inspiration. I don't know. Those are the two things that jump out at me. Matt Stauffer : That's good. I didn't prepare you for this one, so sorry, but my friend DeRay and his podcast always asks every guest for one piece of advice that they've received that's really influenced them across their life ... is there any one piece of advice that really stands out, that has big impact on you, that you've gotten from somebody else? Taylor Otwell : One thing that comes to mind that wasn't really a piece of advice, but just more like learning, is probably from my grandfather, who just did jobs really well. Anything he worked on, he just made sure it was done really right, in a way he could be proud of. I don't know, I guess it goes back to an old-fashioned work ethic that he must have been raised with, but I think that was really inspiring, and I actually blogged about this once, but when I worked with him, actually when I was in college, we took care of all the lawns at our local church. It was just a lot, because they had soccer fields, and just big lawns and stuff, and even with that, he put a lot of attention to detail into that. It inspired a lot of my own attention to detail and going forward. It wasn't a spoken piece of advice, it was more of just a thing you had to observe, but was pretty impactful. Matt Stauffer : I remember that post. I'll link it. Well, I could ask you questions for another hour, but I'm gonna try and keep this one to the hour range, so I think that is pretty good for my questions for today. Is there anything else, especially along this line of questions, but just in general, that you feel like you want to talk about today? Taylor Otwell : I can't think of anything. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Taylor, this was ridiculously fun. Part of the reason that I'm having you is that the first episode of the Laravel Podcast, Season Three, is because everybody wants to know about you and you have a lot to say, but also I just want to say, officially, from me, and from Dan, and from the rest of the crew at Tighten, and the rest of the Laravel crew, thank you for what you've done for our community, because when I talk about Tighten, I say, "You know what? We're creating a company that we want to take care of people. We want to create good jobs for people and stuff like that." You're doing the same thing with Laravel. Yeah, you make money off of it, and you have the ability for yourself to create certain kinds of codes and stuff like that. But your attention to providing good things for people is evident throughout this interview, and just throughout everything about what you've done for Laravel. From all of us, thank you very much. Taylor Otwell : All right. You're welcome. Matt Stauffer : Awesome, man. Thank you so much for speaking with me today, and that's it for today. Taylor Otwell : All right, see you. See you.

In this episode, the crew talks about enterprise applications, scalability, and productivity. Transcription provided by https://twitter.com/wtoalabi Episode 53: Bigger & Better Music.... Intro: Alright welcome back to another episode of the Laravel Podcast, I am one of your hosts, Matt Stauffer, I have got two guys joining me...Can you introduce yourselves? JEFFREY WAY: I am Jeffery Way! TAYLOR OTWELL: And I am Taylor Otwell. MATT STAUFFER: It's been a little while but we are back with a little bit more to share and if you haven't gotten a chance to check out the Laravel New...News Podcast...all *laugh...*Check out the Laravel new Podcast where... Interjections MATT STAUFFER: Checkout the Laravel New..News Podcast...oh my gosh! Everytime now! News Podcast, where Jacob Bennett and Michael Dyrynda, basically being Australian and ' Illinoisian'  tell you all the greatest and latest news that is going on with Laravel, so, because they are covering that so well, we are going off the beaten track a little bit talking about a few kinda broader topics, so, what we did was, we put out some requests on the Twitter account and said "Hey folks, what do you want us to talk about?" And we picked a couple interesting ones and we just want to...just like the reader grab bag or... whatever you call it on your podcast Jeffery, so, the first one at the top of the queue is...something we hear about all the time, not just in this particular request, which is "Can Laravel be used for big apps?" And sometimes this comes in the same conversation of well you know if you want to do enterprise you should use this framework or if you just want to do a cute little thing, then use Laravel. You know, there are all this like statements and perceptions that people have and make about this, so before we go anywhere else, I would ask like, what is and do we know, what is the definition of an enterprise app, like if someone, and then again we are trying to give as much grace as possible to the person who actually thinks there is a distinction...what makes an enterprise app? Is it about lines of code? Is it about patents? Is it about security? Is it about traffic? Like what makes something a big app? And or an enterprise app? Do you guys have a sense for that? JEFFREY WAY: I really don't. So I basically have the same question. From afar, I will just say an enterprise app is something I imagine that is really really big...I don't know, it is an interesting distinction that people always make. I mean for as long as I can remember, even back in the Codeigniter days, you had this idea that Codeigniter is for these sorts of hobby projects but then if you are on the enterprise level, you are gonna reach for Zend or you are gonna reach for Symphony. And I feel like even after all those years, I can't quite figure out, what specific features or functionality do they have, that make them suitable  for enterprise or what would Codeigniter  not have or what does Laravel not have...hmm... is it related to the fact that Zend has a big company behind it? And whereas with Laravel, you know, like everyone is just gonna keep creating threads about ...what happens when Taylor dies? Is that the kind of idea? Like this is open source...it's kind of rickety...you are not sure what the state of it is, you are not sure if it's going to be abandoned? And with Zend, maybe if you have a big company behind it..maybe you can depend upon it more? Maybe? I don't know, I have the same question as everyone else. TAYLOR OTWELL Yeah, I think most people mean lots of classes I guess. You know, lots of code, lots of lines of code and I think the answers is, you know, obviously I am going to say yes it can be used for big apps, one because it has been used for big apps in the past, so we already know it's true basically. But then also, I think that, you know, Laravel is good for any app that PHP is good for, so, Laravel gives you a good routing system and a way to route request as classes and sort of beyond that is really up to you, you know, once you are past the controller, you basically have total freedom to do whatever you want to do, so, it's up to you in terms of if your app is going to be scalable in terms of complexity. And also I think Laravel is kind of uniquely qualified and better at making big apps than other PHP offerings right now, for a few reasons. One because when people start talking about big apps, a lot of time there is dependency complexity and Laravel Dependency Injection Container  is really good and it's really thoroughly baked in throughout the entire framework. When you talk about complicated apps, a lot of time you are also talking about needs like background job processing and Laravel has basically the only baked in queue system out of any major framework in PHP...hmmm...and then of course there is event broadcasting and other features that I would say are more kind of on the big app side of things, so, not only is it...can it be used for big apps, I think it's uniquely better for big apps than other alternatives out there in PHP right now  for those reasons. And I think it's just a little misleading because it is easy to get started with, and has a very simple starting point. And since that has a single route file you can kind of jump into it and start hacking around on, but it also scales up, you know with your needs and with your team's needs in terms of complexity...so yeah, that's kind of my take on it. Everyone kind of thinks that their app is a special snowflake you know, that has this, very unique requirements that have never been required in the history of web apps, but, the vast majority of applications don't have unique requirements and they don't really have unique needs and you know Laravel and many other frameworks really are going to be a good fit for them but I think Laravel is the best option in PHP right now for a big sophisticated application. JEFFREY WAY: And it is funny because, for whatever reason everyone thinks their project is going to be the one that really put Laravel to the test in terms of how many page views it can render in a single second...all that stuff like...if you need to worry about that, you are at such high level and you will know if you need to worry about that or not, but 90, I would say 99% of projects will never even get close to that point. So, it's almost like, to be frank, it's almost like a sense of vanity that you think the project you are working on right now is something that really needs to worry about that, because you probably are not even close. TAYLOR OTWELL Yeah, and we are assuming, developers don't approach projects in a rational way, even though we think they might. Like people don't choose frameworks in a rational way, they don't choose anything really laughs related to tech in rational way, a lot of time, as surprising as that is. There's a lot of things that go into it and some of it are sort of personality things, maybe they don't like a way that a certain framework