In Nozbe, we believe that most meetings are toxic and would better be replaced by asynchronous communication. And although we’re pretty radical in this approach, we managed to be… even more radical 😎 We decided to reduce the already small number of meetings we have. Learn why it happened.
🎧 Listen to the No Office podcast on remote work and managing a dispersed team
⭐️ Key things you will learn from this episode:
- What’s the best why to introduce Nozbe Teams in a team
- Why we decided to reduce the number of Design Fight meetings even though we are so proud of the way they are organized
- What the host got and what they haven’t got on Black Friday sales
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🙋 Meet the Hosts
- Michael Sliwiński (@msliwinski)
- Rafał Sobolewski (@sobolowy)
🔗 Show notes
- Michael’s conversation with Nozbe customer
- Nozbe Teams Product Vlog
- iPad Pro 13” with white Magic Keyboard after 3 months - my subjective review!
- Michael’s new home office for 2022 with professional recording gear
- The online courses Rafal attends
- Nozbe Teams Plans
- Make Meetings Optional - a chapter from Michael’s new book
🟣 Find Us
- No Office website: nooffice.fm
- Tweet us @nozbe
- Follow us on Instagram @nozbe
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📝 Episode transcript
Rafal Welcome to No Office, a podcast about work, technology and life from a remote company perspective. In Nozbe, we believe that work is not a place to go. It is a thing that you do. That is why since 2007 we run our company 100% remotely in Nozbe. There is no Office. The no Office podcast is consorted by Nozbe Teams, a todo app that helps modern teams do great things. Go to nozbe.com to learn more.
Rafal Don’t cramp people zoom fluorescent lighted office all day long. You know you probably are going to work from home.
Rafal Hello and welcome to episode number 31 of No Office, a podcast about work, technology and life from a remote company perspective. My name is Rafal Sobolewski, and as always, I’m joined by my good friend and CEO of our No Office company, Nozbe Michael Sliwinski. Hello, Michael, how are you today?
Michael Good. Good, good. I’m really, really good because this is my last day of work because tomorrow I have free.
Rafal You have a short break.
Michael Yes. Yes, I’m going on a date with my wife. So that’s great.
Rafal Well, that’s fancy.
Michael Well, you have three kids. You really appreciate that you can go on a date with with your wife, without kids, you know, for for a couple of days. So this is what we’re going to do.
Rafal So let’s jump into our typical segment and let’s talk about what we have been up to us and see because November was very intense for us. We had the Black Friday promo. Oh . And , we had a lot of meetings. On Cyber Monday, we actually recorded two product vlogs, one in Polish, one in English. And we, , we we showed how to use Nozbe Teams with multiple teams, how you can purchase Nozbe premium for your team of one.
Rafal , even our team of two. And we saw some new features like filters. . And there are more features, but we are working on quality. Actually, I see on our Slack that we have notification from Radek is working on native Mac app. Yes. And Windows as well. Don’t worry. . So , there are more exciting stuff to come in Nozbe Teams and hopefully we will have more to share even in December in another product.
Rafal So make sure to check out our Nozbe dot com slash blog. . Website It’s always like the newest episode.
Michael Yes. Yes, yes. I’m really happy that we managed to do one. And you know this this whole fact of of us introducing, you know, the the multi multiple teams and also introducing more plans. So there is a plan for a team of one. So if you just want to use Nozbe Teams on your own, you can just get a team of one and use it on your own. The thing is that just today, when I was reviewing their promo, we figured if we saw a case of the person who bought the team of one with the promo so far with additional teams free as of the Black Friday offer, and already today they have three people on the team.
Michael So. So he used already this system that which which I think I would like to say it’s brilliant because we figured it out, but I think it is brilliant.
Rafal , because you shaped it up.
Michael Yes, because this system that when you start with a team of one and you pay for a year and you want to add additional person to your team, you’ll have to pay anything. You just change to the two people and then we automatically calculate your, you know, your next renewal to be just earlier because we just like use the time that you bought anyway. And and he used it like twice because, you know, he he also got the third person on board.
Michael So and and I think this is what I really like about Nozbe Teams that we make upgrades and downgrades so easy. Like you don’t have to, you know, go through finance, you don’t have to pay another bill, another invoice, whatever. You just change the plan and it automatically adjusts the the next renewal time.
Rafal So actually with doing this tweak, you can buy not only and Nozbe premium for a month or for a year. You can actually calculate to buy. Buy it for 3 months or 4 months or seven months. Yes, exactly.
