S2E31 - Organization Strategies Poets

You can get in the way of this podcast. That's fine.

It happens. It really does.

Hello and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, where the moment that I start recording, my dog decides that he wants to be on camera.

Yeah, I knew it.

I knew this moment would come. Hi, twig.

I am Scott Paladin. I am working on a horny werewolf audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

Hello, I'm Sam Stark. I am working on editing the podcast store 236.

Yay. I'm Jack. I'm nominally working on as in west to spin off of Unspeakable Distance, although that didn't really happen this time.

And I'm Interiority, AKA Mike, and I'm dying inside.

No.

Don'T do that.

But, you know, when I'm not, sometimes I work on the show called Sundered.

Okay. Right, right.

And I'm not doing great. I flew back from a business trip to Europe two days ago, and I'm still not recovered. If anyone. If anyone wants to do international travel at this time of year, I would recommend not doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

It's not a good idea. No, no, just. Just don't. Just don't, like, you know, loved ones. Forget about them. Like, you know, they live in another country.

You don't need to see them.

Yeah, it's the.

You know, like, if they choose to live outside of your national borders, then, you know, that's their fault.

Fuck them, I guess.

Yeah, exactly. The Internet exists.

Like, do a zoom call. Like, do get on Riverside and record, like, family chats. I don't know, meet in the metaverse. Anything other than getting into a metal tube and being a metal tube.

Tbh.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's. That's my advice for this week. Back to podcast things. I'm sorry.

It's all good.

I'm glad you're glad it's just a regular thing and not. You're not actually dying. That we know of.

Normal.

Any more than all of us are just slowly dying, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Inexorably marching towards our.

Our.

Our graves, our demises.

Okay, so I'm. I'm assuming that means that progress on Sundered has been light.

I mean, there is stuff to talk about if you would like me to. Because I don't tend to talk first, Scott. So, like, if you want to really upend the format, let's go reverse order.

Yeah, we're going snake order right now. Where we go one way and then back the other.

Okay.

Hell yeah.

I just. Throw all your expectations out the window. Listeners it's upside down world. Yeah, I've done a fair bit on Sunday, actually.

Good.

I've spent a lot of time doing some polishing of existing scripts, especially my first one, in preparation for kind of, you know, eventual kind of like, pilot episode, but also because I've been doing table reads.

Yay.

I've had one successful one so far, which is very lovely, and everyone was very nice, and it was a cold one. Everyone got random rolls. So that was interesting and kind of enlightening and highlighted a couple of things within the script that I needed to change. Not just the typos and, you know, places where I just imagined putting words in rather than actually typing them out, which, you know, is the. Is the way the things. But, you know, there's a couple of things that didn't land, a couple of things that went on for a bit too long. So it is nothing kind of, like, major, but it just. It has allowed me to kind of get the spanner and just kind of like, you know, crank the bolts a little bit and just kind of make it a bit of a tighter ship. The next table read I'm doing is going to be a bit more. Not directed, but, you know, everyone's going to get kind of, like, rolls ahead of time and a chance to read ahead. So I'm hoping that will be a slightly different experience, but if not, it will just be a fun hang with friends, including two of the people who are on this podcast, if you're able to. Unless life gets in the way, which, honestly, it kind of does all the time. So, yes, I fully.

That's why I'm not the two people. I'm so sad.

The other piece of news I've got is that, unfortunately, it doesn't look like the pilot is happening anytime soon. We are not doing Tribeca for next year, which is a shame. And various things within certain podcast industries and businesses have happened. There's been some reorganization, and we could have. We basically gotta wait until the dust sells. That makes sense, so we can actually look and kind of see what. What funds and opportunities are available to do what things. So it may very well be that, at least for the time being, it's back to trying to script out the entire thing, which isn't a bad thing, honestly. You know, like, it's been a good kind of, like, burst of kind of enthusiasm and focus to try and get these first few pieces a lot more kind of, like, polished and ready, and I feel more confident for it.

That's great.

Yeah. None of it wasted effort. Like, it sounds like it's all been.

Helpful stuff to do anyways, and there's definitely something to be said for. Yeah. Like the, the fact that you've had this burst of. Of effort and creativity and you know, you do.

You did.

The table reads probably in a way that you wouldn't have done before or at a time that you would have done before. So I'm glad that that's. Even though I would love to hear this thing sooner, I'm glad that you have an opportunity to let it bake and that you're also getting something out of the. The. The burst in the meantime. That's great.

