Ryan and Heather discuss Personal Automation in the Digital Workspace

Ryan Purvis  0:00  
Hello, and welcome to the digital workspace works podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host supported by producer Heather Bicknell. In this series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field story from the frontlines. The problems they face, how they solve them. The years they're focused on from technology, people and processes to the approaches they took, they'll help you to get to the scripts for the digital workspace inner workings

is a podcast I listen to called man what's it called? To the why curly and another guy? What's his name? Father now caught it cortex. Gray. I don't know what his first name is. But they just basically don't have an intro that I would add to this stuff. Okay. Then bring it in with us. talking in just ends at the end of a sentence. I think they talked for three hours and they cut it down to our

last chance like very painful to me I mean

yeah that's that's that's his business. Why curious? Because I think rockets part of the same brand it's all really

Heather Bicknell  1:24  
yeah yeah

Ryan Purvis  1:25  
so that's his game so you know if he's got the time to do it so if not why not? Which is quite ironic as the episode I wanted to talk to you also in relay FM or capsule relay FM podcast, which was the animators episode. Just trying to think that was cool. It was a 50 favorites or their favorite automations before the episode, you chose to listen to it.

Heather Bicknell  1:57  
Yeah, I did. I'm in a very curious to know kind of what sparked your interest in it? And yeah, it was called some favorite automations. And it was a 50th episode. Very curious to know, do you do any sort of personal automation or kind of what interested you about the episode?

Ryan Purvis  2:16  
So So, so I sort of live vicariously through them, and then automations that they do, because it always sounds like they order many nice, awesome things, and it's so simple to do. And then if I sit in front of something lecturing customers, it's fine. Just a little bit painful to do. It's not something you do in five minutes, you need to spend an hour. I don't always have an hour to play. And what sort of piqued my interest at the time was two thoughts. One thought was that you got rosemary and I forget the other guy's name, resumes developer and the other guy is is not so that was the one point they made. And David that was and the point was that for rosemary, she does very complicated workflows. So she'll use API's and, and such to do things, whereas David will kind of caught call things together in a non developer way. So he found and it comes across the he finds it a lot easier to cobble things together using the flow. And Sheila, the hand feels like she needs to do more scripting or so like I might be biased about it. But what I was thinking about at the time, which was that we reached a point that in the enterprise was going to come to the enterprise fairly soon, that the end users are going to want to be able to automate things. And they do to the extent anyway, I mean, the amount of macros that are built into Excel you know, the amount of homegrown applications that are built in the business by the business, you know, they hire a guy who can write better code and he bought something and then all of a sudden it becomes an application as we support ordered. Those have been happening for years. But what's happening more and more as you're getting services like

Unknown Speaker  4:07  
it used to be called

Ryan Purvis  4:10  
flow in the marshal tool that just changes name to Power Apps, I think we should just if then else rules, new assistant, this automation platforms like Zapier, and If This Then That, which if you know a little bit, and you can an API is exists, and these are just really connectors and rules. You can do some funky stuff. So for example, I have a automatic tweet every day, which is whenever the International Space Station comes up in my location, it sends out a tweet, a time that NASA says something, it's another tweet. Every morning at six o'clock in the morning, I get a weather notification and I get an extra when if there's going to be rain that day, which in the UK is quite often. So these are these are the There's a sort of automations that I've done. But some of the stuff that they talk about, which are quite good, I would like to try. And it's definitely around the technology, you know, improving, is having like a new c pads, or stickers that you have in certain locations. Like for example, in the episode, she talks about being in a car and scanning NFC, or double tapping the pad and then picks a random playlist, and gives you some locations based on the candidate for directions to drive, which are really cool ideas that even thought about that sort of simplicity. So those are the things that the first thing that sort of got your mind. The second thing is you've got the ecosystem that has Apple with shortcuts, and you got really nothing in the in the Marshall Space, but the actual desktop is the most prevalent. So it's almost like there's an opportunity there for someone to come up with a an extension to Power Apps made Marshalls gonna come up with it that gives the end user on their desktop The ability to do some automations like changing the own desktops because we've always bought the try it outwards. Maybe it's for the end users to build their own or pick their own rules that want to run themselves to sort of self empower them.

