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Speaker 1: Good software makes me feel really happy.

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Speaker 2: It makes things effortless and even makes unpleasant things enjoyable.

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Speaker 1: Like email.

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Speaker 2: Email can feel really tedious, monotonous, and never ending. But

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Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, a guest on the show,

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Speaker 2: Tim Kendall, suggested that I give Superhuman a go. Aside

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Speaker 2: from making email so much faster and more enjoyable, one

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Speaker 2: of the things I still remember is the induction call

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Speaker 2: that I had when I started using the software. So

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Speaker 2: I had a thirty minute video call where someone from

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Speaker 2: Superhuman held my hand metaphorically speaking well, I configured the software,

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Speaker 2: learned some basic shortcuts, and did some life practice runs

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Speaker 2: on how to get the most out of Superhuman. I

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Speaker 2: still remember this call two years later. Now today's show

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Speaker 2: is a best of episode. While I take a couple

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Speaker 2: of weeks off, and I I had to replay my

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Speaker 2: interview with the founder of Superhuman, Rahul Vora. This was

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Speaker 2: one of my favorite interviews from twenty twenty, and it

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Speaker 2: is shock a block with practical tips on how to

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Speaker 2: work better. We obviously talk email, but we also chat

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Speaker 2: about how Rhul makes his meetings as effective as possible,

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Speaker 2: why key blower shortcuts are a huge key to his

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Speaker 2: productivity and how he thinks about making software a joyful experience.

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Speaker 1: My name is doctor Ramantha Imber.

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Speaker 2: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science

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Speaker 2: consultancy Inventium, and this is How I Work, a show

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Speaker 2: about how to help you.

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Speaker 1: Do your best work.

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Speaker 2: Now, before we get onto my chat with Rahul, I

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Speaker 2: wanted to let you know that I'm going to be

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Speaker 2: doing a live recording of How I Work at the

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Speaker 2: Melbourne Podcast Festival on July thirty one, and I.

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Speaker 1: Would like you to come along.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be interviewing Christian O'Connell, who was one

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Speaker 2: of Britain's best known and most awarded breakfast radio presenters,

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Speaker 2: and he moved out to Australia a few years ago

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Speaker 2: and he's now the host of Gold FM's Breakfast Show.

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Speaker 2: I am a huge fan of Christians. He is so

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Speaker 2: funny and so insightful and seriously such a brilliant radio

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Speaker 2: host and I'm super excited to chat to him. So

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Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about what goes on behind

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Speaker 2: the scenes of breakfast radio. We're going to be talking

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Speaker 2: about some of Christians quite significant mental health challenges and

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Speaker 2: how he overcame them, along with his strategies for coming

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Speaker 2: up with ideas on what on earth to talk about

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Speaker 2: every single day for three hours on live radio. Now,

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Speaker 2: I'm also going to be hanging around after the show

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Speaker 2: because I'm.

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Speaker 1: So keen to meet listeners of.

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Speaker 2: The show in person, so please come up and say hi.

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Speaker 2: So to book your tickets just you can search for

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Speaker 2: Melbourne Podcast Festival in Google or even easier, there is

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Speaker 2: a link in the show notes, so just click on

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Speaker 2: that to book tickets. All profits from the show go

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Speaker 2: to charity, and I'm super excited to meet you, so

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Speaker 2: please book today.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so back to Rhul.

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Speaker 2: Let's start with hearing about what Rhoul's relationship is like

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Speaker 2: with email and how he thinks about processing his own inbox.

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Speaker 3: Well, starting with my relationship with email. It really does

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Speaker 3: go back quite some way back in the day. I

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Speaker 3: founded a company that folks may remember called Reportive, which

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Speaker 3: was the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users.

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Speaker 3: We sold that to LinkedIn at around twenty twelve, then

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Speaker 3: it became LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and the idea behind Reportive

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Speaker 3: was pretty simple. On the right hand side of Gmail, well,

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Speaker 3: we showed you what people look like where they work

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Speaker 3: their recent tweets links to their social profiles, so we

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Speaker 3: could help you establish connection, like a real personal connection

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Speaker 3: with people much better in your email. And now, as

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Speaker 3: you know, I'm the founder and CEO of Superhuman, where

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Speaker 3: we make the fastest email experience in the world. Most

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Speaker 3: of our users end up getting through their inbox twice

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Speaker 3: as fast as before, and many of them see inbox

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Speaker 3: zero for the first time in years, which, as you

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Speaker 3: can imagine, is pretty life changing. So my own personal

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Speaker 3: workflow for email now, I get thousands of emails every

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Speaker 3: single day. There are certain minutes in the day where

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Speaker 3: I'm receiving north of five to seven emails in that minute,

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Speaker 3: so you know, an email every ten to eleven seconds.

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Speaker 3: This is therefore something I've thought a lot about. Without

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Speaker 3: specialized tooling like Superhuman, it would be impossible, more than

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Speaker 3: a full time job to stay on top of it.

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Speaker 3: So there's a few different things. First of all, I

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Speaker 3: almost never ever touch the mouse. We designed Superhumans so

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Speaker 3: that you can do everything from the keyboard. You can

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Speaker 3: fly through your inbox purely by typing, and that's a

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Speaker 3: rule that I abide by, not just inside Superhuman, by

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Speaker 3: the way, but in almost every piece of software I use,

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Speaker 3: I go above and beyond to make sure I'm learning

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Speaker 3: those keyboard shortcuts and becoming more efficient and more productive

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Speaker 3: as a result. So that's step one. Step two is

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Speaker 3: to make very liberal use of our split inbox feature.

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Speaker 3: Do you yourself use the split inbox feature?

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Speaker 1: I sure do so.

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Speaker 2: In a nutshell my workflow with email, everything comes into

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Speaker 2: the inbox.

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Speaker 1: Then I've got and actually got.

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Speaker 2: This from Laura may Martin from Google who's their executive

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Speaker 2: productivity advisor. Took what she shed on the show and

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Speaker 2: so got my inbox where everything comes into. Then anything

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Speaker 2: that needs to be actioned by me and doesn't rely

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Speaker 2: on anyone else, I actually star them. So I hit

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Speaker 2: the S shortcut and then that goes into my to

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Speaker 2: do list inbox. I've also got a read later inbox,

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Speaker 2: and I loved when I was able to do that

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Speaker 2: with Superhuman in terms of splitting my inbox into just

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Speaker 2: labeling things read later, and then they go into that inbox.

