043: The Push That Pushed Too Far

All right, so I guess you're going to start out this week with an apology. Yeah, just an apology for any echo that you hear in the recording because I moved to another house and the other house is still empty. So there's nothing on the walls to prevent the signal from just bouncing all over the place and coming right back into the mic. So we get a little bit of a reverb and nice little room echo apologies.

Hopefully I'll have that all fixed in the next next week or so. I'm just curious, are you saying this primarily because usually there's like artwork on the walls or something like that, or do you actually have like foam in your setup on the walls behind your neck? No, I wasn't that crazy. I hung up a blanket before.

I mean, oh yeah, that's right. I remember you did talk about a blanket once upon a time, but yeah, I don't really have anything and I got a nice computer screen, but that's about it. Oh yeah, and that's just reflects everything right back into the mic too. That's not helpful.

I'm excited to know you about that. Well, I don't have to do anything about it. It's not my problem anymore. This is kind of true.

Although I do have to give you a little tips and tricks here and there, though. It's still something I'm intimately involved with. Yeah, you're trying to leave the camel of the water and how well is that working? Well, I mean, camel's not fairly thirsty yet, I guess.

We're still getting there. Yeah, it's a process, but you know, it's got a lot better than the first time, right? Oh, yeah, no, yeah, absolutely. It's all a gradual progression, not going to you know, like instantly be pros back to the name of the podcast.

I like that very good dad joke there kind of kind of a dad joke. No, it's not a dad joke. I'm failing again. All right, so in the follow up, I guess we should start out by saying there isn't really much and you want to explain the why behind that?

Oh, yeah, we're banking episodes. We're putting episodes in the bank. Yeah, we're definitely we just recorded recently. So, you know, the time between the last recording is a little tight.

So there's really no follow up. There's nothing that we're like itching to do. So and so I guess I could say just stay tuned. I'm sure there'll be more follow up surprise surprise.

So yeah, that pretty well rounds out follow up. Anyway, so moving on, this week we wanted to talk a little bit about notifications and this one kind of came for me because Adam texted me today and was like, hey, I really don't know what we want to talk about. And so I'm leaving this one up to you. And so I shot out a couple ideas and you know, notifications for me is I guess I would say a touchy subject.

So I'm just kind of curious to kind of get a baseline on notifications. I would say the area we as users in general probably get the most notifications is our phone in the form of like those digital notifications. But what is your kind of workflow on your phone, Adam? So I mean, I guess workflow wise, like I see the notification, I tap on the notification and I guess that's it.

But I don't know if you're asking like, how I deal with notifications coming in or how I filter notifications that may be a different kind of topic. Like in terms of triage as well as just like what sort of apps kind of get through to the lock screen on your phone or like make it all the way through to like, can ding or cause a sound versus like, do you just like shut down some apps altogether or is that a lot of your apps or what's your gauge there in terms of how much do I have to really be providing to get all the way to the ding? So for an application to actually ding is never going to happen unless I accidentally flip the mute switch on the device because I have my device on silent all the time. But as far as like actual apps that would give me a notification, you know, we talked about last time in the Omni Focus episode how you have to have different buckets or things that are like do right now.

And if this is not do or this is not answered, like the world will end. And those are the things that are basically going to get through to notifications for me. And specifically notifications that will A appear on the lock screen and B cause a vibration like cause an actual physical tap on on the device. So triaging, like I said, it's it comes down to like messages from my, you know, favorite people, you know, like the people that I need to receive notification from most group threads I put on on snooze.

And I'm like, no, do not disturb. Like I don't need to hear eight buzzes in my pocket, like when this goes off. And the other ones are things that I know aren't going to bug me a lot. So I think I have one for the bank.

So like when checks get deposited or deposits go through, I have those ones go through. But same thing, those ones don't buzz. They mainly just appear. I don't know.

You want me to keep going? I feel like that's boring. Yeah. I mean, I think that kind of gives me a little bit of an idea.

And is it safe to save it? Sort of your, your tablet or iPad? And I think you said you had an iPad. Is it sort of the same idea there?

Or does like more come through or less come through on that device versus your phone? Most of the time, I think the tablet probably has a little bit more coming through, probably because I'm just too lazy to go through and mirror all the settings that I've done on the phone. And since I'm not around the iPad all the time, the phone is kind of the one that takes precedent. Okay.

I can understand that. Like it's, it takes some work to like manage all that. So I'm with you. And then sort of the last piece to your technology, I guess, is the, the actual, the computer.

So what does it look like in terms of notifications on the computer? Especially like, I mean, I understand that you're on the Mac. So you've got the doc and apps can badge the doc and do all that. But like, what do you have in terms of stuff that comes into, you know, the, the notification center on, on the Mac?

Or do you have a lot coming in that way? And, or is it like that, that is locked down down minimal? Now that one, I think I have more on defaults where I'm just kind of like, you know, not that big deal, whatever, like there's so much stuff on the Mac that it's very easy to draw my attention away. So something giving a notification usually isn't a bother to me.

Looking at it right now, just, I have pretty much all the standard things. A couple chat apps, you know, like the messaging apps, I even have like iTunes that will, you know, throw up a banner when the song changes. So I guess I'm pretty standard in that aspect. I don't, I don't do a lot of, I guess, massaging of or fine tuning of my notification settings on the Mac because out of all the things, that's probably the one that I paid the least amount of attention to.

And the one that it's the most cluttered anyway. So if a notification pops up, it's not really taking away from what I'm doing, what I'm doing because I don't work in full screen apps most of the time. So there's already enough visual distraction on the screen to pull me away where I don't remain too focused or engaged on any one thing, unless I need to, in which case, all, you know, going to do not disturb. That's interesting.