Heather Bicknell  6:15  
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if Android has anything like that either.

Ryan Purvis  6:19  
Yeah, I've never actually heard about the Android Look, I don't listen to all Android stuff. I mean, the I'll be honest, listening to, to rosemary, David, I wasn't going to get a Mac because all the stuff they do is on a Mac. And almost makes you feel like the Windows platform is inadequate. I'm sure there is stuff out there for the city, but it's not as prevalent and as Android. I've never heard anybody mentioned a an equivalent thing.

Heather Bicknell  6:49  
Yeah, I think what appealed to me about the Mac, you know, and this might be a Mac thing, it might not but the kind of cordless approach where David has hacked things together is very appealing to me. Because you know, I'm not a developer, I'm not someone who will be able to pour a ton of time into that side of things, you know, it would be a whole new skill set to learn on top of trying to do the automation. So the more what I associate, you know, Apple and Mac with a more user friendly approach for for non techies.

Ryan Purvis  7:26  
Yeah, it's true. I mean, we're talking about this thing recently, where I lost. My parents get told to get Apple devices because it means is low IT support requirements. Whereas the minute they go down the route of an Android is there's no questions and can I get help? And it's the same with Windows. Windows does some very strange things, which is the Mac tends to either work or not work. If it doesn't work, then that's a problem and you need to go and sorted out with a techie. That's every day but the amount of times it breaks It's usually a significant break as opposed to a lot of brick. That's your experience as well.

Heather Bicknell  8:06  
Yeah. I've had really good experience with Apple products and really bad experiences with everything else. Well, it's funny, I think, and I'm not a heavy a home user anyway. So you know, I could get away with a Chromebook, I'm sure. And I just have a MacBook Air. But I think it's a 2011. And I haven't had a single issue with it. I'm not necessarily even great with, you know, applying updates and things. I'll do it eventually. But, you know, I know what good practice is. And I don't necessarily actually do it on my home computer. Whereas my boyfriend has now gone through, you know, several windows laptops that weren't, you know, the cheapest ones either. And my work laptop, I won't name the brand, but I've constantly have problems and I know it was more expensive and more high powered than my air. Of course, I'm using it for more things but you know the amount of I've never had a you know a blue screen on my on my Mac

Ryan Purvis  9:07  
yeah I mean it Leo but well that's a so so my my wife's Magna Carta it's on a because it's a small one. I mean he had been for what, six years now and barring him to change the battery and we would try the veterans change the Wi Fi chip as well. We haven't had any problems in the barn running out of battery. it's plugged in, but it just works. And yes can be a little bit slow now because as you know, it's also getting old. I think those are 2010 or 20 notes for 2012. So he's a bit slow, but it's enough for sending email, writing documents and all that sort of stuff. You know, and she wants to be able to get her a new machine and she's adamant she doesn't want a Windows device. Windows 10 is a far far worse platform than Windows seven was windows seven. wasn't that great. So, yeah, I think my next one will be pulling back because of that usability factor.

Heather Bicknell  10:07  
Yeah, I mean just anecdotally I don't tend to have any issues with it which is just funny but

Ryan Purvis  10:15  
well I don't think that's the way with automation think of it because because your, your basis stable you can you can tend to focus on the optimization step. Whereas, you know, I've had to rebuild my Windows device twice this year because of various issues with updates running running from Microsoft. And you know, you always were always looking at the next morning guy and it will fit the thing we started by itself I didn't ask it to restart is it gonna work and you know, suddenly install lose all your stuff after it's bombed out, takes up so much time you don't actually mess with it. Whereas your your Mac tends to be sustainable, that you can you can spend that time Now while this may be shortcuts to my To my task list or a time sheet or whatever else I need to do, that's really mundane. It could be automated.

