Active Recall With Walter & Francis

Here’s the second episode of The Notepod. This is another book notes episode. Each episode might be about a book. I’m still figuring it out but wanted to get started with consistency. Which sort of relates to the book this episode is about, “Rebel Without a Crew” by Robert Rodriguez. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

We're back (and probably need to stop starting every episode with "we're back for real this time!") talking about Work Clean, one of our favorite books from last year and maybe a top-10 all timer. Some concepts we talk about from the book Daily plan Clean as you go First actions This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

Sections Start, stop, continue (with the podcast) 3 book quotes from some of my favorite books in 2019 Ranking the books I read in 2019 and a sort of top 10 Active Recall 2019 Reading List The 10 books I mentioned from 2019 Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind Liar’s Poker Creative Calling Recursion Stillness is the Key The Algebra of Happiness: Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

From Save the Cat:Go back to Blockbuster (boy, are they tired of you by now) and check out the 6-12 movies in the genre of the movie you’re writing. Sit and watch as the beats of these films are magically filled into the blanks of the BS2.(BS2 being the beat sheet — check out an example beat sheet for The Martian.)I was listening to a podcast with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (I thiiink it was this episode of Creative Processing with Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and they talk about how they were lucky to have a school very close to 2 video rental places. Those places then had their price wars to the point that you could rent 7 movies for 7 bucks for 7 days.I’ve definitely been in those video rental spots. Not theirs.But my hometown’s version of it. The catch is usually that the movies need to be 7 years old. At least. Okay so it’s probably just that new releases were excluded.But you’ll just grab whatever movies, some you’ve seen already, and then just watch them. You start seeing the patterns and get a sense for st

Shocking rule: Start with an adult worksheetThis is the worksheet that I created:Links* Creative Processing (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) Collaboration & Friendship / Seth Rogen + Evan Goldberg, Comedy Duo — Seth and Evan talk about growing up learning to write together. They talk about how some of the jokes that ended up in Superbad were pretty much written when they were 13. They started making spoofs of things like Spaceballs, Pulp Fiction and then continued to work together for decades. They mention the influence of a VHS store deal: 7 movies for 7 days for $7—they’d rent 7 (often bad) movies and watch them over the weekend.* Not Overthinking: Being Weird — In part of this episode of Not Overthinking, Ali and Taimur discuss books and television. In particular, they consider why books are okay to binge on but if you binge on TV then it’s less acceptable in society.* In Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy, Judd Apatow talks about outlining The Graduate We took out notepads and outlined it bec

Quote from What You Do is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz about shocking rules:Here are the rules for writing a rule so powerful it sets the culture for many years:It must be memorable. If people forget the rule, they forget the culture.It must raise the question “Why?” Your rule should be so bizarre and shocking that everybody who hears it is compelled to ask, “Are you serious?”There are two more rules (straightforward cultural impact, encountered daily).It sort of shares the same powers from the AIDA model for copywriting:* Attention: The shocking part of the rule means that it gets everyone's attention. People hear it * Interest: Everyone asks why this rule is in place and eventually get to the uppercase Why.* Desire: There's desire to be someone who does X, because Y. (Or X, because Why.)* Action: A shocking rule means that you take daily action on itIf you're starting a daily creative practice, is there a shocking rule you can have in place that will help remind you of why you're starting this?I've been thin

I need to write a pre-amble for this initial set of issues:I wanted to write a year’s worth of daily newsletters in November, channeling the spirit of NanoWriMo. These first 17 issues were recorded on Nov 2nd and Nov 3rd.I guess if I keep it up with this system then I need to consider that the release of an issue will always be some time after I actually recorded things. If I actually did finish a year of daily newsletters by the end of this month, then the last one would be scheduled out near October next year.I should draw this out because there are a few different timelines. (This is like a dumb version of Recursion—great book I read earlier this year.) For this initial set:* Timeline 1, the initial recordings (Nov 2 & 3) — These are the initial 17 recordings. I had a free weekend. It was the weekend of the New York marathon and UFC 244 at Madison Square Garden. I edited all the audio.* Timeline 2, transcription and notes (Nov 4 to 10th) — My goal is to add notes and schedule them to be sent out by the

In the spirit of NanoWriMo, I tried doing a burst of writing this weekend. I “wrote” 17 posts. Which by the end of it mostly meant that this is what I did:* Outlined a topic* Recorded 5 minutes of audio talking about the topicNow I’m going through each episode and writing some notes and scheduling them for the rest of the month.Here’s an example outline from one of the episodes I recorded this weekend:By the end of it, I was getting into a pretty good rhythm. Still working out a few things, like what audience I’m making this for. Initial ideas are (1) a newsletter for people writing newsletters or (2) a newsletter for creative people making something daily.I leaned toward the whole bias-to-action sort of thing and made the episodes instead of waiting around to figure out who it’s for. (Which, of course, means that it’s probably for no one at this point. Which is fine for now.)Now some show notes* I’m doing this newsletter to try to make something daily. I didn’t mention this quote in the audio but it’s from C