is marketed or not marketed. You know some people are very turned off by active marketing around open source, so, maybe they don't like the style of Laravel sort of friendly, hey look at easy this is easy kind of marketing and they are turned off by that, and so they choose something that is more toned down, more sort of suite and tie like Zend because that fit's their personality better. It's not really a technical decision, it's more of just personality or subjective decision. And that happens a lot with tech in general, you know, some people don't use anything that is popular in general, just the kind of classic hipster type thing. I think a lot goes into it and rarely is it purely technical. Sometimes it is... they don't like me! You know, they don't like me personally. And so they don't like Laravel or use Laravel. JEFFREY WAY: I like you Taylor. Everyone laughs JEFFREY WAY: Right before we started recording, I guess RailsConf is going on and I was watching DHH give his presentation live...and he was kind of talking about this to some extent...the idea that it is important even for a tool like Rails or Laravel to have like their own culture and their own sense of values. And he was talking about how like a lot of people take this idea that you just learn all the different languages and then... you do...you are a programmer. So, if you need to work in this local language, you do it and you just apply everything over. And he was talking about how like while that is true, what is wrong with being part of the community that has a very specific culture, very specific views...he talked about like the  people that are still using Rails are doing it, maybe not just because it's better, but because they agree with the values that Rails represents. That is like the huge reason why people still use it to this day. And I think, that is very much true for Laravel as well. It is kind of interesting way to think about things. It's all personality, it's about what your values are. What you connect with and what you don't connect with. TAYLOR OTWELL Yeah...when I first started Laravel, that was a big part of how I wanted, how I thought Laravel could be successful, because I knew that in my own life, like there is sort of this ongoing desire to sort of connect with a group of people. Some sort of community or whatever around shared values. And you know that can be found like around many different things like music, or sport or religion, or whatever.  And I knew with programming like I wanted to connect with this group of people that has similar values about writing really clean code and having a good time doing it and making it enjoyable and sort of interesting, new and fresh. And that's kind of how I presented Laravel and I think it resonated with some people that were also looking for a group with those kinds of values. And that is still the kind of the values that we obviously try to share today, but yeah, it wasn't necessarily a purely  technical thing, it was building this group of people that sort of resonates around similar ideas  and working on it together. MATT STAUFFER: It's interesting 'cos I think that even in my question, I conflicted big and enterprise and I think that you guys kind of really drew out the difference between the two in some of your answers, I mean if we think about it, like Jeffery's first answer was, while enterprise might be really interested in having a company back it versus a person..like Taylor said, we get the question of what if Taylor gets hit by a bus all the time. And it makes sense right, like we have clients all the time coming to us like, say, you know well, you know the CEO or the board or the CFO of our multi-million dollar or multi-billion company are very worried that we are gonna invest a whole bunch of money and time in something and X ..and it's not always...and that Taylor might get run over  by a bus, but a lot of developers are getting non-developer input on decisions they make here and there are certain times where some IT persons have set up some rules that says like "You can only use projects like this and not [projects like that and I do wonder whether there are some constraints there like one of them being, that it must of be owned by a company, I know that when we worked with CraftCMS a lot of people said well, why would you, there's actually a business value of using CraftCMS over something Wordpress because Craft is making money and therefore it's a sustainable business model and therefore the business people are actually less worried about this thing disappearing. Right? So like maybe a more direct chain of profit to the people who are running the thing might actually make it clearer. I don't know if that exists maybe ZendCon would be something like that but I know it's Laracon too...I don't really know! But it's interesting that the requirements of ...like the true enterprise requirements...like because I work for a company, my company has these requirements...but I think people, including me when I ask these questions conflict that with big. And so I think there is a good place to take this next is, lets step away from enterprise a little bit...enterprise culture is a thing...you know whatever...let's talk about big, so the thing mentioned Taylor, and Jeffery both of you said a lot of people come along and say oh well mine is going to be the one that finally pushes those bounds right, I am gonna run into traffic issues and stuff like that, so, first of all, like I know that we can't say a lot of the names of big sites that are running on it but I feel like is there anything we can do to kind of like just ... I mean, I know several of them 'cos I am under NDA with several of them, you know, who have talked to us about doing some work with us but there's like multi- I mean milions of millions of hundreds of millions of page views sites running on Laravel...there is like Alexa top 500 sites running on Laravel, there's ...hummmm...what's the big group of all the businesses in the US? I can't remember the name of it...Fortune 500 companies running on Laravel...like multiple Fortune 500 companies whose websites are running on Laravel. Are there anything that you guys can share, like to say, hey look, this is the proof, like we've got big stuff running through here. TAYLOR OTWELL Trying to think some of them..I mean like the Vice Video, Log Swan, you know, various video games sites like FallOut 4 had their landing page on Laravel...other stuff like that, but you know, it's sort of never seems to be enough and it sorts of becomes this treadmill of, you know, I have to give one more proof that it sort of can work...and I just wonder like what's really underlining the question like, do they want to know that if I build my big app on Laravel will it be infinitely maintainable and clean...and no, Laravel won't automatically make your app amazing to maintain for 10 years, you know, I don't know if it's like trying to sort of scale responsibility for you also having to do a lot effort to like make your app enjoyable to maintain or what...but... MATT STAUFFER: Bad programmer, can write a bad app with any framework right? Like, nothing is going to rescue you from that..not saying that the person asking is necessarily bad..but I think that's a great point you made earlier Taylor, I wish we can further into it, is that with Laravel like yea ok, Laravel has it's own conveniences but at some point every single app is basically just you writing PHP... TAYLOR OTWELL: Yeah MATT STAUFFER: And especially at this level when you are talking about hundreds of thousands of lines of code, like the vast majority of the dependencies there is going to be just PHP code right? TAYLOR OTWELL: Yeah. Once you get...let's just take like a Laravel app...'laravel new'...whatever...once you are at the controller, method, in your controller class, everything else is up to you, so whether you use the validator or whether you even use Eloquent at all, or whether you use anything in Laravel, is entirely up you, so it was your choice to do whatever you did past that point. So, it's not Laravel making you do any one particular thing. So, that's sort of the point where you are gonna have to, you know turn your thinking cap on and really plan on how to do a big project, because as far as the framework is concerned, the framework is gonna be a much smaller concern than your actual code, you know the framework is gonna be routing session, some caching, some database calls, but you are the one that is gonna have to like, figure out the domain problems of your app, which is gonna be way more complicated I think, than any framework problems you are gonna have. Like, how is this app gonna work? How is it gonna provide value for our customers, or whatever, those are all like much bigger questions I think...than worrying about can Laravel be used for "Big" apps. MATT STAUFFER: One of the questions we got on Twitter was, how to build big sites with Laravel, scaling, deployment,  database structure, load balancing, so, lets say someone is on board right...yes, Laravel can be used for big apps period..it's good..so, what are some considerations that you would have, so if you were taking, you know, a default app out of the box and you "laravel new" it and you build some basic stuff and someone says alright, this app that you just built needs to be able to handle you know, a million hits a week next month..what are the first things you would look to, to start, kind of hardening it against that kind of traffic? TAYLOR OTWELL: Hmm, really simple things you could do is to make sure you are using a good cache or session driver, so probably you wanna use something like Memcache or Redis or something that you can centralize on one server or Elasticache if you are on AWS whatever, you know, you are also probably gonna use a load balancer...PHP is