[00:00:00.07] - Gordon
Hello, my name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:12.00] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:14.02] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And thank you so much for joining us.
[00:00:24.05] - Taylor
Welcome back.
[00:00:25.13] - Gordon
It's been an interesting week for me. How's your week been?
[00:00:29.23] - Taylor
Pretty good.
[00:00:30.17] - Gordon
Excellent. Shall we get straight into our topics? Would you like to go first or shall I?
[00:00:36.06] - Taylor
I'll go first this week.
[00:00:37.08] - Gordon
Off you go.
[00:00:38.10] - Taylor
So this week I wanted to talk about perspective. Now I have been, I have a PT that gives me a training plan to follow and I've restarted the training plan about three times over the past six months. And a lot of that is I will get the first one or two sessions done and then life kind of gets in the way or I make excuses and say "I can't go this week" or "I can't go this." And it's very hard to keep the consistency because if you don't start and keep the momentum, you lose it. And so when I restarted it this two weeks ago, I said to my PT, "if I fail, I will buy you a pair of barefoot shoes." So barefoot shoes are what I use to train in. I use them just every day. And there's a brand called Vivo Barefoots. I think I've spoken about them before and he has a pair and we always kind of joke about it because every time I see him, he's never wearing them. And he was the one that actually introduced me to the barefoots. So I said, "look, if I miss a session, one session, I will buy you a pair."
[00:01:49.08] - Taylor
And they're about £200, so I don't really want to do that, especially since I've got the flat coming up and there's expenses with that. So I kind of put myself a, a kind of reason to, to go really. Prove, prove myself that, you know, I can, I can go, I can build the momentum. And it was interesting because on Wednesday I had a pretty busy day. I kind of got up a bit late because I had a late night and so kind of the day had already started and I was already behind. I go out in the evenings, we go out in the evenings, we go to the cinema. And it got to about half four and we kind of had to leave about 6ish. And I was kind of like normally I would say "I don't have time, you know, I've got so much, so many things to do. I don't have time to go to the gym." But that kind of motivated me and I kind of was like, "well, I've gotta leave by about half four to go to the gym if I'm gonna go." And so I got quite a lot done during the day because I was kind of like, "well, if I'm gonna go, I've got to go at that point."
[00:02:58.25] - Taylor
So I did and I had about an hour and a half and like I said, normally I would say, "it's not enough time" or I would make excuses, but I did it. I went, got back and was, you know, back in time to leave. And it got me thinking that a lot of people probably are in a similar situation. They probably make excuses or the way that we look at time, the way we look at things is interesting because it's a matter of perspective. You could look at it and say, "I've only got an hour and a half." Or you could look at it and say, "I've got an hour and a half, let me go and smash a workout out." And I think it's, it can be translated into lots of different parts of your life, both professional and personal and just, you know, seizing, you know, the opportunity and trying to fit in, you know, things that you otherwise would think you couldn't. I don't mean to burn out and just do everything 24 hours a day, but you know, re-evaluate things and actually, you know, if you put the time in and put the effort in, you probably can make a lot of things work.
[00:04:00.13] - Gordon
It's interesting you've chosen to do sort of a forfeit or a payment to someone else rather than the alternative, which is to reward yourself if you do it. Because I guess if you say to yourself, right, "if I do this and I get all the way through, I will reward myself." And that could be because you buy something or you give yourself something, or you allow yourself to do, do something, then if it doesn't happen, well, you just don't have to do that then. But by switching it over to the alternative where you have like a forfeit to pay. In this case, you're, you're buying someone a gift that you potentially don't want to buy because it's expensive, that's going to happen if you don't do what you say you're going to do. So maybe that's, for you, is a much stronger sort of way to motivate yourself to do things.
[00:04:57.17] - Taylor
I mean, it happens when I put deadlines, you know, I've started to put deadlines on a lot of things. And say, "I will get this done by this date," even though it doesn't need to be done by that date. By putting a deadline on, I kind of have forced myself to meet that deadline, essentially. Even though, you know, a lot of things don't require deadlines, don't have deadlines, especially with personal projects, without setting those deadlines, they kind of just will go on forever. And yes, I found by doing that as well. But it's interesting because there's... I've tried using monetary things to, to motivate myself, I guess, and it's never worked in the past. And I think the difference here is partly because it's giving it to somebody else. And the other thing is that it's a high enough amount that is significant. If it was, I'll give you 20 quid or I'll give you 50 quid. It's not an, it's not a significant amount of money that I would just blow. It is whatever, you know, for me, money's not that, you know, I don't care that much. You know, you should obviously care about your money.
