You're really gonna love this part. Are you ready? I have no idea what we're talking about today. Oh man. 100. How many points do I get for that one? How much XP do I get for that?
You get XP for admitting it, right. For not coming in here and trying to bullshit me. I would see right through it anyways. But,
Oh boy. Oh.
This is our, our last, episode before I take a vacation. And it is
It better be good.
Yeah. Lining up to be the, the height of, professionalism, sophistication, chaos, and otherwise. Feels good. Feels great.
It does.
Aren't those of you who joined us live on YouTube, excited that you did so you could see Matt's happy dance that he did just now?
I do a little happy dance a lot though? I really do dance a lot.
Mm-hmm
I mean, you can attest to that.
I can. There's always a lot of dancing.
There's a lot of dancing.
So I thought today, we could talk about your favorite, things! You know, instead of Oprah's Favorite Things episode it's Matt's Favorite Things. So this is, this could be the episode where you walk us through all of the different bits and baubles that you have to keep yourself productive.
Oh man, I can always talk about productivity systems. I mean, it's all I ever think about. First off. Hello, Alison. How are you?
I'm good, how are you?
Um, let's see. Yes. So today we were gonna talk about productivity methods or I was specifically gonna talk about productivity methods, and then I forgot about that. We could kind of talk about it in terms of tools of course, but also just
Like things we do to get through the day. I have some of those.
Tricks, tips, tips, and tricks!
I love that we're on video, cuz it gives me the chance to show off which dice I'm rolling with. And so this is since this is our first live stream, I decided to roll with the very first set of dice that I got. So this is the super sparkles are, uh, were a gift from Fitz.
I'm ready. dice. Dee dee dee dee dee
I rolled a 21.
All right, Alison, what is one topic that you researched so thoroughly during a moment of hyperfocus that you are now an accidental expert on it?
Wow.
went into such a zone, such a rabbit hole that you came out the other side. Like I know, I know something better, more than anybody. I actually have one of those too.
Uh, uh, I think that's how I got started in marketing and more specifically social media marketing. I won't say that this is now a current research expert level, uh, anymore, since it's a, an ever changing game. But I'm pretty sure that one day I just kind of wanted to know how it all worked, like why I was seeing certain things in my feed and how I could, you know, be more successful at getting more engagement. And one thing led to another.
And then suddenly I was charging people money to run their social media. And it was, it was kind of an accident, I guess I'll admit here on air, cuz I just went down a rabbit hole and didn't surface for many, many years.
Yeah. I was just gonna say that mine, not that I'm allowed to answer this question, but mine was captioning. I just wanted to see if I could get Lindsay into a show that I was doing. Again, completely accidentally.
I mean, go us, like going on such hyper focuses that we actually managed to make careers and businesses and touch people's lives with our knowledge, that feels kind of good.
Dropping knowledge is...no, it is fun. It's really, I think that's one of the cool things about the ADHD brain is that you have that thirst. You have the ideas, you have the desire and, and you'll just burn through things that you like, that you're interested in. Like that learning, um, Alison, my number is 30… two.
32. Your question is
Yes,
I love this one. What is a language you wish you could speak? Note, this absolutely includes fantasy languages.
Whoa.
Mm-hmm
Okay, so. I think my problem is that apparently languages weren't enough of a hyper focus thing for me, for me to learn them fluently. So that's always very frustrating is that I get to a point with a language like a Spanish, especially since I've been to Spain and Mexico. And it's always very frustrating that I can speak just enough.
mm-hmm
And then. and then I don't understand. So it's like, I'm not able to be, you know, a part of a conversation with strangers. I, I can't be that weird guy that just goes up to strangers and starts talking to them while I'm in Mexico. Uh, so
I'm sorry for your loss.
That's okay. Spanish. I've always loved French though. Uh, I think like French was the third language, which apparently is the one where things start to click in. So I really understand French when I hear it, but I don't speak it cuz it's very hard to say those things. Um, but if we're talking fantasy,
Mm-hmm
I think it have to be Elvish. Right?
