Speaker 1: What I found when I was trying to automate those
Speaker 1: tasks that I was talking about in my old job.
Speaker 1: The first thing I did was like look up conferences
Speaker 1: and people speaking about that exact issue, because I realized that, like,
Speaker 1: if I'm seeing this as a total pain in my day,
Speaker 1: that I'm spending way too much of my day doing this,
Speaker 1: someone else much smarter than me has already thought of
Speaker 1: that and has probably come up with solutions. So rather
Speaker 1: than try to rebuild from scratch, I'm going to find
Speaker 1: someone smarter out there who's already tackled this problem. So
Speaker 1: I've never been afraid to kind of reach out to
Speaker 1: other people doing the similar job that I'm doing and
Speaker 1: just quiz them, like, what do you do?
Speaker 2: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 2: you used by the world's most successful people to get
Speaker 2: so much out of their day.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, doctor Amantha Iver.
Speaker 2: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 2: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day.
Speaker 2: Before we get to you today's show, I just want
Speaker 2: to do a call out for listener questions, so as
Speaker 2: you might have noticed if you're a regular listener of
Speaker 2: How I Work, that I am now dedicating a few
Speaker 2: episodes to answering questions that might be on your mind
Speaker 2: about the world.
Speaker 3: Of work and productivity.
Speaker 2: So if anything's on your mind that you would like
Speaker 2: me to cover, please send it through to Amantha at
Speaker 2: Inventium dot com dot au and my email is always
Speaker 2: in the show notes as well.
Speaker 4: So let's get onto today's guest. Who is Peter Wells.
Speaker 2: Now, if you've been listening to How I Work for
Speaker 2: the last few weeks, you might recognize Peter from.
Speaker 3: The Meta podcast.
Speaker 2: So Peter recently had me as a guest on one
Speaker 2: of his podcasts, which is a podcast all about podcasters.
Speaker 3: So I actually replayed that episode.
Speaker 2: On How I Work, and I'm a big fan of
Speaker 2: what Peter does with Meta. So when Peter is not
Speaker 2: hosting that podcast, he is a technology journalist for the
Speaker 2: Sydney Morning Herald and has been for many many years,
Speaker 2: where he writes about tech and podcasts, and he also
Speaker 2: now recently launched a daily tech podcast called The Help Desk,
Speaker 2: which is well worth checking out.
Speaker 3: So I must say I'm a huge.
Speaker 2: Fan of tech journalists because I feel like I'm in
Speaker 2: for a really geeky kind of chat, which I love.
Speaker 3: And there were lots of great tips.
Speaker 2: That I got from Peter, especially around thinking about.
Speaker 3: Automating your job.
Speaker 2: So Peter has a really interesting advice around this, which
Speaker 2: actually inspired me to think about what more of my
Speaker 2: own job I could automate. So on that note, let's
Speaker 2: head to Peter to hear about how he works. Peter,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: We've been reviewing technology for many, many years, and I've
Speaker 2: got to say I love talking to tech reporters because
Speaker 2: I feel like they've got the best advice. So I
Speaker 2: want to know what your favorite gadgets that you've been
Speaker 2: using in twenty twenty. So no pressure, no pressure, and
Speaker 2: they don't have to have been released in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: That's the rules of the game, so just stuff that
Speaker 2: you're using.
Speaker 1: I honestly think that the best bit of tech that's
Speaker 1: come out in the last couple of years has been
Speaker 1: the Airpod's pro. So the original AirPods were great, but
Speaker 1: the pro their magic. It blows my mind every time
Speaker 1: I put them in and turn on the little noise
Speaker 1: canceling thing.
Speaker 5: No, tiny, little earbuds that have no.
Speaker 1: Kind of seal around the ear should knock out the
Speaker 1: sound of the world around you as well as they do.
Speaker 5: And it just boggles my.
Speaker 1: Mind every time you get really jaded after a certain
Speaker 1: time as a tech reporter or a journalist, when you
Speaker 1: get sent all of these things to play with and
Speaker 1: you know, you have to sit through our long presentations
Speaker 1: about how this new gadget's going to change the world
Speaker 1: and change how you see the world, and then you
Speaker 1: spend five minutes with it and go, eh, that's all right,
Speaker 1: I guess. But for me, the Airpod's pro was still
Speaker 1: that kind of like I don't know. I open them
Speaker 1: up and I'm like, wow, that's kind of magic. I
Speaker 1: don't know how they do that.
Speaker 2: Is that fun? Just being sent free gadgets? I feel
Speaker 2: like that would be living the dream.
Speaker 5: Oh totally.
Speaker 1: Back when I was writing a weekly column tech column
Speaker 1: for SMH, companies would actually just send me stuff without
Speaker 1: even telling me that they were going to so like
Speaker 1: I would just there was just this constant stream of
Speaker 1: like brown boxes arriving on my doorstep and it was
Speaker 1: like Christmas. Every day. I'm like, I wonder what's in this?
Speaker 1: And yeah, so that was really really fun. I'm happy
Speaker 1: for people to continue to do that.
Speaker 2: If you're listening, Oh my goodness, how do I get
Speaker 2: a job as a tech reporter, Peter? You me?
Speaker 5: It took a hell of long time.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that tell me one other gud Because I've
Speaker 2: got a pair of epop pros and I love them.
