From the Macintosh to the Vision Pro — and beyond

27:59And people would buy it, even if they didn't need the extra power it gave. And so he could have one laptop that would do everything. And you might say, well, that kind of, even Jobs in his four square thing had two laptops, a consumer and a pro, but Johnny wanted to have one laptop. And there was a big war between the design team and its acolytes. In other words, the Johnny Ive led team and the engineering and product manager side of the company, which desperately wanted new improved versions of the Air because the Air was their best-selling product, probably the best-selling laptop in the world, the thing everyone was chasing, and they did not want to leave it on a hill to die.

28:44But that's what they thought was happening. And this battle kept up for a while. And finally, the product guys and the engineers managed to yank it back. And they brought out a new MacBook Air with very minimal changes, but it was a new model. It had, I think, more storage, faster, you know, whatever. Basically like a spec bump of a laptop. Correct. And I remember that they introduced it at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. And this source of mine pulled me aside and said, we finally won. And then it was the first, I think it was the first machine or one of the first machines to get Apple Silicon.

29:25So I still have an M1 MacBook Air. You being a professional computer writer probably have an m3 pro or something but believe it or not as a testament to how good this stuff has been i'm still very happily on an m1 macbook air i upgraded basically every minute i could new computers until i got to apple silicon and i've been happy with the m1 for what three years now yeah me too well good good for you yeah but wait what i really want to know is you very famously bought two MacBook Airs before all of the MacBook Air stuff got weird with the butterfly keyboards and all the nonsense they were doing to those computers on the idea that when my computer runs out, I'll still have one that I like.

30:09That's right. Have you been able to safely get rid of the backup MacBook Air? Has Apple won you back with Apple Silicon that now you can buy the new ones instead of? The backup MacBook Air, to my wife's chagrin, is still, I think, in the basement wrapped up in plastic, in the box, in the plastic thing, you know. Just in case. Just in case. But I love my M1 MacBook Air. It's what I use all the time when I'm using a Mac or any computer. I'll be honest with you. I probably do 75 % of my computing on an iPad or an iPhone now. But when I need to use a computer like right now, this is an iMac. It's an M1 iMac, and it's fine.

30:54And the MacBook Air is fine. And these are Macs. And the Mac has been better than fine for its whole life. so okay before before i let you go here let's talk about the vision pro just for a minute because the big question now is like is this the beginning of a new 40-year cycle are we are you and i going to podcast in 2064 about how incredible the moment that the vision pro came out was and how the world will never be the same there are some things that there's a new interface idea there's a thing that is probably overpriced and underpowered, but seems to have some interesting ideas. What do you think about where we are at the Vision Pro right now?

31:35Well, I think they think that you're right, that this will be like a new Mac or a new iPhone and last, I don't know how long the iPhone will last, but 17 years for a phone seems like a long time. Still pretty good. Yeah. That's what I think they think they're embarked on. And they're very realistic. They know this. We don't have the numbers yet, but they know that this one is going to sell less than a million in its first year and all of that. They don't expect millions of people to go out and buy a$3 ,500 thing with a battery that lasts two hours and is separate from the device and all the other things.

32:13On the other hand, they think what they like to call spatial computing is a real thing and has a lot of potential. even though every major possible developer has refused to build something for it. That was actually true on the Mac too, by the way. Microsoft and Adobe were the only ones that built anything for it. And then Apple's in-house stuff at the beginning. So I think that's what they think. What do I think? I think it depends on how smart and fast they are at getting the price down without too much sacrifice and features, and also at getting the size of it down. And those two things may not run in tandem.

32:58There may be a cheaper version of what we have now, this big thing you wear on your face with very poor battery life. And at the same time, maybe a year later, they'll start to shrink the size of it until eventually they're in their dreams, and this is their dream. I know for 100 % fact that this is Tim Cook's dream, that it gets to be these. It gets to be like this. Don't ask me how you can pack a battery and all that power into this, and there's no cord going down and all that, but electricity still can't be carried over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and all that. I think that's their ultimate goal. I don't know if they can ever reach that goal.

33:43But it also could be that society kind of gets used to things being worn on your face as long as they're not as huge as this. And they may be able to go half the size of this and be okay. I don't know. I certainly would not be willing to say it's a 40-year product. But you're not ruling out that they're onto something? I don't think it's a one-year product because they have a lot of money and they already have a roadmap. It's more than a roadmap. They're already designing the next one to be less money. They have a roadmap for the next three after that. So it could be a, if it's a failure, it could be a four or five year, three or four year product.

34:26If it's not a failure and they're selling a plausible amount and the margin is good and all of that, and they're not losing money on it, they'll never break out sales on it, I'm sure. Unless a miracle happens and they sell a million in the first month. Then there will be a press release. At 100%, there will be a press release. And the stock will shoot up. But this is a new area. Meta is involved in it in certain ways. It's worth watching. You guys have covered it very well. My impression so far from everybody, including uh nilai in the first look is technically it's genius they've technically done a genius job but in terms of the price and the overall design it's not something people will want to buy i i think you're right and i think again thinking about like the 40-year legacy of of something like the mac i think the iphone is sort of a clear before and after moment right i think the the day the iPhone came out, there was this thing that happened and everybody's like, oh, this is it.