Okay.

Uh, we're going in reverse order, so then I guess that's. Jack. Jack, have you done anything on as in west.

No. What I did do was table a bunch of art markets this month. And so most of my time and effort was going toward preparing for that. And then in. In the more recent, like, week or so, recovering from having done that, I think I've been averaging like four or five hours of sleep a night for like, I don't know, probably two months at this point. So, yeah, I'm like, still quite tired. Trying to, like, catch up on sleep and catch up on my, like, housework and things like that. So, no, I've like, very, very behind on every other thing in my life, basically. So no, no report from me, unfortunately. But we'll get back on the horse. Just need to like, recover a little bit.

This is the time of year when like, you know, what's the word? Placeholder updates is pretty normal.

Yeah, it's just like I'm alive. I'm just, you know, sort of zombies shuffling through life at the moment.

But we'll get back this time last year, I think we took an entire month off of updates. We just like. No, nevermind.

We're like, we're not gonna have them. This is not happening.

Sam, how did you do on. I. I think you were saying you might have a break over the. Over the holiday?

Yes. Whoa.

A break. Holy shit.

I took full. Wow. What's the word? Hey, can you tell. Can you tell that I am a person with migraines?

Oh, buddy.

Yeah, I took full advantage of the break that I was given by Mel and I appreciate it so much because without getting too, like, into it, I'm having a medication problem and it's like giving me depression. So.

Bummer.

It's really. It's really rough. So it's like, how much depression do you want and how bad do you want your Migraines to be. So, like, figure out the scales that you would like.

That's a terrible calculus problem.

Yeah. Yeah. So I am sort of in this weird middle stage of like, yay. The migraines are so much better. I still have brain fog, though, and I have depression. So it's like. And I don't normally. Like, my. I don't have depression. Like, I. I'm very lucky. I'm very privileged and I understand that to not have actual depression. And so having, like, fake depression brought on by medication, I don't have any. Like, I don't have any ways to cope with. Yeah, thank you. I have no coping mechanism. Same. Same with, like, anxiety stuff. I don't have any way to cope because I don't actually have any of that. So when it happens because of something else, I'm like, oh, what do I do? I'm just going to go to bed and then I just, like, sleep all day. And I can't do that because I have kids. So, yeah, I've just been taking it easy. And I have not really been working on anything. I haven't been doing. I haven't been doing any of my editing jobs. I was lucky enough to not really have anything scheduled. I have pushed a lot of my narration stuff out. Uh, I was sick for a little while. I. I mean, I just. I didn't really do anything. I went Christmas shopping and that. That was it.

Good. Okay.

That's good.

Hey, listeners, this is like a really genuine look at what this time of year looks like for creative people in general. Like, there's a lot of, like, hey, my health isn't great. I have these other commitments to my family or like, other social obligations and stuff. Like, this time of year is always like, you're running yourself into the ground doing everything but your creative projects. And then you're like, where do I fit in these creative projects? And sometime answer is you take a break for like a month and that's okay.

Yeah, yeah, that. That's that. Yeah. The purpose of behind the Locked Doors is an unvarnished look at, like, how we're doing and, like, all these things. So that is, you know, look at us and then don't feel alone when you feel this way.

Yeah, yeah. We are all out here.

Yeah, we're all. We're all just keeping our heads above water somehow. Barely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On. On that note, I. I think I. My. My goals were I was going to have almost everything recorded, which I think is true. Everything is recorded except for a couple of Little pickups and one person who hasn't sent me their files. I will go bug them later. So I still have. I've got some invoicing stuff to deal with. Not everybody's got me those back, so. But, like, the vast majority, all of the recording, except for, like, the one person who has sent me stuff and the one pickup I need is done. I've got about half, more than half of episode one. Rough cut. Very rough cut. Um, but. And I've got all of my audio sorted into, like, the various places that it needs to be so that I should be able to find what I need later. Um, so. But I did not make as much progress as I was hoping to. I was hoping to have more edited than I've done because we're getting into that time where, you know, like, it's the 15th of December now. We're probably not recording an update in two weeks because that'll be the week between Christmas and New Year's. And I can't expect that any of us will be making huge leaps and strides at that point. So we'll probably not hear back from us until talking about, you know, life getting in the way. Probably won't hear from us until January. So maybe. Yeah, so, like, just stuff's getting in the way. Stuff going slower than I expect. Yeah. This, this time of year is not great for just. Yeah. So, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, but Scott, by the next time we record, you and I will probably have met in person finally.