I knew you were gonna say that. I did. I was like, Matt's gonna say Elvish.
Probably like the French it's, you know, it's like the French of fantasy languages. The,
Yeah, yeah. I think for some reason, I, I almost always choose Primordial with like, I don't know why, but I wanna, I wanna speak with the beings at first inhabited a world and their low grumbling. Yeah. Um, I, I, whenever I get like a, you randomly get to pick a language nine times outta 10. That's what it.
That's interesting.
I don't know why.
Yeah. Okay. Primorial yeah. Love that. In this, in this world that we're building, um, I have this whole faction of sexy, assassins that are all Frenchy French.
And Evan plays the sexiest of assassins.
Yeah. Uh, one, one time we should have an episode about is it an aspect of ADHD to be attracted to the avatar of your fellow players? am very, very attracted to Fitz's character named Charlie.
I'm very attracted to Evan's character named Bale.
These are just drawings, people. These are not human beings. They're just cartoons.
I'm heading over to our project management tool, monday.com to take that note as a future. Cause you know, otherwise it's just like, PYUNG! And gone and, and we'll never come back to it. So!
Yes.
Here we go into ADHd20, which houses all of our beautiful outlines that we make and, and toss.
And that's, and that's a good segue too, right? Because you start talking about productivity. And I think we mentioned last episode, my biggest tip, not even a tip is a necessity for me is, is writing things down.
Mm-hmm
Immediately. Like don't ever assume that I will remember anything. Yeah, I have to get things out of my, brain as they happen. So that's like a combination of talking to watches. And like I said, last time a command space will make notes but yeah, to get just what you did, you know, you opened up the project manager and you said we won't remember that later.
Having a recording does help. Sometimes that keeps us honest. I have found myself more and more because I can't trust my own notes anymore. And this is something that's getting worse with age. I used to have elephant brain, man. I can still remember choreography from when I was 12, but I can't remember why I walked into a room, like it's bad, but I, my notes are making less and less sense.
So I have started recording more and more, um, client meetings, just so I can have that last five minute wrap up of the things that I said I would go off and do before the next time we meet. Even if I write that down now, I either can't find it can't make sense of it, forgot the, the things we talked about, the pain points leading up to whatever it is I'm gonna do. So now I just, Loom has become my best friend. So I can just record a meeting and then look back on it.
Nice. Uh, there's another one. You have to pay for it, but it is pretty amazing. It's called otter.ai and you can just kind of plug it into Zoom or all these other things, and it will just transcribe meetings for you. Anything that it hears. Similar to our friend Descript to translate voice into text. Yeah.
Interestingly enough. So I use like that and I think it's just a worse program. I think it's called Firefly. So it, when I set up a Google meeting, it basically follows me in when I start the meeting creepy and transcribes it. I don't know if everybody that I've ever met with while using this platform, self included mumbles or I, I have a really hard time making sense of it. I might be able to catch key phrases. Um, but I also wonder cuz I'm not a very good, I'm not an auditory person.
I, I, I need to, I'm a visual person. Like I need to see it. And I understand a transcript is written, but there's something about rewatching, a recording that I've already lived through. That I can see that and be like, oh, we're about to dive into the subject. I need to rewatch next that doesn't hit the same on a, on a screen or a piece of paper when I'm just reading a transcript. I get really, really lost in a transcript even with a search function. So.
Okay. Yeah. I can see that. So the thing about all of my productivity tools is that as I've mentioned, I have a problem and that problem is that I always think there's gonna be something better, right? The, the number one rule for any kind of productivity system is it's not going to be perfect for you. And, once you accept that and move. Your life will be easier. I haven't yet, but I'm working on it.
Everyday, Matt!
Everyday, just one day at a time. Sweet Jesus. So, um, yeah, I, I just, uh, that is really hard for me to learn because there are so many talented developers out there making, to do apps and project management apps and, um, note taking apps and calendar apps. I mean, it is an endless, endless line.