really easy to deploy this way you know, to put a LoadBalancer up and to make a few PHP servers and to alternate traffic between them. PHP makes it really simple to do that kind of scaling and then with Laravel, make sure you use config cache, make sure you are using the route cache, make sure you are doing composer dump autoload optimized, you know, really simple things you can do to sort of boost your application a little bit. MATT STAUFFER: Jeffery, I know Laracast is pretty huge, you kinda in there day in, day out, so I know you are super focused on making sure that it's performing, especially related to maybe, let's say, databases and deployment, can you give me any kind of tips that you have there for people who are building new kind of high traffic apps that you have learned from developing Laracast? JEFFREY WAY: Yeah, Laracast is surprisingly high traffic, if you look at the numbers. And I can tell you, not doing that much...just to be perfectly frank, beyond what Taylor said, a lot of that stuff is kind of the fundamentals...of using config cache...a lot of people will just deploy and stick with the file based cache driver...laughs..you will obviously have some issues with that...but, I am not doing anything that fancy. A lot of it becomes basic stuffs like, people completely ignoring the size of their images...like that is always the very first one I bring up and it's such a 101 tip, but if you go from site to site, you can see it being abused immensely. There is so many ways to work it into your build process...or if not, just dragging a bunch of images into..like a Mac app...I am trying to think of the one I use... TAYLOR OTWELL: Is it ImageOptim? JEFFREY WAY:  ImageOptim, yeah just, like when you deploy you can drag a bunch of images up there and it will automatically optimize them as best as it can. And you would be shocked how much benefit you can get from that...versus people who just take a 100kb image and they throw it into their project...you know it's funny that people will debate single quotes versus double quotes all day and then throw a 200kb image into their banner, you know, it makes no sense, people, are silly that way. TAYLOR OTWELL: I think another great thing to do is separate out your database from your web server. If you are building anything, you know, that you care about...like in a real way, it can be good to do that..and sort of, if you don't do it from the start, it can be kind of, you know, scary to make the transition, because now you've got to move your live database to another server...but, there are tools out there to make it pretty easy, there are even free packages out there to make it pretty easy to back up your database, so, that has always been really nice for me to have that on a separate server. So definitely if you are gonna have to start do that because it just makes it easier to do that scaling where if you wanna add a second server, you don't have this sort of funky situation where you have one webserver talking to another webserver because it has your database and all that other stuff where now if you want upgrade PHP you've got to upgrade PHP on the same server that your live database is running on...just scary situations like that...that, that would help you avoid. MATT STAUFFER: Are you guys using a lot of caching on your common Eloquent Queries? JEFFREY WAY: Yeah, I do quite a bit. TAYLOR OTWELL: I really don't on Forge. MATT STAUFFER: I wondered about Forge, because with Forge, each query is gonna be unique per user right? Versus with Jeffery where there might be like a page that lists out all of the episode and you might have 10, 000 people hit that same page. With Forge, it's more 10,000 people each seeing a totally different list right? TAYLOR OTWELL Yeah, it is very dynamic. The one thing I do cache is the list of invoices from stripe because there is a stripe API call we have to make, so we do cache that. JEFFREY WAY: Yeah me too. TAYLOR OTWELL: But other than that I don't think I really do any caching. So, Jeffrey probably has more insight on that...? JEFFREY WAY: Well I have a lot of the stuff on the Forum, because the forum just gets hammered...you will be surprised about how popular that forum is... MATT STAUFFER: I won't be surprised because it shows up on the top results of everything. JEFFREY WAY: I know and I do love finding my forum when am googling for my own ignorance. And I go to my own website to figure out how to do something which is a great feeling! But I do have some queries related to the forum that are pretty intense, a lot of like multiple joins, pulling in stuff, so I do cache that..even summary,  I cache that every 10 minutes at a time. Just to reduce the weight a little bit. I get a lot of use out of that stuff and then, yeah, of course, the type of stuff that doesn't just change like Categories or Channels or like Taylor was bringing up, there is no reason not to cache those things. And yes especially the invoices it's a great example, if you are making a network query every single time a page is hit, there is really no need to do that if it's going to be the exact same results...every single time give or take a change or two...so those are obvious cases where you want to cache it as long as you can. TAYLOR OTWELL: How do you burst your cache on Laracast? JEFFREY WAY: Whenever something cache bustable takes place...I guess... TAYLOR OTWELL: Ok so I guess like whenever a new category is out and stuff, you just ... JEFFREY WAY: When a new category is out yeah, as part of that I will just manually bust the cache...or no, I will automatically bust the cache...in other areas, it happens so rarely that I just boot up 'php artisan tinker' and do it myself....*laughs...*which is crappy, but no, anything more common like that, I will just automate it as part of the...whenever I update the database. MATT STAUFFER: We are working on an app right now that has Varnish sitting in front of it. And so literately the code that is behind our Skype window right now is me writing a job that just wipes the Varnish cache either for the whole thing or for specific routes in response to us notifying that the change happens and that's an interesting thing because the cache is outside of Laravel app, but it's cached based on its routes...and so I have the ability to say...well, these particular changes are gonna modify these routes and I built an intelligent Job that kinda get sent out anytime we need those things. So even when it is not within the app, even when it is not your Laravel cache, there is still a lot of ability to kind of put some heavy caches on. And in speaking of that kind of stuff cache busting, use the Version in mix all the time. I mean that is just, because then you can throw Varnish or whatever else and just do infinite cache on your assets. And if you all don't know what that is, it's essentially every single asset that gets built by Mix now has like a random string appended at the end of the file name. And every time it's changed, it gets a new random string on it. And so you can set a forever expires on your Javascript files, your CSS files or whatever else, because anytime it needs to change, it would actually be a different file name as your browser will get to request it and then Varnish will get re-request it or whatever is your cache is. JEFFREY WAY: But on that note, actually, I have been thinking about that, is there...can you guys tell me any real reason why when we are using Versioning, the file name itself needs to change? Because you are using that Mix helper function already to dynamically figure out what the version file is, so is there any reason why we can't just use a unique query string there, or not a unique query string but taking where we would change the file name to include the version, we just include it as part of the query string and then the file name always stays the same? MATT STAUFFER: I know that HTML5 boiler plate used to do just query strings and I hadn't even thought about that, but that might be possible, where the files always stay the same but your...what's that JSON file that has the .... JEFFREY WAY: JSON manifest... MATT STAUFFER: Maybe that just adds the id into the new id to pass? And it's just like authoring comment or something like that? JEFFREY WAY: Yeah, when you version the file, it creates, basically it gets like a Hash of the file that you just bundled up and then that gets included in the new file name...but every time you bundle if that changes, you will never know what that file name is called in your HTML so basically you can use this Mix helper function that Laravel provides that will dynamically read that JSON file and it will figure out, oh you want this file, well, here is the current hashed version and we return that...but yeah I have just been thinking lately like, is it kind of dumb that we keep creating a new file, when instead, the Mix manifest file can just have the relevant query string updated. MATT STAUFFER: So, I googled really quick and there is a thing from Steve Souders....who is the guy who originated the 13 rules of make your website faster or whatever they were...the whole like, you know less HTTP requests, and it's called in your files names don't use query strings...I havent read it yet...oh High Performant websites...I havent read it yet and it is 9 years old. My God! Now that I am seeing seen him talking about Squid, I have worked with Squid before which is like a pretty old cache, but a lot of stuff that works for Squid also works for Cloudflare so I am guessing Cloudflare is either using Squid or adopted Squids terminologies and I do think...and I also did a whole bunch of work with one of our clients who is writing custom Varnish rules right now. And I do remember that stripping query strings is a thing that happens sometimes especially when it doesn't matter, for example in the case of asset, I think it maybe a thing that he do by default, so he is digging through here and Squid and proxies and stuff like that, I think basically what he is saying is your proxy administrator could go and teach the  proxy to care about query strings but all then ignore them by default... JEFFREY WAY: Ok MATT STAUFFER: So by choosing to use it with query strings you are opening up a lot of job opportunities where it doesn't work the way you are expecting. TAYLOR OTWELL: I have been using Cloudflare quite a bit recently. The whole Laravel website is behind Cloudflare, heavy Cloudflare caching, very few requests actually hit the real server. Mainly because it's all static, you know documentation but am a big fan of that, especially when you are scaling out webservers, if you are using, you know, some kind of Cloudflare SSL. I think Amazon has a similar SSL service now, it makes so much easier to add a web server because you don't really have to think about your certificates as much, you know, putting your certificate on every server, especially because since you can just use like a self-signed certificate if you are using the Cloudflare edge certificate...so that's something to look into and it's free to get started with and it has some nice feature for scaling.  