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Speaker 2: And then I've got all my subscriptions and calendar invites

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Speaker 2: and things that are sort of the non urgent not

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Speaker 2: sent from an actual human to me inbox. I've got

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Speaker 2: my four inboxes and that's my workflow. Like I'll batch

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Speaker 2: process to do items, I'll batch process my inbox and

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Speaker 2: try to clear it or get it to at least

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Speaker 2: inbox five or six at the end of the day.

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Speaker 2: So that's an a nutsheal what I do fantastic and

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Speaker 2: it's really great to hear that usage of split inbox.

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Speaker 3: It's just one of those magical features where everybody has

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Speaker 3: its set up differently and in a way that is

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Speaker 3: optimal for them, so mine is very different. I have

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Speaker 3: a split for GitHub. Obviously we're a technology company. The

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Speaker 3: engineering team is the critical path to getting stuff done,

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Speaker 3: so I want to be the best, most responsive CEO

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Speaker 3: and founder that I can possibly be. If someone tags

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Speaker 3: me on GitHub saying hey, what should the copy be here?

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Speaker 3: Or can you please review this piece of code or

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Speaker 3: this piece of functionality, I want to be right there

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Speaker 3: unblocking the team immediately, and as an entrepreneur that's important.

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Speaker 3: The way that we act and react sets the bar

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Speaker 3: of agility for the company. So I have a GitHub split.

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Speaker 3: All mentions on GitHub come to me. Similarly, I also

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Speaker 3: have a Google doc split. We now are about sixty

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Speaker 3: people inside of Superhuman, roughly a third going on a

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Speaker 3: little bit more are engineering. The rest is across every

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Speaker 3: single other function, and I want to know whenever I

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Speaker 3: am commented or addressed in a Google Doc, I want

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Speaker 3: to be able to jump in and unblock as quickly

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Speaker 3: as possible to speed up decision making inside a company.

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Speaker 3: So I have a Google Doc split. I also have

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Speaker 3: a staff and team split. This is an internal email split.

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Speaker 3: This allows me to separate external conversation from internal conversation

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Speaker 3: because we are now at the phase of company where

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Speaker 3: internal conversation is the stuff that needs to happen as

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Speaker 3: rapidly as possible. Generally speaking, that's true for most organizations

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Speaker 3: at around this size. It's a little bit different when

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Speaker 3: you're smaller. It's also a little bit different when you're later.

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Speaker 3: And then finally, I use the important other split. As

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Speaker 3: you might know, this is an AI driven split to

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Speaker 3: separate out person to person email correspondence from things like

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Speaker 3: e commerce promotions and other forms of automated email. Now,

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Speaker 3: the cool thing about this set of splits is it

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Speaker 3: gives me a structure that mirrors the structure of my day.

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Speaker 3: So first thing in the morning, I'm in the getzub

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Speaker 3: split blocking all the engineering team. Then I'm in the

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Speaker 3: Google Docs split unblocking everybody else. Then I deal with

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Speaker 3: internal email, and then I get back to the outside world.

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Speaker 3: And I almost never ever go to the other splits.

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Speaker 3: I think the only time is whenever I do, when

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Speaker 3: I've reset a password or something like that, and I

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Speaker 3: know it's going to be sitting in there amongst the

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Speaker 3: huge number of emails that I don't have to look at.

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Speaker 3: So that's a triarche level. Things get split into the

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Speaker 3: inboxes like.

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Speaker 2: This interesting and so basically you're going through the main

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Speaker 2: inbox where everything's arriving, and then petitioning them off or

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Speaker 2: filing them into the right split inbox, or have you

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Speaker 2: got it set up that things will automatically land in

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Speaker 2: the correct split the latter.

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Speaker 3: This is the magic of split inbox. I think if

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Speaker 3: I were automatically filing, the benefits wouldn't be significantly greater

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Speaker 3: over Gmail directly. But because all of these things automatically

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Speaker 3: end up in their respective inboxes, it saves me significant

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Speaker 3: to me ounce of time. And also, and this is

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Speaker 3: the nuanced point, it saves me significant amounts of context

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Speaker 3: switch overhead. And every engineer would be familiar with that term.

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Speaker 3: Processes are designed to avoid context switch overhead. That's how

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Speaker 3: today's processes get so fast, and when you think about

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Speaker 3: the human mind. It's an often bandeid about term, but

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Speaker 3: the idea is the same. It takes us about twenty

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Speaker 3: to twenty three minutes to recover from an interruption. Similarly

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Speaker 3: takes us that amount of time to recover from a

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Speaker 3: context switch. If you imagine a typical inbox and you're

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Speaker 3: going from an email with a candidate to an email

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Speaker 3: where you're organizing a podcast, to an email where you're

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Speaker 3: maybe talking to a potential investor, to an email where

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Speaker 3: you're doing custom support, to an email where you're commenting

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Speaker 3: on an internal management document, to an email where you're

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Speaker 3: dealing with an engineering question. That is just so much

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Speaker 3: context switch that to go through my inbox linearly would

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Speaker 3: be absurd. I wouldn't be able to get through it.

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Speaker 3: And I think that's true for most knowledge workers today.

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Speaker 3: We're all doing so many more different kinds of things

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Speaker 3: than we were doing before that you need software to

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Speaker 3: help you make sense of the chaos and to be

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Speaker 3: able to split things up into different streams of work.

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Speaker 2: And so do you batch process your email then during

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Speaker 2: the day, like how often would you close Superhuman?

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Speaker 1: For example?

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Speaker 3: Superhuman is constantly open for me. However, I only do

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Speaker 3: email in a batch twice a day, so I look

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Speaker 3: at it first thing in the morning, just to see

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Speaker 3: if anything unusual has happened over nights. Is there anything

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Speaker 3: that I need to jump on top of right away?

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Speaker 3: I would say that's relatively rare. That's probably once a

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Speaker 3: week where I have to sort of groggly send an

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Speaker 3: email from bed so to speak. Usually not a common occurrence.

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Speaker 3: And then typically it's an hour in the morning and

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Speaker 3: about an hour or two in the evening. The email

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Speaker 3: workload is greater at the beginning of the week, so

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Speaker 3: Mondays it will tend to be about two hours because

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Speaker 3: there's all of the weekend to catch up on as well.