Yeah, that's the plan.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be driving home for the holidays and I'm going to pass. Like, when coming up here, I was like, hey, we're like, a couple of hours from where Jack exists. We were like, probably not going to do that moving truck, but on the way back. Yeah, the moving truck is like a whole nother thing. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll probably have met by then. Yeah, we'll do updates and talk about the future later. Yeah. So the answer is that I think I barely squeaked over what I had set out to do, but they're not getting anything extra done. Um, but that's still progress, which is good.

Progress is progress. And barely squeaking through the actual goal that you set is still, like, hitting the goal that you actually set, so that's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just was hoping to have more done. Cause, like, you know, that would be nice. I, I, yeah, it probably pushes back phase two a little bit, which is probably not the end of the world. That. Yeah, we'll talk about that later, like I was racking my brain trying to think of a, of a, like a straight up topic, but I, the, the broadest thing I can, I can think of is I think we've, and we've probably talked about this before, but I want to revisit like to do lists and task tracking and hear if y' all have systems that work for you and if, especially if you've got systems that seem to be broadly applicable to various types of projects or maybe even meta tracking where you're like, I am tracking this other to do list on this beggar to do list that like the parent like, does. Does any of that, Any of y' all have input for me on that one? Because I am really thinking about it for the next couple of months.

I've got some horrifying input.

Okay, yeah, please go ahead, scare me.

I just keep everything in my head. That's what I obsess about.

Oh my God.

2Am in the morning. Yeah, I don't, I don't write lists. I don't, I don't use spreadsheets.

Oh my God.

It's just all in there.

I'm shouting in dismay. But also I write everything down by hand, so I'm not that much better. But at least I have, at least it's somewhere besides only my brain, which I don't trust. Only my brain.

Yeah, yeah, I need to, to change that. It can't just all be in here, but at the moment, that's where it lives.

That's, that's what I'm feeling right now, which is that occasion most of the time when I'm working on stuff, I can just keep everything in my head and it works. And that's fine. On the few times when I have had something too big to keep entirely in my head, like just a simple, like Excel based checkoff spreadsheet with a note that says what the current status is. You know, just a really. Basically a list, but on a grid was sufficient. And as I'm going through phase one, which is just two episodes and how many people? Seven or eight people. No, wait. With ensemble more like like half a dozen. Like a dozen people total to work with. I am just, I can feel that I am just barely able to keep ahead of everything that I like.

You're at the limit of your brain capacity for what you can hold.

But the, the, the thing that keeps me back from being able to just like lay out an organized system is that so many different aspects of a project like this require different tracking. So like a To like, a task list for handling personnel, probably HR stuff. Right. Where it's like, I need to get a contract from this person. I need to. I need a contract to this person. And then to track when they send it back, I need to get invoice information sent to them so they can invoice me. And then I have to track that invoice and have I paid it and do I need to do it via PayPal or direct deposit or whatever? You know, all of those things. That's a pretty simple, like, checkoff system. But, like, that doesn't work in my experience for things like total episode production. Like, what stage of the production pipeline is episode one in right now? That happens. I know in my head that that's rough cut. Um, but, like, that's more like a trello board or something like that. And so, like, the. I need a. I. I would love a system that could track everything altogether, but that it needs to be very flexible to do different kinds of tracking in that way. Um, that's what I feel like anyway. Maybe I just have to just bite the bullet and do everything as giant fucking fuck off tasks list where you, you know, click everything off.

Um, well, because you kind of want, like, progress bars for some things, and then other things can just be a check. I've done it or I haven't done it.

Yeah.

Or I need to put in information that will rem me what I'm doing when I go to do it. But, like, when I am making. When I take like, an illustration job and I know I have, like, you know, 10 pieces I need to finish by this date, and they need to be in, like, all, like, the. Right. The. The. The finished stage of completion by whatever time. I'm like, always breaking that down more granularly into piece number one. Do I have my lines done? Do I have my colors done? Do I have my values blocked in? Do I have my textures overlaid? Do I have, like, whatever text needs to be added? Like, in the text editor, this and that and the other? So, like, do I have it exported in the correct format? Like, there's all these extra little check boxes and some of those. I wish there was a way to do, like, a percentage bar, but I don't know what the percentage is because it's art and it's like, I don't know when it's done until I've done it.

