[00:00:10.250] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:10.690] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:11.140] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:13.020] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:15.410] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon, a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses in the last seven days.

[00:00:25.290] - Taylor
Welcome back.

[00:00:26.180] - Gordon
You've had a new haircut.

[00:00:29.430] - Taylor
I have indeed.

[00:00:29.430] - Gordon
Have a look at last week's episode and see what his hair looked like before. And now you can look and see what it's like after. Big difference.

[00:00:36.770] - Taylor
Yeah. A lot of hair's gone.

[00:00:37.770] - Gordon
Why are you having your hair cut now then?

[00:00:40.150] - Taylor
It was just getting long.

[00:00:41.750] - Gordon
Just getting in front of your eyes, and you were struggling to see. Is that what it was?

[00:00:46.230] - Taylor
Yeah, just annoying me.

[00:00:48.390] - Gordon
Well, at least there's going to be certain people that are going to be happy that you've got a haircut now.

[00:00:52.730] - Taylor
Yes.

[00:00:53.790] - Gordon
So welcome to the show. Any news from you this week?

[00:00:59.790] - Taylor
Not news, but an update. So a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned about Flow, which is the Pomodoro app that I was using. It's been going really well.

[00:01:11.430] - Gordon
Still going with it then?

[00:01:12.360] - Taylor
Yeah, I enjoy it. It's nice because it blocks all my apps. And yeah, it keeps me focused and in the zone. And it's been working really well, I enjoy it.

[00:01:22.440] - Gordon
Very good. There was also some news about a software. Do you want to talk about that next week maybe?

[00:01:30.240] - Taylor
Yeah, can do.

[00:01:31.060] - Gordon
Because there's a problem you had that you couldn't figure out. And it turns out that there was a bug in the software which you reported, and it's now been fixed. So maybe talk about that next week.

[00:01:42.180] - Taylor
Okay.

[00:01:42.580] - Gordon
Okay. So no news from me, so let's get straight into our topics. Shall I go first this week?

[00:01:49.930] - Taylor
Yeah. That's fine.

[00:01:51.090] - Gordon
So I want to talk about to do lists. These are the lists that you write out or put into a computer program/application. And then you tick them off as you go. And when you get to the end of the list, you feel really good about yourself and you celebrate by dancing around the room and then you start a new to do list. So I've had a love-hate relationship with these to do lists. I always think they're a good idea because if you write down the things you have to do, you get a really good idea of what's required, and you've got an idea of how long you have to do this. And it's a really good motivator because you look at your list and you go, oh, my goodness, I've got to do that, that and that and it's got to be done by the end of today. And so all of a sudden you've got motivation to get those things done. Whereas if you didn't have that to do list, you would probably just forget about one or two of those items and then panic afterwards because they haven't been done. So that's why I like them. What I don't like about them is the fact that there are certain to dos that you add to a to do list that aren't time sensitive and they get pushed down the list, and then they get pushed down the list again, and more important things get put to the top and then they get pushed... And they're on there for days, weeks, months, sometimes even years. I've got to dos on my to do list that I've put in there years and years ago and they still need doing, but they're not important.

[00:03:33.090] - Taylor
Yep.

[00:03:33.090] - Gordon
And it's the sort of thing where I keep looking at it and it keeps reminding me that it still hasn't been done, but there's no reason for me to actually go out and do it. There's no urgency there, and that for me is what gets stuff done. I quite like having deadlines, or rather making deadlines of my own for whatever reason, so that I can make sure I've got enough time to do that job rather than rushing it. But if there is no deadline, it just gets ignored. And that's the bit I hate about to do lists. One thing I will say is, if you've got a busy day coming up, then my recommendation is always to make your to do list the night before. Make it the last thing you do at the end of your work day the previous day. That way you should be able to remember all of the things that need doing and you can sort of prioritize them for the following day. And it means when you get to your workplace the following day, you can get straight on with what needs doing. You haven't got to sit there and think, "there's two more things, I know there was two more things. What are they? I can't remember what they are!" And then halfway through the day you remember and realize that they were actually the most important jobs to do and you've wasted half your day doing other things when you could have been doing the most important things. So, I always think that creating yourself a list of things to do for tomorrow is always a really good thing to do the night before. So there's a little tip that I've sort of learnt the hard way, if you like, by not doing it in the past and deciding that that is actually the best way of doing it. The other thing that I like about to do lists is that now you've got applications. I use an application called "Todoist." I'll put a link for that in the show notes. And this is an application that allows me to put notes or to dos into the app from pretty much anywhere. So I've got it on my computer, I've got it on my mobile, and it's also on the web. So anywhere I happen to be, I can add something to my to do list and it will synchronize over all of my devices. Because I do all of my desktop work at my desktop. I don't have a laptop. We were talking about this before.