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Speaker 3: I don't actually do my email on the weekend. That's

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Speaker 3: a relatively unusual thing. I think most people do. So

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Speaker 3: Monday is a little bit heavier, and then by the

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Speaker 3: end of the week it's quite a bit lighter. And

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Speaker 3: I do hit inboxero every single day.

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Speaker 2: Wow, and no email on the weekend. Tell me about that.

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Speaker 3: I just believe that the weekends should be for rest

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Speaker 3: and recuperation, and when you get thousands of emails every

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Speaker 3: single day, Like I said, I could if I wanted

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Speaker 3: to spend my entire day doing email, And it's just

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Speaker 3: not a sensible or a good use of time for

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Speaker 3: me to do that. So I'll keep an eye on it.

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Speaker 3: I do have notifications on my devices and so I

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Speaker 3: see the emails come in. I am, of course only

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Speaker 3: getting notified on the important emails, and I'll jump on

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Speaker 3: something that needs immediate attention, but that is increasingly rare.

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Speaker 2: I imagine that there would be a lot of listeners,

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Speaker 2: like other CEOs senior leaders who I don't know if

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Speaker 2: they're getting thousands of emails a day, be like, how

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Speaker 2: are you limiting your time in your inbox to just

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Speaker 2: two one hour blocks a day? Like what are you

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Speaker 2: doing differently other than what we've already spoken about that

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Speaker 2: is allowing you to do that.

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Speaker 1: Are there any other.

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Speaker 2: Kind of tricks or hacks or things that you're doing

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Speaker 2: differently to the average person?

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Speaker 3: Quite probably. So there's really two different levels of this,

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Speaker 3: or several. Actually. The first level is what I call

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Speaker 3: the mechanical or the control level. And I said this before,

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Speaker 3: I'll say it again because it's so important. You have

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Speaker 3: to stop touching the mouse. We don't even notice the

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Speaker 3: slowdown that it causes because our brain is involved in

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Speaker 3: the mechanical work of moving your elbow and your wrist

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Speaker 3: and your fingers, and so the time therefore just seems

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Speaker 3: to pass, but it really does add up over the

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Speaker 3: course of the day. I can play superhuman the same

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Speaker 3: way I can play the piano, and that itself creates

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Speaker 3: a ton of efficiency. The next level is of triage.

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Speaker 3: When you're receiving not just thousands, even hundreds of emails

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Speaker 3: a day, you can't feasibly get through every single one,

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Speaker 3: and so you have to use something like split inbox

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Speaker 3: to make sure that the emails that you do get

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Speaker 3: to are actually the ones that matter the most. I don't,

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Speaker 3: of course, look at the thousands of emails I get

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Speaker 3: every single day. I rely on splits like Important, other

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Speaker 3: like team like Heurban Google docs to make sure I'm

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Speaker 3: getting to the most important ones. And thereafter it's things

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Speaker 3: like our snippets feature. So you probably know that you

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Speaker 3: can create. These templates are sort of like canned responses,

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Speaker 3: but on steroids. They're so much more powerful that automates

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Speaker 3: a lot of the repetitive aspects of email. So typically

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Speaker 3: I'll get perhaps fifty emails a week from folks saying, Hey,

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Speaker 3: I heard about Superhuman on a podcast and i'd really

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Speaker 3: love access. How do I know? Or can you please

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Speaker 3: introduce my friends to Superhuman? I really want them to

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Speaker 3: have access. And so what I will do is I'll

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Speaker 3: then use a snippet, and the snippet will simultaneously do

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Speaker 3: a whole bunch of different things. It will move the

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Speaker 3: sender to BCC, will thank them for making the introduction,

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Speaker 3: it will c see the right members of my team,

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Speaker 3: it will BCC our internal CRM, and it will type

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Speaker 3: out a really nice email. And it can do all

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Speaker 3: of that in two seconds. So you take a five

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Speaker 3: minute activity, you make it a two second activity, and

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Speaker 3: you can start to see how I can stay on

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Speaker 3: top of an inbox that is receiving thousands of emails

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Speaker 3: a day and still hit inbox zero every single day.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's great, and I must say

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Speaker 2: I love snippets. I really so heavily on that feature.

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Speaker 2: I want to come back to what you were saying

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Speaker 2: about not using the mouse and just using keyboard shortcuts,

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Speaker 2: and I feel like I'm maybe I'm halfway there with superhuman.

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Speaker 2: I'm just thinking I do use the mouse actually to

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Speaker 2: go between my split inboxes. But I guess a more

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Speaker 2: general question, like if someone is listening to this going

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Speaker 2: that makes so much sense, But it can be hard

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Speaker 2: to remember keyboard shortcuts. How we like, what's the best

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Speaker 2: way to approach that? How do you approach that when

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Speaker 2: you're learning new software so that you can use it

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Speaker 2: as efficiently as possible.

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Speaker 3: The good news is most software shares a common set

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Speaker 3: of keyboard shortcuts, so once you start to develop the

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Speaker 3: muscle memory, you can very intuitively learn shortcuts in any

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Speaker 3: new app that you pick up. So I suspect that

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Speaker 3: every listener listening to us on this podcast will know

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Speaker 3: command see or control C, and command V or control

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Speaker 3: VAS copy and paste, and almost everyone will know commander

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Speaker 3: control BIU for bold, italic and underlying. And the reason

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Speaker 3: we know these is because they work in basically every

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Speaker 3: single context that you might want to use them in.

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Speaker 3: That's also, fortunately, how other keyboard shortcuts work. So, for example,

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Speaker 3: this notion of changing splits where you're using the mouse,

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Speaker 3: For example, if you were to just hit tab, you'd

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Speaker 3: go over to the next split, and if you hit

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Speaker 3: shift tab you go to the previous split. That is

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Speaker 3: actually a fairly common convention in software. This works on

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Speaker 3: both Windows and Mac. Hitting tab will typically take you

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Speaker 3: to the next control, the next thing that you can

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Speaker 3: interact with on the screen. Hitting shift tab will typically

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Speaker 3: take you to the previous one. But this is a

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Speaker 3: real problem. It's not easy, and I do realize that

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Speaker 3: you know, there is effort involved when it comes to

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Speaker 3: learning and remembering these keyboard shortcuts. So we built this

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Speaker 3: really cool thing called Superhuman Command, and in our onboardings

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Speaker 3: we teach people that you really only have to remember

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Speaker 3: one of them, and that is command K. You hit

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Speaker 3: command K and pops this box. You then simply type

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Speaker 3: in the thing that you want to do. You can

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Speaker 3: even misspell it if you like, and it will not

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Speaker 3: only give you the command for doing it right there

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Speaker 3: and then, so you just hit enter, it will also

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Speaker 3: show you the keyboard shortcut for doing it the next time.