Yeah.

But I think for audio editing, it's probably a little more clear cut. Like, you can tell you're 80% of the way through rough cutting an episode. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

So it really could be something like a bar that you just fill in, like, segments until it's full.

Yeah.

And you.

Depending on the episode format, you could also. You could break things down into discrete chunks and use those as checkoff tasks, rather than it being like a 1 to 100%, 0 to 100% bar progress bar. It could be like scene one, scene two, scene three. If you're not. If you're people who are. If they happen to use scenes. Like, if you're a freak, a weirdo like that who happens to break thing out, break things out and not just do one single run through an entire episode that's 20, 30 minutes long or whatever.

Well, okay, so, Scott, here's something I've noticed looking at your scripts. Like, you don't have scene breaks, but what you do have is, like, narrative connective tissue that gets us from, like, one kind of vignette moment into another. And the connective tissues are a lot of the time, what we're going, wait, did we record this? Like, did we put this somewhere?

Where is it?

Because it's connective tissue and not, like, the scene proper, so to speak. So, yeah, it would be good for you particularly to have, like, a way to track those little interstitial sections also somehow.

Yeah, so maybe those are. Maybe. And maybe that's the answer is to just arbitrary, not arbitrarily, but break the script into scenes or chunks or segments, whatever you want to call it.

Make section marks in it somewhere just so that you know you have everything within a section from one mark to the next, and that there's not, like, stuff that you're missing because it wasn't, like, seen proper, so to speak.

Yeah, that's probably that. That is. That is probably a way to do it. Like the. I don't know where I'm going. My brain's my. My talk about brain fog, you know? Like, I have.

Yeah, okay. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, I'm kind of.

Yeah, talk about it, Sam.

I'm kind of a mad. I'm kind of a mad. Be organized and things.

Yes, please.

So here we go. No, I'm just kidding.

Cracking their knuckles right now.

So this does not work for everyone. But I'll. I'll tell you what I do. Along the way, I've. I've sort of tried. I've tried a lot of different things, and I have discovered along the way that an actual to do list where you, like, check off things or, like, one of those Like I have, I have a Excel spreadsheet thing that has all the percentages and all the task bars and you're 72% of the way through, blah, blah, blah, blah. When you get to that level of trying to sort your stuff and keep track of your stuff, that in and of itself becomes like a task that you will start to put off and try to push away. And it becomes just so complicated that it's like you don't want to deal with it, you just want to do the thing. So I started as simple as I possibly could and I used Google Calendar and I just. You know how you can layer in Google Calendar? Okay, so you, you can make.

Well, okay.

You can make different calendars.

That's, that's what I was thinking you're talking about. Yeah.

So I have, so I have a calendar that's like all of my family home stuff and then I have a calendar that is my narration stuff. And then I have a calendar that's my store 236 stuff and I have a calendar that's my Meltopia stuff. Everything is color coded. And so if I want to see just one thing, I turn off everything else and just look at that one thing. And then if I need like a broad idea of like what the month is going to look like, I'll turn everything on and it's color coded. So I know like in, in chunks like where things are. So that's like a overview, that's like a top down look at things.

And when you say you're putting. Sorry, when you say you're putting things on your calendar, are you doing due dates or.

Sorry, yes, due dates. That's the most important thing.

The other option would be to block out. I am going to be editing at this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

I tried the blocking out. I tried to do color coding. Like this is the two weeks that I'm going to record this audiobook and this is the two days that I'm doing store 236, you know, whatever. And that actually it just makes the calendar so full. Yeah.

You can't even see what's going on.

So it's, it, your brain is just like, oh my God, there's so much. But if you just have little dots, you know, just letting you know when things are due, then you have a way better idea of like, you know, how much time you're going to have. Blah, blah, blah.

What's the prioritize?

