Is this book bullshit? Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Proactive

We're back! It's been six weeks - sorry about that!

Jason was finally struck down by covid... for the first time. Yes, really! Now he finally understands what everyone is complaining about. There's a lot to catch up on: the election, a digression into 'Married at first sight' and what happens to a sander when you use it for 6 hours straight on your boat hull. 

We get half way through a very full mailbag, before getting on to our dissection of chapter one of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This is the third time we've talked about this book, and we're only now doing Habit One: proactivity ... look, we have a lot to say! Check out episode 17, where we discuss how the book is really Mormonism pretending to be productivity, and chapter 38 where we talk about chapter three.

Be warned - it gets very deep and meaningful. In fact, we get so into it that we forgot to do a two minute tip! We'll make it up to you, we promise.

Things we mention

• Previous discussions of 7 Habits: episode 17 and chapter 38
• Academic Mean Girls 
• Inger reckons Andy Kirk is your go to for Data visualisation
• Back to Zero - the paper 
• Book: The voices within: the history and science of how we talk to ourselves
• Book: Team Dog
• Book: The presentation of self in everyday life
• The Valley of Shit (blog post about Jason when he was doing his PhD)
• Book: Striking Ore: the rise and fall of union power in the Pilbara
• Book: Enemy Feminisms

Got thoughts and feel pinions? Want to ask a question? You can email us on <pod@ontheregteam.com>

-  Leave us a message on www.speakpipe.com/thesiswhisperer.

-  See our workshop catalogue on www.ontheregteam.com. You can book us via emailing Jason at enquiries@ontheregteam.com

-  Subscribe to the free, monthly Two Minute Tips newsletter here (scroll down to enter your email address)

- We're on BlueSky as @drjd and @thesiswhisperer (but don't expect to hear back from Jason, he's still mostly on a Socials break).

- Read Inger's stuff on www.thesiswhisperer.com. 

- If you want to support our work, you can sign up to be a 'Riding the Bus' member for just $2 a month, via our On The Reg Ko-Fi site

Transcript

riverside_jd_& inger - take 02 _ apr 12, 2025 001_on_the reg

[00:00:00] Well, it's been a while. It's been a while. It has. We're rusty. It's fine. Welcome to On the Reg. I'm Dr. Jason Downs and I'm here with my good friend, friend. Hold. Can I hold with the producer note? Sure. Can you say I'm Dr.

Jason Downs from on the Reg team? Do you want me to put in the notes? I might have to from the, on the reg team. I think there's too many there. I think there's. From on the Red team. The problem with working with you, INO, is that you have a really strong grasp of this shit.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I just, I hear it in my head and I like, I see it on the page. I it in my head. I'm like, that won't work. That's not gonna work. Okay. Alright. Go right. Take 29. Welcome to On the Reg. I'm Dr. Jason Downs from on the Reg team, and I'm here with my good friend, professor Ingham Newburn from the Australian National University, but she's better known as the Thesis Whisperer on the internet.

And we are here for another episode of On the Reg where we talk about work, but, you know, not in a boring way. [00:01:00] Practical implementable productivity hacks to help you live a more balanced life. Now, up top we're gonna talk about Stephen Covey's Seven Habits. Um, it's been a while since we have cracked that book and took a bit of a go at it.

Uh, we have a couple of previous episodes, uh, we'll call back to them a little bit later in the podcast. But you should go back and have a listen to them specifically if you like. A bit of a rant, a bit of an undoing of Stephen Covey, uh, just to kind of a bit of a taster, a bit of a, a, a palate cleanser before you read Stephen Covey's work.

And today we're gonna look at his first habit, which is about being proactive. We have opinions about all of that sort of stuff. Stay tuned. Also we're putting our hands up. Mia Culpa. We missed an episode and a newsletter. Uh, that was mainly because Covid struck the business. That is, it struck me.

Um, and it was the first time I've ever had Covid and it kicked my ass. I lick [00:02:00] genuinely. I was lying in bed, shivering. My whole body was shivering. My teeth were chattering at one point and I thought, this is how people die of this shit. Mm. Like I did not, yeah. Did not think I was gonna make it through the night. Yeah. Like, am I gonna die? Am I gonna die? This is not, this was not a thought experiment. This was an actual existential. Uh, so this is what the end of the life looks like.

Sort of. It was, yeah. It's horrible. At, yeah, two o'clock in the morning or three o'clock in the morning or whatever time it was was I just say like five years into a pandemic. And we're still in a pandemic, by the way. Like we just decided we we're not, but we kind of are five years in. First time getting it.

Like legend. I I thought you were one of nature's immune people. I thought I was untouchable, but let me tell you. Yeah, because it's not like touched me. Haven't been in your house household a couple of times, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's just like, well, whatever. I haven't, ah, I thought bastard. He's probably one of those people who go around and don't asymptomatic, you know, spreading it.

Yeah. But no, when it need you, like a ton of Greeks. Yeah. Oh my [00:03:00] God. Right. It just, it. It wrapped my, it wrapped me in its little arms and then it slowly started to choke me anyway, so anyway, we're back. We're back. We're back after a bit of a hiatus anyway. It's welcoming. How have you been since we last caught up?

I mean, it's, it, I always say I am busy. Right? But I think genuinely you see my calendar, genuinely. I think you can lay claim to that, like not busy in a bad way, just like lots of shit to do, right? So, um, I had intended to take long service leave this year, but that dissolved under all the change management processes at A NU, which meant the team got smaller and I just thought I couldn't leave the team, you know, so I kind of, I stuck a pin in that.

And but as a consequence of that, I packed all my teaching for the semester into three weeks, actually four weeks. So three weeks of bootcamps, and then a fourth week of induction. And I, like, I looked at it and went, yeah, that might be so bad. Um, dang. It was, it was really bad, Jason. I'm never doing that to [00:04:00] myself again.

3% in a row. Oh my God. Um, yeah. Anyway, so I think like the first week I was kind of maintaining contact with you and the second week I think I was just like sending text support for, uh, COVID. Right. Like, you okay, you're still alive. And then we didn't talk to each other for maybe a week, which might be a record.

Yeah, it might be. Yeah. In the last, last five years of us not talking to each other, it was radio silence at your end. It really was. Yeah. No, I just was like, I'm in the hole now. Like I'm just bunk it down. Um, you know, I had the, I had the don't talk to me on my email, which reduce email flow. I think I might just keep it there Anyway.

Yeah, it was full on and, um, so that finished a day before yesterday and I, I feel kind of alive today. Yeah. Um, but it was fun. Like I actually had fun with it. It wasn't like I was hating life. It was just ridiculously busy because the, uh, the government decided to call an election Jason at the same time.

Of course. Right. They, they should have checked with you. Like earlier, they should have checked Albanese next time. [00:05:00] Like, dude, just a memo. Anyway, that's it. Don't do it at the start of semester. Don't call this shit. Right. And I, I mean, I think I can out myself now as not working for the greens this time round.

Mm-hmm. Not because I hate the party or anything, it's just like I thought about where can I focus my energy to stop a right wing government coming in and further making things terrible for the higher ed sector and me generally. Yeah. And the climate in particular. Yeah. Uh, so I decided to throw my lot in with the independent senator for Canberra, David Pocock.

Mm-hmm. And I kind of made myself known to that campaign and before I knew it, they'd sucked me into there more. And before I knew it, I'm co-captain for the inner North. And you know, like doing my usual, I call myself a clipboard bitch. Oh, there, it's a particular type of person inside political parties.

I'm just, I'm owning the term of being a clipboard. Oh, okay. Um, you know, you've got your clipboard and you've got your things to do and you've got your volunteers and you just, you start to action and execute. [00:06:00] Right Stalls. Door knocks, newsletters. So I've been doing all that. So like when I'm not teaching, I've been cocking.

Oh yes. Is that a word? Okay. Who's now? But this weekend's, the last weekend we're gonna do any campaigning before we start pre polls. 'cause the time of this election is around Easter and basically Canberra goes dead. Like everyone leaves Canberra at Easter. It's just what we do, although it is the most glorious.

Weather wise. Time of here in Canberra. Yeah. Like, you know, the trees have changed colors and Yeah. Blue skies, but cool and crisp and sunny. Yeah. The folk festival is on. 

We could baby set up a stall on the way down to the coast in this little town called Braidwood. I did joke, there's a nice bakery down there called Dojo and I, I'll just go and set up a stall and try and get people on the way to and from the coast maybe. Oh yeah. There's no point doing anything else. So after this weekend, that'll calm down a bit.

But yeah, it's been a shit show as has, um. You know, to put it mildly, some of the scandals [00:07:00] around work, we've been in the news a bit lately. Jason, you have? Yeah, you have. so, you know, academics, you know, have a lot of opinions about things. Mm-hmm. And we have a local paper in our town called the Canberra Times, and, um, so there's been shots fired in the Canberra times between various academics at a NU for and against the what's happening and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, a while back there was a, there was an article written by John Blackland, who's a professor of history, military history.

Really. And he wrote this thing about how, you know, explaining feminism. Thanks for that, John. And, um, to put it mildly me and other feminists on campus were incensed at his, like, just getting it wrong. He's holding it wrong, Jason. And we were all like, anyway, and then, uh, someone fired back another article anonymously from the gender studies kind of experts on campus got together and wrote a letter Yeah.

Rebuttal. And, um, and rumor got round like the rumor mill. You know how I love Yeah. [00:08:00] I love the gossip. Like I love academic gossip. Yes, yes. But in this case I was like, oh shit. And, um, it became apparent to me that people had become quietly convinced that it was me who'd written it. I like, like, first of all, I didn't wanna take credit, second of all, not time to stick your head above the parapet.

Right. Like, no, I, I really want to do that. Yeah. And so, yeah, so then I had to write a blog post to Rebut that. I hadn't written an article, but I did resuscitate a blog post that I'd had in the queue for two years, and I'd been too scared to put it out in the world called Academic Mean Girls, which was, uh, calling back to the movie and the book, you know, the Whole Mean Girls Discourse.

And, um, I had a little taxonomy of Mean Girls and Yeah. So I have not read the book or seen the movie. Right, right. So you came to that whole concept Cold. Yeah. Cold. I like vaguely aware that mean girls, like kind of think it's what it says on the tin, right? Yeah. So, yeah. Um, but my closest association [00:09:00] with this was I.

I was watching maths married at First Sight for our inter international Yes. Our international listeners, which is a terrible kind of game show type thing. The, the concept of which is they get two people who've never known each other, have never met each other. They then meet each other for the very first time at the altar and they mar marry inverted commas, marry them off, and then they put them through this kind of intense 12 week, you know, get to know each other and experience all the things that married couples, I dunno how you can watch it.

I, I can watch Below deck, but I find math like excruciating and cringey mass is terrible. Right. Like ear years. I catch it at the gym occasionally and I'm like, I don't even wanna see the subtitles. It's terrible. No, it's terrible. And this particular one, there was a particular couple that were a train wreck of air pick proportions and that's what got me sucked in.

It was like, oh, what are they doing this week? You know, like, and they were just, oh my god. Dumpster fire [00:10:00] in a flood in its tsunami at the same time as a, as a drought, you know, like you couldn't imagine something worse. Anyway, car crash tv. Yeah, Y yeah, yeah. So anyway, one of the scenes is they get all of these people, all of these couples together.

It's about right. No six or eight couples or something like that. Um, they get 'em all together and they have dinner. And they ply these people with alcohol. And then, oh God, they start chirping off at each other. And then one of the women called another one of the women a mean girl. And it was like they had thermonuclear explosion.

Like I was shocked at the reaction and there was tears and I'm not a mean girl and like it was just, and I'm like of all of like, lady, if you want an insult, come and talk to me. I've got some choice words. But the mean girls was not the first of them that sprung to mind, but it had Right. Massive impact.

Matt, were well, we're on that little kind of experince. Yeah. Yeah. And so you're like, this must be a [00:11:00] thing and then must be a write a blog post and you're like, ER's popping off. Lemme just say, my phone blew up with people thinking I'd written the original article and then when I wrote that, then my phone blew up all over again.

So, yeah. You know? Did, did many people write to you? I, I'm just thinking about this now. I should send you a text message that say that blog post is exactly the kind of thing a person would write to who had anonymously written the first one to distance themselves. Oh, sure, sure, sure. That be triple suck back maneuver.

Look, I can't look, I won't comment on on who, who inspired. That post. But let me say, there were at least five women I had in mind. Oh, yeah. And I was visualizing, as I was writing that blog post. Yeah. C certainly there was a, a description in there that I looked at that and I went, yeah, I can match some people up against some of those.

I mean, you know, I've been sitting on it for two years, just stewing, and then I was like, oh God, you just [00:12:00] like, just let it out in the world. Anyway, I'm glad I did. Um, yeah. Although it was a great post, you know, maybe, maybe now it's not the time to really like throw a promising log on the fire of like gender relations.

But it did really make me think, and one thing I didn't say in the post was that I think like women do aim it at other women. Like the mean girl thing is real, like women, that lateral violence amongst women is really a thing. But I've also seen it extended to men and usually to the kindest. Nicest men that I know, and then they're really confused by it because first of all, they don't have a conception of mean girls like we all do, you know?

