781: The 2025 Productivity Field Guide
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Welcome to the Mac Power Users Podcast. I'm David Sparks and joined as always by my pal and yours, Mr. Stephen Hackett. How are you doing, Stephen? I'm good, David. How are you? I am excellent. The wind has finished, I think. I don't know. It's been crazy here in Southern California. Yeah. But things have calmed down a bit. I'm going to be putting my backyard back together since we get done recording in the spirit of optimism and all is well in the world. Good.

It's a big week for you. We're going to get, get into that. Um, but in the housekeeping section of the show, uh, where we talk about things that aren't really topics, but you know, things we should talk about. I just wanted to highlight a series I have going on five, 12 pixels is written by a friend of mine named Kevin. Uh,

Kevin is like an old, old friend of mine. We've known each other forever. And he's writing this series for me about this really interesting computer history kind of corner that I don't – it's not a circle that I travel in. But there are these groups or these companies that have put together old school DOS and Windows machines with –

like components you can get today. So you can get like a two 86, three 86. Um, for him, we ordered this laptop and I say laptop, like I'm doing air quotes, uh, called the pocket 80, 86. And he's kind of exploring it. And like this world, I just think it's really interesting because no one, I mean, there are like, you can build a Mac from like new old stock. And like, there's some people who have made replacement parts and stuff, but, uh,

it's hard because you need the ROM and some, and some like specific components. And on the DOS and windows side, that just wasn't true. And so, uh, this is a really like, it's a fascinating topic. And again, one that I'm not super familiar with. So I've, I've been enjoying working on this with him. Uh, so the first two are out, there'll be at least one more towards the end of the month. But, uh, one to highlight to people who have, you know, maybe you're a Mac power user now, but you started out on DOS or windows back in the day. Uh,

this should tickle that part of your brain. Yeah, I mean, just looking at these machines, this really does, it just works on me, right? I'm not really into the old PC stuff as I am into the old Mac stuff, but it is fun to,

at the old like spreadsheets and yeah but we've come so far with this stuff yeah we were like downloading like lotus agenda i was like what are we doing you know but yeah uh but it's it is interesting and there are people who you know really still care about this and neither of these columns i think a future one will have even talked or touched on like retro gaming which is huge

in the DOS and Windows world, much bigger than it is on like the classic Mac kind of side of things where people are like building machines to play like classic DOS and Windows games. It's really fascinating. Gaming story was better back then on PC. Well, it still is, but you know, that's always been true. Yeah. Yeah. Are,

Are you at all interested now, the big news this week in the gaming world is that Nintendo is making a new Switch. Is that something that's on your radar at all? It is. I was watching the ad thinking, oh, really? I was thinking Stephen Hackett has no idea what a Switch is. I do. No, we have a Switch. Okay. My kids enjoy it. I like Mario Kart on it. I'm not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination. But we have an original Switch. We didn't upgrade to the OLED or anything. And so it's definitely on my radar maybe for Nintendo.

next uh next holiday christmas all right uh today on more power users we're going to be talking today about the new productivity field guide and throughout it i hinted at using some analog workflows and i thought it'd be interesting to just kind of talk about that mix as a digital guy where the analog stuff makes sense for me and where it doesn't having played with it now for a year so we're going to go into that in the more power users which is the ad for extended version of the show

We'd love to bring you along on that. If you're interested, you can go to relay.fm slash mpu and sign up. Yeah. So you've got a new field guide. Yeah, I do. The big one, Productivity Field Guide. I released it last year, and it was a successful release, and I felt like it really landed with a lot of people.

We had an extended webinar series, and then I taught it to a bunch of college kids over the summer. And this has been a thing that's been kind of percolating with me for a while. But I learned so much in the first year, I wanted to do a 2025 edition. So I've been working on that for about the last three months, and now it is in the world. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, congratulations on shipping. We're going to talk all about it. We're going to circle back to the things that you've learned in the year since it's been out. We've got a link in the show notes for people to check it out. And if you are an MPU listener, there's a discount code.

Yeah. MPU 10 MPU one zero gets you 10% off. That's a limited time launch discount. If you bought last year's version, there is a bigger discount for you and you should have got an email about that. If you didn't let me know. This new version is 70 plus videos, seven hours, 140 page book, whole enchilada. I this is the only one I make that has a book written as well as videos. So it's kind of interesting in that way.

And then there's, as I sometimes do, there's a standard version where you get all that. And the plus version, you get a 12-week webinar series and access to the recordings from earlier webinar series we did in earlier versions. And I got to say, on this one, I really like the webinars. I feel like for a lot of people going through the course, the webinars really helped. Yeah. So consider that. I'm just really excited that it's out in the world now.

You have a line in our Notion document that says, why this is my most important field guide. And I know you and I have talked about this offline, but why do you feel that way about this one? You know, it's odd because I feel like I've done a lot of good work. I've taught a lot of people about technology over the years via the field guides. As a lawyer, I helped a lot of people with serious problems, but never in my life have I made a product that people would write me and tell me it was changing their life. And

Uh, I got a lot of those emails with this one and, um,

And as a result, I put a lot of effort into it. I raised the price on this one simply because there's just so much time in it. And the webinar series takes so much time, but the, but not unreachable, you know, it's $200 for the, for the pro and a hundred dollars for the standard, not, you know, thousands like some of these online courses do, but it's I think it's a reasonable price, but it, it really has a lot of effort and work behind it. But yeah,

I feel like it's also really helpful to a lot of people. And I feel like this is the one I kind of want to be remembered for. It's the truth, you know, when it's all over, because, you know, if you can help people figure things out, then maybe you're doing okay. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I agree. And I think all those reasons really come through when you go through it. Like, you can feel your care in this, and it's just different. It's different than, like, you're going through obsidian or shortcuts. Not that you don't care and put yourself into those, but this is different, right? Yeah. I see more of my friend David in this one than I do in the others, if I can say it that way. Yeah, I mean, it's very personal. The whole thing is very personal. But I feel like that's the only way you can teach it, because...