Heather Bicknell  11:08  
Yeah. So what have you used? What apps have you used in the past for building those automations? You were mentioning like the Twitter ones. So that's,

Ryan Purvis  11:18  
that's If This Then That. So when they first came out, Oh, that must be four years ago, now five years ago. And the biggest challenge I had with them at that stage was it wasn't that many integrations. So all the very Americanized such things that we just didn't have here in the UK. They've gotten better at that now. So for example, I have an integrated service. So I every every night, I get a snapshot of my activities. And that goes into my my journal, so that I don't have to go do it anymore. Because I like to know when I look back, you know, last year this time, how many steps did I take? What was my how many of those things that I Do our sequel, that kind of stuff. So I use it for that sort of thing. But on my desktop, I actually don't have anything anymore. And this comes back to the stability concerns that I have with with Windows 10. But I'm thinking more and more like, there's a lot of tasks that I do repeatedly going, Oh, how should automate this and I'm now looking at my iPad going, you know, keep hearing you can do these things. Maybe I should give it a go. Things like printing a document to PDF, so you can make notes on it. Or a lot of a lot of these guys talk about running timers to measure their time, where they're spending their time is not necessarily time tracking for for billing, but am I doing enough work time versus free time, versus maybe fitness or whatever it is. So that's I'm looking at the shortcuts at the moment to do some of that sort of stuff.

Heather Bicknell  12:53  
Maybe, you know, we're just we're just rounding out our email challenge. Maybe we should start some sort of Like automation challenge tried to do try to build some sort of automation into our workflows in the next month or something like that. What do you think?

Ryan Purvis  13:10  
Yeah, that's a good idea. That's a very good idea, actually, because because everybody knows that email tellers was one of those things that I wanted to automate. And, and I looked at it because of the different mailboxes that I had, and where they were there says, It ended up being probably more useful balances things out when you can write code, or build something, is it more time to do manually for the period of time, but then it is throughout the code that you should keep in manual for something you do every day for the rest your life and you could order some code automated, but that would be interesting to do some sort of automation challenge. That's That's a good idea.

Heather Bicknell  13:49  
And the one that piqued my interest from that episode was the podcast one that is I don't know if I was frightened or editor had built that will remove all of his arms. From the recording,

Ryan Purvis  14:02  
yes, I did hear that.

Heather Bicknell  14:05  
That might be complex to start off with.

Ryan Purvis  14:08  
Yeah, we'll probably go something much simpler like like a you know if this is just in that automation, but on your, on your Mac, you are able to do something I think they use keyboard Maestro for that.

Heather Bicknell  14:24  
Yeah, that's a focus on that a lot on the episode. I do use Zapier. And to be honest, I mean, I know I'm sure they say the word automation on their site, I'm sure you know, if pressed on it at my I might have made that connection. But since it's so easy to use, and has so many business applications, for me, and I imagine many others because you know, you want these different apps or services or whatever to talk to each other. I didn't necessarily think of me creating zap as an automation Which I think comes back to what you're saying about end users adopting this?

Ryan Purvis  15:04  
Well, I guess we have to define where automation is, what would you define it as? Hmm,

Heather Bicknell  15:10  
that's a good I mean, I guess that's, you know, that comes back to the point about, it can be a very simple thing, or could be a very complex thing. And I think, I think his end users or maybe just me, personally, when I, when I use a tool like that, or do something, and I think this came through on the episode as well, where David was kind of saying, Well, I'm not as legit as you, rosemary, I don't do the coding aspect. So there's, you know, we tend to lay down the things that we're doing because it doesn't feel like technical enough, or, like we've done enough to call it like a tree, you know, to make a big deal out of it and call it like an automation like we've done something amazing, but you know, I think their point was that it is you know, if it works and it's doing something for you, and you know, it's doing That thing instantly in the background without you touching it, right? That's not a patient.

Ryan Purvis  16:05  
Well, that's it that was upsetting to me definition is anything that I had that I would have done myself now something else is doing. That's, that's automation, whether it's, you know, something simple or complex. And I think going complex is usually just multiple things happening in sequence in parallel. So you, you're still getting back down to hopefully simple things.

Heather Bicknell  16:26  
I know I don't know if you wanted to get too deep into that. It is your angle as well, in terms of complexity, because that's a problem that I think about from time to time, in that how do we bring automation into it workflows in ways that make sense and isn't too powerful? Because I think there's some things that are pretty safe to automate, you know, room, emptying your end users recycle bins on some schedule is generally a pretty safe automation. Although I have heard of People storing storing documents or storing file, you know, photos for some reason and their recycle bins and then coming to it and being angry when they're not there anymore. So even that you aren't doing things as you might expect, right? So how do you have you done any automations? For anything? And the end user competing side?