We're talking about "Atomic Habits" by James Clear   Previous episode: 63: "Atomic Habits" https://activerecall.co/atomic-habits/   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

We talk about "Finish" by Jon Acuff https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Give-Yourself-Gift-Done/dp/1591847621 Great book with tips about finishing work I'm good at starting, bad at finishing. I don't usually have writer's block, but I certainly have finisher's block. By that, I mean that I'm able to outline and outline and outline a bunch of ideas. And even get to drafts of things. But then actually finishing the thing and releasing it becomes a challenge.  We discuss hiding places and noble obstacles. Wally talks about how he can get caught up editing a certain point of a video. But we also discuss that video editing work for a client deserves perfectionism more than something like a blog post does. Picking between good and bad is easy, between good and good is hard. This is where it's a noble obstacle. If I want to finish editing and scheduling this podcast, I need to edit and finish these notes. That'd be good. But I'm tempted to just leave and head to the gym, because that's also good. And it also gets me awa

Our arms still hurt from patting ourselves on the back for returning to the podcast.  The book of the week is Jon Acuff's "Quitter" https://www.amazon.com/Quitter-Closing-Between-Your-Dream/dp/0982986270 It's about passion. We talk about both sides of the 'follow your passion' argument. We are both in a place doing work that we're passionate about. It doesn't mean there aren't parts that don't feel like work. There are also things we're passionate about that we weren't able to turn into careers. Here's the best book against the idea of following your passion: Cal Newport's "So Good They Can't Ignore You" https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124 We batched a couple episodes. We were going to try to get to 4 episodes. (One for each of Jon Acuff's books: Quitter, Finish, Start, Do Over. We didn't finish all 4 episodes, but we did finish two. So an episode is scheduled next week for Jon Acuff's "Finish". Okay I set a timer to write these notes and the timer is up. I think this is better t

Tool: Charge your phone outside of your bedroom (so you can sleep more)Today’s recommended podcast episode:* Muscle for Life: Hafthor “The Mountain” Bjornsson on Life as the World’s Strongest Man (Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts) Other things mentioned* Matt Walker: Sleep is your superpower (TED Talk)* Joe Rogan Experience #1109 - Matthew Walker - YouTube* Why We Sleep by Matt Walker  — “Humans are not sleeping the way nature intended. The number of sleep bouts, the duration of sleep, and when sleep occurs has all been comprehensively distorted by modernity.” * Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport  — "A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else."* The Moment with Brian Koppelman: "Cal Newport 5/28/19" (Apple Podcasts) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit acti

This is my first post and I’m going by the “Just get started” advice.Every day or so, I’ll take a walk and I’ll…* … listen to something (podcast, audiobook)* Record some thoughts afterward* Write some additional thoughts and add linksThe gimmick: Each note describes a room in a memory palace to capture some of the concepts captured during the listening session.Each week, I’ll gather the individual audio posts here, combine them, add some music and sound effects, and make them full episodes on the Active Recall feed.I’m hoping that posts on this newsletter will:* A: Give me some of the satisfaction of finishing smaller chunks* B: Force me to actually write show notesThis first voice note is about “The Bullet Journal Method” by Ryder Carroll.https://bulletjournal.com/pages/book* Quote mentioned on this episode: “Cultivating this self awareness is a lifelong process but it starts with checking in with yourself.”* My first few posts are going to be about journaling. I’m looking at this as a bit of a form of journ

This week I'm sharing some podcast episode recommendations. 00:58 — Petting zoo x Jason Fried (Knowledge Project) 06:26 — Fitness center x Mark Manson (Model Health Show) 15:02 — Moleskine wallpapered room x Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz (The Moment) 21:51 — White room with all your unfinished projects x Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (Start With This) 28:19 — Driving range with pie x Scott Page (Knowledge Project) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

Book(s) of the Week The Slight Edge https://www.amazon.com/Slight-Edge-Turning-Disciplines-Happiness/dp/1626340463 The Compound Effecthttps://www.amazon.com/Compound-Effect-Darren-Hardy/dp/159315724X   This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

Book of the week: "Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth" by Ian Nathan ( 03:51 ) Room 1: Kitchen with an orc ( 10:41 ) Room 2: Virtua Fighter 2 Pool Fight ( 21:00 ) Room 3: Matrix and Peter Jackson This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com

Connecting Rounders quotes to the 5Ms Morning Pages Meditation Move slow Move fast Movies And a bonus 6th M! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit activerecall.substack.com