this is a very personal process that you have to go through. And, and, and I talked about this when we, when I released the first version of it, I've this product I've worked on for like close to a decade. And like, I'd go up and down on like, should I release it or shouldn't I? I felt like, you know, because I, I mainly talk about technology and,

you know, would productivity for me even be resonant with people? And, and I think it is, I mean, I've got my own approach to it. But the goal of the course really is for you to figure out your own approach to it. I don't think there is a magic recipe anybody can give you that you just follow five steps and suddenly you figured it out. And honestly, I also feel like

I'm mixed about calling it productivity field guide because it's really not about productivity. It's more about just kind of figuring out what's important to you and pursuing that than being quote unquote productive. Yeah. And in fact, you've got this, this thing in there of like, if everyone did less, the world would be a better place, you know? And it's, it's not about doing, it's not necessarily about doing more with your time or being more efficient with your time. It's about doing the things you want to be doing with your time. Yeah. That's an important distinction, I think.

Yeah. And, and I kind of developed this material just figuring things out for myself. So it took me years of kind of like working through this stuff. It didn't just like come to me in a flash, but that's my goal with the course is to help you, you know, skip the line at that part and get a working set of tools where you can then figure your own thing out. Yeah. Yeah.

Another thing that is towards the top of the guy, which I really like, is that a lot of these ideas are not new. Like you're out here like quoting the ancient Greeks and stuff. How did you get into that part of the world?

That goes back to college for me. When I was in college, I was an engineering major and then switched to political science when I decided I wanted to go to law school. And somebody told me, if you want to go to law school, become a good writer.

And so there was this one, like in the political science section of my school, there were different areas of emphasis. Like there was government and there was different like, you know, things you could study. Like people wanted to go get jobs as political scientists for corporations and do government relations and things like that. But I just wanted to become a good writer. There was one part of it called like political philosophy. And it was taught by this really kind of

great professor that nobody liked because he would like sometimes get up in the, the exams and write the questions in Latin on the board, you know, just like this guy was rough and he made you read a lot. And, but I thought, you know, that's the, that's the kiln for my, you know, formation. And so I took it and it was me and just a few people really that focused on it. But I, I just loved the ancients, you know, we got into more modern philosophy too through

through him and kind of more politically bent. But the thing I always loved about the ancient philosophers was that they were asking questions that we still have not answered, but they were struggling with it. And I, um,

And I feel like modern philosophy, and I even said this in the book related to the course, it's just kind of modern philosophy is too woo-woo for me. It's like, do we live in a simulation? I don't care. Whatever it is I'm living in, I want it to be good and happy. And that's the kind of stuff those guys were thinking about. So I've been reading that stuff for years. I really got hooked on it. I tell the story. I don't know how much you want me to go into this, but I tell the story and the

In the course about how when I was in law school, I got a scholarship and I had to be in the top percentage of the class to keep it. So I tried to use some of the Greek teachings to pursue kind of my best self as a law student. And I felt like that really helped me.

And then later in life, when I was a bit adrift, I kind of went back to that stuff, that old philosophy, and it kind of helped me sort things out. So the idea of this course is just to explain how all that works, to give you something to maybe latch on to, but also get into kind of modern productivity technique, too. It's kind of a weird dichotomy in the course. Yeah.

I've been having this sort of ongoing conversation with my daughter who is a freshman in high school. You know, she's kind of starting to think about like what she may want to do in college and that sort of stuff. And, you know, we're trying to like keep her from getting ahead of herself because she's definitely one of those kids. Like she's ready. But we talk a lot about writing. She's a very good writer. She's honestly like I read her stuff. It's like you are better now as a freshman in high school than I am now.

and I've been doing it professionally for a long time. I went to school for it. But that's one thing I've talked to her about. It's like no matter what you want to do, because when you ask her on different days, it's all sorts of different things. Yeah. If you can write...

You were going to have a leg up. And so like when you said that, like about writing in law school, like that's a specific example that she and I have talked about. And so many friends of mine who, you know, we kind of finished up college 2008, 2009 during the recession. So many friends of mine who, you know, graduated journalism school went into law school or went into other things and

And I think as we go through this, like a lot of what this course is having people do is to think about things and write things down. And so even if you're not writing to publish, like just writing for yourself is an important skill and one that I think I paid good attention to it in school. And I just hope that other people do too.

Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's so important to be able to express yourself. And even in the age of AI, you still need to learn to write. Yeah. Chat GPT can't tell you how you feel, you know? Yeah. Not yet. Yeah.

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So I went through the course and I had a just a handful of things that I want to touch on. We're obviously not going to give away the whole thing. But one thing that I really resonate with is your idea of roles and and not goals, spending time on sort of your goals.

Areas of responsibility or the different, uh, like at one point you talk about as like relationships with others, relationships with yourself, sort of thinking about your life in terms of that and, and not, oh, I want to achieve this or do that or purchase this car or whatever it may be. Uh, how did you get there? Could you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, I just kind of stumbled into it, honestly. So like I said earlier, I was using kind of the Greek stuff to get through law school. But then I got just started raising a family, being a lawyer, and just working hard, trying a lot of cases. And like, I spent my late 20s and 30s just getting up every day and doing whatever seemed like the thing I had to do.

And like in the back of my mind, I felt like I was a bit on autopilot in my life.

But I never would stop to figure it out because I felt like the process of figuring it out might be kind of scary. And I didn't even know how to get started, you know. And so when I was in my early 40s is when I finally got around to it. And I did it on my birthday. I just took a notebook to a Starbucks and I just went in and started writing about my life. Like, how's it going? And it went on for like a couple of weeks. I just wrote and wrote and wrote.

And I didn't know what I was aiming for, but I thought I could maybe get my arms around my life a bit if I just kind of got more introspective about it. So I did that. And as I was working through it, I thought what I would be doing is heading towards a set of goals. Like I thought once I got done writing everything, then I could look through and read it all and say, okay, well, these are my goals for the next year.