I'll kind of summarize mine and work backwards and start with the computer, but I, I guess like you, I, on the Mac, I'm not, when I'm looking through sort of my notifications in settings, I have, or sorry, system preferences, I have pretty much open notifications for all my apps. But what I think so fundamentally different about the computer for me is that most of the time apps are not able to, or not like sending you, you know, badges or banners or sounds and dings all the time, unless you're actually in the app. I mean, they have the option to do, but they usually don't. And that's so fundamentally different than say the phone, where you don't see that as much.

So the one thing I can say, I do a lot more is, I'd say only display in notification center. I don't honestly have it oftentimes show as just a, like an alert that I have to like act on. It's always like banner and just showed in the notification center. So that's the one thing I do.

I guess a little bit more on the Mac, but I have quite a lot on the Mac and most all of them are just kind of set to default. So that's kind of my, my Mac workload. The, as far as the phone goes, that's probably where it's locked down the most. The phone in the tablet, I'm a little different than you.

I actually do try to mirror the settings pretty and close, just so that I get a consistent experience across the two of them. But on the phone in particular, I definitely have meticulously gone through notifications. And I have, I would say my favorite did process for a lot of apps is just to say, don't send me notifications is probably more than 50% of my apps, like they just can't even at all send me notification. And then there's probably a good 45% that I'm guessing as I'm throwing through and looking at it here that are able to only badge the notification or badge the app icon, but are not able to actually push through to anything on the lock screen or a notification so that the ones that are, you know, finally getting through that way are also, you know, really privy kind of stuff I'm either acting on or it's, I have some very light social stuff, you know, things like Twitter and so on that they can get through, but really only like, you know, if it's a direct message or something like that.

So this also is getting through is, I would say stuff I would probably act on for the most part. And very similar to you, I am, I'm in a group thread that is a family thread and there's like eight people in it. And that thing lives on do not disturb. But I am kind of a somebody who is very firm with those notifications on my phone.

So I have spent a couple years really triaging. I have an on the focus task that comes up like every like three months to like triage my set of notifications because I honestly do think it's like a mental health well-being thing to like revisit those on a common basis and say like, is this something I really need to have on ours or not? Because anything that's dinging me is just sort of fatiguing, if that makes sense. So that's kind of where I stand.

So I've mentioned, you know, the whole idea of buckets or zones, I think a couple different times. And I mentioned that, you know, when we did Omni Focus and I mentioned that when we did, I think it was even email. But it's very much kind of like how I live my my entire life, which is different zones, like primary and secondary zones. And the concept being that whatever is in your primary zone is stuff that you need to look at stuff that you need to act on stuff that you're actively doing.

And then you have secondary zones, which are on the side or things that you don't need to take action on right away. And that kind of just translates to everything. So when I think about like, Hey, what's in my primary zone? Or what's like in my important bucket?

What's that that actually has to get through? Those are the only things I get notification to the lock screen with the sound. Everything else after that is like, Okay, well, what's the secondary thing, something that I need to, you know, see at some point in time. And if there is something important, I would like to see it, but it doesn't need to, you know, stop the world, then that's a secondary zone.

And then everything outside of that is like, you remember the, I'm going to sidetrack here, but you remember the analogy of like a computer being like a desk, right? Did you ever use that analogy? Yeah, definitely. Or like a kitchen, right, where you have your counter space and then you have your cabinets and then you have your drawers and all those things.

So I very much think of it like a desk, right? So on your desk, you have the space right in front of you, which is your primary work zone. And then you have the space to, you know, the left or right, which is not in your like, direct field division, but it's still on your desk. And those things are, you know, your secondary zones.

And then you have like a filing cabinet or something where stuff is put away. And that's, you know, your your storage or your whenever I feel like getting to its own. So I kind of like, just go through the same workflow on everything, filtering stuff through that. And notifications, you know, isn't any exception, it's just, you know, part of that workflow where here's important stuff, here's not important stuff.

And the important stuff, like, if you say everything's important, then you're going to get, you know, an onslaught of notifications. But if you're diligent, say like, hey, no, this is something I would need to answer right now. Like if this person messaged me, I would need to answer it. Or there's a 99% chance I would need to answer this message.

Or if there's a phone call, there's a 99%, you know, chance I would need to answer this. Or if there's an email, right? Like you just look by that. No, that's just how I go through my life in buckets and zones.

So boring. So I kind of subscribe to the zones or buckets idea as well. And I'm okay with that, like methodology. The one thing that is so interesting to me is that, you know, there have been a few caveats and a few times I've kind of made exceptions.

There used to be an app called Breaking News. And I'm kind of like one that was, I really disdain news apps and turn notifications because they sort of regularly sort of, they just have to use them. I mean, it's just that they use in my opinion, because you turn them on and it's like, they're going to just ping you for every little story that they can get you to come back into their app for. And that app unfortunately, I think it got shut down.

But it was really, really good at sort of saying, you know, hey, how often should we talk to you or how often should we ping you and say, hey, you know, here's the story we think is worthwhile. And they would often, they actually put it down to like, once a day, or like three times a day, or like, you know, every story. And I had said it, like, no more than once a day. And even that, they wouldn't ping you every day.

But I thought, if apps use something like that more often, I think the barrier to entry for people to say like, okay, I may leave it on for this app would be, you know, really, really increased. But it was really cool because that app would like literally only, you know, kind of tap my shoulder or break through the lock screen when, you know, like, oh my God, you know, a present that, or you know, something that was massive or like, you know, there's a 9.0 earthquake in Japan, and there's a tsunami headed to the Pacific West Coast like, oh, okay, that might be privy to me, you know, like things of that nature, but 99% of the time I got nothing from them, which was really, really useful. And I would love to see sort of, when we think about like reform or like, what is, what is, you know, the future of notifications look like in a perfect world, we would see just notification hygiene from developers. But I know that's kind of wishful thinking in some ways.

