Continuing from last week, this is part two of our rant on the education system. We argue that it was fundamentally designed for a different era, designed to produce obedient workers, efficient at performing arbitrary tasks. Not necessarily to teach you the most about the world. And certainly not to teach people curiosity, independence, entrepreneurship — traits that are becoming increasingly more crucial in the new era.
Part one of our rant on the education system. Our experiences are quite different: Michael had a great time in his 5 years of university; Radek never went to college at all. We both agree, though, that the way schooling is done is deeply flawed, outdated, and ineffective at teaching.
At Nozbe, everyone works remotely. Usually that means, from home. But sometimes, we work even more remotely — while traveling. We share tips on how we pull this off, how to be productive while in such an imperfect work environment.
Future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed. It's fun, if sometimes frustrating, to live in the future — use the hardware, work, learn, and live like people will in the future.
Discussing simplicity, Steve Jobs, communication styles, empathy, and other thoughts from the book "Insanely Simple".
Why is studying productivity a worthwhile pursuit? Many people assume it's all useless — and much of it is! Like with dieting, it's a field filled with charlatans promising amazing results with barely any effort at all. Yet, underneath all the nonsense is wisdom to be discovered. Michael and Radek share their journey with productivity and explain why they got interested in it in the first place.
A random, rambly discussion about a rambly book on randomness.
Live from the twice-a-year Nozbe Reunion in Toruń!
Feel free to skip this one, because this week we're breaking all the rules about not getting in trouble on the internet… to talk about politics. Yes, really.
Idleness is good for the brain. After a day of hard, deep work, you ought to disconnect from work completely, shut it down, and recharge for the next day. Commit to this, work can wait. Radek shares a little habit he's developed to help maintain this work/life balance.
Technology grab bag: Bose QC35 review, some thoughts on new iPad and iPhone rumors, and an update to Radek's MacBook Pro review
Everyone knows that sleep is important (or so we hope), but it isn't just the quantity of sleep that matters, it's the quality of sleep as well. There's a ton of little factors that influence both how long and how well you sleep. On this episode, we'll be unpacking the most important ones we've learned from the book Sleep Smarter.
Michael Sliwinski shares a pro tip he learned from Michael Hyatt: how to design a template for your ideal week. A good routine is helpful for productivity.
Rapid improvement (at anything!) requires a tight feedback loop. And for a feedback loop, you need… well, feedback — data. Radek had been tracking lots of such data (weight, habits, hours spent on different projects) in a big spreadsheet for almost 7 years. Michael just started recently. This week, we're discussing how we're doing it, and why.
How do you turn reading into action? It's good to read lots of books, but if you're neglecting to actually apply the things you've learned to your life, then it's barely more than a form of intellectual entertainment.
This one's different. We're celebrating Nozbe's 10th birthday!
A year of your life is precious. Instead of just going with the flow (and often, ending up nowhere), it's worth taking a deliberate approach to planning your year. Every year. Not "New Year's Resolutions", no. Those never work. An actual plan, with goals you can hold yourself accountable to. A plan you review every week.
Real world examples of how we applied ideas from "Peak" in our lives to learn faster and better.
We're back from our winter break, and this week we're discussing the book Peak. We want to understand, on a deeper level, how people become good at what they do, and what's the best approach to learning. Peak offers important clues towards the answer. In fact, this book inspired both of us enough that we're incorporating its ideas into our plans for 2017.
Continuing our conversation from last week, we share some more thoughts about the future of Mac. (Hint: it's switching to the ARM architecture). This is our last episode of the year! We'll be back in two weeks.
Radek reviews the new MacBook Pro (with Touch Bar).
At every stage of our lives, when we aspire, succeed, or fail, our ego is the enemy. It's too easy to fall into the trap of ego and start believing your own delusions and hubris, that you're smarter and better than you really are, that it's others that are at fault, that you've already learned all you have to learn. "Sure, other people do that, but not me", you might think to yourself — and yet that's exactly the thinking that leads towards this fate. We discuss how we felt reading Ryan Holiday'...
Discussing more unorthodox ideas about running a business from Under New Management. Trying to figure out why so many companies believe that open-space offices are a good thing. Discussing salary transparency — we're not doing it, but maybe we should?
The way today's companies are ran closely mimics the management methods of the industrial revolution era firms. But the realities of modern organizations — that rely mostly on knowledge and creative work — is very different. Just like the world has moved on from the industrial era, so should our management practices. This week, we discuss Under New Management by David Burkus.
Briefly reviewing Disrupted by Dan Lyons, and more generally discussing and criticizing the startup culture. A cautionary tale.
Personal Quarterly Offsite (or just "quarterly review") is your feedback loop for life. Every three months, you give a day to yourself to review your whole life, reflect deeply, learn from your mistakes, and make plans and decisions for the next quarter. Michael and Radek share why and how they do it, and some concrete conclusions from their Q3 reviews.
Continuing our discussion about morning routines, we talk about how we design our week to make productivity easy. Pro-Tip: Productivity becomes much simpler once you accept your weaknesses as a human being.
Radek shares some pro-tips and brain hacks he used to regain control over his morning routine. The first step is to wake up early and consistently, and that's hard. The second step is to get rid of the compulsive Twitter reading habit in the morning. And the third part is to actually remember to go to sleep early enough. All require the right system, not motivation or discipline.
Live from this week's Nozbe Reunion, we review how the TGIF policy has been working for us in the past 10 weeks. Turns out, it's not so easy to make people work less. But we've learned a lot, we'll be tweaking the process a bit, and we'll keep doing it! Also, a teaser for the new Nozbe.HOW project we've been working on.
Continuing our conversation last week, we're discussing how sharing, cooperation, and remixing are slowly changing our lifes and businesses.
