Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. I'm Ma's Volocian. Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: It's a new year, it's a new you, it's a
Speaker 1: new me. Maybe it's definitely an opportunity to set some
Speaker 1: new intentions. But as we all know, building habits can
Speaker 1: be rather tricky.
Speaker 2: We don't as a society talk about how to set
Speaker 2: goals that makes sense, So you know, it's very common
Speaker 2: to be like, this year, I'm going to eat super
Speaker 2: healthy and I'm going to lose fifty pounds, and this
Speaker 2: is my year, and you don't really set achievable goals
Speaker 2: within that.
Speaker 1: This is Victorious Song, who's a senior tech reviewer for
Speaker 1: The Verge.
Speaker 2: Your new year's resolutions should come in different sizes, so
Speaker 2: there should be something that's, like, my big goal is
Speaker 2: to lose fifty pounds, but this year, I'll be happy
Speaker 2: if I just lose ten because that's achievable. And then
Speaker 2: once you hit that achievable thing, you can adjust and
Speaker 2: ty trate. But you really gotta set the bar so
Speaker 2: low so that you can build momentum. You really want
Speaker 2: to make it so easy it feels like you're cheating.
Speaker 1: Anything we can do to make meeting goals easier is
Speaker 1: of interest to me, and obviously, as the host of
Speaker 1: a tech podcast, I have a natural curiosity about how
Speaker 1: tech can help us not just reset intentions, but actually
Speaker 1: stick to new commitments at this time of year. And
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to talk to Victoria, because she
Speaker 1: is a professional wearer of wearables, a full time tester
Speaker 1: of products that promise to optimize everything about us, and
Speaker 1: Karen and I both wanted to know what products actually
Speaker 1: help you build habits, because, as we all know, it's
Speaker 1: easy to make excuses.
Speaker 2: It is so easy to just go, I'll just sit
Speaker 2: on the couch. Oh it's cold out, Oh it's raining.
Speaker 2: I don't have time to do that, And it's very
Speaker 2: easy to fall into a perfectionistic this is the correct
Speaker 2: way to do it, and if I don't do it
Speaker 2: perfectly or correctly, I've messed up. Or oh I didn't
Speaker 2: make much progress in January, that's it. Like there's eleven
Speaker 2: other months of the year for you to make progress.
Speaker 2: Like you have to kind of take a very holistic
Speaker 2: approach to New Year's resolutions.
Speaker 1: So, without further ado, let's make those New Year's resolutions
Speaker 1: stick or at least try.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us Victoria, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Did I spot a wearable on you today?
Speaker 2: I'm actually going quite light. I only have an order
Speaker 2: ring in the Apple Watch. I get a lot of
Speaker 2: data overwhelmed as part of my job, so sometimes it's
Speaker 2: very important to just take them off and only use
Speaker 2: the bare minimum. Occasionally I'll take them all off and
Speaker 2: force myself to go on a run where I, quote
Speaker 2: unquote get no credit. And you know, I have to
Speaker 2: live with that and the comfortable without discomfort. Otherwise it's
Speaker 2: way too easy to get sucked into. Oh it doesn't
Speaker 2: count unless I recorded it somewhere, and that's just absolutely
Speaker 2: not true.
Speaker 1: I have a perennial goal of losing weight, and the
Speaker 1: way I don't test it, the way I don't achieve
Speaker 1: that is I never weigh myself. So I live in
Speaker 1: blissful ignorance. But you mentioned, you know, losing fifty pounds.
Speaker 1: I feel like this whole year in January, like that's
Speaker 1: what's on a lot of people's minds. Have you tried
Speaker 1: or experienced any tech that's actually helpful in terms of
Speaker 1: beginning of fitness journey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot. It's a very crowded field. But
Speaker 2: if you're a beginner, you're someone who doesn't have an
Speaker 2: existing fitness regime right now. One app I like is
Speaker 2: called Chandler Streaks. It kind of turns the idea of
Speaker 2: streaks on its head because streaks can be a prison.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, you're gamifying consistency, and consistency is
Speaker 2: the most important thing with any fitness regime. But I
Speaker 2: know so many people who have become beholden to their
Speaker 2: streaks that it becomes like a psychological stranglehold. Gentler Streaks
Speaker 2: is nice because it incorporates the idea of rest and recovery.