Well, that goes against the whole business model. If you're, if your business is getting someone to go into your app and spend time in your app and find stuff in your app, then why would you, you know, take out a hook that's going to get them pulled in, right? I mean, the one thing you'll say is that it's a good thing that notifications can be managed on the system level rather than on the app level or only available on the app level. Because then I mean, you probably have companies that would never allow you to turn off notifications, right?

And I know it's kind of gets into your next topic, right? Which is, hey, we have a lot of notifications in, like, what is like, notification abuse look like? And I feel like when you bring up, you know, developers and app design things like that, it's easy to abuse the notification system, because it is a direct line to your attention and whatever can get to your attention first, it's the same thing with magazines, with commercials, with everything. If they can get to you first and pull you in, then they can try to convert you into, you know, a transaction, a monetary transaction.

So I'm curious, because you put this in here. So I know abuse can be a harsh term and can mean various different things, but I know what my stance on notification abuse is and what I like, I have a very like physical line, a very clear red line to not cross, but I'm curious what your definition of notification abuse is. Yeah, I think the key, so you said that basically, you know, notifications, intent is to draw you back in. And to the degree, I can understand that when notifications are sent to me for the intent to draw me back in, for, you know, me to purchase something or to sell something to me, that is kind of where I guess I would say I draw the line, or when it does not provide what I would be into be credible information.

That is kind of the other area that I would draw the line in. And I understand, you know, the hardest part about, I think, this question is the fact that you really have to answer the abuse question for, you know, essentially millions of apps that are out there. I mean, there's, you know, hundreds of thousands of developers and millions of apps. And so how do you make the abuse clause or whatever for, you know, it applies to like all of those and still kind of keep it there?

And you know, that is, I understand hard to do. It's a gentle topic where you need to be wide but fair. And so for me, the areas that I think are so key are if it's salesy or you're like advertising to me in a notification, that's not okay. That's a definite no-go.

And pretty much if I see that, it's just grounds for like, termination of the app in the sense of like, I'm bleeding, I'm not even getting it around. And here's the kind of weird part with that is, I don't even have enough that's done that. I mean, I don't know because I just have an office. So that's, I should put that out there.

Like, I may never know, because I do keep it so locked down. But the other thing that is kind of big for me is if it's, you know, if it's drawing me in for the intent to, you know, sell something to me, that's the other. And that's where I understand it can be tough because you could say like, I don't know, Amazon's, you know, lightning deal is drawing me in or something like that. And it's been on my wish list.

It's like, that is where I would say it's a little more lenient because if I have interacted with the app before and said explicitly, I want that notification or I want that interaction, then that's where I kind of be okay. And you know, it's at that point, you've given them permission, but you're not giving them permission most of the time when these apps are sending just, you know, hey, go ahead and send this out and see if we can draw interaction. So I mean, that's kind of, you totally gave them permission though. You said allow notifications and they told you what they were going to do with notifications.

And it may have been a very vague and broad, you know, term, but you basically said sure, I mean, notifications are like, okay, here to go. Yeah. And that's where it's like, it's tough because for the most part, like the way in which I have to kind of combat some of these things is be like, you know, I'm going to go use, you know, camel, camel, camel or something like that. I'm going to tell Amazon, no, but I'm going to go find somebody who uses notifications in the way that I agree with or something.

You know what I mean? Yeah, so I mentioned before, like, I have a very clear, you know, red line or a very clear definition of what I consider notification abuse. And it's anything advertising is one, anything marketing is the other, anything suggestions is the third. If your notification meets those, any of those three pieces of criteria, nope, that's that's not right.

Like, if those are on by default, it's not a great experience because suggestions are things like where you're trying to pull me back in, right? Like, hey, you might also like this, even news, right? You were mentioning news before, right? She'll be only breaking news from these sources.

It's like, oh, well, here's something breaking that's not necessarily, you know, in your wish list, but or in your list, but hey, it might be something that you like, I'm out on that one. Advertising is the no brainer. It's like, hey, watch, you know, the new season of blah, blah, blah, for free, you know, if you just sign up now for a free trial of whatever, like, no, no, thanks, goodbye. And marketing is the other one, which marketing and advertising can kind of go hand in hand, but I feel like if you're trying to to market some new service or new feature, whatever it is, like, oh, come check this out.

You know, there are these great new features, blah, blah, blah, nope, I'm out. Like, those three things will basically get me to turn off notifications completely for whatever app that is, because those are things that you mentioned before, and I like the term, you explicitly signed up for, right? And the camel camel camel is a great example of that word. I said, hey, I want you to notify me when X happens, right?

And that's a very, there's no, you know, misinterpretation of that. It's like, you tell me when this happens. It's not that I was like, well, you might also like this and AI, machine learning, whatever you want to, you know, say all of this fine tuning of suggestions and intent, it's, I would much rather have that not ping me. I would rather that be something that I go to.

So I'm not saying I want to get rid of suggestions completely, but I want to be the ones that go in an app and say, hey, show me some suggested stuff, or hey, show me, you know, new features. I want that to be a poll rather than a push. Yeah, you know, I think until AI is able to do that extremely well, we're a long way off of that, you know, and there may be a day where I'm okay. And over time, we all kind of grow a little bit more okay with sort of these, you know, new tech industries and new tech, you know, things that come along.

