The Podcast

Learn a new language in the New Year! Following up on the previous two episodes on learning languages, we share more tips on how to learn efficiently, as well as our own progress (Radek learning Spanish, and Michael learning French)

Cool gadgets you can get for Christmas. Also: Review of 2017 in hardware, and why Radek doesn't wear an Apple Watch anymore.

Just follow your passion, right? … No. Unless you’re already highly skilled at something you’re passionate about, following your passion will only drive you to be miserable. To get a great job you can feel passionate about, you must first have something rare and valuable to give. You must be so good they can’t ignore you. A much better idea: Follow your curiosity.

Optimizing your day for Deep Work. Or, what to do to make highly productive, deeply focused work possible (and likely).

More mobile life & iOS automation talk: 1. Using Scanbot (and not Evernote) for document safekeeping 2. Optimizing Magic Spreadsheet for iPhone, tracking time spent, micro-journaling

Part 2 of our discussion on: - How to develop a better accent in a foreign language - Michael’s story of learning Spanish - Duolingo and computer-aided language learning

The story of how Michael and Radek learned English, German, and other languages. Michael's way was to watch lots of movies and sing lots of songs. Meanwhile, Radek plugs in historical spaced repetition learning data from his very first magic spreadsheet (again!).

After a few months of heavy iPad use, Radek admits: despite its (obvious) flaws and limitations, iPad Pro is a surprisingly good computer. There's still ways to go, but with some determination and a shift in mindset, there are very few things you can't do on an iPad.

Discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly of the iPhone X. Also: Wireless charging everywhere, ARM on the Mac, iPhone multitasking.

Like every half a year, we reunite in one physical location, this time: Wrocław. We talk about learning languages, beers, Taiwan, and the low-carb diet.

Michael celebrates his tenth triathlon, explains how he got into it and tries to persuade Radek to compete as well.

About Radek's trip to Panama, along with a bunch of traveling pro tips. The art of packing – how to pack for 13 days in a regular backpack. Modern materials and packing for a wide range of temperatures. Avoiding jetlag.

If you're a doctor or a lawyer, you have an ethical obligation to do the right thing for your patient or client. Why aren't software developers held to the same standard?

Today, we discuss the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. The goal: designing a simpler, more focused life. Doing less, but better. Cutting down on what's "good", but not good enough.

Michael explains how he uses Evernote. This was going to be a boring episode about note taking. Turns out, this is a powerful system that completely removes the need for storing paper. All of the 13,000 notes, documents, receipts, health records, are accessible and searchable anywhere. Whoa.

Today, we discuss Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg: Resolving conflicts with other people, taking responsibility for your own life, finding empathy for yourself. PS. Apologies for being not one, but two weeks late!

Taking iOS automation up to eleven. Featuring: making Magic Spreadsheet work on iPhone using Workflow, smart checklists in Nozbe, journaling Workflows, Automator on the Mac, URL schemes, and finally… how Radek made an iPhone day planning app by stringing together two different apps with Workflow.

Michael teaches Radek how to be more productive on an iPad. Featuring: using Evernote (or Notes) as a temporary files storage, solving drag&drop issues with web apps, limitations of Dropbox, and putting it all together to make complex workflows easy.

Habits, systems, and reminders are crucial, but it is possible to go too far and end up hoarding them. Every now and then, it's worth questioning which are really essential, and which no longer serve a purpose; what can be removed, simplified, automated, or delegated.

Part 2 of our discussion on reducing the cognitive load of notifications, and loosening the grip of social media addiction. We've made some changes and simplifications since the last episode and we have some pro tips to share!

Discussion on distractions and addiction, and how that relates to software we use. We forgot how to be bored for even 30 seconds, and we fill even the smallest slices of our time by responding to notifications and with social media. Just so we can have our hit of dopamine.

Part 2 of our discussion of Stoicism and the book "A Guide to the Good Life". Be sure to check out Part 1 first.

We discuss "A Guide to the Good Life", a modern, approachable introduction to Stoicism. A philosophy of life easy to dismiss as a boring piece of history not applicable to modern life, but in reality, a tremendously useful bag of psychological tricks that help you live a happier, calmer life.

Michael tries to sell Radek on the idea of using an iPad as your main (or only) computer. Radek remains skeptical, but buys the new iPad Pro anyway.

Radek and Michael comment on Apple's announcements on Worldwide Developers Conference this year. (This is our take on what's significant, and what's missing — we assume you already know the news)