MATT STAUFFER: I helped some folks at this thing called the Resistance Manual, which is a Wiki about basically...huh......sorry to be mildly political for a second...all the negative impact of the Trump presidency and how to kind of resist against those things. And so they wanted me to help them gather their information together and I said well I can help out, I am a tech guy and they were like, do you know, you know, media wiki, which is the open source platform behind things like Wikipedia, and I said no, but you know, I can learn it. Turns out that it's like really old school janky procedure PHP and so I said yeah I can handle this but it is also just extremely dumb in terms of how it interacts with the database and so when you are getting you know millions of hits like they were on day one, we had a like a 8 core, you know, hundreds of hundreds of dollars a month Digital Ocean box and it was still just tanking. Like couple of times a day that the caches were getting overflowed and all that kind of stuff, so, I threw clouldflare on it, hoping it would be magical and the problem with that is it's not Cloudflare's fault it's because Cloudflare or Squid or Varnish needs to have some kind of reasonable rules knowing when things have changed and for anyone who has never dealt with them before there is a sort of complicated but hopefully not too complicated dance between your proxy and reading things like expires headers and E-Tags and all that kind of stuff from your website. And so if you throw something like Cloudflare or something like that on it and it is not working the way you expect, the first thing to look at is both the expires headers and the cache link headers that are coming off of your server pre-cloudflare and also what that same response looks like when it's coming back after going through cloudflare, and cloudflare or whoever else will add a couple of other ones like did it hit the cache or miss the cache and what's the expires headers and what's the Squids expires headers, so there are lots of headers that give you the ability when it just seems like it is not just working the way you want and there is only like 3 configuration options in cloudflare, then what do you do? Go look at your headers and I bet that you know, 15 minutes of googling about how cloudflare headers work and Squid headers work and then inspecting all your headers before and after they hit cloudflare and you will be able to source out the problem. Alright so, we talked databases, we talked loadbalancing a little bit, deployment, so, if anybody is not familiar with zero downtime deployment, just a quick introduction for how it works...if you use deployments on something like Forge the default response when you push something new to your github branch is that it hits 'git pull', 'composer install' 'php artisan migrate' or whatever, so your site could erratically be down for seconds while the whole process runs and so, if you are worried about that  you can run, 'php artisan down' beforehand and 'php artisan up' afterwards, so when it's down, instead of throwing an error, you just see like hey this site is temporary down kind of thing. But if you are in a circumstances where that is a problem, you might want to consider something like Capistrano style or Envoyer style zero downtime deploy, look somewhere else for a much longer explanation but essentially, every time a new release comes out, it's cloned into a new directory, the whole installation is processed and run there and only once that is done, then the public directory  that is getting served is symlinked into that new directory instead of the old one. So you end up with you know with the last 10 releases each in its own directory and you can go back and roll back into a previous directory and Taylor's service Envoyer is basically a really nice User Interface in front of that... For me that has always been the easiest way to handle deploys in a high kind of pressure high traffic high loads situations is just to use Envoyer or Capistrano. Are there any other experiences you've all had or tips or anything about how to handle deploys in high traffic settings when you are really worried about you know those 15 seconds or whatever...are there any other considerations we should be thinking about? or anything? TAYLOR OTWELL: That's the extent of my experience..I haven't had anything that is more demanding than using Envoyer. Am sure there is you know...if I were deploying to thousands of servers, but for me when I am just deploying to 4 or 5 servers Envoyer has been huh...pretty good bet. MATT STAUFFER: And hopefully if you are deploying to a thousand sites, then you've got a server person who is doing that. You know like we are talking dev'ops for developers here right,  like when you are running a minor server not when you are running a multi-billion dollar product and the clients I have been talking to were working with all these kind of Varnish stuff..I didnt setup Varnish you know, my client setup Varnish and took care of all these stuff and he just kinda asked me for an input in these kind of stuff and so I definitely would say like there is definitely a limit at which...you know...people often lament like how many responsibilities they are putting on developers these days. I don't think we all have to be IT people capable of running servers for you know, a one thousand server setup for some massive startup or something like that. But I think like this whole, you know, how do I handle a thing big enough that 15 seconds of down time where a  migration and composer run...I think that is often within our purview and I think something like Capistrano or Envoyer is for me at least it's being a good fix...the only situation I have not had to run into which I have heard people asked about online and I wanna see if you all have any experience there is, what if you do a roll out and it has a migration in it and then you need to roll back?  Is there an easy way to do the 'migrate:rollback' in an Envoyer rollback command or should you just go Envoyer rollback as you SSH in and then do 'php artisan migrate:rollback' TAYLOR OTWELL: Sort of my view on that recently like over the past year has been that you will just never roll back, ever. And you will always go forward. So, because I don't know how you rollback without losing customer data. So, it's, a lot of time not really visible to rollback. Lets just pretend you could, then yes, there is no real easy way to do it on Envoyer, you will just kind have to SSH in and do php artisan rollback like you said. But I think a lot of times, at least for like my own project like Forge and Envoyer, I can never really guarantee that I wasn't loosing data so I think if at all possible, what I would try to do is to write an entirely new migration that fixes whatever problem there is. And deploy that and it will just migrate forward, you know. And I will never really try to go backwards. MATT STAUFFER: You find yourself in that accidental situation where you deploy something that should never have been, then you then go 'php artisan down' real quick, run the fix, push it up and let it go through the deploy process and then 'php artisan up' after that one deployed. TAYLOR OTWELL: Yeah. That's what I would do. If it's, I mean, sometimes if it's low traffic and  you feel pretty certain no one's messed with the new database schema, then probably you can just roll back, but, I was just worried  in Forge's case that people are in there all day, I would lose data. So that's why I would every time possible to try and go forward. MATT STAUFFER: Yeah, that makes sense. TAYLOR OTWELL: I have actually stopped writing down methods in my migrations entirely recently...not that it's optional. JEFFREY WAY: I feel evil doing that! Like I very much get the argument...but, when I create a migration and I just ignore the down method, I feel like, I am just doing something wrong. I am still doing it right now. TAYLOR OTWELL: It's really mainly visible in Laravel 5.5 'cos you've got the new db:fresh method or db:fresh command, which just totally drops all the tables without running any down methods. MATT STAUFFER: I end up doing that manually all the time anyway because at least in development, the most often when I want to do refresh, it's often in context where I still feel comfortable modifying  old migrations..like basically, the moment I have run a migration in prod, I would never modify an old migration. The moment there is somebody else working on the project with me, I will never modify an old one unless I