Michael Exactly. So just by, you know, by manipulating how many people you have on your team, basically. But but this is what I like about our approach is that we want people to start very small, even solopreneurs, team of one, whatever, and then gradually keep adding people to their team.
Rafal , actually, I think that’s that’s even better. Even easier to introduce to a team once like two or three people already know the tool and how it works, and then you later invite more people and help them to onboard because like you know, every tool for four teams is like, we try to make it as easy as possible, but there will always be things that need to be explained to to some, some team members.
Michael But there’s always something that they always say to our customers is that they should start small. Just put one project, one major project that you working on and the people who are going to work on this project in your Nozbe Teams. And that’s it. Everything else do the same way you are doing. But just this one project do it in Nozbe Teams with this small group of people. And when you get the hang of it, you will want to add, you know, more projects to it.
Michael But also, this will create engagement because people know, I mean, they will know that to access information about this particular project. They will have to use Nozbe Teams. There is no other way to get to that information. There is no email. There is no, you know, Jira or Slack, asana or whatever you are using before because it’s in Nozbe Teams. So you start with Nozbe Teams with this small group of people in my project and then it goes from there.
Rafal Let’s move on. As I said, November was very intense, and I really, I’m glad to. You have a break with your with your wife for a day to a couple of days. Me too. I took some couple of days free in December and I can’t wait to take these days because, the last month was really, really intense. We had a lot of meetings and I additionally had training on macOS Monterray. OK. .
Rafal And it was on Saturday and it was virtual and it was. I felt that for the whole day the next day. And wow, what kind of training was that? Who, who? Who did it for you?
Rafal Do you know this podcast, MacGadka?
Michael Yes, of course. .
Rafal I’m like a premium subscriber of this. And with this subscription, I have like one one training for free in the year. OK, . So I decided I want to have it training once, then macOS ships and I planned it for for November, but I forgot about that. That’s actually need that week before Black Friday, and we will have his always a very intense time. Yes. So I didn’t plan it.
Rafal Well, that’s my mistake. But , that’s really ruined my my, my weekly schedule.
Michael Yes, I’m sure that I would. But that’s the thing, you know, we make also, I think just today, I had so many meetings as well, and it’s like when you have too many meetings, we get really very quickly drained out and we just, you know, it’s like meetings are something that you know that you want to do. Well, you you wants to be prepared for a meeting. So it’s also the time before the meeting and not about just because you are anxious or afraid, but also because you really want to, you know, do well, you want to be ready for it and then you have to be on the meeting.
Michael And the good thing is that in our company, we have the set ups pretty well done. So there is no Hey, can you hear me? Do you see my camera? We don’t have that, but it’s still like, you know, we are there and you know, it’s it’s it’s it’s intense. And I think also the style of our meetings is like, we like we like to fight and we like to really discuss things.
Rafal This training I had from MacGadka guys and our meetings, like I like all of them thought to be and to to to figure out stuff about. But really, after such a meeting after even though I I felt it was a very productive meeting. I feel exhausted after like having three of them on Monday, for example. , yes, all the whole training. On Saturday, it took like 10 hours of being online, constantly in front of camera.
Rafal Like, Well, , that’s that’s really not not good for for, for, for my brain, I think. And actually recently on on Tuesday, we had the retrospection on our design fight.
Michael Yes, so about that, our design fight meeting is our proudest meeting. I’m really proud of this meeting. Our favorite, our favorite, this is our think, the best thing we have ever invented for our team. I describe it in my book at No Office.
Michael Com Slash meetings. So it’s in the whole chapter about meetings. I talk about our design fight meeting. The cool thing about it is that it’s like this brain trust. So we we are like, you know, around the roundtable and we decide on designing new features for Nozbe and. None of us has the, you know, has the most power like we have to convince each other, we have to fight each other and we have to ask inconvenient questions and ask, you know, maybe stupid questions, you know, ask and talk about, you know, edge cases.
Michael So it’s it’s a very intense discussion because we don’t want to ship crappy features for our users. We don’t want to ship features that will just break or what’s what’s what’s for me personally the most important. We don’t want to ship features that create bad habits, something that it might be a good idea, but this will create a bad habit that people will start doing this instead of what they should be really doing right.
Rafal And I really appreciate that we we got on on this meeting or in this design fight group. We we really give each other very negative feedback on the things we see shaping up. That’s really good because if you don’t get negative feedback, that means that either your co-workers are not so good at this or you are another or you are just at the top level and there is no way to to develop yourself.
Michael Nobody’s that good. But if not even me. So the thing is that we really criticize each other. I mean each other, each other’s work. There is this saying when you are an author, like when you are anyway, when you’re creator, you should kill your darlings, kill your darlings, like you should edit. You should really, you know, look critically at your stuff. But it’s hard because these are your darlings, but on the Design Fight meetings.
