[00:00:00.00] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:09.22] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:10.06] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:12.07] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:14.06] - 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. Another busy week for me. How about you?
[00:00:28.20] - Taylor
Yeah, going well, but yeah, very busy.
[00:00:31.12] - Gordon
Yeah, well, that's good. We like to be busy because otherwise your business wouldn't be doing very well if you weren't busy, would it?
[00:00:38.08] - Taylor
Exactly.
[00:00:38.29] - Gordon
Right. Would you like to start or shall I?
[00:00:41.13] - Taylor
I'm going to start this week.
[00:00:42.14] - Gordon
Okay, off you go.
[00:00:43.18] - Taylor
So this week I wanted to talk about putting in triggers and things to help you do the right things. So what I mean by this is, sometimes there's things where you have bad habits or there are things that you want to do to be more productive or to live a better life. But sometimes motivation on its own isn't enough. Having self-discipline is very difficult. And I had this with going to the gym. So I really like going to the gym early in the morning because it sets me up for the day. I'll go to the gym and then come home and I'll be ready and feeling really energised, and I actually have a really good day at work and really productive. However, getting to the gym in the morning is quite challenging sometimes. It's very easy for me to go, "Oh, I'll just sleep a bit more in bed." And then by that time, it's too late where if I go, I lose time working and I don't have as a productive day. So what I did is I scheduled tennis sessions before going to the gym.
[00:02:00.04] - Taylor
So what I did is, I found two partners that I play with on a Wednesday morning and a Friday morning at 6:30. And because I have committed to it every week and because I have an obligation with somebody else, it forces me to get up and go. Then once I've played tennis, which I enjoy, I then I'm like, "Well, I'm already there. I might as well go to the gym." And then I go to the gym, have a shower, go home, and I have a great day. And it's that accountability, I guess, in a way that gets me going and gets me up because I don't want to let the other person down. If they have made the effort to get up in the morning and then I don't turn up, it's like, well, I'm not very reliable and they have gotten up for nothing, essentially. And so I've been trying to put these things in place that help you break the barrier to entry for things that either I don't like doing, trying to make it easier to do. So a lot of the smart home stuff that I've got, some people say it's unnecessary, but for some of the things I don't enjoy doing it.
[00:03:06.19] - Taylor
And so for me, finding something fun in the mundane or finding something that's going to make my life easier while still doing it and getting it done, is something I think is worth it. Do you find that? Do you have anything that you set yourself or you try and do to get yourself going or find things that you don't enjoy or whatever?
[00:03:28.22] - Gordon
Yes. I mean, just recently, I've done all my tax. I mean, it was last month now, but you then have to submit it online with the self-assessment, and that's not something I enjoy doing. But I said to myself that I would reward myself by doing something that I really enjoy doing, if and when I've done the thing I don't like doing. And so that is quite good. If you set yourself rewards or goals that you can then do once you've done the jobs you don't like doing. Because as self-employed people, we do lots of things that we didn't really sign up for, like accountancy and admin and invoicing and all that sort of thing that isn't the fun part of running a business, but it's necessary when there's only you there. So giving yourself little rewards is a nice way to get stuff done. And that's what works for me.
[00:04:29.10] - Taylor
Nice.
[00:04:30.04] - Gordon
Yeah. Accountability is very important as well. I have this with a friend of mine, Paul, a friend of the podcast, and we've not been doing it for a while because Paul's had lots of things going on, but we are starting it up again next week, I believe, for Thursday. And that's going to be good because, again, you get lots of work done because you have to be accountable to the other person.
[00:04:58.19] - Taylor
Yeah. I also I found that, for example, one of the things I wanted to do this year is read a lot more. And so I bought a Kindle at the end of last year. And I was reading a bit here and there. But what I found made the biggest difference was just putting it in a place that was right in front of me. I would just leave it on my desk so that if I go to the toilet or if I'm going out, I'll just dump it in the bag. And then when I'm out, I can just pick it up and start reading. And it makes it a lot easier and a lot more accessible. I did have it sat in the dock on my bedside table, but I found that I just left it there. And then by the time I would actually get into bed, I would be too tired or didn't want to read. I read a lot of non-fiction, I think, yeah, non-fiction, but I don't really want to be reading that late at night because it's going to get my brain going and I want to be winding down rather than winding up.
[00:06:00.03] - Taylor
So, by that point, it wasn't really a good place to put it. So yeah, by putting things in places that are right in front of you, it reminds you to use it or do whatever you needed to do. Same with whenever I need to take something to the car, I'll just put them on top of my keys because I can't go to my car without my keys. And so I have to pick it up on the way.
[00:06:22.26] - Gordon
Yeah, I do exactly the same thing. In fact, I was bringing something over to you today and I put it in my shoe to make sure I didn't forget to bring it. Right. Anything else you want to say on that?
[00:06:32.22] - Taylor
I don't think so.
[00:06:33.25] - Gordon
So I want to talk about my Wednesday this week. It was a day where I was still working on pantomime. So I have my dad who films the pantomime with my equipment. And then my job is to edit it all and put it onto DVDs, put it onto streaming, ready to distribute to people who've bought it. And this year I've had to edit two full shows because normally I do one full show and that's the master. And then all of the children who are in the other performance, I just do their numbers. But because there are so many children in the cast this year, that there's very little I can cut out which doesn't have an alternative cast member in it. So I made the decision I'm going to have to edit both. Now, one of the angles that I got for my cameras has corruption on it, and it doesn't look particularly good, but I have to use it because I have no choice.