Speaker 2: It kind of allows you to be like, Hey, I'm sick,
Speaker 2: I need a break from my streak, and you don't
Speaker 2: have that psychological pitfall of going, oh, I broke my streak.
Speaker 2: Everything is messed up now I might as well just
Speaker 2: give up completely. It's oh, you know, like you can
Speaker 2: take two or three days off, just get back into it.
Speaker 2: But I know friends who got super into the streaks
Speaker 2: on their Apple watch and closing their rings, and then
Speaker 2: they would get COVID or they would get a flu
Speaker 2: and they'd be like, it's time for me to walk
Speaker 2: outside so I can hit my step mark. That's insane,
Speaker 2: that's crazy, like that's not taking care of your health.
Speaker 3: Are there products that at first you thought like there's
Speaker 3: absolutely no way this will motivate me, and then you
Speaker 3: were pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 2: Fantasy Hike was one of them. So something like Generller
Speaker 2: Streaks is Fantasy Hike. It's on both iOS and Android
Speaker 2: now and it's kind of like a copyright friendly version
Speaker 2: of Walking to Mordor. So if you're a Lord of
Speaker 2: the Rings fan, it's kind of a fun thing to do,
Speaker 2: and it's very low stakes because it's just counting how
Speaker 2: many steps you take in a day, and you can
Speaker 2: track your progress to mourdoor and there's fictional competitors that
Speaker 2: you can go against, like Mister Underfoot, which is proto,
Speaker 2: or Harry flit Potter and John Snowflake and all of
Speaker 2: those things. It's very low key. You're always making progress
Speaker 2: in that game. So it's something that you can be
Speaker 2: like just going for a time minute walk every day.
Speaker 2: That's a really good start to fitness, even if it
Speaker 2: feels like it's not impressive, because that's really a pitfall.
Speaker 2: People genuinely think like I've got to work myself out
Speaker 2: to the point of exhaustion. I've got to hit fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand steps every single day and just do threey five
Speaker 2: hundred and work your way it from there, like truly
Speaker 2: go easy on yourself.
Speaker 1: We talked a bit about fitness. What about sleep? This
Speaker 1: is another thing. I used to have a sleep tracker,
Speaker 1: but I also stop wearing that because I kind of
Speaker 1: got it in this little bit stress cycle about like
Speaker 1: saying knowing, well, that didn't go enough sleep, and then
Speaker 1: I'm more stressed about it. And now if I wake
Speaker 1: up in the night and have it insomnia, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: like you'll just you know, you've got to sleep and
Speaker 1: issue don't you don't, It's all fine. Like my mental
Speaker 1: talk track is like don't worry about it, rather than like, ha,
Speaker 1: it gave.
Speaker 3: Me sleep hypochondria, that's what it gave me.
Speaker 1: But are there good ways to track sleep that are
Speaker 1: actually beneficial to getting better sleep? Do you think? Victoria?
Speaker 2: So, most sleep trackers are like fitness trackers, but for sleep.
Speaker 2: And I would say that aura is not a bad
Speaker 2: one because it's sort of giving you a holistic look
Speaker 2: at what you are tracking. So it's not just your sleep,
Speaker 2: it's how your sleep impacts your stress levels and your
Speaker 2: recovery levels, and the key to all of us is
Speaker 2: to just take it with a grain of salt. You're
Speaker 2: building a baseline. But there are some sleep buds that
Speaker 2: I like. Anchor makes some I think they're called the
Speaker 2: Sound or a something. Oslo is another one if you
Speaker 2: are someone who has a hard time falling asleep. These
Speaker 2: are buds that are designed to go in your ear.
Speaker 2: Their flat profile, so it's not like an AirPod, and
Speaker 2: you can connect it and listen to white noise, or
Speaker 2: you can listen to your favorite podcast or audiobook as
Speaker 2: you're falling asleep.