Exactly. So the next thing that I started doing was, was I actually, I love the, the Alarms. The alarms are wonderful if you set them really specifically because it can get really overwhelming if you just have the. The calendar just give you a little notification. Just like a, hey, this is due in a week. And I. And you obviously have to set it for what you think is the most important. Like for store 236. I just need a couple days, like, two days before it'll be like, you better start thinking about sir 236 editing. And then I'm like, okay, I got to start getting my brain ready for that when it's a narration project week before, A whole week before. Because I got to, like, do prep and stuff like that. So it's almost like I can set it and forget it because my calendars will kind of help me remember when I need to start doing stuff. The other really important thing that I started doing was I actually set apart, like, an hour at the beginning of every single week to, like, get my thoughts in order about what's due that week. It's like Monday morning or Sunday night is actually really good too. And it's like, sit down, look at the calendar. You know, maybe write it on. We have a chalkboard in the house. Like, there's a lot of different places that I can put specifically what's happening that week. Because if there's like, doctor's appointments, if there's dentist appointments, on top of other things I have to do, it's nice to just have a list of, like, these are the things that are happening this week. And then because I'm a psychopath, I have my Google calendar stuff, I have my weekly stuff. And then because I don't know, it just helps my brain if I physically write out stuff in the morning for that day. Sometimes that. Because just having things. Having things, like, ahead of time, like, these are the things I have to do this week. These are the things I'm doing today. So I have three different things. I have the. I have the calendar, and then I have either the chalkboard or sometimes it's an Excel spreadsheet that I'll just keep open on one of my screens. And then I write it the day of. If it's a day where a lot of things are happening. But that's what I do.

That honestly doesn't sound too psychopathic to me. That sounds like you're just a personality.

I think it's what. What's psychopathic about it is how many things I do and how many quantities. Write down them.

Yes, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The.

That's. That's that's really good that you've got. There's some really good ideas in there. I'm gonna have to. I know that when I like my. My current plan is because one, one thing that I have found useful in sort of the macro scale, not specifically without about scheduling, but just about any kind of thing in life is that if you know you've got a problem, sometimes it's not the smartest thing to just immediately try to fix it is to live with the, the manageable version of it for a minute and see what it is that you're looking to answer. And that's what I'm doing with phase one, which is like I'm keeping this all in my head. I know that like I will not be able to do this more. But it. Keeping it in mind that okay, what am I looking for tracking wise what do I need to keep track of? What do I need to be paying attention to? What's stuff that will happen whether I pay attention to it or not. You know, that kind of stuff being having that, that, that data gathering period is useful in terms of solving problems like this where you like spend some time going, okay, here's what the, the shape of the problem actually looks like.

And what do I actually wish the solution was?

And here's what my goals are. Otherwise you just start trying to do stuff and then whether or not it worked, you don't like, you don't have a goal set. You don't have like a success criteria in mind where you say I am looking to solve this particular problem. If I can make sure that this happens, that's my success criteria. Here's what I'm looking for. Here's what that shape, the shape of that looks like. So there's a, there's a real advantage to like just sort of living with the problem for a minute, which is where I'm at. And I'm just now sort of, sort of trying to figure out what the shape of the solution looks like. Calendars is a really good idea. I actually in a Bye twig, bye bye twig he was. When he stands up on all four legs, just like standing on my lap, that's less comfortable. It's like, you have to get off now.

Sharp little fellow.

He'll be back in a second. I can tell the. Where was I? I don't know. I got completely slow.

Calendars are good.

Calendars are good. One thing that I gives me a huge amount of relief about like am I remembering the thing or not? Is if you, you have A calendar invite for like a scheduled thing or whatever. And you know that Google's going to remind you and you know it's there and, and like being able to just like offload that from your brain.

Yes.

Is, is good. Definitely. I can, I can attest to, even when it's just the scheduling stuff, where once it's on the, once it's on the calendar, I don't have to worry about whether or not I'm remembering or not, because 24 hours before it happens or, and, or an hour before it happens, Google will be like, hey asshole, you've got a meeting with somebody.

Yep.

Hey asshole.

Yep. In the mean, in the meantime, my brain doesn't have to spend any time tracking about tracking that. And more importantly, part of my brain that has been trained by an entire lifetime of having ADHD means that I don't have anxiety about whether I'll forget it. The, the amount of brain power you will expend worrying about the thing about you letting itself, you know, down is way more than actually just keeping track of it. Like it's the, the, your brain being like, oh, am I going to forget this? Am I going to forget this? Am I going to forget this? Am I going to forget this? Am I going to miss it? I'm going to be late, am I going to be early? Am I going to be like all this stuff?

Yeah.