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Speaker 3: So a really simple example, let's say you didn't know

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Speaker 3: the shortcut to compose an email. Hit command K, type

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Speaker 3: in a few characters of the word composed. It could

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Speaker 3: be let's say com and it will show you that

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Speaker 3: the shortcut is C. So when you're doing it. That

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Speaker 3: first time you could just hit enter and you're composing

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Speaker 3: an email, and the next time you can hit C

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Speaker 3: and you'll be off to the races. You'll never actually

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Speaker 3: have to look that one up again. So that's how

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Speaker 3: most users learn the Superhuman shortcuts.

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Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned the onboarding process of Superhuman, which, when

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Speaker 2: I think about all the software applications that I've used

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Speaker 2: in my life, this was like an onboarding process that

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Speaker 2: I've never experienced. I told so many people about it,

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Speaker 2: and I've never experienced anything that amazing. Can you describe

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Speaker 2: to listeners what does the onboarding process look like? And

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Speaker 2: I'm assuming because I've been using Superhuman for no eighteen

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Speaker 2: months now or something like that, I'm assuming that it

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Speaker 2: hasn't changed overly.

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Speaker 1: But essentially, there was a human that onboarded me.

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Speaker 2: And how you actually designed that process, which was just

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Speaker 2: it was joyful.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm so glad to hear that because that was

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Speaker 3: the key thing that we were designing for joy or delight,

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Speaker 3: And folks who know me know that in my previous life,

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Speaker 3: I actually used to be a game designer, So we're

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Speaker 3: bringing a lot of that idea behind game design into

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Speaker 3: how we designed the superhuman experience. We specifically design for

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Speaker 3: joy or delight, which we define as pleasant surprise. So

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Speaker 3: instead of just leaving our customers with the product, which

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Speaker 3: I think almost any other company would do, we provide

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Speaker 3: this personalized, one to one concierge onboarding experience to every

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Speaker 3: new customer. Now, these happen with one of our wonderful

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Speaker 3: onboarding specialists who are not only experts in email that

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Speaker 3: are also experts in productstivity. So yes, they learn about you,

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Speaker 3: they learn how you're doing your email now, and then

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Speaker 3: they show you how to do it twice as fast.

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Speaker 3: Inside of Superhuman. They'll show you command k superhuman, command

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Speaker 3: that thing that I just mentioned, so that you now

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Speaker 3: have the tools to continue to teach yourself. When the

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Speaker 3: call is over.

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Speaker 2: I imagine just to give listeners a sense of how

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Speaker 2: many users you've got, because some people might be listening

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Speaker 2: and going, well, I've never heard of Superhuman, So that's

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Speaker 2: fine when you've only got a handful of users, But

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Speaker 2: how many users are you up to now?

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Speaker 3: Well, I can't share the user number directly because we

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Speaker 3: are a ventured backed company, but in the context of onboarding,

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Speaker 3: I can share that we've done tens of thousands of

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Speaker 3: onboardings like this. Every single one of them was one

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Speaker 3: to one, every single one of them was a VIP

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Speaker 3: white glove experience, and we just really care about that.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting because most founders, most CEOs I've spoken to

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Speaker 3: about this, thought that it would be impossible, that we

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Speaker 3: wouldn't figure out a way to make this scale units economically,

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Speaker 3: that at some point it just would all fall over

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Speaker 3: and break. But I think we've been able to scale

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Speaker 3: this far past the point where most people thought we'd

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Speaker 3: have to stop.

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Speaker 1: I think it's amazing.

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Speaker 2: And I mean, for look, for any listeners that do

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Speaker 2: put your name on the waiting list for Superhuman, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to assume that there's still a long waiting list,

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Speaker 2: am I am I right in saying.

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Speaker 3: That there is. There's over three hundred and fifty thousand

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Speaker 3: people on the wait list. But for members of the community,

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Speaker 3: folks listening to this, what I would say is if

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Speaker 3: when you sign up, put the How I Work podcast

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Speaker 3: in how did you find out about Superhuman, and we'll

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Speaker 3: be able to bounce everyone in the community right to

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Speaker 3: the top of the queue.

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Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing, That's very good news for listeners. Now on

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Speaker 2: the topic, of batching, which we touched on before. I've

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Speaker 2: also heard that you batch your meetings. Can you talk

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Speaker 2: about what that looks like and how exactly that looks

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Speaker 2: in a typical week.

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Speaker 3: For you do I not only batch meetings. Superhuman actually

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Speaker 3: runs on what I call a staggered calendar. Most people

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Speaker 3: run very inefficient calendars that one on ones are randomly

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Speaker 3: dispersed throughout the week. Team meetings happen whenever anybody happens

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Speaker 3: to be free, and there's relatively little time to focus

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Speaker 3: and to do deep work. So here's how staggering works.

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Speaker 3: If you run a team, do your team meeting on

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Speaker 3: Wednesdays and stack all of your one on ones on Tuesdays.

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Speaker 3: If your reports run teams, ask them to do the same,

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Speaker 3: but a day earlier, so they run their team meetings

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Speaker 3: on Tuesdays and they stack all their one on ones

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Speaker 3: on Mondays. And if your organization is big enough, you

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Speaker 3: can push everything down one day if you have another

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Speaker 3: level of management. Now, this staggering has a number of benefits.

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Speaker 3: Number One, information moves through the company very quickly and

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Speaker 3: very efficiently. Problems are discussed one on one on Monday

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Speaker 3: in specific departments with individual contributors on Tuesday, and if necessary,

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Speaker 3: they can be resolved by leadership on Wednesday. It takes

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Speaker 3: at most two days for information to travel that way.