Mm-hmm. And also often they don't have, the way that we counter that is a bit with networks of people who are not mean, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, people you can debrief with and all that kind of stuff. And I think some men don't have those networks, so when they do encounter a mean girl, I do think they suffer disproportionately like, 'cause I suppose we're used to it, right?

Like female and female violence. You, you just get used to it all your life. Yeah. And then, yeah, then when men [00:13:00] encounter it, they're like, can I even name? Is this person an asshole? You are like, yeah, they're being an asshole. Like, it's okay to say that like, just because she's a woman doesn't mean she can't be an asshole.

Yeah. It's so hard. I mean, I'm only gonna talk about my own personal experience. I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna talk about anybody else and mm-hmm. I'm very aware of the minefield that I'm about to put my first foot down into going. Um, but I find it particularly difficult when you, when I've been in, uh, I've experienced that and you don't know what the appropriate response is because it.

The appropriate response clearly is a Rena choke. No, that's not true. No, that's not true. That's not, that's not true. That's not true. That's not workplace appropriate. There's no workplace appropriate. Not, you know, the only place that's appropriate is on the BJJ maps, but the, the point is you don't know how to react.

You don't dunno how to respond. And, and so my response has [00:14:00] always been silent, shut up and minimize. So, do you know what I mean? Like not engage with Yeah. Gives the person what they want. Right. Like, and, and, and then you just open yourself up for more of it. That is exactly right. And in fact, what reacting and responding fits in well with when we will talk about Kobe's chapter.

Right? Mm. Because that's one of the key things, isn't it? Yeah. Um, but what's, what's been up with you like, besides being laid flat with the covid, which took man chunk out of the month? Man, it, it came at the same time. I comprehensively hurt my back , at Jujitsu one night. And I was out for like four weeks and then I got Covid and it was only Tuesday night just gone that I've been back.

So it's been about six weeks since I've been on the jujitsu mats and mm-hmm. I've really, really been missing it. Mm-hmm. But what I've learned is that lying around on your back doesn't actually fix the sore back. What you need to No, it doesn't. No. Move. It, it's counterintuitive. You have to move it. Yeah.

Gotta move it. And I've been, yeah, I've been [00:15:00] to osteos and all sorts of stuff, trying to get it fixed, but I, I think I just need to go back to, I think I just need to go back to the mats, I think. Um, and just take it a little bit easily. Uh, what else have we been doing? Oh, Jack and C so, uh, listeners might remember Jack Grandparents bought Jack A.

Little dinghy, sailing dinghy. Right. A little wooden one. It's a mirror, uh, is the class of the dinghy. It is. And Jack and Cath have been sailing it. We went to the nationals due to a few other bits and pieces. Anyway it's in the, it's 1986, so that puts it, what, nearly 40 years old, something like that. Oh man.

Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, like blesser, but like all 40 year olds, it just needs a little bit of tender love and care. Sure. Yeah. And so maybe a bit of a facelift. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What are those things? Peptides. Yeah, the peptides, it needs some peptides. Uh, so we decided that what we'd do is we'd just, you know, [00:16:00] give a bit of a touch up, a bit of a paint, and, uh, well actually when we got started and we just looked at it, it was like it really needed some work.

So I de rigged the whole boat. We took all of the sheets out of it. We took it like, took, took everything out the mast, everything. We just unbolted things from the boat. Um, I tried to take as many notes as I possibly could in my CIA Aboutt way.

Things were to put it back to Syria. Yeah, Jack was, Jack was like, oh, remember? And I'm like, uh, I don't think you're real. I don't think so. The mind is for having ideas not holding them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, and so then we began the great renovation, so sending it all back to timber. I've, I bought a.

Orbital sander, like a hand palm sized orbital sander got six hours of work out of it before I blew it up. Oh yeah. Right. Like you just, I know. That was like 120 bucks bang. Anyway, we're at the point now where the undercoat has gone on. I just need to do, there's a hole that I need to just patch a little bit and then we're at the stage for final [00:17:00] painting and she's gonna look Schick, I think, at the end. we're quite keen to get it back on the water, uh, for the winter sailing season. Business didn't, business didn't slow down to allow you to have covid or, you know, sand your boat really has it. So business has been quite busy.

Yeah, it's been a busy, um, which has been great, but, and you know, more please, but yes. Uh, but yeah, it does mean you were worried about it. Quiet, quiet patch. And I said it'll be a little quiet here while everyone gets into the semester and we won't be, you know, people are too busy to reach out to do bookings and stuff, so it's nice they're starting to reach out again now.

 You timed your covid and, and the boat sanding and all of that, like perfectly, right? Like, 'cause now it's, it's going to get busy again. Which is, which is good. Yeah. We need look. Yeah, looking at the, looking at the forward calendar and it's, it's starting to fill up, which is great.

Um, but still got room though, if you wanna give us a call. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, we're flexible, ready to go fire. And that's interesting. There's very interesting things coming in. Like it's a much wider variety of [00:18:00] things and I anticipated, which is great. Like people are coming to us with strategic communications and project management and career stuff.

I mean, it's, there's been a lot of AI over the first little while obviously. 'cause that's what people know we like to muck around with. But, um, but it's good to see that broader range of things come in. You know, it's challenging and I think that, I think that there's a curve there. Some of the questions and some of the inquiries that we're getting now around the AI stuff has shifted.

Yeah. It's, you know, people are they, they at least feel as though they've got their basics down. It's good . 'cause you don't have to spend time explaining the basics as much. You can just go straight to Okay. You know, and, and I'm having some really interesting conversations with people about, especially PhD students, about how much you should use it.

Yeah. Like and just because you can doesn't mean you should. What are you delegating to a machine that you need to learn how to do? Yeah. And then looking at the, I mean, we did promise to be a a that fucking guy free zone that [00:19:00] Yes. Needs to be sitting over the other. Um, I still maintain that, that there's like shit going down.

We look, you looked at your super, which you shouldn't have looked at 'cause stock market fuck and hell. Um, but given all that's going on, I don't wanna like bring too much of the real world into here. 'cause you come here for not thinking about that, I hope. Yeah. Um, but if we look at like the, the endless tolerance of money that are being poured into these AI companies, it's like, they're like a furnace for cash and they're like just jocking huge stacks of it in there.

Like how long can that go on with? Also the other things that are going on there, like how much cheap free cash is gonna be there to burn on spec, you know, um, 'cause we're talking in the billions with a b mm-hmm. Of dollars that they're chucking and, and that's kind of money that, you know. Mm. Can I have some question?

Only sort of appears when you've got stock markets that kind of conjure it out of. Thin air and it isn't really real. And we all are in the mass illusion that money means something and then when someone runs, [00:20:00] settles, all of that like kicks the ante. What will that do to AI companies? Like, I don't know, but I have noticed that like Claude is released now a, a, a more expensive version that happened yesterday or the day before.

Oh, really? The a hundred dollars a month. So the acidification cycles that we've been mourning about, they're happening, you know, and so at this point in time, my husband said to me, you know, do, would you spend another a hundred dollars a month? The way on which I think about this is um, one day I was with a friend and a car went past and it had one of those really big fins on the back, you know, like foil fin. And um, my friend turned to me and he goes, you know what? That car would have to perform 50% better for me to ever put one of those things on the back of my head.

Right, right, right, right, right. And that's kind of how I think about this stuff. You know, they go from 20 bucks a month to a hundred bucks a month, but I'm not sure that I'm gonna get my 50% better performance. No way. No way, man. No. Like yeah. In fact I like the fact that it kind of times me out. 'cause it forces me to [00:21:00] actually fall back on my human, um Yeah.

Capabilities, you know? Yeah. Anyway. Alright. Yeah. Um, last little thing, proud dad moment. Jack and his friend Oliver have been sailing in a Friday night sailing competition. And they won the series and Chuck was, yeah.

Very, very excited. That's fantastic. But because there's two of them in the boat, they have to share the trophy, so Oh, damn.

Oliver gets it for, um, for the first six months, and then Jack gets it for the second six months, so, okay. Well that's good that they came to an equitable arrangement. You could take a photo of it and put it, you know, as a placeholder. Yeah. Like NFG an NFG trophy. Uh, yeah, we could, um, I think that's a great idea.

Um, but, so yeah, I just, I did need to say that I'm proud to moment. Excellent. We probably should move on 'cause we're like, I'm just looking at the time and 'cause we haven't talked for a while, we just like Yeah. [00:22:00] Catching up. We can. Oh man. Yeah. Let me, let me have, let me move us forward, um Okay. Into our mailbag section.

So in the mailbag, we love hearing from you all and this is our chance to share interesting thoughts our listeners share with us. We have a shining new email address. You can write us at pod. At on the reg team.com. That's pod as in podcast, POD, at on the reg team.com or one word. And we'll make sure your email gets it to the next episode.

Well, that's not actually a hundred percent true, um, because we've got so much at email since the last one, since we're an episode behind, we're an episode behind. Yeah, we're gonna have to hold some of it over. So yeah, that's all right. We'll do it again next time. So we've got a few. We've got a few here.

Um, yeah, which is good. Um, so the first one is from Emily and she's from the uk. Yeah. And she Hello, Emily. Emily, thanks for writing to us. Hello Emily. Thank you. And Emily writes, hi. And Jason. I've just started, she's one month in a part-time PhD in education in the [00:23:00] uk. Uk and I had on the reg recommended to me, which I'm so, so grateful for.

Oh, that's great. Yeah. It's been great. Thank you for recommender. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I hope you recommended that she starts in the middle somewhere, or not at the start.

Um, I'm busy making my way through the episodes in a slightly ad hoc Ooh, that sounds interesting. Kind of way. That's the best way. That's good. Only. Yeah. Um, and it is one of those highlights of my drive to and from work. One of the things you discussed in the trusting the Meet computer May 12th, 2024, was Jason's highlighting and indexing method for hard copies of books.

And you mentioned maybe coming back to this and doing a longer section about it. Mm-hmm. This feels like it's part of the missing link for me to get my book notes, um, into my second brain. Mm-hmm. I'd really like to get some tips for integrating these kinds of notes with the bits that I'm building up in obsidian.

I love this. Mm. One month into a PhD, got obsidian figured out, thinking about how do I make it all work the analog. Can you [00:24:00] imagine if you'd been like that, that on it a month in, man Emily is squared away, right? Yeah, totally. And especially a part-time PhD. You're just gonna finish that shit like Yeah, I know, right?

Even before you're, before you've even got, you know, reach that you have to be enrolled for a minimum period of time, you know? Yeah. So you'd be like done by Thursday waiting to hand it in like that. Ah, we witnessed you Emily. Yeah. One of us. Um, thank you so much for all the fantastic advice and recommendations, Emily.

Okay. So good. So I'll go into it in a little bit of detail here to explain how I do this. But I want to acknowledge that it's not my idea. And I got this idea from Tim Ferriss. Then can I just say, when I read this, I was a little surprised because I do kind of write Tim Ferriss off as just being a bit of a dickhead, right?

, so, but you know, like good ideas can come from anywhere, even from Tim Ferriss. Yeah. And, and I, I, I can't remember. It was on a podcast. I'm sure I heard about it. Mm. I don't think I read [00:25:00] about this. Mm. Um, but so then I kind of took that idea and I was like, oh, how does that work for me?

Mm. So in essence, what I do is I create my own index in the front of the book. So I find at, in, in the first few pages of any book, or maybe even on the inside cover, if the paper is pasted down on the inside cover. Mm mm There'll be a blank page. Yeah. And very much like a bojo. I start a index, hand journal handwritten for notes of you who are new here.

Bojo Journal. Oh yeah. Bou Carry on. Yeah. Blue Journal. Yep. And I read with a pencil in my hand. Yeah. So as I read, I underline bits, uh, through the book if it's that. Mm-hmm. And most of the kinds of books that I read are usually books of some sort of useful, helpful nature of one type. They're learning books, learning rather.

Books. Books, learning books. You're always on a learn a learning journey or as, as I saw on a show the other day, a learning. A learning. Yes. Yeah. A learning, um, optics [00:26:00] on a, b, C, by the way. Great show you should watch, which is great. I, I've sort seen the advert. I must check it out. Oh, it's fantastic. So funny.

Uh, you can put this index wherever you like. I usually do it in the front, but if I need to, uh. You know, back inside, back cover, cover will also work. Mm-hmm. Um, and then I just start reading and as I come across something interesting, I underline it in the text, in the, with pencil, I note the page number in the index, and then I write a short description and then sign a letter to it. So, for example, I have an A, which means action. So if this is an action that I can take, um, so the, the, there might be a definition of productivity or something like that, and then an example of that, and that might align with my life or with what I'm doing.

And so there's an action there that I can actually take in terms of implementing this idea. Um, C is for concept, so where I need to kind of remember what the concept of productivity is all about. Mm-hmm. E might be an [00:27:00] example, it might not be something that I can do, but it might be a good example that explains the, you know, the concept or extends the concept of productivity.