But if it's just like, shove it into the thing and know that it will come back to you later. The ability for Google Calendar to inject itself into your life by giving you a phone notification or desktop notification or whatever is very useful. The worst thing in the world. Not the worst thing in the world, but one of the ways in which something like this can fail fall down, because I've had it fall down in the past, is you make yourself a nice to do list. You write everything out, you get all prepped to go and then you never look at it again. And then it's like that you, the, you either have to make yourself or it has to be able to inject itself back into your life and say like, hey, pay attention to me. Or you have to be the one going back and checking it and redoing it because that, that cycle of putting the thing on there now I don't have to worry about it, but I know I will check it later is the important part of making that whole process work. So thinking about things that can shove themselves in front of my attention is actually a really good idea. The calendar. Calendar is a way to do That I know that there are to do apps and stuff you can get on your phone. I. The one complication for me on that one is I have been desperately trying to reduce my phone time, my mobile device time that I have. Everybody thinks I'm weird. I put it like, I did like the focus mode, block all of the apps thing and like, I put my phone in grayscale mode and stuff. And every time I like pull the phone out to like take a picture, everybody's like, why is your phone like an old timey movie? Why is it. But so that means I need. If I'm going to have this thing inject itself into my life, it needs some other way to get my attention. Probably desktop notifications. I was joking about how nextcloud was sending me a desktop notification anytime anybody responded to various forms, like the audition forms. But obviously the fact that I was paying attention to that means that, that, you know, nextcloud has.

It was working.

Yeah. That thing has the ability to, to grab me by the scruff of the neck and make me pay attention to it. So I should definitely look in that direction for options as well, because it has the ability to do that both on the desktop and in your. On your phone and iPads and all that stuff. So that's a. That's something to be worth. That is worth paying attention to. Yeah, for sure. Okay. The.

The apps, like, the to like to do list apps or whatever. I have never found one that isn't super fucking annoying because it'. Schedule, blah, blah, blah. Let's make sure that everything is. And then it'll. It'll be set up in a way that your brain is like, no, I just need. I just need a list. And then I just need to like, be able to tick it off when I've done it. And it's always way too complicated. Like there's nothing that's simple, that is also an app that will remind you things.

There's a. There's a fantastic.

I almost just wish my notes app on my phone could be set up to send me a reminder.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a fantastic podcast called Cortex, which was run by CGP Grey and a guy who runs a podcast network. I cannot remember his name off the top of my head. And it's entirely about like, workflow optimizations. And they spend an inordinate amount of time talking about to do list apps because they're both obsessed with trying to find the one like the one that will work. And after like years of trying to find the best to do It To Do List app. They both. Both of these hosts came to the conclusion that, like, there is no one good one. They're all.

Yeah, they all suck.

Well, they all suck in various ways, but they're. You need to have a really wide variety of them because there are ones that are going to work for certain people, but what will work for one person won't necessarily work for the next one. So you just need like a scattershot approach where they all. They all work differently.

Yeah. We talk so much on this podcast. On this podcast about the. The different ways that we work, the different ways that we write, the different ways that we create, you know, and it's like our brains all work so differently. And so of course, the way that we schedule and the way that we remember to do things or not remember to do things is going to be extremely different. So no one way to do a To do list is going to work for like, all four of us.

Well, and yeah, in something like task tracking, like, there are lots of ways, like we all write differently, but I think all four of us could open, fade in or any number of like Arc Studio Pro or whatever and probably write a script in it like that that doesn't need to be hugely variable. But for something like task tracking and like organization of a project that is so just trying to export part of your actual brain into. Into either pen and paper or digital format that like. Yeah, it's probably got to be very variable. That is. That is important. Yeah. And keep.

Be.

Keeping aware, like you were talking about, Sam, of making sure that whatever organizational process is created doesn't become itself another part of the. Another thing that you didn't have to keep track of.

Yep.

Is certainly important because the. At various times, especially in my day job, I have had to create like, standard operating procedures for like. Like there was a. There was a thing where we were upgrading systems as part of one of my previous jobs, and it was one of those things where, like, it took three hours when I started, and by the time I was done, we'd gotten the actual downtown down to about 20 minutes and with a lower error rate, which was great. But the. The entire process of that was about reducing friction to making sure that everything got done. It's about like, you have to make sure that things are pre. Like the. Like if. If somebody needs something to complete a cast, that that item is right there, either digitally or physically. Right. So that it becomes very easy to get it, you know, or it becomes very impossible to go forward without it, you know, it's one of those things like put your PPE gear right next to the power tools, right? So that every time that you're gonna use a table saw, you put your safety glasses on because they're right there.