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Speaker 3: Number two, what I found is problems are usually solved

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Speaker 3: along the way. For example, in your Wednesday leadership team meeting,

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Speaker 3: you might hear, oh, this problem came upon Monday. We

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Speaker 3: discussed it as a department on Tuesday, and here's the

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Speaker 3: solution we'd like to go with. And what you might

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Speaker 3: find yourself doing is saying, well, that sounds good, great,

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Speaker 3: thank you for letting me know. And number three, it

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Speaker 3: leaves Monday, much of Wednesday, and all of Thursday and

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Speaker 3: Friday free to do deep work, which is the stuff

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Speaker 3: that only you can do and which requires your full concentration.

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Speaker 1: Hy there.

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Speaker 2: I am just loving how conscious Ruhul is about the

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Speaker 2: way he approaches his work.

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Speaker 1: Ah, it's so good.

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Speaker 2: Now, in the second part of this interview, Rhul is

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Speaker 2: going to be talking about one of his mos, unorthodox productivity.

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Speaker 1: Hacks, the switch log.

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Speaker 2: And if you're enjoying how I work, you might want

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Speaker 2: to hit pause at this point and leave a review

438
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 2: for the show. A huge thank you to the hundreds

439
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:13,639
Speaker 2: of people that have done this already and thank you

440
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 2: a big thank you in advance. If you're planning on

441
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 2: leaving a review for the show today, do you have

442
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:25,159
Speaker 2: any rituals around deep work, around getting into flow? What

443
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 2: does that look like for you?

444
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 3: I would say that my best and possibly most unorthodox

445
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 3: ritual is the switch log. And I came to the

446
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 3: switch log by asking the question, do you know how

447
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 3: you spend your time? Now? Most people think they know,

448
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 3: but they don't really. Yes, you have a calendar, but

449
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 3: calendars are poor reflections of reality. Urgent tasks require our attention,

450
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:55,159
Speaker 3: important work, they not even be on our calendars. And

451
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 3: as the saying goes, you change what you measure. So

452
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,440
Speaker 3: my question more from do you know how you spend

453
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,920
Speaker 3: your time to a more simple one, which is how

454
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,400
Speaker 3: do we measure time? And this is the switch log.

455
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,920
Speaker 3: It's a surprisingly simple and super effective tech. Lea number

456
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 3: one log when you start a task, number two log

457
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 3: when you switch a task, and number three log when

458
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 3: you take a break. And here's the crazy part after that,

459
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,919
Speaker 3: do whatever you want, and I really do mean it.

460
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 3: Turn up for your meetings, obviously, but otherwise follow your

461
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 3: intuition and do what seems important. So I then start

462
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 3: to log my time with Slack. Every time I start

463
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 3: a check task or change a task, I will send

464
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 3: a little message to a channel in Slack. You can

465
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 3: do this with a private channel, or you can send

466
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 3: it to another person to have them help you analyze

467
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 3: it later, if you want to do that. And they're

468
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 3: simple things like and that. They typically start with a

469
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 3: TS which in my parlance stands for tasks which so

470
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 3: it will be something like ts CO one calendar design

471
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 3: review if I'm doing some product work, or ts colon

472
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 3: email if I'm doing email, or ts cole on Twitter

473
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 3: if I'm doing community work on Twitter, or ts colon

474
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 3: arr goal if I'm doing revenue management goal setting. Now

475
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 3: you might think this sounds very error prone. What happens

476
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 3: if you do a different task, or you forget to

477
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 3: log a task, or you switch. Very easy. If I

478
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 3: log one task and I instead do another, it's usually

479
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 3: obvious to me about five or ten minutes in that

480
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 3: I'm doing a different thing to the thing I said

481
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:36,919
Speaker 3: I was going to be doing. That's very easy. I

482
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 3: just go back to Slack and I edit the message.

483
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 3: If I forget to log a task, that's also okay too.

484
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 3: I just log it when I notice it, with the

485
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 3: time built into the message. So instead of saying ts

486
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 3: colon meditation, I might say five thirty colon meditation because

487
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 3: I started it at five thirty and sometimes I start

488
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 3: one to ask and this is the final issue that

489
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,360
Speaker 3: most people have. Switch for another five minutes and then

490
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 3: switch back and that's okay. I'm logging these things almost

491
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 3: like a lawyer, if you will, in increments of minutes.

492
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 3: It's actually even more granular than what a lawyer would do.

493
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 3: And whatever happens, the key thing is, do not worry

494
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 3: about updating your calendar. You can analyze all of this

495
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 3: data post hoc.

496
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 2: And so what does that analysis look like? And just

497
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 2: to be clear, are you doing the log every single

498
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 2: day or are you just doing it for periods of

499
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 2: time to get greater self awareness and change your behavior.

500
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 3: Accordingly, I do personally do the log every single day

501
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,959
Speaker 3: because I'm very lucky, very fortunate to work with a

502
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 3: really amazing EA who can help me analyze it on

503
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 3: a weekly basis. If you don't have that resource, this

504
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 3: is something that you might want to do perhaps twice

505
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 3: a year, once in January. Once again, at the halfway

506
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 3: point of the year. The analysis itself is relatively simple.

507
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 3: You take all of your tasks, you then categorize them.

508
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 3: So my categories include product design, recruiting, PR management, leadership, email,

509
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 3: and meditation. And then you just chart the time spent

510
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 3: in each category. And I'm thinking of an example of

511
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 3: a week I had earlier this year where I actually

512
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 3: only spent four percent if I recall correctly of my

513
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 3: time on recruiting and are whopping twenty two percent on

514
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 3: public relations work. You can then start to compare this

515
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 3: with rules of thumb and your ideal week. For example,

516
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 3: I know that as the CEO of a Series B

517
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 3: venture backed company, I should be spending roughly thirty percent

518
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 3: of my time on recruiting. My own personal effort on

519
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 3: doing PR work is probably less important than hiring someone

520
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 3: who can do that better than I could, And so

521
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 3: I immediately found an actionable insight after the week where

522
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 3: that was the case.

523
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: I love that example. That's fantastic.

524
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 2: I'll occasionally have guests on the show that do track

525
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 2: their time think anyone that doesn't every day, but hearing

526
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 2: you talk about it is inspiring me to actually go

527
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 2: through a bit of a time tracking phase. Now I

528
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 2: want to come back to meetings because I know that

529
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 2: you've got a specific process that you use to run

530
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 2: meetings at Superhuman. Can you describe what that is?