Speaker 2: But I feel like with my AirPods, and this is
Speaker 2: a running joke with my friends that I would speak
Speaker 2: to quite regularly, that there's always just that moment of
Speaker 2: hang on, hang on, wait, wait for the air pods
Speaker 2: to connect. How the AirPods aren't working? Oh, why aren't
Speaker 2: they sinking? Let me call you back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Feel like there's that moment that would be my one
Speaker 2: complaint with any like the air AirPods or the airpop pros.
Speaker 5: I find Oh no, totally.
Speaker 1: And so I mean, I don't make a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot of phone calls these days, so I never did.
Speaker 5: I guess I'm much more of a text and a
Speaker 5: chat kind of person.
Speaker 1: But yeah, when I was at work, when I had
Speaker 1: like the full time desk job, I would always just
Speaker 1: have one of the earbuds in the whole time, so
Speaker 1: that I'd never had that issue of waiting.
Speaker 2: That's a great idea. I like that, And then the
Speaker 2: other one can be charging and then you can swap
Speaker 2: it out and you.
Speaker 5: Can still hear everyone in the office.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, it's just a nice way of kind
Speaker 1: of keeping involved but also having just background noise.
Speaker 2: And yeah, tell me some other gadgets that you're a
Speaker 2: fan of.
Speaker 1: I think anything that helps me get through my day
Speaker 1: a little bit more is always something that I love,
Speaker 1: and me.
Speaker 5: I really love.
Speaker 1: I've got a house full of Google Assistant devices, and
Speaker 1: you know, some of my friends are use Alexa instead.
Speaker 5: I really like Google's interface.
Speaker 1: I've got one of the screen ones sitting in on
Speaker 1: my kitchen bench, and you know, when I'm making dinner
Speaker 1: for myself and it's just showing photos of my kids
Speaker 1: go by. And then in the morning, I start every
Speaker 1: morning by kind of making a cup of coffee and
Speaker 1: just saying good morning to the device. And by the way,
Speaker 1: always thank you for digital assistants, because when the robots
Speaker 1: rise up against us, they'll remember the ones who say
Speaker 1: thank you. And it's just also nice to do in
Speaker 1: front of your kids. But anyway, when I'm making my coffee,
Speaker 1: I say, you know, good morning, Assistant, and it will
Speaker 1: tell me what's on my calendar for the day, It'll
Speaker 1: tell me what the weather's going to be, and then
Speaker 1: it plays a couple of those daily short podcasts for me,
Speaker 1: and it's just a really nice routine to kind of
Speaker 1: start the day, and that in itself is worth the price.
Speaker 5: I think it was about two hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: For the Google Home Hub is the one I use,
Speaker 1: but yeah, Amazon has a similar version if you prefer them.
Speaker 1: It's when technology can kind of step in and fill
Speaker 1: the gaps because my brain is always mushed most of
Speaker 1: the time and I have seven hundred things to try
Speaker 1: to remember. So anything I can offload to a gadget
Speaker 1: or a device and then know that it's there and
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to remember it later.
Speaker 5: They're the gadgets I really.
Speaker 2: Love so with the Google Assistant because I actually I
Speaker 2: was given one for my birthday, which was a couple
Speaker 2: of months ago, and I feel like the person that
Speaker 2: gave it to me is often giving me tips on
Speaker 2: what to do, but I just wouldn't have known how
Speaker 2: to get the most out of it. Like even this morning,
Speaker 2: I was given the tip say to your Google Assistant,
Speaker 2: Hey Google, good morning, And then it told me all
Speaker 2: this stuff that was quite helpful. It told me about
Speaker 2: the weather, it told me some news headlines. It started
Speaker 2: playing something which I switched off pretty soon after. But
Speaker 2: it's like, I had no idea it could do that,
Speaker 2: or that I would even enjoy that, and I did.
Speaker 2: What do you find are some of the things that
Speaker 2: you use it for that improve your life even a
Speaker 2: little bit?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, those kind of routines and so that they're all
Speaker 1: found under routines within the Google Home app on iOS
Speaker 1: or Android, So pop on in there. You'll find a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff that you may not have thought about.
Speaker 1: And discoverability of features is always a trick when it
Speaker 1: comes to software. It's something that all of my friends
Speaker 1: who developed software for a living, it's the hardest thing
Speaker 1: for them to to figure out how to present some
Speaker 1: of the cool stuff there apps too, because you don't
Speaker 1: want to like throw a whole bunch of did you
Speaker 1: know this when you first launch an app, because most
Speaker 1: people will just swipe through it because they want to
Speaker 1: get to the app. So yeah, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: figure that kind of stuff out. But yeah, routines is
Speaker 1: what Google calls them. So for me, I've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of different routines. I've got too many smart lights.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think they're a great purchase, but I
Speaker 1: got sucked in and I'm a nerd, so I've got
Speaker 1: a houseful of smart lights. Anyway, I can say TV
Speaker 1: time to any of the little speakers around the house
Speaker 1: and it will dim all of the lights except one
Speaker 1: that's kind of behind the TV, and that one behind
Speaker 1: the TV starts to glow purple, which just creates a
Speaker 1: really nice environment to watch movies and things like that. So,
Speaker 1: and my daughter loves saying that. Actually, she's a big
Speaker 1: fan of that. If I say goodbye as I'm leaving
Speaker 1: the house, it turns off all the lights and turns
Speaker 1: on the security camera outside. So yeah, just play around
Speaker 1: with routine, see what you can find.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm still going to do that. I'm excited. I
Speaker 2: like the sound of your TV light setup. That's really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I haven't gone down the smart lights route, yet, but
Speaker 2: maybe one day. How about software, Like, aside from the
Speaker 2: usual suspects, what do you find software or apps that
Speaker 2: help you work better and look help in any aspects
Speaker 2: of life? Really?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to say, actually, when we were chatting
Speaker 1: last week, you mentioned to ever note and it was
Speaker 1: almost like you mentioned a friend who had passed away,
Speaker 1: like it was so sad to hear because I've just
Speaker 1: started a brand new business.