35:33Yeah, but they still had to cut the price on it by a hundred bucks. Sure. No, I totally think that's right. That was another example of right kind of overpriced and underpowered, but it was obvious there was something there. Obvious, instantly obvious. This one, it's a little less obvious. And so I think the question of the next couple of years, like, I think you're right that evaluating the idea of the Vision Pro on this object is actually not the right way to think about it. So I'm trying to think about sort of the five-year run before we see the five-year run, if that makes sense. And I think there are reasons to think we might look back on this as the beginning of something cool, overpriced and underpowered, but on the right track.

36:13But at least to me, it doesn't scream, this is the right idea to me, the way the iPhone did. I mean, look, the iPhone and the Mac actually both had to have price reductions. And in the case of the iPhone, we'll all remember that, you know, it started out without copy and paste. Started out with a bunch of stuff that was missing. So it might have been the third version of the iPhone or the one where they got off Edge, which I think was the third was the 3GS. In some ways, that was the first full-fledged iPhone. And, you know, then then the hockey stick began. Saw a chart just yesterday, but it was like an Apple chart.

36:52It was not from Apple, but it was like an Apple chart in that it didn't have very many numbers for the X and Y axis. Just had lines going up. You couldn't really tell. It was a color chart. You know, it said yellow is the Mac and green is everything else. I don't know. So they've about tripled what their share was early. And I assume, I mean, if the Mac was taken out of Apple, I think it's a$30 billion business. Am I right? Something like that. That sounds right. Yeah. If it was taken out of Apple, it would be a Fortune 500 company all by itself. Same is true, of course, of the iPhone. But the Mac, which was long considered, you know, like almost dying and it was the last thing and all that, it would be a Fortune 500 company.

37:42Yeah. Not bad for being 40 years old. And not bad for being 40 years old. All right. Well, I'm putting 2064 on the calendar for our 40 year Vision Pro retrospective. And between now and then, we're going to have to have lots of reasons to have you back on. Thank you for doing this. This was super fun. I'd love to do it. All right. We got to take a break. And then we're going to come back and talk about getting things done, being productive, being a person on the internet, and why overthinking your productivity system might not be such a good idea. We'll be right back.

38:16Support for this show comes from Shopify. One of the most exciting parts of starting a business is when the sales start coming in. If your business is looking to start selling online, Shopify has everything you need to create your online store. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S., from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started. With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand's style. And Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography.

38:55And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing, returns, and beyond. Turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash vergecast. Go to shopify.com slash vergecast. Shopify.com slash vergecast. Support for this show comes from LinkedIn. When you're a small business owner, your business is on your mind 24-7. So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs.

39:41When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. LinkedIn's new features can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Either post your job for free or pay to promote. Promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates. And with LinkedIn, you can feel confident that you're getting the best.

40:13Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of SMBs using LinkedIn say that it helps them find high-quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash track. That's linkedin.com slash track to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Support for this show comes from Zapier. When people talk about AI, they often talk about the future. How will AI affect the economy? What will AI's potential be in the future? Will AI be able to make popular art? But the more important question is, what can AI actually do for your business today?

40:55If you're looking for a concrete implementation of AI for your business, you can try Zapier. Zapier says they can help you and your team actually reap the benefits of AI, not just talk about it. With Zapier's AI orchestration platform, you can bring the power of AI to your work. Connect top AI models like ChatGPT and Claude to the apps your team already uses, so you can add AI exactly where you need it. Whether that's automatically enriching leads, coaching your sales rep, resolving IT tickets, or more, you can do it all with Zapier. Zapier is for everyone, tech expert or not. No IT bottlenecks, no complexity.

41:32No AI hype, just results. Teams have already automated over 300 million AI tasks using Zapier. Join the 3.4 million companies already automating with Zapier and transform how you work with Zapier in AI. Get started for free by visiting zapier.com slash verge. That's Z-A-P-I-E-R dot com slash verge.

42:01All right, we're back. If you've been listening to this show for a while, or if you subscribe to my newsletter called Installer, Shameless Self-Promotion, you know I'm like way over my head deep into productivity software. I've used all the to-do apps, all the notes apps, all the calendars, everything imaginable that claims it'll help me get more done and make my life better. And you can't spend much time in that corner of the internet without encountering this guy. Full name Ali Abdaal, and I guess doctor turned entrepreneur and author? I don't know. Maybe that. Ali is right. He does do a lot of things.

42:36His YouTube channel is how I discovered him, and I'm a big fan. Hey, friends. Welcome back to the channel. In this video, I want to talk through seven habits that I try my best to do every day, and that saved me around three hours every single day. Most recently, Ali wrote a book called Feel Good Productivity, How to Do More of What Matters to You. The book came out just this week, and it's great, and you should totally buy it and read it. But it is not at all what I expected. I expected the book to be all about cool tools and sick hacks and tips and tricks and systems for how to get more stuff done.

