651: I Live From Home

It's time for episode 651 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, April 8th, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, thirty minutes. Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast that brings May Showers. My name is Dan Morn and I am joined, as always, across the internet by my good friend, my pal, the one, the only, Micah Sgt. How you doing today, Micah? Just picking flowers here, Dan, and they're all pretty.

Gorgeous. Yeah. unfortunate'cause they all bring flu they all bring showers. Yeah, maybe I guess it should have been Mayflowers. I you know what? I mixed my metaphors We know what we're doing here. Look, we've done 650 of these, okay? Cut us some slack. Well, this is of course the Technology Podcast where we invite on two fantastic guests to discuss four tech topics in just thirty minutes. To my left this week, it is writer, photographer, late nighter, Jeff Carlson. Welcome back, Jeff.

Hey, thanks for having me back on. And to my left, Business Unicorn, Relay FM switch-on community manager and host of Conduit on This Year Podcast Network. It's Kathy Campbell. Hello, Kathy. Hi. バイバイマイカ

All right. We just got thirty minutes, four topics. Let's get moving. I wanna know how do you keep your email under control? Are you an abundant archiver, a dastardly deleter, a fiendish folder filer? Do you have some other Tricky technology techniques to share with us. Jeff, how do you tame your email? I like how you you put together this idea of email and under control. I don't understand it, but

It's it's really nice and aspirational. Um after many, many years, early years of like trying to file things in different folders and be organized, uh, I just couldn't keep up with the with the flood. So basically anything that I'm done with just goes into a big archive and anything else uh either hangs out in my inbox or stays unread until I you know, do an occasional scan and purge. So, um, my techniques are not ideal, but um given myself

Grace to say, you know what? A lot of this stuff is just crap you I'm not gonna deal with. And if it's that important, someone will reach out again. It's very like self centered, but it kind of works. Yeah. Um I I shouldn't, but I do trust in my different email programs search tool. I am very similar uh to Jeff in that I Well I used to do a lot more and now I just hit the archive button when I'm done with the message.

And that's good. And I'm happy with that. Um, I will say my scan and remove uh process happens. far less w with far less frequency, uh perhaps than it used to. And so I do have a lot of email that just sort of sits there. Uh I've I've given up is basically the truth of the situation. And I just use search. And I'm very happy with that method for myself. But I am curious if Kathy will break the trend here or join us in this world of all archive stuff.

Uh well, okay. So in my uh email app of choice, which is mail.app, I have twenty two active email boxes. Um, because I run emails for some of my clients and things and I do what every productivity guru says not to do, which is If an email comes in, I deal with it right then. Or if it

like I look at it and then if it's gonna take some more time I will do it later. But if it's most of the time it's going to be a quick reply or a quick like Google with the link and stuff. And then after I send the email I archive it because I don't need to do anything with it. I've already done it. Um, this works really, really well for me. So I have no unread emails in my email boxes. Um, and everything gets.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh Um, so I do have like a dozen or so Emails that are still in my inbox for long-term projects to work on that like, hey, this is just a light reminder. You know, in you know, three months I need to look into doing this, but it's nothing that needs to actively be done. And so it just kind of lives there. Um So that's I don't know what kind of uh emailer that is other than um oh my gosh, I'm sorry, Steve just posted a photo of his email in the

chat in the Discord and that makes me cry. There should not be a comma in your unread emails. I'm sorry. Oh. Hundred sixty four thousand. Well, yeah. Too many emails. In here I thought I was gonna be uh the difficult one. Well, okay. So I asked this question mainly because I I decided a week ago or so that I should start to deal with my email problem, which is that

My inbox had about a hundred and forty-eight, emails in it. They were red. I don't leave m emails on red. I just leave everything in my inbox. But the problem I was starting to feel was like, man, every time I want to like search mail or need to load mail on a new device. or it wants to re-download my entire in inbox, it was just being like, uh and so I was like, well maybe I can move a bunch of that stuff in bulk to archive and I set out to find a uh a system to do that.