Speaker 1: I love white noise, by the way, but my wife's
Speaker 1: not a white, white noise person, so having private white
Speaker 1: noise could be a game changer for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my spouse uses that. I've used it in the past.
Speaker 2: It can really help if you have a really noisy neighbor,
Speaker 2: and then if you really have money to burn. One
Speaker 2: gadget that I tested and then bought with my own
Speaker 2: money is eight Sleep.
Speaker 3: It sleep You're an eight sleep I just did? Wow?
Speaker 2: I did? I bought it? Maybe I tested it and
Speaker 2: it improved my sleep and improved my spouse and sleep.
Speaker 1: What is it? Oh?
Speaker 3: Please tell him what an aid sleep is. The aid
Speaker 3: sleep erati or a real group of people, and you
Speaker 3: now are one of them.
Speaker 2: I'm not a crazy one. It just really did make
Speaker 2: a demonstrable difference in our sleep quality. So the eight
Speaker 2: sleep is a smart mattress cover. You use your own mattress,
Speaker 2: you don't have to buy the mattress from them. It
Speaker 2: has a water tank and it basically adjusts the temperature
Speaker 2: of your bed. So if let's say your spouse they
Speaker 2: run warm and they want their bed to be cooler,
Speaker 2: their side of the bed can be cooler. And I
Speaker 2: like to be warm when I fall asleep, and so
Speaker 2: my bed can be nice and toasty. And it also
Speaker 2: tracks your sleep quality. So if you want a sleep
Speaker 2: tracker and something that adjusts temperature in one, you can
Speaker 2: do that. There is a version that is a little
Speaker 2: bit more premium, but it has a base and it
Speaker 2: can elevate you when it detects snoring. My spouse used
Speaker 2: to snore a lot, and this has kind of helped
Speaker 2: because it works. It genuinely works. As I woke up
Speaker 2: one time very briefly and I was like, why am
Speaker 2: I being elevated? Oh, they're snoring? And now they're not snoring. Okay,
Speaker 2: I can fall back asleep. So there's a silent alarm function,
Speaker 2: so you know your bed will buzz you awake in
Speaker 2: the morning, but your partner can sleep through it. It's
Speaker 2: a game changer for me and my spouse. It's one
Speaker 2: of the best things you can do for your health
Speaker 2: is to figure out a really great sleep routine or
Speaker 2: find things that help you stay a sleep longer.
Speaker 3: It's kind of worth its weight in gold, then, it.
Speaker 2: Really is, which is why we'll be paying for another year.
Speaker 1: Victoria, Can I ask you to take us inside the
Speaker 1: toilet bowl?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like there's a deluge of toilet analysis
Speaker 1: this year, and I'm curious for your take on it.
Speaker 2: This is kind of a trend that's popping up while
Speaker 2: Withings is a French tech company and I saw this
Speaker 2: at CUS a couple of years ago and they were like,
Speaker 2: we've made an at home your analysis lab. So it's
Speaker 2: like I call it a pea shell because it looks
Speaker 2: like a shell shape and you stick it in your
Speaker 2: toilet and your pee on it, and depending on the
Speaker 2: cartridge that's in there, it'll measure like your vitamin C levels,
Speaker 2: your hydration, your pH and for some reason, if you
Speaker 2: would like to track those things you now can. There
Speaker 2: are other devices that I'm seeing start to hit the
Speaker 2: market because it's a wellness trend right now to quote
Speaker 2: unquote balance your hormones. I think this is something I
Speaker 2: will be looking into further and testing. Unfortunately, I can't
Speaker 2: believe this is part of my job to pee on
Speaker 2: gadgets now. But you know, for reproductive health, that is
Speaker 2: a thing that a lot of companies are interested in.