43:04After all, this is the guy who makes videos about his super complicated calendar system and the six AI tools he uses to increase productivity and how to build your ultimate productivity system. He's done that kind of video a few times and it always does gangbusters numbers. And in fact, Feel Good Productivity is almost the opposite of that. It's kind of a book about what makes us human as much as it is about how to be productive. And I got really curious about that combination of things and whether all the tools and apps and systems are even solving the right problems for us. I also figured this was a good time.

43:38We're three weeks into January. It's the beginning of a new year. This is, I think, statistically right about the time most people ditch their New Year's resolutions. So it seemed like a fun time to talk about what it means to actually be productive and what it really takes. So I asked Ali to come on and tell me about writing the book, his productivity journey and a whole bunch more. We started with one of the book's recurring themes, which is ironically the book itself. One of the things I like about the book is how much time in the book you spend talking about the process of writing the book, which is a delightfully like meta thing to do in a productivity book.

44:11It's like you could have kind of written the whole book about writing the whole book and it would have it still would have sort of tracked. But I could feel it in the process of reading the book that it was like, you took this thing seriously in a pretty unusual way that it was like, I want to make a thing that lasts in a way that I think we're just not incentivized to do that on the internet most of the time. No, exactly. Like everything on the internet is very, is very ephemeral. Yeah. Throughout the whole process, I was like, I want to, I want to take this seriously, but not too seriously to the point that it becomes paralyzing, but sincerely enough that, you know, I'm showing up and putting in my best effort.

44:44Yeah. Sincerely, not seriously. One of the good lessons of the book. I like that very much. So part of the reason I wanted to talk to you about this is I feel like if I were to like boil the central thesis of your book down, it's that an underrated way to be productive is to make things more fun. That's literally it. There's a lot more to it. And that's obviously like a massive generalization of what you're saying. But I think that's like not a totally wrong takeaway from the book. Is that fair? That is literally the thesis that we started the book with. And the title initially was called Make It Fun.

45:10Oh, yeah. Okay. Or like fun productive as unproductive, unproductive. It's like we played around with so many different titles. Eventually, we kind of realized that the word fun doesn't quite capture it. And really, like a lot of the science around it was this idea of feeling good and positive emotions. And positive emotions is not necessarily the same as fun. But to be honest, it's close enough that I kind of equate them. And the way I think of it is if you want to be productive at anything, make it more fun. And you'll probably be more productive at the thing. And you'll also be happier along the way, which is win-win all around.

45:39Totally. So the thing that kept jumping out to me as I was reading it is so much of it is about framing and mindset and kind of the way that you talk to yourself and the way that you talk to other people and the way that you approach things and the process rather than kind of obsessing over just like raw data of how much you accomplish as sort of the end in itself, which intellectually to me makes total sense right like i i believe every word in the book and it feels right and yet i am a person who has spent an alarming amount of my life like testing productivity tools believing that i will find the right productivity tool that will solve all of my problems and magically work and i kind of got to the end of your book and was like okay the correct answer here is to throw all of my technology into the ocean and rethink the way that i do everything and you're also a guy who has spent an alarming amount of time testing productivity tools.

46:28So like square those two things for me, those two sides of your brain. Absolutely. So people have like various hot takes on this. Some people are like, you know, the tool really matters because the tool facilitates the productivity. Some people are like, the tool doesn't matter at all because the tool is just a tool and any tool will do, whether it's Notion or Evernote or Google Keep or whatever the hell, Neomaps, City in Rome, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. my approach has always been that the tool that I will use is the one that feels good to use. This is why I still use Notion, because Notion have done an amazing job of making it feel good to use Notion.

46:59The emojis, the font, and the cover images between them make it a delight to use Notion. The reason I use Things 3 as my to-do list app is because the animations are delightful compared to Todoist, which is just a bit more like Todoist has more features, Teams and cross-platform is all handy, but things are just so nice. And when we find things that are nice to you, there's like people buy Apple products. They're just nice. There's something nice about them. Like when, for me, when an app feels good to use, I'm more likely to use it. And therefore, like that will make me more productive. Totally.

47:29I don't know if you found this at all. Like, what's your take on the sort of the design aesthetics niceness of something? Oh, no, I've found that exactly. One of the notes I wrote down reading the book was, I bet Ali loves people who design the hell out of their Notion pages. Oh, yeah. I think I'm right about that. But like, it's funny you mentioned things because it's one of those apps that is like objectively not what I need, just in terms of like how my brain works and how I sort of run my days. It doesn't do it. And yet every three months, I try to force my life into things again, because it's a lovely app with really nice animations.

47:59It never crashes. It makes total sense. All the icons are beautiful. Like it feels really good. And so I try to make myself use it, even though I know for sure it's never going to work. I just like I want to use it. And I think there's something to that. But I also think in this space, it's very hard for any digital tool to do the kind of thing that you're talking about. Early on in the book, you talk a bunch about sort of making games out of everything. And it's like, how do we how do we gamify things? And we went through this whole phase on the internet of like, how do we gamify everything? And sometimes it works.