I think we kind of just, they become normal, they become part of our everyday. And so that may be some, at some point, something I'm okay with every now, I'm kind of with you, I'm not okay with that. You know, and you brought me back to Campbell Campbell, but I understand that I have told Campbell Campbell, hey, you know what, when this happens, when that happens, ping me, let me know. That to me is a service I'm okay with, and I do realize that I'm also giving them something in return for that.

I'm giving them, you know, some useful data about what I buy on Amazon or what I'm interested in on Amazon. And they're probably making money off of an affiliate leak, I'm assuming. So anything I buy, you know, I click on the link on their website or in their email, I'm, you know, depositing some small amount of percentage of what I buy to them. And that's probably monetize their service.

I'm totally okay with that. And the sort of sad state of affairs is that, you know, people wouldn't have to go to a third party to do that. And somewhere like Amazon could keep that all in their own pocket without having to pay any affiliate leak out, if they could only, you know, figure out how to, you know, do exactly what Campbell Campbell doing without actually, you know, going as far as, you know, having a third party service do that exact thing. So it's kind of sad that it's gotten that way.

But you know, Amazon, where I'm scapegoating on here, but there's plenty of other services doing this exact thing. Yeah, I mean, when you're when your whole job or your whole business, you know, kind of centers around pulling someone in, or that's how you're going to make your living, you know, these are kind of things that you need to do. And I think with everyone, there's a very fine line between what people can view as an invasion of their, not privacy, but an invasion of their trust. Or a betrayal of that trust.

And basically said, like, Hey, I went to this contract with you, and now you're notifying me too much. I think there's always a fine line in everyone's different. Like you said, you know, how do you police this for millions of apps? And I gave you the three rules for me, but that doesn't necessarily apply to everybody.

So I think you have a point. Yeah, I think it's tough. I mean, I look at, I don't envy people that write these guidelines for any of these companies that are hosting app stores. And in a lot of ways, I hate to make this exact comparison, but it reminds me of, you know, trying to, you know, write a law for government or something like that, you're trying to, you know, write something that is able to satisfy all the unknowns and, you know, all the things that could change in the future.

And there's an easy to do. So I don't envy them. But I guess we should move along to sort of my next question. And my next question, I only kind of ask because I think this, in terms of digital, like well-being and digital health, which has been talked about a ton right now, is big.

But are you someone who sleeps with your phone either on the nightstand next to you or even in the same bedroom? Yeah, it's there. Okay. And have you ever run into, you know, like you're out in the night, you're a while we go to your phone and there's there's notifications or...

Nope. Never. That's all a self-control thing for me. I see, you know, yeah, I could see how, if you rolled over in three in the morning and you look at your phone for some reason and you see all these notifications and immediately you think, oh my gosh, like what is happening, then you have to address that.

But I can honestly say that the one thing that I look for when I go to, you know, pick up my phone or whatever it is, is the time. That's the only thing I'm really looking for. And I don't find it very often that I do that. Now I do sleep, you know, next to my phone.

My phone is on a charger and it's on a charging pad, a Qi charging pad. And it is based down and probably, you know, pretty close to eye level with me. So I can't see it without actually picking up the phone, which I will not do. Like if it, you know, if I think it's, you know, two in the morning, whatever it is, like I will not pick up that phone.

So instead, I actually light up the iPad, which is probably like a, you know, a worse idea. But I feel like when I light up the iPad, the clock is bigger and I kind of in a haze don't really see all the fine-grained notifications. So it doesn't really bug me. But I never, I don't want to say never, but it's very rare that I get into a point where I'll check my phone for some reason because I'm sleeping next to it.

And then it turns into a whole two-hour escapade of me, you know, going through my phone or looking at something or having that distract me from what my main goal is, which is sleeping. And like I said, if it's something important, the phone's going to ring and I'm going to be disturbed, which is great, but anything else to know and you can't hold me away from my precious sleep time. Interesting. Okay.

And the final question regarding sleep is, do you wear your watch when you sleep? Nope. Okay. That goes off.

I don't wear anything when I sleep blue. Adam sleeps in the nude. It comes out on the podcast. So yeah, it's an interesting, you know, way to you manager your tech.

I'm actually surprised you even click on the iPad. That is kind of surprising because man, that thing is like a fricking Vegas billboard when you light it up in a dark room. Yeah. I mean, but that's the thing is it's so blinding that you can get a flash of what the time is and then you just immediately want to keep your eyes closed because it was so bright that you just go back to sleep.

Okay. All right. So yeah, I, I don't know, more and more I do wear my watch when I go to bed. But it's something that notifications on the watch are like super, super limited.

So that's not really a concern for me. The phone is next to the bed. And I think I've told you this, Adam, before, but I use a 12 South high raise duet. I think it's the name for it, but basically it's a watch and phone charger combo.

Yeah. I've had, it's sometimes on my nightstand and the other times it's on a desk. So it just depends kind of where it ends up being, but it's something that I honestly am probably not going to think that. If I happen to not be wearing my watch, I definitely use nightstand mode.

I'll just, you know, like, bang on the nightstand real quick to actually see what the time is. That's my go-to if I'm not wearing my watch. If I wake up in the middle of the night, my watch, if it's on me, is where I'm going to check the time. I really don't go for the phone as my first point of contact, which I don't know if that's weird or if that's just, you know, better for me or not, but it's kind of out of sort of utility that I look at it and think, man, the watch is only going to provide me exactly what I need, which is the time right now.

It's also way less winding. And it just keeps me separated because the only time I'll really pick up my phone in the middle of the night is if I wake up and I just, you know, and I will have put in, you know, sort of significant time before I'm going to pick up my phone, you know, if I've, you know, been awake for 45 minutes or an hour and I can't get back to bed, under those circumstances, I might pick up my phone and be like, you know what, heck with it. I'm going to, I'm going to do something. I might as well, you know, organize my life or do something until I'm tired again to fall back asleep, which oftentimes will just include me reading because that leads to Luke falling asleep very quickly.