Speaker 2: There's a huge gap in foundational people with uterus's health
Speaker 2: data because fun fact, it wasn't required to have women
Speaker 2: or menstruating people as part of clinical trials until nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three. So the vast majority of what we know
Speaker 2: about health today is based on men's bodies, and they
Speaker 2: just women are smaller version of men, So let's apply
Speaker 2: the same things. And what researchers and doctors have been
Speaker 2: finding is that's absolutely not true. So if you have
Speaker 2: issues with fertility, for example, or if you have one
Speaker 2: of a number of conditions like perimenopause or PCOS, which
Speaker 2: is polycystic overy syndrome, they're claiming that you can be
Speaker 2: on these hormone test kits and track your health that way,
Speaker 2: and so that when you go to the doctor and
Speaker 2: you're like, I think I have these things. These are
Speaker 2: my reproductive hormone levels from my PE that has been
Speaker 2: collected over a period of time. What do you think
Speaker 2: about that? Because going to the doctor getting your analysis
Speaker 2: test that way, it's really just a spot check. It's
Speaker 2: not something that's collected over time. And that is one
Speaker 2: of the benefits. But you know, it's expensive. A lot
Speaker 2: of them require you to buy refills. So we'll see
Speaker 2: if it takes off. But I can't tell you the
Speaker 2: number of pitches I get for p tech these days.
Speaker 3: It's it's a good name for it, p tech.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where does RFK Junius in all of this?
Speaker 2: He's annoying, but he you know, just to be frank.
Speaker 2: He came out in June and he was basically saying like, hey,
Speaker 2: I want every American to be wearing a wearable within
Speaker 2: the next four years. I mean, the man has an
Speaker 2: interesting view of science. To put it, not even somewhat neutrally,
Speaker 2: but he basically was like, hey, you can take personal responsibility.
Speaker 2: I have friends who reverse their diabetes through using continuous
Speaker 2: glucose monitors, which there are now versions of continuous glucose
Speaker 2: monitors that are over the counter. Companies are calling them
Speaker 2: glucose biosensors. They are marketed towards people who do not
Speaker 2: have diabetes, or who have type two diabetes but aren't
Speaker 2: using insulin, or pre diabetic people so that they can
Speaker 2: use these devices and just kind of have a continuous
Speaker 2: stream for about a two week period of their glucose
Speaker 2: and how food impact. So a lot of physicians are
Speaker 2: hopeful about that technology. I've tested it. It comes with
Speaker 2: pros and cons. If you are someone who maybe does
Speaker 2: have pre diabetes, you can really see how your lifestyle
Speaker 2: impacts your glucose. You can learn what foods are triggers
Speaker 2: for your specific body. There's like a definite benefit there.
Speaker 2: Jerry's out on whether people who are non diabetic and
Speaker 2: perfectly good health need to add this to their tracking regime,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of people who are excited about
Speaker 2: this technology. It's available if you want it. Blood and
Speaker 2: Pea that's the new frontier for wearable tech.
Speaker 3: I think that's the pulk quill. Blood and Pea is
Speaker 3: the new frontier of wearable tech. You've written a lot
Speaker 3: about the wellness surveillance state, and that we might just
Speaker 3: be giving too much of our health data away. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people who are interested in tracking
Speaker 3: biometric data are also interested in not giving information about
Speaker 3: themselves away. Do you have any support or advice for
Speaker 3: people with privacy concerns?
Speaker 2: If you truly want your data to be private, none
Speaker 2: of these tech solutions is a good idea. There is
Speaker 2: a divide between what is considered medical tech, which is
Speaker 2: protected by HIPPA in the United States. A lot of
Speaker 2: the tech that you see right now, where it's just
Speaker 2: like tracking in some respect that is not hippoprotected. It
Speaker 2: does not fall under the FDA's oversight. And even if
Speaker 2: it is hippoprotected, it is kind of an inadequate piece
Speaker 2: of legislation. It was drafted a really long time ago.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of concerns about how wearable data fits
Speaker 2: into all of that. So the only responsible answer I
Speaker 2: can give you is that you just have to be
Speaker 2: cognizant of what you're sharing, and are you okay with
Speaker 2: these companies having access to your PE data. I have
Speaker 2: just resigned the fact that my personal data for my
Speaker 2: job is kind of out there but if that's something
Speaker 2: that you're really concerned about, I would steer clear. You
Speaker 2: got to do a lot of research into the privacy
Speaker 2: policies of these companies. At the Verge, when we review anything,
Speaker 2: we have a section at the end of our reviews
Speaker 2: called agree to Continue where we list all of the
Speaker 2: policies that you are prompted to agree to whenever you
Speaker 2: use a new product. Yeah, that's the dystopic reality about
Speaker 2: might be.