Or.

That they're carried on your person or something like that. Where it's becomes so just reducing all of those little friction points, making it easier and easier to do the correct. I'm using air quotes but like to do the, do the things the way that need to be done in order to be completed. And if that, that means that task tracking an organization has to be as frictionless as possible. Otherwise it just makes the whole process worse, right? Like if, if as I was going through rough editing a scene or an entire episode, if every time I finished every single line, I had to go over to a checklist and check, okay, well line 21 is done. Okay, now I'm going to edit and then line 22 is now done. Like, obviously that is too much friction. Anybody can kind of look at that, that version of it and go, well, that would be, it would be lovely granular information. But like you are increasing the amount of work that needs to be done just to get it finished, right? So finding that optimal balance and finding ways to, to make it part of the creative process as well I guess is maybe the way like make it integrate it into the whole thing, right? To make it easier to go back to the task, like going to calendar stuff. One of the reasons I really, really like an app called Calendly, at least in the free version, it's limited only to one on one meetings. But somebody could just put themselves on my calendar using it. And the ability for me to be like, here's a link with all of my availability on it, just put yourself on it. And it does that. It does all of the time zone translation and it just like puts them on my calendar and then I don't even have to like, I didn't have to do anything, it's just super easy. But what that represents to me is a system I know is going to be reliable and that has just essentially no friction for me, right? Like I can send somebody one thing, they have to do a very small amount of effort on their end, which is picking something off a list and then I know that it's done, I know that's completed, I know that that meeting's going to happen and that I don't have to keep track of it or like go back, send four or five emails back and forth trying to reschedule Stuff like that. So those are the kinds of optimizations that really can be successful is when it's got the least amount of friction for as many parties as possible. It's the same way with, as a broader thing when you're trying to get people as a, you know, like at this point, you know, I'm kind of a boss to a dozen people, right? Most of them who have already finished their stuff. I'm not, I'm done right now. I'm not like, I'm not like gonna have performance reviews with anybody. But like, you know, I'm trying to get people to do stuff. Having. Making sure that those, that what I need them to do is as easy as possible is the same sort of philosophy. Like I went through the trouble of pre generating all of the invoices for my actors. I obviously they can send me their own if they want. But I was like, here is a template. I can just plug everybody's stuff into it and then fire off these PDFs. And that at least removes a big chunk of the work that they have to do. So they now have the option of saying, oh, yep, address is correct, the amount looks good, sign it, send it back. And the point of, I know that part of that was me being nice because I hated doing that when I was a. When I was working for other people. I don't like generating voices. That sucks. That sucks. But also because I know that if I send somebody a thing that is 80% filled out and all they have to do is check it over, make sure, you know, correct anything that's wrong and then sign it and send it back. I know that that means they're 80% more likely to get it done in time so that I can, like the next part of it can be done. So in that sense I just need to treat myself like an imp. Like be like, okay, how can I. This is. I always use the framing of like that's future Scott's problem or whatever. But also like, how can I be nice to future Scott? How can I set up a thing that I'll be happy is there in the future?

You actually don't want to create problems for your future self. You want to pre solve your future selves problems.

Having a thinking. Yeah, thinking about it as somebody like both, you know, I want to make my future life easy. But the, the that's future Scott's problem usually means I know myself enough to know I won't care that this was already done or will be hard to find or whatever. I know that like Whatever I'm declaring to be future Scott's problem, if I'm not, if I'm being flippant about it, it's because I know when I come around to it, I won't mind that that doesn't have a sync point or that that doesn't have. Or that we're just rolled all the way through with four hours of recording without starting and stopping, which is my, my typical way of, of doing synchronous recordings. I just record everything in bulk because I know that with the workflow that I have in the future, that's not usually a problem, which is just knowing how, how, where those friction points are. Right. You know, which is, which is good. So. Yeah.

Yeah.

Thinking of myself as doing the same things for myself that, that I do for my employees. Employees fucking the voice actors, you know, the, the people I work with.

Your independent contractors.

Yeah, you are. Yeah. 1099 independent contractors. Who I. If you, if you make more than a certain amount, then I have to create tax forms for you. But if we do stuff in 2000, if we pay it in fiscal year 2025, it's under that limit. I don't have to generate that form. So let's do it in 2025.

I love it.