Which maybe Mike and I'll talk a little bit later in the uh our unwound segment about. Um I don't know if this really solves my problem by just shuffling the stuff into the archive because it's still all there and the honest truth is there's probably a ton of stuff in there that's just Stuff that can get deleted. Um, but I'd never really spent a lot of time doing the archive thing before.

Um I think I just you know, I try to delete stuff that I don't need, but uh I am also a pack rat and emails tends to be pretty cheap because it's just small little bits of storage. Um and I like having a giant searchable index. Uh that would help if mail.app search was better. Um, but you know, it is what it is. So uh I have a couple folders that I use for very specific things.

generally my tactic is like if there's something I need to refer back to, it gets flagged and I use different colors for different ty like topics or like areas of my life, you know, personal stuff versus writing stuff versus stuff for clockwise or stuff for one of my other podcasts. Um and that way I can quickly filter through and find just the stuff that's refer like relevant to whatever task I need it for. Um because I I very much believe in these sort of like

You shouldn't have to spend too much time thinking about it. And it's definitely one of those places I find myself thinking, I'm surprised that Apple has not spent more time trying to improve that system. They kind of did that uh email categorization thing last year and it wasn't great. Um I feel like maybe there's better ways to help people because we all still have to deal with email.

But yeah, if there's anything I've learned from all of us, it's that the less thinking you have to do about it, the better. So thank you for your thoughts on that. Let's move to our second topic, which comes from Jeff.

So I just recently changed my family's mobile phone plans to save some money and because we're on ATT, they're starting to apply a new fee to legacy plans. And so my question is for your wireless, for your cell phones, do you tend to go with the top tier plan that has more data and perks, or do you look for the most affordable option or maybe something in between? You know, I think if I changed my plan at this point, I would not go with a top-tier plan. Um, I work from home.

And I live from home and I I do a lot of my sort of phone browsing or just frankly any browsing at home where I have access to Wi-Fi. And that means that the cellular aspect of my phone plan, the uh, you know, unlimited data, et cetera, et cetera, is not necessary. Um and so I think that if I had to change plans right now, I would probably go for one that was more affordable as opposed to right now with all of the data and all of the perks um that this plan has.

Yeah, I I think uh given the opportunity to change it at this point, I would would try to save some money. Uh Kathy, what about you? So I am on a massive family. with my parents, uh, my brother and his wife, um, and then our family. And with the military discount that they get. it's actually cheaper to keep it at an unlimited data option. Um and we're on And the nice part is is if you're in the check unlimited option, oh, we're on Verizon, by the way. Um

There are d again, extra tiers within the unlimited. It's very confusing. It's very weird. Um, there's a couple of us that are on just like the basic unlimited. But then some of us have the ability for a hot spot. I have that. But when I travel internationally, I bump up one more because then I get access to free international data. So, like when I was in Prague for a week, I just bumped it up and it was eight dollars a month as opposed to ten dollars a day. And I'm like

Okay, yeah, let's do that. And then I just bump down when the month is over. So they do make it really easy. Um, and I don't think I would do anything different. I like that there's different levels of unlimited. I love that all of it. They all do uh I'm on the limited unlimited, but I'm on the unlimited unlimited. Um first of all, Jeff, thanks because I read uh the article that you linked to in the show notes when I saw this and was like, Wait, I'm on AT and T

Uh and I realize I'm probably gonna have to change our phone plans because of the weird shenanigans they're doing. Uh I'm on a family plan with my parents and my wife. And Um I we use like different levels of plans per uh like individually. Like my wife and I have the like slightly higher ones because Uh we think we both like having the option for hotspot data. I use the hotspot stuff on my iPhone pretty pretty frequently, um, and that's a nice benefit to have.

And so we tend to be on the higher, though not the highest plan. I think sort of the mid range. And then my parents who don't really use much data are on the lowest of the plans because they are generally totally fine. They don't spend a lot of time traveling or leaving the house. The only exception being my mom also has an iPad with a cellular plan. So that's on our our plan as well.