P as a principle. Um, the underlying law, uh, that governs the way in which this thing works. So the 80 20 principle, for example, um, I, you know, the principle there is you are always looking for the way in which that 80 20 principle gets expressed, and then you stack rank them.

So the principle is in the stack ranking. Yeah. I must admit I'm a bit fuzzy on the difference between concept and principle. Right. But yeah, maybe now takes time to, to ask you about that. I don't know. Okay. Yep. Yeah. I, I don't know. Like you, you might not, you might not, you might want a bit more time to think about it rather than me just going explain it to me now.

 The way in which I think about these, the principles are much bigger ideas than just the, the narrow concept of the [00:28:00] thing that we're talking about. And as, as I look at this now, I, I think maybe there's a missing one here, which might be a little bit more useful, which is D for definition, you know, where, you know, and I don't have that in here.

I think I'm maybe wrapping up definition and concept. Uh. Just as I think about this anyway. Yeah. The last one, concept concepts and principles and frameworks and theories. They're all like used often interchangeably, right? Mm-hmm. Like it can be very hard to disentangle what you mean by one thing or the other.

This is the higher order. Thinking in that is actually really hard. Mm mm The last one is Q for quote. Mm. Very handy. Yeah. Because you're just like, oh, I'm gonna steal that. Yeah, exactly. As academics do. Yeah. So for example, in the book, the 80 20 Principle by Richard Kauf, I've got an index, um, note that reads 31 AP 80 20 analysis.

So page 31. Page 31, action and [00:29:00] principle. Yep. 80 20 analysis. 80 20 analysis is my shorthand for what it is that we're talking about. Mm-hmm. So the idea here is that you can go to the front of the book or wherever the index is that I've self created, and you can run your finger down that and you can, and you can look for things that are, might be useful for you, um, at that particular time.

So, you know, I routinely pick books up after having read them, noted through them, and then put them back on the shelf again. And they might sit there for years, right? But then one day it'll be, it'll ha hang on. There was something in that book that I think is useful. You can go to the inside front cover, run your finger down, and it go, oh yeah, it's there on.

So when I turn to page 31, on that page, I've underlined three sentences from different paragraphs on that particular page, but collected them under the idea of action and principle.

So I don't have the book in front of me right now. I can't remember, but it might be two actions and one principle, or it [00:30:00] might be two principles and one action or something like that. Um, taken together I can understand the principle behind undertaking 80 20 analysis and the action I need to undertake in order to do one.

So it depe, I guess it's kind of, um, a shorthand way in the front of the book of like Cornell notes. . I reckon it's a, it's a, it changed the way in which I read it. Really? Did. I I've adopted it since you've done it. I mean, I, I do like a paper book. Um, and uh, it is a lot easier to go back to a paper book with those kind of marking. Like I've been work reading that 4,000 weeks book.

Uh, Christie Clark gave me a copy. Hi Kristy. She's Hi Kristy. She's in Oxford now. Yeah. And she gave me a copy before she left and I've been reading my way through it because we are gonna do an episode on it. We must, I. Okay. We must, okay. We must, we must at some point. Um, but it's really, it's been really good because especially when I put it down and pick it up again, like I look down there and I'm like, where was I up to in my sort of thinking [00:31:00] about this?

Oh yeah. So like, but I didn't have the letters on my kind of thing. , there's a, a book by Doto, DOTO, called a system from writing, which pretty sure a pod listener put me onto.

And because I didn't, don't have my notes and didn't intend to bring it up, I haven't got it right in front of me. And Menopause brain is alluding me as to who told me. But thank you for telling me about that book 'cause it's brilliant. Um, his kind of system in there is sort of similar to, it's like a blend of this and Cornell and anyway, so if you are using obsidian and you wanna think about a way to implement what Jason's talking about, you probably wanna read a system for writing by Doto, DOTO.

DOTA. Great. Um, so thank you Emily. Thanks for writing terms. I hope that helps a little bit. Yeah. Um, I don't do on every book, I should point that out. Um, yeah. Uh, there's plenty of books that I've read that I ha I just don't employ that. But if it's a particular kind of, I do A Teen dog for instance that you gave.

No, no, I wouldn't do it on, I just read it and enjoyed it. Team dogs. [00:32:00] Was it good? Did you learn things? Yeah, I learned things. Have Did you run it past? Um, Brendan, like what? Does he have your opinions? I did, in fact, I, I discussed He didn't read it. 'cause you know, his generation's there and they only watch YouTube videos.

I, okay. No, I shouldn't dis him like that. He reads like crazy, but he reads fiction, so yeah, it's not, not big on the nonfiction. Um, yes. Shall I read the next one? Yes. 'cause it's in black and it's from Francis. Hello Francis. Thank you for writing to us. Um, love the podcast. Thank you so much, says Francis, eating it up like delicious yogurt.

Please keep praising us. I enjoy that very much. Um, Francis writes, I found you guys while doing my PhD. I've continued to enjoy the podcast as I've moved across into an academic role that happily involves both teaching and research. Congratulations, Francis. It's the, it's the holy grail of it is of doing a PhD and getting an actual academic proper job well done.

As an AI skeptic slash realist, . I'm trying to get a, an understanding of all the good things AI can bring to our academic work as well as is pitfalls. [00:33:00] And your podcast have really helped with this. One thing I'd love to hear more about is any tips on AI for data visualization, uh, especially in our current belt tightening era where access to research assistant slash funds slash a personal graphic designer is not what we would wish.

What AI do tools can I use to z that's a technical term. Are my pie charts and bar graphs. I'm not talking complex data sets here. Definitely not sensitive data either. Just simple jobs that are step up from Excel and Canva. Bonus points if they can even generate simple charts and graphs suitable for traditional academic publication, eg.

Journals and books. Any tips? Much appreciated. Thanks so much Francis. Thanks for writing. Great question, Francis. Uh, the answer to it is no, and I think there's a reason for that. Um, uh, basically AI is adorable bad at math. Right? Mm-hmm. And I don't know if you've ever tried to get it to do like a visualization or a pie chart or anything, but the results are hilarious, unintentionally hilarious.

In fact, sometimes I [00:34:00] generate them with chat GPT and use them in my presentations. I've got this good one of the Soul Assistant and the habitable zone that is just frankly hilarious. Our bad. It's like, it's like a kid understands the notion that there's numbers and pitches and puts them together with absolutely no understanding of how the numbers and pitches like it seems to be.

I don't know if anyone in AI is working on it, but someone who cracks it is gonna do good business. Claude can do mermaid scripts so it can make flow charts and things like that. And it does an okay job of that. And it can also read flow charts and produce decent texts. So one of the things we do in our workshops is teach people how to do concept maps, which is something I've learned from Jason with labels and arrows and directionality of arguments and all that sort of thing.

And you can take a concept map like that and you can put it in AI and get it to write a description of it and you get it to draw those things. But in terms of data visualization and doing a kind of equivalent of an edit, [00:35:00] I've not yet encountered at all. Um, and it's good to put this out on the pod because maybe someone out there has, or maybe there's something under development and I get thrown things all the time 'cause people know I'm interested and the students, they, you are really great at sending me, have you seen this?

What do you think of this? Because they wanna know what I think of things. So I, but I haven't come across anything and I want it, I want it. Um, I would just a big shout out, a nod if you are interested in making better visualization. Andy Kirk. Um, he wrote a book called Data Visualization, A Handbook, boring Title.

Great book. Um, probably the best book on visualizing data I've ever read. Mm-hmm. And has a website, visualizing data.com and a great newsletter. So in terms of theory and how to put together better graphics, uh, by hand as a human mm-hmm. I highly recommend that. But I'm interested if any of our listeners have come across something like Canva you would think would wanna build something like this into its, yeah.

Yeah. Can you imagine? I'm [00:36:00] sure they're working on it, but it's probably one of those things, like the sort of thing I'm encountering in the storytelling research that we're doing at the moment is that they're just, they just built some bullshit, these tools, and when you wanna do something that requires super accuracy, kind of fucking forget it.

Like, like, and so when it comes to cleaning up charts and data, you have to like, accuracy is really key, right? Precision. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just not sure these tools can do it. And interestingly I see that Apple's put Apple intelligence sort of on the back burner again and kind of starting to admit defeat around whether you can trust Siri, talk to Siri and get Siri to organize your diary and your thing.

Like they've gone, oh yeah, no, we're not going to, you know, oh we're gonna bring that out. Oh no, we're not. Oh, we're gonna bring it out. No, we're not. And there's a reason for that because just getting it to actually be reliably accurate, to stay on task, to not get bored is, is actually, is just fundamentally bad at it.

And I don't know if they're ever gonna solve it for all that [00:37:00] they say that, you know, 'cause that's, I mean, I think humans and AI together solve that puzzle, but I think the, the tech bros the problem they're trying to solve here is wages. Let's be real. Like they'd rather not have to hire people like you and me and everyone listening to this podcast.

'cause we tend to have opinions and thoughts and um, you know, be critical. You know, wouldn't they love to have experts that didn't question them? You know, that's what they really want from this technology. I'm not sure they're gonna get what they desire. I just say it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, um, it, you know, AI tends to get us 80% of the way there, right?

Mm. And I think that if you just, if you just go, oh, okay, that's not gonna, it's not at the moment be able to do what I want it to do for things of consequence. Yeah. But I think what they're trying to sell us that is that at the moment that you say, like, they're trying to put that narrative out there that somehow in the, in the future, soon to be realized, maybe just now, maybe a couple years, that, that, that will happen.

I'm not [00:38:00] convinced. Mm mm I'm just not convinced. Anyway, I, so sorry. We can't answer you question Francis. Someone might, it goes from it, um, my experience of this going from zero to a hundred in such a short period of time, right? Like a couple of years. Yeah. Um, makes me think that if they can maintain the momentum, but as you, as you said at the start of the podcast, like the money involved in actually being able to do that is, um, yeah.

But also maybe it's an ascent tote, you know, like, it, it approaches zero, but never actually reach reaches the limit. Yeah. Like maybe what we saw was that first really big and now it's incremental improvement and it'll never actually reach. Yeah. Like, yeah, maybe. I mean, I told you, I won't share it here because it'll take too long, but I told you some of the experiments we've been doing and watching the LLM talk to itself.

Yeah, yeah. Especially when it grades itself. Yeah. Is frankly hilarious. So we were doing a task where it was required to grade itself, but we got to see it talking to itself while it graded. It's like, I wanna give [00:39:00] myself like, I wanna give myself 105 out of a hundred. And then it goes, wait, I'm pretty sure you can't do that.

Okay. 97. It's like you're not actually grading. And then, I know, I know for a fact that there've been, people come around trying to sell to our universities marking machines and going, oh, you don't need to do marking anymore. We've got these things. Oh yeah. I'm like, that has to be bullshit. Yeah. Because I'm, I'm working with great computer scientists at a NU, like, best in the world type of people.

Yeah. And if they can't do it, yeah. Yeah. My bullshit antenna just went straight up, totally vibrating. Like, no way, man. No way. Um, it's good at generating a rubric. It just can't stick, like, it can't do the kind of cons like critical thinking that a person can do to make it stick to a rubric, I don't believe.

Anyway. Yeah. Maybe I'll be totally proved wrong. Who knows? Okay. Yes. Um, I, I did write back to Francis, um, because usually that's what happens if you write to us, chances are I'm gonna write back. And I did say, um, at the [00:40:00] time that they wrote to us, Google had just announced that they. Gemini was now much better at all.

That sort of stuff. Being able to produce graphs and do all that sort of stuff. And I know that doesn't solve the problem and you'd need to have a look, maybe try it, report back. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then the other one, I, I used to use a service called pick to chart, which is P-I-K-T-O-C-H-A-R-T, picto chart.com.

Mm. Um, and essentially it was just a template and I used to use it for infographics and stuff like that, you know, putting together things. Yeah. Um, you know, sometimes for slides, for lectures and that sort of stuff, but other times for like research posters and those sorts of things. And you could drag and drop and put stuff in and you could create these things kinda like an early Canva maybe.

Yeah. Um, and I thought, oh, I wonder if that'll solve the problem for Francis. And I went to them, I hadn't used them for years. Um, went to them and had a look and they have a [00:41:00] create with picto chart AI button. Oh, yes. Yeah. So I haven't tried it. You know, your mileage may vary. I, I didn't want to go down that particular rabbit hole.

I don't have a need for it right at the moment. But, what we, I think we are seeing is services that were, that are now just bolting on AI around what it is that they used to do before. Oh, everything's bolting on ai. Yeah. And then just claiming that you don't AI powered. Yeah. Yeah. And it's taking out anyway.

Nothing. So anyway, AI skeptic slash realist. I relate to you. Yeah, I I still love it. Like, you know, Claude's still my work husband and like, I'm not saying like mixed feelings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, Graham from Northumbria in the UK has written down, hello Graham, north Ambria. Beautiful area of the uk. Gorgeous.

Wouldn't know. Never been there. I know. I keep saying you need to come to Europe with me at the end of the year. [00:42:00] Please should go. Okay. Yes, you should come. Hi Inga. And Jason, I wanted to drop you a line after listening to the latest episode about reading. I'm a longtime listener and found the podcast and blog very useful in my PhD and my tra transition from clinical carer to a more academic focused career, clinical career.