Michael No problem. People are killing our darlings.
Michael And I remember like several times when I shaped up like a very cool feature, and I was so excited about it, only to be just completely like destroyed on the meeting and like my feature went to trash immediately. And something I was really excited about. I just went nowhere. But it’s OK. Like I tried. I explored an idea. And then it’s, you know, it helps me also change my mind. Be flexible and adaptive to be changing my mind.
Michael Because I think this is the worst part about our society is that very people, many people are stubborn. They don’t change their minds. They don’t want to improve. Or, you know, look on the other side. They just are stuck with their what they believe or what they think. And that’s it. And we should, you know, we should really fight for what we what we believe in. But when we get proof from the other side that it’s it’s a different situation and that there is there are new facts and our situation has changed too, we should be able to change, you know, the way we think.
Rafal Exactly. And many times it can be done. I think honestly, we actually don’t need this meeting like that much.
Michael , I mean, again, talking about designing features. So one of the things that’s how we designed Nozbe Teams is that the comments should encourage a longer discussion, a longer comment, not just yes or OK, right? It should be like a longer thing, OK? There are good gestures. Like, Yes, no, but the most important thing is that we want to encourage longer discussions. And because of that, we Nozbe Teams promotes asynchronous work.
Michael And that’s why we realized that the design fight meeting as great as it is. And you know, it is really good. Well, I want to just explore it a bit more why it’s so good. But it’s we’ve done it very well, but we can move one step further and we can make going from. It’s a regular meeting because I always say in my book, I say that meeting should be regular, optional and optional and optional, and we’re prepared.
Michael And the thing is that we decided that optional should be the default for this meeting. So the default is we don’t have to meet. There is no meeting on Tuesday at 2pm.
Rafal Actually, I think that optional was default. Like, we always agreed that OK, if we have topics to discuss, then there is a meeting. . And now we change it to make it OK. The default is no meeting unless the day before the meeting Monday 4pm, we decided that we need. We need a meeting because there are topics, but that cannot move forward. Asynchronous?
Rafal And , because I noticed that often I hesitated to give Asynchronus feedback. When it’s this feedback is complicated and maybe it’s harder to do, right? That’s right. Write down this this more complex feedback to some idea, and I sometimes waited for the meeting to show it. And that’s not good because if I have a feedback, I should share it like immediately and and learn how to how to express myself on in the written forum. Because that’s that’s most productive and on only when we cannot really get to the final conclusions, I think honestly.
Rafal And then we will do that meeting.
Michael Yes, because you know, the meeting is basically for the nuance is to really talk things through if you cannot get it right in the written form. And and that’s that’s where we should be headed. And our comments, as you mentioned, should be better. So we should basically get better, even even as the masters of asynchronous work should get even better and asynchronous work at asynchronous comments.
Rafal Async is default, like meeting is really only when it’s needed.
Michael Yes. And you know, like we are humans, like we like to, you know, hang out to be together and all that stuff. That’s why we also decided that we will have the meeting when it’s necessary or once a month, whichever comes first. So this way, we make sure that to the group of design fighters and is still coherent, that the group is still there. We know that we are part of the group and we have this one moment in months at least to get motivated to, you know, give each other, you know, push each other for better comments, for better feedback, for better conversation.
Rafal Yes, because right on those meetings, we sometimes see that our third tool to brainstorm some idea. , but we always do it. OK, that’s interesting point. Let’s let’s brainstorm this, but for 15 minutes. Mm hmm. . And after 15 minutes, OK, if we decide there is something interesting that we create a task to be shaped up by someone and someone, someone from the team will explore the topic more and prepare to put shape up, which in the future will be by default discussed asynchronous.
Michael One thing that I really liked about our design fight meeting was that it was really well-prepared. So they really were prepared, just like what I mentioned in my in my book, in my chapter on meetings that sometimes were late, of course, with, you know, with documentation and stuff. Sometimes it was really last minute. But still, we always, like all of us, really read the documentation, the comments, everything before the meeting. So the meeting was always after we’ve read stuff, which is great.
Michael So like, so you read it first and then you will discuss and. But now, as you said, we need to be better even at preparing this documentation and commenting on it. Asynchronously, we also said and and I think it’s also very cool that the person who is responsible for a feature for the proposal for for the document is responsible for managing managing commons there. So they have to react to comments there and then later in our Nozbe Teams app in that task, summarize for everyone else like, OK, so I got these comments, I’m changes document or I’m going to ditch it, I’m going to completely make it new or I just improved some stuff.