have to and it's just so important that I have to say hey, you know, lets go refresh. But often when I am just starting something out and I have got my first 6 migrations out, I will go back and  hack those things over and over again...I don't need to add a migration that has a single alter in it, when I can just go back and edit the thing. And in that context often, I change the migration and then I try to roll back, and sometimes I have changed it in such a way where the rollback doesn't work anymore. I rename the table or something like that... JEFFREY WAY: Right.... MATT STAUFFER: So fresh is definitely going to be a breath of fresh air. JEFFREY WAY: I do wish there was maybe a way to consolidate things, like when  you have a project that has been going on for a few years, you can end up in a situation where your migrations folder is huge...you just have so many. And it's like every time you need to boot it up, you are running through all of those and like you said sometimes, just the things you've done doesn't just quite work anymore and you can't rollback. It would be nice sometimes if you could just have like...like a reboot, like just consolidate all of these down to something very very simple. MATT STAUFFER: We did that with Karani I don't know if there is...there is a tool that we used that helps you generate Laravel migrations from Schema and we did it soon after we had migrated from Codeigniter to Laravel for our database access layer. Karani is a Codeigniter app where I eventually started bringing in Laravel components and then now, the actual core of the app is in Laravel and there is just like a third of the route that are still on Codeigniter that havent been moved over and once we got to the point where half of our migrations were Codeigniter and half of them were in Laravel it's just such a mess so we found this tool...whatever it was. We exported the whole thing down to a single migration, archived all the old ones,  I mean, we have them on git if we ever need them and now, there is just one..you know, one date from where you just get this massive thing, and then all of our migrations happen kind of, from that date. And for me, I actually feel more free to do that when it's in production because the moment it's in production, I have less concern about being able to speed it up through this specific process because like if something is from two months ago, I am sure it had already has been run in production and so I feel less worry about making sure the history of it still sticks around... JEFFREY WAY: Alright...right... MATT STAUFFER: Alright...so the next question we have coming up is, "I will like to hear about how you all stay productive." And we've talked on and off at various times about what we use..I know we've got us some Todoist love and I know we've got some WunderList  love...hummm... I've have some thoughts about Calendar versus Todo lists and I also saw something about Microsoft buying and potentially ruining Wunderlist..so what do y'all use and what happened with Wunderlist. TAYLOR OTWELL: Well, Todo lists are dead now that Wunderlist is dead. MATT STAUFFER: Yeah...So what happened? TAYLOR OTWELL: Wunderlist was my preferred todo list, I just thought it looked pretty good...and Microsoft bought them I think, that was actually little while back that they bought them but now they have finally announced what they are actually doing with it...they are basically shutting down Wunderlist and turning it into Microsoft Todo...which doesn't look a lot like the old Wunderlist and doesn't have some of the features of the old Wunderlist...but it looked ok..you know, it seems fun, so what I have done is migrated to Todoist rather reluctantly but it's working out ok. JEFFREY WAY: Please correct me...is this funny like, Wunderlist is gonna be around for a very long time but just the idea that they are shutting down it's almost like you feel compelled...we've talked about this with other things too...where it's like you suddenly feel like oh I need to migrate...we talked about it with Sublime, like if we find out tomorrow, Sublime is dead in the water. But you can still use it as long as you want. Even though, it would still work great, you would have this feeling like well, I gotta get over to Atom or I gotta start moving on...'cos this place is dead, even though Wunderlist is gonna work for a long time. TAYLOR OTWELL: Yes...laughs...as soon as it was announced, I basically deleted Wunderlist off my computer... All laugh.... TAYLOR OTWELL: Which makes no sense, but it's so true... MATT STAUFFER: I needed a new router and everyone told me, you use the Apple Routers 'cos they are the best...but I have heard they are 'end-of-life'd'....and I was like no way...no way I am gonna throw all my money there and someone say well, why does it matter...you know...you are gonna buy a router and you are gonna use it till it dies? And I said I don't care...I am gonna buy something else 'cos it just...I don't know...it's just like you are putting your energy and your effort after something that can't...you know can only be around for so long and you just want..you want be working with something that's gonna last I guess... JEFFREY WAY: Yeah...I am still on Wunderlist right now. I am hearing...humm..if you guys are familiar with "Things" that was like the big Todo app years ago...and then they have been working on Things 3 or third version for a year...it's been so long, that people joke about it..you know, it's almost like that...new version of..humm..what was it...there was hummm...some Duke Nukem game that.... TAYLOR OTWELL: Is it Duke Nukem Forever..? JEFFREY WAY: Yes! For like 10 or fifteen years and it finally came out! It's looking like next month, "Things 3" will be out and I am hearing it..like the prettiest ToDo app ever made I am hearing really good things. So, I was hoping to get in on the beta but, they skipped over me. So, I will experience it in May but I am excited about it. So, that's the next one..but you know what, I am never happy with Todo apps..I don't know why. It's kinda of weird addiction...if you say an item address basic need...even like a Microsoft Todo. Ok, your most basic need would be to like say...Go to the market on Thursday. You can't do that in Microsoft Todo. You have to manually like set the due date to Thursday. Rather than just using human speech. TAYLOR OTWELL: Have you tried Todoist? JEFFREY WAY: Todoist works that way. Huh I think Wunderlist works that way but now, Microsoft Todo doesn't. MATT STAUFFER: Oh ok..got it. You lost that ability right? JEFFREY WAY: Yeah, it's so weird like every task app would have something that's really great and then other basic things that are completely missing...and it's been that way for years. MATT STAUFFER: I always feel bad, I mean I bought things...thankfully I managed to skip...what was that thing...OminiFocus, I skipped OminiFocus which is good 'cos that is hundreds of dollars saved for me. And I tried...I tried all these different things and I finally figured out that  there is a reason why I keep jumping from one to the other, is because..for me...this is not true for everybody...and I think it might have to do with personality a little bit...and the industry a little bit, and what your roles are whatever, Todo lists are fundamentally flawed because they are not the way I approach the day...and they are not the place my brain is...so, I can force my brain into a new paradigm for even a week at a time but I have never been able to stick with it and it's not the app, I thought it was the app, I thought just once I get the right app, I will become a todolist person and I realized, I am not a Todolist person so I can try every app and it can be perfect and I will still just stop using it 'cos it's not what I think about. And when I discovered that I can't use and then later found some articles talking about how I am not the only person who come up with this...that validated me...'cos I put it on my calendar and so, if I need to do something, I put it on my calendar and then it gets done. And if I don't put it on my calendar, it doesn't get done. End of story. It's so effective for me that my wife knows at this point that if she asks me to do something and I don't immediately pick up my phone and put it on my calendar, she knows it's not gonna get done. Because that's..that's how things happen and so, it's amazing to me, that..laughs...she literarily, when she first started discovering this, she sent..and she's not not super technical..like she's smart, she just doesn't like computers all that much...but she knows how to use google..and so, she, when she first discovered this, she sent me a calendar invite that is "Matt Clean Toilet"...and it's for 8 hours every Sunday and so, I will be on a screenshare..'cos she's like that's how I am ever going to clean the toillet right?...so I will be on this screenshare with a client and I will pull up my calendar and to say hey when is it a good time for us to have this meeting? And I will be like..oh "Matt Clean Toilet" takes the 8 hours....laughs... But for me, my todo list is my calendar. And everyone kinda in the company knows what my calendar is completely for and Dan actually has asked me to start marking those things as not busy, so, Calendly, our appointment app will still allow people to book...like clients to book times with me during that time..but like essentially, if I need to get something done, like, I..I need to review a whole bunch of pull requests, like Daniel who works with me literarily just put meeting invite on my calendar for tomorrow 10:30 and it says "Code Review @ Daniel". And literarily after this podcast, there is an hour that says "Code Review with James" because they know that that's how they get it....and there is...500 hundred emails in my inbox and all these other things I have to do, but if it goes to the calendar,  it gets done.  