So I don't know, for me, phone next to the bed is something I do, but is not something I interact with really at all. So the funny thing is, is that, you know, I mentioned I have the iPad and I think it's funny because my nightstand is actually pretty crowded because there's the Kindle there, there's the watch, there's the phone, there's the iPad and I need some form of white noise usually to fall asleep and that usually means like I'll turn on a movie. So that's why I use the iPad because the iPad's always there, you know, I never have to move it and I don't move it very often actually. So it's on the nightstand, I turn it on, I start a movie and then I'll watch the movie for, you know, 15 minutes, you know, sometimes 30 and then I'll fall asleep.

And then the reason I reach for the phone most of the time, in the morning, if I'm not reaching for the iPad is because the phone has the alarm. So since the phone has the alarm, that's what I usually have to grab, like, especially if it's getting close to whatever time. That's the first thing I'm going to have to turn off is I'm going to have to turn off the alarm on the phone because I don't want that going off if I'm already awake. So the watch, which I also have a nightstand mode, I just don't have the cable or the room to basically put that next to the iPad and the phone without it obstructing either me reaching for the phone or it getting in the way of the iPad.

So I feel like my nightstand is so crowded with, you know, with junk with all these devices that, you know, I use them kind of for all of these different purposes, but I could just use one and probably minimize the amount of like screen time distraction I would have, but I choose to go this convoluted route of having zones for my nightstand. So I'm kind of curious. So you said the watch is in nightstand mode and I'm just trying to understand the picture here, but the watch is in nightstand mode. So it's on its side in sort of landscape view, is there a landscape orientation?

Yep. So basically it sits there with the digital ground up and I usually don't have it in any band because it's usually after I work out. So I'll work out. I'll take it out of the 12 South arm band that I have and then I'll put it on the charger and when it does that, it's in nightstand mode and it's just kind of on the nightstand and then the Qi charger is kind of right next to that and that's where the phone sits and the iPad sits the left of those prop up with a with a case and like I said, the iPad is basically what I use to just start playing a movie and that's what I'll go to to get the clock because it's pointing right at my face whereas the other things are kind of either 90 degrees out of the way or you know, they're flat on the table and I'm not going to be able to see without adjusting it or myself.

Interesting. Okay. So when it comes to nightstand mode, at least one thing I never understood when I first started to use it was that I always thought I had to actually touch the watch to get it to activate the time and I only learned it like later that nightstand mode will trigger the time even if you just like tap the surface the watch is on. In other words, like you have to provide enough of a vibration to the surface that it realizes like oh my god someone wants to know something but basically if I roll over I'm just tap my nightstand with like my middle finger like I was just you know gonna tap my my hands on a desk or whatever it will trigger nightstand so I don't know if you've ever tried that but I've noticed it but to be honest like I never was like oh yeah I should probably do that and now that we're talking about I'm like you know what I'm gonna try that tonight because I'll probably solve the iPad there when I go to sleep but I'll at least reposition everything because now that I'm in the new house I can read you all the cabling so all my cable management that I have in the back and I know I sent you a picture of my nice little anchor charger that's velcroed to the back of my nightstand so now I can kind of cinch up some cables and give a little more slack to the watch cable to get it to reach around all the way and I'll try it out tonight and report back that will be the follow-up that we didn't have this week that will be the follow-up for the next episode.