But everything, you know, the thing that you realize when you think about is goals are very transitory. Like if you, you know, if you want to, you know, write a book, what happens after you ship the book? Well, the goal is no longer there. And the thing I was writing about in the, in my kind of my inner thoughts, as I wrote through this was not really particular goals, but my relationship to the people around me, to myself and to my work.

And I realized, you know, reading all that, that no, I think the foundation for me is not goals. It's roles. It's, it's my role as a husband, a father, you know, as a Max Barkey, as a lawyer, as a healthy person, as a person who likes to learn new things. Those were the things I was writing about. So without really, um,

you know, without really understanding why I gravitated to the idea of roles. So that was big to me like, okay, well, that's what I'm going to do. I should document them. So I started writing down a list of all the roles I have in my life. And like I said, this is probably 10 over 10 years ago that I started doing this. And

And that's kind of how I got there. Sorry for the long-winded answer. No, no, it's fine. I can picture Jim editing this episode and be like, man, Max Barkey just going for it. But that's good. We want to hear from you on this stuff. What struck me, and this is not a new idea to me either. It's one that I've thought a lot about over the years. But what struck me this time going through it is this isn't

as alien of an idea as it may seem at first. Like, I think a lot of life we operate sort of in the roles sense of categorization. We may not think about it or we may not, you know, put it to paper when we're thinking about who we want to be and what we want to do. But,

That's kind of how we as humans operate, right? Like there's this, there's the me at work and then there's me at home and I, you know, I'm not severed. I've been watching severance on Apple TV plus my word. What a good show. Um, I'm the same me everywhere. I'm not separate, discrete people. Um,

And sometimes those things bump into each other and, you know, like there's sometimes gray area between being a spouse and being a parent or being a coworker and being a friend or, and then your relationship with yourself is kind of all in there, but taking the time to tease those apart, to write them down. I did this going through the course and actually found it kind of surprising that

Just as I was kind of just writing as things were kind of coming out of me, like the way I categorize some of the things or like different, um, different relations with individuals or institutions kind of being maybe not where I thought they were. Uh, it's a very, it's a very useful practice. And one that I think you say this is worth revisiting on some sort of ongoing basis because relationships change, circumstances change, right? Um,

You're a parent for a long time, but then your kids go to college. Maybe you're single and then you're married or you are an employee at a company and then you're an owner of the company. Like these roles change around us. And so we should be thinking about them sort of on an ongoing regular basis.

Yeah, I got news for your brother. When they go to college, you're still a parent. Well, yeah, but even as your kids get older, like some of your roles. The role changes. Yeah, it's going from I'm literally keeping this baby alive to you mentioned this, like helping one of your daughters like purchase her first car and like letting her drive that decision. But you're being there like it's a different role.

Yeah, totally. And, you know, it's interesting because there's an exercise in the course where I call it like carrying water, like how, what, you know, just audit what you're doing every day. And then, then, you know, just for, for a week or two, just write down the things you do through the day and then go and look at which role each one belongs to. And something that happened in the first year that I didn't expect was,

But it's obvious in hindsight is a lot of people would go through that list and they'd find things that didn't point to any of the roles they'd identified. Instead, it pointed to a completely different role that they were taking on kind of unwillingly. Or people would say, well, I identified my roles, but I don't like them. These aren't the roles I wanted for my life. But everything I'm doing is pointing at the roles that I'm least interested in.

And it's like, there's a crisis moment. Like when you realize that it's like, okay, well it's time to start making change. You know, now that's the thing, right? It's if you're on autopilot, you don't realize you're wasting your time. None of us are getting out of this alive. I hate to be like morbid about it, but it's true, right? We all have so much time to do what we want with our lives. You don't want to get to be 80 years old and look back and say, wow, I spent the whole time, you know, selling, uh,

aluminum siding, what I really wanted to do was join the circus. You should figure that out. And by doing this exercise, it gives you a window into what's really going on between your ears versus what's going on with your hands. And I think it's important. It is. And you talk about the importance of those reviews. For me, I operate in my review cycle of this stuff both quarterly and

And annually, but that doesn't mean that I'm only thinking about it once every three months. Like I have an Apple note basically for each year. I was so happy you used Apple notes as like your example app throughout this. I was like, perfect. Because, you know, have you seen that? That it's like a meme. It's like on one end, it's like someone, um,

like a genius. And the other end, it's like someone who's not a genius, but like in the middle, it's like something like Apple notes is always the answer. Kind of, it's kind of the point of it. It's, it's true. And what I tell people and kind of how I think about this is like, I have these roles. I sort of have like some of the stuff written down throughout the year, but as things happen that like make me think in these ways, I will open Apple notes and I have like a running log at the bottom of the note of just like,

Next time, you know, for your Q1 review, like remember that this thing happened or you had this conversation or you made this decision. Because even quarterly, I find it can be kind of hard to remember specific things that I may want to document or I may want to journal about. And so just because a review, just because in my tasks, actually I have it in my task manager, like perform quarterly review, perform annually review, it's

I need to be thinking about these things more often and more intentionally. And that's been a practice that I've really started really three or four years ago of like thinking about these things. And when something happens, like interacts with them, write it down. Then I may not be able to fully explore it in the moment, but at least write something down to have maybe even if it's just a trigger for later.

Yeah. I mean, so on my spirit journey, right. When I figured this out, like what I had done in law school saying, I want to be the best possible law student. Once I figured out the roles, I said, okay, well, how do you judge yourself on these roles? How do you actually get better at it? And to me, the answer was, well, you pick a North star for each role. Like,

If I'm a husband, what's the best version of me as a husband? And that is the Greeks had a term for it called arete, which was kind of like the excellence or kind of ideal self, you know, and a lot of the writing I found about it, they talked about it holistically, like, does he have arete? But I thought, well, what if you applied it granularly to each role?

So then I write out these statements of like, what are the traits of me as the best possible husband and father and Max Barkey and all the roles I go through? And it's a fun exercise to go through. But it's an North Star. It's not like you're judging yourself against that, but you're aiming for it. And so then you bring refuse in. And then you go in and look at yourself.