Michael And these are the final conclusions. Do you agree? And then when we agree, the thing goes forward.
Rafal So , the thing is we go for those forward to to our portfolio of options for further development.
Michael Mm hmm. Exactly. So. I encourage you and every one of you just to really question your meetings. You know, like make sure that the because there’s a saying, you know, it’s a meeting and it could have been an email. No, it could have been a task in Nozbe Teams. But mostly it if if this meeting happens too many times. Think about it. Does it really have to happen? Does it have to really happen that often?
Michael Can we not make it a different process, like having a task, having comments, deciding there and only when we really need to be together? We we are together on a meeting. So really, I do encourage you to all to to question the meetings.
Rafal If you if you encounter resistance from your teammates and he wants to do it, maybe, maybe try convince them by, OK, so we have this meeting every week, like make it every two weeks and in the meantime, try to discuss things asynchronously. Exactly like to like to not make drastic change, but slowly adapt. Add up to the asynchronous work.
Michael , but and because it is important, especially in an all remote workspace like we have, that you have to meet because you have to every now and then. Yes, because you want to feel that you’re part of something and you’re part of a team that you are in this together with somebody else, hand in hand, right? So you want to meet quite regularly, but maybe not as regularly as initially you thought, because this can be draining and this can be exhausting.
Michael And what I like about our decision on the design fight meeting is the fact that we had something. I mean, we have something which is great, but we still are trying to make it even better like we can. And and we and we appreciate that what got us here won’t get us there. So like the way it works now, it’s it’s it was great for the time that we needed it. Now we are changing it a bit different because we think this will help us, you know, make it even better.
Rafal . So we’re constantly wants to move forward and evolve ourselves and our process. And I think those who want to add to this topic also we take a break.
Michael . Let’s take a break and listen to one of our customers how they love Nozbe.
Rafal Yes, because No Office podcast is sponsored by Nozbe Teams, a To-Do app that helps small teams do great things. Let’s hear what Sara Nozbe customer say about the product.
Sara When we’ve been around for about 10 years, our business has been using Nozbe for about eight of those years, and as we grew, we kind of got to the point where I just couldn’t remember everything anymore. I’m pretty organized. I would just kind of keep everything in my head and with the notes and things like that, and it just got to be too much. And so I started looking around for some sort of project management software that can help me have it set up.
Sara Really trusted system. But really, I just wanted a system where I could know that I had everything in there. I wasn’t going to forget anything. I wasn’t going to drop any balls for clients or miss deadlines.
Rafal So that was Sara, our great customer, and you spoke recently with Sara.
Michael I mean, this was an excerpt from my interview with her. Like, so first I spoke to her as because I speak to customers, if you go to Nozbe dot com slash contact, you will know how we do customer support. And one of the things I do is regularly meet with customers and I met with her and she was brilliant and it was so much fun talking to her and I thought, you know, and ask her if she could, you know, do an interview for our podcast and for our blog.
Michael And if you want to learn more, just go to Nozbe blog, go to our blog Nozbe and then you can see my whole blog Nozbe dot com Nozbe. Com. And if you go there, you will see you will find my recent conversation with Sara, the whole the full conversation where I asked her several questions. And one of the key takeaways is how she forces people to use verbs to make Nozbe more actionable. So stay tuned. Check it out.
Michael It’s like she gets lots of good tips and tricks to tricks, and she’s a kind of productivity nut, which I appreciate a lot.
Rafal So, all right, so let’s move on to our No Office No Office setup segment, and I have some follow up to the previous episode today, but only because in the recent episode, I was complaining a little bit on my iPadOnly trip. And , I actually you posted on your blog doesn’t read the review of iPad Pro. The 13 inch yes. After three months. , and you reminded me. One another thing tha, that really annoyed me is that like working with working with large fires on the but this is it can be really be a pain in the in the in the back pocket parts of your body.
Rafal , because I back then I I had like mobile internet connection and I was just finished recording a podcast episode with Emilia. , . And I downloaded downloaded the recording from Streamyard and the whole the whole recording, how the recording was like nine hundred megabytes. OK. . And I wanted to upload it to Dropbox.
Michael OK.
Rafal And still working on some other stuff on the home iPad. , and it failed. It failed. Via Dropbox. It failed via Files app. . And I only managed to do it the day after. OK, which wasn’t great. And you actually made a good point that you cannot even you bought one terabyte model. Yes. But , and but you cannot set it to download all your photos from iCloud photo library.