Ryan Purvis  17:25  
Yeah, so so so from from a tech point of view, we've pushed down automations on the end users so so that cleanup was one. And that was pretty ruthless in the sense that if it was in a space that it shouldn't be, it was gone. And then bear in mind, these things are triggered based on alarms and a lot in alarm as an event with some sort of threshold criteria. The other ones we've done have been performance related. So counting the number of open windows and then asking the user to close them and these are specifically on VDI as well. You know, because you're in a virtual desktop, the resources are shared. And you need to have the consciousness of other users. So we would, you know, warn them with them whenever 14 windows that they need to close some. And from a sort of using your device point of view. You should close applications you're not using anymore. The amount of people that keep them open and then wonder why they're called performances. So it's almost ironic. And this says that is this, you know, resource management. So looking at applications using too much CPU or memory, and then again, popping up some sort of warning that they need to either shut down or restarted. We've also done some work around automatic reboots. Again, this is for users that don't reboot the machines regularly. It's good to reboot them every two weeks or so. So we were enforcing them weekly, in some cases, bi weekly and others So those sort of basic things give a good experience generally. And then you get into the sort of RPA space around robotic process automation, which instead of building integrations between two products, that you would an enterprise that say your earpiece system, the HR system, you can use an RPA agent to fill in the form fields from one system to another, as if they were the user. Which, which is a way of moving the integration mess from one place to another. Instead of because now you got to rely on the robot being able to get the data out of the system which they usually can but the input the the information to the new system, and it depends on how they figure out what the fields are, where you could have more problems or less problems. And your problems they usually have the fields have changed for whatever reason, you know, a system upgrade and no one knows that you're going to read all the robot mappings And then Personally, I think that that's the same Miss Miss from one place to another instead of actually solving the core problem. But he's also very technical solutions, the end users not always driving these things, which is why I think this will start changing in the future for the end user also wanted to drive them.

Heather Bicknell  20:22  
Yeah, I mean, I think with things like APR, that it's already, it's there, it's happening. It's certainly marketing automation is a big thing. So I my space, it's very prevalent, because just the need, like you're saying they need to move data around and not necessarily depend on it for for all of that. And I really enjoy things like Google has different products for, you know, you could put a snippet of code on your website and then you can I don't know This, you know, counts as automation. But you can put a snippet of code on your website and then use Google tag manager or Google Optimize these different products related to Google Analytics to make changes on your site without getting in there and changing the code. Which, yeah, and then we have a, we have an external web dev agency, and you know, they bill by the hour, they're not cheap. And we use Drupal, which is one of the more infamously difficult, CMS, you know, website platforms. So sometimes it's handy, you know, if I just want to make if I want to try something, test something out, you know, if I change a CTA button here for add one here, you know, when people click on it more, you know, I don't want necessarily want to go to the dev team to try a test like that. So Google has this suite of tools that that helps me do that.

Ryan Purvis  21:54  
Oh, do you know this existed? Yeah, handy. Cool. Yeah. It sort of naturally needs to happen is you need to be able to have the ability to not always go back to a technical person to do something on your on a platform, not necessarily have full figure it arises, you can, you know, rework a workflow or whatever. But if you needed to put them in Facebook used to do an official derivative test the functionality, you would see that could release it into production almost straight away. And just assume subset of users would see it for the first time. So every time you log in, you might get different functionality because they're testing out something and then you log in again, and so on. But they do that as a way to test if something works or doesn't work, or it's like to love light. It's almost live testing, as opposed to go through a very rigorous testing and release cycle. Which takes too long to get it out to market.

Heather Bicknell  22:53  
Yeah, does AV test me users instead?

Ryan Purvis  22:56  
Yeah, exactly. And it's straight from an engineer testing something Yeah, I think there's some QA involved, but it's on the premise that's rather get it out there and see if it works. So as early then hide behind bureaucracy and what sort of stuff? Because that's the other challenge with this sort of, the more you enable the end user with things they can do themselves. How do you maintain stability in the environment? lets you do the bureaucracy. bureaucracy comes in.