[00:06:09.410] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:06:11.070] - Gordon
I've never actually found the need for a laptop. I don't move about. If I do my work, it's in the office. That's where I do my work. That's why I have an office. Whereas you don't really have an office. You have a bedroom with a desk in it, and you prefer to go off to somewhere else and do your work, and you find that you get more done there.

[00:06:33.710] - Taylor
I enjoy just switching it up, really. The fact that I travel, my girlfriend lives quite far away. It would be pretty impossible to not have a laptop just because...

[00:06:47.040] - Gordon
It's true.

[00:06:47.040] - Taylor
I need to be able to take it with me and still do work wherever I am. So I enjoy just working in different places and it just keeps me interested, I guess. Keeps things interesting.

[00:07:00.300] - Gordon
And I don't do that. I do all my work in the office. If I need to do something, then it gets done in there. So that's why I don't have a laptop. But if I did have a laptop, I'd be able to add my to dos into the todoist on the laptop and it would be with me and I could do it anywhere. I can do it on my iPad as well. So it's a great way of keeping lists of things that need doing, and you can segregate them into different categories as well. For example, I've got a This Week With to do list, and it's basically a list of ideas of things that I could talk about on this show. And funnily enough, this was one of the ones that's on my list, and my list is getting quite short now. So if you have any ideas of things that you would like to hear us talk about, leave your comments below and we will pick up on those and hopefully I'll be able to add them to my to do list. And at some point in the near future we'll be able to get around to doing it. So that's it. To do lists. My love/hate relationship with them. Taylor, what would you like to talk about this week?

[00:08:08.700] - Taylor
So I want to talk about wills.

[00:08:11.010] - Gordon
Wills?

[00:08:11.630] - Taylor
Yeah. So the things that lawyers normally set up for you and for when you die and the government or whoever is dealing with it will decide what happens to all your possessions, your belongings.

[00:08:26.740] - Gordon
If you don't have a will.

[00:08:28.020] - Taylor
Yeah. Even if you do have a will, but they carry out your requests that you've made.

[00:08:33.480] - Gordon
Yeah.

[00:08:34.130] - Taylor
And I didn't have one, and I thought that it's probably a good idea after talking to the lawyer in our BNI chapter, to get one. And the main reason is because I run a business and so I need things to be in place so that my business can, not, just be managed and be able to taken over and dealt with appropriately. A good example is moving my clients. Some people, I'm basically going to give them the option to either move to you, or help, you or someone else can help move them to another developer or another host or something. And without having a will in place, it can be very tricky because people will just be left not being able to access their site, not going to be able to access moving it. So things like that are really important. And then just the rest of the things like dealing with financials of subscriptions and plug-ins that I own. So that was something that I recently have been starting to set up and hopefully should be in place soon. But yeah, if you don't have a will, I highly recommend you look into getting one and also lasting power of attorney. That is another thing that I'm going to be looking into soon. And that basically means that if you lose...

[00:10:01.570] - Gordon
The ability to make decisions.

[00:10:02.660] - Taylor
Yeah. Your ability to make decisions, then someone is able to act on behalf of you. And not having either of these two in place can leave you really in a difficult situation because if you go into a vegetative state, for example, no one can access any of your accounts, they just don't have the ability. And so if you're someone that is relied on for the income and you for some reason go in to hospital or you can't make decisions anymore, they can't access any of your money to help carry on paying the bills. And so it's kind of not only for you, but for everyone else has to try and deal with and sort it out and going through the process of getting access and permissions and things can be a very very long process because they've got lots of checks; they've got to make sure that the person who you say you are and you're the best person to be given the ability to kind of approve things. So yeah, they're definitely two things I think you should have and look into, even if you don't have a business, but especially if you have a business because like I said, there's lots of decisions that need to be made and lots of things need to be sorted if something were to happen.