Speaker 1: After the break, tech to help you save, and even
Speaker 1: tech to help you unplug stay with us. I mean,
Speaker 1: you yourself are quite interesting personal journey. Somebody who had
Speaker 1: to use a lot of wearables for work, somebody who
Speaker 1: experienced health problems, and somebody who's still today despite it
Speaker 1: all uses wearable So can you just kind of spent
Speaker 1: out your own journey with this field technology.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Actually, before I ever got into this line of work,
Speaker 2: I had experienced something like a sixty pound weight gain
Speaker 2: and I was like, what is happening. I haven't changed
Speaker 2: a single dang thing. This is really crazy. And so
Speaker 2: I got into fitbits. This was like over ten years ago,
Speaker 2: and I was eating right, I was tracking all of
Speaker 2: my calories, I was getting hyper obsessive about it, having
Speaker 2: some disordered eating habits, and nothing was changing. And I
Speaker 2: went to my doctors. I was showing them all this
Speaker 2: wearable data. And it took me two years and a
Speaker 2: lot of false diagnoses, but I eventually was diagnosed with
Speaker 2: polycystic over syndrome, which is a metabolic condition that causes
Speaker 2: many women to gain weight against their will. I also
Speaker 2: started testing these over the counter CGM or glucose biosensors,
Speaker 2: whatever they want to call them, and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, am I pre diabetic? Because PCOS actually
Speaker 2: causes insulin resistance in many women, and I was seeing
Speaker 2: crazy numbers on there that didn't really make any sense.
Speaker 2: So I started going to the doctors and they're like, no,
Speaker 2: you're a one C which is your blood sugar marker
Speaker 2: for about a three month period. That's totally fine. You're
Speaker 2: not pre diabetic at all, but something's up. And then
Speaker 2: I eventually found out that I have non alcoholic fatty
Speaker 2: liver disease, and I was like, oh, okay, so it's
Speaker 2: been a rollercoaster of a journey. I do think that
Speaker 2: they can help you, but one thing that I think
Speaker 2: these companies are lacking is proper guidance on how to
Speaker 2: make sure that you were using the tools and that
Speaker 2: the tools are not using you. So that's kind of
Speaker 2: what I've made a lot of my work about because
Speaker 2: I really think that it's not talked about enough.
Speaker 3: They sort of just get unleashed into the world, and
Speaker 3: we as people using them have to just wrap our
Speaker 3: heads around how to best use them. There's no like
Speaker 3: and this is how you use the or ring responsibly.
Speaker 2: Yes, a lot of these companies are like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we have informational blurbs in there so that people could
Speaker 2: make the best decision for themselves. And it's like, sure,
Speaker 2: you can know better and still fall into these very
Speaker 2: insidious habits thinking that you're doing something great for yourself,
Speaker 2: but you're paying a cost elsewhere. So it's something that
Speaker 2: I think we should have much more public conversations about,
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 3: So there are other categories around New Year's resolutions that
Speaker 3: revolve around money, you know, either saving money or making money.
Speaker 3: Is there any tech or apps that you recommend for
Speaker 3: this kind of resolution making?
Speaker 2: I really like wine app, which means you need a budget.
Speaker 2: I've been using it for over ten years. I believe
Speaker 2: it's one hundred dollars a year, but because I use it,
Speaker 2: I definitely save one hundred dollars every month.
Speaker 3: So in your wine app.
Speaker 2: Yes, wineab is in my wine app. And it uses
Speaker 2: the envelope method for personal finance, where you take your
Speaker 2: income and you assign each dollar a job, and that
Speaker 2: really works for me. It is a little more finicky.