Michael Yes. Locally, . Which is, , this is nuts. I mean, this is really ridiculous because I have one terabyte iPad. I got it on the and remember we had this discussion. Should I get it or should I not get it? I got it for this 16 gigabytes of RAM because it has more ram and and an apple is charging it for. It’s like the difference between half terabyte iPad and one terabyte iPad is a big difference.
Michael So I was really like doubting myself. I should spend so much money on this iPad, but I did because, you know, I might add only this is my main computer. Let’s do it. And first of all, I’m not sure that the 16 gigabytes of RAM are still, you know, so useful because many apps are just being killed anyway, you know? But second thing is that really, I can use this one terabytes of data like I cannot download all my iCloud files, for example, like I have my presentations.
Michael I can think with so much space I could download all my presentations, all my like, really, all of my iCloud files, all of my photos. And I like and I would be still with plenty of space. You know, I made my photos and videos are like A. 300 gigabytes right now and then my iCloud data, like it’s just, I don’t know, 50 or one hundred. So it’s still, I mean, I would still have plenty, plenty room to spare.
Michael But there is no way to set iOS, to do it, to download it all. Because whenever I want to edit some video, I have to first wait until it gets from the iCloud. And with that, it would be local. I would just, you know, use the video and that’s it.
Rafal Yes, exactly. Like, that’s that’s bananas. Because like, I put this a mobile device, and often you can find find yourself in a place that you want to work on such a video. But you may have like, , of course you, you will. You will have like 4G or even 5G internet connection. But that’s not always the case and that this internet connection can be not not not so good as you have, you know, so it takes like a couple of minutes to , to download a long, long video in 4K.
Michael Exactly. So that’s the problem. And you know, the 5G is fantastic. I’m really I’m so happy with the 5G like because around me, like it seems like 5G is everywhere already. I think it’s very, very like where I live. I think they have upgraded the infrastructure very quickly and and it’s really fast. So I don’t have to find any hotspots, anything, anywhere. I’m not even in the hotel rooms. I don’t care. I’m not.
Michael I’m not going to load the crap out, crappy wi fi of the hotel. I just prefer to use 5G. I download the video like what I want or what I mean, extremely videos through 5G and it’s fantastic. It’s no problem. So, so it works pretty good. But still, if I could have these files locally and you know, I have that space like it’s wasted space right now, it’s kind of, you know, it’s, you know, I have eight hundred and something gigabytes of wasted space on this hype, but it’s completely empty.
Michael So I would love to have more, more ways to really download like indicate I want to download this. I want to have this locally. I want to have that and and have that really work for me. So, , I mean, there are hacks to do it, but it’s like it’s not ideal. I would love to have it like really, really well done. And especially because, you know, it works with iCloud and and and it should with iCloud Photos, it should just work out of the box like this?
Rafal , I don’t. I really cannot wait to to get my new MacBook Pro. It will have two terabytes. This is the. And I just checked my iCloud Photo Library is 400 gigabytes now, so bigger than mine, so.
Rafal So , I couldn’t fit it neither on my iPad. I could fit it on my iMac, but it would be very hard because my arm, I is 512 gigabytes. And I really cannot wait to to make a clean up of this. Icloud Photo Library because like, it’s like nine years of photos, and I really want to get to grab some older photos that I have on some disks to upload it, like some photo library and , cleaning it up.
Rafal I want to have all the files locally to do it efficiency. So I’m I will do it in in December on my new MacBook Pro. Nice. So that’s the plan. And , and I’m really glad that, , I really can’t wait to have this machine.
Michael Well, anyway, so apart from that, I’m really enjoying the iPad Pro. I’m loving it. So if you go to Michael Nozbe Teams iPad 13 Pro, you will have to, you know, the whole review of of the three month review of my iPad Pro with all the details and some photos. And like for me personally, like, there are these drawbacks and these, you know, iOS limitations. But for my work, they don’t affect me that much.
Michael But they they I still find lots of joy just using this iPad. And it’s just I love having it as my my only, my only. I mean, my main computer.
Rafal That’s that’s we always think like using an iPad. It’s a lot of joy. It has it has its limitations about, , it really sparks joy. Just like my iPad Mini that we talked about that on a recent episode. But it was two weeks ago, and I really didn’t have much time to play with it because of November. And. So sorry, I don’t have any new conclusions about that yet. Hopefully, I will have it for the next episode.
Rafal But , you posted a two blog posts about your new Home Office set up for 2022. Yes. Here it is in the show notes and a chapter. , and I have some questions about it. OK, because so this is like this last question.