[00:11:23.050] - Gordon
So as well as business users, which is obviously what this podcast and vidcast is based around, I also think you should have a will if you have a family, or dependents, because again exactly the same thing - if you don't have one there's no sort of document that shows what you want to have happen and everyone then has to try and rally around and try and figure out what they think you want and then they've got to try and make it happen. What I would add to what you've just said is when you get yourself a will, and I'm not saying 'if' I think it's really important to get one. I've had one for a while now. But when you get yourself a will, see if you can get yourself a service that allows you to update that will whenever you want to. For example, the will I have allows me at any point to change my will. It doesn't cost me any extra. I paid a fixed fee for a lifetime will that I can change at any point. And that's really important because your circumstances, your finances, your wishes, will change over time. People will come into your life; they might leave your life, they might go somewhere else and move to other countries and you're not as close to them as you once were. And then you might find other people will come in and take their place. And so therefore, you want to be able to have that flexibility to move your decisions from what you want to happen to other things that you want to happen. I don't know if that's what you have in place or not, but it's a really good idea. And I also highly recommend you getting a will if you haven't got one. It doesn't matter how young you are, or how old you are. I'm old enough to have had one for a little while now, and I think Taylor has actually got his will earlier than I got my will. But he's planning for the future, which is really important, especially if you do have a self-employed business. You need to be able to make sure that the customers that you have currently that need ongoing servicing are going to be looked after. They're not just going to lose everything if something happens to you.

[00:13:54.980] - Taylor
Yeah, I agree. And it's one of those things that I think a lot of us say, "oh, yeah, I need to get around to that." But like you were saying on your to do list, push that right to the top. I think it's very very important to look at it. And if you do have one, maybe just have a quick glance over and check that what you think is going to happen, or what you want to happen, is going to happen. You may have thought, "yes, this is what I want to happen." And you look back and you haven't actually added it, or it was something slightly different. So just check over again as well.

[00:14:28.380] - Gordon
Yeah, I agree. Anything else you want to add?

[00:14:31.120] - Taylor
No, I think that's it, just make sure you sort it, because at the end of the day it's not you that deals with it, it's everyone else. And you don't know what people will be going through at that time that something happens to you. And so it's more about making sure that not only your wishes are granted in terms of if you want certain money to go somewhere, or you want to put it into a trust, or you want to donate some of it, but also just helping the people that have to deal with it. Not only do they have to grieve you if you've passed away, but they also have to try and deal with sorting out your estate and all of the finances that go along with that.

[00:15:10.390] - Gordon
Yeah, it's nice to make it slightly easier for them.

[00:15:12.690] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:15:13.610] - Gordon
So the summary of today's podcast/vidicast is... Get yourself a to do list if you haven't already, and put 'sorting out a will' at the top, if you haven't already done so.

[00:15:27.070] - Taylor
And check it if you have got one.

[00:15:28.950] - Gordon
Or check it, yeah, exactly. It makes me want to go and check my one now because it's been a long time since I looked at it. I'll put it on my to do list. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us. As always, you can like, share and subscribe on Facebook and on YouTube, and what I would like to say is please do so, we don't have a great number of people who watch or listen to this podcast and we would like to increase that. So if you know people who you think might benefit from this, self-employed people, people who want to be self-employed, or people who are sort of doing similar sort of things to us, then please let them know about our weekly show because you'd be doing them a favour as well hopefully.

[00:16:19.130] - Taylor
Yeah. You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk, where you can find all of our past episodes and you can search through them for any topics we may have spoken about.

[00:16:30.710] - Gordon
So we'll see you next week at 1pm on Friday, as always, when we go live. Until then, my name is Gordon and I'm from a company called Drayson Design.

[00:16:40.560] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:16:43.550] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:16:44.170] - Taylor
Bye.

This Week's Topics

Show Notes