Heather Bicknell  23:22  
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's something I see added other thing for it to figure out how to adapt to, right, because the need to automate these workflows, you know, make these small automations just to even get different things to talk to each other to speed up our workflows is, is definitely there.

Ryan Purvis  23:47  
Yeah, it is. And we, you know, when I was one of the banks, and we saw the sort of server side was easier to automate because you weren't dealing with the human element. So if I had to reboot a server I can usually do that because there should be redundancy, we can schedule the reboots will bring the service down in a low impact, you know, sort of time of day or period. Whereas if you're gonna mess around with a user's computer, while they're busy working, you know, that's, that's gonna get you a reaction that you don't want. You don't want to new to the user, you got to be a lot more careful about how you want to make things to communication becomes your number one. priority. And, and that experience of education of that experience is very important to you know, we're boosting this machine because it gives you more resources or better improve your experience, that sort of thing.

Heather Bicknell  24:44  
Yeah, I think what you mentioned with using notifications to let the user know that something will be happening and why, you know, it can even use those to say, you know, not right now. You know, let them delay the action or something like that. By give them give them a heads up because if you just if you just do something like reboot their computer without their knowledge that could of course be extremely disruptive. If there was a bit,

Ryan Purvis  25:10  
yeah, yeah, well, we had scenarios like that. And you know, we would have the reason why we automated the reboot cycle was used to be on a Saturday on a Saturday evening, which you would expect to have very few users working. But of course, you would find someone who's busy working on proposal or something like that and rebooting the machine was in the middle because there's no checks being done because he was locked in. On initio all these mistakes we make, we have to learn from and that of course, creates a perception problem and you don't care about them as a user. So the automation came into so actually you can reboot this machine, or the machine will be reboot every Friday or Saturday, whatever it is that you can poses in a certain amount of times, I think was three times And then after the third time you call it you can't put it off fast to happen. And then and then the video will especially not persisted, it's not a case of you have to wait for a new machine to come up you just really log out log in again, you're on a new machine. So in fact is you know, getting a cup of coffee while others and again, I'm here pretty minimal.

Heather Bicknell  26:20  
Definitely. Well, I think as we round out this episode, do you have any ideas about what automations you might be keen to try as as sort of a challenge

Ryan Purvis  26:34  
I think somebody to help us with a podcast would be good. And I was thinking about you know, so we put the shownotes together we obviously looking for the the links that we talked about the books or anything like that, but then we obviously we didn't we put the show notes on the transistor, which was our posting on the website, and somewhere making their process easier will be better. very clunky process and easy to make mistakes.

Unknown Speaker  27:03  
Mm hmm.

Ryan Purvis  27:04  
How to automate that? I have no idea. The first idea to just sort of figure out,

Heather Bicknell  27:11  
yeah, there's so many moves there. There has to be some small thing that could be automated out. You know,

Unknown Speaker  27:17  
and I'm wondering

Ryan Purvis  27:19  
what to make a code based solution. It has to be as easy as shortcuts or Zapier or something like that.

Heather Bicknell  27:29  
Yeah, maybe it's even just a matter of looking in Zapier and seeing if transistors there and what you can do.

Unknown Speaker  27:36  
Yeah.

Ryan Purvis  27:38  
So let's let's touch base on this one in two weeks, and see where we are. If you've got any ideas to automate,

Heather Bicknell  27:47  
yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of just some, like, you know, trying to try to automate some sort of trying m y i opened shortcuts for the first time My phone yesterday after listening to that episode, so we just ordered a rowing machine for home because not getting as much activity right now, not being, you know, not spending as much time outside. I'm usually someone who walks to work and I really value that commute. So not having that, I feel like is going to take a negative toll on me over time. So trying to get some more fitness in pretty bummed about not being able to swim this summer because that's my favorite form of exercise. But anyway, if I could automate something into my health workflow, that would be very handy for me because often it's the last thing I think about the last thing on my to do list and then it gets left off. So even if it's just some sort of reminder that I'm setting up or I don't have to do some exploring as well.