There you go cool cool yeah it's a really nice feature like once I kind of built that to in the memory to just be like hey I'll gotta just tap the nightstand and I can see that that time without getting blinded it's really really nice I guess another little bit of real time follow-up I told you my my anchor charger died several episodes ago I have replaced it I have a new anchor charger and this one has one USB-C on it and it is now mounted to the back of my nightstand so I'm backing the graces and I can charge a bunch of stuff all at the same time so that's exciting only way to fly man anyway so moving on do you use do not disturb I know you already mentioned you do with group notifications or sorry group text message notifications so that you don't just get barraged when you're in the the group of you know however many people you are because those things can get out of hand I have on multiple occasions opened up a group thread and just been like holy heck there's like 50 messages here and I pretty much just go off the bottom and keep going but that being said do you use do not disturb at all or do you not disturb while driving do not disturb in any other context yeah so do not disturb while driving I definitely use and the system wide like schedule do not disturb I use for all my devices as well so I think it's at 11 p.m. is when it takes effect so from 11 to 7 they're it's in do not disturb mode and then when I'm driving obviously do not disturb because hey you should definitely be enabling that feature and you should do that because it's safety and keeps you off your phone while driving which is a good thing so everyone psa turn that on and yeah like the the thread thing individual threads will always be or sorry not individual threads but individual group threads particular group threads will definitely get the dnd treatment um but system wide it only happens on a schedule okay so yeah I do use it as well um as a schedule thing it is not scheduled on my Mac or on my iPad but again like notifications the Mac's usually sleep so that's not really a problem the the iPad itself isn't asleep but at the same time is usually covered with the keyboard so I don't really see notifications so it's only my phone that is set to really be on a schedule and somewhere to you my phone is is set a lot of 11 but at 12 then it goes back on at 7 a.m. so you anyway can get caught up um I also do use do not disturb while driving which kind of interestingly bops back and forth sometimes because I do have car play in my car so if my phone is plugged in it doesn't worry about that so because it can pass through everything that way um and I did uh I customized my auto reply a little bit just because I was uh I didn't want to be that person to have the same uh do not disturb as everybody else so mine's a little more fun but um yeah man do not disturb is like kind of my saving grace to really give me some time to sort of disconnect and I also kind of intermittently will just go on do not disturb when it's just the right time to disconnect you know it's it's something that is it's okay to to pass through a perfect example of the time I go in you got disturbed but I you know it's not within my schedule time is like now according to podcast I don't really want to pass through right now if it's an emergency the right people can still get through so that's kind of my half hazards you still do not disturb oh I demand 100% of your attention all the time I guess sorry you're not you're not even in the favorites Adam so you don't you don't get the uh you don't have to start faster that's fine I'm just saying like when you call me when we talk right now for this podcast I'm demanding 100% of your attention so I'm getting it oh yeah you you are for the moment so uh congratulations you get your like two hours a week right whatever it is I'll take what I can get we kind of talked about this already but I'm kind of curious so I mentioned that I'm a big fan of badging apps versus showing in the lock screen or notifications on it so I'm really kind of curious do you use badging of apps at all and I mean here's a prime example I can kind of give you is like so I like you too but it's a it's a content source that I like and there are all the same channels I'm subscribed to and I want to know when they're actually um releasing the content but I don't want it to clog up my notifications on or my lock screen so what I have it set to do is to just badge the app icon show me number one on it I'll open the app and I'll go ahead and I'll watch that so for me that's a kind of a good example of something that I do on a two three times a week basis when when something I'm subscribed to comes out so I'm kind of curious is this something you do or is this something that's just like super unique to me the only things that I will have give me a badge are things that require me to take action on said badge so with emails if I have four unread emails it usually means that I may have to respond to some of those emails so that gets a badge if I have like a what is it messages right we'll use that one if there are things that need to be read that are unread that will give a badge but only for primary things right so may I consider primary just because it is something that I have to answer same with messages things like photos for example right like we have shared photo streams and you can get badges for you know someone adds something to a stream those are all turned off I'm like no thank you I will go in there and pull that information when I desire it but it's nothing I need to take action on so you don't get a badge and I guess the the only other thing that I have badging for no updates don't count oh omnifocus of course so omnifocus I only have badge for things that are due so like I said things that need to have action taken on them interesting okay that's like good to know I so yeah I only have badging on it a couple of things but a prime example of something else I do is like deliveries I like kind of knowing if I have you know package coming to me the updates of what's going on with that package I just don't feel the need to have it constantly like being at the lock screen to be like hey it moved from you know Memphis Tennessee to you know LA and it moved from LA to San Diego or wherever you know and so at that point I'm like I think I'm just gonna have a badge and it also kind of helps because it doesn't let a lot of things like build up sometimes when something like that happens and if I'm not you know like on top of the badge right away it moves from Memphis LA and LA to San Diego instead of me getting like two badges there also when we have the one badge and I can open the app and just kind of get fully caught up on a that package there so I do have more apps set to badge that way but I don't I really have a lot of them set off but it badged for me is kind of that like when you were talking about zones it's not like middle zone it's either usually apps have like full access and the prime example on the focus the phone app messages mail they can bear sound badge do everything you essentially and then there's apps that are kind of in that middle ground where I may let them badge the icon but they're not allowed to do the rest of things and and then there's the just yep good luck you're not getting to meet off they're off also worth noting that since we're doing this as you're talking I'm going through and just going through a notification audit it's kind of fun I like that this is like engendering some like oh I should actually I should revisit this though oh it's just like hey I can knock this out right now I don't have to make an omnifocus task to do it later let's always do it now yep you can do it now all right so I guess the last thing or like lingering question that I thought up was around you know we're kind of living in a different day and age if you think about it got I mean it was it was less than 10 years ago that we were sort of you know smartphone lists for for all intents and purposes we have pop highlights and stuff like that and smartphones were getting big but you know it really was just sort of a right on the cusp of things taking off and so today it feels like we really are in almost like content overload with information from apps constantly pinging us we have you know more stuff on Netflix than we can ever dream of watching there's so much content out there so I'm just kind of curious do you think we are sort of in a sort of overloaded state or and that therefore all of this requires us to push all this stuff you know out of our way or is this something that you know at this point you think is going to get better in the future so I'm just kind of curious what you're thought is in terms of overload are we overloaded are we not overloaded