Speaker 5: What I've found in the past is.
Speaker 1: Humans always underestimate how long it takes to do anything,
Speaker 1: and I'm especially guilty of that. And so whenever I've
Speaker 1: changed roles, I've found that rescue time.
Speaker 5: Are you familiar with that?
Speaker 2: I am familiar with rescue time, but I imagine a
Speaker 2: lot of listeners are not so rescue time time tracking software,
Speaker 2: but can you maybe go into a bit of detailer
Speaker 2: and also around like what makes it different as well
Speaker 2: from other options out there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so rescue Time.
Speaker 1: Why I really like it is, first of all, the
Speaker 1: free tier is pretty much good enough for most people.
Speaker 1: Unless you're in a team and you really want to
Speaker 1: understand where everyone is working, then rescue the free tier
Speaker 1: of rescue time is absolutely fine.
Speaker 5: And I've used it over the years.
Speaker 1: I've never really kind of stuck with it, but whenever
Speaker 1: I transition into a new role, I always started up
Speaker 1: because I always realized that whatever I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: takes way longer or maybe even shorter sometimes but rarely
Speaker 1: than I expect. And so what I love about Rescue
Speaker 1: Time it's just a very simple app that lives in
Speaker 1: the menu bar of your Mac or your PC, and
Speaker 1: just all it does is just quietly, silently track what
Speaker 1: you're spending your time in, and it does it in.
Speaker 5: A really good way. I trust the privacy of this service.
Speaker 1: It's been around forever, and you know, there are certain
Speaker 1: apps that could do the same kind of time tracking
Speaker 1: that I'd feel less comfortable giving it access to see
Speaker 1: where I was, what I was doing on my computer
Speaker 1: all day, whereas, yeah, risky your time. I've really trusted
Speaker 1: over the years. I think they're good people behind it.
Speaker 1: So the great thing about it is it's just really simple.
Speaker 1: It doesn't intrude, It doesn't make you have to remember
Speaker 1: to set a time or I don't have to think
Speaker 1: about it. It just sits there and records in the background.
Speaker 1: So you know, at the end of the day, when
Speaker 1: I was looking at how long it took me, for instance,
Speaker 1: to edit a podcast, which is a new task that
Speaker 1: I'm doing that I haven't done for a very long time.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's been great to see how much
Speaker 1: faster I'm getting day by day. But also if you
Speaker 1: get to the end of the day and you've got
Speaker 1: twenty things on your to do list and you're disappointed
Speaker 1: that you only knocked off three or four of them,
Speaker 1: that can create a real sense of anxiety for me,
Speaker 1: at least when if I can look back and go, well,
Speaker 1: hang on a second. According to Rescue Time, seven hours today,
Speaker 1: I was super productive and I was bouncing around between
Speaker 1: email and logic, and that sounds to me like I
Speaker 1: had a fairly busy day. So I'm going to give
Speaker 1: myself a pass for not ticking off all of the
Speaker 1: items of my to do list, and maybe tomorrow I'll
Speaker 1: write a more realistic to do list based on how
Speaker 1: long it actually takes me to accomplish these tasks.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting using it to give you feedback and
Speaker 2: help you become more accurate in estimating how long a
Speaker 2: task takes. I yeah, I've never thought about using time
Speaker 2: tracking software that way. I did go through a Rescue
Speaker 2: time stage, I want to say, maybe six months ago.
Speaker 2: I would like just running some experiments at Inventium around
Speaker 2: time tracking, and I think I've never found a time
Speaker 2: tracking system that I've firstly got a lot of value
Speaker 2: out of and therefore like it hasn't changed my behavior
Speaker 2: or And look, I do agree with you. Rescue time
Speaker 2: is good because it does work in the background, so
Speaker 2: it's relatively straightforward. But yeah, I feel like I haven't
Speaker 2: cracked that for myself yet, although I know that a
Speaker 2: lot of guests that I've had on the show have
Speaker 2: used time tracking in some way to gain insight. But
Speaker 2: I like what you're saying there in terms of it
Speaker 2: is good for just reminding you that even if you
Speaker 2: don't feel like you've gotten through everything you wanted to do,
Speaker 2: it's still actually been a good and productive and valuable day.
Speaker 1: And I think, especially when everyone is working from home,
Speaker 1: you might not have the same kind of feedback that
Speaker 1: you would normally get in an office environment. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are struggling to get through the
Speaker 1: day and wonder did.
Speaker 5: They actually accomplish anything? You know. It feels like that's.