[00:06:06.08] - Taylor
But there are some points I'm just like, you know, it's money at the end of the day, you know, you don't. You don't leave with it. So if I, if I lose money, then it is what it is. Especially with things like parking or whatever, I'm just kind of like, I'll just pay because it's not worth me to worry about that. But when it's a significant amount, you know, 200 pounds, I've kind of found at least the minimum sweet spot. I'm kind of like, "well, I don't actually want to spend that much money."
[00:06:31.16] - Gordon
On something that you're not gaining.
[00:06:33.07] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:06:33.19] - Gordon
From.
[00:06:34.22] - Taylor
So I think it's, it's also, you've got to play with that boundary and find what is the threshold, you know. And that threshold may change, you know, as you, you get more successful and you have more money, that amount is going to change. You know, you look at people that gamble, have lots of money. They will make bets with their friends, you know, at a grand or five grand, because to them that is like five or 20 quid. And so obviously that number may shift and it may vary depending on the person because everyone's level of wealth and also how they view money is obviously a lot different.
[00:07:09.08] - Gordon
It's all relative, isn't it? And it's different for everybody. But yeah, no, that's really good. I like the fact that you are doing that. That's very good. I like the fact that you found a way to motivate yourself, because I think everyone has their own ways of motivating themself. And if you haven't found it yet, try something else. There's got to be a way somewhere that will motivate you to do something.
[00:07:33.12] - Taylor
I mean, yeah, I mean, motivation isn't found. It's mainly through discipline. You know, you don't wake up with motivation. It's most of the time discipline that will keep you going, but it's a motivator that will get me into hopefully the, the routine. That's the bit I'm trying to. I'm trying to work out is once I've got into the routine, then it's easier to keep, but it's getting that the initial two, three weeks into that routine that's the hardest.
[00:08:02.23] - Gordon
It's like our Wednesday evenings when we go to the cinema. You know, it was, every now and then we'd sort of at the beginning we go, "oh, do we really want to go? It's raining outside." But, you know, we pushed through that. And it's now something we do every week. And, you know, unless one of us is ill or out of the country, that's something that happens every week. We don't even think about it now. It's just, "what are we going to watch?" You know? So anything else you want to say on that?
[00:08:28.29] - Taylor
I don't think so.
[00:08:29.20] - Gordon
Very interesting. Today, I would like to talk about updating now on Monday last. During this past week, Apple put out a lot of software updates. And today, in fact, lots of people will be getting their new iPhones and their new AirPods and all sorts of other bits and pieces. But it's the software that I want to talk about because deciding to upgrade is always a good thing, I feel. But you need to do it in a certain way to make sure you don't cause yourself problems or pain. So what do I mean by that? Well, if we look at, for example, the operating system of a phone, an iPhone, in this case, it's not too much of an issue because all of the applications that you run are likely to work on the new version of the operating system, because that's how this ecosystem has worked for the iPhone. Everyone gets notified if they're a developer, to tell them that there's a new operating system. They all get the beta for several months. What is it? June, July, August, September, about three months. They get to actually play with the beta so they can actually make sure their Applications are up and running, and if you've got an app on your phone and it's still in the App Store, the chances are it's still being updated and maintained.
[00:10:07.18] - Gordon
So updating the software on your phone is never really a major issue. I would always recommend doing a backup. I've got a system where it connects to my computer and it backs up my phone to my computer. There's other ways of doing it. You could do it up to iCloud. That's quite a popular one. Again, depending on the size of your phone storage, will depend on whether you can do that with iCloud, and also the speed of your internet, which is why I've chosen to do it on the computer, because my internet speed is very slow. But always do a backup. But normally something like an iPhone is relatively straightforward. Now, the only thing you need to worry about with that is to make sure you have enough space on your phone to allow the upgrade to happen. And you need to make sure that when you update, you have it plugged into the mains at the time. And I think it's got to be over 50% charged so that it doesn't run out of battery power. So that's very straightforward and something I highly recommend. So we are now on iOS 26, which has jumped up from iOS.