And so many of them are great, and you think that when something new comes out or what's really, really, really uncomfortable is the dance of you try something you're like, oh, it's not ready for prime time. And then you leave it. And then, but you have an account. So, you know, a year later they come back and they're like, Ooh, now we have this. And I'm like, Ooh. And so I'll jump into that again. Oh, maybe that's, maybe it's better to the point where I will like be able to use it.
Um, no, no, really what you need to do is to stop the switching back and forth if you can. I think right now people are trying to find the one and done the one that does everything. So there is an app called Notion, which is really, really amazing. I use it as just a pure Wiki that, cuz you can easily put whatever you've written online, but it's super powerful.
It's, It's a combination of, of a database app like Airtable with a writing app, like, you know, Microsoft Word with task management and just all kinds of calendaring. But, it does try to do all of those things. And I, I have not been able to successfully, live inside one app to much to my chagrin, much to my chagrin. And I think it's partly because my brain is going to jump around and I want to learn about new things and I'm gonna wanna keep testing new things.
Um, so as I mentioned, one of the first things my ADHD coach said was alright, yes, I, I know the world of the magical new unicorn app, that's coming around the corner. She knows that she lives that herself. She says, just find ones that do the best job for you right now. And then don't leave them for a while. So I'm very proud of myself for the last almost year now sticking to three -ish main apps. And they are, there's a todo app slash sort of project management called Todoist.
That is for like quick capturing things I have to do. And the reason that it won out of the others, it has so many integrations. So you could, anywhere you are at any moment, you can get something into to do. And that's the
mm-hmm yep.
Todoist sorry. Todoist .The second set of things, the note app is called Obsidian. And then the last one is basically Google calendar, but I have different interfaces. So I like this. I like this Mac app called Fantastical because you can, you know, with a key command, you can open up a, just a little prompt and you can write, um, lunch with Alison tomorrow at noon. And it will, you know, spit out that into your calendar. And you can set that up for multiple calendars.
And also, also Fantastical has this really nice, um, new thing where you can schedule so you can sit, it
Mm.
Give you a link, so you can set up a bunch of different. Um, that was one major pain point is like, if I wanna have a meeting with someone it's like, so when are you free? Email two, I'm free here, here, here. Email three, please, please. So it's very, it still makes me uncomfortable to send a link like that, but it really works. Those are the three main ones and I've used one more app, sometimes, it's called Drafts. It's Mac only. And what Drafts does is like little snippets of text.
Like if it's not important enough, really to get into Obsidian. Sometimes I'll even write texts in Drafts. Like if I need to reply to someone, because if I, I know that if I open up my messages app on the computer, I will read things and I'll get distracted. The, the goal for me currently is to find every way possible to not get sucked into something. So if I have to write an email, then I try to do it in another app, like Drafts or Obsidian. Right? And, and then I'll send it to mail.
Because if I can skip the inbox, then that's just one more chance that I won't get sucked in.
Interesting. Yeah, I'm so guilty of, oh, I'm just gonna hop in here and send that quick email. And then I get distracted, especially cuz I have like nine inboxes or something obscene. So it's bad. It's a problem.
It can be real, real frustrating. And so those are the three things I'm I'm using. Todoist is, is pretty easy to explain. I would go ahead and say that if I weren't a programmer and I preferred looking at text,
mm-hmm
I would not recommend Obsidian for most people. I really wouldn't. Uh, it's really, really fast because the nice thing about Obsidian it's super safe because it's actually files on your computer. So if Obsidian for some reason goes under, like the app, the company, you still have all of your data in files, little markdown files, which are text files, which can take anywhere. So you'll never ever lose your data in that way. So super secure.
But, it also is kind of a tinkerer's dream, which is a pro and a con for me. It's really great. And especially for D&D, it's incredible for D&D because you can drag files and throw things in there as well. And so you kind of have your own miniature database of just files, which is fun. And, and the magic of Obsidian really is this concept of back linking. So if you, with just like the smallest bit of formatting, you can just type as normal you again, you don't switch any context.
