[00:00:00.00] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:09.11] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:09.29] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:11.27] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:13.25] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast, where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And thank you so much for joining us.

[00:00:24.02] - Taylor
Welcome back.

[00:00:25.14] - Gordon
This last week has been a week for me of getting final things sorted out before I go away on holiday. What have you been up to?

[00:00:35.15] - Taylor
I have been kicking off a new project with a client and just getting lots of small things sorted.

[00:00:44.04] - Gordon
Lovely. So let's get straight into it this week. Would you like to go first or shall I?

[00:00:50.08] - Taylor
You can go first this week.

[00:00:51.17] - Gordon
So my topic for today is how I research. Now, I mentioned a little bit about this a couple of weeks ago and made a note to come back to it because researching is a really important job for things that I do. So for example, when I say researching, I'm not talking about researching for an exam or something like that. I'm talking about researching for maybe a new product that you're going to buy and which one you want to buy, which one is best for your use case, or researching the best service to use for something or the best software. There's lots of different types of research that I do, and I have a quite specific way I do it. So for me, if we look at a product, for example, if I want to buy a new camera, or actually, let's go with 3D printer because that's something I've done recently. To decide which 3D printer I wanted to buy, I looked at, first of all, what I use a 3D printer for currently, or if I don't already have a 3D printer, what I would like to do with a 3D printer, and I make a list.

[00:02:18.28] - Gordon
Now, the list is normally a mental list. I don't often write it down, but sometimes I do. It depends how big the purchase is. The bigger the purchase, the more time I need to make sure I set aside for it, because if you make a mistake with something that's very cheap, well, that's not a big issue. You can either send it back or you can buy a new one, a different version. But if it's something really big, like a car, for example, well, that's a bit more of a problem. And quite often you can't send that back or you can't change it. You're stuck with it. So it's important that the research is done properly. So Let's look at the 3D printer. What do I want to do with it at the moment? What would I like to do with it during the time I have it? So we're basically talking about the lifetime of that product or object, and how long I'm expecting to have it for before I need to upgrade, or before I need to change it for a different one. And that's quite a difficult question to answer, what are you going to use it for in the future?

[00:03:32.13] - Gordon
Sometimes it's easy to answer. If you've got a plan as to where you're going to be going or what you're going to be doing in 5, 10 years, then you should have a good idea of what you might need it for. But part of the research for me is to look and see what the product is capable of doing, and comparing it with capabilities of other machines and deciding which of the capabilities most suits what I want and need. So there might be something... Let's take the 3D printer as we are. There are three main versions, there's four, but only three that I was really interested in, of the printer that I was looking at. And of those three versions, I decided quite quickly I was going to go for the mid-range one. I wasn't going to go for the small one. The reason for that was that the small one was open, and I knew that I wanted to print in tougher material, and tougher material needs an enclosed printer, so it had to be an enclosed printer. That left the mid and the top range of the two that I had, the make that I had settled on. And the mid-range one ended up being the one I went for because the top one had extra features, but for the value that I was going to get out of it versus the extra money I would have to spend to get it, I decided it wasn't going to be worth it.

[00:05:19.27] - Gordon
So I ended up staying with the mid-range one, and I'm really pleased and happy with the one I've got. Now, how did I decide on a make? Well, I'd been doing some research over a period of time. I had a 3D printer and we were looking at upgrading it to an enclosed printer or a newer model at some point. So I have been looking out. And if you go on to YouTube and do a bit of a search for reviews, you'll be able to very quickly, and I quite often watch them at 1.75% speed so that I can speed through and watch, absorb the information in a very short period of time. And it sends light bulbs off in your head. "Yes, now that's something that's important to me. I didn't realise it was important until I watched that review. And that's possible because of this make or this brand or this product." And your funnel of everything that you could buy gets smaller and smaller and smaller as you knock things out and decide on features or benefits or value that you need. And the one reason I went for Bambu was because in the past, my bed has needed to be manually levelled, and that is a real pain in the backside because you've got to use the little turny knobs to get it to level up, and it's got a little spring on it, and the springs aren't that reliable after a period of time because they lose their springiness.