I think you can kind of see in how I'm answering this question that or asking this question that I think we're overloaded but I'm kind of curious what your thoughts are on this and sort of what your thoughts are in in the years to come like is this bound to just continue to get worse or better yeah I think we've we've been in overload mode for for years ever since the the text message basically was invented right where before you had things that like email like text messages like the internet even right if you want to call it that anything that was a push right I mentioned that terminology before but anything that basically pushed something in front of you was just asking for information overload right where there were so many sources and you had all these opportunities to basically like I don't want to miss anything so notify me when everything happens and as soon as you have this ability to basically push information to people on demand whenever you wanted that's when we became basically overloaded by everything that we would subscribe to because everyone has the fear of missing out right traditionally known as FOMO so no one wants to miss out no one wants to be the one person who doesn't know about something that's happening so to solve that most people sign up for everything and yeah like you said it's easy to get overloaded when you have everything coming through so I absolutely agree with you and think that we are in information overload and do I think it will get better well no as humans we strive and crave for more knowledge we always want to know everything we want to know what things are when things are happening what's going on we want to know that and it's it's it's tough because as much as I want to know everything there's also times where I want to disconnect and I want to just enjoy the life that I have and look up every once in a while right it's gonna sound a little hippie and a little you know out there but sometimes you just have to smell the flowers right you just have to enjoy the walk that you have I walked to the transit center today like I said we moved so we moved a little closer to the bus the bus stop for me so I walked there this morning and I put on podcasts and I you know could have just you know loud through a whole bunch of stuff I could have been like checking email or you know trying to get a head start on something but I just looked up and I looked around and there were quail running around and you know it was nice and sunny and I couldn't really hear any too much road noise and it was just a nice walk you know so I think that decompression is very important and I said all that to say that if you're overloaded and you have notifications turned on for everything you're missing out right you you're missing out not on the internet stuff that's happening but you're missing out on just life in general oh man that sounds so cheesy but it's true man like you're missing out on just enjoying the simple things right I gave someone you know just like some very harsh feedback today where I was like you're really negative you've been negative for like the past two weeks like you should enjoy you know the fact that you're here the fact that you got to go to work this morning and just enjoy the little things and then the rest of the day you can tell I thought about it because they they brought it up again when we're getting on the bus afterwards and like yeah you know I'm just gonna try to be more positive today it's like so tomorrow when you see me I'm not gonna say anything negative I'm like great we'll see tomorrow but I think there's so much information out there and like I said the push is the thing that put us over the edge push this over the edge so the very app name that push you know it's a very good verb a push that pushed us over the edge uh funny uh yeah you're totally right man I mean it's something that I think disconnecting is so important that I am it's um you know I think sadly there's sort of the 80% of people in the middle that don't really see that as an issue and aren't disconnecting and there's sort of 20% of the people I feel like that are you know sort of almost in the techy community and are always connected and sort of are getting the glimpse that we need to disconnect it's worthwhile and worth our uh you know time and investment is sometimes just from the phone off or you know just live without tech for a little bit turn on do not disturb you know and all that stuff and then there's I feel like 20% of the people that are sort of that to your point almost like hippie camp and just be like hey you know what like I don't even do techs though you know and and those people are living a great life too um whether's balance you know and and they don't really have this stuff on barding them so I really think that over the next couple of years I really think that we're going to start to see a little bit of a shift of hopefully the that big swath of the middle section you know um you know people that are going to kind of come to some realization to say you know how do we manage this how do we get smarter about the time that we're spending on these devices and is there a point where we need to you know connect more with humans or or um you know just just keep that bond that we have with each other and with nature and the planet we're on so um just remember I think it's one point I remember like our time's limited so you know don't always look down and do a phone it's not worth it so anyway do you have anything else to add to notifications before we close this one up I finished my notification on it on the Mac and I turned off probably five apps so that's five wow well I only had like 10 or 12 so that's like half of them okay fair enough well uh I guess with that being said you you're likely to live a little bit better and not get tested as much so congratulations I'll give you a gold star sticker I'd really go for a cheeseburger right now in and out would be nice it doesn't work like that sorry grab hub doesn't work for that now you could totally grab hub to my uh to my house right now if I want a cheeseburger you could open the app I'll give you the address I see Adam works for cheeseburgers yeah man it's 10 30 at night like I'm craving one right now did you just work out too no I didn't have time I had to set up my Mac and everything so I haven't even worked out so this is like a guilty cheeseburger oh I see I see all right well uh in a little bit of wrap up this week uh it's uh it's kind of funny so I have a a little bit of a story and um Adam you'll know this this name right away but basically I fell for one of the podcast ad reads um but I've probably heard a hundred times I don't know about you but I guess I want to start out asking do you skip ad reads in podcast or no if I have hands free yes so if I can reach the skip button I will skip through ads especially ones that I've heard most of the time I'll give you know an ad read like one pass and then if I hear that repeat again or the same product I'm up again I'll skip like I get it like Squarespace is awesome we use it for our site Squarespace if you want to sponsor let us know uh-huh and you know Casper makes great mattresses and aftershocks makes bone conduction headphones like so the advertising works because I know all these products but yeah I skip through most of it because otherwise it's it's nothing special the only ones I don't skip through and I'm gonna give a plug to a podcast is a min bim bam which is my brother my brother and me and those ones those ad reads are just fun and they call it the money zone so they're treating it exactly like what it is and they have a good time reading through all that and they they're they're comics and improv artists so they kind of make it fun and entertaining so those are the only ones I listen to but everything else no man I skip ad reads so which one did you fall for though I want to know this all right well before I give that away real quick the only ad read so I listened to all the ad reads I pretty much don't skip it unless like I consciously catch myself in the middle of the going hey I can skip this but the ones I used to love and we we haven't done them in a long time is um when cards against humanity used to sponsor x and el tech podcast and they would do the toaster ad reads those were they were toaster reviews I don't know if you would call those but those were those were really funny because basically yeah but those those weren't even ad reads they were just toaster reviews like hey this toaster review is sponsored by blah and that was it and he was just going to a toaster review it wasn't like a two-minute ad read which is exactly why it worked because exactly why you were like dude I am not skipping this because he's just gonna be raid why you know one