You say, um, the party, rescued brackets, Ireena from Strahd, and that links that one sentence to No, that's what you I'm making it up. That hasn't happened. Uh, keep going. So in that one sentence, I've, I've linked, Ireena and Strahd who, and they have their, they each have their own files, their own pages. So on the Ireena page, I can write anything I want about Ireena, a picture, any, any kind of information I want about her, same with Strahd.
But now when I go to Ireena's page, I'll see a link to that one sentence that I wrote, it just kind of blank, blank, blank, and you can just hop all the way around. So it's really great for an ADHD brain because you don't sit around and futz with folders. Notion is similarly amazing. Yeah, Fitz is saying Notion's lack of privacy is off-putting, I wish Obsidian worked better for me cuz the platform is way more secure.
Yeah. Um, I understand though Obsidian is just, it is not on the user friendly side. It's it's it's just a little too nerdy. But for me, especially when I'm working on code, because I could use my actual code editor and open up any of my Obsidian files. Which is really amazing. And going back to D&D there is, there are nerds that take my virtual tabletop of choice and allow you to point my code editor to a folder and turn that into an entire module adventure, just with markdown files.
And that can be read by Obsidian. So it's like, it's a nerd's, PKM, , you know, Personal Knowledge Management. That's what the, the newest, um, name for like a note taking app is. That Notion and Obsidian, they're not just note apps. They're, PKMS they're personal knowledge managers. Or management.
I demand a sexier name than that.
I know it's not super sexy. Yeah. I've been talking a lot. Please say something, help me.
You're just so good at it though, Matt, like, I don't have as much to add, but what was kind of coming to mind was, um, so we'll pull back the curtain here for a minute into the inner workings of Bivins Brothers Creative. Um, and so I guess more than a year ago, maybe even closer to two, at this point, we were in desperate search of our own kind of project management note taking, we were kind of doing what Matt was saying is nearly impossible. You're not gonna find an all-in-one.
So find the solutions that fit the need, um, and then tailor them to your existence. But one way that we did not all see eye to eye on at all was project management and task management and how we were gonna hold ourselves and one another accountable to deadlines and deliverables and due dates and all of those other "d" words that we hate.
And so Matt surprising to no one took point on this project and would find different tools and we would, you know, take their free trial periods and test them out, try and run a project on them. And there were some that we collectively hated. There were some where some would hate and some would love and Notion was definitely that one. When Matt presented Notion to us he was on cloud nine.
He was so excited and he even took the time to like personalize little personal pages for me and Evan with graphics and things he thought we would, you know, grip, hold of. Evan hated it, hated it.
So much.
I was somewhere in the middle. Like I was because of the work Matt had done, I think had Matt just opened it up to a blank screen. My feelings would've been more similar to, to Evan's, but because you knew me enough to at least not give me a totally blank screen and at least like, show me the possibilities. I, I was like, okay, I could, I could see a world where this works, um, in the, in a world, um, where. We didn't choose that one in the end. And sometimes, sometimes I regret that.
I regret it. I regret it because not too, too long after that they did open up integrations too, which, it's still not, not, not where Monday is even, but it... the thing about The thing about Notion is so daunting is that you have that blank slate. But the thing about Monday and these other ones, Monday, Asana, and Click Up. They're super daunting to me. Because it is just, if, when I open it up, it is no noise, nonstop noise, and I can't turn it off.
Like Monday is so hard for me to go into because it never starts me where I want it to start. And I have to find every time where I want it to go. And in that journey of getting where I need to go, once I get there, it's great. But in that journey, I'm just, I'm so distracted.
I, I told Matt, it was, I guess a couple of months ago that I, I Matt-ed, Monday. Like I, I just like sat down with here's the problem, how am I gonna fix it? And I just went into hyper-focus mode until I had built exactly the dashboard with exactly the views that I needed to make my little brain work. That's one big way that I differ from, I think you and Evan is, I am constantly like zooming in and out. So I'm looking at the big picture and then I'm looking at the, the levels of granularity.
There's there's a fun word to try and say, um, granularity, um, up next we will start an ASMR podcast anyways.
Granularity
I still though, I remember the day that you and I were on a call and we figured out that we probably weren't going to find something that made everybody happy all of the time.