48:28And sometimes it's like disastrous, because you try to gamify things that shouldn't be gamified. And it gets really ugly and problematic. But I think also it's very hard for these digital tools to be whimsical and fun and still useful. And so I think we've gotten to this point with so many things where we've like leaned into like Obsidian is like pure raw utility. right like there's nothing delightful about it but it is like holy god if you want to get things done will it help you get things done in a certain way and i guess notions may be an interesting outlier there and i wonder if that's part of why it's been so successful but part of what i wonder is like the principles that you talk about in this book like can those exist in the kinds of like productivity apps you and i spend too much time thinking about yeah and i think some apps have tried it like fabulous did you come across that habit tracker fabulous no it was like a to-do list, but you would like build different habits into it.

49:21It's like you'd start off with a drink my water first thing in the morning and then like do my morning routine. And that was so full on on the design and cute animations and stuff all the way. But to the point that it was almost unusable because everything then took ages to be like a nice little delightful animation. So I don't know, like Notion is an exception in that they somehow cracked the niceness thing. But for other apps, it's really hard. Wunderlist back in the day was quite delightful. And then it sort of died. Yeah, RIP. Wunderlist was a good example. Inbox by Gmail was quite delightful, and then it died.

49:50Well, that's the thing, right? And I think the path a lot of these end up on is, and I love following to-do list apps because they all go through the same thing where it's like everybody has sort of one thing, one idea or one mechanic or one sort of feature that makes them unusual. And then people start to use it and they say, well, but I also need this feature and I need recurring tasks. And what if you had calendar integration? And I really want to take notes and I do my things this way. I need a priority system. And all of a sudden you've just built this like awful Voltron of an app that does everything and is a mess in the same way that almost every other productivity app is a mess.

50:22And then that's when I get to the point where I'm like, okay, I need out. This is too much. This is making me feel bad. I'm like spending my life managing the system rather than actually accomplishing anything. And then I go find another app and go through exactly the same process. Yeah, this is like my life for the last 10 years. Every few months. Do you feel like writing this book has changed the way you think about all of that stuff? Do you approach new productivity apps and stuff differently? I went back through your YouTube channel and tried to see if I could pinpoint when you were working hard on the book based on how much you were talking about productivity tools.

50:53And I feel like I can sort of invent a narrative there, but I am curious. Did you have that experience? Do you find yourself switching less or caring less or trying new things less because you're like, actually, the tool matters a little less than maybe I've thought over the years? Yeah, I've really come to that realization over time that the tool is almost meaningless other than the fact that some are nicer to use than others. we're actually working on a sort of productivity course to release in 2024 with like a community and a coaching program behind it. And that has involved diving into a bunch of research around like goal setting and things like that.

51:24And a big goal for this course, which is why I'm thinking a lot about this stuff is for it to be platform agnostic. I've come up with a bit of a, you know, I'd be curious to get your take on this, a little sort of framework for productivity, which is not in the book, but you know, who cares about talking about the book, which sort of stands for it's GPS, goal, plan, system. That's what all the productivity boils down to. Have a goal that gives you a sort of destination to go towards, make a plan of how you're going to get there, and then have a system that encourages you to actually follow the plan.

51:51And then you adjust accordingly. Goal, plan, system, GPS. And I've been kind of doing sort of informal productivity coaching for like friends and my team and stuff. And it always comes down to that. If someone wants to be more productive, should have a goal, should have a plan, should have a system. And if someone is struggling with their productivity, it is almost always a problem with either the goal or the plan or the system. And I was trying to figure out a way of like presenting that in a way that it's not like do this in Notion or do this in OneNote. It's like do this in whatever you want.

52:18Use pen and paper. Use Post-it notes. Use Notion for all I care. The point is if you have a goal, you have a plan and a system, there's no way you're not going to be productive. The great challenge I have had with like capital P productivity internet people over the years has been that I think everything you just said is absolutely true and makes for terrible content, which is the challenge, right? And I think I was talking to somebody not that long ago about why Notion grew this huge community. And I think it's partly it's a very successful app because it's a very good app. And also, it is a very fun thing to tinker with and make beautiful things with that you can share on the Internet.

52:53Right. Like Notion allows for better YouTube videos than a text file. And that has nothing to do with whether or not it's a better app, but it is a better thing to make content about. And I think so is really elaborate systems. So is, you know, coming up with things that you can sell courses about. And I think I'm as guilty of this as anybody. Like I've spent a lot of time writing about and covering apps that purport to solve everything. When in reality, like I find myself sending a lot of people this blog post. I forget the guy who wrote it, but he's like, my productivity system is a single text file.

53:24And he's like, I have a 15 ,000 word long text file that is just, I write down all the things I have to do that day. And then I do them. And it's like, oh shit, maybe it's that simple. But I do wonder, like, we're in this place now where trying to make, you know, quote unquote content about this stuff feels almost disingenuous if the goal is just know where you're going and figure out how to get there. Like, that's so much simpler and so much less sort of visually compelling in a certain way. I know. You know, one person who I've really been vibing with his stuff recently, Ramit Sethi, has been doing a whole new thing on YouTube.