Speaker 2: I think it's really great for type A people, of
Speaker 2: which I am. But another one I think is Rocket Money,
Speaker 2: which I've tested, and the one thing I like from
Speaker 2: them is that they will, for a small fee, negotiate
Speaker 2: your subscriptions for you, some of them. And I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, that's amazing because now for the New
Speaker 2: York Times every year they just lower my monthly price
Speaker 2: and I don't really do anything for it. And that's great.
Speaker 3: Because Rocket Money is actually negotiating with the New York Times.
Speaker 2: Yes it's not. It's not for every service. So if
Speaker 2: you think you're going to like renegotiate all your bills
Speaker 2: in there, that's not true. But like I've negotiated down
Speaker 2: my Wall Street Journal bill and my New York Times.
Speaker 3: Bill, so they for me as a customer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't pay full price.
Speaker 3: Ever, it's great Oh, that's a very cool tip.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What about and this is sort of ironic, but what
Speaker 1: about like tech or products that can help you spend
Speaker 1: less time with tech? Or products like unplugging products, which
Speaker 1: is another big thing people, I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I actually got something called Brick. It is
Speaker 2: a small actually have it on my desk, and it
Speaker 2: is kind of a nuclear option in some respects. You
Speaker 2: sometimes sometimes you need to go nuclear. I was spending
Speaker 2: way too much time on my phone for work and
Speaker 2: for other things, and my spouse was like, we need
Speaker 2: to have an intervention because you cannot watch a TV
Speaker 2: show without being on your phone, and that is not okay.
Speaker 3: That's the definitely people for a couple couples.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know they had been using it. They said,
Speaker 2: I think you should really try it. And basically, it's
Speaker 2: like this little NFC brick and you tap your phone
Speaker 2: to it and when you enter a certain mode, it
Speaker 2: just locks all of your apps and the only way
Speaker 2: to unlock your app The only way to unlock your
Speaker 2: apps is to physically tap this physical brick. If you
Speaker 2: lose the brick, there are five emergency overrides, and once
Speaker 2: you use up your emergency overrides. Your phone has to
Speaker 2: be completely reset. It is quite drastic. It does require
Speaker 2: maybe that you're not someone who's going to lose the brick,
Speaker 2: But I find that that's been really helpful for when
Speaker 2: I notice that I am on my phone while watching TV,
Speaker 2: like I shouldn't be doing that. I should be paying
Speaker 2: attention to the TV show. Another thing I've been using
Speaker 2: is something called focus Friend, which Hank Green actually created
Speaker 2: earlier this year. It is a little bean that lives
Speaker 2: inside of your phone. It's like kind of a gamified thing.
Speaker 2: It's a take on the palmadoro. A digital bean, a
Speaker 2: digital bean, and you basically said it, and for that
Speaker 2: time period, you're not doing anything else on your phone
Speaker 2: because if you interrupt the bean who likes to knit socks,
Speaker 2: you are ruining his sock journey. And for some reason,
Speaker 2: he's a very cuy little bean. You don't want to
Speaker 2: ruin his sock journey. You and the bean who you
Speaker 2: can name, I named mine Blorbo. You're in it together
Speaker 2: and using Blorbo. I have read so many books this
Speaker 2: year compared to last year. I've been reading about ten
Speaker 2: a month.
Speaker 3: Thanks to Dorbo, you've read ten books a month thanks
Speaker 3: to Blorbo. I mean I run a book club. I
Speaker 3: don't read ten books a month, it's honest to god.
Speaker 2: I just do thirty to forty five minutes in the
Speaker 2: morning as part of my routine. I turn Blurbo on
Speaker 2: and I read during that time. And just doing that
Speaker 2: every single day, I.
Speaker 3: Bet you're rewiring neural pathways, honestly.
Speaker 2: And honestly, it's about finding the hacks that work for you.
Speaker 2: Anytime I accidentally hit my phone and it's like, you're
Speaker 2: going to interrupt blurbo, Do you want to do that, I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, no, I don't want to.