No.
But giving ourselves that freedom, cuz we had been trying to do that up. We had been trying to find the solution that would give each of us what we needed. And when you just had, I remember watching the light bulb go off in your head. Of it doesn't have to be perfect and it doesn't have to be for all of us. If I can integrate it enough to get things into my personal PKM.
Mm-hmm
I wanna say PKD, I want it to be like database instead of manager for some reason,
Sure. Go for it.
When you realized you could hack Monday enough to get what you needed out of it, while also giving me what I needed in it, um, that kind of changed everything. Um, do you have any non-digital things that you do ever, or is all of Matthew Bivins' life all the time, digital and digital only? So are there any, yeah, like, you know, uh, analog productivity hacks or, or things, um, that you've gotten to know
Yeah, Well, I mean, most of them are digital, but one year, Lindsay bought me a bunch of incredible fountain pens. I really just wanted to connect with my father who always used a fountain pen to write everywhere he went. And he had beautiful handwriting and, uh, so I wanted to connect with him. So I, so Lindsay found this, this maker of fountain pens, they're made for people with ADHD in that they, you can drop them.
They actually have a video on their website where they, they drive a car over their pens, they're super, they're tank-like, um, but really, really fantastic pens. She gave me a couple of those with different type nibs. And I always have a, um, like a moleskine or a, or a leuchtturm or something around. And, and so what I, what I do with that is a couple of things. Number one, when I'm starting a project, it usually has to be some kind of visual thing, much like yourself.
And so one thing I do is mind map a lot, if I cannot figure something else out, and there are, there are some really great mind mapping digital tools. Um, but sometimes you just want to paper and pen it, cuz you can just draw and write and draw and write and all the little boxes and lines that go just so much easier.
Uh, and then the second thing I'm trying to do, I'm trying to do is one thing of my day that I feel like I'm missing is, the downside of having quick capture and an incredible app like Todoist to capture all the tasks. And sometimes they all, and a lot of them end up on today. I try to not overload today, but, but when they do, I try to sit down with something that is not digital and pick three, maybe four things.
Mm-hmm.
Honestly, one thing needs to be done. And at the end of the day, and this has gotta be, an ADHD key. This has got to be, cuz it feels so correct when I do this right. But. If I say, I'm gonna do this one thing, and if I do this one thing, then a successful day, it is a successful day, period. If I have like a major list of stuff and I'm just checking random stuff off, I might still have a major list of stuff. And I only focus on the stuff I didn't get done, which makes me feel bad.
So when I do this, when I follow this, there's a couple of different methodologies. There's, there's a new one called Bento. There's a really great one called Make Time. Very, very similar. Don't look at your whole task list. You pick three ding dang things. One has to be done. A second one is like, if you have time for that, and then maybe a third one is like small and fun. And if you can get all three done, then your day is just gonna be
Made
Made. So that's what I'm trying to use paper for, because while there are beautiful apps like Bento and Make Time, it does feel real good to write those out. Do you have any tips and tricks now that I've talked the whole podcast?
Uh, man, get on TikTok and find ADHD TikTok. It's so fun to watch it cuz some things I've realized I do without being told to. And I'm like, I do that. So now I know why I do that. Like I saw one recently, uh, where somebody just gave the tip of, do you need to be productive while you're at home? Especially if you're working from home? Keep your shoes on. It sends a signal to your brain. This is not cozy time. This is, and I do that.
I've done that when I first made the switch long before the pandemic
Uh, oh, I'm putting my shoes back on.
Put your shoes back on! When I made the switch before the pandemic to work from home many, many years ago, I, I started a rule. I had two hard and fast rules. One I could wear PJs, but they had to be different PJs than the ones I woke up in. No going from bedtime into daytime. So cozy clothes are fine, but they have to be clean, fresh, not what I slept in. Two, no working on the couch.