[00:11:14.24] - Gordon
What was it, 18 before, wasn't it? What they've done is they've now given the number of the version, so it's the same as the last two digits of the year. So we're in 2025. We're about to go into 2026, which is the period that this update will be active for the most. So it's called iOS 26. Next year we'll get iOS 27. And things like your AirPods, they get firmware updates. You can't do anything about that. They just happen when they happen again. If you leave your AirPods in their cases on the charger near your phone, the chances are they'll get updated quite quickly. Things like your Apple Watch, again, make sure it's on charge, make sure that it's near your phone. You can actually force an update by going into the Watch application and telling it you want to update. Make sure you've got enough space on the watch, as before and make sure it's charged over 50%. Again, updates to the watch are relatively simple. There's nothing really that's going to break. And when I say nothing's going to break, what I mean is that software that you rely on is going to work.
[00:12:30.08] - Gordon
Now, when we come to the Macintosh, that is slightly different because not all of the software comes through the App Store. Some of the software is made by a third party and they develop it, they allow you to download it from their website, and they have their own update facility. And you need to make sure that when you're going to upgrade that the new operating system is not going to break any of the software that you rely on. This means something that maybe you have that's business critical. For example, I use Quicken, which is my application for accounts, although that is going to change. I'll explain that in another episode. But I use that. And the version I've got is a very old version. So I need to make sure that that is going to run on the next version of the operating system before I update. Now, you can go back, but that's a bit of a pain. So I don't recommend doing it that way. The way that I recommend doing it is having another device, if you have one. I've got a laptop. I can put what I want on the laptop.
[00:13:46.16] - Gordon
It's something I use when I go and I'm away somewhere. And if I have to wipe the laptop and start over, that's fine because all the important data is elsewhere and it's just a matter of redownloading applications. So I update my laptop first. I test the software that I think is the oldest and hasn't been updated in a while to see if it will. If it runs on the laptop. And if it runs on the laptop, the likelihood is it's going to run on my main desktop machine. Therefore, I'm okay to then upgrade my desktop machine to the latest operating system. The advice is still the same as it was for the phone. Make sure you back up everything first. I've got Time Machine, which backs up onto a hard drive so that my whole system is backed up. If I need to revert back to the state that it's in before I upgrade, I can do. It's a possibility for me. So that's really important because you never know what's going to happen down the line. Plus, you want to make sure that you back up all your data, because again, with a new operating system, you don't know what this operating system is going to be writing.
[00:14:56.18] - Gordon
You don't know if it's going to be moving core components to different places. So it's really important to keep backups of all your data as well. Now, the updating is important, I find. You get brand new features which is great because Apple come up with some really, really good features. For example, the new AirPod update for AirPod Pro 2 and the new AirPod Pro 3 does this translation feature that I mentioned last week, which I think is. Is phenomenal. Haven't had a chance to test it yet, although I am updated. But that is something that you get as a free extra that you didn't expect when you purchased the item. They're giving you new functionality, which is, which is great. And you'll find that that is the case with software for desktops as well, like your Macintosh, in this case, Mac OS 26. You'll get brand new features, you'll get new capabilities, you'll get new functionality. But more importantly than that is you also get security updates. And security updates are very important. You don't want to get hacked. You don't want someone to take control of your machine, take control of your data, start moving emails and sending them off to a third party.
[00:16:15.04] - Gordon
You know, you don't want any of that to happen. And the best way to do that is to make sure you keep up to date with all of your security updates. And some of them are included in the operating system updates. In fact, when iOS 26, sorry, Mac OS 26 came out, we also had the last version of the operating system, which had a security update. So if you didn't want to move to Tahoe, which is the latest version, you could at least upgrade with all the security fixes in the previous operating system, which is really good. They came out on the same day. It's something that you should definitely do. I think I mentioned that I'm a big proponent for, for making sure you have the latest and the greatest versions of all software. I do the same with my websites. And again, it's similar sort of reason for security and for new functionality. Is there anything, I mean, you, you downloaded the beta iOS for your phone, didn't you?
[00:17:18.10] - Taylor
I run the, the beta of iOS on my phone most of the year.
[00:17:23.18] - Gordon
Which is really strange because they recommend you don't do that on your main device because the betas are testing software and there may be bugs and there quite often is bugs, and they'll fix it and they'll update it, but it may take a week or two before that gets fixed and updated. So what you're doing is you're running test software and they recommend doing it on a, on a second machine, you know, a second device, but you choose to do it on your main device.
[00:17:49.25] - Taylor
Yeah, I mean, there's not that much on my phone. I mean, my phone is backed up to icloud and my phone is, you know, if I have to wipe the phone, I have to wipe the phone. I don't really care. It's my computer that I take longest to update because there's a lot of stuff that I use and I use it, you know, every day for work. So I tend to take longer for that. I remember back in, I think it was iOS6 to iOS7 when they changed to a brand new UI and they basically updated the entire UI to like sort of like a glass effect compared to the old version. And I remember I used to run it and people would look at my, my phone and say, what, you know, what are you running? I said, "oh, it's just the new version of iOS," because it changed that much. I just like to have fun, try the new features, the new UI.