I think that was not carer. Oh, I did read that as carer. And it is in fact clinical career. I just, I just being a bit of a penant. 'cause that seems like there's quite a difference between that. Yeah. Um, well spotted.

Um, and now I've lost my place, blah, blah, blah. I wonder if, yeah, I wonder if the topic of people transitioning into academia as a second career is something you could go into more depth at some point. Mm-hmm. I know you've touched on it. Both in terms of your own experience and the wider context, but think there are probably quite a few people in a similar position to myself looking for advice on navigating the academic world.

I do have feelings around this one. I know I wrote a paper about this with some colleagues actually called back to [00:43:00] zero, which probably sums up some of the thoughts I have about, okay. I'll put a link in the Sharon. I know, I was about to say, can we get to it? Is that open source? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had um, similar experience to the one you talked about and that I used to read a lot, but the PhD and the increasing amount of, of reading required in the day job sort of killed that off along with life just being busy.

Yeah. I have however, taken to audio books and podcasts and find I can work my way through audiobooks in a way that I can't seem to make time for, for reading physical books. Although the guilt over not making more time for reading still stays with me. I aspire to having a book lined office at some point in the future and continue to work towards this goal or that goal.

Thanks for everything you do and the podcast, which keeps me entertained and informed whilst walking the dog or suffering in the gym. Regards. Ah, thanks for writing to gra. That's a lovely letter. Walking the dog and listening to the podcast. Sounds like a life well lived as well. Yeah. And so even suffering at the [00:44:00] gym, as long as, as long as married at first sight isn't on the TV out every time.

Every time. Just look out for, oh, can't, I can't even think of what the name. Look, Ryan was the guy, and I can't think of the name of the, I can't think of the name of the, oh, don't, like, don't, I don't need it in my brain. I don't, I don't need it in my brain. Oh God. Um, I think, I think what the heart of, I mean, this is a lovely letter, but the heart of it is this like pervasive sense of guilt that we feel like I should be reading more.

And also, like the audio book is not reading It is, right? Mm-hmm. Like if you think about reading what, when we physically, when we read, when we read text, it generates, um, our sound circuits in our mind. So we actually narrate it to ourselves and listen to ourselves. That's how we've hacked our brain for silent reading.

So actually, you're just listening. You're just skipping a step of converting the words into sound in your brain. You're just going straight, like it's, I it's still reading. Like in h Hang on, hang on. I've got a question. Yeah. Like, [00:45:00] how do profoundly deaf people who were born into deafness do that? That is a really good question.

Maybe do, do you answer? I mean, they, I don't dunno. I dunno if it's a really good question. I don't know. Someone might have researched it. That's a really great, 'cause there's a whole area of research on inner voice and inner voice generation. Yeah. So I'll put another link in the show. I, as I edit the show, I always have to go, oh, I'll find that link.

I'll find that link. But I will, there's a, there's a book and you know, I did a, a podcast about this on my thesis, whisper a Feed, which isn't up at the moment. But, um, about the idea of the inner voice and the inner voice generation. I don't think from reading that book and a few other things, I don't think I've ever encountered something on deafness.

It's really interesting question because like, the brain still would presumably have the kind of circuits for reading. Like, Hmm. Like reading happens in the brain, not so much in the ears, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. But, but what they'd actually hear if they've [00:46:00] never, like, if they're profoundly deaf and not really hurt, is actually really interesting to me.

And clearly they do read, you know, and they read a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I obviously have to, so, um, but audio just, I mean just to say audio book is reading, Graham Don't Feel Guilty, you are reading the other, the other bit to that would be, um, when you sub vocalize, when you're reading, yeah, reading you read, I imagine that you read at the speed at which you talk.

No. When you, when you sub vocalize, you don't read. That's in all this research as well. You often don't read every word depends on how familiar or how complex the text is. If the text is really complex, you will sub vocalize the words 'cause you slow down and kind of read the line. But most of the time you skip.

And sometimes people skip and instead it seems that they're visualizing images and stuff. So there's like a lot going on. It's not a straight kind of narration. Okay. It's actually really complicated. Yeah. But, okay. It's interesting. Sorry to get all nerdy on the, I [00:47:00] really got a bit intense and nerdy over the top of, you see like, interesting, like I could imagine if you don't have to, if you don't hear the word I, so I agree.

I hear the words in my head when I read. Mm. Um, and so I, I read slowly. I'll read much more slowly than you do, for example. But if you don't do that, if I didn't do that, would I be able to read faster? Yes. And that's what speed reading teaches you to do. Yeah. But do you absorb it? Like, so then there's the arguments about that.

In fact, we had a, um, a student recently come to talk to us and said, you know, I'm just really having trouble reading. I'm like, oh, okay, like dyslexia or, no, no, no. I just sort of don't like it. And, um, and I think like in a PhD need to get around this is, this is a profoundly big problem. Right? It is. But it's, but of course, of course the students just reaching for ai, right.

And saying, well, it's doing the reading for me. [00:48:00] Oh. But recognize, like, to their credit, recognize that that was not gonna do the business. Right. Like, no, um, it's not good and you can't checking, you know? Yeah. All that sort of stuff. Yeah. And so like, the only advice we had to offer is like, you've got to treat it like you're training a muscle.

You've got to just like set a timer and read and stretch it and stretch it and stretch it and train your attention back to being able to read. But it's an increasing problem for a lot of, it's a problem for me. I don't read as much as I used to, especially now because I have to wake up in the morning and go, what did that fucking guy do overnight if the world still here or not?

Right. Like, sorry, second call out. I'm gonna try and keep that world out here, but Okay. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm finding it really difficult at the moment to get through a book, although Team dog went down like delicious yogurt, Navy Seals, training dogs. You Yeah, it's fun. It is fun. I'm gonna give it to you.

It's fun. Yeah. Hey, we, uh, up to the speak pipe bit, do we have a speak pipe? We do. [00:49:00] Well, is Riverside gonna play nicely with us? Is it? Let's, let's see. I've got it in life mode. Let's see.

I understand It's from Martin. Martin. Hi. Hey, Jason and er, Martin Emo here in Zealand. Hi Martin, New Zealand. Hi, uh, listening to the question about how to take notes. In your most recent pod, it got 10 cents. Um, idea that was helpful and I did my literature review. Um, it's called the cutting Room Floor.

It's based off that film music industry idea where anything you edit out of tape ends on the floor and later on you gotta go and try and dig it out if you need it. So in my PhD when I was writing, editing, making notes, I was ruthless, decided what was gold, what was really important, and kept it. And anything else.

I shifted, um, to what I call the cutting room floor was a big word dot 'cause I wrote my PhD in Microsoft Word with Evernote. Um, anything I was unsure of, I threw in that cutting room floor. And that way you can just kind of get it off your brain, feel good that you're not throwing anything away. 'cause it's always retrievable with a simple word, search for an author or keyword to bring it back.

Mm. And actually used this. Now when I'm [00:50:00] working in my government job, I'm editing documents and things. And if you need something that you cut out three weeks ago, you've, you've, you've put it somewhere. Um, and as long as you can remember a word or two or three, you can search it. So that's my tip. Thanks.

That's a genius tip. Thank you Martin. Yeah. Also, thank you. We have Martin to thank for the fact that we don't sound like absolute dirt, right? Because Martin Martin's the one who's, uh, who said, Hey, just, just put a T towel on. I'm begging you, Jason, improve your sound quality. And we did. We followed your advice, Martin.

So thank internally grateful. Thank you. Um, uh, that is a genius idea and I'm just gonna say this is what Obsidian is born for. Yeah. And I'm gonna start a cutting room folder. Yep. Yeah, I'm just, that's where you, I'm gonna do that today. You, you need a, you need a folder though, because the search will pick it up.

Yeah. Everywhere, right? So, yeah. So you need to be able to exclude that folder from the search, [00:51:00] maybe. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I think it's it like, cart paste, dump, I need this in my life. I need this. I feel this very strongly that I need this in my life. Yeah. Cutting roof wall. Yeah, it's great. It's genius. It's a great, I it's a great idea.

And you know, it can stay there for as long as it needs to. Right. Eventually. I'd also like a folder or a, a document that has a name like that that's evocative rather than just like draft 3.7, 0.2 point, whatever, you know what I mean? Final, final. Yeah. Final, final. If a cutting room floor, um, or, you know, I've got the freezer inside my cian vault for stuff that, you know, I probably don't need.

 Suppose my freezer is a little bit like the cutting room floor, but it's not, it's much more polished up bits and bobs that are actually, I think are genuinely, could be pulled out, just used as they are. But I need a, I need a more scrappy area.

And I love the idea of the cutting ring floor. Yeah. My PhD supervisor, one of them had this idea, uh, similar idea. She called it a shoebox, but I mean, same, same concept, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You stuff chuck it in there. It's always got, you've always got [00:52:00] it. You can bring it back if you need it. Yeah, absolutely.

Um, yeah. Excellent. Martin, thank you. Thank you, Martin. Um. F and I hope Fantastic. Well, with the, with the new job. Yes. Yeah. Sounds great. Um, work problems in Professor in Univers. Yes. We're we now in Univers University? Let's do it. Good. Yeah. . So, yeah. In this part of the show, we focus on one aspect of work and while we nerd out about it, we sometimes tackle problems we've had at work or discuss a theme suggested by a listener. Uh, we always try and be practical, sharing our own tips, hacks, and feel opinions.

And this week we return to Stephen Covey's bestselling book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. We first picked up this book in episode 17, way back in April, 2021. Holy cow. Yes. Sets of lockdown. Yes. We did bit of an overview of the book and Inga went deep on Stephen Covey's background, Mormonism and religion in general.

Like, okay. So I went back and I You said no. Yeah, go on. I went, I went back and I listened to the episode, like it was fun. [00:53:00] That was a fun episode. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You like, you were like on fire and

good on pieing. I love it when she does that. Yeah, you were like, I, you know, I, I started and then I went down a rabbit hole and I was up to three o'clock in the morning and.

It was, it was great. It was great. Anyway, um, yeah, so like a prey of that is basically he wanted to prophesize Mormonism and he wasn't getting any traction when he talked about it as Mormonism and as religion. So he wrote this productivity book, which is basically Mormonism and I cannot unsee that now.

And you can't unsee it. Yeah, no. So like, yeah. Anyway, so go back. You'll find out all about that. Yeah. Go on. Yeah. Sorry. So, um, so we did that. We, we have to go back and it was a listener that challenged us and I don't think they left their name in a speak pipe. Was that how it all started and said, you mentioned Seven Heavens of Highly Effective People and you said you feel conflicted.

[00:54:00] Like what's the nature of that? Yeah. And then we were like, we are like, we can do this in one episode. And then we just spent one episode talking about Mormonism. Yeah. And we done the second episode that we've done. Basically we are like, oh, clearly we have to unpack this book chapter by chapter. And like, but like we'll never finish.

I don't think it might be returning. It might also be the, the genesis of, is this book bullshit? Maybe? I'm not quite sure. Oh, it's, it's the genesis of Is this book bullshit? Yeah. I think 'cause we are not quite sure with this book. No, no. We have a lot of feelings. Oh my God. We do. Yeah. Yeah. I, and we went, went straight in, didn't we?

At like, at episode 38, in fact, July, 2022. So we, we, it was, well, April 21, and then we come back to it July, 2022. Like it was like, what? And now it's 2025. That's, yeah. Yeah. So stick with us people. Um, uh, we skipped habits one and two, like, I don't know why. And we dived straight into habit three. Go figure. [00:55:00] And I think in go, I think yes, because, well, do we remember why?

Did you listen to this episode? Why we did that? No. Um, I think memory, memory serves. You said, I like this habit. And that was it. And so does it start with the end in mind? Uh, put first things first. Oh, well, we just start with the end in mind, really. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, and I think we both agreed that, like, that was probably one of the most useful chapters in the book, I seem to remember.

Mm, yeah. Yeah. I, I, yeah. I mean, I'd have to go and have a look at it and read it again. I, anyway. You go back, listen, listen to those two episodes. There's plenty of dog walking, gardening. Cleaning the house. Gym, gym. Suffering to be had in those episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so today I've dragged us back to the start of the book because I figure, hey, why not?

Let's start at the start. Mm. Um, and we are circling back to the first habit, which is habit one. Be proactive. Mm. So like, um, everybody else in the world, I went, I could read that or I [00:56:00] could just ask Claude about it. And so here's Sure. Did you do what I did? Which is go find a naughty PDF, copy the PDF and put it into a good project.

No, I just went, I just went forward. Did you? Just straight as Claude up. Oh, okay. Straight up. I gave Claude, I gave Claude the actual chapter and we had a good talk about it. Oh my God. Oh, did you? Yeah. Yeah, we did. Oh no, my Alright. You go first though. You go first. You go first. My, you little self dialogue with me, I was all coffees and sitting on the couch with me.

I didn't involve anybody, any Claudes or anybody else in this, so this is Oh, okay. Right. Yeah. I just went. Claude, tell me about what's going on in this book. What do you know? Okay, so this is Pure Claudes Sin Silicon Claude Bare Silicon. What? Claude eight of Stephen Covey. Because it's one of those things with ai, right?