And say, okay, well, in the next quarter, I really want to focus on this element of being a parent. I really want to help them with this one big problem. And that's how I fulfill my arete as a father. And then that gets to what you were just saying. You have to do this on a regular basis in order to keep yourself in check. If you just think about this stuff once a year...

You're going to get somewhere between one and 50 of those reviews the rest of your life, right? If you do it quarterly, multiply that times four. It's just so much better. Mm-hmm.

to do this more often because it's those repetition cycles. It's those, you know, going through and saying, oh, you know, I didn't, I said I was going to do this thing for my kids and I didn't do it this quarter. How come? You know, was there a good reason or did I just kind of fall off the wagon here? Okay, well, next quarter I'm definitely going to do this and I'm going to write some tasks and omni-focus or reminders or whatever. And I'm going to write in my little book here why that's important to me and I'm going to be, it's going to become a thing.

And then this is the beauty of these reviews is now having taught this course for a year, I'm hearing from people who've done four quarterly reviews now. And they're like telling me their success stories. Like, oh, you know, it's like I made real progress in a couple of roles over the last year by checking in on them and pursuing the RIT. And it's like the stuff works. It just takes time, you know?

And you have to do the reviews. That is the one thing I learned in the first year. For the people who actually were successful with the course materials versus the people who kind of fell off the wagon, it's all the reviews. If you do the reviews, if you keep checking in on yourself, then it starts to become fun because you start to see your improvement. Another bit of ancient Greek influence here is the Aristotle quote, you are what you repeatedly do. How does that fit in?

Yeah, I think it's just such a universal truth, right? I mean, we all want to talk about the roles and the arte, and the fact is, it's not enough to talk. You have to act.

You know, Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady, don't give me words, show me. You know, Aristotle, you are what you repeatedly do. This is a thing that we've heard a lot. In fact, Viktor Frankl, I opened the book with a Viktor Frankl quote about, you know, the meaning of life. And his answer is, we shouldn't be asking the question. We actually are the answer to the question. It is what you do. That's the meaning of life, you know.

It's we who are being asked our lives are the answer. So this is, I know this is heavy for a tech podcast, but the fact is you, I mean, you can't sit around and talk about this stuff and gaze at your navel. If you want to act on a role, you've got to go out in the world and get better at it. Like the, the simple example I use in the show was I've got a friend who's also into woodworking. He heard I make furniture. He came over, he wanted to see my shop and,

And I was showing some of the stuff I made. And I started asking him, like, so what are you doing? And he's like, well, I'm watching this YouTuber and that YouTuber. And I bought a new plane. And I bought this. I'm like, yeah, but what have you made? He's like, well, I haven't got there yet. Yeah, I haven't made anything yet. But I'm just buying gear. I'm like, you got to stop and just go out and make a birdhouse. You've got to make something. You can't fall in love with the idea of it. You actually have to do it.

And it's a silly example, but it's true. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it's true in a lot of creative endeavors, right? It's like, oh, I'll start my blog when I perfect the website design, or I'll start the podcast once I get the gear, or I'm going to buy a really expensive camera and then start my YouTube channel. Like, at some point, you got to do it, or it won't ever happen, right? Like, I think we've all been in situations like that where we drag our feet and not actually do the thing. Yeah.

One of my daughters, at this point, she's a UCLA graduated professional playwright. She gets paid to write plays. But when she was in high school, she says, I think I want to be a playwright. I said, okay, go write a play. I mean, don't talk about it. Do it. And she did. So that was good. But the...

So that's part of this, how it all fits together. It's like once you kind of figure out who you want to be, what you're aiming at, it's not enough to just write that down. You got to go out and do something. It's a silly and it's obvious, but I think in the modern world particularly, I think it is very easy to get caught in the trap of actually not doing anything. I think so too. You know, I think there's a pretty...

common example of this or famous example of this of like i want to start journaling but i don't want to crack open this notebook for the first time in case i stop journaling right like i want to i want my roles to be perfect on the first time out i want to fully like flesh these out exactly right and the truth is like you've got to start somewhere and a lot of these these things are lifelong and

like lifelong progress type things, right? Sometimes it's really concrete, like, hey, I need to have a conversation with this person. I need to make this right. I need to change this thing. But a lot of this is sort of the gradual, habitual kind of slow burn stuff too. Yeah, I mean, one of the problems people had going through it the first time was,

The way I do roles in RIT, it's like you're defining the perfect version of yourself as that. And people would say, well, I'd get to the quarterly review and I'd see that I hadn't done it. I wasn't the perfect version. So, you know, it was disappointing. And I had to tell them, you're getting it wrong. That RIT is what you're aiming for. It's the compass direction.

What you're judging is, are you closer now than you were three months ago? You only compare it to yourself. And it seemed obvious to me, but that's because I had internalized it. I never said it out loud. But yeah, you're pursuing that stuff. You're heading in that direction. But it's very uplifting if you see you're aiming towards this cool thing.

And you got a little closer this month, but yeah, you know, there's subtleties to all of this, but you know, a, a, um, personal reflective approach where you're thinking about what it is you're doing with your life. And you do that on a regular basis, whether you look at dusty old Greeks or watch my course or not, that can only help. Yeah. That's, that's well said. Um,

We are a tech podcast, though. Yeah. So I do want to talk a little bit about scheduling and sort of the inherent friction that some people feel between calendar and calendar events and task management and how that fits into this.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's kind of the fun. The course actually has a tipping point where it goes from theoretical to tactical. And like one of the things I talk about, something I started writing about years ago was kind of block or hyper scheduling and using your calendar to make progress on things that are important to you. And, you know, the simple version of that story is like, if you really want to, you know, get started, you

to join the circus, you got to spend some time every day practicing being a clown or whatever, right? You got to, you got to put time into your life for the things that you want to pursue. So if you know what your roles in RIT are and you have specific goals arising from that,

and they're not happening, then you got to go to the calendar because, you know, time is finite and tasks are infinite. So you got to take that finite resource and carve some of it out for that stuff. Yeah. A really simple and sort of cliche example of this, I think, is if in talking about a role with yourself, right?