Speaker 1: Been a big concern for some of the friends I have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just during these kind of isolation lockdown months of you know,
Speaker 1: did I really accomplish a lot?
Speaker 5: Do I get? You know?
Speaker 1: How much more effective am I when say the kids
Speaker 1: aren't at daycare versus when they are, Like, these are
Speaker 1: really fascinating things for me to at least track so
Speaker 1: that I can then look forward and figure out, well,
Speaker 1: you know, my daughter's going to be home that day, realistically,
Speaker 1: what can I get done. The other way I used
Speaker 1: it actually was when I first started out as a
Speaker 1: macadmin at a university. Again, it was a job i'd
Speaker 1: never done before. I understood kind of what was behind
Speaker 1: the job and like what the main tenants of the
Speaker 1: job were, but I'd never done it, so I didn't
Speaker 1: really know how long how long each task would take,
Speaker 1: and so that's why I started to use rescue time.
Speaker 1: But what I ended up finding was eighty percent of
Speaker 1: my week was going to packaging apps, which is a
Speaker 1: boring thing and I won't go into it, but so
Speaker 1: like I just realized, like that is such a massive
Speaker 1: chunk of the week, and because of that, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that is something I need to learn how to automate.
Speaker 5: And you know, I.
Speaker 1: Gave myself, you know, a couple of weeks to not
Speaker 1: package anything, to give myself that eighty percent of the
Speaker 1: time back and figure out a way to automate that task.
Speaker 1: And you know, three weeks of hard work figuring out
Speaker 1: how to automate it, I was able to do that,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly I had eighty percent of my week
Speaker 1: freed up to do more interesting stuff and to yeah,
Speaker 1: to look at all the other sections of the job.
Speaker 5: So for rescue time, I think that was the moment
Speaker 5: where I really really.
Speaker 1: Fell in love with that app because it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you've actually given me eighty percent of my week back
Speaker 1: for the rest of my time in this role.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that was incredibly valuable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing. I want to come back to automation,
Speaker 2: But first, what other software are you finding really helpful?
Speaker 5: I guess the one thing I would mention is if
Speaker 5: this then that, which is.
Speaker 1: Software that kind of pulls together like it it runs
Speaker 1: in the background to kind of try to pull off
Speaker 1: that ever note idea of like the one spot to
Speaker 1: look for. Basically you can set up if this then that,
Speaker 1: And there's a couple of other similar software out there.
Speaker 1: Is that like ZPR Yeah, zebiers is is the kind
Speaker 1: of the more polished version.
Speaker 5: I guess.
Speaker 1: So I've just been using this then that for so
Speaker 1: long that that's where all my little formulas are so
Speaker 1: for instance, going back to Rescue Time each evening, where
Speaker 1: Rescue Time will send my report to Google Calendar, so
Speaker 1: I can.
Speaker 5: See how I did that day.
Speaker 1: And if I create something in to dost as you know,
Speaker 1: this is a task that I need to do today,
Speaker 1: then it will pop that into my Google calendar as
Speaker 1: a thirty minute chunk somewhere. But yeah, yeah, so little
Speaker 1: things like that. So again it's it's automation. Really, it's
Speaker 1: that same idea of like, I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to do the you know, input the same data into
Speaker 1: multiple apps. I don't want to have to remind myself
Speaker 1: to track certain things, and so instead my to do
Speaker 1: list is talking to my calendar, My calendar is talking
Speaker 1: to rescue time, Rescue Time is talking to whatever, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, all of these things are kind of working
Speaker 1: in the background so I don't have to think about it.
Speaker 2: That's really cool. And so for listeners that maybe haven't
Speaker 2: done much in the way of automation or haven't used
Speaker 2: Zapier or Zapier, is it zaper or Zapier, I.
Speaker 5: Have no idea. I think it's no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I call it Zapier. But if they haven't used
Speaker 2: like software that essentially helps one application talk to another application.
Speaker 2: How should people be thinking about this in terms of
Speaker 2: automating some of the tasks and I guess regular things
Speaker 2: that they have to do.
Speaker 1: I guess the first thing I would say is don't
Speaker 1: over complicate things. I even though I've been using this
Speaker 1: and that for almost a decade, I would imagine I
Speaker 1: only have like a couple of rules because you don't
Speaker 1: want to create an endless loop between applications.
Speaker 5: So just think of, like, what is the one.
Speaker 1: Or two things that you would love to see happening
Speaker 1: in whatever it is, whether it be to say, if
Speaker 1: you want to see your to do items as all
Speaker 1: day events in your calendar, then combine those two services
Speaker 1: and see.
Speaker 5: If that works for you.
Speaker 1: In terms of automation, though I would say more of
Speaker 1: it's not just like software like if this then that,
Speaker 1: or like I don't want to get too nerdy here,
Speaker 1: even though obviously.
Speaker 3: No please get nerdy.
Speaker 1: Well, I just think that, like, no matter what the
Speaker 1: role you're doing is, whether you're working as an academic,
Speaker 1: you know, I previously worked at a university as tech support,
Speaker 1: and a lot of my day was trying to help
Speaker 1: people automate their tasks and not using specific software, but
Speaker 1: just like saying, okay.
Speaker 5: You need you know, if you.