Like so many told people talked about this book, it would've absorbed like millions of words. Not only probably multiple versions of the book, but what everyone's talked about ever since about the book, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is probably, you know, can, can lead to problems, right? So, well it can, [00:57:00] yes.

Yeah. Anyway. So here's what Claude said. The first habit in Stephen Covey is The seven Habits of highly effective People is be proactive. The habit is about taking responsibility for your life rather than being reactive to external circumstances. At its core, be proactive emphasizes that we have the freedom to choose our responses to what happens to us.

Covy distinguishes between proactive people who focus on things they can control or influence, and reactive. People who focus on conditions over which they have little or no control. Covid introduces the concept of the circle of concern versus the circle of influence. Proactive people focus their efforts on the circle of influence, the things that they can actually do something about.

While reactive people tend to focus on the C circle of concern, things they can't control. Mm-hmm. So, um, the language we use is another aspect that co highlights proactive language includes phrases like I can, I will and I prefer. While reactive language includes phrases like I can't, I have to, and if only [00:58:00] this habit serves as the foundation of all the other habits because it serves that you are the creator of your life and not just a product of your circumstances.

So before I go on, so that's what Claude had to say. Before I go into my reading, I thought I'd pause here and ask Inga given the summary, do you see any problems with this first habit? Yes, I do. Yes I do. Jason, and can I just say, I woke up this morning and I read the chapter over, I had two coffees. And I read the things, so I could say that that's an accurate summary of it and Okay.

Great. Circle of, circle of concern and circle of influence. Um, in the book, it's visualized sort of like a target in a sort of like you archery. Mm-hmm. So you've got your circle of influence, um, is smaller often than your circle of concern, right? Yeah. Because you, so what you can actually do is actually less than what you might be concerned about.

And I've gotta say, I find this concept so powerful, so useful. I have deeply [00:59:00] marinated on it. I must think about it often, like props to co because it's actually genius. Like that little drawing has saved me so many hours of agony, banging my head on tables. Like it's the reason, for instance, that I do my political work.

Like, I'm so concerned about the environment. I'm almost can't, I'm like juer with fear, looking at what the scientists tell me. And so I say, okay, that's my circle of concern and it's huge insurmountable. If I stayed focusing on that, I'd just feel powerless. I'd switch off. I wouldn't, I'd feel guilty all the time.

And so what, what is it that I can influence? Well, I can vote. Like, and I can also talk to other people about how they wanna vote and talk about my values and my concerns there, which is how I approach my political work. So can I just say big, deep respect to Kobe, but I do have problems. Right? Okay. I do have problems with like the basis of this chapter, and when I talk to Claude, I discuss [01:00:00] two things that particularly bugged me about it.

'cause actually when I went back, I must have read this section multiple times because I got a lot of notes and pasting, had written notes like, ugh.

And I'd read that paragraph again and then go, why was I just almost having a vomit reaction to that paragraph? Like, so it's interesting. Like what pasting a thought and then I had to dig out why did, anyway, so I dug out a few things. Like, so this is like an hour of work in this is all I've got, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, because I, it's been busy as I've established. at the start of this book, this chapter, he talks that Kobe talks about the social mirror, and he talks about this idea of people, um, not being proactive in that, not taking charge of their life, not taking responsibility, not realizing that they can respond rather than just react to what happens.

There's certain kind of Buddhist thread to it as well, which is like, you are not your thoughts, you are not your feelings. You are actually something transcendent from that. And that's the religiosity thing again, like this [01:01:00] idea of the soul or whatever. So first of all, I, I wanted to just speak big nod to Irvin. Goffman. Goffman. Yes. One of my favorite sociologists and his, his whole shtick was that life is a kind of performance, right? Social life is a performance and we all play roles.

Yeah. And we played different roles in different circumstances. So right now we've got podcast, Ingram Podcast, Jason. Mm-hmm. Yesterday we had a very, very long talk about business and that was Business Ingram. Business Jason. Completely different conversation would be boring to anyone else listening to it wouldn't sound like we're playing kind of different roles to each other.

Right. Like podcasting a podcast Jason, father Jason is different from podcast Jason, right? Yeah, yeah. Like when you're talking to Jack and you're reacting to Jack and like, um, you know, and uh, work at Inga is different from podcasting and blogging is different. So his whole point was like, , a presentation of self in everyday life. Total. Classic. Okay. Legit, like, nailed it. , and of course Judith, but blah would say that in relation to gender, gender is a [01:02:00] performance and Mm.

And so this idea that, um, so he Kobe talks about the social mirror, says, unless you can kind of separate yourself from the performance of yourself, he's essentially saying, mm, is you kind of fucked. Mm. Right? Because he calls it like a fun house of mirrors where what you get back from other people as, as they reflect yourself, is distorted and it's not the real picture of you.

And you can like get into bad traps of thinking and reacting to people. So he presents this social. And often pe often people are projecting their own, uh, neuro views and faults. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And he is not totally wrong in that, but also he is not totally right 'cause he like presents it as something that you have to overcome.

Mm-hmm. Um, and whereas Goffman would say that managing the impression of yourself and others impression of you is just something you do. It's inevitable part of social life. And he has this concept of front stage and backstage. So in the restaurant he noted that, you know, um, in the kitchen, the, the waiters and the chefs would be yelling at each other.

[01:03:00] But in the dining room, the waiter would be really polite and deferential. And that you could see the transition if you sat near the swinging door to the kitchen and you saw them sort of take up and put down. So this is this idea of backstage and front stage, you know, um, uh, and so you could say that Covy seems to think there's an idea of an authentic self that exists independently of any social interaction.

And Goffman would say that our just our identities are continuously being constructed and the Buddhist would say something else entirely. So there's many different ways to take identity. And I think that academic and Claude pointed out, you know, that the academic world is particularly right for discussing that tension, right?

Because we're always performing lectures, conferences, casual interactions, so this kind of stuff. So if you start to see all of that as unimportant or a fun house mirror or somehow inaccurate, then you're not gonna get very far in your career. Hmm. Because you have to do a fluid, um, competent performance of that.

But the other thing that often says is, but [01:04:00] wear the masks you put on because they can become your face. Yes. Right. So if you take on a mask and you are always doing that performance, like eventually you start to be that. And then I suppose that's where CO's getting at as well. So it's maybe more sophisticated way of thinking about the same idea is that like he says, you have to overcome it and you have to like, push against it all the time.

I would just say you need to be aware that it's happening all the time and you are making those choices about which masks become your face. Yeah. Yeah. Does that, is that too deep or weird or like No, no. The, I guess the other thing that strikes me is that, uh, as a work in progress, Inga, I am a constant work in progress as we all are, Jason, as we all are.

Uh, sometimes it's really hard those masks get welded on. Yes. Um, and it's really hard to make changes around some of that sort of stuff. Uh, because you end up, or I, I'm talking about my own experience here. I end up believing some of the [01:05:00] things that I believe so deeply like to, you know, in my waters that I decide that, that that's, that I'm, I'm okay with that and I don't want to take that mask off.

Yeah. Um, until something else happens that actually makes me. Stop and reconsider what's going on here. And Covy says at the start of this chapter, right at the very, very start, um, imagine yourself, um, divorced from yourself really, or, uh, unbodied from yourself. Disembodied would be the word Jason. Well done.

The soul, if you like the soul. Yeah. But go on un imagine yourself and you're different from animals. Yeah. Go on. Yeah. Go imagine yourself up in the top corner of the room looking down on yourself. And he makes the point that that ability to be self-aware of yourself is something that sets us apart from the animal kingdom.

Um, but, you know, sometimes I, I have found I need an external shock to the system in order to be able to undertake that particular role [01:06:00] because I'm comfortable with the mask that I wear. And then I've had it on for so long that I don't even feel it anymore. Yeah, yeah. And that would be Goffman's point too.

You know, like I, I think we're in sort of furious agreement with Covid, essentially. Yeah. Which is like, he would say, you can divorce from yourself. I'm saying that's never possible, right? Yeah. Like there's no outside of experience, right? Yeah. You can't transcend yourself actually. But what you can do is be aware of that.

Sometimes you're doing a performance or you are assuming a mask. And like you say, you can say, should I? Yeah. You know, I, I think that's really profound. Like, so I think I'm kind of in agreement with him, except I just get a bit twitchy. This idea of that you can really ever be outside yourself. 'cause you can't.

Yeah. And I think if you pull yourself into thinking that you are, you're just in another fold of experience, which actually was the previous blog posts. Yes. They're coming out thick and fast, which I rant about and talked about the social mesh, the the, the self conform mesh and all that kind of stuff.

'cause [01:07:00] that's the point in that too, right? Like yeah. Like if you start to think you can really truly step outside, you're just stepping into another dimension. So when you're doing that reflecting, you're always doing it from another point of view. And it might not always be the best. This is why continuous self-reflection and always reflecting is exhausting, but necessary.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It is exhausting. And so, can I just take the mask idea just seriously for a moment? And like the Neurodivergence thing, which I've, you know, I've been researching and reading a lot about over the last couple of years. Yeah. And I think like he's, he gives this quite simplistic advice, you know, choose your response.

He says, yeah, you know, you can choose, you've got power over that. Well, like, without going too far into the power dynamics that we all inhabit in the world all the time, every time, especially in academia, it sort of ignores that for neurodivergent people, masking isn't actually a choice, it's a survival strategy.

Yeah. It's exhausting. And that social mirror then isn't some sort of form of external validation or critique or [01:08:00] whatever. It's often the only thing they've got as they navigate the world like that. That idea of mirroring and pretending to be like other people is, is, is how they have to live. And the energy and cost of that is unevenly distributed.

So yeah, like there's a proactivity energy that, that people can bring and different neuro types or however you want to call it, will be able to bring different levels of that. And so, you know, that that sort of idea of the space between someone sort of stimulus and response that he says, you can stop, you can interrupt, you can, um, you can do something there is experienced really differently by neurodivergent people.

But I also don't wanna infantalize or, or um, be ablest about it because actually I found neurodivergent people to be the most highly adept at understanding that everything's a performance and to start to be able to critique the performance in ways I'd never even thought about before. Because they, they form, they're able to [01:09:00] get, um, if you like, different outside perspectives on themselves than I can.

Necessarily, although I suspect I'm not exactly neurotypical myself having witnessed my whole deep dive into nerdery about like inner voice and you know what I mean? Like, like I definitely test high on the autistic traits thing. So I've, I've actually found that I'll go to those people and they'll give me sometimes the freshest, most useful perspective on a social performance.

So I don't wanna say it's, it's dis disability, but it, I do also wanna acknowledge that there's a lot of energy expense and on that and just getting through life and therefore burnout small possible. And I do feel like the start of this chapter is very judgy. Like, you can do it, it's just a matter of willpower.

And it's like, no it isn't. Steven, shut up. Steven White privilege. Steven, you a typical privilege. Stop it, Steven, because actually what you're saying is good and it's cool, but just like, take a [01:10:00] moment, Steven. So, and that's what I've got to say. Yeah. So the, you know, I'm thinking back to, um, young Jason, when young Jason first picked this book up, I can't remember how old I was.

It must have been early twenties, I reckon You said you had it on your brown couch. So you had, whenever you had that brown couch. Yeah. Oh, it was after uni, after undergrad. So, um, it must have been in my early twenties. Um, and the, one of the key concepts that came outta this book for me was not the circle of influence, circle of concern.

I kinda looked at that and went, eh, yeah, that makes sense. Um, but he has this phrase in there where he takes the word responsible and then splits it in two, um, and says, think about it as response able. Yeah, I like that. And yeah. And that has sat with me my whole entire life. This idea of your response able and that you can take a moment to stop and to think about the way in which you are going to [01:11:00] respond to any particular situation and be considerate about that before taking that action.

Um, and usually what has happened is that when I've not done that, when I have reacted, that's when I've found myself in most of the trouble that I've put myself in for my whole entire life. So even though the way in which the opening. Parts of this chapter come out as, just you can do it.

You can force this break between stimulus and the way in which you go about doing stuff. Uh, there that, that sometimes that actually it does work for me. It does give me pause and go, hang on, what's really going on here and what can I do about it? Um, which then gives a, you know, turns us back into our circle of influence, circle of concern thing.

But isn't it interesting that this book, which is like, goes back to the sort of Mormonism of it all. Right. And the idea of any kind of religious text is there's multiple interpretations and things will land differently at different times that you read it [01:12:00] is that you took that so powerful, obviously kind of life changing and I took circle of influence, which I found powerful and frankly life changing.

And it's both in the same chapter. I didn't remember the response able thing until I went back and read it this morning and went, oh, that's really good actually. You know what I mean? Like, so like props to Kobe. Like, this is why I'm ultimately conflicted about this book. Uh, I was, I was about to say, this is where that, you know, that comment all the way back in April came about, right?

Like where we April, 2021. We're way back in 2021. Well, yeah, we're conflicted about this book. It's got some really good, it's got some really good stuff to say. Um, I'm looking at our show notes here and I've got a whole bit here on circle of concern and circle of influence, but I think we've covered that.