So, have you guys ever tried that? Does it sound like something that will click with you or no? JEFFREY WAY: I think it makes good sense for you because it sounds like your days are scheduled like your day is full..humm...my day isn't quite as much like do this with so and so, I don't have as many meetings. So, most of my day is like: these are the things I wanna get done. And it doesn't matter whether I do it at 9:AM or 9:PM, so, Todo list works good for me but yeah..I can see how like if my day was very segmented and scheduled that would make far more sense than reaching for some todo app. TAYLOR OTWELL: Yeah..my days are usually pretty free-form outside of the kinda standard schedule where I always do emails and pull requests first thing in the morning but then after that lately it's been...you know..was work on Horizon..now it's work on the thing that comes after Horizon, and that's pretty much the rest of the day, you know, besides whatever Laracon stuff that I have to do recently, which is more of a seasonal thing you know. But I got lunch, all booked, that's done...but whatever we need, you know, furniture, catering or whatever. But yeah, then I pretty much just work on one thing throughout the day. So, I don't really switch context like that a lot. But I was so despondent at the Wunderlist announcement that all Friday afternoon I wrote a chrome extension that when you open  new tab, it opens "Discussing Todo List" that I wrote in VueJs and you know HTML and it uses the chrome sync to sync it across my chrome account to all my laptops whatever...so... every new tab has a todo list, but even that, I was still not happy with it and deleted it and the whole afternoon went with the todo list. Anyway, but I have forgotten about the Chrome extension thing. I need to open source it. MATT STAUFFER: Every developer has to make their own Todo list at some point in their lives. TAYLOR OTWELL: Yeah. That's interesting about the calendar though...I want to get Calendly because it looks like a really cool app and try some more calendar stuff 'cos I haven't really dug into that as much as I could. MATT STAUFFER: Yeah...I use basic Calfor my desktop app, I know that, I  think I use Fantastic Cal on the phone or something..a lot of people love that...the thing that we like about Calendly is that it gives me a public link that syncs up to my Google calendar and so when we need to schedule things like we are in the middle of hiring right now or client meetings, I just send them to my calendly link and I just say, go here and  schedule time with me and it syncs up with my Google calendar and it shows them all the times and I can say..go schedule a 60 minutes meeting and I give them the 60 minutes link or 5 minutes or whatever and you can put different rules around each. So I teach calendly when do I drop my son off at school and when do I ...you know drive from my home office to my work office all that kind of stuff...so that it knows when I am available and then..because we just wasted so much time between Dan and me trying to get our calendars in sync. So, that's what I love about Calendly. TAYLOR OTWELL: What really sold you on basic Cal over like you know just Apple Calendar or whatever? MATT STAUFFER: I wish I can tell you...I know that it handles multiple calendars better...but it's been so long since I made that choice that I couldn't even tell you. I know that Dan, my business partner hates calendars more than any person I have ever met and almost every time he complains about something, I am like oh yeah, you can do that with Basic Cal and he is like "I still use Apple Calendars" I know those things but I can't tell you what they are..so. Alright...so one last question before we go for the day. Saeb asked "It would be nice to hear why are guys are programmers. Is it just something you love and enjoy or is it just a way to put bread on the table? Is it passion what is it that makes you wanna be a programmers?" JEFFREY WAY: I will go first. I fell into it. I think we are being disingenuous if we don't say that to some extent...but  I know even from when I was a kid, I love the act of solving puzzles. I remember I had this Sherlock Holmes book and it's one of those things where every single page is some little such and such happens...somebody was murdered and then Sherlock comes, points to so and so and says you are the  person who did it. And the last sentence is always..."How did he know?!" And that was like my favorite book. I would go through it every day and try to figure out how  how did he figure out that this was the guy who...you know...robbed the bank or whatever it happened it be. So, between that or I play guitar for over a decade and I went to school for that. It's all still the same thing of like trying to solve puzzles trying to solve riddles trying to figure out how to connect these things. You may not know it with guitar but the same thing is true, like puzzles and you start learning about shapes on the guitar and how to transpose this to this. And how to play this scale in eight different ways...it's still like the same  thing to me it's figuring out how to solve these  little puzzles. And so for programming, I feel like it's the perfect mix of all of that. There needs to ne some level of creativity involved for me to be interested in it....I always worried I would end up in a job where I just did the same and only this thing every single day. And I would finish the day and come back tomorrow and I am gonna do the exact same thing all over again. So there needs to be some level of creativity there which programming does amazingly well or offers amazingly well. Although my mum would never know. I think she thinks I gave up on music and went to this like boring computer job...and even though when I explain to her like no there is huge amounts of creativity in this I don't think she quite makes the connection of how that is. So, yeah, between the creativity and solving puzzles, and making things, it's a perfect mix for my personality. TAYLOR OTWELL: I was always really into computers and games and stuffs growing up, so it was pretty natural for me to major you know in IT in college but I didn't really get exposed to the sort of the front side of programming and open source stuff until after college when I started poking around on side projects and stuff like that. So, I did kind of fall into this side of programming you know, where, you are programming for fun as a hobby and working on open source after I graduated but I was always kind of interested in looking back sort of things that are similar to programming so like into games like SimCity and stuff like that where you are planning out you know, your city and sort of...one of the similar things you do when you are building up big projects or whatever a big enterprise project you know was sort of planning and trying to get... just the right structure whatever, so I was kinda always into that thing. And just sort of naturally fall into that path later in life. MATT STAUFFER: I...my brother and I started a bulletin boards service...out of our spare bedroom, I mean we were in Elementary or middle school or something like that..and he is 3 and half years older than me and he is a little bit more kind of like intellectual  than I am, so, he learned how to code the things and he said why don't you be the designer. And that kind of trend just kept up. When he learned how to make websites, he be like well, I am gonna make websites and you be the designer. And so I kinda had this internalized idea that A...I was interested in tech..but B, I was the design mind. And the thing is, I am not a very good designer...like the only reason I kept getting into design is because I had like... I was creative, I was a musician and stuff but also because my brother already had the programming skills down and so he needs a designer right? And so, I think that I went off to college, by that point I already had a job as a programmer, I already had my own clients, doing you know frontend web developments and basic PHP, Wordpress that kind of stuff but I was like well I need to become a better designer so I went off to college for design and I just realized I am not a designer, so I left. And I went off and I did English and I worked with people and I worked for a non-profit having thought you know like oh that is not my thing and then I kinda did a turn round when I left the non-profit, my wife went back to school and I needed to pay the bills, so it was..there is an element of paying the bills..I say like well I know that web development pays well, so I will go back to that. And just discovered that I love web development...it is fulfilling and it is satisfying...it is creative...it's using your brain in all this really interesting ways...each one it's a little bit the same, a little bit unique, there is always really great things about it...I mean I remember one of the things that drove me nuts about my previous work..both in design and in working in the non-profit is that there is no sense like whether you did a good job or not. There is no sense of when something is done. You are just very kinda of vague and vacuous and with this, it's like there is a defined challenge...and you know when it's done. And you know whether you did a good job or not. And I was just like that was huge...that was so foundationally helpful for me. And so I think just kind of being able to approach it and realize that it's creative..like, it's creative and it is well defined..it's a little concrete..it's a challenge all those things together I think for me..and it turns out that it wasn't just a way to make money and I have also since discovered now that I run a company that I also have all the people aspects here..it's about relationship, it's about communities...I