[00:07:52.07] - Gordon
So I'm not particularly pleased about that. There's nothing I can do about it now, and I'm still not 100% sure what's causing it, but I think I've got an idea. I think it's the hard drive. So I'm looking at replacing that with an SSD so that in the future I won't get any corruption. And that's actually quite important because we've got an event we're going to, a bubble convent. A bubble convent? That's a different word. A bubble event that we are filming and I need to make sure that the cameras are going to be recording properly. So I need to make sure that's working. So I've got some testing to do. But I thought I would get a print going on my printer, on my 3D printer, while I'm editing. And it got to a point when there was an error that was alerted to me through Home Assistant, which is great.
[00:08:46.29] - Taylor
Nice.
[00:08:47.16] - Gordon
But what it told me is that a little bit of filament had got stuck in the automatic material system unit. So it coils it all up, it sends it all out. And then sometimes you get breakages and you have to then fish them out.
[00:09:03.08] - Gordon
So I went upstairs where the printer is now and took out the tube and the filament wasn't stuck there, which was a bit disappointing. So I put the filament back in, continued, and it rewound it because it was trying to unload it, which means there's obviously another piece somewhere else within the system. And I had a look and worked out that it was actually at the back of the unit, and that's not easy to get to...
[00:09:34.01] - Taylor
Doesn't sound it.
[00:09:34.14] - Gordon
I discovered. And what I had to do is look up tutorial videos as to how you take this unit apart. There are some incredibly small screws that you have to take out. And there's lots and lots of connections, which I was hoping I didn't have to take out. I found the bit that I thought the filament was stuck in and I uncrewed the cover. And then there's some magnets and some tiny little springs, which as soon as I took the cover off, wanted to connect to each other. So they all jumped out of their slots, there's four of them, and joined together. And then one of the springs went somewhere else and I was... Oh my goodness.
[00:10:18.08] - Gordon
And I shone a light down and there was the bit of filament. So which way does it go? It goes backwards, right. I need to get something in there to get it backwards. I ended up getting little tiny scissors and pushing it back. And that then fell out, which is fine. But now I've got to put everything back together and find that little spring, and I'm not entirely sure how they go in. These tiny little magnets, I'm not sure how they go in because they all jumped out when the cover came off. So I'm now trying to put them in. I've got one in. Eventually, I've figured out which way around they have to go. I get one in, I put the spring on top, I put the next one in, and the first one jumps out to connect to it. "Ah, right. Okay. So I've got to put one in, put my finger over it." There's four slots with four magnets. Oh, my goodness. That took so long to do. I'm sure there's an easier way of doing it, but I couldn't find it. And then eventually I get the cover on, screw it up, put it all back in, and it continues working.
[00:11:16.14] - Gordon
Now it's halfway through a print at this point. So it's keeping the bed warm while I'm doing all this using power. And I'm having to then put it back, hope it works, hope it doesn't break again. I think the reason that it broke originally is because it's filament I had possibly two years ago, and it got to the point when...
[00:11:38.05] - Taylor
Got a bit brittle.
[00:11:39.02] - Gordon
It is a little brittle, yeah. And once it's going, it's fine. But getting it going after it being sitting there for a while, you quite often get a breakage, I've discovered, and I've got two different filaments that do the same thing. And the thing is that they're quite full, so I don't really want to waste them by just throwing them out. But if it's going to take me an hour to fix an issue, maybe that's the best thing. But anyway, it started working again, and then I'm going back to my editing, realising I've just now lost an hour of my editing time due to this print that I was putting on to save time, while I was editing. So, yeah. But I do now know a little bit more about the AMS, the automatic material system. I know how to fix a couple more issues that I didn't know before. So it was a learning experience, just not one I particularly wanted at this point in time. So, yeah, that was my slightly frustrating Wednesday. And not quite done with the DVDs yet, but hopefully I will be done in time. And if I'm not, well, I normally give them out tomorrow.
[00:12:53.22] - Gordon
And if I don't get them done in time, then I'll just distribute them afterwards. I do tell people it's likely be the first week of February, and I try and deliver early when I can. And most of the time I have been able to do that. But every now and then, like maybe this year, I may struggle to meet my own early deadline. But if I do, that's fine. We can just put it forward a little bit, put it back a little bit. So, yeah, that's my week.
[00:13:23.07] - Taylor
A troubled week.
[00:13:24.26] - Gordon
Well, yeah, a troubled week that has a learning experience. And also, editing is something I don't do a great deal of at the moment. I may do it once every three months or so. And things change. There's an update that's due on the 28th of January from Apple for Final Cut Pro, and that's going to bring in new features and so forth, but it could also change other things that I've already got working. So again, it's a new experience. Do I upgrade? Do I not upgrade? My experience has always said to me, don't upgrade in the middle of a project. And I've got this project which should be finished by then. And I've got another project I need to just finish off before I then upgrade, and then I should be okay. So there's a very important tip. Don't upgrade any software while you're in the middle of an important project because all sorts of things might change and you could give yourself a lot of headaches.
[00:14:22.28] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:14:23.25] - Gordon
That's everything for me. Anything else from you?
[00:14:26.15] - Taylor
No.
[00:14:27.03] - Gordon
Thank you so much for joining us. As always on YouTube. Please like, share and subscribe.
[00:14:32.22] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.
[00:14:37.29] - Gordon
And if you would prefer to listen to us instead of watching us, then we're on all the major podcast platforms. You can do a search using your smart speaker or on any podcast platform for "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," and our latest episode should come up along with our full archive. So you can then listen to us to your heart's content. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back with you all being well this time next week. So that's 1pm next Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:15:09.26] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:15:12.08] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:15:12.22] - Taylor
Bye.