[00:07:10.17] - Gordon
It just gets to be a real pain. And so I definitely wanted an auto bed leveller and I wanted to have an enclosed printer. And there's several of them, but of the ones that people that I know have spoken about and the reviews that I read, Bambu is the one that stood out to me. It's the equivalent in 3D printing terms of an Apple product in computing terms. It just works. And that's really quite a good way of explaining it. The software does a lot of the work for you. The software is continually updated. You tell it what bed plate you've got in, you tell it what filament you've got, you give it the model you want to print, it then figures most of it out for you. Not always, and you have the ability to override settings, but it does a lot of that for you. And having been there and done that and got the T-shirt with working out your own slicer settings, and levelling the bed, and building the printer effectively, because one of the printers I had, I had to basically put together myself. I've had my fill, really, of doing all of that, and I just want to get on with printing, which is the fun part, obviously.

[00:08:35.22] - Gordon
And again, there are several different options. Creality was one of them, Prusa was another. And again, I got down to the last few models that I thought might be contenders and got rid of them, leaving just the one I wanted. And that's how I go about these things. I find out what I want to do with them, what I already do with them, if I've already got a product and I'm replacing it, what I'd like to do with it in the future. And then I look at the features and the cost and decide if those features are worth the extra cost to get the higher model or not. And that's how I do my research. If I'm doing product or software or a service, that's how I go through it. And that's worked really well for me. The last thing I will say is that reviews are really useful for me. So whether that be a video review, I'm watching someone who has used the product for a while and maybe knows about the subject and you're getting an expert's opinion on something, that's really useful. But these days, we are being trained to read reviews.

[00:09:57.23] - Gordon
I can guarantee if you buy something buying on Amazon or Temu or Alibaba or AliExpress or wherever you buy things from, eBay even, the likelihood is you will read the reviews for either the product or the seller before you actually make a purchase, even if it's just one or two, because you need that social proof to make sure that the decision you're making is a decision other people have made, and you align your thinking to certain people, especially if they do lots of reviews. And that's how I go about research. Do you have anything to add to that, Taylor?

[00:10:38.26] - Taylor
Yeah, I've been doing that... Because I'm in the process of moving I've been doing a lot of that with finding the best smart home devices. I went through a lot of different videos, forums, reading what people have said. I think the main one that I'm settled on is Aqara for a lot of the smart devices. Just because it's one brand, they have a very big product library of different devices in different areas. And so I know at least I'm going to get some consistent quality and integration because they're going to have the same integration across the board. But yeah, there's lots and lots of different things out there, lots of reasons why I probably will go with one over the other. A lot of it also comes down to how something looks as well. I make decisions. You find that when you compare PC apps or Windows apps with Mac apps, because of the clientele that Mac have, they're normally a lot nicer designed and have had a lot more thought put into it. They could do the exact same thing in terms of the actual functionality. It's just because of Apple's style and look people that-

[00:12:08.19] - Gordon
They have guidelines as well, don't they? Which app developers have to follow. They've set those guidelines to give a particular style and to make sure that the apps look and work in an intuitive way, right?

[00:12:24.08] - Taylor
Yeah. A lot of that will come down to that as well, is I will choose because of how it looks as well.

[00:12:32.23] - Gordon
Yeah. So that's my research procedure. That's how I decide what it is I'm going to go forward with. And I think it's very much down to you. You need to know what you want to get out of something and what's possible. The other thing is making sure you do know what is possible, because the worst thing ever is to have a product and need to replace it because you need an extra feature that your one doesn't have, only to find out once you've moved, that your previous product did actually have that feature and you just didn't know about it. So, yeah, it's really important for devices and gadgets, and I quite enjoy doing the exploration part of it anyway. But I like to find out what I can do with it. And so I'll know pretty much about 80% of what's possible with something before I make a decision. And then when it arrives, it'll be the experience of using it and learning the other 20%. That's my topic. What would you like to talk about today?

