Editing The Pen Addict 149/transcript (section)

== RelayFM Scheduling ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you have an interesting topic here, which, you know, I didn't think about, but it's completely applicable. And you were talking just in general about RelayFM on your side and Knock on my side as being our side businesses. And how do we stay organized with all of the extra work? I mean, you have a day job. You have a wife. You have kids. I have a day job. I have a wife. I have kids. There's all these other things we got going on. And then, oh, by the way, you do things for Relay. Right. And I do things for Knock. And you have a blog that you maintain. And I have the same. And it's just all these other things. So how, what are your thoughts on these topics? How do you keep sane throughout the day? And what kind of tools are you using?

'''Stephen Hackett:''' Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting idea. You know, I think I won't speak for the way that you run your schedule, but I know for me, I'm, you know, that stuff is pretty jumbled up. I do have a, you know, a nine to five job, but very often, you know, I'll need to take care of something for Relay during the day or, you know, vice versa. If I'm at home and I might be working on something in the evening for Relay, you know, something from work might pop in and have to deal with it. So for me, I don't really have like discrete tools. So it's kind of, you know, the, the, the applications and the, the notebooks and stuff that I use, it's all kind of mixed together where I've got sort of, you know, one page on my film notes might be some notes from a Relay call for a new show. And then something, you know, the next page over will be a little sketch for a project at work. And then my grocery list might be next. So for me, it's not, there's not clearly defined boundaries. And I was curious if that was the same for you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That is totally the case with me. And we've discussed this, um, one time before we were talking about how I found myself one day, all of a sudden with like five active notebooks, but no real definition on what those notebooks contained in them. And I've never been one to have a notebook for a certain topic, like for the podcast, you know, I don't necessarily have a specific notebook that holds all the podcast notes, ideas, things like that. It goes, like you said, into whichever notebook I'm using at the time. And then that's kind of, you know, wherever my head's at, at the moment, whether it's working on, you know, new colorways for knock or what I'm going to write in the show notes for the podcast or what blog posts I'm going to put up on the pen addict. Like those all kind of go in the same spot, at least on the analog side. Um, you know, I find it getting confusing when I end up part of the problem with me is I test out a lot of products and I'll end up carrying around three or four or five different things at once. And then I'll need to make a note that I need to remember and I'll just put it in whatever's the closest instead of necessarily the one active kind of inbox. That's how I treat, treat my notebooks is like the inbox. And then I put that information somewhere else. So yeah, I tend to get in trouble if I don't have that one primary, um, notebook. I don't have them separated. And I found out we, I sent out, um, a question after the show when we were talking about that and almost all the responses were people were using like five to seven notebooks for different things. It blew my mind.

'''Stephen Hackett:''' Yeah. I don't want to carry five to seven notebooks. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, uh, to kind of move closer to my world for a second, you know, you said that's true for, for your analog tools, but, um, I know for me, you know, I have, uh, you know, my task management software that has kind of everything and that I've like sections divided out, you know, for relay and the day job and home and that sort of thing. Um, but I mean, even kind of once I'm in the digital world, you know, my email all comes to one client, you know, it's, it's for me, it's, these are just the things that I do. And yes, I do have hours dedicated to one or the other, but you know, I, I at least have transitioned very well between them. Right. So I could do something for work and then for relay and bounce back. And, you know, I don't, I don't know. Do you have to have those walls up higher if you're working with digital tools as opposed to just capturing things in your notebook?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I don't know. See, like the only thing that I use digitally that I don't kind of match, um, in the analog world is a calendar. I don't, I don't keep any analog calendars. I find that pretty cumbersome and not really efficient. Um, you know, I, I definitely prefer like a digital calendaring or, um, digital scheduling like an OmniFocus where you can schedule projects and tasks and have times and recurring things to them. That's super important for me. Like I use OmniFocus a lot for, you know, Nock has its own stuff and Penatic has its own stuff and the podcast has its own stuff. And then I have a bunch of personal stuff in there. So that's, that plus the calendar is my primary digital stuff. Then everything else, I, I do capture, um, analog and, you know, I might transfer it over, uh, digitally or I may not, I may just, uh, find it in, in the notebook and, um, you know, just, just go from there.

'''Stephen Hackett:''' Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. You know, it's, it's, and looking at this, there's no right or wrong answer, right? It's like, I know, I know Myke is one to tend to have multiple notebooks. Uh, for a while he had like a notebook per show that he would just take notes in as he, as he recorded. Um, but you know, it kind of makes sense, right? Like Myke's setup is stationary where, you know, you and I, I at least am all over the place throughout the day, let alone the week. So for me, you know, one reason I use field notes is that I can stick it in my pocket and I know that my sort of current set of stuff is just always there that I don't have to, you know, Oh, I left that one on my desk at work, but I had that one thing in it that I really need, or, you know, I saved this over here and I can't get to it when I'm not, you know, it's, it's just a big soupy mess for me. And I don't know if that's good or bad, but I don't think it's right or wrong.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. When I used to find, try to keep like different topics in different notebooks, I'd end up not having the notebook I needed, write it down on a scrap of paper. And then who knows what happens to that? And it's just makes a mess or you'll lose it. And you know, I would keep it on that scrap until I was around the other notebook I needed. And then I would write it in that notebook and throw away the scrap. And that was just a pain. And so I'm a, I'm more of a one notebook kind of guy and capturing all the information there and then just working with that information as I need it.

'''Stephen Hackett:''' So I think, I think that's fair.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So in honor of you today, because I did remember this, I'm using a Jetstream. Yes. You're still on the Jetstream bandwagon?

'''Stephen Hackett:''' I am. Um, you know, whenever we spoke a couple years ago, you know, my setup has basically been the same. It's been, you know, a field notes of some variety and then the, uh, Uniball Jetstream and the .7 in blue. Um, that, just that combination for the most part works really well. Uh, you know, these are just the standard field notes. I really don't like the, what was the, the northerly edition or whatever that had like the waxy paper. Um, that was not my jams at all. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That goes, that goes way back. And that was like, well, that was one of the worst like inside papers that they've ever produced. It was, it was, um, roundly criticized.

'''Stephen Hackett:''' Yeah. But yeah, still, still using, you know, field notes. And again, kind of what we just spoke about that I know it's always with me. I know that, you know, I have a burn rate of about five weeks with the field notes. And so I know that I just have a rolling snapshot of the last however many weeks of whatever, again, grocery list, you know, meeting notes at work. Uh, you know, I wrote down when I, I'll edit it out, but I like coughed pretty loudly during the Squarespace ad read. So, you know, just wrote, jot down time on the side and I'll go back and fix that. Um, and so for me, it's just that sort of, it's sort of like a, like a cache of just like, Hey, you know, I kind of put stuff in this buffer over here and then it goes out elsewhere. Or like you said, maybe it doesn't, maybe it just stays there for reference. Um, cause for me, very often the act of writing it down is how I remember it. Right. Like that's sort of field notes. Yes. Brand tagline. But it works for me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So. Yeah, totally. Totally. I, you know, I want to, I want to explore a topic that we don't have on this list, but it relates exactly to this. And the question just came into my head while we were talking about this. Why don't we talk about our next sponsor? And then I will get into that.