Cuz I knew that that would become slippery slope to working on any surface all over the house and having no work well and having no work/life balance. Um, and so I, I made those rules. I stuck to those rules and somewhere along the way, I started both getting dressed, not in PJ's, but in actual clothing and also putting on shoes. And then now to hear somebody else be like, yeah, put on shoes, but try it. It does, I I'm, I'm worse about it in the winter when I wanna be wearing slippers.
So I have like hard-soled slippers that are like my daytime slippers that are different from my nighttime slippers.
Yes. And, and for those of you, uh, like our friend Fitz that says shoes in the house are a deal breaker, which I understand,
So have house shoes.
Or, or business socks.
It's about sending the signal to your brain, that this is a differentiation of time and space, because as we've talked about before, we don't have the same relationship with time that neurotypical people may, and that's fine. And so it's all about another trick that I learned is, and it's kind of in line with what you were saying. First thing in the day, you need to come up with some kind of low reach gratifying task because that starts signaling the brain that today's gonna be a good day.
Today's gonna be a productive day. So if, even if it's like, you know, on it, it's your day off and you were gonna clean the house and do the laundry and the dishes, and also binge watch, you know, whatever the latest and greatest is. Don't get up and go to the couch, get up and do a, just, you know, take the garbage outside. It's two minutes, but then that signals to your brain, we're being productive right now.
And that feels so good that you associate that good feeling, that accomplishment with marking more tasks off your list. Because it's so much harder to lift yourself out of that borderline, you know, just lethargic, comatose state on the couch. Then if you just stay upright in the beginning. And that's where I think people with ADHD get a bad rap for procrastinating. It's not, you know, something we're doing.
It's something that we fell into and if we had just reversed order, um, and in reversed engineered that. Um, and so now I do, when I know I have to get through some things, I'll try and get up, do something gratifying first and see how long I can keep that momentum going until I'm ready to sit on my butt and binge watch something, which is also okay.
Is also okay. Which is also, you know, you get points, you get points for these things. Um, but, but there's a system called Eat the Frog, which is the opposite of what you just talked about. Right. Do the most difficult unpleasant thing first to get outta your way. That just doesn't work for us. I don't think it works for us at all. I think it has to be a way to, like you said, you need that reinforcement and that kind of like rollercoasterness of, okay. Well I guess I'm working now.
Okay. Maybe I can do the, okay. Maybe the frog is, is edible now.
I, I always get my brain ,chemicals mixed up about what's serotonin and what's dopamine. And, but there is something chemical to that, you know, I've, I've accomplished something that, that just gets you into that mode. Maybe. I don't know somebody who knows science better than me is that serotonin, dopamine or something else? Um, but. So, yeah, I don't think Eat the Frog would work. And I also just want to quickly say, as far as humans go, we don't have to earn our rest.
Like we just get to rest because like we're not robots.
True.
Sometimes you feel like, oh, I, I can't sit still or I can't take a day until, uh, no, you can, if you want to, you absolutely can just drop it and do what you wanna do. We give you permission and you should give yourself permission too.
Mm-hmm Yes. Tell 'em ADHd20 said so.
the way, we didn't do a good job. So last week we told everybody that we now have Patreon and we would love for you to join there. Mostly just to be part of the conversation and to be part of our crowd, posse, whatever word we're using.
Mm-hmm.
So we've mentioned Fitz and our good buddy Meg Anderson-King party. Um, they were watching because that's one of the things that we're now probably going to offer is that we will stream these recordings live for our patrons, and you can hop on, join us in the chat, watch us dance. If that sounds fun to you, head to our Patreon page, if that does not, keep it to yourself,
Yeah, no problem. Don't worry about it.
No problem at all.
It's cool. We love you.
Yep. Absolutely we do.
I feel great about everybody who joined us today and, and are listening right now. And, uh, yeah, if you have any questions about productivity and you want somebody with lots of opinions, but also willing to jump the ship and join whatever cool new thing you've got to. I'm your guy, man.
Yeah,
Yeah, I'm ready.
You are. You're it.
I'm ready to learn new things. So
You're
them together. Yeah. All right. Well, until the
Thank you.
until the next time, all.
Talk to you soon.
Bye
Bye.