TOPIC : LEGO and Expertise This week, Dan and Merlin talk about LEGO and what becoming a Master Builder can teach us about expertise. Also: tooth fairies, binder clips, and the pedagogical warning shot. WARNING : This episode of B2W contains information about holiday-related personalities that may be of a sensitive nature. Listener discretion is advised. Links for this episode: How Much Good Is Antibacterial Soap Doing You? - YouTube It's Been 25 Years Since World Wide Web Debuted : NPR Sin...
Mar 18, 2014•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : ““Experiencing Issues”” with Customer Service This week, Dan and Merlin analyze what's really going wrong when we get bad customer service. Spoiler: The brand is only as sound as its day-to-day implementation. Links for this episode: 5by5 | Back to Work #161: Zeitgeist Helmut TOPIC: Time, Sleep, and AspirationsThis week, Dan and Merlin talk about impossible trade-offs and the benefits of remembering this is actually your life. The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings - Progressive Boink This is...
Mar 11, 2014•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Time, Sleep, and Aspirations This week, Dan and Merlin talk about impossible trade-offs and the benefits of remembering this is actually your life. Links for this episode: More Reflection, Less Action - NYTimes.com CAPS To Launch Original Art Auction to Benefit Stan Sakai and Family - Comic Book Resources Contributors include: Adam Hughes, Alex Maleev, Arthur Adams, Batton Lash, Eric Powell, Jan Duursema, Jerry Ordway, Jordi Bernet, Matt Groening, Michael Allred, Mike Mignola, Paul Gulac...
Mar 04, 2014•2 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Dan and Merlin talk about shaving, lights, and Dan's amazing new superpower. Links for this episode: 5by5 | CMD+Space #85: Being a Geek, with John Siracusa This week Myke is joined by John Siracusa. They discuss what it means to be a Geek and explore what John is geeky about.Special guest John Siracusa. Ep. 98: "A Mastiff of Spinach" - Roderick on the Line - Merlin Mann The Problem: They made John check his jingle stick. Twitter / settern: I don't think I'm going t...
Feb 26, 2014•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Merlin and Dan talk about Library Elf, app launchers like Quicksilver and Alfred, Stanley Kubrick, pushing people to create greatness, not knowing what you like until you see it, the typefaces of Moon, and more. Links for this episode: Elf | Your Personal Email Library Reminder Service Moon | Typeset In The Future [VIDEO] Camper Van Beethoven - "Good Guys and Bad Guys" "And let me plaaaaaaaay your guitar." The One Literary Reference You Must Know to Appreciate ?True Detective True Dete...
Feb 18, 2014•1 hr 28 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Why We Have Doors. This week, Dan and Merlin talk about internet nostalgia, hacking vs. whacking, and why we have doors for a reason. Links for this episode: FAQ Friday - What have you wondered about sleep? : askscience Tips for a good night of sleep are usually referred to in a scientific context as "good sleep hygiene". Here is a list from the National Sleep Foundation. Finger protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In computer networking, the Name/Finger protocol and the Finger us...
Feb 11, 2014•2 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : The Spreadsheet of You This week, Dan and Merlin talk more about sleep and how self-quantization can goose your mindfulness. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock [SPONSOR] Application Performance Management & Monitoring | New Relic [SPONSOR] Website Hosting Services, VPS Hosting & Dedicated Servers - HostGator Ungainly X-Mann Meetup #3 — Merlin Mann MERLIN MANN (Back to Work, Roderic...
Feb 04, 2014•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Better Sleep Habits This week, Dan and Merlin do a deep dive on building better sleep habits with a focus on the paradoxes and planning of daily activities that can make all the difference. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Application Performance Management & Monitoring | New Relic [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] lynda.com library | Trial Subscription [SPONSOR] Smile - Welcome Back to Work Fans! 5by5 | Amplified #87: No Mac Pro for Me While at NAMM, Jim joins Dan a...
Jan 28, 2014•2 hr 42 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Isolation and Identity This week, Dan and Merlin talk about civility, identity, Florida, and how you can't unsee Idiocracy . Links for this episode: The Living Wiccan, Curse Removal & Reversal Why Songs Get Stuck in Your Head - Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis - The Atlantic What Are You Doing Right Now? - Merlin Mann "Is this really what you want to be doing right now?" "Right Now, What Are You Doing?" | 43 Folders 5by5 | Amplified #86: Nobody's Getting My Panties This wee...
Jan 21, 2014•2 hr 31 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : The Attention Stack This week, Dan and Merlin talk about—what?—maybe the attention stack . How what we pay attention to (and, yes spend our time on) can't help but affect how we see, think, feel, and decide. Not happy with any of those things? Start working your way down the stack. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Designer Frames & Online Eyeglasses - $95 Rx Glasses | Warby Parker [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] lynda.com/backtowork | Trial Subscription [SPONSOR] F...