Um and I think that's all generally pretty fine. I've considered dropping myself down to even to the lower level. I once um I I once suggested this to my wife, and she's like, You wanna throttle me? You want my d- Let's be clear. Let's be clear. That's not what I'm saying. I just think You could say some money and I don't think you No, okay, that didn't go over. It's like you asked for divorce. Ha ha ha ha.

It does. Uh my lawyer's worked everything out. It's great. Anyway, uh yeah, so so we uh I will say one of the nice things that ATT has made easier in um recent years is Um, my my mom can pay for like her and my dad's part of the bill and I can pay for my wife and my part of the bill rather than in the past when it's like I would just pay for everything and every once in a while when she remembered my mom would write me a check. Less convenient. Yeah.

Um anyway. Jeff, why don't you wrap us up here? Yeah. So it's it's kind of all of this. Um what what's what I like about ATT and and I should probably mention the reason I'm on ATT mostly is because when you got the original iPhone, the only option was Singular, which then turned into ATT. And even though at CNET I cover all this stuff, I have to admit I've not really explored other carriers because it's so much work and so much detail.

Uh but in this case I finally made the move because they are going to start charging either five dollars a line or twenty dollars for an account if you have old uh old plans they called retired plans. And so that just kind of prompted me to to finally do something about this. Uh one unexpected thing though is because I had like the unlimited elite I don't know all the names are so ridiculous. Yeah.

I know, I know. Th th there was there was one thing that I was reporting on. They had an an unlimited uh ultimate plan and also an ultimate unlimited plan. It was just insane. Anyway, sorry, I'm getting off track. Um one of the things that that I ran into when I was doing this, and believe me, like I have a spreadsheet and I've got like the whole thing, uh was that on my old plan it bundled HBO Mac.

And now I had to give that up because of um moving to the new plans that don't have that bundle. So now it's also factoring in, okay, well now if I still want to keep HBO Mac. Am I gonna move up to the higher bundle for for Disney? And am I gonna get the version with ads? No, no, I'm never gonna get the version with ads. But you know, it's like it's all that kind of stuff. So

Uh to answer my own question, I d I tend to stick to the top one because of the hotspot and the the high speed and because I test a lot of this stuff. Uh but the rest of my family is now just on the lower one because they're mostly getting stuff through through Wi Fi. Yeah. But yeah, it's it it's a big confusing mess and um it's fun. I mean that's what I meant. I meant it's fun.

Is it? All right. That's two topics down, two topics left to go, which of course means it's halftime here at Clockwise. This week's episode is brought to you by Steam Clock. Look, a lot of mobile apps, they're mediocre, not broken, just okay, but you notice the difference the moment you use something good.

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I was just curious, uh do you use noise canceling headphones or earbuds. Uh, what's your experience with noise cancellation? You know, I've heard some people say that it makes them feel dizzy. Uh perhaps for you it doesn't. Uh, can you is it sort of a take it or leave it thing? Doesn't really impact you, or do you love it? Is it a make it or break it for you whenever it comes to getting a new pair of headphones? Kathy, we'll start with you.

Uh when I use noise canceling, it makes me feel nauseous, which is fun. Just not actually. But I have learned a workaround. Um, if I turn on the background sounds, so the option in the app um or in the iPhone for you y if you have I have the little uh ear in the control center and you click on it and you can choose background sounds.

If I have like ocean or rain or something playing consistently, then like when the song or a podcast, if there's a breath or a pause or something, it doesn't wipe out and give me nausea. Um, so I listen I use that on planes. 100% of the time um with my AirPods Max. I can't do noise cancellation with the earbuds. of any kind. I've tried dozens. It does not work even with the Um, audio background sounds. Um, so that's my weirdness. How about yours?

Um I've used noise canceling headphones for some years. I had a pair of the Bows over the ear ones for a long time, which I liked quite a bit. Uh I now use AirPods Pro Two, uh, which I've had for many years.