Michael So this is the space. What you’re showing right now is the space behind my desk. So this is what you can see. Like, this is the space behind me. It’s not my desk.
Rafal Hmm. . So you’re still have this Thunderbolt display? Yes. What? What do you use it for? No.
Michael So right now, nothing. Just there because I used to have the iMac connected to it. But now I’m, I guess, in a different place. So the cable is not long enough. But I am getting a Thunderbolt two USB-C to Thunderbolt two, Thunderbolt four like that, you know, to have the dongle to to change it. Slack and I talk to my iPad so I could sometimes connect to it and put some videos on there and some other stuff.
Michael So I want to use it as an additional display, and I’m either going to use that, I’m going to sell it and get a proper 4K display. I’m not sure yet like I used to use it just because I had it in my home and I’ve had this display for just many, many years. But now it’s there just for decoration until I find a use for it.
Rafal . Okay, okay, that’s good enough experiment. All right. Another question is what? Because I can see some new stuff on your on your fancy OSB walls? Yes. Mm-Hmm. , there is. I think there’s a new iPhone there.
Michael So. So there are two iPhones. There is the iPhone AC and there is the the iPhone 3G. Yes, yes, 4G, 3G and both work and both work perfectly. Even the 3G. And so there is the iPad three. There is the iPad one. And I made a special kind of shelf for my water so I can have water next to me when I sit there. I made a special hanger for my am, so I have this stand for the iPad so I can use the iPad as on the iPad for drawing.
Michael So I have to stand there that I can just pull up and use it as a, you know, as a support for the iPad. And then above this, this is the great one is just just below the the original iPad.
Michael It does build the iPad three the way it is. Yes. So yes, exactly. This is like a stand, a pop up for the, you know, for the to use it and then iPad, not just for drawing and those kind of things. And then I have a broken iPad. Mini two, and it’s completely broken, it doesn’t work anymore, so that’s why it’s back is there.
Rafal So that’s that’s that’s that’s why it’s backwards.
Michael Exactly, exactly. I mean, the screen is not shattered, but it just doesn’t display anything. So I decided to put it on the other way around so that you can see a nice Apple logo and, you know, and that kind of stuff. And then I also put my LEGO on there on the wall and my Porsche Lego, which I really like and just, you know, personal stuff and of course, my collection of of Apple Watch wrists wristbands.
Rafal I really like like this. I wasn’t a fan that first of all of this of this wall, but you managed to convince me that’s that’s the nice and it really looks very good as your background now as you move to your desk, right? . , that’s that’s really cool. And I noticed that you do also like as you move to move your desk, you had to move your cables as well. Oh, yes. That’s because now all the cables are below the entrance to the back to the balcony.
Rafal Yes.
Michael I mean, not really all the cables. I mean, I have just two cables that are below the entrance to the balcony. So the main and electricity the cable and the Ethernet cable, and that’s it.
Rafal Everything else that is under the desk. Only to those two to the desk.
Michael , because I also wanted to make sure that I can plug it. I mean, I can unplug the desk completely. So the Ethernet cable also is connected to other Ethernet cable. With this joint thing that you can, you can. There’s plastic there, a plastic thing that joins two ethernet cables. So this way I can unplug the Ethernet cable and plug the power cable, and I can move the desk with all of the cables in it so I can really freely move the desk anywhere I want.
Michael And I mean this here now I can move it a little bit, you know, differently. Or, you know, move decide if I don’t want to have it next to the balcony for for some reason, I just wanted to make sure that the desk is kind of independent, you know? And I think it’s a good tip that you don’t have too many cables going to the desk. Instead, you have just, you know, two cables maximum and the power and the Ethernet and everything else is within the desk.
Michael So under the desk, I have all the power charging, you know, all the, you know, everything the whole infrastructure is contained in the desk.
Rafal , , that’s that’s really nice. I think that’s the best, the best setup you ever had. Yes, I think so. . So have you managed to to make this display in the teleprompter mode? So we’ve mirrored screen.
Michael There is no chance to do it. I checked everything the the there an application that tries to like to do this, you know, teleprompter mode.
Rafal , essentially, yes, to the Typekit didn’t work.
Michael No, it works, but it’s rewrites the screen. So it’s laggy. Oh yes. So it’s good for, you know, for text, but it’s not good for this for video conferencing. VIDEO Because it will just be like, I tried it. I just told it, it works, but it makes everything laggy. So no. So no, there is no application or no way to like, you know, in the, you know, our macOS to flip the screen horizontally so that I can see like you right now in the way that it will be flipped.