We've kind of covered Think you did. I think you did a, um, a really good job of that earlier. So, um, I mean I've got more to say about like that in terms of bureaucracy, but like, I don't know if you wanna go into it, but, um, Claude helped me [01:13:00] actually shape that into something that I thought was kind of interesting, like, uh, but I don't know.

Do you wanna go into it a bit more? Yeah, tell me. Alright, so like I said to Claude, you know, the thing about the circle of influence and concern, the thing that I found it really useful for is working in a bureaucracy where you see injustice all the time and you see power imbalances and you see bullshit processes and you see good things happening.

You see good people and then you see like the, like large bureaucracies have their own kind of weather systems, right? Yeah. Because he says proactive people bring their own weather systems. I like that. But like, so do bureaucracies and like you're a tiny weather system in a bigger weather system. And, and so it gave me a few, I said, just gimme a few talking points.

I thought they were quite good. Um, it sort of points out that academic institutions have bureaucratic realities, right? That they've got entrenched processes and that the framework of circle of influence and concern does help you identify where your energy is most effectively spent. Versus where you're just pushing against [01:14:00] immovable objects.

Right. And it, and it said, well then there's a sort of strategic activism that you are talking about there, because I sort of told it a few things that I did, you know, and it said what you're doing there is using the circle of influence to help you choose which battles to fight. It's not about giving up, but actually directing energy to where you have leverage, where you can make change.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and you know, so for instance, like I'll often see the same bullshit thing happen between supervisors and students over and over again. The same dynamics, not only at a NU everywhere. Okay. And this is not pointing the finger at my institution. It's just is a fact. Yeah. And instead of, I could get really worked up about that, but the blog is actually my way of exerting leverage on it.

It's like I can put something out into the world and get people to really talk about it and think about it. Yeah. Um, and in that way the blog's been a sort of strategy of expanding influence gradually. Um, yeah. Yeah. So it's it. 'cause I've been over 10 years. Yeah. Speak back to it. Right? Well, it's, it's, I started in 2010, Jason, so it's 15 years.

15 [01:15:00] years now. Wow. Of writing, you know. Yeah. And um, and that's a good example of expanding influence gradually getting people to trust me, to listen to me, to, you know, and that people don't always agree with me. That's not the point. I'm not necessarily trying to persuade, I'm trying to say, here's the thing I see that's kind of, don't you think that's kind of bullshit?

And. Yeah, actually I do. And like I remember years ago, you'll remember that you were the person I wrote about in the Valley of Shit, which is one of my Yes. Most popular of all time blog posts that I've seen pinned up at the back of toilet doors in, in other countries in the world. So no, Jason, that your story got pinned up on the back of toilet toilet doors, you know?

Oh my God, I'm sorry. So like, yeah. So there is, there are ways and, and the other thing that I said to it is like, the, the thing that's terrible about witnessing injustices or witnessing problems over and over again is that certain moral injury that you incur by not doing anything about it or feeling like you're not doing anything about it.

Mm-hmm. And co sort of said. And I said, I just don't feel like that dimension [01:16:00] is sort of picked up in Kobe's thing. It's sort of like, oh, just recognize you have a circle of influence and a circle of concern and just deal with it. Just concentrate on the circle of influence, which is not bad advice, but it doesn't sort of really give you anything for this moral injury that you might feel about witnessing things and not doing something intentionally.

Not doing something 'cause you don't wanna exhaust yourself or, or, um, take away your opportunity to influence later on by pissing someone off or whatever it is that you have to do to kind of navigate that bullshit. And he sort of doesn't address that sort of emotional, ethical cost of choosing not to act on these concerns.

And, um, and when we witness unfair practices, like we'll see them in hiring, promotions, student treatment, things like that, and we feel powerless to change it, it creates this distress. Um, and it can violate our deeply held values sometimes. And so stuff like, and the way through this, of course. I have many answers to things, but the way this I always think is collective versus individual influence.

And we [01:17:00] certainly see that at play in my university and I'm not gonna talk about it 'cause it's career limiting. But like there's, you know, so you can see those people getting together and collectively addressing what they see as problems, um, yeah. Is incredibly powerful. And we're seeing that in the states and we're seeing that in many places in the world.

And that, and that way you can kind of, uh, like expand that circle of influence, influence, I suppose You can amplify it by being with other people, um, and trying to find some sort of balance with that. And one thing that it did say to me is, um, you know, documenting issues that seem beyond your influence can become a form of influence in itself.

You know, creating records and evidence that might enable future action or a blog for instance, is a way of sort of finding balance in that. So anyway, I thought those thoughts were kind of an interesting reflection on some of the limits of how he presents this really powerful idea that I love. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you know where this ties back for me? Um, and I, I furious agreement with everything that you've gotta say there. Like, let's be clear, [01:18:00] um, is in the practice of the reflection that, um, you're supposed to undertake and the getting things done approach, but also is advocated in the bojo approach, the bullet journal approach.

Mm. Um, where you can articulate some of those and, and then, you know, take the time to work your way through them and then come to a position on some of those things. I, um, have, I've got examples springing to mind at the moment where I have stood by and watched things occur that I deeply felt were problematic.

Mm. Um, but had to do that, I felt, uh, at the time that I had to do that, uh, in order to fight the bigger fight, right? Mm. Like to be able to go, if I take this one on, then the whole place burns down and nothing gets solved here. So I need to think carefully about the way in which we tackle these sorts of things.

And it's [01:19:00] important to realize that. Sometimes you think that you have enough clout within your circle of influence to be able to do something. Sometimes you find out you don't. Oh yeah. And you find out in ways that are not great. Yeah. So just kind of, you wanna be clear-eyed about some of this sort of stuff.

You wanna be pretty sure about where the boundaries of your circle of influence are or, or what you see them and whether or not you're comfortable with those sorts of things. That is so true. That is, I mean, I'm just thinking back to multiple times when younger Inga, and I think one benefit that comes with age is that the ability to pick your battles Yeah.

Becomes very, I've I, I've almost honed that to a, like, I still make mistakes. I don't want to claim that I'm perfect at it, but man, I'm so much better at it than I was. Yeah. Even in the last 10 years. And I think also part of that comes from taking a leadership role where other people are looking to you.

Yeah. To go. Yes, I see and hear [01:20:00] that, right? Yeah. What you've witnessed. I'm not, I'm not gonna pretend that what you've witnessed is okay. It's not, yeah. Um, and, and I know you wanna do X, Y, and Z and I know how that satisfies an emotional need to feel like you've done something and that you've, you've remedied this injustice and this outrage.

But like, take a step back. Yeah. Let's think about, let's think about like, not choosing this one. And sometimes I describe it to people as like, let's let the plates fall on the floor, right? Yeah. Like, you're trying to carry too many plates. Let's let some of these fall on the floor. Okay. Yeah. And, and I'll provide some safety and cover for that.

Yeah. To happen. Yeah. And, and then by doing that, then we can make this problem over here much more obvious. And I'm not, this doesn't just happen in a NU, this is in all the areas in which I work with my son with, you know, you know, my partner. Like, just like advising people when they come to you with a problem is to say, okay, well sometimes actually the best [01:21:00] attack is a retreat.

Yeah. And, and the way that you retreat and gather force is important. Yeah. And you are not just ignoring it. God, I feel, uh, the bit that I hate about that strategy is the one where you go, I can see into the future and I know that this is gonna be a problem. Like, but I this let it play out. But I want you to know that I told you so.

Right. I know, right? I know, I know, I know. It's like I know. And even sometimes saying, I told you so like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh God. Yeah. Oh my God. And yeah. Yeah. And I Or you or you don't say, you don't say that. And what you do is you think it really loud. Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right. And I often, I often think now that my, my past self would find my current self a very frustrating person.

Annoying person. [01:22:00] Yeah. Because I would be the one saying way take a beat, you know? Yeah. And younger would be like, let's burn it down. Yeah. And I think where my like leaders and mentors back in the past where I used to get frustrated is they would never actually acknowledge that what was happening was bullshit.

So I felt gaslit. Yeah. So when I, I never do that. I never say this is okay, so this is not okay. Like, perfectly reasonable to feel this way. Yeah. Right. But if we really wanna do something then like this plan of attack, like firing back straight over, no. Yeah. That's not gonna. Yeah. And I, and also just leaving things alone that are silly in a bureaucracy.

Like things in bureaucracies are silly all the time. Yeah. But sometimes I leave, just leave them alone. And one of the things I've been leaving alone for a long time is this bureaucratic process that we have to go through every time we run an event. Yes. Right. And so I've been leaving it alone. I've been just doing the forms.

I've been like burning [01:23:00] the time going, I know these people, like these people doing this for a reason. I get like, just take a deep breath. But now, because of the budget cuts, you know, we've got no time left to do it. Yeah. I'm like, okay, now I finally have to do it. And it was like this series of email skirmishes, you know, where like Yeah.

And eventually we got to the point like where I'm like, we're having a meeting next week. Yep. Yeah. Good. And I said, well let's, let's go to this meeting with our version of the form. Yep. Right. Yeah. And let's see where we go to from there. Right? Like, you don't have to have our version of the form, but here, could we consider this?

Yeah. As a way through. Right. Yeah. Together. Because you are also like, one of the things about the terribleness that's happening all over the sector, not just a NU, and now people losing their jobs. One of the, the upsides of that. And I don't want use that to validate what's happening 'cause it's shit. And that's, it's the government's fault, just to be clear.

Mm-hmm. It's the government's fault. Right. As much as individual leaders cannot cover themselves in glory [01:24:00] in certain ways that they behave towards what's happening, it is the government's fault. It's not their fault that this is happening. You've gotta keep your eye on that, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I forgot where I was going with this, and menopause robbed me in my train of thought. It just Oh, no. Makes it like, that's fine. I'm listening back and go. Of course you meant to say x. I don't know where I was going. Oh, okay. It's gone. Oh, okay. I can't help. Sorry. Can't help. Yeah. Anyway. Hey, it was really good to revisit this, like, even if it was very fast over a cup of coffee, like just to touch base with it again.

Yeah. The um, yeah. Um, the, there, there was some good stuff in there. I mean, I like the way it's not prac. Sometimes these books are pitched at such a level that they say you should do this sort of stuff and, and then they wave various examples at you, and then you have to kind of find your own way through it.

Mm. Sort of thing. But one of the things that he talked about, I found on page 89 was the use of [01:25:00] language. Mm. Um, and this, the idea of the haves and the bees. Mm. Um, you know, I have to do this. Mm. Or I choose to be like that. Mm. So, um, and that's that for me, again, circling back to that idea of that pause between a thing that's going on and then a.

That you, you, you choose to, how you react to, to those sorts of things. Um, there was lots of really good stuff inside, inside this chapter. I really, I really enjoyed it. Mm. Um, yeah. Yeah. You've got some notes here about burnout though, and about that I thought were interesting. Like, you know, um, taking a sort of stoic approach to something doesn't always serve you.

You know, where do you actually draw the boundaries? Um, and in the table that you, uh, that you put up the top there. So there's a potential in this, this idea of taking initiative and choosing responses to it that he advocates, he sort of said, there's a potential reinforcement of [01:26:00] workaholic tendencies.

I'm interested what you can say about that. 'cause I read that and thought, Ooh, say more. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, , if you're reasonably successful at what it is that you do, or, and by successful I, I mean you're able to do the thing. Right. Mm-hmm. And that might sometimes mean that you get bad outcomes, but you're just, you know, you're good at getting those bad outcomes, right?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, uh, that I, if you are constantly taking initiatives in the way in which you wish to expand your circle of influence, that that can come at a personal cost, right? Mm-hmm. Um, because sometimes the way in which you do that taking initiative is, I'll just write this extra thing, or I'll just do this extra piece of work, or i'll, and that can lead to things like, um, you're staying at work longer, or you are working, uh, you are expending more energy throughout the day so that when you get to the end of the day, you are completely spent, [01:27:00] uh, in a way that you wouldn't be if you managed it a little bit more.

Mm. Uh, mindfully or, or healthfully. Worked at a few universities and we've been to a few universities and I've, and I've talked about this idea before, is, um, that the universities will take everything that you can give it and it will just keep coming back and asking for more.

Yeah. So it it, like, you cannot feed this beast fast enough, right? Yeah. But the whole idea here is that if you work hard, you do good things, then you have a positive impact. That's the kind of the, the big meta. You know, a story around all of this sort of stuff. You have a positive impact, then you improve the lives of students and society and the communities in, in which you work and all that sort of stuff.

Um, that is an endless spiral if you are not careful about it. Mm. Uh, and, uh, where work is such a huge part of our daily lives, you know, it takes up a, a, a huge chunk of our daily time and we commit so much [01:28:00] to it. And as you were saying earlier, the performative, um, aspect of what your life is. I was a very different person at work inside the universities than I was when I come home.

Like vastly, vastly different. And sometimes those, that transition can be poorly managed. I know. Certainly I often, you know, there was a while there where I was coming home and, and I'm not proud of this, but my, my family were copping, you know, I was still work Jason when I walked through the door. Right.