531
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Most teams run very inefficient meetings where certain issues

532
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 3: are discussed to the exclusion of others, and this is

533
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 3: doubly dangerous. Not only do you spend too much time

534
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 3: talking about these issues, other important problems become very starved

535
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 3: of attention and can often go for weeks at a

536
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 3: time without anyone actually paying attention to them. So we

537
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 3: use the decision making process outlined in a really great book.

538
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 3: I believe this is available for free online. It's called

539
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 3: The Great CEO Within by Matt Mercury. He's a well

540
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 3: known CEO and executive coach here in Sola.

541
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 2: Now.

542
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 3: The process has three key ingredients that make it so effective.

543
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 3: We've also tweaked it a bit to make it our own,

544
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 3: so I will describe our version of it. Number One,

545
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,719
Speaker 3: if somebody wants to bring something up in the team meeting,

546
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 3: they must write it down beforehand and share it with

547
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 3: the team by six pm on the day before. And

548
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 3: the idea is we should avoid talking about things that

549
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 3: were not written down, as we can read much faster

550
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 3: than we can speak. And if you're spending your team

551
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 3: meeting just communicating your idea, well, then that's obviously inefficient

552
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 3: because you could have written it down and folks could

553
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 3: have read it beforehand. Number two, if somebody wants to

554
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 3: speak about something in the team meeting, they must have

555
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 3: read and commenting on the documents beforehand. Why this is

556
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 3: a pure issue of respect. We should avoid commenting on

557
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 3: things where we did not invest the time to get

558
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 3: up to speed, as it needlessly waste the time of

559
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 3: those who did so. It's not enough for someone just

560
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 3: to write a document saying, hey, this is the thing

561
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 3: that I think we should do. This is the problem,

562
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 3: this is the solution, and only half the team read it.

563
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 3: If that's the case, and sometimes it is the case

564
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 3: because certain weeks are busy than others, then the half

565
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 3: of the team that didn't read it are not party

566
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 3: to that decision. They're not party to that discussion. This

567
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 3: keeps things moving very quickly. Number three. If something is

568
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 3: discussed in the team meetings discussed for at most five minutes,

569
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 3: and if consensus is not reached within five minutes, then

570
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 3: the conversation stops and a decision maker is identified, and

571
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 3: we use the Jeff Bezos rule of thumb to identify

572
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 3: the decision maker fairly simple. For reversible decisions, the decision

573
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 3: maker is anyone other than myself. You shouldn't have the

574
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 3: CEO making reversible decisions. For non reversible decisions, then the

575
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 3: decision maker should be me, and we use a frameworker

576
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 3: responsibility matrix. We happen to use Baine and Koe's rapid

577
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 3: framework to assign any roles in the decision making process.

578
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 3: And after the meeting, the decision maker will gather all

579
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 3: the required information, and this part's key, they make the

580
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 3: decision before the next team meeting. And this avoids, you know,

581
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 3: that phenomenon of just kicking the can down the road

582
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 3: for especially hard decisions and not actually making them. And

583
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 3: we found that by doing all of these everyone is

584
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 3: always up to speed. Each item takes at most five minutes,

585
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 3: and in one hour you can get through ten items

586
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 3: with tons of room for fun and banter along the way.

587
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 2: I love that approach and just how well thought through

588
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 2: it is. Can I ask how meetings external meetings work

589
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 2: for you, because I imagine that inefficiencies would drive you crazy.

590
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 2: But you know people that are not within the organization

591
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 2: probably have different approaches to meetings and how they like

592
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 2: them to run. Do you bring that approach to external

593
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 2: meetings that you're having or are you kind of happy

594
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 2: to be more of a chamelleon? I guess in that sense.

595
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 3: Not really, because I think external and internal meetings have

596
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 3: very different purposes. So I am talking specifically about a

597
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 3: team meeting where you're trying to take a set of

598
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 3: high quality decisions as efficiently and as effectively as possible.

599
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 3: I don't think that has ever been the case for

600
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 3: me for an external meeting. It's very very rare. Most

601
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 3: external meetings are some kind of sales or emotional process.

602
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 3: It's actually the entirely opposite goal. You're not trying to

603
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 3: get through a high number of decisions in a very

604
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 3: high quality fashion. You're trying to be persuasive or to

605
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 3: create some kind of outcome, like this person wants to

606
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 3: work for my company, or they want to invest in

607
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 3: my company, or we're going to have this partnership, or

608
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 3: we're going to do this initiative together. So that's a

609
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 3: wholly separate process where and we can talk about this

610
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 3: if you like, but it's much more about understanding the

611
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 3: other person, what goals are, what the motivation is. It's

612
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 3: about active listening, and by that I mean, you know,

613
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 3: not saying hear all the time, but really truly actively listening,

614
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 3: responding to the points that are made, and just progressively

615
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 3: working towards your goal.

616
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I would like to delve into the topic

617
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 2: of persuasion. I read when I was researching for this

618
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 2: interview that Jonathan Siegel was very influentially in teaching you

619
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 2: about how to create great pitches. And I imagine with

620
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 2: your background, you've done a lot of pitching, So what

621
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 2: is now your approach to pitching ideas and even more broadly,

622
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 2: trying to persuade someone as to the merit of what

623
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 2: it is that you're doing or what you're selling, so

624
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 2: to speak.

625
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 3: Here's the thing about Jonathan Siegel, And there was one

626
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 3: other person very similar to Jonathan who I knew a

627
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 3: decade earlier, Seamus Hashier. He was a friend back from university.

628
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:56,399
Speaker 3: They taught me so much of what I know about

629
00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 3: pitching today. The thing that sets them apart from others

630
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 3: is they are incredibly fast talkers, they're incredibly fast thinkers,

631
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 3: and they're also supremely confident Now, this does not mean

632
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:15,800
Speaker 3: that you should talk incredibly quickly or be supremely confident.

633
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 3: What it means is you can lean into that skill

634
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 3: set or develop that skill set if you don't have

635
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 3: those things today. And by hearing them pitch countless times.

636
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 3: With Shamus, I was in an entrepreneurship club, so I

637
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 3: heard him pitch Gosh, I don't know, hundreds of different

638
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 3: business ideas. And with Jonathan Siegel, he was a mentor

639
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 3: an advisor to my last company. I had him pitch

640
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 3: my own company to me, way better than I was

641
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 3: pitching it to other people. I began to see that

642
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 3: it was practice and confidence. Now in order to make

643
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 3: this actionable, what I have is a very simple three

644
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,240
Speaker 3: step process that I think you can apply to any pitch.