mean we have talked about that a lot in this episode and running a company is about  hiring and  company culture and all those kind of stuff... So I get to comment especially at the level of tech that I get to do day to day whether it's open source or running company I feel like it's all of the best together in one word. JEFFREY WAY: So Matt, how did you go from taking on smaller projects when you went back to web developments to suddenly running Tighten? Like how did you get there? What happened? Were you getting more projects than you can handle? MATT STAUFFER: The opposite. I...I had no work. I worked out of a co-working space in Chicago and I only had about 10 hours a day, fifteen hours day filled because I didnt know anybody. And I had not been doing anything in the industry for 6 years. So, I said, you know what? When I worked for non-profit there was this need I had and I still worked for those non-profit's per time at that point, so I just started building an app...I built an app by hand while I worked for the non-profit in PHP and it was terrible. And I was like oh, I have heard about this framework thing, and so I tried building it in CakePHP and it was terrible, and so, those experiences matured me a little bit...and so by the time I was now kinda going solo as a developer, every free moment I would have, outside of the you know, the contract work I had, I would go learn Codeigniter. You know my buddy Matt had learned ExpressionEngine and said hey, checkout Codeigniter I think you might like it. So I learned Codeigniter and I did all these work in Codeigniter and I built  this whole app which is Karani, the thing we are talking about today and I built Karani and I made it for myself and then my friends wanted it and so then I made it for my friends and then it was costing me money to upkeep, so I learned how to charge them money..and Stripe was brand new at that point, so I almost went with Stripe but I ended up going with BrainTree...I got into like big and software as a service app development through there...and right at that same time... I was teaching my buddy all about modern web development HTML5 boiler plate all that kind of stuff after work one day and this guy walked over...the one guy in my co-working space that I had never met, who was always in his closed office and he was like, are you a developer? Are you looking for work? I was like yeah..and he was like..I need you...would you consider working for me? I played it all cool but I was like YES..PLEASE I NEED WORK!!! I only have 10 hours of work a week right now. And it was Dan... And so, Dan and I worked together on this massive project for a year and the client took 6 months to actually get the work ready for us. And he already had me booked  and he already had me billed and he was why don't you just go learn become the best possible developer you can..I will throw you know, 30 hours a week jobs just off my various you know various projects...but in all your free time and even in those projects, just learn to become the absolute best, because we were working for, you know, this massive billion dollar international company at that point. And responsive was like  just a thought in people's minds. So, I wrote you know, articles and I created responsive libraries back in the early days of responsive and all those kind of stuff and I was like really up in the middle of it. And then we built this app. So, I had like a lot of kind of things that took me very quickly from like hey I haven't written any code or any professional code  in 6 years to like to the point where I was ready to build an app for this billion dollar company. JEFFREY WAY: That was amazing. That is how learn best too. MATT STAUFFER: It really is..and Dan and I loved working together so well that within 6 months we decided to go into business together and 6 months or a year later, we named it Tighten and the rest is history. MATT STAUFFER: And so, we are super late and Jeffery, you are the one who has to edit this all later, so I apologize for that..so Ok. Future Jeffery, editing this, I am going to do you a favor, call it a day for now so..guys...it's been a ton of fun..everyone who submitted questions to us on Twitter, the ones we didn't get to today, they are still on our trailer board, we will get to some of them next time... But keep sending us stuff for us to talk about and like I said, the Laravel news podcast is doing a fantastic job of keeping you up to date on regular basis with news so definitely tune in there for that...but we are gonna be talking about more long form stuffs  when you got questions for us, send them to us either to our personal accounts or twitter account..for the podcast and we will try to get to them whenever we can..so, until next time..it's Laravel Podcast thanks for listening. MUSIC fades out...

Si parla di security cam, di 1Password vs iCloud Keychain, del futuro di Workflow e dell'imminente morte di Wunderlist.

We are tackling the to-do list, specifically, a cluttered to do list! We found 5 ways to take your to-do list from a guilt inducing reminder to a resource that actually ignites productivity. Find the full set of show notes at AtoBpodcast.com/7 Choose 1 (or 3!) things to re-examine on your to-do list. Can you delete it entirely or put it on hold for a while? You can leave your comments below, share on social media #atobpodcast, or send us an email Hello @ AtoBpodcast.com. We even have a voicemail line (858) 480-7722. If you're happy you found us, a review and rating on iTunes will help others to find us too! You can catch up with us on Instagram @AtoB podcast, Facebook and Twitter. Resources mentioned: Wunderlist app Getting Things Done by David Allen Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg, which I totally mispronounced on the podcast. Sorry Mr. Duhigg!

I connected with Mike Vardy at the World Domination Summit in August, a worldwide gathering of remarkable people, and he is no exception.. Mike is a writer, speaker, podcaster and founder of Productivityist. He also manages to add a lot of humor and entertainment into the productivity space. Mike is a productivityist, or a productivity enthusiast. He enjoys studying the tools and habits of productivity, and he looks at the world differently because of it. Through the Productivityist blog and podcast, Mike is helping people stop “doing” productive and start “being” productive, by giving them the tools to start paying attention and setting the right intentions. We start our conversation about productivity discussing non-alcoholic beer and decaffeinated coffee. Seemingly tangential, body and energy are directly tied to productivity so I was interested to hear about his recent experiments in cutting both of these from his life. “I really enjoy finding ways to keep the rituals I have, but also do it in a way that's responsible and allows me to be the night owl that I am ... but not have those productivity spikes.” Mike sees most people getting stuck in a trap of doing just for the sake of doing, and that's not productive. “They'll basically go through the motions, they don't really segment out their to-do list, and as a result they end up with a fragmented to-do list.” They work haphazardly, trying to get as many things done as possible, until the day is done. Then they get home, wiped out, and do nothing.   “The problem is, when we do that, we aren't moving forward with any kind of purpose.”   At World Domination Summit, Mike talked about the idea of theming your work days, and the idea resonates with a lot of people. “Your calendar should be your overarching guide, but the details are in the to-do list.” What people tend to do is look at a given day, without giving it any meaning or purpose, then go through a checklist without intention. Mike doesn't like the idea of letting your schedule be your guide, or hyper scheduling, because it leaves no room for flexibility. If you theme your day and something unexpected comes up, like a last-minute coaching session, then you aren't lost when you get back to work. “I think there's some merit to giving themes to each day so you have an overarching focus, but when you hyper schedule yourself you run the risk of just completely falling off track, feeling overwhelmed and feeling that you haven't accomplished what you set out to do over the day.” It doesn't matter if you're a startup founder, working on your side hustle or a stay-at-home parent, theming your days can help you be productive. For someone who can't completely untether him or herself from their email, at least make it more manageable. Mike talks about the idea of Inbox Today. While many people try to get to Inbox 0, Mike tries to clear the backlog so that you only see email from today. Additionally, your inbox shouldn't be where you go to look for things. “It's a loading bay, not a warehouse”   Mike has a system called Three Mail, where each email goes into one of three folders. It's a simple process: Set up folders for every day of the week that you want to deal with e-mails (if that's every day, that's fine). When you get an e-mail, decide what day you want to deal with it, and then move it to the appropriate folder. When you first sit down with your email on a given day, deal with the folder for that day first. Then, organize your backlogged emails again.   