side the toast is burnt and the other side is not and it is gonna be hilarious and I also love how knob feel was a criteria you know that had to be judged like the actual mechanics did I ever show you that youtube channel of knob feel I think I did no I don't recall but oh my gosh so I'm gonna send you a link after the show and we'll put it in the show notes but basically the knob feel is basically the sky who just reviews the way knobs feel without any words it's just a video of him reaching for knobs to go mmm oh oh as he's turning these knobs it's really uh really awkward at times but it's perfect so like you're like oh that knob must feel really good but that's really funny yeah I mean those those ad reads work every time I mean and like hands down to cards you can see really because like if there was a company I ever wanted to throw money out and be like thank you for making you like hilarious ad reads it was it was definitely but real talk somebody I did throw at a company because of that read was a way travel so I'm sure you've heard away you know the the luggage that you can charge your you know phone with when you're at the airport and you know everything else about their luggage I happen to be up in LA and they have a store in LA and it's been on my mind for six months or more it's time to replace the luggage because I travel in ten years of one set of luggage is you know a few trips too many and so they're looking pretty raggedy so I I started small and dipping my toes in the in the water with away and saying hey I'm gonna I'm gonna start and I went for the the bigger carry-on and I got a couple of accessories so just the you know like those packing cubes those are like all the rage and I got a rifle like suit holder that you know snaps into the luggage but I'm excited I have some travel in July and since this is uh totally appropriate now I'm like I'm gonna get a chance to actually give it a world so you know hey picking a podcast ad reads if a way wants to respond to the podcast maybe I'll have a few more and I can give it a review so you through $300 at this right how much is the big one the big one I think is I think about 300 the small one was I think the 260 something like that so and of course I used my $20 off-code you remember when I wanted $20 from you I remember that this is budget this is budgeted can you just like reallocate some of that budget over to this budget for the month you're not going on vacation for another month so you have enough to have to make up for it well with the punches though well with the punches I wasn't rolling with the punches last month let me know how the away thing goes because I don't travel much so there's really not a need for me with this one um but I love how you said you fell for it so you didn't do any research beforehand of like any other bags or like check the wire cutters like for their reviews anything like that so I guess I would say I didn't I didn't do a ton of research um into other options I was they win they won kind of it's what I say I um I was set on the sort of new school design like I don't know what to call it where it's the like it folds open in the center and you can put clothes in both sides um I don't know if there's a technical term for that kind of luggage but do you understand what I'm talking about where it's not the old style where you just open the lid and everything goes in one just one side of it um so that new style design they supposedly you can pack more clothes in um you know every big looking manufacturer is doing that today to me brings them Riley all of them are doing and you know quality like lifetime warranty kind of suitcase things are expensive so I was totally expecting that I did look into to me specifically through um Nordstrom's rack and their outlet they haven't outlet not too far from me so I I did check into there but honestly I was going to be spending about the same as the way so I was like yeah I was kind of on the fence whether that was the best option and well cool now you have some new toys to take when you go traveling exactly so I'll get a chance to break them in and I don't really have any travel that is long enough to warrant the medium I think which they say supposedly can last you seven to ten days but I don't really need anything that long right now so uh is what it is I'm uh I'm flying with just the uh the bigger carry-on for now so I'll report back I'm sure in July but let everybody know how it was anyway so uh Anna my uh I hear uh you have some uh final clothing closing thoughts on uh moving yeah so my entire life I've lived in single-story homes and you know it's been fine no problems no complaints right having everything on on floor is awesome you're gonna learn again oh did I learn you know the last couple days let me just tell you that I have walked up and down the stairs for the dumbest reasons way too many times like I left my backpack on you know downstairs and then I you know got upstairs and I was like oh I needed the backpack then I walked downstairs to get the backpack and I bring the backpack back I'm like oh jeez I forgot my you know keys are on the counter which is also downstairs so you have to walk downstairs again and all these little trips where you should just be walking in and out of like a room or like down a hallway it's now walking up and downstairs it sucks the other thing that sucks about stairs is hey you want to take this king size mattress and move it up the stairs yeah good luck oh my back is still hurting I'm an old man and I hate stairs king mattresses and stairs really aren't a fun thing okay me wrong um mattresses in general aren't fun even on single-story so adding stairs to the mix this doesn't sound like fun at all I will say that like having the separation between you're living in your you're like you're sleeping space is nice right it is nice to actually have that and the kids are definitely liking going up and down the stairs and you know it kind of seems to tire them out because I go to sleep but oh man like next time I think I'm gonna get to the point where I'm not gonna be able to do it myself and I'm gonna be hiring some young college kids about hey lift my mattress up the stairs please because I'm getting too old for this shit yeah and there's uh definitely some uh some reasons to hire people to move you I don't get me wrong or even to like pack you I don't know if you have you ever had anybody like move you yes I used to work for an international freight forwarder and I worked in their IT department so um I didn't do anything you know actually with the freight forwarding but like we dealt with packers and things like that so I was very intimate with you know how that service went and what they actually did and how they would basically you know measure the performance of a a pack job by how dense the uh the actual container is like when they put everything together it's like wow this density is awesome like there's no air in here at all it's all just packed full of crap so yeah I mean if you've ever seen those guys like come to your house and you're like hi you know here's my house and they're like come back in two hours we'll have it all and you're like how old the heck do you do that you know it is definitely an art because I know the you know of like four or five times I've ever moved in my life it I don't really feel like I'm moving a whole lot but it still takes me multiple days to pack it yeah so we did it ourselves this time because we were only moving less than a mile the way so it really didn't feel I don't know I couldn't justify hiring movers to move us when we could very easily do it ourselves and like I said it's not super far away but maybe next time I'll hire people to pack stuff and then I'll hire someone to just you know I'll do the actual moving right so I'll pack it I'll load it up and deliver it and then I'll hire someone to just get the furniture out from wherever and into the right bedroom because oh my back it's so sore so another reason I'm not working out tonight in one of cheeseburger yeah you did a lot of working out just getting a king bed up the stairs it sounds like so maybe maybe a massage would be in your future okay and all I want is a cheeseburger just give me the cheeseburger take a look at that knob feel and just like watch one of the videos and tell me what you think oh my god oh my god hold on I'm gonna say do this one this one is the best one there's nothing that will beat this one this this is gonna make you feel a little awkward but it's great oh my god this is fucking awake you watch that one he needs to check his shorts after that man like he's gonna change so is it just because it's a big knob it's because it must feel amazing like yeah it feels amazing and it's a big knob so it's like he's like whoo