645
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 3: It doesn't even have to be a venture pitch. Number one,

646
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 3: what is the problem that you're trying to solve and

647
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 3: convey not just what the problem is, but also how

648
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,240
Speaker 3: painful it is, and really make it a motive, Really

649
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 3: help the audience connect with that pain and how many

650
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 3: people feel that pain. Number two, what is the solution

651
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 3: that you have in mind? What is the solution that

652
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 3: you've built, if it already exists and number three and

653
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 3: this really only applies if you're raising venture investment. How

654
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:25,239
Speaker 3: does this become a billion dollar opportunity? Now, I'm also

655
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 3: a very active angel investor, and this third point is

656
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 3: actually where most founders fall short. Many times I end

657
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 3: up passing on great founders with great businesses because I

658
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,720
Speaker 3: was not able to get to conviction that the business

659
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 3: could support a huge ie a multi billion dollar outcome.

660
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 2: That's a good process. And yeah, I feel like where

661
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,439
Speaker 2: I think where a lot of great pictures fall down

662
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 2: is that the lead with the idea or they won't

663
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 2: build up enough pain in the problem that people are experiencing,

664
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 2: which I think is really valuable thing to remember. Now

665
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 2: you're immersed in the world of technology and software, I'm curious,

666
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 2: aside from Superhuman, what are your favorite apps or pieces

667
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 2: of software for being more productive and organized and sailing

668
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 2: through the day more easily and effectively.

669
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, of course my favorite is Superhuman. I wouldn't

670
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 3: be able to do my job with ounces. Apart from that,

671
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 3: I use Trello for my work tasks. This is after

672
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 3: trying every single task management app that exists, and I

673
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 3: try every new one when it comes out, I still

674
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 3: find as old school as it is, that Trello is

675
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 3: a good balance between simplicity, it doesn't have a complex

676
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 3: mental model or a complex information hierarchy, and collaboration. I

677
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 3: can share my personal board and my EA, I can

678
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 3: interact on boards of other people in the company who

679
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 3: also use Trillo, other groups in the company, and it

680
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 3: has just the right level of customizability for my needs. Now.

681
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 3: I know that some people will need more complex project

682
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 3: management solutions. They might use it to doist or an asana.

683
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 3: But for me, Trello is great for my work tasks.

684
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 3: I do try and keep my personal errands and my

685
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:15,280
Speaker 3: administration out of Trello. I find that it's just helpful

686
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 3: to not be distracted, for example, about paying your taxes

687
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 3: when in the middle of the workday. So I actually

688
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 3: use Apple reminders for personal errands and for administration. For example,

689
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 3: this morning, I got my yearly reminder to pay my

690
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 3: exorbitant San Francisco property tax, so I should get on

691
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 3: that before it starts accruing interest. Why do I use

692
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 3: Apple reminders, Well, I can't really see myself abandoning the

693
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 3: Apple ecosystem in the next few years. I was a

694
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:48,240
Speaker 3: die hard Windows fanboy growing up. Switched over to Apple

695
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 3: about ten years ago, haven't looked back since. I think

696
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 3: I'll be with the Apple ecosystem for the next ten years,

697
00:38:55,120 --> 00:39:00,799
Speaker 3: and I want my long term reminders, things like I

698
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 3: need to get my car small checked three years from now,

699
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 3: or I need to pay my property tax November every

700
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 3: single year. I want those reminders to be in the

701
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 3: operating system itself and not in a tool like Trello,

702
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 3: where if something good enough came along that was different

703
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 3: to Trello, I would happily jump ship. And so for

704
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 3: me that being in the operating system is very important.

705
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 3: So between superhuman Trello and Apple Reminders, I sail through

706
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 3: my day significantly faster than otherwise.

707
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned that you will try in new software

708
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 2: where it comes out, and you'll compare that to what

709
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 2: you're currently using. What is your approach to trying new software,

710
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 2: because I feel like this is something that a lot

711
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 2: of people do but maybe don't do it as well

712
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 2: as they could. So what does that look like for you?

713
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 3: I think it really depends on what your goals are

714
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 3: trying the new software are. So I am actually this

715
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 3: may come as a surprise, not an early adopter. I

716
00:39:57,120 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 3: don't try things simply because they're new.

717
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:00,800
Speaker 2: You know.

718
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 3: I'm not the kind of person that, for example, might

719
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 3: hang out in product hunts on a daily basis and

720
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 3: sort of scan through and pick out the new things.

721
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 3: If you are an early adopter, if you are excited

722
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 3: about trying all the new stuff, then of course communities

723
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,959
Speaker 3: like product hunts and specific subredits will be a great

724
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 3: place to go and do discovery For these tools, I

725
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:27,439
Speaker 3: tend to rely on social network and social signal. I'm

726
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 3: very active on Twitter. By the way, my dms are open.

727
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 3: If listeners want to get in touch, feel free to

728
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:36,240
Speaker 3: send me a DM. And good tools will once they've

729
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 3: maintained or rather obtained a little bit of social momentum,

730
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 3: they'll become very clear on Twitter. And that's usually a

731
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 3: triggering point for me. If that doesn't trigger me, then

732
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:49,800
Speaker 3: sometime after that someone will almost certainly tell me, Hey,

733
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,280
Speaker 3: you have to try this thing out. It's really cool.

734
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 3: I think you'll love it, And that for me is

735
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 3: usually the trigger when I give a new tool a.

736
00:40:57,520 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: Go on Twitter.

737
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 2: Are there specific people that you follow that you find

738
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 2: really great at highlighting new things that you might want

739
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 2: to be giving a go to So.

740
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 3: Like I mentioned, I'm actually a partner in a small

741
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 3: angel fund. So my partner in this is Todd Goldberg.

742
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 3: I would highly recommend that folks follow myself and him.