[00:13:43.22] - Taylor
So I wanted to talk about consistency. I've spoken a lot about different things that I've implemented in my business, in my personal life. One of the reasons that we started this was to be able to look back to see how things have changed, what I was focusing on, what I had built, what I had done. And I just wanted to talk about consistency of how I've been making a conscious effort to be proactive in the things that I've tried to put into place and just make sure that I'm more present with that; being a lot more wary about the decisions that I'm making. It's very easy to get caught up in in the work that you're doing or be tunnel vision, going down a certain route and forgetting about other work that you had to do. So I'm just trying to be more mindful of all of the stuff going on. Know my numbers better, know the work I've got on, the workload, the deadlines that I either have or I've given myself, so that I don't have as much of a stressful kind of life. There's definitely parts to running a business, especially in general, that's stressful.

[00:15:07.04] - Taylor
Sometimes in the back of your mind, you know you've got certain things to do, you just don't know what they are because you haven't got them written down for some reason, or you've just got so many different things going on that it's kind of where do you start? So, yeah, for me, it's not really one single thing. It's just trying to put all of the things that I've wanted to do or I've tried to put into place and just be more mindful about that.

[00:15:32.14] - Gordon
And I think we've spoken about putting procedures into place as well in the past and automating as much as you can. But procedures are really important to follow because you update and improve them over time. And that's how businesses get to where they get to because of every decision they've made in the past.

[00:15:56.08] - Taylor
But I think it's also just about showing up and putting the time and the energy into it. You're can have all of these amazing productivity tools, but if you're not consistent with them, then there's no point having them. And so that's the point I'm at where I've got all the tools, I've got the know-how. It's just putting the work in, but putting it in smartly that I'm not wasting time or I'm not falling behind in certain areas and just trying to keep myself on track.

[00:16:30.11] - Gordon
And that's even more important now you're taking on a mortgage and all the bills that go with having a flat. So, yeah, it's quite important to make sure that's all in place.

[00:16:44.23] - Taylor
Yeah, I like to... I have a couple of different projects with a couple of different people, and it's good that I have those people that keep me accountable, but it's also nice that I can keep them accountable, where sometimes you know that they may have other things, obviously, they're in their own life and they have their own work or whatever. It's just a matter of just keeping on top of them. Sometimes you feel like a nag, but at the same time, you know that you're doing the right thing because it just keeps them reminded, "Okay, I've got that to do." And you just keep the communication going between whoever you're working with. We have a project that we've been working on, and we've both been keeping each other accountable where I know that I have some work to do, but I'll go, "How are you getting on with yours?" And then vice versa because it's easy to fall behind.

[00:17:43.29] - Gordon
There's nothing like a deadline or someone talking to you about a deadline to get work done. Work will expand to fill the time available. And if that time available isn't very much, then it'll get done to the point where it needs to in the time you've got. And that's a really important thing. It's been said many times before, but it's really important to know that.

[00:18:09.03] - Taylor
I've been telling clients, "I will have X by Y," because it requires me to put a deadline on when I'm going to do it rather than just say "it will be sometime next week" or I'll say "it's the early part of next week." I don't want to give as much, say it's Monday. I'd rather say it's early next week because it gives me a bit of a buffer. But sometimes actually you do need to put a physical date on it because it's very easy for that to expand into the middle of the week to the end of the week and stuff.

[00:18:42.04] - Gordon
Yeah, agreed. Well, that's very good. Anything else you want to say today?

[00:18:46.13] - Taylor
I don't think so.

[00:18:47.11] - Gordon
Thank you for joining us. We mentioned this before, but next week and the week after, there is going to be no episode, but we'll be back in three weeks time. We can be found on YouTube. Please like, share, and subscribe.

[00:19:05.08] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes and anything we may have spoken about.

[00:19:12.07] - Gordon
And of course, you can find us on your smart speaker as well. Just do a search for "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," ask them to play the latest episode, and the latest episode will be played wherever you are while you're doing your housework, while you're working away, whatever it is you happen to be doing. We will be back in three weeks, Friday at 1pm, as always. Until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.

[00:19:38.19] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:19:41.07] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:19:41.22] - Taylor
Bye.

This Week's Topics

Show Notes