And work. Jason had a very different way of thinking about the way in which the world worked to the way in which home. Jason likes to think about the way in which the world works. Mm. Um, and it's, you can take that on and you can own that yourself thinking that you can fix the problem or, and I suspect that.

That was probably what I was doing. You know, I had a couple of, uh, episodes there where it was really bad. [01:29:00] And the challenge I had with this chapter not to really get to the heart of my uneasiness with this particular chapter is that when you get to these kinds of positions, you are not in a position to step aside and look at yourself logically and objectively from the, from, from the upper corner of the room.

Yeah. Right. And, but, and I know, I found for myself that, um, I needed a third person. I needed, you know, I had support networks around me who were, people were being kind to me and looking after me. And, you know, you were a big part of that as well, Inga. But, you know, I needed a therapist to, to help guide me through that stuff.

And I think back now, um, on all of that and the inability of myself, so I say that now from some distance from that, but yeah, at the time when I was in the middle of it, yeah. I thought I could just work harder. Yeah. And if I just worked harder, I'd fix it. Right. [01:30:00] Yeah. And because I, I was all, I. Tied up in the idea that the hard work is where the growth is.

You know, you do uncomfortable things, that's where you grow and you learn and you develop and you know, and like, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And uh, you know, by my personal experience was I pushed until I broke it. Um, and the problem with this be proactive chapter I found was that, uh, rock bottom.

I read this somewhere in a, I read this somewhere in a book somewhere, probably one of the books that Kath's got. But, um, rock Bottom is closer and softer than what you think it is. Ooh. And Yeah. Right. Ouch. Yeah. Ouch. Um, yeah. And so you can't actually see that. So, you know, COVID kind of, and you, you alluded to this earlier, seems to think that you have the agency to be able to make those choices, but sometimes you can't.

The the, it's just, [01:31:00] it's beyond you, but you don't recognize that and you need someone else to be able to help you through that sort of stuff. And I think that's where I was going with the rant about never being able to be truly outside yourself. 'cause even when you think you are, like you thought you were Yeah.

Certainly weren't, like if I reflect back over the last year, we caught up in May, I came down to Melbourne. Yep. You were in the depths of despair at that point. Yeah. But you were starting to pull yourself out of it. You'd made some big decisions and choices and that's sort of Yeah. We were starting the, the the um, you were changing, you were pivoting, right?

Yeah. At that in May to, to being an entrepreneur that you are now. Right? Yeah. You we're beginning in that pivot. If we reflect back, that's nearly been a year, Jason. Yeah. Since we sat on the side of Docklands in Melbourne, remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we looked across at that warehouse that we talked about, we used to go clubbing in, you know.

Yeah. Like that day. I remember that day really clearly. Like. That you like, you'd in yourself, you'd made [01:32:00] decisions, but you were still really trying to pull out from being able to see clearly what was happening to you. I think you'd started therapy at that point, maybe had you started. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I could see even then, and you were, you were at that point saying you were worried you weren't gonna get better. You, like you were worried you'd broken it to the point where it wouldn't come back. I remember that. And you had, as it turns out, yeah. But you had to remove yourself from that circumstances in order to be able to heal.

Yeah. And I think this is the point you're making with this book that like, you might not see that if you, if you think you truly are outside yourself at any point in time, you never are. Yeah. You see you. Yeah. So you can, you got you. Now you can look back on that from maybe much more of that disinterested, I'm hovering in the corner of the room and see all of that.

By the time you couldn't and you were at that, I feel like that May was that pivot point where you started to, you didn't feel that you were getting better, but that's the point where I felt like you were getting better. I could see it too. Yeah. Okay. 'cause up until then you were like, I [01:33:00] can't change it, or I can't and this is his language, you know, I can't, or all that sort of stuff, you know?

Um, you know, you did feel trapped for a period of time anyway, just by way of saying, friend, I'm really proud of you. Like, this has been like, that was a tough year before that. Yeah. And this year hasn't been easy either, but it's been a lot better been, he's better. Um, the key insight for me then tying that to this chapter, right, mm-hmm.

Is, uh, around, it was then that idre for myself in one of those therapy sessions. Um, the model, the operating model in my head. Mm. And um, and these are values based model. So I have a imagine a triangle, equilateral triangle, um, and I have three main values in my life. One's around family, one's around mastery, and then third one's around generosity.

Mm. And what I hadn't realized at the time was that at any particular time, what you want to [01:34:00] do is kind of be in the middle of the triangle. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you're gonna put a dot about where you're living your life, you wanna be in the middle of it, but sometimes, sometimes you're more focused on family or you're more focused on work or you're more focused on other people and generosity and that sort of stuff.

And I, and that's okay. That dot, if you think in inside that triangle can move around a bit, but over time what you want it to do is sort of mostly be kind of in the middle somewhere. Yeah. And what I had done is for those couple of years I had, um, moved entirely towards mastery and at work. Yeah. And, and that's where I was sitting inside that trying to.

Trying to chase that particular goal. And yeah, I, I found it interesting what you were saying before about the curve, right? Like you never actually get there and Yeah. It's a topic intellectually of ai. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As a person, you never get there either, right? You never get there. You get closer. Yeah.

But if you think [01:35:00] that you can, or that all I need to do is work a little bit harder or you know, I can, I can fix this. I mean, in some situations you can't. The bag of problems is so big. Yeah. It's so squirmy that you'll never be able to fix it and Yeah. Yeah. If you, but can I also point out to Jesse, make the mistake of your misunderstanding, your circle of influence that can lead to problems.

Totally. But if I can point out to you to also, that the more that you threw yourself at that Asim topic idea that you could, the more you were rewarded by the system. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of money and titles and prestige, like academia will do that to you. It fucks with your head because the more that you fuck yourself up in some circumstances, the more it will throw money and titles and recognition and all those things that come with it.

And you certainly had all that and walk walking away from that. That was part of the difficulty I think. [01:36:00] It's like, yeah, yeah. You know, because it, it is like, it's not just money and it's not just power and it's not just attention, but it is those things too. And so mm-hmm. That's where you sort of, you yourself had to like pull yourself really much back to that family.

Right? Yeah. And like, and pull yourself and remind yourself that that's the most important thing. I have to be able to be here for them and I don't wanna have a stroke and die. Right. That was like, yeah, that's it. Yeah. I don't wanna have a stroke and die and I was So you always had to go to that other end of the triangle right before you can come back to the middle again.

Right? Yeah. Just to correct that I had the data, this got deep bloody help. That help. Data was terrible. It scared me genuinely. Well, it scared me and it scared anyone you shared it with, it scared us all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, you did anyway, just saying proud of you. Oh thanks. Hard work on the, this got unexpectedly deep and revealing, but there you go.

That's what comes on the reg for uh, bloody Covy. I'm conflicted. Bloody Harold. So conflicted. [01:37:00] But that's almost like I'm really coming to admire this book and I'm glad we are doing it. In such slow, because like if I just had that reaction to the Mormonism, I would've, I mean to, I'm not anti-religious. I just sort of, I would like it to be, um, for someone to present religion to me as religion, and then I can make a choice with how I engage with it.

But when you present it to me and pretend it's something like, I, I find that deeply offensive. Stephen Cogan did that and actually would've been a better book if you told me about Mormonism at the same time. I would've been interested in that. Yeah. But instead I just feel a bit like gaslit. But anyway, I do wonder whether or not everybody would be as interested as what you would be in that and whether or not we would then gone to make millions of copies.

I think there might have been a commercial element to this. I don't know, Stephen maybe, but bloody, yeah, it worked for him. How many millions it work for? Copies of assault lots. Like a lot. Hey, we're close to, we've not just been reading Stephen Kobe's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Yes. We haven't just been reading.

No, [01:38:00] we've been reading. Have you been reading anything because you've been I'm team, busy team. Dog, dog. Um, I've also started to read, uh, that was fun. That was a, a book about dog training. I've also started to read really quickly Alex Vasili, who I know listens to the blog 'cause invited me over to Perth last year.

Hi Alexis. Oh yeah. Hi Alex. Um, striking a, the rise and fall of Union Power in the Pilbara. Look at that fist on the cover. Great cover. Um, uh, I do have a little weakness for union histories, so thank you for sending that. And I think we need to talk about unionism. Do we? And maybe this book could be Yes, I think we do.

Do I need to, I might need to do a bit of reading. Um, you could read this book. I could bring it down for you. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um, because it's, it's the second book on unionism I've read. And that's, and the other thing I've read, um, which informed the academic me girls piece is Enemy Feminisms by Sophie Lewis.

Oh, yes. And her point is that feminism is a broad church and that some of the, [01:39:00] some of the versions of it are pretty shit. Yeah. And so she talks about turfs and girl bosses and Yeah. Anyway, I'm really enjoying it. It's a bracing read. It's like being repeatedly punched in the face. Right. But in a good way.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Alright. I just realized it's getting close to 12. And I did promise a friend that she had a crisp 12 to one slot for lunch. I'm like, yeah, I'll be there. And I'm like, shit. Even in Canberra, it's gonna be a stretch. So I've got about 10 minutes. Okay. Roger that. We're nearly, we're nearly towards the end anyway.

. I have been reading. I've, you're gonna, you not gonna like this thing go? Yes. Uh, Cal Newport. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I picked up a copy of how to be Become a straight A student.

Like how I have that and actually his college version of it. That's the one I'm reading at the moment. Um, number one son came to me, uh, after years of me saying, bro, you gotta study. Like, you gotta do revision and stuff, right? Yeah. Um, yeah. So year nine has come [01:40:00] along and all of a sudden it's like, oh.

Oh, he hit the wall. Has he? Mm-hmm. Yeah. My son hid it in year eight, so yeah. Yep. So after a blip, like Oh yeah. After a blip in the math scores. Ha. Yeah. Ask me if I could teach him how to study. So this is a big moment in the, because I have been, what would, what would you know dad, right? Kind of. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Oh my God. He came to you. You didn't overdo it, did you? You didn't like overcorrect and like, oh my God, did you? I was like, no, I, I paused between. The moment and my reaction, you responded rather than reacted. Yeah, I did. Okay, great. Did I did. Because, you know, you can put them right off because I, I went, doesn't matter what I say right here at this part, you're not gonna listen to me.

Mm-hmm. Even though like it looks like he wants to listen to, he's not going to listen to me. So what can I do? And I've deployed this tactic twice now. Um, once was around writing, I rang, I rang you and said, um, how to level up your [01:41:00] essays, the book that you wrote. Mm-hmm. Is this a good one to give him now for high school?

High school? And I said, no school. And you said no. And I was like, oh, damn it. Because what I'm trying to do is get other people who he might listen to other than me who are experts in that field. So that's what I've done with Cal Newport. I've like, like this dude. I don't like him and I don't like the way he writes.

Mm-hmm. But you should read it. So anyway, I read the first 60 pages or something like that and it's, you know, it's all about understanding calendars and how to do things. And he has this really light touch way of understanding how to capture tasks and, and time oh's good. And it's really, I taught Kellen Newport's task.

Um, his list, his primary list and his punch list. I taught that on Tuesday. I. Oh, right. There you go. Enduring rounding that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I, I, I did go a little bit nerdy and I did wave my bojo in front of Jack and I did show him, um, OmniFocus and I, and he said, I'm not gonna do any of that, dad. And I went, [01:42:00] oh, okay.

So I put it back on him and you're not gonna do any of the OmniFocus. Yeah. You figure out then what your system is and I'll work with your system. And so he went away and God, that's, he went away. That's an excellent dad. He went away and he came up with a system. So I have feelings about the system. Yeah, sure.

You have all the feelings. Yeah, because like does he need to recognize and find the failings of it himself? Yes, he does. I I think he will have to like the 30 years of me thinking about this stuff. Right. Um, anyway, uh, so Cow Newport, all, I'm just gonna say. Um, it was just, oh man, that tone he brings to his own.

I know. Yes. I just can't, I, I cannot. Right. But like, I have to kind of move my way past that. I have to be, I have to be the bigger man, you know, and just kind of go, is it actually what he's saying useful or not? And it's, so anyway, there we're, there we're, so, [01:43:00] um, Cal Newport's made his way into the house again.

Damn. You Cal Newport. Like, damn Newport. I'm, I'm with you. Like the, the confidence of the, of the white man is strong in, in Cal, isn't it? Oh, yes. It's so strong and it's just like, oh, cow. And I, what I, what I enjoy though is his latest book. He's starting, like, he even mentioned Marxism. Like I, I can see an evolution, a slow, painful evolution towards some more enlightenment.

Like, he's a deep thinker. He'll get there maybe when he is 80, right? So he just needs to talk to some women. Some women and some brown people. And, and maybe he'll, you know, figure it, the sooner he figures out that he's gotta stop just talking to his bromates all the time. You know, just, I, um, just saying, I bought the, I bought the book about email, you know, the Cal Newport book about email was maybe a couple years ago.