53:59He actually took my course on how to do YouTube and I connected with his team and stuff. And now he's crushing it on YouTube. But one thing that he's doing, he's doing just like long form conversations with people who are struggling with their finances and they're just like sharing their screen and going through their numbers. And it's all the same simple stuff. Like don't spend more than you earn and like put stuff in investment accounts and like don't spend so much on a car payment for your truck that you can't afford. Basic stuff like that. That was in his book, I'll Teach You To Be Rich. But there's something about watching him coach a real couple through these problems and seeing how they deal with it.

54:32I'm just hooked on this content, even though I know exactly what the system is from the book. And, you know, I'm fairly familiar with personal finance. It's just really cool watching him, like, coach people through it. And so I'm thinking, hmm, maybe there's something there. Instead of, you know, for me, when I think of the future of my content, instead of it being like, let me try and invent some new productivity system that looks good on a freaking YouTube video. More like, hey, let's just get someone on a call and coach them through how to set goals, how to make a plan and how to build a system.

54:57and it will converge on the same things. It will converge on figure out roughly what you want to do with your life, turn it into a few goals for the year. Let's break them down. Let's put it in the calendar and let's review it every now and then. But actually the process of doing that requires a lot of coaching for some people and emotions get in the way, like fear gets in the way. There's like so much cool stuff. But I think the cool stuff is in the human emotion behind it rather than in the how pretty is my notion page. Yeah, and there's something too, like I don't mean to denigrate people who have pretty notion pages.

55:28Like there is something too, like you said, if your pretty notion page makes you use notion more, like that's a victory, right? Like that is a thing that is successful. And my problem is the reason I switch productivity apps all the time I discovered is that I just get bored with them. And so I've actually come to take the inevitable switching. I literally just did this yesterday, like took all of my notes out of one app and put them in another app, which is an unbelievable waste of time. Like it's just such a bad use of time and energy. But every single time I like, the system gets a little different.

55:55It's essentially a way to like, Like, look at all my notes again. I get to sort of move stuff around. I take some things out. I put some new things in. And I've come to see that as like, I'm switching apps, but also sort of reviewing everything that I have. And whatever it takes to get there is a win. But I think that's right, that all of this is in some ways simpler and in some ways more complex than it is made out to be. And it's an interesting thing for you as a person who people like look to for advice to be like, here are ways you can do this. But ultimately, like, this is about your feelings.

56:24is just a very funny kind of line to have to walk as someone who is trying to guide people. And especially for you, like a mass audience of millions of people through that process. Yeah. You're like an internet therapist in a lot of ways. I know, exactly. Like I genuinely never thought the conclusion for any of this would be, it's about your feelings. But the three years of research around the book made me really realize, oh crap, it really is just about the feelings. And if you can deal with the feelings, then honestly, productivity is as simple as I write down what I need to do and then I do it.

56:53It's just that the feelings get in the way of that. One of the things that you mentioned with the CEO coach, and I think is true about a bunch of stuff in your book, is how valuable a lot of this stuff is to do in person. Whether it's like giving feedback or you talk about kind of the random acts of kindness that you can do or receive and how meaningful that can be in productivity and all this stuff. And I think my experience has been that that is sort of obviously true, that a lot of things that matter and are meaningful happen when you're in a room with somebody. But that's also just increasingly not the world we live in.

57:25Like you and I are doing this podcast. We're thousands of miles away from each other. This is the world we live in. Can this stuff work in a sort of digital space? Like I keep coming back to the idea that like I agree with so many of the ideals in your book. And I think they run into what it means to be a person in the world in 2023 and 2024 in these really complicated ways. Like, can we get that stuff through digital tools? Yeah, I think we can definitely get some of it. One of my favorite things to do is to work in an environment where there are other people working, which is why right now I'm in a WeWork rather than in my hotel room, because I find it very depressing just working in a hotel room.

57:59But during the pandemic, when all of these co-working spaces were closed, I found this writer's group that would just meet on Zoom four times a day for like an hour. And it was so nice. It's like, I think it's still going London writer's salon. And it's just sick. You know, it's like a Zoom call with a few hundred writers. They spent five minutes at the start giving you a motivational quote. Five minutes at the end, everyone's like posting in the chat what they accomplished. There genuinely is a feeling of community in being on a Zoom call with a couple hundred people and like all working on the same general thing.

58:26So I think that definitely works. I think similarly, you know, our team has just gone remote because I've decided to travel the world. Previously, we were in person. And so we've been trying to figure out like, OK, how do we apply these principles of like, how do we make work feel good in a remote world? Even like simple stuff, like we have a channel on Slack now for like nice comments that we say to each other. or nice comments that we post from, you know, people in our audience and emails that we get. And we didn't really have that before because we were in person. But now the fact that there is a Slack channel dedicated for pleasantries and feedback and nice things is kind of cute.

58:58And we've got this like Matter app on Slack that gives you points and you can redeem them for a Starbucks gift card. And it's just, you know, there's something about that that's kind of nice. Does that stuff work for you as a person? It really does. Honestly, I love it. I love that shit. Like I used to be skeptical of motivational quotes and I used to be skeptical of affirmations and stuff. But I think as I've gotten older, I've realized the value of reminders. You know, even something like, you know, back in the day when I had a computer monitor, I used to have a post-it note. What would this look like if it were fun?