Ryan Purvis  28:53  
So I have a use an app called do t which which I recently started Using because of the timers so just you can set up timers in a countdown I think he stopped using but a little reminder functionality which which I like in the sense that you can put a reminder there and you can set a recurrence or so it's also as task management but as things that are no need to do that I'll put it there and then keep reminding me until I do that. So I say I want to do, you know, hit workout every day. So then I want to take off and I've done it and if I don't do it, it just reminds me every 15 minutes and I'll do it and you can snooze as I mean you got different things, but it's the same sort of thing if I want to get into the habit of doing something that I put it in do with a daily reminder and that every day it gets me into mind. It reminds you reminds me of kept on it though. And you said to have the discipline to say that I will do the thing or do the thing that I've imagined. I didn't do it today because I'm tired of being sick or whatever. Like Just enough hours in the day. That works out quite well for me, because it's quite simple to add something. And if I find out a couple days is not working, then I say Actually, no, this, this idea of me running five K's a day is never going to happen. So again, again, five days didn't work. You know, I'll do something else. So while he was doing that, try that out.

Heather Bicknell  30:24  
Yeah. How does that differ from just setting an alarm on just with the, you know, the native iOS app?

Ryan Purvis  30:34  
I haven't tried native iOS iOS app for a long time. My experience back then was that it's a repeating reminder. So it would remind you and then it just sort of stop. Where's this full reef? Remind you until you actually knock it off?

Unknown Speaker  30:52  
Yeah, that sounds right.

Ryan Purvis  30:55  
So, I mean, you can try little reminders. I just She was recommended to me by someone else like a girl try it out. It was free at the time, but they ended up buying it for two, two pounds a pound. And at the time, I was really struggling to get into habit on a few things. And it just worked. It just worked into it worked in the sense that I started getting into the habits and I thought, well, it must be this week, this Bruton reminded me all the time. And nowadays, were watching, like 17 things that I'm reminding myself about. That's already because I haven't cleared them out a little while I've, you know, put too much on my plate. And it's a good way for me to measure overload. And to actually go well Do I really need to be mad about this every day and this is probably only this next week. So I'll schedule it to remind me next week. So it's just a just an option.

Heather Bicknell  31:46  
Yeah, I feel like there's something there's a need here for an apple watch out for that can do something like this because and of course I haven't been wearing mine and quarantine because I don't want. I don't I'm not putting that pressure on myself. right now. But if I was, you know, you're already getting those reminders about those three goals, but the ability to, to add different goals and have something like that set up where reminds you to start a specific workout? Would it be useful? I think for a lot of people,

Ryan Purvis  32:21  
yes. So there's a whole lot of those habits, habit tracking apps. I do find that those things get to get a bit frustrating or creating anxiety because now you got to keep the momentum up. So the reason why I like you or something like that is that if I if I just cancel a task, I don't see recall that I cancelled it. So I feel like I missed a day or a week sometimes and I feel the anxiety of breaking the streak.

Heather Bicknell  32:52  
Yeah.

Ryan Purvis  32:54  
And the reason that the author ends up stressing for these two things every day That's a sort of healthy, so having having that break, you know, maybe on the weekends or in the mornings in 10 solid, that's okay. And then their mind is just saying if I delete them, I delete them and I don't feel anything about it. Whereas habit trackers, those goal tracking these can get a little bit for me at least causal anxiety.

Heather Bicknell  33:19  
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think about that way, even just with the native rings functionality, you know, it's like if I, you know, want to take a day off or if I, you know, am at 28 minutes of exercise instead of 30 it's like, can't we just, you know, I don't want to miss an achievement, you know, just because I missed that that two minutes.

Ryan Purvis  33:43  
That's best you should feel you can do jumping jacks in the corner until

Heather Bicknell  33:51  
See, I got my, my father an apple watch when he retired and that's it. That's what he'll do. Sometimes it would be like he would just just appear for a little bit and it's like 1130 and it's like where is he Where did he go? But he's just like running around the block because he got that final notification from his Apple Watch. You know that one that's like you can still do it like close your exercise ring. So you know it is motivating.