Speaker 1: Need to prep for a lecture that you're get, what
Speaker 1: are the things that you need to do all the
Speaker 1: time that you can just put into a bucket like
Speaker 1: whatever it is, whether it's just a note, tapp or
Speaker 1: a whatever, that you've got a list that you can
Speaker 1: just always refer back to, so you never have to
Speaker 1: have that mental energy of going through these tasks that.
Speaker 5: You do every day. And so that's what I'd be
Speaker 5: looking for.
Speaker 1: The other thing I would say, actually, and this is
Speaker 1: probably not the answer you would expect from it like
Speaker 1: a nerdy person, But what I found when I was
Speaker 1: trying to automate those tasks that I was talking about
Speaker 1: in my old job, the first thing I did was
Speaker 1: like look up conferences and people speaking about that exact issue,
Speaker 1: because I realized that, like, if I'm seeing this as
Speaker 1: a total pain in my day, that I'm spending way
Speaker 1: too much of my day doing this, someone else much
Speaker 1: smarter than me has already thought of that and has
Speaker 1: probably come up with solutions. So rather than try to
Speaker 1: rebuild from scratch, I'm going to find someone smarter out
Speaker 1: there who's already tackled this problem. And that's where I
Speaker 1: was able to find a whole bunch of resources on
Speaker 1: how to automate my day whatever your role is, whatever
Speaker 1: your day to day role is, go to YouTube and
Speaker 1: look for previous conferences of your area and see if
Speaker 1: someone else has kind of come up with that. For me,
Speaker 1: because I was working in a very nerdy area, you know,
Speaker 1: GitHub was a great great resource there of so, GitHub,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, is a website where people share
Speaker 1: programming knowledge and skills and scripts that they've written. And
Speaker 1: so I was able to find computer programs out there
Speaker 1: that were doing like eighty percent of what I wanted
Speaker 1: them to do. And I guess being a journalist and
Speaker 1: on the one hand really helped in this that I
Speaker 1: was never embarrassed to just like I find out what
Speaker 1: their contact details were, and I'd just email them and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I saw this thing that you did, and it's so
Speaker 1: cool and it's so close to what I want, but
Speaker 1: I would love it if it just did this as well.
Speaker 1: I have no idea how to make that happen, though,
Speaker 1: but wouldn't that be cool? And a lot of the
Speaker 1: time they just replied back. I Oh yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: think of that.
Speaker 5: That actually be cool.
Speaker 1: Here's how you do it, and between the pair of us,
Speaker 1: we would come up with this new system that would
Speaker 1: make both our lives easier. So I've never been afraid
Speaker 1: to kind of reach out to other people doing the
Speaker 1: similar job that I'm doing and just quiz them and like,
Speaker 1: what do you do? How do you use the you know,
Speaker 1: before we started recording, we were chatting about how we
Speaker 1: do backup audio recording. The amount of times I've sent
Speaker 1: my little screenshot of like, here's how I back up
Speaker 1: the audio that I'm recording so I never lose it
Speaker 1: to other podcasters out there, because I know what a
Speaker 1: pain it is.
Speaker 5: I know how awful it is to lose audio, and.
Speaker 1: So if I can share that and make someone's life
Speaker 1: a little bit easier than I'm more than happy to.
Speaker 2: That's cool. And I like the idea of just googling
Speaker 2: how can I automate X? You know, whatever X is.
Speaker 2: I reckon, I'm actually going to do that for a
Speaker 2: few things in my life. I do want to talk
Speaker 2: about podcasting, and I am curious as to how you
Speaker 2: approach your podcast behind the scenes. So at the moment
Speaker 2: and You've got a podcast called Meta, which is an
Speaker 2: interview style podcast where you talk to quite high profile
Speaker 2: podcasters about podcasting, and that is how we originally connected.
Speaker 2: And you've also recently launched a daily podcast to help
Speaker 2: desk And I want to know how are you thinking,
Speaker 2: like particularly with the daily podcast, Like what processes have
Speaker 2: you got or like, you know, do you use batching
Speaker 2: for any task? Because I must say, like, even though
Speaker 2: the irony is like I host a podcast How I Work,
Speaker 2: which is all about productivity and being more efficient and
Speaker 2: optimizing your day and stuff, but I do feel a
Speaker 2: bit disorganized around my processes with How I Work, Like
Speaker 2: I don't batch where I should batch. I delegate some things,
Speaker 2: but not enough. I'm currently thinking about, oh do I
Speaker 2: actually get a producer to offload a lot of other
Speaker 2: tasks that I'm doing, particularly now after starting a second podcast,
Speaker 2: how to Date. So what can you teach me? How
Speaker 2: can you help me make my podcast world better?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Look, it's a tricky one.
Speaker 1: If you've never recorded a podcast before, you may not
Speaker 1: understand just how much time and effort goes into it. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess that forty minute show that you're
Speaker 1: listening to probably has about three or four hours of
Speaker 1: prep before it and maybe two three hours of post
Speaker 1: production after it, and so yeah, so again I made
Speaker 1: sure that I factored all of that in and before
Speaker 1: I started the Daily Show, I emailed the squeaz Do,
Speaker 1: a fantastic daily news podcast. I listened to a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of different daily podcasts and kind of got an
Speaker 1: idea of what works and what does and in terms
Speaker 1: of structure, and then yeah, I just emailed a bunch
Speaker 1: of them, like I emailed The Squeeze, emailed Corona Cast.