59:28Just written on it. And I think in the past, I would have sort of scoffed at that thinking like the fuck, like, how would that be helpful? But it's actually a really helpful reminder. If you ask yourself, what would this look like if were fun it's like oh i probably take it a bit less seriously because it's not that deep hmm i haven't got any music in the background let me put on concerning hobbits from lord of the rings because that always like you know cracks me up it's a vibe well i haven't said hello to someone in my team in a while let me just go say hello and sort of give them a little massage in a non-weird way i haven't said a nice message to someone on the team today because you know as a ceo i should do that so let me just do that and it's like great now i'm getting back into my work but it feels more fun so i love i love little reminders like that i'm a sucker for emotional motivational quotes the part of the book that resonated with me the most actually was the part at the very beginning where you're like like everybody talks about discipline and everybody talks about this idea that sometimes you don't want to do things and you should just do them anyway and that's all well and good but also like screw that like that's it sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do like sure that's life but what if there were fewer of those things like that's what this book is about and i was like that's such like thank you for that because there's so many and so much of the like hustle culture of the internet is like 24 hours a day just get it done no excuses play like a champ and it's just like it's just boring and i'm tired and i don't want to like leave me alone yeah i think i'm guessing that was intentional because if you've read all the productivity books that it seems you have read you've heard that message more times than most which is just like shut up do the work and like buy this supplement and you'll win and i think that is a bleak world to live in.

1:00:59And I feel like your version of the world is significantly less bleak on purpose. Yeah, I think I've benefited a lot from, you know, as partly through the journey of having this YouTube channel, I just happen to connect with loads of people who are like really rich and really like, sort of business successful, like Deca millionaires, 100 millionaires. I've met two billionaires. And I love asking them for advice, because I'm always like, okay, hey, this is cool. Cool shit. I get to hang out with people who are like way further ahead of me in their careers and also stupidly rich. And like, let me just ask them for life advice.

1:01:30And basically all of them sacrificed their health and relationships and well-being for the sake of growing their business. Yep. And literally all of them regret doing that. And they're always like, bro, you know, if there's one thing you do, trust me, like recognize when enough is enough. Don't sacrifice your family and your health and your well-being for the sake of growing your business. It's not actually going to make you happy, even though you think it will. To have some balance. Man, I wish someone had told me about this before. have some balance, do all this stuff, enjoy the journey. The journey is the destination.

1:01:55The goal is not going to make you happy. The journey makes you happy. And I've just been hearing that. So I've been reading books about it, reading all the stuff about it and hearing it enough times from people to I think I really have absorbed it into my heart. So my whole thing these days is like, no achievement is actually going to make you happy. The thing that's going to make you happy and feel content is having that balanced life where you're enjoying the journey. So why not start now rather than when you hit some arbitrary income milestone or whatever the thing might be. So, and speaking of that, actually, one of the things you mentioned in the book that I've been thinking about ever since is this idea of like adding friction deliberately to your life.

1:02:29And as somebody who covers software, this is a thing I've been thinking a lot about, like, especially in this age of social media and stuff, right? Like we spent a whole generation removing friction from everything, right? We made it really easy to connect with people. We made it really easy for people to track everything. We made it really easy to do everything online. And we like kind of broke society in the process. And now I, the more people I talk to, the more they're like, well, what if we made shopping a little harder? Like, what if what if shipping was slower? Like, maybe maybe that would suck, but also be better.

1:02:57But I think we've hit a point where that's really it's just hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube in that front. And I think the people who do things like you describe in the book, like buy feature phones on purpose are like there's a world in which they're like smart forward thinkers and there's a world in which they're like borderline insane people. I guess I wonder, like for you as somebody who is both sort of writing about this for an audience and trying to live it yourself, do you have a good sense of the balance there of like, we have so many tools that make it easy to do so many things.

1:03:27Smartphones are so good for so many purposes. There's all these upsides to all these things. Like the friction, the avoidance of friction that helped you get a giant audience is also the avoidance of friction that is a problem for a lot of people trying to like successfully live their lives. do you have a sense of kind of how to walk that line the right way yeah i think i struggle with this like everyone else the thing that i think i always bring it back down to is intentionality so i have no qualms about spending time on social media because i also do it for a job but one thing i found enormously helpful is just getting rid of all of all social media apps from my home screen because before i would just sort of swipe swipe open up twitter and scroll and almost do that on autopilot without even thinking about it now the way i open up twitter is i scroll down on my phone, I type in Twitter, I realize it's not called Twitter anymore, and I type in X, and then I go on the thing.

1:04:16And that's enough friction for me to be like, I have to intentionally decide to go on Twitter for me to actually go on Twitter. It's not just to click on my phone. The things that are clicks on my phone are Kindle, Audible, Ulysses, Day One, a new app that I've just released called VoicePal, which is like voice notes for steroids, and like my workout tracker. So it's like the only things I have access to at my fingertips are things that I would like to spend more time on, and that I think are good for my body and my mind and my soul. everything else I have to actively seek out. And that is a good thing.