743
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:21,920
Speaker 3: Todd runs the fund day to day. I obviously run

744
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 3: superhuman day to day. I put an hour or two

745
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 3: a week into the fund helping us assas companies and

746
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 3: working with the founders that we've invested in. And I

747
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 3: find that Todd has this incredible nose for finding really

748
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 3: amazing experiences very early, and we are actually working on

749
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 3: We're not quite sure the format it will take right now,

750
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:45,360
Speaker 3: we're thinking maybe we'll go old school with this I

751
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 3: and email list. We're working on an email list for

752
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 3: product curation, So stay tuned. I would say watch this space,

753
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 3: follow myself and Todd on Twitter, and we'll be going

754
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 3: live with that project over the course of the next

755
00:41:59,200 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 3: quarter or so.

756
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 2: Amazing.

757
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about that.

758
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 2: And are there any new or soon to be released

759
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 2: apps that you are feeling excited about? Obviously, with the

760
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 2: caveat that you're not a self described earlier adopt.

761
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 3: Absolutely so. My favorite new tool is descript or descript

762
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 3: not entirely sure how you say it. It's an incredible

763
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 3: piece of audio and video editing software from Andrew Mason,

764
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 3: who folks may remember as the founder of groupon. Now.

765
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 3: The amazing thing about descript is that it works like

766
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 3: a doc. So you record your podcast or your video

767
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 3: and then imagine instantly seeing a Google Doc like transcription

768
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 3: of what was said. And like in the Google Top,

769
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 3: you can select a piece of text, you can comments,

770
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 3: you can collaborate super easily with anyone else on your team.

771
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 3: But here's where it gets mind blowing. You can also

772
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 3: select that same piece of text, hit delete and it

773
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:01,120
Speaker 3: will magically remove that piece of audio. Or you can

774
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 3: automatically remove all filler words like are. You can even

775
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 3: type in what you wish you would have said, and

776
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 3: it will generate the audio in your voice as if

777
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:14,879
Speaker 3: you would have said it. And they call that last

778
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 3: future overdub. So if you produce audio or video, I

779
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 3: highly recommend checking the script out. It's totally game changing.

780
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 2: Yes, I couldn't agree more. I've played around with it

781
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,600
Speaker 2: a bit and it's super fun. Now. One thing, I

782
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 2: found this great quote about you on LinkedIn. I think

783
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 2: it was in your LinkedIn profile at one of the

784
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,919
Speaker 2: recommendations that you've got. And this person said, Rahul could

785
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 2: design products with his eyes closed and the result would

786
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 2: still be more desirable, forward looking, and dramatic than anything

787
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 2: from a typical product person. And I've read that, and

788
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 2: I mean that completely aligns with my experience of Superhuman.

789
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 2: But what is it that you do differently in how

790
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:58,920
Speaker 2: you approach the work that you do that makes you

791
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 2: different from a typical product person.

792
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:06,320
Speaker 3: At Superhuman, we build software like it as a game. Now,

793
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 3: most software companies worry about what users want or what

794
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 3: users need, But if you think about it, nobody needs

795
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 3: a game to exist. There are no requirements. When you

796
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 3: make a game, you don't worry about what users want

797
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 3: or what they need. Instead, you obsess over how they feel.

798
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 3: Because when your product is a game, people don't just

799
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 3: use it. They play it, They find it fun, they

800
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,399
Speaker 3: tell their friends, they even fall in love with it.

801
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 3: And it turns out that game design is an altogether

802
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:40,240
Speaker 3: different kind of product development. I was professionally a game designer,

803
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 3: and I've been actually designing games since I was a

804
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 3: little kid. And I think that is the thing that

805
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 3: separates my approach as a product person and Superhuman's approach

806
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 3: as a company to building software.

807
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 1: That's fascinating.

808
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 2: And you know, I think about listeners who are not

809
00:44:57,560 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 2: designing software for a living but are doing other things.

810
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 2: I just think, you know, look, that's a great philosophy

811
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 2: for whatever it is, like, whatever experiences you are creating

812
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 2: in the line of work that you do. Look, my

813
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 2: final question for you, and you've kindly suggested that people

814
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 2: can send you a DM on Twitter, like, what is

815
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 2: the best way for people to find out more about you?

816
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 2: Interact with you in some way and use superhuman and

817
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:25,839
Speaker 2: maybe will have it just a reminder of what people

818
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 2: should put in where they should email their request to

819
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 2: join the waiting list, how do they do that and

820
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 2: what they need to put in the subject line to

821
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 2: jump that very long waiting list.

822
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 3: For sure. So I love interacting with folks in the community.

823
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 3: It brings me great joy. I'm very very easy to

824
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 3: get a hold of. You can either email me Rajol

825
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 3: that's my first name, r A h u l at

826
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 3: superhuman dot com or send me a Twitter direct message.

827
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 3: My dms are open for folks who are interested in

828
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 3: getting access to Superhuman. I would obviously recommend doing that,

829
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:01,839
Speaker 3: especially if your job around email. If you're the kind

830
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 3: of person who's in email for hours a day, as

831
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 3: many of us are. This is something that can just

832
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 3: help move help you move through your inbox so much faster,

833
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 3: especially if you've had aspirations of hitting inbox zero. Just

834
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 3: sign up and in the section where it says how

835
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 3: did you hear about Superhuman? Enter the How I Work Podcast.

836
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,720
Speaker 3: We do have a waiting list of north three hundred

837
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand people, but if you enter this podcast

838
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 3: into that box, we will jump you to the front

839
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,759
Speaker 3: of the line and get onboarding you as rapidly as

840
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 3: we can.

841
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome, and listeners, just do it. Superhuman is just

842
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 2: bloody awesome rful. It's just been such a joy chatting

843
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 2: to you and hearing how you work and how you think.

844
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 2: You know really deeply and practically about all these things.

845
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for your time.

846
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 3: Thank you.

847
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 1: Remember that is it for today's show.

848
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 2: Now next week we have one more best of episode

849
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 2: and we're going to continue the theme of email with

850
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 2: Laura May Martin, who is the executive productivity advisor at Google,

851
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 2: and we're going to be talking about why you need

852
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 2: to think about email in the same way that you

853
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 2: think about laundry. All will be revealed next week, so

854
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 2: hit subscribe or follow if you don't all ready Wherever

855
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 2: you listen to this podcast, How I Work is produced

856
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 2: by Inventing with production support from Dead Set Studios. And

857
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 2: thank you to Martin Imba who did the audio mix

858
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 2: and makes everything sound awesome.

859
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:32,399
Speaker 1: See you next time.