you know, a better version of myself as one who is, you know, more physically fit, right? A very common example, but I'm using it because it's common. It is really easy if you have like a repeating task in your, you know, OmniFocus or reminders or whatever says go to the gym. But I have learned if that is a calendar, if that is on my calendar, it is not only much more likely to happen, but if it's not going to happen, then,

it feels like more friction to make that decision than just checking it off the to-do list. Right. Absolutely. I got to remove it from my calendar or I have to change it or, and like, that is a really simple example, but I think a really critical difference between these sort of like two ways to keep up with things is that if it is, if you have committed time to it on your calendar, then,

it is heavier in my mind. It means more. And, and like you said, time is the, the resource that we don't get any more of. It's, it's slipping through our hands rapidly. And so if I want to take something seriously, it's gotta be, it's gotta be on the calendar. It just has to be. If you have a 24 hour day, like,

Let's say eight of it goes to sleep and eight of it goes to all the other nonsense. You've really got eight hours in which to like accomplish something each day. And if you take one of those hours and say, I'm going to contribute that to my health, I'm going to go to the gym for an hour.

That's a commitment. That's like a contract with yourself. It feels more important than it does if you just write it down on a list. And also, when you plan, when you put it into future days, you plan around it. Like Stephen says, let's record the show on Wednesday at 7. No, I can't. I got to go to the gym. It's already in here. So you protect it more, too. Yeah, it's just...

You know, calendars are great for making dentist appointments and writing down birthdays, but they're also good for getting you to work on the important stuff that always slips through the cracks. Yeah, absolutely. And that's not about an app or like a shortcut or workflow. It's just it's sort of the big picture thing.

I mean, the way I've kind of evolved it, and I talked about this in the OmniFocus field guide, but the, as I try to think now as task lists, more of a list of lists. And I use the calendar to drive tasks as well. And I, there's a video on this in this new productivity course, but the idea is I call it kind of like block-based task management where

where you say, okay, well, you know, every Wednesday at 2 PM, I'm going to give two hours to the Mac power users. And in that time I'll go in and I'll work on the outline. I have a little admin list for the show. If there's any admin stuff I need to take care of and, you know, maybe I'll record an ad and I'll spend two hours getting the show ready and working on whatever needs to be done related to the show. And again,

And that let's say that list has 20 items on it. And in two hours I accomplish, uh,

Eight of them. Great. Well, those remaining 12 items will be there next Wednesday when I go into that block again. Yeah. And I don't think about it like I have to do all 20 things. I just say, okay, well, I've given this thing two hours of my life. I'm going to do as much as I can in those two hours. And then every week I'll give it two hours on Wednesdays and see how that goes. And if that list starts getting long, let's say it gets to 30 items. I'm like, wow, there's stuff in here that I'm not getting done that needs to get done.

Well, then I will adjust the block. I'll give it three hours or I'll do two different blocks during the week. And I'll just kind of find a way to extend the amount of time I devote to it and not look at the task list as the driver, but the actual time I've allotted. Because the finite nature of a calendar, it really forces you to decide what matters. Like,

And if they're, you know, honestly, the reason that there's no more automators podcast is because I was out of room and blocks and I felt like that was of the things I was doing. That's the one that made sense to let go. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that is one reason that I time track really pretty religiously at work because it gives me data to help make those sorts of decisions, right? And that's sort of like the other end of this in some ways. But if it's just a task, there's no concept of how much time it will take or importance or what time it took or even if you did it or not, right? Maybe I just checked it off and didn't do it and –

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So, you know, I did this last year. I'm doing it again this year. One of the reasons why I was eager to make an update is because I learned a ton doing it the first year. Like I said, we did, I think, 12 or 13 webinars last year. And then we also did quarterly webinars in that field guide. So we got back. I invited everybody who was on the plus edition to come back at the beginning of each quarter. And I was able to do that.

and do quarterly planning as a webinar too. So there was a bunch of feedback and then I taught it. I did the, like the, um, the, the high school and college kid version of it during the summer. And so I had all this feedback and ideas from people. And then I've heard from a lot of people. So I guess I'm the runabout thing I'm saying is I learned a lot in the first year.

Yeah, it's when we talked, we talked about this many months ago that you were going to have an update to this. And I would love to know, like in getting that feedback, you know, you're learning, like, how did you sort through that? How did you decide what areas were worth further exploration versus what was good? Like kind of how did that process go?

Well, where people struggled, that was a big point to me. And I was taking notes throughout the whole year where people were struggling because I wanted to answer those questions and have kind of build into the course as much as I can answers to those questions. So the first thing I did was took my notes from all of that stuff and any significant questions I would answer, whether it was a new video or additional text in the book or whatever made sense to

answer the questions. The other thing I did, I think we talked about this on one of the shows is I fed the transcripts of all the videos I'd recorded plus the book, plus all the webinar transcripts into notebook LM. And I started querying that, which is kind of an academic AI about, you know, what were the bigger questions that came out and, you know, what,

you know, where could I have done better on this or that? And it gave me some ideas as well. And so I just had a big list of that stuff. And then I just started making videos and writing texts to answer all of them as like little mini essays. And the book grew by, I think about 40%. So it was like, it was like, it was like 90 pages of content. Now it's 140. And then added a couple hours of videos to the course answering all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

How different is it starting a course from new as opposed to updating one? And I imagine sometimes it's relatively simple, like the shortcuts field guide. Hey, shortcuts is on the Mac. I, you know, that's a new thing. I need to address that and go through it and, and figure out how to talk about it. But something like this is obviously different. But how, like, what are those differences? Is one, you know, more challenging or challenging in a different way?