Rafal Huh. I couldn’t find maybe our listeners have started to have some tips, so let us know if you know how to do it. Exactly. I hope that I will have the teleprompter at all next year. So , I haven’t bought it on Black Friday because like a really iPad Mini and MacBook Pro may make my budget for Black Friday sales really low, so I really must have to to resist myself from buying stock because there were some good promos for the stuff.
Rafal I do like to have this, but they’re not, like, indispensable. . So for example, I , that’s a that’s a go jump to the to the stuff we bought and didn’t buy. , because I didn’t buy AirPods Pro and there was a good promo for this. And , I I’d really like to have have them. I since I started to appreciate it, like just sitting and listening to the music for a while and do nothing else to focus on the music, to hear each instrument separately.
Rafal And now with all those fancy. High quality in Apple Music, no, it’s no it’s possible. And with with AirPods Pro, that would be even even cooler, probably.
Michael So for the same, I mean for the same, not for the same reason, but for a reason. I didn’t also buy the AirPods Max because AirPods Max were on sale as well, and they are very expensive. So they normally are 550 bucks and they were down to 450 or something or even less. I mean, very good price, but still, it’s lots of money. And I thought and I asked around some friends who have AirPods Max and what do they think they think their grades are?
Michael Why would they use them? And one of the reasons is that they listen to music a lot. They like listening to that. And the thing is that I barely do that. I for for casual listening, I always have my AirPods Pro, so I have them with me on me all the time. I have these bossy, you know, and CS 700s, and I’ve hardly used them like they are here. But I use them right now for podcasting, but I hardly ever put them on for anything else and I could.
Michael But I don’t because I just have my AirPods Pro with me, so I thought, I’m going to spend like this, you know, almost half a grand on these new headphones by Apple so that they can sit around like, you know, not really. And so, no, I decided not to buy them, and I was pretty proud of myself.
Rafal , let’s look at us. We are bragging about things we didn’t buy. .
Michael But then I take on Amazon, and I saw there was a very good promo of Beats headphones, red ones and my and I showed them to my wife and she was like, I want one and I got them for my wife. So I’m a great husband. I bought my wife a beautiful red and noise canceling its headphones, and they will have the price. So great.
Rafal That’s that’s cool promo. . And speaking of headphones, actually, like, as I said to like November was very intense and a lot of meetings. And one day even I even though I have these Bose like QC 35. Yes. And they are very comfortable. Mm hmm. But after wearing them for almost the whole whole day with meetings and so on, my head and my ears felt tired of this. And next day I tried to just use the regular AirPods for meetings.
Rafal And that was that was much better. And that that is why I’m I’m considering AirPods Pro, and once I have the budget for this, I will wait for the proper promo and , and probably buy it.
Michael So that’s one of the use cases that many people are saying. That’s because they work from home. They have headphones on all the time and I don’t because I’m at all in my home office. There is nobody else here. So in most of the meetings, I use this microphone. So there sure am found seven microphones, so a good microphone. But then I use the speakers from the computer for people who speak to me, so I don’t wear headphones on the meetings.
Michael It’s only when I do meetings from the iPad. I use the AirPods Pro for the meetings because then I want to have the headphones because usually they have my iPad, for example, downstairs when where? Yes, there are people in my neighborhood that could listen to the conversation. So and again, another use case that I don’t wear headphones all that much to justify, like, you know, buying expensive headphones.
Rafal , that’s a really nice tip because I. So it works well if you use your speakers home. I guess it’s , there’s no no, no, there’s no. I can’t.
Rafal I try. I try that.
Michael , try it, man, because it’s like I use this microphone so people can can hear me very well. And then I use in there. I’m just hearing the speakers, and that’s it. No headphones connected. So that’s why I hardly use these headphones, right?
Rafal Anything ‘cause I didn’t invite, , there was a great promo and you mentioned that maybe you want to change your Thunderbolt display to a proper 4K display. , there’s really nice Huawei Mate view display. Ah, it’s it’s 4K, but it’s aspect ratio is 3:2 instead of 16 by nine. , and it’s it’s really nice design and. , it was very tempting to to buy it to to to have it for my MacBook Pro, but , it was.
Rafal I didn’t have a budget for this, so maybe that would be the next my next display once I get the budget for this and Apple. We will see if Apple shipped something.
Michael , the latest rumors are that something might come in March from from Apple.
Rafal So we still have hopefully still have a long way to go. . And I mean, that’s why I’m not, you know, as I as we mentioned, I was tempted to to change my iMac to the new iMac, but I’m just waiting for the other iMac and see how it’s going to be because this one is good enough. It doesn’t have Monterray because it’s so old, but you know, it handles my tasks and it’s still a good display.