Um, I bought it. I went Amazon clicked buy. Yeah. And then I asked you about it 'cause you'd already bought it and read it and then you said, don't bother reading it. [01:44:00] So I just put it on the shelf and never bothered reading it. 'cause I just couldn't, like you told me that it wasn't worth reading and then I was just like, I didn't wanna put myself through that tone.

To be fair. Like the, the first half of it is kind of an interesting history of how we got here. Oh, okay. The second half was as Ben k Crowell. Hi Ben. If you're listening as Ben k Crow would describe it, um, Cal Newport discovers the Kanban board, right? Yeah. It could be summed up in that Cal. That's what happened with K.

He discovers you need to use email. Bless his cotton socks. But, um, welcome Cal. Welcome Cal. I'm really, I'm really, um, I'm Jack Downs Well done. You know, recognizing that you have a problem is the first step to solving it. Yeah, correct. And we did have a bit of a chat about that and I did say I was proud for him Yeah.

To be able to recognize that and let's focus on what we can do about that. Um, yeah. And may I make another suggestion if I may? Yes, please. Um, pretty much every [01:45:00] parent of a child who has the means and has that child in whatever system of schooling and has the means at this point in time, employs the old maths tutor.

Ah, right. Because there is a step change in mass year eight, year nine, where if they don't get some fundamental concepts down, um, they'd start to struggle. And they struggle increasingly. And, um, uh, props to a friend of my husband's who spotted this in Brandon's, somehow randomly by talking to him after we would dropped by the office one day.

And this guy just started talking to Brendan and I was like, you know, trying to connect with him and asked him a few questions and realized that he had some fundamental misunderstandings and went, you need to correct this right now. And I said, really? And he goes, really? 'cause I don't understand the math.

It's too complicated for me. And, you know, it's like I'm gone. I'm, I can't do it. Even though I got, I struggled through maths at quite a high level to the end of year 12. I've forgotten it all. Yeah. And, um, and he, he recommended a tutor. I cast around, I eventually found a, a PhD student from a NU. [01:46:00] Yeah, no, even an, I think he was an undergraduate at the time.

He's now doing a PhD. Really smart guy. Nice guy. Just sat with Brendan and um, like I would suggest something like that might be the time to gently apply that. Yeah. And it also teaches one to accept help, um, in a different way. And all that happened was that he sat next to Brendan as he did his homework, and he was very good.

He never solved the problem for him. But it was like having a Claude that was good at maths sitting next to you. Yeah. Yeah. Really. So struggle. He explained the concept in that moment for that question. Yeah. And it didn't, and we did that for about a year and it kind of fixed the problem. It's, it's been really super interesting because the uh, the work that they're doing at the moment, uh, expressions, equations, those sorts of things, algebra.

Mm. Um, I, they have the question in the book. The textbook I reckon is terrible. But anyway, it's [01:47:00] terrible. Um, they have the questions in the book and then they don't really explain those concepts very well at all. And then you go to the answer, they have all the answers printed in the back of the book.

Yeah. So answer this question. So I try and figure it out and then I go to the answer, and then the answer is different to what I came up with because also not great at maths. Um, and there, but there's the gap between like there's no, how does this, how did you get there? And there's no, it's not in the back in the answers.

They don't step it out. No, no. And it's not in the text itself. And it's like, it's this magic and it's not good magic. No. It's not good magic. No, it's not. And there's the teacher to student ratio is too high for the teacher to sit down. And what happens is your kids probably like mine. He's not terrible at maths at all.

And he's probably not super brilliant at it, but he feels in, that probably falls like my kid did in that middle ground of good enough. Yeah. And you get zero attention. Yeah. I mean, d on all the right things. He's, um, placing himself at the front of the class. Yeah. He's not [01:48:00] engaging with all the, um, uh, you know, how do we put it dickhead at the back of the class.

Right. You know, like he's doing what he can, but I think Right. I think you're keeping him off. Those, those, those, that phone culture is paying dividends right now. Yeah. That he's even doing. That's pretty amazing. Anyway. Yeah. Um, you listeners, uh, you talk amongst yourselves while we just have that moment of, um, we're talking about ing being 10 years ahead in the parenting journey.

Hey, do you have a two minute throw money at the problem, friend? Throw money at the problem. Yeah. Might 25 bucks. We'll go, go a long way a week to solving that problem. Yep. Might have to sell a few more workshops. Um, yeah, exactly. Two minute tips. Have you got one? I feel like No, we can't, we can't. Like we can't, we need to have one.

Alright folks. Inga has to get out. She's got lunch to get to. I do. Thanks for listening folks. You've done well. You've got this far.

We love reviews, so we, particularly the five star variety we love those the most. Yeah. Yep. About to go and have a look at Apple reviews right now. You saw what I was [01:49:00] doing right? You're like, I was like, shit, I haven't done that either. Damn it. So if you can, if you can leave a review on Apple Podcasts, we promised to read it out.

Just scroll all the way down to the bottom and just keep typing. Give us a five star review if you can. Uh, I was talking to, uh oh, yes, I forgot. There is a really great one here. Okay. I was talking, there's two good ones. Yes. Yeah, go on. Went out, went out for lunch with, uh, Shanel. Uh oh, yes. Good friend of the pond.

Yes. Hi Shanel. Hi Shanel. Um, and he said that he, he was catching up on, on the back catalog for, on the rig, and the one where the the one star review person came in and said I don't know. Oh, yes. Washed out academics or something like that. He said, he laughed out loud at our response to that. It's like, bring it bro.

That'll don't, that'll be Professor Wa washed out. Yeah. That's to you. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Don't, um, no one star reviews. Look, one was funny. Like don't. Yeah. Yeah. But what is [01:50:00] funny, we didn't need, let's not go, let's not go anymore. Okay. We've got we've got one here from Sci-fi Girl. Brilliant. Five star review.

Thank you. Sci-fi girl. See Sci-fi girl understood the assignment. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Amazing pod on all things academic productivity with humor and honesty about the crazy world we work in. It is crazy. I witness and celebrate you. Mm-hmm. Sci-fi girl. Thank you for that. Now this one is actually five star review from our friend Jonathan O'Donnell, who like, clearly you can do more than one five star review.

Yes. He's back. And he'll, you'll find this one. Actually, Luke saw this and read it out to me and, right. Yeah. And I laughed my ass off and then promptly forgot about it, but now it's here again. Okay, great. Alright. It's titled Hilarious Critique of the Cult of Productivity. Yeah, it's the title, right? Yeah.

Yeah. By staff, by productivity gurus that promise us that with enough organization and attention to detail, we can control the chaos in our [01:51:00] lives. Australian comics, Ingham, Newburn, and Jason Downs have taken that premise and skewed a brilliantly in the excellent podcast. On the Reg, ostensibly on the Reg is a podcast about productivity.

The joke is, of course, that each episode is a train wreck of random timing, failed tech and meandering asides. They claim they do multiple restarts for many episodes and even have lost whole episodes. On a recent show, Jason promises he'll go deep on OmniFocus. This built up throughout the show until inevitably they ran out of time and Jason's on the contribution, wasn it on the focus can't solve everything brilliant.

E even the name is part of the joke show. Law says that on the reg came about, 'cause Jason and Inga wanted to talk to one another, but couldn't organize themselves to do that. So they decided to have a regular on the ring. Get it, catch up record, publish it. And it's a podcast. How productive of them? Of course, it's never regular.

Even though they now work together, they continue to find it difficult to schedule [01:52:00] time and make the pod. Some months. There are two shows. Some months there are none. Scheduling who needs it? We're only halfway through. Oh my God. It's, it's, it's genius. On the red comes with its own drinking game called Snipy Do Dat.

In fact, I haven't even said snippy do do dot once since episode, but there you go. In a show that is literally about managing time in claims that she will cut episodes. Snippety do dart down to size in post-production. Of course that never happens, but you get the truth every time she says it. They've managed to keep the show under 30 minutes, about five times, including one episodes at 11 and a half minutes, followed by an episode that's sub two minutes.

They're once balanced by the multiple episodes that are over two hours long as this one will be. As time has gone on, the average runtime has gotten longer and longer as Ingrid Jason find more and more and longer and longer tangents to take them off track. Episodes currently average one hour 45 minutes and I can't get enough of them.

Thank you, Jonathan. Their level of attention to detail is staggering. [01:53:00] They even have Easter eggs in the metadata. Multiple episodes have no season number. That's not me and or no episode number. The season two episode about yak shaving comes in between episode 22 and 23, and suppose it's episode 22 and a half, I guess ER and Jason have perfected that Australian band of brand of self-deprecating humor that subverts the very thing they talk about.

Think Kate McCartney and Kate McClendon's. Fabulous catering show, but with bullet journals instead of food intolerances. I love it. I love that review. So John, it's hard to top that. Jonathan, you're setting the bar really high, dude. Um, so listeners may or may not be aware, um, we have show notes that are supposed to guide these conversations, um, and the more suggestions than anything else.

Um, sure. And I have a build a test expander template for this, right. So that we don't have to write these, set 'em up every week. And um, I've got the dropdown thing at the [01:54:00] top, so it's like episode 75, March, you know, 20, 25 or whatever sort of thing. But I, I must confess and go where I've got season six, episode number 75, but I'm not a hundred percent convinced for sure that it's actually trying to find the 75.

I was trying to find the actual, so notes you were like, and one of them titled episode 72 I think. Like, yep.

Like I don't actually know. I dunno anymore. I'm lost. I'm lost. I just go from the last one and sometimes I'm given it the wrong. Anyway, that's on me. That part. Mia Cop Buzz. Buzz Brow. Buzz Brow on the Reg Reg podcast. Are we live on air? Actually, look, yeah, we're gotta look it up. Um, 73 episodes we've published.

Okay, so this will be 74. But we've labeled 75. Are we talking?[01:55:00] 

Oh my God. Oh, anyway. Okay. So, and yet, and yet, Jason, and yet we run a thriving business. Yes. I've written 10 books. Yeah's fine. Like somehow we get there. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you Jonathan. We love you too. Uh, uh, that's it. Um, I, we can, if you want a question featured on the reg, we'll, you can write to us at Yes.

Pod at on the reg team and it'll go into the mail back. Uh, we are, we are playing a little bit of catch up here because we've got a bit circle back on. So, uh, if you have not had your question reached out this episode, it will come up. And in fact, I promised someone just the other day, I promised someone just the other day that I would call 'em out because they subscribed to us on our coffee.

They became a member. Oh. And yes, [01:56:00] they did. And it was ebe. E became a member. Thank you. On our coffee. Thank you. And I said I promised her a shout out. So it's right at the very end. But thank you Eeb. Um, I'll just say that we have had, if I have a look at our members, I, we used to say that we would read out their name, um, all the time, but, and we haven't done that.

So what I'm going to do is I'm just people who have, um, subscribed talk, US support business supported us, include James, Rob, Rob w Eeb, Cameron, John, Charlotte, James, Rachel, Michelle, Amy, John, Rebecca, mark, different Mark, um, AR, ARSO, Jessica, Daniel, [01:57:00] uh, someone who's given themself, the name Cofi, supporter. Um, Paul and Paul all since the start of the year.

Wow. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. You should be better at this and we will be. Yes. Jonathan's, Jonathan's supported, pointed out. We need to be more attention to detail. Not exactly our thing, but thank you so much. That really helps. Last bit, uh, before I move on and let you text out, uh, you can also leave a voice message like Martin did earlier today on our SpeakPipe, and that's at www.speakpipe.com/thesis whisperer.

I think you get about three minutes or so to be able to record us record a message. Um, and if you do that we'll play Inga has a little alarm, like a special alarm on her phone. So when a SpeakPipe drops into the inbox, she gets this little ding and I'm reliably told that, that she gets unreasonably excited about it.

I parties, I listen it immediately. Yeah. Like in a way that I [01:58:00] don't listen to messages that people leave me on my phone and my husband goes, you know, you've got three messages. I'm like, what? But sweet pipes I listen to. Um, right. What else? Oh, socials. You're taking a break. Find me. Yeah. In fact, I've deleted Instagram.

Great. Love that for you. You've deleted Instagram. I just like no more pictures of the tinny. I know, right. I've been enjoying taking the photographs. Also, meta are not covering themselves with glory, unfortunately. I'm sadly dialed in. Okay. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm actually surprisingly responsive on li LinkedIn Blue Sky.

I lurk on threads 'cause I can't help myself to see what's happening in the world in the mornings. That's where I go. Has everything burned down? No. Okay. We're still here. Carry on. That's so I'm there friend of, but don't you know, friend of the pod Mick house? Mm-hmm. Hi, Mick. I'm not sure that, hi Mick. Hi Mick.

Um, describes LinkedIn as adult Facebook. It is adult Facebook. It's, it's Facebook with no fun in it whatsoever. Yeah. But you know, [01:59:00] surprisingly, like, you know, I share blog posts there and stuff, so, you know, feel free to follow along. I better go. You better go. This has been fun. Thank you. It'll, I'll try and get it out on the weekend somehow between the two.

Yeah, because you've got all your, all the time. Yeah. Thank you everyone. Uh, we look forward to talking with you again sometime soon.

Yeah, no longest episode ever. Okay. It'll hopefully be a bit shorter, but good to see you. Bye. Bye.