Yeah. I mean, it really depends. Like the shortcuts is a bad example because shortcuts on the Mac is so different that it's really, really required a different course. But the, but like, like if keyboard maestro has an update, I'll do a free update to the course just saying, well, these are the new three or four commands you can do and things that you've got. But this is much more than that. This is, like I said, it's significantly more content and I'm going to run the webinar series again. So it, it's like a whole new addition to,

And the basis that I had last year, I think, was solid. I mean, it's not like I've changed my approach to this stuff. But there's so much refinement there.

that was in my head that I didn't really cover the first time because, you know, when you live with something for 10 years, you know, you know, the answers to some questions that somebody that picks it up are going to have. And you don't always communicate that until you start hearing them. So, you know, this version is really meant to make it easier for people to get on board and, and hit the trouble spots head on.

And that's a lot of work, honestly, because now you're getting into the space of, you know, how do I communicate this in a way for somebody that's new to it that makes sense and doesn't, you know, isn't off-putting. Yeah. One change that I did notice, and you called it out at some point, that in the previous version, you did not share your complete list of your roles, right? You were like, this is obviously private. There's something I'm not going to share. Yeah.

But in the 2025 version, you do list a much fuller document. Why did you change your mind on that? Because it seems like a big deal to share all of it. Yeah, that's been on my mind from last year too. Because I felt like it is very private. How do I want to be a better father or something? But

There were so many questions and people, a lot of people kind of got on the wrong track when doing our Italian statements. And then if you don't get that right, then you kind of get stuck there. Yeah.

And at the same time, what do I, do I really care if everybody knows what I think a perfect dad is, you know, as of January, 2025, because those statements, I change them every three months. So it's kind of a window in time. I just decided heck with it. And I just put the full thing in there for all of them. Yeah. And, and I don't know, part of me worries that it makes me sound like some guy who's full of hot air. You know, when you read those RT statements, they are kind of like,

inspirational, you know, and, and I'm not a big fan of, of, of that fluffy stuff, but I feel like this is where it needs to be. So either way, I put it all out there and I'm just going to let the chips fall where they fall. Yeah. Maybe someday somebody will rub it in my face, but it's there. If it, if it helps people do a better job with this stuff, I think it's worth it. It's interesting. My impression of it was actually the exact opposite is that it helped ground this more in reality because

Like, I didn't think, oh, man, Sparks is really like kind of fluffing this up into something. No, no. Like these are actually like concrete things and things that people can relate to and connect to. So my expectation is that people will really appreciate your fuller list. And I think people will resonate with a lot of it.

I didn't edit anything. It was literally block and copy. That's great. There it is. I was a little curious about this because they're a secret. But then I figured, nope, he said he was doing it. I believe what David says. In fact, I blocked and copied it without reading it again intentionally because I felt like if I read it again, I would find myself cutting things. We talked a little bit about this earlier in the show, but this is a really different –

type of content than what you have traditionally done, right? Like you're, you're Max Barker. You're talking about Apple script and OmniFocus. And this is, uh, this comes out of a more personal side of you. Was that hard a year ago to kind of like break that wall down? Is it still feel weird? Like, and then I have lots of questions about like, how do you reach an audience beyond your Apple nerd circle? Like, is it,

Do you feel like you've been sort of back into a corner with your other content? Like kind of talk through your thinking around that, because that is something that I, I feel like I struggle with sometimes with like, Oh, like I'm the Matt guy, right? Like I've been writing a podcast about this for a long time. And yeah,

That's fine. I've carved out a corner of the internet for myself that pays the bills. But sometimes I do look at other areas I'd want to explore content-wise and be like, well, people don't expect that from me. It would be weird to talk about that on a show. It'd be weird to write about it. So I sort of just don't. But you broke that barrier this time. How was that? Well, yeah. And I kind of...

my way there. Like, like this is, this stuff has been on my mind my whole life. Like I, when I was a kid, I was, I read the Dale Carnegie book. So I've, I've always had a foot in this kind of productivity type space, but I also have always been kind of skeptical about it because so much productivity literature is just snake oil. And I, I really didn't want to be part of that, you know, what I call a racket, you know, but,

But I felt like the system I came up with, and maybe it is just because I'm relying on a lot of old philosophers to kind of give me a guidance on this stuff. It just felt more serious to me. And it really worked for me.

And I had shared it with a few people over the years. Like there was a listener, a friend who's now become a friend who it's telling me how he used to like watch the screencast and he'd see little pieces of like my roles in RIT and things I did where I never really explained it. And like he said, you could almost puzzle it together watching some of the stuff he did as Max Sparky, but you never put it together until this course.

And so it's always been something I've done, but I was very nervous about going out there and releasing it. Not because I thought people would say, oh, you're bad now you're making productivity stuff, but because people will be like, well, who are you to even talk about this? And you know, why, what gives you any sort of authority? You know, there's a lot of smart people writing about productivity. Why should I listen to you?

And my approach to it has always been, well, you really shouldn't listen to me or anybody. You should make your own decisions. But here is some stuff that I found that helps. And maybe this will help you along the way. And once I kind of accepted that and got over, you know, the fear and released it last year. Well, you know, I've, I've got a few of those emails from people, you know, saying that this is out of my lane and I shouldn't do it, but yeah,

I've got a lot more emails from people saying, Oh, thanks so much. Me and my wife went through this together and now we're, we're closer and things are working better. And this was something that we needed. And I've, I've heard that from a lot of people. I had people write me who went through it and then they're like, I'm putting all my employees through the program. So now we're going to, you know, so it's like, it's like types of people dealing with change that are, you know,

It's very, it's very, it makes me very, very happy to feel like, yeah, I'm helping people out that way. I've heard from 15 year olds who are using it. I heard from 87 year olds that are using it. And, and, and a lot of people take it and they change it up a little bit to fit their kind of lifestyle or what they do. Yeah. But it helps people be a little more mindful and get more out of life.