Speaker 1: I emailed the hosts of seven Am and just said,
Speaker 1: am I insane for thinking of studying is by myself
Speaker 1: without any kind of production behind it?
Speaker 2: And what did they say? Did they say, yes, you
Speaker 2: are insane?
Speaker 1: Some did, some did, but no, no, I mean the Squeeze.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I keep mentioning them is that
Speaker 1: they were super supportive and just said, look, you know,
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks will absolutely kill you, but
Speaker 1: once you get past that, you'll be okay. And so
Speaker 1: because of that, I made sure that we started actually
Speaker 1: rehearsing the Daily Show about three weeks before we went
Speaker 1: live with it. And so we weren't doing it every day,
Speaker 1: but three times a week. We just I'd write up
Speaker 1: the show notes as if it was going to be
Speaker 1: a published show. We'd sit down, we'd record, and then
Speaker 1: I'd edit it as if it was going to go out,
Speaker 1: and just so again so I could have an understanding
Speaker 1: before we went live of how long is this actually
Speaker 1: going to take?
Speaker 2: Me?
Speaker 5: Can I fit this into my day?
Speaker 1: And so yeah, So it really was a lot of
Speaker 1: I guess pre production a lot more than say Meta,
Speaker 1: which I felt more comfortable with because it was more
Speaker 1: of a spin off of the column that I was
Speaker 1: already writing for SMH. So it just felt like a
Speaker 1: value add to the SMH column as opposed to the
Speaker 1: help disc which was its own giant thing.
Speaker 2: With Meta, like you've had some great guests on Meta,
Speaker 2: How do you decide which podcasts to cover? How do
Speaker 2: you discover new podcasts?
Speaker 1: A lot of the way I discover them is opening
Speaker 1: my email and seeing pictures. I get a lot of
Speaker 1: pictures each week of there are so many new podcasts
Speaker 1: coming out, and I wish just stop doing the interview
Speaker 1: one for a while, let me matter find its audience,
Speaker 1: and then you can go back to you some the
Speaker 1: amount of times I open on my email and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that person from that.
Speaker 5: Radio show has launched a brand new show just.
Speaker 1: Like yours anyway, but yees. So for me, I mean,
Speaker 1: I do love podcasts. That's that's why I make the show.
Speaker 1: That's why I wrote the column to begin with, and
Speaker 1: so I am always excited to find a new show
Speaker 1: that I love, so a lot of the time it's
Speaker 1: recommendations from friends things like that.
Speaker 5: In terms of how I.
Speaker 1: Structure the show, it's the same way I structured the column,
Speaker 1: which was when I first started, I had no idea
Speaker 1: what I was doing, and then finally I just hit
Speaker 1: me like, oh yeah, like podcasters are really good storytellers,
Speaker 1: Like that's why they do it, so shut up, let
Speaker 1: them talk and then pop their words into the paper.
Speaker 1: And that's been my theory when it comes to editing
Speaker 1: meta as well, is that as much as possible, I
Speaker 1: take all of my stuff out, like all of my
Speaker 1: arms and okay, yeah, tell me more about that. I
Speaker 1: cut all of that, and just as much as possible,
Speaker 1: let the podcaster talk to the audience, because I think
Speaker 1: that's the best way that someone listening will discover whether
Speaker 1: they want to hear more from the show or not.
Speaker 1: And I guess the overarching idea as well is just
Speaker 1: to ensure that there's a really great mix of both
Speaker 1: content and where the content comes from. So if I
Speaker 1: interview someone from the ABC one day, then the next
Speaker 1: interview I want to be a completely independent podcast. The
Speaker 1: next one after that might be someone from the New
Speaker 1: York Times that I try my best to mix that
Speaker 1: up as well, So I might have a productivity expert
Speaker 1: on one day and then follow up with a Corona
Speaker 1: cast and then follow that up with a stand up comedian.
Speaker 2: And what's your approach to interviewing people, because like my experience,
Speaker 2: so for context, you interviewed me on the show a
Speaker 2: week ago. We just started talking and I could say
Speaker 2: that it was recording, but in the back of my mind,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, have we started yet, So it
Speaker 2: was kind of like this really casual, like kind of okay, no,
Speaker 2: I think we have I think this is it, And
Speaker 2: so there was no like official, oh, welcome to the show,
Speaker 2: kind of being like just my default with how I
Speaker 2: work after I've had a little chat before I hit record,
Speaker 2: And it was really it was very comfortable. It was
Speaker 2: like a conversation and very easy, and I'm sure that
Speaker 2: like a lot of thought goes into that. So I
Speaker 2: was curious, how do you prepare for your interviews and
Speaker 2: have that very natural kind of style which you do.