Jan 14, 2014•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : The thoughts we think. And think. And think . This week, Dan and Merlin talk about anxiety, compulsive thoughts, and how to at least crack an air hole in a big problem. Way of the future . Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website - Squarespace [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock The Rook: A Novel: Daniel O'Malley: 9780316098809: Amazon.com: Books IMAGE EXPO 2014 Thursday January 9th at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts San Francisco, CA Surv...
Jan 07, 2014•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC: Consistency, Change, and Counting-Down This week, Dan and Merlin return to the evergreen topic of new year's resolutions. Remember: in the main, you are what you've already done a lot. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Squarespace Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. Pages, galleries, blogs, e-commerce, domains, hosting, analytics, 24/7 support - all included. 5by5 | Back to Work #47: Utter Failure & Hotel Steak TOPIC: Resolving to skip the New Y...
Dec 31, 2013•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Christmas and Control This week, Dan and Merlin meander through holiday matters, including the Winter Warlock-like impotence of having your electric meter blow up on Christmas Eve Eve. Links for this episode: The 'Homeland' Finale, Reviewed : The New Yorker When John le Carr? concocted such maneuvers, we saw the characters? machinations but didn?t understand their intent. ?Homeland,? by contrast, just did it all off-screen, and I can?t be the only viewer who felt misled, as opp...
Dec 24, 2013•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Enough. This week, Dan and Merlin meander around the meaning of, "enough," pondering the deep existential pit we dig for ourselves and maybe how to get out of it. Merry Christmas. Get your head out of your ass. Links for this episode: Even An 85 MPH Highway Can't Fix Austin's Traffic Tangle : NPR Austin is the largest city in America with only one interstate running through it. Just six lanes wide through downtown, Interstate 35 backs up for miles regularly. The Postal Service ...
Dec 17, 2013•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Criticism and Its Discontents This week, Dan and Merlin talk about criticism, people who don't like you, and how much to let each have anything to do with the work you produce. Links for this episode: Better - Merlin Mann Politics, celebrity gossip, business headlines, tech punditry, odd news, and user-generated content. These are the chew toys that have made me sad and tired and cynical. Snell-o-vision (How to watch "Doctor Who") As someone who became a fan of the show in the ...
Dec 10, 2013•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Gooseneck Options This week, with Dan re -sick and Merlin full of beans, the boys do a deep dive on hand washing, purpose-built bathroom activity gadgets, and the benefits of arming our children. Links for this episode: Amazon.com: CTA Digital Pedestal Stand for iPad 2/3/4 with Roll Holder: Computers & Accessories Technical Difficulties - 057 - Reinventing Yourself with Merlin Mann Gabe and Erik are joined by Merlin Mann to talk about starting over, what you really should be doing wi...
Dec 03, 2013•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Perfectionism and Procrastination This week, Dan and Merlin talk about why the classic meanings of perfectionism mostly miss the mark; it's less about being scared to finish and more about being terrified to start. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] PDFpenPro: Mac PDF Editor - Create PDF Forms, PDF Table of Contents Everything PDFpen can do and more! Make interactive forms, build tables of contents, and convert Web pages to PDFs when you go PDFpenPro. New in version 6: Microsoft® Word exp...
Nov 26, 2013•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Going Mobile- er . This week, Dan and Merlin are very sick, so they talk about being sick. Then, they talk about what it would take to move to using just an iPad Air on the road. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] OmniFocus - The Omni Group OmniFocus is designed to quickly capture your thoughts and ideas to store, manage, and help you process them into actionable to-do items. Perfect for many different systems, OmniFocus helps you work smarter by gi...
Nov 19, 2013•2 hr 35 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Grab bag This week, Dan takes a minute to sit down with Merlin to talk about bathroom GIFs, Marvel movies, private school ejection, and a new interview with Merlin that is very very long. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock [SPONSOR] Website Hosting Services, VPS Hosting & Dedicated Servers - HostGator The best way to pee into a urinal, according to science - The Week That splash is due to a fluid dynamics term called the Ray...
Nov 12, 2013•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Perception and Perspective. In their second ever live, face-to-face episode, Dan and Merlin talk about goats, noise gate, and taking a step back for a better view of where you are. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Designer Frames & Online Eyeglasses - $95 Rx Glasses | Warby Parker [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] OmniFocus - The Omni Group 5by5 | Bionic #66: Crossover Event This week – with Matt on a secret Vlcnr mission – Myke is joined by Merlin Mann. They discuss...