1:04:44That means, you know, I still watch YouTube videos, but I watch them when I have decided I wanted to watch a YouTube video. And I think one of the issues that so many people have is that, you know, if you're, for example, drained of energy, you just find yourself scrolling through TikTok or Instagram or whatever. And when was the last time you got off a scrolling session and thought, wow, I feel so energized as a result of that? Never. Whereas going for a walk or I don't know, playing the guitar is a you know there's towards the end of the book like generally creative things or things that like help us flex our sense of autonomy or things that help us sort of separate from work these are really the things that recharge our energy and we all know that we don't do it because it's it's too easy to look at the notification and like click on the thing and now we're scrolling before yeah well and that brings me back to i hate to keep harping on the like can we do any of this online stuff but it's telling to me that like you you had a section in the book where it was like the two columns right like the things i do when i'm tired and the things that are actually restorative and it's like the things you do when you're tired or look at screens and the things that are restorative are basically like don't look at screens and yeah pretty much and to some extent i think maybe the answer is just what we need is more balance i think that's absolutely right that like the the touch grass joke on the internet is like it's right right like we should all spend a lot less time looking at screens like that is objectively true but i also wonder in this like phase that we're in where like can we solve technology with more technology is there a sort of digital answer to this and i think like i talked to a lot of people who do art on the ipad and that i think is like a perfectly valid restorative use of screens right like you're still looking at a screen but it is like a fundamentally creative activity i've been learning how to play guitar using an app called musician i think that counts but i do wonder like do you have versions of those things like are there are there things you can do still looking at your phone or a computer or a screen of some kind that recharge you in that same way?

1:06:34Yeah. So I don't know if this is just me, but one thing I love doing is listening to a Lord of the Rings ambience type soundtracks on YouTube while working. Because I was doing some research for the book and there seems to be this weird thing where hearing the sounds of nature has this weirdly energizing effect on us. So you can obviously walking through nature is like the best, but you can even just listen to birdsong or listen to like the sound of waves or something and that taps into something in our brain. No one quite knows what it is, but it seems to be quite energizing. And so people have put these like playlists together, like three hour long videos on YouTube where it's like Harry Potter music or Lord of the Rings music, but with the sounds of rain or the sounds of birds.

1:07:12I just love that. It's so nice. And it's like anything becomes more fun and more energizing when doing it with that sort of soundtrack in the background. So that's a way in which I try and recharge while also looking at a screen. One thing someone should do, someone needs to make an app that lets you listen to podcasts, but with background music. You know, like with some like meditation apps, like Waking Up by Sam Harris, it's like you can listen to the lectures with some background music and the background music makes it so much more immersive. That's pretty good. I need someone to make this up.

1:07:36Like listen to this podcast in the rainforest. It's like I would do that. I would listen to that. Yeah. Rainforest or epic or like classical or whatever, like lo-fi and just make the podcast more engaging. That's a problem AI could solve. Figure out how to score the beats of a podcast like that. It could do it. Oh, that would be cool. That's a good idea. Ali, I think we just started a company. This is very exciting for us. I think we did. Yeah, we've got to register a domain soon.

1:08:06All right, Ali, thank you. Again, everybody, buy Ali's book, Feel Good Productivity, How to Do More of What Matters to You. Great book, highly recommend it. We have to take one more break, and then we're going to come back and answer a question on the BirdCast hotline. We'll be right back.

1:08:24Support for the show comes from Udacity. AI seems to be everywhere these days, and if you want to prepare yourself to be able to use it, Udacity says they can help, no matter what field you're in. Udacity is an online learning platform with courses in AI and tech, including generative AI, Gentic AI, Python, data science, and much more. When you learn with Udacity, you're not just passively watching videos or reading articles. You're doing practical exercises and projects that prepare you for the job you want. That's why 90 % of Udacity graduates surveyed say that they achieved their enrollment goal.

1:09:00Udacity just launched a master's degree in AI. You heard that right. And when you have a certification from Udacity, recruiters and employers take notice. So for a better job, better salary, and better skills, you can check out Udacity today. The tech field is always evolving, and you should too. You could try Udacity risk-free for seven days. You can head to udacity.com slash verge and use code verge for 40 % off your order. Once again, that's udacity.com backslash verge for 40 % off and make sure you use the promo code verge so they know we sent you.

1:09:40Support for the show comes from Framer. Are you still jumping between a host of different tools just to update your website? Framer unifies design, CMS, and publishing on one canvas. No handoff, no hassle. Everything you need to design and publish in one place. Framer already built the fastest way to publish beautiful, production-ready websites, and it's now redefining how we design for the web. With the recent launch of Design Pages, a free canvas-based design tool, Framer is more than a site builder. It's a true all-in-one design platform, from social assets to campaign visuals to vectors and icons all the way to a live site.

1:10:19Framer is where ideas go live, start to finish. Ready to design, iterate, and publish all in one tool? Start creating for free at framer.com slash design and use code VERGE for a free month of Framer Pro. That's framer.com slash design and use promo code VERGE. Framer.com slash design. Promo code VERGE. Rules and restrictions may apply.

1:10:50Millions of players. One world. No lag. How's it done? AWS is how. Epic Games turn to AWS to scale to more than 100 million Fortnite players worldwide. so they can stay locked in with battle-tested reliability. AWS is how leading businesses power next-level innovation.