Mike uses a number of physical and digital tools to improve his productivity: He believes that a digital task manager is a must in this day and age. “Your mind really is meant to be a factory and not a warehouse, so if you keep trying to store things in here you're just going to slow things down.” It's important to have a digital task manager for long term things, even if you're a paper person. Mike uses todoist, and Wunderlist is also simple and collaborative. He also uses Asana for team-based tasks. To maximize productivity, you may also want to track how long you spend on different tasks. To track how long you are spending on different websites, so you can see what is taking most of your time, RescueTime is a great tool. If you want to track where team members are spending their time, Time Doctor is a great tool. Mike also uses a device called Saent to track his time. It's a small button that you click to track how long it takes you to perform certain tasks, and it allows you to label websites as good or evil. Mike is beta testing a new product, called a ZIE. It is like an 8-sided die with blank sides, which you label. When you turn it to any given side, it starts tracking that time. It then integrates with a tool called Toggl.   “I like both the Saent and the Zie, because it's physical. It sits on your desk. You can't help but see it. I think physical tools, like having those visuals in front of you, are really important, because, frankly, digital tools can hide in the background. This can't.” Mike isn't actually a diehard tracker, but he believes the tools can be helpful for putting yourself in a good, productive mindset. Your brain sees the day or time, sees what it should be doing, and everything outside of that can fall away. “Again, paying attention and setting the right intentions. These tracking tools, unless you have the right intentions for them and then you find a way to pay attention to them, they're not going to be as much help to you as you'd like them to be.” “I'm a big believer in human automation, the automation that you set up … I'm not as huge a believer in setting up a bunch of digital automations because they can break, and they're not as connected to you.” Productivityist recently self-published The Productivityist Playbook. It includes video interviews, audio and a number of productivity plays. When you buy the guide, you receive 15 plays, and you can assemble your own productivity playbook out of them. If listeners of the show go to Productivityist.com/TheBoldLife, they will get one play for free! (Thanks Mike!) “I'm a big believer that even when business isn't personal, productivity always is. I don't think there's enough talk about the personal component of productivity, and I really want to put the personal back into it. That's what this whole guide is designed to do.” Mike is probably the most entertaining person in the productivity space, and I appreciate him coming on the podcast to talk. He gave us a lot of great tips and tools for living a bold life with more attention and the right intentions.   SOME QUESTIONS I ASK: Where are the biggest areas that Mike sees people struggling with their productivity? What are easy wins that people can implement into their life to get time back? Favorite tools to become more productive and track their productivity? What are Mike's favorite books for newbie Productivityists? IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN: How to avoid just going through the motions with your daily schedule. How to start each work day by paying attention and with the right intention. A better system for organizing your emails. A number of must-have tools for managing and tracking productivity. Plus much more… DON'T STOP HERE… Connect with Mike Vardy: Productivityist | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest Go to Productivityist.com/TheBoldLife to get one free play from The Productivity Playlist Listen to The Productivityist Podcast Pick up The Productivityist Playbook by Mike Vardy ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: The Bold Life Business School World Domination Summit Todoist Wunderlist Asana RescueTime Time Doctor Saent ZIE Toggl “Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod “Zen to Done” by Leo Babauta “Making Ideas Happen” by Scott Belsky “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg & John David Mann Clausthaler Alcohol-Free Beer    

Si parla di come sincronizzare le playlist tra Apple Music e Spotify, di un ottimo dock con USB-C, della coverBASIC AIRGEL, dell'integrazione di Wunderlist in Outlook, di come riportare il magsafe sul MacBook, di un ottimo cinturino per Apple...

Microsoft compra Wunderlist y pone el 29 de julio como fecha de lanzamiento de Windows 10.

If you are like me, your day has a variety of tasks from appointments, phone calls, note taking, new and completed to-do's and more. Many times I complete some of these tasks between my favorite podcasts while I am driving in my car. Driving safely is important but I have found some ways to make this time productive and safe. A few months ago, I purchased the LG Tone Pro. You may have seen these odd looking headsets around people's neck and wondered what they were. I was struggling with the hands free Bluetooth products I was using. It seemed that the other person had trouble hearing me and I had to crank it up too loud to hear them. I gave this product a fifteen-day trial and never looked back. In conjunction with my iPhone and Siri I can control all aspects of my phone from making calls, listening to text and voice messages, stop and start my podcasts and much more without taking my eyes off the road and hands off of the wheel. Do you have tasks fall through the cracks? I know I have and there is nothing more embarrassing than realizing you forgot to return a call or do something for a customer several days after it was expected. Most phones have a voice recorder and I will record the details in to my phone to complete later. Also, I have embraced an app called Wunderlist. It is a simple, easy to use app that allows you to simply type in your tasks and check them off when they are complete. You can schedule Due Dates, Reminders and add notes quick and easy. Do you have notes on pieces of paper all over your desk and in your car? Are you constantly searching for that phone number or details from that appointment? I have had Evernote for a while but I am finally discovering the functionality and I have been missing the boat. If you have the ability to scan a document or upload a picture or even take a picture of a document you can load it into an Evernote notebook and it will immediately become searchable. You will have everything in one place and easy to find. Depending on the type of work you do, you may find that Noteshelf is a very useful tool. I use it all the time on my iPad and love it. Regardless if you are a sales executive or a soccer mom, being organized AND safe is important. Hope these tools help. Question: What are some tools you use to stay and organized? Share in the comments below. Have a great week!

You have goals. Now what? In this episode of the Inspired To Action Podcast, I'll show you some powerful ways to make it easier to make your goals happen. If you haven't already listened to Goal Setting 101, I recommend you do that first. You can listen to it here. Key Takeaways from Today's Show SMART and HART In the last part of this series, we talked about the importance of making our goals SMART. Today I talk about how our followup needs to have HART. Cute, huh? The SMART idea belongs to Paul J Meyer, but the HART acronym? All mine, baby. I'm a poet and I did not know it. (I want you to know I tried really hard to include an E, but it just didn't work out. So to all Type A people, I'm sorry.) Moving on. So what does HART stand for? H-abitA-ctionR-eviewT-enacity It's relatively easy to set goals, but making them happen is much, much harder. Adding these four elements to my goal follow through has made a huge difference in my focus and success. It has also helped me to overcome some obstacles that had been holding me back. Quick Tips Here are some of my favorite apps for getting things done. All of these apps are free (with optional paid features), most have versions for the web and mobile devices (all except 30/30). I use these daily. Evernote - I use Evernote for everything. I especially love it now that you can add reminders to things like my weekly review note. I use it for most of my writing and planning as well. Wunderlist - this is a great to do list. 30/30 - I love, love, love this app. It's a little quirky and different, but the idea is that it allows you to plan out your day and associate times with each task. Then, when you hit play, the clock starts running. It really helps me to stay on track and not wander off on rabbit trails. Lift - I've just started using this app, but I think it looks like a great app for habit building. Need a refreshing weekend getaway and some motherhood inspiration? The MomHeart Conference, hosted by Sally Clarkson is one of my favorite events of the year. I've attended every winter since I first heard about them. It's a wonderful time of teaching, encouragement and chocolate. I'll be attending the Dallas event, I hope to see you there! Love the song in the outro? It's called God Day. It's by Jen Stanbro and you can get it on iTunes by clicking here and check out Jen's site by clicking here. Take Action Now What is one goal you've set for this year? What habit are you going to start to help you reach your goal? Click here to share your thoughts. How to Listen to This Podcast If you're new to podcasts, think of them like little radio shows that you can listen to at your convenience. They are perfect to listen to and learn from as you workout, fold laundry, wash dishes or conquer the world. 1. Listen right here on the blog. Click through to the site and click the little play button at the beginning of this post.2. Listen on your smartphone, iPad or iPod Touch - There are a lot of great podcasting apps. Apple has a free one in the app store, but I like one called Downcast. It allows me to search for shows, subscribe to them and even speed up the audio.3. Subscribe to the Podcast - just click here to access the podcast in iTunes. You can also search for it on your smartphone app (like the ones listed above) and subscribe.