Nov 06, 2013•1 hr 19 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Preparation This week, Dan and Merlin talk about preparation . Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock Over 30 million stock photos, illustrations, vectors, and videos [SPONSOR] PDFpen Scan+: Scanning and OCR for iPad and iPhone PDFpen Scan enables you to scan multi-page documents, articles, receipts, and more, using the iPhone or iPad camera. Scans are cropped, sized to standard paper sizes, and visually enhanced for legibility. PDF...
Oct 29, 2013•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Traveling Like a Gentleman. This week, Dan and Merlin revisit the travails of air travel. How to prepare, how to survive--and how to be a better and more mindful person along the way. Also, some timely discussion of this morning's Apple product announcements. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace [SPONSOR] Air Display 2 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch on the iTunes App Store [SPONSOR] Web Hosting Services, Reseller Hosting, VPS Hosting, and Dedicated Servers by...
Oct 22, 2013•2 hr 34 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Learning the Wheres and Whens of Productivity This week, Dan and Merlin talk about learning from how you work to improve your basic productivity infrastructure, with specific attention to using Perspectives in OmniFocus . Whether it's consolidating shopping lists, eliminating task rot, or leveraging geolocation, there are innumerable tricks for lightly tweaking a system in powerful, non-fiddly ways. Also: learn Dan's Unified Field Theory of Grocery Shopping. Links for this episode: [SPON...
Oct 15, 2013•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Special Guest, Matt Alexander This week, Merlin is joined by Bionic co-host, Matt Alexander . They discuss ““technology ecosystems,”” life as a self-described trans-atlantic , tech scenes that thrive and don't, dating someone from Florida (and her Mum), and getting back into Marvel comics. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. [SPONSOR] MailRoute: Email Protection - Spam and Virus Filter...
Oct 08, 2013•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Grab Bag, plus Tasks vs. Calendar Items This week Dan and Merlin administer an epic grab bag episode, chockablock with new app, book, podcast, and music suggestions. Also, a return to the evergreen topic of where stuff goes . How to decide whether a given thing goes on a calendar, a todo list, reference files, or an alarm. Great ninja stuff. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Air Login, Air Display, Air Sharing: useful mobile apps | Avatron Software Now you can connect to your Mac from an...
Oct 01, 2013•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Informal Background Self-Quantization This week Dan & Merlin discuss the merits of self-quantization . Which is fancy way of saying, "Merlin got a new Fitbit." Why is anecdotal self-reporting a sucker's bet? What are the benefits of making your life a little video game? And, why is Merlin's scale accessing APIs via the internet? Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] HostGator HostGator is a leading provider of web hosting, reseller hosting, vps hosting, and dedicated servers. Over 8,000,...
Sep 24, 2013•2 hr 31 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Etiquette, Intros, and Endorsements This week, Dan and Merlin talk about the surprisingly complicated topic of email introductions . Who emails whom? Who gets cc'd and for how long? How much homework are we making (or accepting)? And, thorniest of all, how do you ““introduce”” someone you'd reeeeeeally rather not introduce? Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Squarespace Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. Pages, galleries, blogs, e-commerce, domains...
Sep 17, 2013•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Fear of Your Own TODO List This week, Dan and Merlin cover a topic suggested by listener, @jeff_nordstedt : not wanting to look at your todo list . From capture to completion, there are a million ways to fall off the path. The boys take a deep dive on what those ways might be as well as how to get yourself straightened out and, as you say, back to work. Honestly. It's why people hate TODO lists. Well. That and the odor. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Squarespace Squarespace is the eas...
Sep 11, 2013•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC : Joss Whedon GTD; Meeting Redux This week, Dan and Merlin talk about getting specific with your productivity and why every meeting needs an agenda. Now, take a drink . Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Squarespace Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. [SPONSOR] Shutterstock Royalty-Free Subscription Stock Photography & Vector Art [SPONSOR] PDFpen by Smile Mac PDF Editor - Edit, Sign, and Correct PDFs - PDFpen is a powerful Mac PDF editor Ungainly X-Ma...
Sep 03, 2013•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast TOPIC: Talk Shows, Baseball, and Inboxes. This week, Dan and Merlin cover a range of topics related to expertise, experience, professional repetition, and management, culminating in a tour of Merlin's current email filtering strategy. Links for this episode: [SPONSOR] Stock Photos, Royalty-Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock [SPONSOR] Build a Website — Squarespace Ungainly X-Mann Meetup! — Merlin Mann A Nerdy SF Comics Event with Merlin Mann, hosted by Two Cats Comics in West Portal. Schumpet...
Aug 27, 2013•1 hr 29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