1:11:23Welcome back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866-VERGE11, and the email is vergecast at theverge.com. We love all of your questions, and we try to answer at least one on the show every week. We have some super fun things coming in. Thank you to everybody who writes and calls. It's my favorite thing about the Vergecast. This week, we have a question from Erland from Norway, which seems relevant to what we've been talking about today. Erland sent us an email that says, I need to get a new Mac. My last one is from 2014. It is a MacBook Pro, but now I'm thinking of a Mac Mini to have at home and maybe later a MacBook Air for travel.

1:11:56Or should I just get a MacBook Pro again? I'm a hobby photographer and videographer, but mostly I use it for presentations for my job as a teacher. So that's the question. I have gone back and forth on this question a thousand times, both in my life dealing with my own setup and also just in general trying to think through the best way to use a computer. Basically, it's like, should you have a workstation at home and then a thing you take with you? Or should you just have one computer that you kind of dock in and out of various setups as you need it? I will say personally, I'm in a one computer at home and one computer on the road phase.

1:12:31I'm actually on a Mac mini right now as I record this. And I have a MacBook Air that goes with me whenever I leave the house, which is increasingly rarely, but that's for another day. So I think for most people, though, if this is what you're debating, this specific thing, I think the answer is the MacBook Pro. And I went through just to spec it out real quick and see what the cost would be. So you have a 13 inch MacBook Air, just the M2 256 gigs, the base model MacBook Air for $1 ,099. I desperately want to upgrade your RAM here for$200 more, but we'll leave it alone for now. And then you have the 8GB, 256GB M2 base model Mac Mini for$599.

1:13:12So you're at like$1 ,700 all in between these two machines. Two great machines. They do a pretty good job of talking to each other. One of the things you run the risk of with having two separate machines is you have stuff on one device that's not on another device. But things like iCloud Drive make that easier. I personally am just religious about uploading stuff to Google Drive so that it's everywhere. It's a relatively easily solved problem, but it is a thing that can happen. Or you can get a base 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro. Again, base model, I want to spend$200 to upgrade your RAM, but you can just get the stock base model for$1599.

1:13:49So for all intents and purposes, the price is not that different, but it's a little bit cheaper to just get the Pro. And I think that's the answer. It's the newer computer. It's going to last you longer. It has the better processor. It has Apple's latest stuff. I think the Pro is probably the single most versatile computer that Apple makes. The M1, even MacBook Air, and especially the M2 MacBook Air, are going to be plenty for all of the sort of standard presentation stuff. But you'll notice the difference when you're doing things like editing photos and especially dealing with video. The speed increase you'll get on the Pro is meaningful.

1:14:26It's not going to totally change your life, but it is noticeable. And then on top of that, the MacBook Pro gets just outrageous battery life. It's not super heavy. It's noticeably heavier than the Air, but it's not like going to weigh down your backpack in a super brutal way. And I think if the question is, should I get an Air or should I get a Pro? Most people I would tell to get just an Air. But if you're debating, do I get an Air and then a Mini? I think the pro actually overlaps what's good about both of those computers in a pretty good way. So I think if I were in your position, I would just get a 14 inch MacBook pro spec it out as much as you can and plan for that thing to last you an awfully long time.

1:15:08You got 10 years out of your last MacBook pro. I wouldn't be surprised if you get just as long out of this one. So that's what I do. But Erland, tell me what you decide and how it goes. And also, if you have thoughts on this setup question, let me know, call the hotline, send us emails. this is a thing I think a lot of people go through and I'd love to know what you think. All right, that is it for the Vergecast today. Thanks to everybody who came on the show and thank you as always for listening. There's lots more on everything we talked about from the Mac anniversary to productivity stuff all over theverge.com.

1:15:38We'll put some links in the show notes to Ollie's stuff and Walt's stuff and everything else, but also read theverge.com. It's a cool website. As always, if you have thoughts, questions, feelings, or other old Macs you wanna see if you can stump me with, You can always email us at vergecast at the verge.com or call the hotline. It's six, six verge one, one. We love hearing from you. Send us all your thoughts and feelings and questions and ideas. We do a hotline question every week and we're going to start to do even more of them. So keep them coming. This show is produced by Andrew Marino, Liam James, and Will Poore.

1:16:07The verge cast is a verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Neil, I, Alex, and I will be back on Friday to talk about Ford's weird new ideas about Android, Elon Musk, and Mr. Beast. What's going on in the streaming wars? and a whole bunch of other stuff. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

1:16:33Support for this show comes from Atlassian. Wish projects could manage themselves. With Jira AI-powered project management software, keeping things organized and on track is a snap. AI agents manage the busy work, handling details that let your team focus on the work that matters. Now that's a team changer. Visit Atlassian.com slash Jira to learn more. That's A-T-L-A-S-S-I-A-N dot com slash J-I-R-A. Atlassian.com slash Jira.

1:17:11And Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with liberty mutual fascinating it's accompanied by his natural ally doug uh limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us cut the camera they see us only pay for what you need at liberty mutual.com liberty liberty liberty savings vary underwritten by liberty mutual insurance company and affiliates excludes massachusetts