Rafal So it’s all I need right now.
Rafal , like it’s it’s the best this 5K display on the market. Exactly.
Michael So I’m OK. I don’t need an upgrade here. So no, I’m really I mean, that’s why, you know, I wrote, and if you go to make a lot of office, you will see, you know, all the blog posts that I shipped since the all my home office. There should be a video in my home office soon, also dropping. I’m really happy with my setup right now, and hopefully for the next year, I’m going to tweak it anymore.
Michael I’m just going to use it and and just get, you know, get most of it.
Rafal . OK, so let’s let’s jump to the things I managed to buy. That’s actually small accessories. Finally, there was a promo for AirTags, so I bought four of them. And , I really liked the set up was very, very easy and very satisfying. Yes. Just on the Apple can do this, and I’ve also bought some tablet case and laptop sleeve from the company called Moft. Mm-Hmm. And it’s like this. The sleeve for my MacBook Pro.
Rafal But this but this also origami stand. Hmm. So I can elevate my MacBook Pro if I want white covering. That’s very nice and the tablet to snap on the case, so I will be able to snap it onto the iPad Mini OK and have it with different angles, both in portrait and landscape modes. OK. But , it’s it’s it’s shipped. It’s in China right now. So like more and more stuff are shipped from China. I must, I must say, and I bought paper like like two weeks ago and it was shipped from Germany to Poland.
Rafal And I still don’t have it well because #PolishPost like apparently it was on Monday, the postman was to try to deliver this, according to the system, but there was no, no legal notice in my mailbox about that. OK. And today, the same and like they are just putting fake info into the tracking system, and I really hate it. I would understand if they put a sorry, we don’t have that. The postman.
Rafal There are not not enough postman’s in the post office and it’s a delay. But no, they just put the fake info into the system that they tried to deliver, even though it’s it’s not true.
Michael .
Rafal , I mean, . And I ask people like to send me another one with the proper, the proper like company, and they did. So hopefully I will have it.
Michael That’s good. Now that’s that’s the people who who are working from home like us. This is the most annoying thing that the deliveryman can do. He wasn’t at home. What do you mean? I wasn’t home. I work from home. I’m here all the freaking time. I’m here. Hello. And but you are not here. You’re just putting fake news in the system. It happened to me. It was so funny. Like, like, normally I don’t care so much that something comes like, you know, like Amazon wants to ship things everything next day.
Michael And they they exaggerate because sometimes things are shipped on Sunday. I don’t need these guys to work on Sunday. I can’t wait until Monday, but once I remember, I really needed this because it was a gift from my father. So I wanted it to, you know, to be on that bloody Sunday, you know, and they said, that’s going to be on Sunday. And it wasn’t coming for the whole day, and I was sitting on my porch outside, take on my porch and they check in the system intent of delivery five minutes ago.
Michael And I’m like, Seriously.
Rafal . They could call you, and they very, very could tell you like they have a problems to deliver this and you can you can arrange the meeting. We have them in the city, for example. Well, that’s more convenient for them. That’s whatever don’t bleep put paid up into the system. Actually, that’s not good. No, right? We understand delays that that’s not uploaded, but fake data in the system. Is that? .
Rafal . The worst thing they can do. Yes, that’s true. Yes.
Michael . Anyway, OK. I think it’s time to wrap up the show, right?
Rafal That’s the high time to wrap it up. So thank you guys for listening. And , Michael, what they is in two days, actually. So because we are recording this on Wednesday might be Friday. And for me, it’s going to be very amazing because it’s my free day. But for people at Nozbe and for you, it should be a mighty Friday, which means kind of free because after the review and just work on yourself on your personal development.
Rafal , you can. And after doing here, we care of you and trying priorities for the next week, you can learn something new. However, some, some online training, what some videos from conference are what our product group to learn more about Nozbe Teams features, how to use it even even better. And , that’s that is the way to have a great, great weekend after after multiplying. And remember, if you enjoyed this episode, feel free to help support this podcast of the show, either by sharing it with a friend or leaving us a nice review in Apple podcast or by checking out our great app, Nozbe Teams.
Rafal So that’s it for today. Say goodbye Michael!
Michael Everyone have a great week and ho ho ho, merry Christmas is coming very, very soon.
Rafal This episode has not been created in the office because in Nozbe there is no office. Your hosts Michael Sliwinski and Rafal Sobolewski. The whole production process of this podcast is coordinated in a project in the Nozbe Teams app. Work is not the place to go. It is a thing that you do. Thank you and see you in two weeks. Remember you have a mighty Friday.