Um it doesn't tend to bother me. Uh I don't find that I have like a physiological effect from it. I think more than anything the the in ear parts of earbuds tend to bother me more um just because I find them less comfortable in some cases still and I find that like in certain cases, depending on like things like temperature or air pressure or stuff like that, when I'm like walking around outside, I'll get the vibrations from just walking and they'll like

uh make everything feel very thumpy in my head. Um and so sometimes the noise cancelling can exacerbate that because it's blocking out all the extra sounds. Um but in general the noise cancelling part of it I just find a nice uh benefit. Um

I would say the only exception is I do sometimes like if I wake up in the middle of night and I can't get back to sleep, I'll put in my AirPods and, you know, have on some like white noise or something like that. And uh I struggle sometimes with when you've got like a noise cancelling, but like you kind of lose the seal a little bit and it gets a little it can sometimes feel a little strange, especially when you've got like your head on the pillow or something, but

Generally that's the kind of thing I find if I just sort of move around I can I can avoid. Doesn't bother me too much. Jeff, what about you? This was absolutely a feature that I thought, eh, I don't really need this. It's it's an extra whatever. And then once I had a taste of real good noise cancelling, uh now I'm like, yes, bring it on almost every time. Um part of this is because my wife and I share an office and she's on the phone a lot for work. So I like to have uh good

Uh y not exceptional noise cancelling. I just need like a little bit of a of a buffer there. And that works just fine. I had some AirPods Macs. Uh they eventually died, so I bought some inexpensive uh anchor ones that are perfectly fine. Uh I tried using the AirPods Pro I guess two AirPods Pro three for a while and that helped, but just having the earbuds in my ears just was not comfortable over hours and hours and hours.

But I will say that I didn't quite realize how much that I liked the the noise cancellation until recently I went to a coffee shop to do some work and I realized I had left my AirPods at home. And my God, that place was loud. It could be because this was this was in downtown Seattle. I think there was a whole group of tourists and they were, you know, chatting and whatever. But

Uh, just not being able to tune things out by this magical technology was a little bit jarring. So now I'm afraid that I'm relying on it too much, but um, you know. It's good and it helps me focus. And overall, the quality and the advancement of it has been really impressive. So yeah, I'm all in on it. Every once in a while, um, I will have a moment where it starts to make me feel a little ill. And I it's it's almost like I'm afraid of getting tinnitus. I am the it's the same thing with this.

I sort of go into denial mode, like, no, you're not feeling ill right now because you can't possibly live without noise cancellation. I love noise cancellation. Sometimes I just pop'em in, there's nothing playing. It's just quieter. And I can hear all of my body sounds. And for some people that's frightening and it reminds them of their mortality. Yep. But sometimes the thing that makes me feel most calm is being reminded of my mortality.

And so I like to listen to nothing and just be noise canceled from the world. Uh, and so thank you all for sharing your answers on that. This podcast just got deep. For me for me it's definitely a make it or break it. I I I would not outside of uh headphones that I'm using for podcasting, if I'm gonna get some headphones for music listening or audiobook listening. They had better have noise cancellation. Ooh, threatening. Or else. Yeah. Gathy, it's time for your topic or else.

What is something you do the analog way, even though a perfectly good tech version exists? Oh man, uh this is a tough question because I think there are so many things that I tend to default to kind of the the tech based version of it. Um I think probably the one that comes to mind most of all is Um actually it's like a lot of the stuff I do with my kid these days. Like I know there are apps and stuff that I could be doing some of the like like games and things like that.

But I just find that in general we're usually doing sort of low tech stuff, whether it's

I don't know, reading a book or or playing with, you know, his little wooden trains. Like at one point to distract him during a meal at some point one of my cousins showed him like a an iPhone game where he could like build trains on the screen and and my wife and I kind of were like, Oh no, is this the moment that we To the to the online and he he asked for it once or twice after that and then he kinda forgot about it and we're like we're So

Um I guess that's kind of the thing that comes to mind first is just this idea that we like we found ways to hopefully entertain him that don't require as much technology and it's not to suggest we're being Luddites or anything. He does watch, you know, movies and And videos and stuff like that. But but we don't like immediately default to like games that he can play on the on the phone as much as we try to like have him do sort of more low tech stuff. Jeff, what about you?