And, you know, it's kind of to get to the morbid idea that one day, you know, you're going to be at an end point, but you get there and you feel like it was a life well lived because you did some of these techniques. Well, I mean, what more could I ask for, really? Yeah, definitely. I, of course, it's in hindsight now that I've gone through this twice, but your career as Max Sparky, and you talk about this as one of your roles, you were somebody who

is a learner. You, you want to learn and grow and dude, like that is the max Sparky ethos, right? Like you were at your best content wise in the max space, the Apple space, when you were taking complex things, you understand them and then you communicate them to your audience, right? Like that's the backbone of this podcast. It's definitely the backbone of your website. And so how I see those things put together is like,

Your career flows out of that, right? And so it's natural for you to kind of circle back and talk about these things. And when you say that this has been on your mind for a really, really long time, it's like, yeah, I totally believe it. Because even though you weren't talking about it, I totally agree with that feedback. You can definitely see it in the things that you do. You know? It's great. Well, thanks. Thanks. Well, the new edition is out, and I'm really proud of it. So I hope you guys dig it.

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If you decide Jelly is for you, use offer code MPU15 when signing up for a plan, which again is price per team. One more time, visit letsjelly.com slash MPU with offer code MPU15. And our thanks to Jelly for their support of the Mac Power users and all of Relay. One thing I want to touch on before we leave is some production changes between version one and version two of this, but also how

This field guide is a little bit different than some of the others. I want to start with video. And we spoke a little bit about this in a more power user segment when you were going through equipment changes. But you have continued to up your video game. What are some differences now than when you put this together initially?

I feel like a little more refined. One of the big reasons I built the studio was for this field guide. Because I knew this is one where I would be talking to the camera a lot. And I didn't want it to be like a hostage video. I wanted it to be kind of fun to watch and entertaining. Because so many of my field guides is like you're looking at my screen. There's action on the screen. My face doesn't matter. But this one, my face is in it a lot. So I wanted to make that good. And

This year I changed up a lot in terms of like refinements. Like I used a tighter lens on it with more Boca. I changed the angle. So it's more, so there's more depth to the camera, just kind of learning things throughout the year and making improvements. So I feel like the camera shots for this year's are better than last year. Yeah. And yeah,

And like I did this last year too, but I bought a little sled that shifts a camera from right to left. So that's like a B camera. So you don't just look at me the whole time. It shifts occasionally to me shooting. And by the way, I did all that in Final Cut myself. Nice. Final Cut's awesome. And so I've got that moving second camera.

And I wanted, I think it overall looks bad. The lighting's a little better and all that stuff just gets better slowly. And I also changed out the microphone. I didn't realize I used the podcasting microphone for last year's videos for this year. I used a shotgun, which allowed it to be further away from my face, but actually the audio is a little better, I think. And just all sorts of like little changes like that. So I got better production this year.

One of my favorite things about the video from a production standpoint was just seeing more of your office. Like you've got those shots on the side. You have one shot where you're talking about analog tools and you were at your writing desk, which is something we've talked about before.

Um, but seeing you in that context, as you're talking about it, I thought was really effective. And like, I love seeing kind of at points I found myself looking over your shoulder and like scoping out what changes you've made in your studio over time. Um, and I think it, I think it works. And I think, I think seeing more of your space and like, you know,

Even the fact that you built it, like it makes this more personal than I think it would have been otherwise. Like a lot of the video feels warm and like, yeah, we're just like sitting in a nice room talking about something as opposed to you preaching at me or something like that. Right. From, from on high, like we're level, we're having a conversation. And so I think all the changes were really good. Thanks. I appreciate it. That's what I was going for. So I, I'm glad it worked.

And, and hopefully I can continue to improve at that. Yeah. Yeah. Video stuff is hard, man. It's, it is not double the work of audio. It's, it's way more than that to get that good and right. The one thing I do that is, is breaking the rules is I don't use a prompter.

Like, because I wrote a book at the same time that I did these videos, I knew what I wanted to say. And at most, I would take a little note card and write like a few bullet points and then just gaff tape it above the lens, you know? So I had the points I wanted to hit, but I just talked. And I would take two or three takes of each one of me just talking. And then I would pick the one that I liked the best. But yeah.

The whole thing is like there are no cuts in any of those videos. It's just like go. I noticed that. I was like, oh, he just talked for like eight minutes or whatever it is, which is very impressive. But it does show that you have this stuff sort of backward and forward. I definitely noticed like – I don't know after how many videos. I don't think I've seen a single –

cut like you change angles sometimes and maybe you're hiding a cut in there but no it's not like on youtube you know when marquez brownlee's talking to the camera about the new ipad like you see the cuts right like like oh you and and there's very little b-roll right that's the other thing that's the other trick in video is like

You have sort of a rough visual transition, like B-roll solves all problems, right? Like I'm showing you a painting video of this iPad. And what's happening behind the scenes is that I'm between take two and take four. And, you know, the audience isn't going to know. I picked up on it. I don't know how many people will, but it definitely jumped out at me like, oh, you're just you're just talking about this stuff.

Yeah, I felt like, because B-roll seems like it would make sense, but for the kind of stuff I'm talking about, it's kind of serious stuff. Like, what am I going to talk about with B-roll? I'm going to have a picture of Marcus Aurelius on a horse or something. What am I going to do with it? So I don't really have much of that. Idina Hurley did some...

for me on the first version. We were lovingly called stick sparky. I love occasionally I would put that in there, but again, it wasn't covering cuts. It was just in there. And this year, Adina has got some other stuff on her mind as we all know now. Yeah. So she's not, she didn't do any of this year, but hopefully at some point I'll be able, you know, once, once life gets more sane for her, maybe I can get her to do some more for me. But the, uh,

Yeah, there aren't a lot of cuts, but that's one of the reasons why I got the sled and did that bead camera. So at least you can cut that once in a while. Yeah. And I try to not to make them too long. I wanted, you know, this stuff is not that hard to grok. You just got to like hear it. The hard part of this is actually doing it yourself. Yeah. Well, I think the length is also important because a lot of these videos have like,

Hey, you're going to go off and write these things. Right. And so I can watch you talk about it. I can go do something on my own. I can come back to it. It feels like I can kind of do it a bit more at my own pace as opposed to, gosh, these are four hour long videos. Like, yeah, you know what I mean? It's a, it's good. We've mentioned the book several times and I want to talk a little bit about the production of that because it's,