Yeah. Okay. I think that was a pretty good topic. Let's do our goal setting. Let's, let's call it now and let's say that if we, that we're not going to meet in the rest of December. So that will make. I think that's just a. I think that's just a reasonable goal. Okay, then we're, we're gonna go ahead and say that we're gonna come. We're gonna be recording again on the 5th. So that, that gives us the framework of two weeks of holiday time, which is like.

Yeah, perfect.

An hour and a half regular time.

Yeah.

Literally try to get together our goals. Okay. So just to keep things weird, Mike, do you wanna set to, to your three week goal?

Sure. Yeah. My goal is to create more problems for future Mike because future Mike is likely a unfeeling, heartless, evil cyborg. So the more problems I can create for future Mike, the better the chances for the rest of humanity to survive. So I feel like I got two.

Weeks to replace myself with an evil cyborg, like doppelganger myself.

Yeah. I feel like, you know, like if I can kind of like hinder him as much as possible, then I'm actually doing the human, Human race of service. So that's what I'm going to be concentrating on.

Told you.

Fantastic.

But also I'm going to try and spend a chunk of my Christmas sat down, writing in front of a fire if I can. Maybe sipping some sort of seasonal drink.

Hell yeah.

And also trying to stop the thoughts of creating a increasingly horny Regency audio drama as well.

Yeah.

Wait, hold on. Wait, wait, whoa, whoa.

No more. No more details about that.

We gotta.

We gotta live with the anticipation now.

Jesus Christ.

Okay, okay, Jack, how. How.

Hi. Okay, so by the time we meet next, I would love to have bare minimum scheduled somewhere in there, like a half an hour to talk to you, Sam, about some, like, B plot stuff that I feel like I need to nail down before I finish the episode I'm currently working on. Um, so if we can figure out like even 20 minutes or half an hour to like, get on the phone and have a little discussion between now and then, I'll consider that. Good progress.

Yay. Okay, Sam, before we meet next, I'm gonna have to schedule a half an hour to an hour with Jack to talk about beef spots that they might need to go over. And other than that, I'm going to try to keep on top of store 236 editing because I tend to not do anything for a week because I'm doing other things. And then I only have a week to do every episode. I need to stop doing that. Stop doing that. Especially if I need. If I need like somebody to like, re. Record a line or something, I'll be like, hey, I need this by tomorrow for real. Because this, like the episode's going live tomorrow. Yeah.

Oh my God.

Need to not do that. So I'm gonna try to get ahead of that and maybe have episodes done a week before I even need to show anybody. I'll just hand Mel a mostly done episode, which would be awesome. And then I have a book to record and finish.

And.

Yeah. So before 2026, I will have both episodes. Rough cut. I am. I feel reasonably confident about that. I might have to edit on my vacation, but that's okay. That gives me an excuse to like, you know, when the. When the family gets a bit much, you can just be like, hey, I have got to go disappear into a room for two hours. Is that okay? And then just like, I. I have to do it. I definitely have to do it. I don't just need to get away from all of you people. I do love my family, but. So, yeah, we'll get like that though. Yeah, I will get all of that done. I should have all of my. I Mean, I'll have. I should have all of the audio pulled in at that point. I still need to get the pickups and some other stuff, and I should have everybody paid by then, too. It's provided they get me the audio files. I will again go yell at the one person who hasn't and be like, hello. Yeah, Yeah. I think people on this podcast probably know who that is or can make a reasonable guess.

I have a reasonable guess. It's not me. I probably.

Jack has sent me their invoice or no. Yeah, yeah, you did.

I did. I sent it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got your address backed my address.

And I sent it back.

Yeah. So I will get all of that done, and hopefully I will have started on the sound design. That may be a little bit slower because I have no idea what this universe sounds like yet. That'll have to be found out in the thing. But, yeah, so rough cuts will be done. I think that's a pretty reasonable goal. So that's what we'll declare, and we will. Oh, and my other thing is that I will not take two weeks to edit this episode of behind the Locked Doors. I will get this out today or tomorrow or something like that, because previously I've been doing them, like, the day of, and then, like, it kind of slipped slowly over time. And I did. I put up, like, the one from two weeks ago. I put that up on, like, Saturday. So I will. We'll, like, get this one out quickly. That's my other big goal.

Oh, yeah.

Excellent.

In that case, we will catch the. I will catch y' all in a couple weeks, and we'll catch the audience sometime in the new year.

Bye.

Bye. Bye, Bye.

Bye. Oh, my God. Twig.

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