Speaker 1: In terms of how I prep what I've found over
Speaker 1: the years is if I go into an interview either
Speaker 1: over prepared or underprepared, it tends to be an interview
Speaker 1: that I don't really enjoy after the fact. So what
Speaker 1: I tend to do now is a couple of days
Speaker 1: before I'm going to interview someone, I'll really deep dive
Speaker 1: into what their podcast is or what their background is,
Speaker 1: and I'll just open up the notes app in mac
Speaker 1: os by way, just because it sinks to everything. So
Speaker 1: I'll open up a really simple note app and I'll
Speaker 1: write as many kind of questions and thoughts that I
Speaker 1: have as if I was, you know, interviewing the person
Speaker 1: just then and there. And I find that that's a
Speaker 1: really good way of putting down all of the thoughts
Speaker 1: that I have, thinking up all of the questions I
Speaker 1: might want to ask, and then I rarely look at
Speaker 1: those all of those notes, and you know, it could
Speaker 1: be I could end up writing six hundred words in
Speaker 1: terms of questions and things like that, and then I
Speaker 1: might never refer to them in the in the chat
Speaker 1: that we have, but by thinking out loud about them
Speaker 1: and writing them down, they're kind of there in the
Speaker 1: background if I need them. So the way I prefer
Speaker 1: to do it is kind of be as prepared as
Speaker 1: possible a couple of days beforehand, and then let that
Speaker 1: kind of sink in and possibly even forget it. And
Speaker 1: you know, it ends up being that sometimes I'll I'll
Speaker 1: listen back and I'll think, oh, I can't wait till
Speaker 1: I ask this question.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's right. I didn't ask the question. I just
Speaker 5: wrote it down, but I forgot to.
Speaker 1: But most of the time that's fine because instead I
Speaker 1: asked a more interesting question because I let the conversation flow.
Speaker 2: That's nice. I like that idea of not being over
Speaker 2: or underprepared. Yes, I feel like I could learn something
Speaker 2: from that. And I'm curious, because you must get pitched.
Speaker 5: To a lot.
Speaker 2: How how do you decide? Because I could definitely relate
Speaker 2: to that. I get pitches every single day of the
Speaker 2: week for how I work, and multiple times a day.
Speaker 2: Do you have any kind of quick rules of farmers
Speaker 2: to how you kind of at least give a quick
Speaker 2: no or a quick yes.
Speaker 1: Even yeah, that's that's a really hard one, isn't it,
Speaker 1: Because you don't want to You don't want to send
Speaker 1: a no straight away, but then you also don't want
Speaker 1: to leave someone hanging. So I use just to go
Speaker 1: back to software for a second, I use Spark as
Speaker 1: my email client, which most most modern email clients these
Speaker 1: days have some kind of snooze function. And if it's
Speaker 1: and so it has, it has snooze. I'm actually I'm
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent behind Spark, And if you've never
Speaker 1: used it before, I would say it's it is very
Speaker 1: confusing for new players. I've recommended it to a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, and I know that it either gels with
Speaker 1: you or it doesn't. So take take that, you know,
Speaker 1: as advanced warning. But anyway, it kind of works for me.
Speaker 1: And so if someone sends through a pitch that either
Speaker 1: it's a show I've never heard about, so I don't
Speaker 1: want to answer straight away anyway until I've had a
Speaker 1: chance to at least listen to a little bit. Then
Speaker 1: I'll hit snooze until I've got more time to ponder
Speaker 1: whether that's a show that I think would work for
Speaker 1: the format. But also, I mean the thing I've I've
Speaker 1: had to say to many indies, and if you're listening
Speaker 1: out there and you're an independent podcast, for the love
Speaker 1: of God, have a trailer. You know the amount of
Speaker 1: times I get asked to listen to a show or
Speaker 1: you know, oh you would love this show, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and then I look at the website and there's like,
Speaker 1: you know, six hundred episodes and where do you start there?
Speaker 5: So, if you're going to pitch to me, please, first
Speaker 5: of all, have a trailer.
Speaker 1: Second of all, have not just a trailer, but say
Speaker 1: if you're a discussion show like this one, then say, hey,
Speaker 1: I really love you to listen to the discussion we
Speaker 1: had with so and so, especially the seventeen minute mark.
Speaker 1: I feel, really, you know, boils down what I try
Speaker 1: to pull off on this show.
Speaker 5: Like it's just a really great example of when myself
Speaker 5: and a guest click and so, you know, give me
Speaker 5: a call to action to help me kind of discover
Speaker 5: your show and discover what's great about your show.
Speaker 2: I think that's very useful, just useful advice for people
Speaker 2: that are trying to pitch an idea anywhere, like to
Speaker 2: you know, to their boss, to client, a potential customer.
Speaker 2: Just make it easy for the person and obviously put
Speaker 2: yourself in their shoes, because I can imagine that, like gosh,
Speaker 2: where do you start? Where there is that huge back catalog,
Speaker 2: and I just get such a wide range of quality
Speaker 2: in terms of pitches and how pr folk and guests
Speaker 2: that are pitching themselves directly do things like where Like
Speaker 2: so a few I'm noticing will sort of open with
Speaker 2: a bit of a context paragraph like you know, in
Speaker 2: today's world blah blah blah, and it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I know today's Well, just please get on the guest
Speaker 2: and what value they could add to listeners. So yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: we nearly at a time. I do want to know, though,
Speaker 2: like what are your go to websites or newsletters that
Speaker 2: you'll subscribe to, particularly just stay on top of the
Speaker 2: latest tech news and stuff that is going on in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: Well, the help desk, if you want to hear just
Speaker 1: ten minutes a day about technology, we'll do our best.