Uh, best I can tell and remember, it's been quite a while since you've done like a book book, right? Like back in the day you were doing a lot of them. We talked about iBooks author and how it went away in 2020. And, but why a book for this one? And then can you talk a little bit about the production of it? Like, I assume you're using pages, but then you also have like a PDF and two EPUB versions. Like how does all that go together? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of people ask me who used to buy my old books are like, Hey, how come you don't do books anymore? And I'm,

I feel like for the tech stuff I'm teaching, it just doesn't make sense to write a book about OmniFocus versus just showing you. It just doesn't make sense. But this stuff I've been writing about in my own journals and, you know, some of the stuff in the book is just frankly stuff cribbed from my journal about like how to do something. But so I've been writing about this stuff for a long time. And so I had like the guts of a book put together already and,

And at some point, in fact, I had started writing this before I was doing field guides as video only. So I had already written a bunch of it, but then I had to go back and redo it all. And so I've kind of had the guts of a book for a long time. But I felt like this is one where a book made sense. Some people learn better with a book. Some people learn better with video. I've got all the material in both. And so that just made sense to me.

But the iBooks author is gone. So the platform I used was Pages, because Pages has the ability to export out to EPUB, and it looks attractive, and you can make something kind of nice. And I used a bunch of my old tricks from the days that I did iBooks author to embed page numbers and section headings and make it look like a proper book. And that really grew a lot this year, because...

A lot of the questions people had, I wrote little essays in the book about how to deal with those problems. And those are sprinkled throughout the book. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, I think having both is, is good. Um, I texted you when you sent it to me, it's like, Oh man, this cover brings me back. Like this is, it's sort of like classic Mac Sparky design. Um, yeah, it looks great. Uh, the book really looks good. I love the way you did. This is such a silly thing, but I love the way you did the pages at the bottom of the page where you have the check, like it's as a way to get the chapter name into it. Just, it's really good.

Well, thanks. From you, that means a lot because I know you really are into kind of book design and I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm really good at calendars too. A skill that I've picked up over the years. So, but, you know, again, I just want to make it easy for the customer. So there's a PDF version.

And then there's an EPUB version. And I did it as a fixed EPUB version because I liked the design of it. I wanted to stick. But then I started getting messages from people saying, well, I'm sight impaired and the text is too small. Can you get me a version where I can change the point size? And I realized, okay, I have to get over my precious self. And I made a third version at what I call a reflowable EPUB where...

Like all those chapter things are removed because it's just reflowable text and you put it into an EPUB like Apple books or whatever. Yeah. And then you can make the fonts big, you can change the fonts, you can make it dark, make it white. And then, you know, kind of the design elements go out and then it becomes more of a kind of a traditional EPUB. So all three versions are in the course, whatever you want, it's there. Are both of those EPUB options, is that directly out of pages or are you having to use some other software in between? Yeah.

No, no, they're both out of pages, but I had to fork it. Like once I said, okay, this is it. And I, and I printed, I don't have air quotes printing the fixed version. Then I saved a copy called reflowable and I had to take some of the elements out of that one because in a reflowable, like, like that thing you were just talking about where it has the chapter and, and page number at the bottom of each page, um,

That shows up in a reflowable PDF or EPUB. If you don't, if you leave it there and makes no sense to be there because now it's reflowable, the page numbering doesn't matter. And so I had to take, you know, I had to go through and take that out of 140 pages and some other stuff, but it all came out great. Yeah. It all looks really good. And I'm always interested to hear how these things go together. And I think for this content, a book makes total sense. I don't,

Totally agree with you for the technical stuff. Being able to have a video where you, where I'm seeing you do it on screen is huge. It's so important. Now I know it's a lot of work, but so is like making a bunch of screenshots and putting them in a book. And then you have to like explain the screenshot in text, which it just, it gets out of hand really quickly. There was a period of time where I was doing a lot of like documentation, like technical process writing and,

And it's like, God, if I never make another screenshot and explain it again, I'll be happy. Um, yeah. When I wrote those books for Wiley press the, um, the Mac at work and iPad at work books. Yeah. Like they would give you like, they say, okay, you're allowed to have four screenshots to explain this. And it's like,

Are you kidding me? Yeah. And so videos are the way to go for that stuff. But, but this is more hippie, you know, this is a lot of stuff in here. Like I said, the first half of all of this is about finding a foundation, figuring out who you are and what it is you want to do. And then the second half is the tactical part. And,

for the first half, there's really no videos. And like you said earlier, I really try to use basic apps whenever at all. I mean, I think notes is the main app I use for all of the video screencasts that involve screencasting because I didn't want people to look at this and say, oh, now I got to learn Obsidian or now I got to go buy a fancy task manager. No, you can do this stuff with a pad of paper. It doesn't matter.

Any concluding thoughts? I know we've talked about a lot of it, but is there anything else you want to share? You know what? I'm just really proud of this work. I'm always proud of the stuff I make or I wouldn't release it, but this one in particular is...

the one for me, you know, it's the most important one. And for some people that it's, it's not going to appeal to you at all. And that's fine. Don't worry. I'll be back in the future with a field guide about something nerdy. Don't worry. But, um, but in terms of like helping people answer big questions and, and make progress on their life, this is it. This is the one I'd like my grandkids to read.

Well, again, congratulations. Listeners, go check it out. The link is in the show notes. Don't forget the discount code, MPU10. We'll get you...

10% off. And we're recording this a little before the launch. It'll be out after the launch, but man. No, that's not true. I'm going to have it turned on, even though the word isn't going out to the world until after the show publishes. Okay. Mac Power Grooves' listeners, you can get in there right after the show. Okay. Yeah. Weird time stuff because we record on Tuesdays. Yeah. But I'm sure the launch is going to go great. And again, congratulations.

Thanks, Stephen. And thanks everybody for all your support on this and all the great feedback and everything over the first year. It just means a ton to me. And thanks a lot. We are the Mac Power Users. You can find us at relay.fm slash MPU for feedback and membership. Thank you to our sponsors today, 1Password, Ecamm, and Jelly. And for you more power users, stick around. I'm going to explain this whole analog thing a bit more. Otherwise, we'll see you next week.