Speaker 2: He has to knit his little soakes. So it's actually
Speaker 2: quite effective for me. And there's other versions of this
Speaker 2: out there, but I find that the Pomadoro method, mixed
Speaker 2: with a cute little bean that you helped decorate his
Speaker 2: little house, it does wonders for my reading habit quite truly.
Speaker 3: I recently bought a timer for Pomadora method and it
Speaker 3: helps me read scripts. It's like the only way, but
Speaker 3: that's a very analog that's like a home Pomodoro is. Basically,
Speaker 3: you do twenty five minutes of work timed on a
Speaker 3: timer and you set everything else aside and only do
Speaker 3: the thing that you want to be working on in
Speaker 3: that pomadoro, and then you take a five minute break,
Speaker 3: and then you do another pomadoro and you collect pomadoro's. Basically,
Speaker 3: it's a very effective way for someone like me who
Speaker 3: like gets sucked into my phone or gets sucked into
Speaker 3: email to actually focus on the thing that I want
Speaker 3: to be doing.
Speaker 2: It's also great if you have a hard time starting tasks,
Speaker 2: because you can do anything. You can do anything for
Speaker 2: twenty five minutes. Ye, you can do it, and you
Speaker 2: can adjust it. Yeah, you can adjust it. So like
Speaker 2: if you're really having a hard time starting out, you
Speaker 2: can just do it for fifteen minutes or something. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter who you are. You can do anything for
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes and just to get started on that. And
Speaker 2: once you get started, I guarantee you a lot of
Speaker 2: times you'll find that out. What was that so procrastinating about?
Speaker 2: This isn't so bad, So it's it's really great.
Speaker 1: Are there any resolutions or resolution based tech that we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about yet that you've been interested in.
Speaker 2: If you're trying to set a new habit, I like
Speaker 2: this app called Habitica. It's very cute. It's like a
Speaker 2: little RPG where you do a little habit tracking and
Speaker 2: you level up your little fantasy character. Clearly, I like
Speaker 2: fantasy games on my phone. Yeah, but a lot of
Speaker 2: people I know have also enjoyed Habiteka. Like doing little
Speaker 2: chores around your house, you get points and experience points
Speaker 2: for them. It's very cute if you're trying to like
Speaker 2: build a new habit, which is very hard. One thing
Speaker 2: that I don't think people give enough credit for is
Speaker 2: that habits are basically programming your brain to do something automatically,
Speaker 2: and there's like science behind it. There's something like a
Speaker 2: que an action and a reward, and in order to
Speaker 2: like have that pathway burned into your brain, it's very difficult.
Speaker 2: You have to do it an x number of times.
Speaker 2: People will say three weeks, but it could be shorter,
Speaker 2: it could be longer. The scientists don't know. But for
Speaker 2: however long it takes to burn that habit loop into
Speaker 2: your brain, whatever motivation you find is really great, because
Speaker 2: behavioral change is one of the hardest things you can
Speaker 2: genuinely do. So if you are trying to do a
Speaker 2: New Year's resolution, yourself a little graze. It is actually
Speaker 2: quite difficult to change your.
Speaker 3: Behavioral as we all sadly know, we very sadly know.
Speaker 1: Well, Victory, that's a good place. And through this conversation,
Speaker 1: I have come up with my new as resolution. What
Speaker 1: is spend more time with my friends.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: That's a very lovely New Year's resolution.
Speaker 3: Should start calling your friends. What was it? Blur blurbo,
Speaker 3: blur blurbo blurbo. Victoria, Thank you, thank you, Victoria, thanks
Speaker 3: for having me. That's it for this week for tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Kara Price and I'm os Valoschin. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced by Eliza Dennis, Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter. It
Speaker 1: was executive produced by Me, Kara Price, Julia Nutter, and
Speaker 1: Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katria Norvel for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Jack Insley mixed this episode. Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song.
Speaker 3: Please rate, review, and reach out to us at tech
Speaker 3: Stuff podcast at gmail dot com. We want to hear
Speaker 3: from you.