Ryan Purvis  34:17  
So there is a trick. I finally figured out a way to because I'm able to have a deal. When I got this last last Apple watch that I will not have a day where I don't close off hearings. And it's and it's easy. I don't think it's I don't want you to feel bad but close close. rings because standing up for you know 10 minutes 10 minutes every hour is not difficult to do. To do 30 minutes exercise. I have an issue with Apple watch because sometimes over the counter exercises exercise you should be able to find 30 minutes every day. And then your your movement one The radio ring also you know naturally for you exercise that just closes off and you'll find this with your own will be very easy to get 30 minutes in. But if you what I do is things like if I'm doing the housework which is only my Saturday that's probably two hours of flat just sweeping vacuum in whatever I measure that as an open goal and that that's our for if these days we're not gonna do fitness per se that gets you over the closes the ring really easily because I'm still doing activities just not you know going for and or whatever it is. But Your other option is if you ever close it, two minutes thing, give yourself a do a open open goal measurement just to Minnesota closure rings.

Heather Bicknell  35:52  
Yeah, I think that's part of it is I don't necessarily start the exercise. You know the activity so it might not count everything. For me, I and this is a total tangent that we could go down a huge rabbit hole on but the it's always a it's been a stand goal that's been the hardest for me because one, I don't find it super accurate. You know, if I'm cooking and I have my arms correct, like I'm chopping things I'm standing up but it doesn't, you know, I could miss an hour, which is always so frustrating because you only need to get to that 12. But if you miss one, and I also I don't want to wear my watch all day. That's been a problem too. That's why I don't hit that stand goal. It's because I don't necessarily want to even wear it for 12 hours a day. So be nice. That's the one that drives me crazy. It's just the hardest to close, but I think oddly enough working remotely. I think I would hit that a lot easier because sitting at work at my desk, you know, every time I'm saying I stand up, I'm more conscious that I'm I think leaving my workstation or it's like I need a bigger excuse you know because I'm going farther away and I have to at home To grab something.

Ryan Purvis  37:02  
So,

Unknown Speaker  37:03  
yeah, just observations. Ah, okay, so i think i

Ryan Purvis  37:07  
think that's gonna be your challenge is where you're watching from and change your behaviors.

Unknown Speaker  37:14  
Yeah, I mean, that's an obvious simple thing to do, though. Thanks.

Ryan Purvis  37:20  
Yeah, I mean, it's so so the, I mean, it's about a dictatorship it means but the reason why I haven't moved away from the Apple Watch and the fact that I was gonna go as an apple, I got so sick and tired of all I was really pissed off with iOS 11 I think it was iOS 12. It was so buggy. And the way they had just, it's really got to me, but the watch was just the thing that kept me close. Because of the simple stuff, the activity, keeping yourself going. And it does set the risk. You know, one of the problems that I have, which is Right I think sounds reasonable to use it I will work these long bursts without taking breaks and then get my back sore my neck so my whenever and having that little reminder to get up every every hour you know if it's go for a walk or do some push ups or whatever it is go downstairs get some coffee helps if he helps.

Heather Bicknell  38:23  
Yeah, it does and you know i i would definitely use those those reminders as well free if I'm if I'm in a real flow state. I just I don't even feel my you know, my wrist vibrate or whatever. I just the notification completely passed me back.

Ryan Purvis  38:41  
Well, which is fine. I mean, you can tear up the haptics but it's also I use a special club. What's it called? a name for it. It's by yen by art. It's a 60 minute clock. And you basically turn the knob And when you turn the knob, it sets the timer for 30 minutes now, for example, and it'll countdown back to 00 to golf. So here's so I use that I use my watch for there. And if it's if I'm working in the morning and I was sleeping, I'll use my watch. But that keeps me Don't burn up because you can do a lot more 20 minute 25 minute sessions with a break then you can do two three hour marathons. That's all Pomodoro Technique.

Heather Bicknell  39:34  
Yeah. Well, cool. I'm excited to try out some of these habit changes and automations

Ryan Purvis  39:41  
cool. Sounds good. Alrighty. Well, thanks for catching up with me today. Oh, yeah. Thank you for listening. Today's episode has a big nose our producer editor. Thank you, Heather for your hard work on this episode. He subscribes to the series and ratings on iTunes or the Google Play Store. Follow us on Twitter at the DW w podcast. The show notes and transcripts will be available on the website www digital works best of works. Please also visit our website www digital workspace works and subscribe to a newsletter. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues

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