[00:18:42.16] - Gordon
And in fact the new software does have the biggest UI change in the last 10 years. So if you're on iPhone or you're on Mac when you update, you will see this brand new glass effect all over the place. There's more rounded corners, there's tweaks in the typeface and the sizes and the colours and there's new icons and there's all sorts of changes that you will notice immediately and they've changed some of the way that you do things in various applications. For example, the phone application on your iPhone now just has photo and video if you want to get to any of the other modes like Panoramic or Hyperlapse. Hyperlapse? No.
[00:19:35.02] - Taylor
Time lapse?
[00:19:36.01] - Gordon
Time lapse. Is there a time lapse feature? I can't remember anymore. I haven't used it for a long time. You actually have to press and hold and then swipe and then you'll get all of the settings that you expect to see, they've just changed the way you get to them. And Apple are very good because they try and make it as intuitive as possible. And there's always people out there who do videos to show you all the changes.
[00:20:01.19] - Gordon
In fact, there's people who do videos to show you the changes during all the betas as well. So if you don't want to upgrade to the betas just because you don't want anything to break, you can at least watch the videos and see what you have coming, which is what I did. But yeah, it's definitely something to do. And the, the flip side of this with the computer is there are some people who will say you should wipe your computer, instal the new operating system and rebuild the whole system when you upgrade the new operating system. And I have done that in the past. I think it really depends on whether you're having problems with your computer in any way. If you've got some strange things that are happening, you don't quite understand why they're happening and you sort of, you've lived with them, that's a good reason to wipe the computer.
[00:20:54.08] - Taylor
I did it with my last, with the Mac I just got.
[00:20:56.27] - Gordon
Yeah.
[00:20:57.14] - Taylor
The MacBook. I basically just installed stuff as and when I needed it. Installed obviously a lot of the apps that I was using previously but didn't instal, a lot of apps that I did have. I still have a bunch of documents that I still haven't pulled over. I probably should pull them over, but I haven't needed them at all since I got it. So it's interesting because I was kind of just trying to see how long I could go without needing a file. And I've yet to need a file because most of it is in Dropbox instead of on the computer itself.
[00:21:32.13] - Gordon
And the other thing is, if you do instal applications and you realise that maybe you don't actually want it anymore and you delete it, there are quite often remnants of that application left in different folders that are all to do with the operating system. And so by wiping the computer, putting a brand new operating system on, you clear all of those files out so you don't have any potential conflicts with those files in the future. So, yeah, if you're having slight problems with your computer, definitely consider doing that because it will probably fix the issues you're having. And if you find that the computer's sluggish, it's not, you know, it's working fine, but it's just slow, then that's another reason to do it because you might find there are some cache files or there's some files that just aren't needed anymore that are clogging up the system. And it's good to do this every now and then. If you have a computer for sort of five years and you never wipe it and start over, you're going to have an awful lot of rubbish on there that you just don't need.
[00:22:37.22] - Gordon
And you will find pretty much you'll get, you know, a brand new feeling in the machine because it's, it's zippier, it's faster, it has little animations that run quicker and it feels like a new machine when you do that, doesn't it?
[00:22:53.10] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:22:54.10] - Gordon
So, yeah, that's one thing you should consider. I didn't on this occasion, but you never know. If I get problems or I find that I've got lots of applications that I've taken off. Next time around I might well do that. That's all I want to say about that. Good luck if you are upgrading. It's something that I feel you should be doing. But, you know, do some research first if you're not sure. Anything else you want to say today?
[00:23:22.17] - Taylor
I don't think so.
[00:23:23.18] - Gordon
That's everything from me, everything from Taylor. So thank you so much for joining us. As always, we are on YouTube, please like, share and subscribe.
[00:23:32.05] - Taylor
You can also go to our website, thisweekwith.co.uk and find all of our past episodes.
[00:23:37.11] - Gordon
And if you prefer to listen to us, we can be we can be found on all of the major podcast platforms; just search for "This Week With Taylor and Gordon." Or you can talk to your smart speaker and say, "play This Week With Taylor and Gordon," and it will play the latest episode for you. We'll be back with you next Friday at 1pm. Until then my name's Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:24:02.09] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:24:04.21] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:24:05.11] - Taylor
Bye.