Speaker 1: It depends, it depends what you're after. So a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine writes a newsless called The Sizzle at
Speaker 1: the Sizzle dot Com tod au and it is the
Speaker 1: funniest look at technology that you will read. It's five
Speaker 1: bucks a month. It has a lot of swearing in it.
Speaker 1: If that will put you off, but it is. It
Speaker 1: is just beautifully acerbic writing about technology and companies, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. It comes out every afternoon. I follow
Speaker 1: a lot of people on Twitter, and the ones that
Speaker 1: I trust. If I see those people talking about an issue,
Speaker 1: then generally then that is something that I normally want
Speaker 1: to follow up on. So yeah, a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of it these days kind of comes from seeing what
Speaker 1: other people are talking about on Twitter and engaging reactions
Speaker 1: that way, I guess, And.
Speaker 2: Any noteworthy Twitter accounts that you want to mention.
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, all right.
Speaker 1: I love John Syracusa is an American technology writer and reviewer.
Speaker 1: He's been doing a few year. I absolutely love his
Speaker 1: Twitter feed. I think it's one of the best. So
Speaker 1: that is at Syracusa. I'll send you the link so
Speaker 1: you can pop it in the show notes. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's wonderful. My colleagues at smah or are all very good,
Speaker 1: So Tim Biggs and Alice Clark and Adam Turner are
Speaker 1: all worth a follow and you'll see us every now
Speaker 1: and again kind of work shopping an idea, you know,
Speaker 1: like in the lead up to the Apple event, you'll
Speaker 1: you know, you might see us in a long thread
Speaker 1: talking about what we think the prices are going to
Speaker 1: be or how we think Apple are going to pitch
Speaker 1: certain things. So, yeah, that could be interesting if you
Speaker 1: if you want to see how the sausage is made.
Speaker 2: What are your favorite podcasts at the moment, given that
Speaker 2: you sample so many.
Speaker 1: The one I always I always mention as as just
Speaker 1: a gem that I don't think enough people listen to
Speaker 1: is Oer with Ross and Kerry, which is an indie
Speaker 1: show out of the States, and they look at various
Speaker 1: kind of fringe science and fringe you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to go into it too much, but anyway, they
Speaker 1: will look at for instance, they did a study on scientology.
Speaker 1: Now that sounds very dry and boring, and you've heard
Speaker 1: that one hundred times, but what makes this show different
Speaker 1: is they actually go out and try to you know,
Speaker 1: for the scientology one, they both signed up for scientology
Speaker 1: and both did like a four month course, spent a
Speaker 1: lot of money going through every level of scientology and
Speaker 1: then reporting back on it, and so it became this
Speaker 1: ten part Yeah, it became these ten part series. And
Speaker 1: they've also just got the greatest chemistry between them. They're
Speaker 1: super funny, they're lovely people, and so they're as generous
Speaker 1: and as fair as they can be about the subjects
Speaker 1: that they tackle, but then they do it in such
Speaker 1: an incredible deep dive way. And so they you know,
Speaker 1: they did another one where like a five part series
Speaker 1: on flat Earth where they just went to all the
Speaker 1: different flat Earth conferences and spoke to people, you know,
Speaker 1: as if they really wanted to believe this theory and
Speaker 1: then reported back.
Speaker 5: But they're the long investigations they've done.
Speaker 1: But every week they'll do a great little one off
Speaker 1: show as well about I think the latest one was
Speaker 1: how would a scientist react to Donald Trump's reelection? Which
Speaker 1: is fascinating on many levels.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. I'm so going to link to that in
Speaker 2: the show notes. And final question for you, Peter, if
Speaker 2: people want to consume more of what you're doing and
Speaker 2: producing in the world, what is the best way for listeners.
Speaker 3: To do that?
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter, I guess, or if you don't
Speaker 1: like Twitter, I promise the websites will be done by
Speaker 1: the time you give this, so that would be metapodcast.
Speaker 5: Dot net and the Helpdesk podcast dot net.
Speaker 2: Fantastic and your Twitter handle. I want to say, is
Speaker 2: at Peter Wells.
Speaker 5: It is? It is. I'm very old and I got there.
Speaker 2: Early, so well I got at Amantha, So there you go.
Speaker 5: Oh no, it's nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know. Well, Peter, it has been
Speaker 2: wonderful chatting. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you so much. I really really enjoyed the show.
Speaker 5: So thank you.
Speaker 4: That is it for today's show. I hope you liked it.
Speaker 2: It certainly inspired me to think about my whole processes
Speaker 2: for doing this podcast, which are really not that efficient.
Speaker 2: And yeah, literally, as a result of this interview, I've
Speaker 2: listened out every single step that I go through for
Speaker 2: this podcast, and I've thought about what can I automate,
Speaker 2: what can I delegate, and what do I still do myself.
Speaker 2: So it's a work in progress, but it's definitely getting better.
Speaker 2: And if you are enjoying how I work, why not
Speaker 2: leave a review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen
Speaker 2: to this show. And thank you to the four hundred
Speaker 2: plus people that have left reviews. And mostly five stars.
Speaker 2: You guys are awesome, so huge. Thank you and to
Speaker 2: those who have written some love kind words. I do
Speaker 2: read all of the reviews and it really does make
Speaker 2: my day, so thank.
Speaker 3: You so much.
Speaker 4: So that is it for today's show and I will
Speaker 4: see you next time.