Uh, this is gonna be incredibly surprising, but um I'm gonna talk about coffee because um when I I mean, I have like a a decent espresso machine, so I guess that that still counts as tech. But most days I just make a a pour over for my wife and I. And that's just, you know, I guess technology and grinding the beans and heating up the water, but that's kind of about it. Um

My my brain went to things like, well, what about reading? And then I realized that lately I've been reading mostly uh on the iPad, reading ebooks. And, you know, just things like that. But um The coffee. In addition to being like a real manual thing, like it is also that that ritualistic thing too. So for a few minutes every morning, I'm not doing anything on devices at all, and it's actually kind of nice.

A lot of a lot of stuff that you have digital versions for, I don't go that way with it. So Uh recipes are a really good example. I like to have my recipes printed out and have the physical version, even though it's literally coming from an app. I print it from the app. Uh I just don't

uh there's something about having it on the screen that it just makes me f feel like I'm forgetting things. Whereas when it's i on a piece of paper, I feel like I can follow along. And perhaps there's something to like the uh looking at a a a printed out recipe and seeing little marks on it and going, Oh right, like I made this before and here's where I got the cocoa uh powder on the the side. That's my thumbprint. Um, also crochet stuff. I will take the digital patterns and

edit them so that they work for me and then print them out. Um, because I will cross out things as I complete them. Um I've been really into paint by numbers lately, just as a fun little sort of pastime. And obviously there are digital versions of that. Plenty of digital painting apps, but Um, I doing it by hand. And then also I do run a uh in-person D game.

And so there's a per there are plenty of perfectly good digital tech versions of the of of running D D, but there's something about doing it um, you know, in person at a table that is also quite delightful. That's my answer. Kathy, what's yours? Uh, so I thought about this because um I do basically my daily planning on paper. Um I handwrite my brain dumps and handwrite journaling. It's all that pen and paper

vibes. And then Micah, when you were saying about cross or uh crochet, I realized that my cross stitch I print out the pattern and then I can highlight and black out the parts that I'm done. And I know there are so many different apps and like ways to do it on your phone or an iPad. And I'm like, I don't want to. I want just this little container that has everything that I need. Um, so thank you for sharing.

All right. That is our four topics down. We got just enough time for a bonus topic. So let me ask you this. Do you have a favorite architectural style? Jeff? I don't know if I have a favorite, but my eye is always drawn to more modern angular stuff. I do not live in a modern Angular house. Uh there are very few of them around me even, but that's what catches my eye.

Same, same as Jeff. I love that uh style. I I don't even know, you know, like there are different versions of it, but i uh on a given block you'll see one of those houses. That's the one I'm looking at. That's one that other people are going, Micah, did you see that one? Yeah, very much that. Right. Kathy, what about you? I really like Art Nouveau. Um, it's a little bit softer than the Art Deco, but it's always so interesting and there's always little pieces in it that just make it so

like constantly you can just stare at it and look at it and find new things. Yeah. Those are all good. I I'm a big Art Deco fan. I don't know. There's something about the sort of the angular shapes and the ex like the flourishes and the look of it. I'm a sucker for a great Art Deco building. Uh it's just amazing.

Uh hey, if you'd like to get ad-free episodes with an extra unwound episode every week, you can become a member of Clockwise. Just go to relay.fm slash clockwise and sign up for just seven dollars per month or seventy dollars a year, and you will help support the show. And we really appreciate it. And with that we have reached the end of this week's episode. All that remains is for us to thank our fantastic guests. Jeff Carlson, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, it's always a pleasure. And Kathy Campbell, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, as always. And Micah, we'll be back next week running the show smooth as silk like we always do. Uh but until then, we remind everyone out there listening, watch what you say and keep it. Watch the clock. Bye everybody.